They still have a few dates open, so email them (mysteryrabbit at riseup dot net) if you can help!

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December 18
Lake Worth, FL – The Night Heron

December 20
Miami, FL – Churchill’s Pub with The Autonomous Playhouse Puppet Show

December 21
Orlando, FL – Blank Space

December 22
Gainesville, FL – Camp True Love

December 23
Tallahassee, FL – NEED HELP!

December 24-25
Chinese food and a movie

December 26
Pensacola, FL – Sluggo’s

December 27
Mobile, AL – NEED HELP!

December 28
New Orleans, LA – The Mudlark Public Theatre

December 29
Houston, TX – Super Happy Fun Land!

December 30
San Antonio, TX – TBA

December 31
Austin, TX – TBA

January 2
Dallas, TX – Smoke and Mirrors Art Gallery & Infoshop

January 3
Oklahoma City, OK – 218 NW 28th

January 4
Nashville, TN – Little Hamilton Collective

January 5
Carrollton, GA – TBA

January 6
Atlanta, GA – TBA

January 7
Chapel Hill, NC – Internationalist Books

December 10, noon
Humboldt County Anarchist Book Fair, 1611 Peninsula Drive, Arcata, CA 95521

December 11, 5 pm
E2 Art Space, 47B West 3rd Street, Eureka, CA

December 12, 5 pm
Garberville Vets Hall, 483 Conger Street, CA 95542

December 17, 6 pm
Sub Rosa Infoshop, Santa Cruz, CA

December 18, 4 pm
The Holdout, 2313 San Pablo Avenue, Oakland, CA

Gent Sept. 28
Leuven Sept. 29
Amsterdam Sept. 30
Leiden Oct. 4
Utrecht Oct. 5
Berlin Oct. 6
Hamburg Oct. 7
Gottingen Oct. 8
Milton Keynes Oct. 11
Basingstoke Oct. 12
Exeter Oct. 13
Bristol Oct. 14
Brighton Oct. 15
London Oct. 16
Nottingham Oct. 17
Leamington Oct. 18
Chesterfield Oct. 19
Leeds Oct. 20
Liverpool Oct. 21
London Anarchist Bookfair Oct. 22
Calais Oct. 24
Paris Oct. 25 (need help)
Dijon Oct. 26 (need help)
St. Etienne Oct. 27
Millau Oct. 28
Barcelona Oct. 29
Marseilles Oct. 31 (need help)
G20 at Cannes Nov. 1-5
9 November / Reggio calabria – Csoa Cartella
10 November / Palermo – Facoltà Lettere e Filosofia
11 November / Barcellona P.G – C.P:P. Il Pane e le Rose
12 November / Milan – C.O.A. T28 via dei Transiti 28

(help us fill this gap!)

22 November / Austria – EKH
23 November / Koper (TBC)
24 November / Ljubljana
25 November / Zagreb – Attack
26 November / Zadar – Studentski Klub
27 November / Belgrade
28 November / Zrenjanin
29 November / Kraljevo
30 November / Nis
01 December / Thessaloniki (TBC)
02 December / Volos
03 December / Athens Nosotros social center Exarchia sq.

After Athens, Testament plans to continue on to Egypt.

Contact testtheirlogik@gmail.com to offer assistance booking shows, and also for media requests or to propose collaborations.

In addition, on the strength of the success of our earlier events presenting on the issues discussed in the Work book, we’re booking two more short tours: one in October that will traverse the South as far as Texas before returning east via the Midwest, another in November to New York City, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh. Whether or not you’ve read the book yet, please join us for one of these discussions.

If you have questions or would like to volunteer to set up a speaking date, email help@crimethinc.com.

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Promotional Materials

Tabloid (11″x17″): Color[2.9MB] | B&W[1.4MB]

Letter (8.5″x11″): Color[2.3MB] | B&W[1.2MB]

Quarter (4.25″x5.5″): Color[8.7MB] | B&W[4.5MB]

Tour Dates

Monday, October 17, 3:00 pm
Occupation, intersection of East Broad Street and College Avenue, Athens, GA

Monday, October 17, 6:30 pm
WonderRoot, 982 Memorial Drive SE Atlanta, GA 30316 / http://www.wonderroot.org/

Monday, October 17, 9 pm
Occupation at Woodruff Park, downtown Atlanta / occupyatlanta.org

Tuesday, October 18, 7 pm
Underground Books, 102 Alabama Street, Carrollton, Ga 30117

Wednesday, October 19, 5 pm
Iron Rail anarchist infoshop, 503 Barracks St (corner of Decatur St.), New Orleans, LA 70116

Wednesday, October 19, 7:30 pm
Nowe Maisto, 223 Jane Place, New Orleans, LA 70119

Thursday, October 20, 4 pm
Occupation, New Orleans, LA / http://occupynola.org/

Thursday, October 20, 7:30 pm
Seminar Room 4 (2nd floor), Monroe Library, Loyola University, 6363 St. Charles Avenue, New Orleans, LA

Friday, October 21, 7 pm
Sedition Books, 901 Richmond Avenue, Houston, TX

Saturday, October 22, 12 pm
Southwest Workers Union, 1416 E. Commerce St., San Antonio, TX

Sunday, October 23, 7 pm
Treasure City Thrift, 2142 E 7th Streeet, Austin, TX 78702 / http://www.treasurecitythrift.org/

Monday, October 24, 7:30 pm
Smoke and Mirrors Art Gallery & Infoshop, 1920 N.Haskell Avenue, Dallas,TX 75204

Tuesday, October 25, 7 pm
Downtown Sound, 115 S. Crawford, Norman, OK 73069

Wednesday, October 26, 10 am
Oklahoma State University: 3rd Floor Village D, Green Lounge, on the corner of W. Farm Rd. and N. Cleveland St., Stillwater, OK

Wednesday, October 26
Whoop De Doo (studio), 1735 Walnut Street, Kansas City, Missouri

Thursday, October 27, 7 pm
Occupation, downtown St. Louis, MO

Friday, October 28
Boxcar Books, 408 E. 6th Street, Bloomington, IN 47408

Saturday, October 29, 6 pm
Cannon Lounge, 701 Warren Wilson Road, Warren Wilson College, NC

Tuesday, November 15, 7 pm
Book Thug Nation, 100 North 3rd Street (between Berry Street and Wythe Avenue), Brooklyn, New York

Wednesday, November 16, 7 pm
ABC No Rio, 156 Rivington Street New York, NY 10002-2411
http://abcnorio.org/ (212) 254-3697

Thursday, November 17, 7 pm
Wooden Shoe Books, 704 South St, Philadelphia, PA 19147 / http://woodenshoebooks.com/

Friday, November 18
Big Idea Bookstore, 4812 Liberty Avenue (in Bloomfield), Pittsburgh, PA / http://www.thebigideapgh.org/

Steal Something from Work Day 2011 is just around the corner—this coming April 15! To prepare for it, you could print out copies of Heist, our full-length Journal of Workplace Reappropriation, to sneak into all the locker rooms and dish pits in your area. You could forward links to the original Steal Something from Work Day video and the impressive Submedia follow-up to all your friends and family, if perhaps not your coworkers. There’s even a Facebook page you could join.

Or you could contact our friends at Wild Nettle Distribution, who will freely send you STEAL SOMETHING FROM WORK DAY stickers to spread the word where you live. They’ll be sending out packs of 25-50 at no cost—all you have to do is email distro@wildnettle.com. Don’t forget to include a name and address; donations help, but are not mandatory. If you’d like more than 50 stickers, please help cover printing and shipping costs; for example, a $10 donation for 100 stickers would be great. Perhaps you could go in on a big package with others in your town? You can donate by sending money via Paypal to distro@wildnettle.com. Unfortunately, Wild Nettle can’t afford to send international packages for free, so contact them if you live outside the US.

Stories from the Front Lines

Last year, we encouraged people to send in stories about workplace theft. Here are a few of the responses; you can read a great deal more in Heist.

Steal from Work for Education

The high school decided that to save costs, all teachers had to provide their own lined and graph paper for their students. Use of the copy machine is free, however. A single page of graph paper and a double-sided printer equals about 500 pages of paper for the math department. Sometimes making the teacher’s job easier at the cost of the administration is a genuinely philanthropic act.

–Small-Town Educator

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Steal from Work to Stay Hydrated

The man in the suit and his hostile smoldering eyes are on me. I’m standing in the corner of the movie theater lobby. After unloading the delivery, I hold the wooden palette in my hands. I have to bring it out to the dumpster in the ice rain. My hands sting from the splinters and the wind.

I come back in and bring a cold sweat on my forehead. I go for a cup of water.

“No drinking in the lobby,” the manager says.

“I’m sorry,” I say.

Since I can’t drink his tap water in front of the customers, then I’ll just mosey on down to the basement… where I just unloaded three cases of Vitamin Water.

In the basement, all the concessions and supplies are in storage. My hands feel burned and raw as I take the cap off a Vitamin Water.

I can sense the liquid energy hit my teeth, but it only makes my fatigue more vivid. I calculate the math of this steal. Minimum wage plus movie theatre overpriced drinks equals an almost living wage. Except the bosses are disrespectful and the job is dirty. Some of my immigrant friends tell me I’m so American—liking baseball, jeans, and quantifying things. But is financial oppression uniquely American?

I decide to hunt down some paper towels and a box of large garbage bags for my house. Time to get even, but this can’t be the end.

–Aspiring Author Dan Larkins

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Steal from Work to Party

Summer 2000 was the most enjoyable example of employee theft I’ve experienced at the workplace. I worked at an alcohol distribution warehouse where employee theft was common. There was so much theft going on that it had become a point of tension between the owners and workers. They even hired a manager specifically to tackle the problem. This manager was universally despised among all workers.

Some were alcoholics; some stole to sell beer and wine on the street. Still others simply stole to get drunk. In this particular instance, it was a bunch of teenagers barely out of high school looking to get beer for their party. I was working second shift in the truck, shipping; these new guys had been working there only a couple weeks and already had got the drift of how things worked.

If a case of beer had a bottle broken in it, it was no good to ship, so it would go to the breaker pile, from which employees and friends of employees could buy $1 wines and $5 cases of beer. Needless to say, I had a technique for loading cases of beer where the case would drop on a corner and only one beer would break, effectively ruining the case, sending it to the breaker pile. So these teenagers came up to me saying, “We heard you were the guy to talk to if we wanted to get a case of beer from the breaker pile.” I asked them their beer of preference.

About an hour later, sure enough, a case of beer fell, breaking one bottle, ruining the case. I quickly loaded it onto the pallet going to the breaker pile and rushed it over. However, the case had become so soggy that when I lifted it, it fell apart, and a second bottle fell, only to break, ruining the case. I said disappointedly, “Oh man!” and scrambled to gather the unbroken bottles from the ground. Half the workplace came over to see what was going on. The teenagers asked what was wrong, and I replied “It’s ruined.  It isn’t any good now.” Frustrated, I grabbed a bottle, cracked it open, and began to chug it down. The teenagers paused, watching me drink, then grabbed bottles and joined in. After they started, everyone else rushed over, drinking down the “ruined” beer.

I was on my second beer when the anti-theft manager came around the corner and saw the spectacle of all the workers drinking illegally. I looked him in the eye defiantly as I turned my bottle up in my lips, the beverage pouring down my throat in rebellion. He stood there for a second, realized it was a battle he could only lose, and walked away. We laughed about the incident and I promised the teenagers I’d get them a better case as soon as I could.

–Argumentative Midwesterner

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Steal from Work to Stay Focused on the Job

I got out of school and walked the 25 minutes to the Baskin Robbins downtown, passing my coworkers and heading to the back to grab an apron and a visor. As I got dressed, I checked the clock: 2:45, early. I was almost always on time, and always showed up for my shifts. While this may seem like the bare minimum expected of an employee, being where I was supposed to be when I was supposed to be there and not spending whole shifts on the phone shouting at my significant other qualified me as one of the best employees there. This is because my boss hired exclusively high school students. The advantage of that was that she could pay us very little (after nearly three years I was making 75 cents more than when I started); she even had a system for screwing us out of our tips from time to time. She could also mess with our schedules and push us around in all sorts of other ways. The disadvantage was that somebody like me, who was really quite bad at my job, could be a star employee.

I clocked in and went to deal with the line of customers extending out the door. It was like this all summer, every summer, from opening till close: never-ending lines of customers, each more disrespectful than the last. Kids upset that their Shrek cups didn’t look like the one in the picture, parents furious that buying ice cream hadn’t stopped their bratty kids from being upset.

I took the first order, two single scoops in cups. Those cost $1.80 each. I turned to the second register, the one facing away from customers: when you were using it, your back was to the web-cam which my boss watched from her home. I entered in one single scoop. The person paid with a five and I gave them back $1.40, making a mental note that there was now an extra $1.80 in the register. It wasn’t just that I thought that my time was worth more than I was being paid; this was how I kept from getting bored. This was how I kept from getting angry. I would do this over and over again throughout the afternoon and night. As customers verbally abused me and looked at me like I was an idiot, I smiled blankly, lost in the math of how much I could skim off their order. The real beauty of this trick was that even if one night there was no opportune time to swipe the money, few bosses will seriously investigate when there’s too much money in the register.

There were a dozen games like this one could play to stay entertained during a shift. My coworker, Devon, was staying interested by selling weed out of the store. Double cupping single scoops with a bag in between the cups, his customers leaving twenty dollars in a crumpled cup beneath the dumpster in back for him to fetch on his next cigarette break. I had taught him that trick back before I’d figured out my new tricks with mental arithmetic. I had no fear that he would notice what I was doing, as he was fully preoccupied and probably high as well.

Then there was the manager, Natalie, who happened to be my girlfriend and was no doubt in the process of doing the same thing I was. At the end of the night we’d compare figures, usually coming out with about $40 each. My friend, Wes, walked into the store and waited patiently for me to take a break. When I finally met him out back, I had a treat: “I finally figured out how to make the smoothies vegan!” I handed over the smoothie with a giant cup of granola from the toppings bar. This was my favorite part of the job, and of every food service job I’ve worked since: gift-giving. It’s so easy to be generous when you don’t actually own the things you’re giving away.

Natalie stuck her head out the back door: “We’re gonna swap the kids at Nice Slice some milkshakes, what topping do you want?”

I thought for a moment. “Broccoli and onions, and one that’s half no cheese for Wes.” We had relationships all over town. We traded ice cream products to the kids at Nice Slice for pizza, the kids at Starbucks for fancy coffee, and the kids at Bruegger’s for bagels; a couple of my coworkers had even swapped with the guy at the liquor store a couple of times. Food was the most common thing taken, given away, or traded, but it certainly didn’t stop there. Rubber gloves were in demand for those of us with graffiti habits; empty (and sometimes full) whipped cream cans were taken for recreational purposes (if they weren’t consumed on sight); for our friends who lived on their own, toilet paper, cleaning supplies, saran wrap and any other household items were always welcome. The thing about food service is that there’s so much waste that keeping track of supplies is extremely difficult, so the question about everything in the store was “Is this item useful to anyone outside of an ice cream shop?”

Wes thanked me for the food and headed out to write his name on other people’s stuff until I got off at 10:30. When the door had been locked, the last customer served, the floor mopped, the windows wiped, and the register counted—$42.35 for me, and similar adjustments for Natalie—I turned to her: “How many folks are coming over?”

“A lot.”

I opened the freezer. “Vanilla chocolate chip?”

“Sounds good,” she said, grabbing a sleeve of single scoop cups off the shelf beneath the counter. I pulled one of the 5 gallon tubs from the freezer in back and rolled it out the back door before setting the alarm—y’know, to stop burglars.

–Star Employee

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Steal from Work for Downright Dadaism

OK, so there’s your garden-variety stealing from work, which is basically about survival. Of course, it can never go past a certain point, since you also need the job for survival. Fair enough, right?

But there’s another kind of stealing from work for people who can afford to lose their jobs or who just don’t care anymore. People who are so fed up with wage slavery they’re ready to abolish themselves if no one’s gonna abolish it. This kind of stealing from work isn’t about survival, it isn’t about accomplishing goals—so it doesn’t have any built-in limits. It’s a kind of psychological terrorism to make sure the bosses never know what to expect. It doesn’t help the ones who do it—working class revenge almost never does—but it shows the war is still on.

Back in high school, I used to work in the dish room at a college cafeteria. We’d get three thousand, four thousand dirty dishes coming in on the conveyer belt every meal—people getting scalding water in their shoes, skin coming off, the whole nine yards. The only way I could handle it was to grab a dish about every half hour, go out the back door, and sling it against the trash compactor as hard as I could. Maybe that’s not stealing, exactly, but the only thing I wanted to do with anything in that place was destroy it. If we’d taken over our workplace, Argentina-style, I would have voted to burn it to the ground, not to self-manage it or whatever.

That same year, my buddy “Bill” applied at a grocery store. First day on the job the manager shows him around, gives him the routine, and then puts him in the back room to move stock or some shit. There are big boxes of whipped cream there, and as soon as the guy is gone Bill huffs all the whipped cream and passes out. The manager comes back and sees him there, with all the cans and everything. Can you imagine what he must have thought? Like, “I have to run a business with these fuckups?”

A few years later, “Chris” worked for a month behind the register at a gas station and spent the whole time calling Belgium on their land line. He ditched out just before the bill came in. He used to do shit like that a lot.

But my favorite story is when “Zach” worked graveyard at UPS. All night, he would unload boxes off a conveyer belt with this camera pointed right at him. He did that shit for months, getting more and more pissed off. One night he comes in and he’s the only one working in the room, lugging all these boxes. Finally he picks up one of them, carries it over to the camera and sets it down, and cuts it open with his pocketknife. Inside it’s chewing gum, case after case of the stuff. He takes one of them out, opens it up, unwraps a stick of gum, and puts it in his mouth, looking right into the camera the whole time, and starts chewing, real slow. Then he walks out.

–Class Warrior

Performing as Test Their Logik, the two were in the middle of preparing their debut album when they were arrested. Now their release conditions prohibit them from associating with each other, and they are unable to continue recording.

Fortunately, we managed to get our hands on the material they finished just before their arrests, and we’re releasing it as a benefit to help with their legal expenses. This is some of the most powerful, passionate music we’ve heard in years; it’s an honor to share it here.

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Test Their Logik
“Arrested Development” 9-Song Album
: 160kbs (VBR) MP3 [40.3MB] :
: 160kbs (VBR) AAC [41.9MB] :
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Click here to make a donation to
the Test Their Logik Legal Fund.

The album is available here for free downloading, but we urge everyone to donate to their support fund. If you can’t use Paypal, click here to learn how to send a check to their support committee.

The charges against Testament and Illogik are a shameless attack on political activism. The two have been outspoken critics of the G20, the 2010 Olympics, and capitalism in general, publicly speaking out even when others were intimidated into silence. They are among over 100 people facing conspiracy charges in connection with the G20 protests, an unprecedented crackdown on dissent.

The charges are also an attack on hip hop. Sure to come up in the trial is the Crash the Meeting video the two released to promote the G20 protests, which has received nearly 50,000 views on youtube. The video is hardly shocking by corporate hip hop standards; it doesn’t objectify women, promote guns or gang violence, or glorify personal acquisition of wealth. Instead, it spreads a positive message of collective struggle against tyranny—exactly the kind of message the authorities want to keep out of popular music.

Before corporate America started paying attention, groups like Public Enemy used hip hop to spread revolutionary messages and consciousness. Profiteers moved into the hip hop market not only to make millions off it but also to promote artists who rap about pimpin and blingin instead of social change.

Test Their Logik take hip hop back to real life, describing the destruction wrought by capitalism and calling for grassroots resistance. Everything they predicted in the Crash the Meeting video came true in Toronto beyond anyone’s wildest expectations. Essentially, they’re being charged for having their finger on the pulse. The authorities can try to jail the messengers, but there’s nothing they can do to stop the music.

Testament and Illogik were arrested June 27, 2010. Both are charged with Conspiracy to Commit an Indictable Offense, Council to Commit an Indictable Offense, and Disguise with Intent to Commit an Indictable Offense. Testament was also charged with breach of bail as a result of being arrested wheatpasting posters about the G20 in London, Ontario a week before the summit; the charges from that arrest were dropped immediately afterwards and the London police chief went on record saying they had only charged him so he would be out on bail conditions during the G20. Bail was set at $20,000 each.

The release conditions for the two include not associating with each other, not associating with members of “Black Bloc” [sic], not possessing anything that could be used as a disguise including bandanas and scarves, and not associating with various people from Quebec they’ve never met.

If you want to support them but you can’t use Paypal, mail a check made out to Russell Silverstein to:

Test Their Logik Legal Defense Fund
C/O Submedia
2746 East Hastings St. #57024
Vancouver BC V5K 5G8
Canada

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And I’m a poltergeist, you know a violent spirit
Product of a world with too much violence in it
So many people trees and animals’ll die in a minute
Can’t ask them to stop, they ain’t tryin to hear it

If this is the future, who can blame people for resisting?

Since the G20 protests, we’ve waited breathlessly for a comprehensive account of the charges and investigations stemming from the summit. Despairing of finding one, we finally prepared this report. It’s not all-inclusive; there is a tremendous amount to keep up with, and many important details are still being forcefully withheld.

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We’ve also designed a poster collection urging support for the arrestees.
Please print out copies and distribute these far and wide.
[6 PDF Posters : 705k]

We call on everyone who desires a better world to support all those charged, arrested, and brutalized in Toronto. Government repression need not spell defeat; it simply marks a new phase of conflict, offering an opportunity to counterattack in the field of public opinion and discourage future repression. Our ability to act tomorrow is determined by what we do today to help our targeted comrades. If you want to support the G20 arrestees, skip to the end of this report for a list of ways to do so.

This report is dedicated to David Japenga, found guilty August 25 of breaking windows during protests against the G20 summit in Pittsburgh in September 2009.

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General Overview

Some 1105 arrests were made in connection to the protests against the Toronto G20 summit. This is believed to be the largest mass arrest in Canadian history. The number is still growing as a result of ongoing police investigations, including the publication of pictures and videos of wanted vandals on the police website and YouTube channel. On August 26, the police released portraits of “the worst of the worst” of the vandals, most of whom they allege to be either from Montreal or from the US. Young men of colour have been disproportionately represented among those targeted in this way.

On August 23, Toronto police claimed they had been able to find 20 suspects thanks to these methods. They have since claimed to have found at least two more. If it wasn’t already obvious who is calling the shots behind the repression, it came out August 30 that the police are working with a facial recognition specialist from the Canadian Bankers Association to identify suspects from photos.

Of the 1105 arrests, about 800 resulted in no criminal charges. All arrestees were detained and processed in a temporary detention facility located in a former film studio on Eastern Avenue. The length of detentions in that facility ranged from a few hours to several days, in increasingly appalling conditions.

Those facing more serious criminal charges, including most of the 17 alleged anarchist “ringleaders” [sic] accused of having orchestrated the “mayhem” that occurred on June 26, were swiftly transferred to a provincial court where they were paraded before a Justice of the Peace and later transferred to Maplehurst Correctional Center, in Milton, pending their bail hearing.

Update as of August 23

On August 23, it was confirmed that a total of 304 people had had criminal charges laid against them, ranging from “Disturbing the Peace” and “Mischief” to “Weapons Dangerous” and “Conspiracy to Commit an Indictable Offence.” In Canada an “indictable offence” is equivalent to a felony in the US.

All 304 accused were summoned to Provincial Court on August 23 to be further processed. It was said to be the largest mass court appearance in the city’s history. The following day the Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General presented this tally:

• 227 accused saw their cases remanded to later dates, ranging from the end of August to mid-October. The Crown failed to produce evidence in the majority of the cases.
• 22 had their charges withdrawn through a process called “diversion,” by which they accepted to donate $25 or $50 to a charity in exchange for exoneration. This is not an admission of guilt, but it does mean giving up the right to sue the State or police at a later date.
• 31 had their charges dropped unconditionally.
• 5 people signed a peace bond, by which they commit to “keep the peace” in exchange for exoneration.
• 6 people pleaded guilty.
• 9 cases out of these 227 turned out to be the result of administrative errors.
• 4 people failed to show up in court and had warrants issued for their arrests.

Of those whose charges were dropped, a few cases stood out:

• 2 photographers for the mainstream newspaper National Post, who were manhandled and detained on June 26.
• Washington-based media activist Lacy MacAuley, who was abducted on June 27 in the most brutal manner by a squad of plainclothes police. She is considering legal action.
• A Torontonian named Tammy M., who was also brutalized and sexually harassed by cops in detention.
• Natalie Gray, a Montreal-based environmental activist who was shot twice with rubber bullets at a solidarity rally in front of the temporary jail. Cops initially denied having used rubber bullets but retracted their lie the next day in the face of overwhelming evidence. Despite photographic proof, the mainstream media continues printing that she “claims” to have been shot. She is also considering legal action.

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Fake Laws, Illegal Harassment, and Liberal Naïveté

Much has been made in the Canadian media of the “bogus law” passed by the Ontario legislation under the Public Works Protection Act to provide police with sweeping extraordinary powers in and around the security perimeter of the summit. Several liberal commentators have complained that the law was passed in secret; in fact, it was passed discreetly June 2, and was only discovered by the media on the first day of the summit, June 25, three days before the temporary measure was scheduled to be revoked. They have also complained that Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair lied about its scope until the day after the Summit and that Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty did nothing to dispel the ambiguity surrounding the matter.

Blair did publicly state that the extraordinary law permitted cops to stop and search anyone within five meters of the fence, and to arrest and detain anyone who resisted or failed to comply. In fact, the temporary law only applied to the area within the security fence.

When he showed up in court on July 28, Dave Vasey, the only person who was arrested under this sham, was told that his papers had been “lost” either by the police or the Crown in what appears to be a clumsy attempt to make this embarrassing business go away.

The untold story here is that the cops were not only doing illegal searches and detentions within 5 meters of the perimeter, but throughout the entire Toronto downtown area. Thousands of incidents occurred in which people were randomly stopped on the sidewalk, asked for ID, and threatened with arrest if they did not comply. Illegal searches and arbitrary seizures were common throughout the week preceding the summit and continued until several days after it; friends and allies who stayed behind to support detainees were constantly stopped and aggressively interrogated.

So while liberals are focusing on the bark on the tree, everybody is forgetting the jungle behind. Anarchists, at least, are honest about not believing in the legitimacy of the legal system. It is absolutely despicable for the authorities to insist on the system’s legitimacy while disregarding it whenever it is convenient for them, and pathetically naïve that some liberals still believe in it despite all the evidence that they are alone in this.

Lawsuits

Sherry Good, a Toronto local who was corralled along with approximately 200 other people on June 27 at the corner of Spadina Avenue and Queen Street, launched a $45 million class action law suit against the police. She claims to act on behalf of the “800 individuals who were allegedly wrongfully arrested during the G20 Summit at various locations, and never charged with any wrongdoing.”

Another lawsuit was announced in Montreal on August 20 by two sisters arrested on June 27 and detained for 60 hours following a police raid targeting several dozen Québécois protesters sleeping in a gymnasium at the University of Toronto. This one is filed against the Montreal Police Department for being effectively complicit in the horrendous conditions and “psychological torture” at the Eastern Avenue detention center.

Just as this update was posted, Mike Barber and Miranda McQuade launched a $115 million class-action lawsuit against the Toronto Police Services Board, federal Attorney General Rob Nicholson, and the Peel Police Services Board.

More class-action lawsuits are expected to be filed in the coming months.

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Lies, Damn Lies, and Police Press Conferences

On June 29, Toronto police organized a media conference to showcase all the weapons supposedly seized from protesters over the Summit weekend. It was soon revealed that most of their “evidence” was comprised of random items seized under various circumstances, some not even related to the protests. This includes arrows and chain mail taken from Brian Barrett, a medieval revivalist on his way to a joust; a chainsaw and crossbow taken from Gary McCullough, a woodsman who carried all his belongings in a makeshift roof-rack on top of his Hyundai; and camping equipment, some wooden katanas, and a copy of the anticapitalist publication Upping the Anti seized from the house of an organizer before any ruckus even started. These items were displayed next to some helmets, gas masks, and an assortment of rather lame-looking defensive gear.

It was quickly admitted that the chainsaw and crossbow were seized from a man who had nothing to do with the protests.

SOAR Conspiracy Charges

Of the remaining accused, 17 believed to be “executives” [sic] of the Southern Ontario Anarchist Resistance (SOAR) are charged with counts of Conspiracy to Commit Mischief over $5000, Conspiracy to Assault Police, and Conspiracy to Obstruct the Work of Police. Some of them also face several more counts of “Counselling” to commit indictable offences including mischief, assault, and others, as well as counts of mischief and various other charges. Details are still scarce due to a publication ban.

All of the 17 have been released on bail and are now under house arrest on very stringent conditions. These conditions include house arrest at the residence of their respective sureties; non-association with any of the co-accused or anyone reasonably known to be a member of SOAR or AW@L (formerly Anti-War at Laurier); and a “no protest” condition preventing any of them from “organizing, participating in, or attending any public demonstration.”

A few more people from southern Ontario believed to be close to anarchist networks are also charged with “Counseling” and other serious charges, and are out on similar conditions. This makes the “17″ tag somewhat arbitrary and subject to change.

Here is an incomplete summary:

• Erik Lankin, from Kitchener, has only just now been released from Maplehurst Correctional Center more than two months after his arrest in an early morning raid of his apartment on June 26. His bail was denied on July 6 by a particularly awful and evidently constipated Justice of the Peace.
• Sterling Stutz was released on $30,000 bail on July 6.
• Syed Hussan, organizer with No One is Illegal Toronto and spokesperson for the Toronto Community Mobilization Network, was released on $55,000 bail on July 8. He had been arrested in the early morning of June 26 on his way to a press conference.
• Patrick Cadorette and Jaggi Singh, both Montreal-based organizers with the Anti-Capitalist Convergence (CLAC), were released on respective bonds of $47,000 and $85,000 on July 12. Cadorette was arrested on June 26 while on his way to the main action. A well-known activist, Singh turned himself in on July 6, the first day of the collective bail hearing, after learning of a warrant for his arrest.
• Peter Hopperton of Hamilton, said to be a “ringleader” of SOAR, was released on $75,000 bail on July 14. He had also been arrested in an early-morning raid on the Toronto apartment where he was staying.
• Alex Hundert and Leah Henderson, of Toronto, said to be “ringleaders” of SOAR, were released on bail on July 19. They were both arrested in the early morning of June 26 by a police team from the “guns and gangs” unit who battered down the door of their Toronto apartment, guns drawn. The Crown has appealed their release. The judge will render a decision on the Crown’s appeal on September 13.
• Mandy Hiscocks, from Guelph, also said to be a “ringleader” of SOAR, was released on $140,000 bail on July 27. She had been arrested with Hundert and Henderson in the same June 26th early morning raid.
• Julian Ichim, of Kitchener, charged with Counseling, was released on bail on June 28. He was charged with Conspiracy as well a few days before this report.
• Kelly Pflug-Back, of Guelph, who was not among the original 17 alleged conspirators but is accused of participating in the widespread destruction of property that occurred on June 26, was released on $80,000 bail on August 12. Pflug-Back faces 13 different charges, including 8 charges of mischief over $5000 and one count of conspiracy. She turned herself in on July 21, having learned of a warrant for her arrest.
• Another man from Hamilton, Ontario was arrested August 26 and charged with conspiracy as part of the SOAR case, in addition to the 17 original defendants. He was released the following day.

Others among the original 17 have not been publicly named yet. They will all be back in court on September 27, at which point it is expected that the evidence will be disclosed and the details of their prosecution will be negotiated.

The conspiracy case stems from an undercover police operation which started back in April 2009 to monitor anti-Olympics and “extreme anarchist” [sic] activity in Southern Ontario. Photos of police infiltrators have been posted here and here.

More details about this investigation will appear soon.

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Still in Jail

Some people are still in jail on G20-related charges:

• Indigenous sovereignty activist Ryan Rainville is charged with causing mischief over $5000 and for assaulting a police officer; he has been denied bail.
• Byron Sonne, a Toronto-based computer expert, was arrested on June 22 on several charges including possessing explosives for an unlawful purpose, possessing dangerous weapons, and mischief. His bail was denied on July 20.
• Gary McCullough, a 53-year-old man from Whitby, Ontario, was arrested on June 25 near the security fence after cops were alarmed by the roof-rack on his car. After they pulled him over, they discovered McCullough was carrying several hazardous items in this rack including a chainsaw, a crossbow, and a few gas cans. Cops said his charges were “not related” to the G20 summit, but this did not prevent Chief Bill Blair from adding the chainsaw and crossbow to his mendacious display of seized “weapons.” McCullough’s case is further complicated by his alleged “mental health issues.” He was denied bail on June 29 on “secondary grounds”: no doctor has said that he is dangerous or needs to be committed, but the Crown is alleging that, based his history with the mental health system, Gary poses a threat to the public. He is still being detained at Maplehurst.

Criminalizing Hip Hop: Testament and Illogik

Testament and Illogik, the duo behind the exciting music video correctly predicting that people who would confront the G20 in Toronto, were arrested June 27. Both are charged with Conspiracy to Commit an Indictable Offense, Council to Commit an Indictable Offense, and Disguise with Intent to Commit an Indictable Offense; bail was set at $20,000 each. Testament was also charged with breach of bail as a result of being arrested wheatpasting posters about the G20 in London, Ontario a week before the summit; the charges from that arrest were dropped immediately afterwards and the London police chief went on record saying they had only charged him so he would be out on bail conditions during the G20.

The release conditions for the two include not associating with each other, not associating with members of “Black Bloc” [sic], not possessing anything that could be used as a disguise including bandanas and scarves, and not associating with various people from Quebec they’ve never even met.

Targeting the Québécois

A group of more than 70 people, most of whom are Québécois, who had been traveling to Toronto with CLAC-organized transportation were arrested in a morning raid of a University of Toronto gymnasium which had been offered as an accommodation to CLAC by the student union. This somewhat soft target consisting primarily of young students was violently awakened with kicks to the back, blows to the head, and drawn guns. There were several incidents of beatings, brutal treatment, and theft of money, all accompanied by anti-Québec slurs and insults. Everyone in this group has been charged with Conspiracy, as police claim that they were the “foot soldiers” who made up the rampaging Black Bloc on June 26.

This flimsy assumption is thought to stem from faulty intelligence gathered through the undercover investigation and police infiltration of SOAR meetings.

In fact, Québécois were systematically targeted throughout the summit and over the following days. Cars with Québec license plates were stopped and searched and the passengers aggressively interrogated. A bus carrying people back to Québec was stopped and its passengers searched and temporarily detained on the afternoon of June 27, near the convergence center. There was an immediate spontaneous show of support from protesters and local residents, which resulted in more abuse and arrests. Video coverage of the subsequent kettle is available here.

As of the June 23 hearing, Québécois make up more than a third of the accused. Most, if not all, of these defendants will be back in court on October 14.

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How to Help

A legal support team calling itself “247 Support Committee” formed in the wake of the summit, mostly through the impetus of the Toronto Community Mobilization Network and the support of Movement Defense paralegal activists. A legal defense fund has also been established.

To offer support to the hundreds still facing charges, including the 17+ living under house arrest and threatened with serious prison sentences, please write to 247.g20@gmail.com and visit both the Movement Defense and TCMN websites:

http://movementdefence.org/
http://g20.torontomobilize.org/

To donate to the legal defense fund, you can:

1) Transfer funds to:

OPIRG York
transit number 00646
institution number 842
account number 3542240

Use your online bank account or contact your bank directly to transfer funds. Please put “G20 legal defense” in the memo.

2) Write a check. Checks payable to “Toronto Community Mobilization Network” OR OPIRG York, with “G20 legal defense” on the subject line, can be mailed to:

Toronto Community Mobilization Network
360A Bloor Street W
PO Box 68557
Toronto, ON M5S 1X0
Canada

3) Donate by PayPal

Follow the link on the TCMN website

The Montreal Anti-Capitalist Convergence has also put together a legal defense fund for Québec-based protesters and organizers who are charged with conspiracy and other serious charges. To offer support or donate to the fund, please write to claclegal2010@gmail.com.

Benefit ’Zines

Supporters are soliciting contributions to two zines documenting the Toronto protests—one for the beautiful stories and one for the less beautiful ones. All proceeds will go to legal defense for G20 political prisoners. Any kind of writing is welcome, as are pictures; real names are welcome but not necessary.

Please send all inquires or entries to zineG20@gmail.com.

For More Information

toronto.mediacoop.ca
www.clac2010.net/en/legal
www.g20justice.com/prosecute.html [we can’t vouch for the accuracy or politics of this website, but the timeline is interesting]

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There are currently three publicly-announced touring groups on the road. The Conspiracy Tour is circling the country to build support for the targets of state repression in the anarchist community and presenting legal training for communities of resistance. The Emergency Tour is traveling through the midwest, visiting primarily small towns to present an introduction to anti-capitalism and mutual aid organizing. The Letters Tour is doing a short circuit mid-month to promote the new issue of their anti-political literary journal.

If you don’t see your event or action represented in this list, please email experimental.committee@gmail.com or announce it as a comment to add it to this list. If there isn’t anything happening where you live, go ahead and plan something!

We’re sending solidarity and love out to Testament and Illogik, among others, who cannot tour because of the absurd conspiracy charges brought against them in the wake of the G20 protests in Canada.

The Schedule

August 7 – Emergency Tour in Duluth, MN; Conspiracy Tour in Asheville, NC; RRFMs in Frederick, MD, Carrboro, NC, and Naples, FL

August 8 – Conspiracy Tour in Louisville, KY

August 9 – Emergency Tour in West Bend, WI; Conspiracy Tour in Bloomington, IN

August 10 – Emergency Tour in Milwaukee, WI; Conspiracy Tour in St. Louis, MO

August 11 – Conspiracy Tour in Omaha, NE

August 12 – Conspiracy Tour in Denver, CO

August 13 – Western Maryland Zine Fest begins in Frederick, MD; Conspiracy Tour in Salt Lake City, UT

August 14 – Conspiracy Tour in San Francisco, CA; RRFMs in Yellow Springs, OH, Olympia, WA, Lancaster, PA, and Parker, CO;

August 15 – RRFM + Regional Meetup in Winona, MN; Conspiracy Tour in Oakland, CA; RRFM in Olympia, WA

August 16 – Letters Tour in Cincinnati, OH; Conspiracy Tour in Santa Cruz, CA

August 17 – Emergency Tour in Madison, WI; Letters Tour in Chicago, IL;

August 18 – Emergency Tour in Champaign-Urbana, IL; Conspiracy Tour in Portland, OR; Experimental Lecture on Friendship in Carrboro, NC; Letters Tour in Milwaukee, WI

August 19 – Emergency Tour in Carbondale, IL; Conspiracy Tour in Tacoma, WA; Letters Tour in Champaign-Urbana, IL

August 20 – Letters Tour in St. Louis, MO; Emergency Tour in Carbondale, IL; Conspiracy Tour in Seattle, WA

August 21 – Letters Tour in Bloomington, IN; Emergency Tour in Cairo, IL; Conspiracy Tour in Missoula, MT; RRFMs in Fargo, ND, Baltimore, MD; Anarchist Bookfair begins in Seattle, WA

August 23 – Student Occupation Radical Convergence begins in Mankato, MN; Conspiracy Tour in Rock Island, IL

August 25 – Emergency Tour + DSM Mutual Aid in Des Moines, IA

August 26 – Emergency Tour + Conspiracy Tour in Minneapolis, MN

August 27 – Emergency Tour in Morris, MN

August 28 – RRFMs in Richmond, VA, Seattle, WA, Houston, TX; ARA call to action against Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin in Washington, DC. Also in Washington, DC, the DC Summer Anarchist Network is holding a day of workshops, tabling, fun activities, and more at St. Stephen’s Church, 1525 Newton Street Northwest, from 3 to 9 PM. Workshops include collective liberation, feminism, veganism, radical technology, prison abolition, silkscreening, practical anarchism, and TERRIBLE FREEDOM.

August 29 – RRFMs in New York, NY and Austin, TX

Additionally, some groups are planning a whole month of smaller activities. If you’re in South Florida, email S.W.A.M.P for a schedule of events in Broward County. If you’re near Frederick, MD, request a schedule. If your anarchist community has planned a similar month of scheduled events, please submit a contact email for calendar requests.

WHAT ARE YOU DOING THIS AUGUST?

Toronto-based organizations of women, people of colour, indigenous peoples, the poor, working class, queer people, trans people, and disabled people are organizing an anti-capitalist and anti-colonial convergence to counter these fuckers. We in Southern Ontario Anarchist Resistance are calling on our friends and lovers, our comrades and co-conspirators, to join us in creating the most militant resistance that the city of Toronto has ever seen. The bankers and politicians who claim to run our world will not be allowed to run our town. In defiance of the largest military operation to take place on Kanadian soil in living memory, people are organizing everything from street parties to occupations, massive demonstrations to autonomous and targeted attacks.

The Toronto Community Mobilization Network is the network of the different communities, organizations, and individuals that are organizing the varying responses to the militarization of this city and to the systems of oppression and domination that a meeting of world “leaders” represents. The objective is to use the opportunity of the G8 and G20 summits to highlight and strengthen the diverse movements for social justice that already exist in the Toronto area. The full schedule of the events is available here. The TCMN, and all of its constituents, have agreed to respect a diversity of tactics as part of their statement of solidarity and respect.

Southern Ontario Anarchist Resistance is one of the groups plugged into the TCMN. This is what we’re planning.

GET OFF THE FENCE
On June 26th, when the permitted “People First” march turns towards the protest pen, we invite you to go beyond the tired symbolism of parades and beyond the will of politicians. When that march turns back, we invite you all to continue on with us to actually confront the G20 summit and the security apparatus occupying our city. This is a militant march where many forms of resistance and tactics are welcomed and respected. In the streets we will be uncontrollable. For more information, contact torontospokes@ecologyfund.net.

SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER
A roving dance party with radical MCs, guerilla DJs, and underground bands from late on Saturday night ’til dawn Sunday morning. Let’s take the streets back from the developers, the pigs, and the forces of capital. As of writing, some of the confirmed acts include Test Their Logik, the Rebel Spell, Caballo & the Mothafu Kings, and Lee Reed (formerly of warsawpack). Wear your fiercest clothes and be prepared for some heat. It’s Emma Goldman’s 141st birthday, so fuck the clubs – there’s no cover but your mask.

AUTONOMOUS DAY OF ACTION
Affinity groups are organizing a diverse and decentralized day of actions against capital and state forces. As the ‘leaders’ of the G20 nations make their final deliberations, let’s demonstrate the diversity of our discontent. Disrupt the summit, disrupt business as usual, do whatever you want – but start planning now. We are encouraging folks to plan their own actions and attacks, but if people want to plug into coordinated efforts, they can contact torontospokes@ecologyfund.net.

******

Some other awesome events in which anarchists will be participating include a march, rally, block party, and tent city on June 25 and the prison abolition demo; Fire Works for Prisons, on June 27.

Summits like these are opportunities to smash the spectacle and resist the narratives that our enemies try to force down our throats. If you can make it to Toronto, we will greet you as an ally and appreciate your help in making the end of June something that future anarchists can look back on and be inspired by. We’ll see you in the streets!

In possibly the first great anarchist mistake of the decade, the CrimethInc. Experimental Committee was founded in late January. Their first assignment? To preserve and integrate the best elements of the convergence into a new model, adjust them to strengthen longstanding weaknesses, all the while upping the ante in a way that serves the anarchist community as a whole. At first, we thought their solution was a bad idea, so we commissioned a report and quickly changed our minds.

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You’re being invited to participate in CrimethInc.’s next big experiment: a decentralized convergence.

THE OBJECTIVES

To create and maintain points of entry everywhere. To demonstrate our ability to work together despite internal differences and external obstacles. To invigorate anarchist infrastructure rather than lean on it. To orchestrate a show of force in solidarity with anti-authoritarians all over the world. To inspire curious newcomers without exhausting our vigor. To illuminate the map like a starchart of constellations. To remind ourselves – everyone – that we are everywhere.

THE CHALLENGE

Can anarchists mobilize to achieve these objectives with a tight deadline? In an effort to test and strengthen our potential, we’re inviting anarchists of all stripes and contexts to participate in a widespread and decentralized demonstration of outreach and infrastructure. To get involved, all that is required is that you facilitate or organize one or more events that will occur simultaneously across North America throughout the month of August.

THE PLAN

During August, we make anarchist principles and activity visible and accessible at a scale never before attempted. Consider it an international month of action; the activities can be of any caliber and temperament, and can appear anywhere: in the news, in the library, in the bedroom, in the supermarket, at the Really Really Free Market, on the streets, and so on. Use this as an opportunity to explore and experiment: if you aren’t typically involved in local mutual aid projects, give it a go; if you’ve never gone on a tour before, plan one with your friends; if you write zines, write banners; if you author theory, stage a reading; if you occupy classrooms, teach one for free. Whatever you do, wherever you go, wave the black flag for everyone to see –including, and perhaps especially for, our friends and comrades – and let the world see that we are everywhere.

THE SKELETON

To supplement the individual events we’re inviting people who’d like to teach workshops, perform skits and puppet shows, and share music and videos, to organize tours with their friends. The troupe could be just one person – you – or as many friends and companions as you can pack into a vehicle: whatever is doable and exciting. You could schedule events in a few towns in your region over a weekend, or cross the continent in a month. Your theme could be acute, spreading awareness about specific campaigns against mountain-top removal, evictions, state repression, the tar sands of Canada, the oil spill, oppression, or for mutual aid projects, solidarity with struggles happening here or elsewhere, or obscure theory. Or it could be more broad – raising awareness about anarchism itself.

Decentralized tours could the most appropriate and safe way for the anarchist community to achieve the objectives of the nationwide convergence. Accessible points of entry can emerge in all of the places that anarchists already are. Inspirational experiences can be had with new people. The diversity of anarchist perspectives and positions can be celebrated and affirmed in a way that allows them to work together, allowing us all to hold our commonalities close and activate our solidarity.

We’re pleased to announce that several tours have already signed up as endorsers: The Conspiracy Tour [USA], The Emergency Tour [USA-Midwest], and Testament & Illogick [Canada]. If you already plan on touring with a project during August, you can plug into the strategy with almost no additional effort. If you haven’t planned anything during August, please consider organizing a tour in solidarity with all those who will be organizing events in their hometowns. This goes most especially for everyone who has participated in CrimethInc Convergences in past years, and is able and willing. To help offset the price of fuel, you might consider distributing free literature for donations, and selling books and screenprinted items – if you’re partial, the Literature Distro Kit is one of the cheapest places to start.

In the next few weeks, we’ll be maintaining a list of tour dates both organized within our challenging timeframe and scheduled for the month of August. To add your project to the itinerary, please email experimental.committee@gmail.com as soon as possible, and we can publish your public events as they unfold.

THE NERVE

Drawing from the lessons of Steal Something From Work Day, our work should effectively utilize modern modes of communication and reclaim their functions when necessary.

Twitter – We can use Twitter to announce your events and simultaneously contribute to the volume of the phenomenon. If you use twitter, tag your tweets with #AnarchistsEverywhere to let people locate it in a search of the entire campaign. If we remember that these tweets are public and can function as promotional work, we can contribute to the campaign 140 characters at a time.

YouTube & Vimeo – We can upload short vignettes that promote the campaign and will be relevant for years to come. Our current recommendation is the proliferation of short 45 second clips ending in the slogan “WE ARE EVERYWHERE”. To avoid the alienation that can sometimes be felt when watching high-quality video production, it is encouraged that these clips be shot with cell phones to remind everyone that they can make their own. To contribute your video to the campaign, simply tag it with “AnarchistsEverywhere”.

Social Networking – Share this blog entry, and when more web projects and videos emerge share those too. Announce local events to everyone that you communicate with through that medium. While you’re at it, be mindful of the networks you imply on facebook.

Of course, it is also important that we create signposts in the real world too. Design posters, t-shirts, stencils, stickers, and other folk-art projects and spread them everywhere. See this appendix for helpful slogans.

THE HEART

Of course, each tour will make this campaign exponentially larger, but this August won’t be about tours. More important is what is going on in each place they pass through; if you are part of an active community – even if that community is just you –you can make your town another mark on our constellation map, which is a substantial contribution. In the context of this campaign, doing locally what tours cannot is considerably more effective than an elaborate schedule of tours. You are a part of the everywhere.

Ultimately, this campaign is about doing what we do every day. In working together as a decentralized concert of actions and activities we can collectively establish visibility for our local efforts and global struggles. For inspiration, check out Recipes for Disaster if you haven’t already, or you could plan a workshop, block party, public discussion group – even a bike ride. Put quite simply: if you’ve got a black flag and the will to fly it, this August the world will be watching.

Whatever you do, your contribution will be a part of an experiment to determine our collective power-to and solidarity-with – no amount of participation is too small, and everyone’s efforts will be counted.

THE DETAILS

Please read the arguments for decentralizing the CrimethInc. Convergence and the implications of a successful August 2010. Whether or not your project is a tour complete with a list of dates and venues, or a single event open to the public, it is still valuable and worthwhile to promote as a part of this campaign. Please email details to experimental.committee@gmail.com for help promoting your event.

APPENDIX of SLOGANS {not just a big joke}

In reclaiming and reworking modern marketing and advertisement strategies, we can re-appropriate the elements of our social conditions. Opportunities to do so will be self-evident: wherever capitalist imagery and sentiment competes for our attention. To do so effectively we would benefit from maintaining relative consistency throughout this campaign. This campaign is already built on a concept that both demands participation and refuses to be homogenized by those with particularly concentrated resources; the message is that we are everywhere and therefore the aesthetic will naturally benefit from the wide spectrum of positions from which these messages can emerge. Additionally, we cannot successfully demonstrate our prevalence without communicating things that describe our politics and the widespread nature of our resistance. That these things are true does not mean we cannot create a consistent and circular front of visibility – this can happen by taking advantage of the strategies outlined above in the nerve section and by making prolific use of, and following the various style guides accompanying, the following slogans:

1. { for use wherever possible, and most appropriate }
2. { for use in pre-august promotional material }
3. { anytime you need a clever supplement }

These are appropriate for Anarchists without Adjectives and will work well in combination with any of the others. The use of any other slogans should be supplemented with these for best use of consistency:

1. WE ARE EVERYWHERE
2. WHAT ARE YOU DOING THIS AUGUST?
3. GET ALL OVER THE PLACE
4. { The Circle A }

These Insurrectionist slogans are sure to be attractively confusing:

1. DOING BEING EVERYWHERE
2. PARTY THIS AUGUST
3. MAKE TOTAL ALL OVER THE PLACE

The Anarchist People of Color who aren’t surprised that you assumed they weren’t involved in planning this campaign suggested:

1. NO ONE IS ILLEGAL – WE ARE EVERYWHERE
2. THE BLOCK IS HOT, AUGUST WILL BE HOTTER
3. STOLEN LAND IS ALL OVER THE PLACE

Efficient use of these slogans are sure to aid the Anarcho-Syndicalist platform:

1. AN INJURY SOMEPLACE IS AN INJURY EVERYWHERE
2. TAKE IT OVER THIS AUGUST
3. ONE BIG EVERYWHERE

If we would stop for a minute and listen for a change, the Anarcha-Feminist might recommend:

1. OUR PLACE IS ALL OVER THE PLACE
2. TAKE BACK THE NIGHT THIS AUGUST
3. MOTHERS WORK EVERYWHERE

Anarchist Queers can pack these with their strap-ons and glitter-bombs:

1. WE WANT YOU
2. ANARCHISM IS IN THIS AUGUST
3. BASH BACK EVERYWHERE

And lastly, if someone could tell the Anti-Civ folks about these slogans, that’d be great!

1. AGAINST CAPTIVITY EVERYWHERE
2. BREAK THROUGH THIS AUGUST
3. GROW BACK ALL OVER THE PLACE

Click here to donate and download the MP3.

It features Testament & Illogik of Raised Fist Collective (Ontario) and Strife, MK Ultra and Unrest of Thought Crime Collective (Olympia) and recorded in Olympia in early February 2010 during Raised Fist’s Empowerment Tour. It’s a simple but fierce narrative on preparedness and strength emphasizing the aggressive spirit of mutual aid and collectivity. [256kbps VBR MP3]

The State Street 29 is a group of individuals who were arrested on the night of April 8th, 2010. They were arrested at a march consisting of over 60 people that took place in downtown Olympia. The march was done in solidarity with the West Coast Days of Action against State Violence to draw attention to the fact that police everywhere are perpetuating and fostering fear among our communities. Our goal as the State Street 29 Support Committee is to encourage others to view the arrestees, from the perspective of those who rely on and care about them, as loving, well intentioned, and active people concerned about the safety of our community.

Contact: statestreet29supportcommittee@gmail.com

An updated list of the shows is available here. Contact the band at fromthedepthsnc@gmail.com.

Geoff, who has played drums in From the Depths, will not be joining the band on this tour, in order to focus on an accountability process he is participating in. More information is available on the band’s website.

Send stories to stealfromworkday@gmail.com. The deadline is Tuesday, March 30.

More STEAL SOMETHING FROM WORK DAY Materials!

STEAL SOMETHING FROM WORK DAY postcards and trifolds are ready now. Email stealfromworkday@gmail.com to receive a box of the postcards; the trifolds are ready to print out and photocopy.

The first printing of the stickers flew; we’ve just printed 8000 more. They’re still available from Wild Nettle Distro: email distro@wildnettle.com. We’re still soliciting photos of STEAL SOMETHING FROM WORK DAY materials in action at that address.

WORLD DAY OF STEALING FROM EMPLOY

Thanks to the mixed blessings of Google Translate, even the monolingual can enjoy endorsements of STEAL SOMETHING FROM WORK DAY from elsewhere in the world, such as Barcelona:

Work disorienting you. Enslaves you. Alienates you. You tired. You disgusting. It makes getting up early. I fuck with both loose climbs. I kill that bitch shit coffee and eating makes you fucking evil. You down. It gives you headaches for things that should be crap.

Inspirational Quote of the Week

“The U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimates that 75 percent of all employees steal at least once, and that half of these steal repeatedly. The Chamber also reports that one of every three business failures is the direct result of employee theft. According to the US Department of Commerce, employee dishonesty costs American business in excess of $50 billion annually.”
Hire Power Associates

Call for Buildup Actions on March 15

We’re calling for actions a month before STEAL SOMETHING FROM WORK DAY to build up awareness of the campaign. Here are some options for what you could do, right now or on March 15:

-Tell a friend or coworker about the campaign
-See that trifolds, posters, and stickers appear everywhere
-Take photos of posters, graffiti, or banner drops
-Announce STEAL SOMETHING FROM WORK DAY over the public address system in a retail outlet
-Organize a flash mob in a shopping mall, or—better—an office building or warehouse district: march behind a STEAL SOMETHING FROM WORK DAY banner, or leaflet all the customers, or…
-Send an outraged email about STEAL SOMETHING FROM WORK DAY to a talk show or news program, or send your local paper a letter to the editor.

If you want to warn corporate media outlets about Steal Something from Work Day, here are some appropriate venues:

townhall.com

Fox News has a drop-down list under “We love to hear from our viewers,” including email addresses like these:

glennbeck@foxnews.com
Hannity@foxnews.com
Oreilly@foxnews.com
Ontherecord@foxnews.com
Atlarge@foxnews.com

CNN offers a more limited contact list. MSNBC offers more contacts:

Today@NBCUNI.com
Nightly@NBC.com
Dateline@NBCUNI.com
rachel@msnbc.com
countdown@msnbc.com
hardball@msnbc.com
ed.msnbc@nbcuni.com

ABC news offers links to contact forms by show. CBS also offers a series of contact forms.

April 15 Isn’t Just Tax Day Anymore: Small-Town Texans Endorse Steal Something from Work Day

This appeared in a weekly paper in the small town of College Station, Texas:

Before anyone gets up-in-arms, this is not a call for you to steal from work. It’s an article saying that most of you already steal from work. It is a piece attempting to shine a light on why such a large percentage of the workforce breaks the law in such a socially unacceptable manner. Acceptable methods of breaking the law are running red lights and refusing to vaccinate children.

Steal Something from Work Day is a small movement. Its Facebook group has little more than five hundred members [*] and, regardless of how many are anonymous participants are out there, it would be naïve to think of SSWD as a mass movement. People that actually steal from work are the mass movement.

According to the US Chamber of Commerce, over 75 percent of employees steal from their workplace. And National Retail Security shows that almost 50 percent of lost retail merchandise can be traced back to employees. This raises the question:

Are workers in the United States just a bunch of thankless thieves?

CrimethInc. Ex-Workers’ Collective is trying to answer that question by spearheading an awareness movement through this new holiday. While, for some, the goal is to get their own few proverbial miles out of the corporate jet, for others, it is simply a symbol. It is a statement aimed at employers that are stealing from their labor pool by refusing to pay them a fair amount.

Why is this necessary? It’s necessary because many of you have forgotten that labor is a voluntary service and that a job interview is just as much an assessment of the employer as it is of the employee. It’s a mutual relationship that has been bastardized by bare-bones wages in a market where there simply aren’t enough jobs to go around. In a culture that prides itself on soul-sucking, endless labor that makes everyone feel guilty for every day that they don’t produce, produce, produce, employers know that you need the job more than they need to hire you. So, you get paid dirt and treated like eels.

Actually, eels get better treatment. They don’t have to work.

For example, Best Buy, as a whole, makes over $300,000 per employee every year. If one of those employees makes $20,000 a year, working 160 hours a month, they are not only getting less than 10 percent return on their labor, but they’re really only being paid for about ten to twenty minutes of the time they work each day, depending on how many hours they put into each shift. When it is acceptable for someone to work an eight hour shift and get paid for ten minutes of it, it’s pretty obvious that every day at Best Buy is Steal from Your Employees Day. While they’re not the only offenders, they are particularly egregious in their constant hunt for impressionable teenage minds that lack any knowledge of labor rights and legal consent.

[…]

My advice is, if you’re going to steal, aim high. While it might pay a little to get out the door at Wal-Mart with an armful of CDs, it’s just not smart to go to jail for a pittance when the real money is in legal theft. Try becoming a corporate banker. If you get into financial trouble, you can legally hold an entire nation hostage until its citizens pay you ransom. Start a hate group. The amount of money spent to stop gay marriage numbers in the tens of millions in California alone. Go into marketing for civilian defense contractors. You can make money by recruiting the next generation of non-military personnel that can murder without all those pesky laws and rules to stop them.

Take your pick.

[*the number doubled within a few days]

Steal Something From Work Day STICKERS!

These classy black and red “silent agitators” are available for free or donation from Wild Nettle Distro, and will also be included free in orders from CrimethInc. Far East. They look great on a doorframe or coffee maker! To get a big package of them for your community, email distro@wildnettle.com.

Steal Something From Work Day PHOTO CONTEST!

We can’t urge you to steal from your workplace–and you don’t need our encouragement! But we can urge you to take a pocketful of STEAL SOMETHING FROM WORK stickers and head to the nearest factory, office, housing development, shopping center, or school.

Keep your eyes open–and when you see a STEAL SOMETHING FROM WORK DAY sticker, take a photograph of it! Email your photos to stealfromworkday@gmail.com and they’ll go up in the gallery. If you’re the private sort, start a new email from a public-access computer to send your photos. The person who sends the best photograph wins a gift package–to be mailed after April 15, of course. [Sample photo here.]

Steal Something From Work Day GOES VIRAL!

A new Facebook group is promoting STEAL SOMETHING FROM WORK DAY. Invite everyone you can–let’s dispel the stigma around reclaiming the product of our labor! This is a great place to upload photos and video, and to promote the campaign in general. Be sure to use common sense whenever using social mapping technologies like Facebook.

Steal Something From Work Day GOES INTERNATIONAL!

Thanks to capitalist globalization, it’s never been easier to get exploited by some profiteering corporation–nor to steal from one! Comrades as far away as Spain, Russia, and Bulgaria are getting ready for STEAL SOMETHING FROM WORK DAY.

Meanwhile, here in the US, employee theft is reclaiming $40 billion from corporate bloodsuckers annually, and increasing by 15% per year. Keep up the good work, America!

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