The Student Insurgent The Power Issue
Volume 28.1, Fall 2016
Table of Contents
Prologue 2
ae = Letters & Such 3 . : Tt Resisting Fascism 5
; After the Electoral Extravaganza 7 Media Blackout: Worker Uprisings 9
- Normalizing the Nude 11
»» How's My Prison Healthcare? 14 The Anti-Trump Agenda 16 Submissions from a Stirnerist 17
—— Understanding American Oligarchy 19 nm Tactics for the Defens
bt
The Student Insurgent is a radical publication of news, art, and opinion published by a horizontal editorial collective of students at the University of Oregon. We publish essays, fiction, poetry, reporting, and art submitted by students, prisoners, and anyone else who wishes to have their voice heard. We are revolutionary anti-capitalists and anti-authoritarians, as well as green, feminist, and anti-racist. We are interested in destroying hierarchy, oppresson, authority, and exploitation wherever they exist, and encourage you, dear reader, to do the same!
The Student Insurgent magazine is distributed freely to students, prisoners, and community members. Any and all material, art or written, is welcome to be submitted. Submissions should be sent by email or post. If you want your material to be considered for publication, you do not need to ask permission first, just send it to us immediately. We reserve the right to edit all material for grammar, clarity, and length. All materials, written or artistic, reflect solely the opinion of their author, not necessarily that of the Student Insurgent.
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Prologue I,
pes< on the primary page of this periodical is a pyramid of paper people portraying positions of power present in our population. The polis is compelled to uphold the base of the system. Perpetually preoccupied with the pressure of disempowerment and privation, they struggle to disrupt the powers that be. At the pinnacle preside the patriarchs in their palace. These pigs profit from the perpetuation of poverty, the penury of the pauperized population, the pervading pandemic of private property and the persistent pillaging of our planet, pushing us all to perdition. However, the People—the pupils, the proletariat, the oppressed—possess the power to perturb the peace and protest the political order. In this periodical publication, we present a polemic on power. We cannot promise you a plan for a perfect world, but through poetry, prose, and polemic, we can paint a prototypical picture, and point a possible path to a preferable position on this planet.
Power to the People. Power to the People. Power to the People.
If.
I: often useful to think dialectically of power in two different but connected forms, 'power to' versus ‘power over’. It would be overly simplistic to say that the first is good and the second is bad, though in general, movements that aspire to create and expand freedom will want to increase individuals’ and collectivities' power to do as they wish, while at the same limiting any person's power over others. We—at the Insurgent anyway— seek to promote empowerment, while destroying coercive power. The goal is to aid the powerless, and resist the powerful.
However it's also important to problematize this binary. No person is an island, nor a rugged individual. We all live in a tightly interconnected system where even the most minute actions can significantly affect other people, even people far away. In a great many cases, increasing the freedom of action for one means necessarily curtailing it for others. Everyone's liberty ends where others’ begins. And indeed, many movements supposedly seeking liberation have ended up increasing freedom for some at the expense of others. Indeed, the country we're living in is a graphic illustration. The freedom, independence, and autonomy the Pilgrims and pioneers found in America almost always came at the expense of the indigenous people, the Native Americans who were expelled and exterminated to make room for whites.
Today's revolutionary movements must value inclusion and diversity. They must promote liberty and equality. No one is free until everyone is free.
While there is a lower class, I am in it; and while there is a criminal element, I am of it; and while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. -Bugene V. Debs
My name is Adrien Joshua Espinoza (Ochoa). I am 32 years old, from Mesa, AZ, USA. I am, by definition and in all practicality, an “enemy of the State.” I am a prisoner of war. A POW in the ar on marginalized and disenfranchised people. At the least, I combat the State in my ideals, through litigation, and via political and social activism.
The State has elected to imprison me in a supermaximum security penitentiary in the hopes of incapacitating a formidable / adversary. This is a tactic commonly employed by the State. This supermax facility, SMU2, is one of the highest security-level gulags in the nation. It is also notoriously one of the most corrupt.
Hundreds of political prisoners are detained in this compound. ‘\, They are imprisoned here either because of their “political” ties or due to the alleged security risk they pose. The State is able / to label us by using crooked and corrupt strategies and tactics. ‘They utilize snitches and sometimes even “phantom snitches’, meaning they falsify documents to support their claims, knowing that not even the feds can compel them to disclose the identities
‘of informants (rats).
Against some of their enemies they increase the intensity in their drive to defeat us. As with any war, propaganda is an important weapon they use. Administrators and officers of this corrupt Department oftentimes falsify disciplinary violations { of a sensitive or controversial nature, and then spread word of he alleged violation amongst the population. Confederates and ‘fellow revolutionaries see through the smokescreen, but many do not, which the State loves, as it decimates opposition to their efforts to deny us civil and basic human rights.
I have become a target of the Department [of corrections]. They ave been filing false disciplinary reports, seizing incoming mail and books, deactivating visitor’s approved status, and more. \ They provide absolutely no due process during disciplinary or classification hearings. They have stolen my main access to media by seizing my television and “losing” my radio. They ave cut me off from communicating with family and friends by prohibiting me from phone calls and routinely disconnecting calls on those rare occasions I receive a call. They have repeatedly denied my requests to call my legal counsel, in further violation \ of my Constitutional rights.
‘All of this I expect. And more. I do not mean to imply that I am content with it. I understand all too well the extent to which corrupt prison bureaucrats will go to silence an adversary. To / their dismay, I am not giving up my fight. I will only get louder, engage the enemy more fiercely, and do everything in my power < to disrupt their corrupt efforts. Battle time, motherfuckers.
However, I cannot fight this fight alone; and so I ask for your continued support. Stand strong in your solidarity and do not let < these lying manipulative people mislead you with their rhetoric,
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Letters and Such
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disinformation, falsified reports, and propaganda. Their goal is to convince you, the People, that their shady, corrupt daily actions are justified. Do not be fooled. They are not.
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I am an enemy of the State, because the Department [of corrections] is an arm of the State. But the State is an enemy of the People, because it preys on and targets minorities, the poor, | the mentally ill, the homeless, and anyone else who is an obstacle to or superfluous to the State’s agenda.
I ask you to get involved in this struggle; be heard. Contact the governor and the head of the Department of Justice. Contact this unit’s Warden. Contact our Representatives and Legislators. Talk about this with family and friends. Demand transparency from the system. Demand fairness and humane treatment. Do not be misled to believe that we who are jailed and imprisoned unjustly and unfairly are only a handful of individuals. The , statistics suggest there are millions in the US who are currently or were once. Something must be done to abolish or drastically reform this arcane, draconian, grossly inhumane system that is a disgrace to the ideals and values this nation was supposedly founded upon. You can make a change. Get involved at the local level by contacting your local representatives and activists, while, for now, I remain--behind enemy lines.
The Experiment by: Adrien Espinoza
They are cast aside, rejected
Longing for that day, dejected
Harboring torment, desperate
Illusions of normality
Twisted sick, corrupt captors
Like a black hole, it sucks you in,
The environment, the elements, rhetoric Nontransparent and hidden from society
To our families once begotten
But now only forgotten
They are broken around him
Fallen, one by one, again and again
The sickness is in the air
But he fights it
His gas mask the only person who’s always cared Fighting to persevere, detractors become irrelevant His chin high, his chest out, he is benevolent
He remains headstrong, steadfast, and whole
And Will never fall as a broken soul
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{MICHIGAN PRISONERS RISE UP! /Overcrowded and Underfunded State Prisons Spawn Resistance
<By Rand W. Gould Z
ihe everyday activity of slaves reproduces slavery. Through their " <daily activities, slaves do not merely reproduce themselves and their masters, physically; they also reproduce the instruments ,with which the master represses them, and their own habits of submission to the master’s authority.
»<-Fredy Perlman, “The Reproduction of Daily Life”
/
Not since the 1980s, when the State of Michigan, simultaneously, <ratcheted up “tough on crime” laws and eliminated good time credits, which had reduced the time served before prisoners were considered for parole, have Michigan's prisons been so overcrowded and seething with discontent. Overcrowded, underfunded and understaffed, the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) As struggling to provide housing, food, medical and programming for approximately 43,000 prisoners, within a $2.1 billion per year <budget that has not changed significantly this century, despite ‘\Anultiple prison closures and the privatization of medical care, food service and commissary. A budget that is unlikely to increase in the future due to the over $2 billion in tax cuts enacted by Gov. Rick Snyder. A massive tax cut to the corporations that continue jto move their manufacturing operations out of state, if not the country, eliminating decent paying jobs which, in turn, causes at <least a dozen families to puck-up and leave this “right-to-work- \_Aor-less” state every day. Michigan is the only state in the country with a declining population.
{Couple this with the looting of city and public school budgets by , t0o- -big-to-fail” banks and transnational finance corporations, “via the creation of massive debt under the aegis of Gov. Snyder’s <“Financial Managers’, resulting in bankruptcies, as has occurred <_in Detroit, Flint, Benton Harbor, et al., all unsurprisingly majority black cities, along with the crumbling state-wide infrastructure, <such as roads and water systems, and it becomes clear Michigan As facing a disaster of epic proportions that reaches way beyond economics into the daily life of its people. It has been estimated ‘that the Flint water disaster alone, will cost the state over 2$2 billion, courtesy of the Gov. Snyder-appointed Financial Managers ill-considered attempt to save a few million dollars by disconnecting Flint from the Detroit water system in order to <pump toxic water into people’s homes from the GM-polluted Flint /River. A compelling act of genocide against Flint’s black-majority, pad overwhelmingly poor population. $2 billion that will not be “available for the MDOC budget, road repair or anything else. Neither will the money be available Gov. Snyder is spending on his egal defense in lawsuits holding him responsible for engineering
“this disaster! )
/This year, after decades of passivity, Michigan prisoners are finally rising up and actively resisting their oppression. The inevitable
ickens coming home to rgost” in,a prison system that gperates for the strike. Reflecting, rather incredibly, sesrese
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as a human warehouse, with few programming opportunities (none for lifers), whether teaching jobs or rehabilitation, and fewer jobs at slave wages of $0.84 to $1.14 per day. Wages that \, not only have not increased in decades, but have decreased, as performance bonuses were taken from food service and Michigan State Industries (MSI) workers, while the quality and quantity of food served to prisoners had declined precipitously, as commissary*\__ prices have skyrocketed, due to privatization. Overcrowding, understaffing, slave wages, high commissary prices, high phone rates, less food, with what is served being nutritionally deficient \, (e.g., less than a cup of vegetables a day, when USDA guidelines recommend 2 % cups), lack of programming and poor medical care, are all the ingredients necessary to a recipe for disaster.
Consequently, it was no surprise when, on March 20th and, 21st, over 1,000 out of 1,300 prisoners, crammed into Kinross Y Correctional Facility’s four aging polebarns, refused meals and\, demonstrated on the yard or when, on March 26th through
28th, over 1,100 out of 1,300 prisoners, crammed into Chippewa
Correctional Facility’s four aging polebarns, also refused the \ meals provided by Trinity, the private food service contractor. These actions were followed, on April 12th, by 600 prisoners at,/~ Cotton Correctional Facility refusing meals and, on May 14th,
by 700 out of 1,100 level I prisoners refusing meals at Marquette’\ Branch Prison. x
On September 9th, the 45th anniversary of the Attica State Prison rebellion, prisoners across the country answered the Free Alabama: Movement’ call for a nationwide prisoner labor strike by refusing to work in at least 23 states. Michigan prisoners struck at Kinross CF in the Upper Peninsula, Bellamy Creek CF and Michigan Reformatory in Iowa. There were likely other strikes, but these
have so far been unreported, Striking Michigan prisoners A, supported by a very militant demonstration at the state capitol o Lansing, when anarchists and their accomplices shut down traffic with a borrowed U-Haul truck and unfurled banners that read “Solidarity With the Sept. 9th Prison Strikers” and “Freedom Will \ Blossom From the Ashes of the Prisons.” \
At Kinross CF, with prisoner kitchen workers refusing to work, the ) administration’s response was to serve “sack lunches,” consisting \, of a couple of bread on bologna sandwiches and a piece of fruit, at. every meal. On the 10th, after a day of sack lunches, 400 prisoners went out on the yard, to voice their demand to be served the hot meals required by policy, and marched peacefully. 4
To suppress this peaceful demonstration, the MDOC mobilized 5 over one hundred armed corrections and state police officers from, across the state, at great cost, who confronted the prisoners and, ordered them to return to their units. The prisoners complied with this order peacefully, only to have their hands zip tied, with them’, taken back outside and forced to kneel on the ground in groups for hours in the rain, as the officers picked out 250 so-called ‘agitators’ for immediate pack-up and transfer to other prisons in retaliation
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4 pdonly officers in the units, ostensibly packing up the 250 agitators’ <property and likely, as per usual in these situations, tearing up the \./ “cubes and prisoner's’ personal property.
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\<Y Sometime during all of this, depending on who you believe-
4,t, te or corrections officer union spokespersons, prisoners or
corrections officers- all hell, seemingly, broke loose, with sinks SSS cand other fixtures smashed, windows broken and at least one
} fire set, rendering two of the eight units in the four polebarns > << uninhabitable. MDOC spokespersons had initially and repeatedly SSL Sastated the prisoner labor strike and subsequent demonstration \<S at Kinross CF were peaceful, while corrections officer union
LN .L" spokespersons claimed it was a violent riot, as reported by CBS < 7/9 & 10 News and other local media throughout the weekend.
(See Paul Egan, “Iwo views of prison uprising emerge,’ at Ona 8 Pp p g 8 SSS detriotfreepress.com.) <>
\<’S < S«Despite the obvious contradiction, it strains the bonds of ba’ Cas credulity to think that this “riot” was not, at least, provoked by ie. ee the officers. How they managed to get these, up to that point, \7 * /* peaceful prisoners to riot when ziptied and confronted by officers NLS Seovith automatic weapons is beyond the knowledge of this writer. rere. What he does know is the officers raked in a lot of extra-pay and N05 it is in their interest to portray prisons as violent and dangerous, in order to iustifv more prisons and prison iobs bv inciting fear
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the yard at Attica 45 years ago, albeit it not reaching the same
\L* SSS ov of brutality and without the wholesale slaughter. This left
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in the public. Fortunately, according to reports, no one was hurt, , because, as we all know, in this age of video recording, police’ officers have a marked propensity for extreme violence, up to and: including murder. As on the streets, so in the prisons.
So what is next for Michigan’s prisoners? No doubt, more ae ro, i.
the same until the MDOC alleviates the extreme overcrowding
and provides decent housing, food, medical care, programming »
and wages to prisoners. The first step towards achieving these
goals requires the MDOC to cease operating its prisons at, or.
near, 200% of capacity. Both Kinross and Chippewa CF consist |
of 4 polebarns, each housing 320 men, 8 men to a 4-man cube, \ \
with only 10 sq. ft. of unencumbered floor space for each mane (
when U.S. Dept. of Agriculture rules require a minimum of 25.1 Ly 2 Ly
\ \
sq. ft. for apes over 55lbs. (See 56 FR 6426, 9 CFR 380 (b)(2) (1).) With 8 men in 4-man cubes and 2 men in one-man cells,’
there are double the men using the yards, dayrooms, chow halls, bathrooms, showers, etc., than these facilities were designed for. ; Michigan's women prisoners have it even worse. Crammed into \ overcrowded prisons, underfed, denied proper medical care and
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rising commissary prices, it’s no wonder Michigan Prisoners are rising up! The only question is: why did it take them so long?! *~
programming, while forced to work for declining slave wages and. ~E
“Fascism is the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, the most chauvinistic, the most imperialistic elements of financial capital. Fascism is neither the government beyond classes nor the government of the petty bourgeois or the lumpen-proletariat over financial capital. Fascism is the government of financial capital itself.” -Georgi Dimitrov
Resisting Fa
Photos by Emilio Halperin 10 November 2016
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The massive electoral spectacle is over. “The people have spoken.” This bastard won instead of that other bastard.
Does it make a difference? Do the victims of American state terrorism care very much that the jackbooted thugs stomping on their necks are commanded by a proto-fascist authoritarian nationalist rather than a neoliberal warhawk imperialist? Do they care about the meaningless intricacies of the Electoral College and the popular vote? Nothing has changed. The coal- fired power plants are still online and new oil pipelines are still under construction. Immigrants are still being rounded up by the hundreds of thousands annually to be imprisoned and then deported. American factories still build planes, bombs, and tanks to sell to the murderous theocratic regime in Saudi Arabia, which is currently using them to indiscriminately slaughter Yemeni civilians. The police have already killed a thousand Americans this year, and they'll kill at least a hundred more by New Years.
Now is as good a time as any to get off your ass and fight back. You must throw your bodies onto the gears of the death machine and bring it sputtering to a halt! The world can’t wait for the next reality TV extravaganza (known as a US election) in a couple years. We can't wait until next time and sit around the television and clutch our “TI voted” stickers like lottery tickets, praying for the one in a billion chance that this election will finally solve our problems unlike the hundreds before that didn't.
Take to the streets and make trouble. Cover your face, link arms with your friends, and create endless headaches for the Trump regime every time they try to do so much as hold a press conference. The power is not in the ballot box, it never was. It’s in your hands and ours. When you refuse to follow police orders, and stand on the rails to prevent oil trains from passing, and block traffic on freeways, you clog up the arteries of the system, and cause a devastating heart attack. Give Trump a heart attack, stop the blood flowing to his fat fucking ass, and be free.
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UNITED WE RE
JANUARY
(20,2017 GENERAL STRIKE
Washington DC, New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Oaklan
* pRISON ft SLAVERY ha
MEDIA BLACKOUT: WORKER UPRISINGS 2016
Discourse is power. Political discourse shapes the vernacular that we have to explain our experiences with the world and with authority. While it is important to understand the presence of particular rhetoric and framings of issues, a trend of silence also affects our tools for challenging systems of power. In 2016, there have been a number of historic strikes across the world challenging austerity and neoliberal capitalism.
The United States Prison Strike
At time of writing, the US is currently in the seventh week of the largest prison workers strike in American history. Beginning September 9th, prisoners refused orders and started hunger strikes to protest deplorable conditions, slavery, and solitary confinement. This date marked the anniversary of the Attica Prison riot in 1973—an uprising in which the prisoners protested the human rights abuses in the American prison system and seized control of the facility. Today, strikers in California, Alabama, Florida, Wisconsin, and elsewhere have shut down production at prisons with a variety of demands. Accurate estimates are difficult to come by, but there appears to be at least 24,000 people involved.
Central to the prisoners’ rights movement is a recognition of the continuity of American slavery. Compared to 0.7% of white men, 4.7% of the African American population is currently imprisoned. African Americans account for nearly 1 million of the
At the heart of the strike, there is more than a finite list of policy demands; there is a critic of the very capitalistic system that perpetuates systemic inequality and alienation.
2.3 incarcerated people in the United States. Many of the “prison farms’ in the South are on the same land as slave plantations of the nineteenth century. Further evidence of the continuity is the explicit loophole to the Thirteenth Amendment: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction”
While this strike alone offers no promise to the end of American slavery, it presents a chance to turn the tide on involuntary labor— much like Nat Turner’s Rebellion in 1831 marked a turning point in 19th century slavery and foreshadowed the Civil War.
The India General Strike
On September 2nd an estimated 150 to 180 million public sector workers went on strike to protest Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s neoliberal reforms. Modi has pushed a platform of privatization and Hindu nationalism under the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party. While demands and grievances varied, the central themes among the strikers were calls for workplace democracy and greater wealth redistribution. Further, many workers in the informal economy—which accounts for around 90% of the workforce of the world’s fastest growing, large economy—participated in the massive strike
In addition to the sheer numbers of protesters and the inclusion
2016 has been a year of historic strikes. been so silent the trend?
of workers in the informal economy, the significance of this strike lies in the recognition of the failure of austerity and global neoliberalism. At the heart of the strike, there is more than a finite list of policy demands; there is a critic of the very capitalistic system that perpetuates systemic inequality and alienation.
Oaxaca Teachers’ Strike
With the election of Pefia Nieto, many Mexicans celebrated what seemed to bea return to the long-standing, de facto one-party rule of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) which, while authoritarian and corrupt, at least was relatively stable. However, recent neoliberal reforms sought by Nietos administration have sparked crises across the country. One such reform that they hope to implement involves education. Teachers in Mexico have enjoyed relative autonomy due to the strength of their unions. Nieto’s regime hopes to mandate examinations of teachers to determine whether they can continue their licensure. Teachers criticize this move as an attempt at a mass layoff and a way to undermine the power of teachers, especially those in indigenous communities. The unions argue that these reforms would not improve the education for students and cannot possibly test for the qualities needed to provide instruction in rural and indigenous communities.
To fight the reform, teachers went on strike in the states of Oaxaca and Chiapas, the states with the highest population of indigenous people. The protests and strikes only broke mainstream news after the police murdered at least nine protesters. The New York
Without a mainstream media source
covering or contextualizing these strikes,
workers and the masses cannot see the worldwide struggle for labor rights.
Why has the mainstream media
Times discussed the violence and the quoted condemnations from locals and the union leaders. This representation implied that the violence was the fault of the strikers and their allies rather than the militarized police force brought in to break the strike. The article, and mainstream news more broadly, did not mention the history of political disenfranchisement of teachers and indigenous people including mass disappearances and killings endorsed by the state and capitalists.
What does the silence say?
Without any mainstream media source covering or contextualizing these strikes, workers and the masses cannot see the worldwide struggle for labor rights. This limits the potential for any international workers’ movement from taking shape, despite the widespread dissatisfaction with the state of capitalism and authoritarianism. Those of us who have the resources and time to research current labor movements have the responsibility to educate our peers and fellow workers and students to help build a consciousness of worker solidarity that sees a struggle in India, Mexico, United States, or elsewhere as deeply embedded in a worldwide struggle for liberation.
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Normalizing the Nude: Exploitation vs. Empowerment in New Media
Self-portraiture is not a new phenomenon - in fact, we have no way of knowing just how early the first self-portrait was created. It has simply expanded over different mediums from painting and sculpture to film photography, and later digital photography. As smartphones are more commonplace now than ever, we all carry digital cameras, and thus the ability to produce a self-portrait with the tap of a finger; with just another tap, we can easily upload these photos to all of our social media accounts. The prevalence of smartphones therefore gave birth to the selfie phenomenon. Oxford Dictionaries’ 2013 Word of the Year was selfie, defined as “a photograph that one has taken of oneself, typically one taken with a smartphone or webcam and shared via social media” (OxfordWords). Millennials began being referred to as “the generation of the selfie” (Blow) and “Generation Me” (Twenge), as this widespread sharing of self-portraits became associated with narcissism and entitlement. But one could argue that millennials are simply using the new mediums they are given through the development of media. That is to say that the selfie is a new medium through which we can investigate self-portraiture - and therefore ourselves. Artists have always had the freedom to examine themselves through self-portraits. Now, without the limits of artistic ability or inclination,anyone with a cell phone can use their selfie for introspection and empowerment.In navigating the new mediums of communication and social interaction (that is,screen-to-screen over face-to-face), we embrace that every aspect of our humanity is becoming digitized - including even our sexuality. One way this is being explored is through the taking, sending, and even public posting of semi- or full-nude selfies (often called “nudes”), which have sparked controversy and questions of exploitation versus empowerment.
Artists vs. Amateurs
Like self-portraits themselves, nudes are not a new phenomenon. What is so controversial about today’s nudes is that they aren't being produced by artists, but by amateurs - “normal” or “everyday” people. This is where purpose comes into question; if artists produce nude portraits to investigate human sexuality and the beauty of the body, who’s to say that amateurs aren't doing it for the same purpose? Or is it sheer egotism? Or self-exploitation as a result of porn culture? Before the public social media of today, one might take nudes for a loved one - physical,printed photos kept to themselves, hidden in a drawer and shared with few others. With the development of analog to digital, new media makes all photos much more public. By sharing a photo with someone over email or text messaging, we give them the capacity to forward these photos to their friends, who can forward them to their friends, and so on. They have this same power with photos shared through direct messaging on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat. But because of the Terms of Service, we also lose complete ownership of these photos - basically, Mark Zuckerberg will never pay for porn again. Even more publicly,
By Sophie Bange art by Laura Isabella
individuals are posting nude selfies directly to their social media profiles.
They may even create profiles solely for this purpose, “sinsta” or “finsta” are new slang which refer to “secret” or “fake” Instagram accounts, often set to private so only those you approve can follow you and view your profile. But these can still be screenshotted and sent to the masses. You (probably) wouldn't walk down the street naked. So why post nude selfies to social media? Simply put, this is how we communicate now. Everything we do is shared publicly, from what we eat for breakfast to what time we finally unplug and go to sleep. Why should our sexuality be exempt from this?
Exploitation or Empowerment
Sent through private messaging, nudes are often delivered in confidence that the recipient will download the photo to their own personal device and keep it there for themselves. This is the digital version of the analog, physical photos which were kept hidden in a drawer. Unfortunately, this exercise of trust is often violated; entire websites exist dedicated to “revenge porn,’ defined by Oxford Dictionary as “revealing or sexually explicit images or videos of a person posted on the Internet, typically by a former sexual partner, without the consent of the subject and in order to cause them distress or embarrassment” (“RevengePorn’”). This exploitation has become so widespread that 34 states have laws against it; additionally, the Intimate Privacy Protection Act was introduced just this year (Franks), which, ifpassed, will completely criminalize revenge porn. The concept of using someone’s nudes as a means of exploiting them brings into questions of power.
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It could be argued that in taking a nude selfie, that individual has the power, as it is a means of self-examination and in the best cases, self-love and body positivity. The power position becomes more complicated once nudes are shared. Is it the sender who has the power to control whether anything is sent in the first place, and the content of what is shared? Is it the recipient, who now has the power to use the photos in whatever way they please? Or finally, is the power shared between both sender and recipient, as they both explore their sexualities and relationship with each other? It is safe to say that this depends highly on the situation.
In the case of the sender, power has a very complicated role. Looking at your own naked body through a lens or on a screen, provides a new perspective through which to view yourself. Body positivity has become a movement, encouraging people not to view themselves through the societal lens of the ideal body type but instead realistically and with love. In addition to challenging societal standards, nudes challenge gender roles in sexuality and power relationships. Artist Hester Scheurwater argues that women can regain power through the self-portrait; in her own photography, she tries “to question the contemporary codes of femininity as we a see them in all sorts of advertisements. These codes define women as fake sex objects and link a woman's identity with a male point of view of sexuality. I try to appropriate these clichés of the ‘sensual, seductive’ woman and flip them on their head”(Kane). In choosing to sexualize themselves, women may take power back. Finally, nudes can allow someone to explore their own sexuality. The idea of someone admiring their naked body from miles away could be exciting and empowering; thus sharing a nude does not necessarily equate to losing power.
On the other hand, giving a sexual partner power over these photos may be equally arousing. Sharing your own nude photo on a social media account could be a means of exploring
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exhibitionism. Through the taking and sharing of nudes, we can investigate sexuality and even push the boundaries of what is acceptable through the new media.
Recipients of nudes have the power to share these photos further, making them a means of blackmail or exploitation. Revenge porn stems from a societal issue of a lack of respect. Victims of revenge porn are objectified, reduced to the imagine of their naked body. But would revenge porn be so effective if we didn’t live in such a modest society? What if the nude was - God forbid - normalized? On a recent episode of Saturday Night Live, cast member Leslie Jones addressed her own experience of being hacked, as nude photos of her surfaced online in September. She said, “I am very comfortable with who I am... If you wanna see Leslie Jones naked, just ask!” (Sapos). In this way Jones preaches body positivity and challenges the idea that women must be modest to be respectable. She is empowered by her sexuality and isn't afraid to express it. That’s not to discount those who prefer keeping their bodies private - we simply should all have the right to expose or conceal ourselves as we please in new media without the threat of being slut-shamed or harassed. As Dr. Mariann Hardey of Durham Univeristy States, “Women should be allowed to portray themselves in a way they feel enhanced by. Who didn't experiment with cutting their hair off or dying it pink when they were younger? This is just a natural progression of experimenting with the changing interfaces of being young and one of these interfaces, yes, is sexual identity” (Day).
The taking and sharing of nudes is just one element of the digitization of our lives. It combines the freedom of expression with self-examination and exploration of sexuality. By examining the relationships with power that this introduces, we challenge societal expectations such as the ideal body type and modesty, particularly in women. These expectations are slowly becoming obsolete - and society’s operating system must be upgraded to accommodate this. We deserve to have the right to share what we want on the internet, and viewers of this content should respect our ownership of it.
References
Blow, Charles M. “The Self(ie) Generation.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 7 Mar.2014. Web. 18 Oct. 2016.
Day, Elizabeth. “How Selfies Became a Global Phenomenon. The Guardian. Guardian News andMedia, 13 July 2013. Web. 20 Oct. 2016.
Franks, Mary Anne. “It's Time For Congress to Protect Intimate Privacy.’ The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 18 July 2016. Web. 21 Oct. 2016
Kane, Ashleigh. “Can Women Regain Power through the Self-portrait?” Dazed. DazedDigital.com, 14 Sept. 2015. Web. 19 Oct. 2016.
OxfordWords. “The Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2013.” OxfordWords Blog. OxfordDictionaries, 19 Nov. 2013. Web. 18 Oct. 2016.“Revenge Porn - Definition of Revenge Porn in English.” Oxford Dictionaries. OxfordDictionaries, n.d. Web. 20 Oct. 2016.
Spanos, Brittany. “Watch Leslie Jones Joke About Internet Hack, Rip Trolls on ‘SNL? RollingStone. Rolling Stone, 23 Oct. 2016. Web. 24 Oct. 2016.
Twenge, Jean M., PhD. Generation Me: Why Today's Young Americans Are More Confident,Assertive, Entitled - and More Miserable than Ever before. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014.Print.
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HOW'S MY PRISON HEALTHCARE? "Ask The Ghosts”
by Timothy J. Muise
When | was a young man, | would have scoffed at the proposition that "Ghosts" existed. | drank beer in cemeteries, brought dates to haunted mansions, and cracked jokes about the Salem Halloween antics. Today, | believe in these wholeheartedly as | hear them screaming down the corridors of the prison hospital units; crying for justice!
If you want to know about prison healthcare, you need to ask the ghosts. You can ask my dear friend Billy Barnoski about how when he was dying from a brain tumor, his lungs full of MRSA, and no one told him. They knew, these prison Kavorkians, but they kept it secret. Billy's family, my extended family, did not find out until the autopsy. Billy screams for justice at Shirley's Hospital Unit.
You can ask Lefty Gilday, a man who helped to get dozens of men out of prison. When Lefty was held in a “Solitary Confinement” medical cell and could not open his food trays, they just piled up. No nurse, doctor, or evil candy-striper would even consider opening the trays for him; he was left to starve to death at 90 years of age. Thank God another convict came by and fed Lefty. Lefty is letting out blood curdling cries for mercy in the Secured Nursing Facility at MCI Shirley.
If you were to talk to the ghost of Frankie Soffen, he would tell you how he was left in a feces and urine filled adult diaper for over twenty-four hours on several occasions. Frank's private areas looked as if the skinwa:sandblasted off and nurses would say, "I'm not dealing with him. I'm hung over,” and Frank would lie there in his filth. Evil has no limits in these gulag hospitals. Frank Soffen haunts the shiny waxed corridors of Shirley's Health Services Unit.
Dying of cancer, old Herbie was begging for an increase in pain medication. A prison warden, with no medical training, told Herbie that he was "at his limit" and could not get more unless he was sent to the "end of life unit” at Shattuck Hospital. Herbie moaned in pain each night, begging to be sent to Shattuck, but this evil deputy, snakes in her hair, kept him in pain for weeks until he ultimately succumbed to the cancer. She is our Himmler. Herbie rolls a ghostly wheelchair up and down the halls, moaning in pain to this day.
One of the "dregs of humanity", as Mark Twain called prison guards, spends his day snapping plastic cups into the ear of a deaf, 70 year old, dying veteran, and verbally abusing a bed-ridden dementia patient. He hides the wheelchair of an old man with brain cancer and eats the fruit that was sent for the patients to eat. His ear-to-ear evil grin reminds the sick and dying octogenarians in the gulag sick-bay that their lives are literally in his evil hands. His victims, untold and growing, haunt the cells and dormitories of the hospital. These ghosts scream out for justice, they plead for mercy, they are demanding that the evil be exposed.
How's my prison healthcare? The answer is “haunting”. | avoid the hospital like the plague and | pray each day | do not get sick. Ghosts are real and they live in the prison hospitals. Listen to them. Help us expose the evil there. It has to be exposed, and the evil doers held accountable, before it can be changed. Listen to the ghosts, they are calling out to you!
14
Pe 39 fie a fra | ts | ‘WHOEVER THEY VO7E FOR, WE ARE (7
: UNGOVERNABLE
OW 2
ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE
MAKE AMERICA GREAT FOR ONCE
MAKE AMERICA NOT EXIST
The Anti-Trump Agenda: Making America
Donald Trump is pus-sucking pond scum. And because of this, he ripped his racist, reactionary, authoritarian, warhawk campaign slogan straight from Ronald God-damn Reagan, the murderous tyrant himself, one of the pus-suckingest pond- scummiest killers to ever disgrace the Earth. “Make America Great Again, Trump says, as if we were ever better than we are today.
Make no mistake, America is a terrible place full of injustice and exploitation and a deadly blight on the rest of the planet, but in the past we were actually worse. Through bloody struggle every step of the way, slavery was abolished, the vote was granted to all adults, divorce, birth control, and sodomy were legalized, Jim Crow was ended, a passable welfare state to mitigate capitalist atrocities was instituted, and the murderous march of te ae Manifest Destiny finally came to an end somewhere in the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico and thankfully never spread any further than it already did in Hawaii, Alaska, Puerto Rico, and Guam. That's progress. Things are better.
Hillary Clinton's characteristically tepid response to this slogan was to half-heartedly proclaim: No, “America Is Already Great.’ Those on the radical left and perhaps the “woke” segments of liberalism set the record straight finally with an accurate slogan: “America Was Never Great.”
However, rhetorically, of course, neither response is an adequate challenge to the Trumpist-Reaganist sloganeering. ‘Make America Great Again’ is a two-part statement. It makes an implicit factual claim about the past and present, as the other two slogans do explicitly, while also containing something they do not: a positive vision for the future. Putting aside for a moment the fact that the Trumpist vision for the future is demonstrably not better than our present (and that’s saying something), it is true that a vision for the future is needed. It’s not enough to be right about the past. We—defined as those who strive for a freer, fairer, and more equal world—have to have something to set forth as a vision for the future.
The record was finally set straight: “America Was Never Great”
It is here that we reach a fork in the road, diverging into two paths that I’ve pithily characterized with two alternative slogans: Make America Great For Once and Make America Not Exist.
The first is a positive project, a constructive one. Build, refurbish, and replace institutions in order to make America actually freer, fairer, and more equal. Build a democratic society; people-run and/or free in every sphere.
The second is a negative project, a destructive one. Recognize there’s not time to lose and wage war against America, destroying what destroys you. Physically disrupt, block, and attack the means of oppression.
Its not immediately clear—to me, at least—which is preferable or feasible. The circumstances are dire and only one thing is obvious: America’s means to nourish life need to be considerably improved and its means to destroy life—by Air Force bombs, cops, prisons, bosses, poverty, advertising, misogyny, pollution, mining, and fossil fuels—need to be drastically reduced. Action must be taken now!
Thisis the choice before us, these are the avenues of struggle. Build power for the people, or destroy power altogether. In some ways no choice is necessary, both can be pursued simultaneously. But in other ways, they are very much opposed. The union struggle, and the social welfare struggle for example, involve treacherous but necessary compromises and cooperation with the state and capital. Such compromises and cooperation would likely be fatal in the equally crucial struggle against police power, imperialism, surveillance, and further environmental destruction, where total refusal and unrelenting attack are the only means available. These struggles can't be waged at the same time by the same people.
Which means all you ranting, raving, radical utopian lunatics out there, like us, have to decide whether you want to build up or tear down this failed project called America.
16
17
All too often anarchism as a movement and a discourse is
oriented toward collectivist ideology. I mean this in a literal sense of an ideology. Much of what is called anarchism seems to be more of a form of Hegelianism. Possibly it becomes a way for Marxists to smooth out the more and more obvious contradictions of their ideology. To many so-called anarchists, freedom means freedom for the megamachine, the Leviathan man, the superorganism they inhabit.
The emphasis of anarchism should always be individual freedom. Individualism doesn’t mean nonsense like capitalism. Capitalism is a collectivist ideology as well, a structure of interlocking components. Individuality is not even the avoidance of other people. Most people want to be around others, with the exception of some hermit types. It strikes me as unreasonably misanthropic to mandate communal organization, as folks like anarcho-communists do. Organizational and meeting fetishists seem to think that if they should cease their ritual, their revolutionary ideology would collapse. And there is truth to this, the perpetual meetings of Bookchinists and Occupy drones are intended to indoctrinate participants into an insular subculture (who’s the lifestyle anarchist, college boy?) This ritualistic behavior creates structures which keep the participants in line, and possibly push a leader (or two) into a position of self aggrandizement at the expense of other participants.
I am often pessimistic about others, but this is due to the social roles we inhabit. Pushing individualism and egoist liberation functions to break down these social roles. The liberation of one is the liberation of others. Most individuals want the presence of others. Liberated individuals will probably choose communalism. Mutual aid will take the form of a union of self-owning ones. The coming together enhances individual freedom and pleasure, becoming synergistic mutuality, where our freedom together is greater than the sum of our isolated and atomized parts.
It is difficult to determine how this individual freedom will be assured. It has been suggested that it should be formalized as a document, such as a bill of rights. I think this is the wrong way to go. As it is formalized and put into a static written form, it becomes legalistic. Once it is legalistic it becomes a game of easy manipulation and can be turned on its head by any lawyer or logician. It may make sense to include it in forms such as mission statements for shared spaces and projects, but this is always of limited utility.
The only way to assure the continuation of freedom is a continual struggle. Any time authoritarian structures begin to form they must be destroyed. This process never ends. Life becomes perpetual struggle, becomes perpetual war for perpetual freedom. This is okay, life is struggle. Insurrection never ends and civil war becomes the definition of a free society.
Campaign to Play For Keeps PO Box 10894 Albany, NY 12201
Bliss by: Jason Rodgers
A bit of self destruction can go a long way The motivation is not angst, but bliss, causing me to smash up my face a little
a bit reactionary, certainly,
but what else can I do,
trapped in a labyrinth of hyper alienation? Trying to escape these catacombs,
by any means available.
Moralism always judging everything in a binary way Id rather holistic
the embrace of the value
of the full spectrum of existence. Transvaluation of sensation
ultra vice in sin-sation
Enemies
I am not your ally. We are not comrades. Leftism is merely another authoritarian ideology. Your very attitudes preserve the hegemony of the totality. You may try to redirect blame away from yourself, saying that we need to unite to fight the "real’enemy". Just because your leftist management
fiinctione 2 > ODDOSITION +o the rinht Yo)
society, move even further. Authoritarian leftists love to say that people should join their coalition because they agree with some isolated point. Well, I'm sure if I talked to a National Socialist long enough we would find some obscure point we could agree on. I am not going to join forces with them. I am not going tO join forces with Lereists. Talk of fighting the "Real domination to mere spooks. Control s fight. The enemy is here. Control is ine Domination comes out of our social intera
reduces the nature of power and ems become windmills to endlessly weryday life, or it is nowhere. tions. Leftists would preserve
te ACL
The difference between the left and the right is like the differenc between Coke and Pepsi. the left is just the right with more meetings. This is the direction we are moving in. Totalitarian social control is becoming democratized. We're all dictators ofeach other. We'll all live in our own Sweatshops (with workers' self management). We'll all live in Auschwitz (with a People's Gestapo Collective). We'll all live in participatory panopticons. Thank you comrade!
Campaign to Play For Keeps
Al} lhant FAt Oat)
18
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en Julian Kane
In 2014, Marten Gilens of Princeton and Benjamin I. the same; a Bill has approximately a 30% chance of becoming law. Page of Northwestern University set out to answer one simple In the land of the free, and the home of the brave, if you want to question: what kind of political system do American citizens live know whether this or that tax plan will be favored in the House under? Instead of taking the _ ' of Representatives, don’t bother easy route, and cracking open Average Citizens Preferences conducting a public opinion one of the 50 year old social poll, instead, just draw straws studies textbooks populating with two other people. American classrooms, they However, the authors did decided to put our claim of find one group whose opinion representative democracy to does impact the likelihood of the test. Analyzing a data set a bill becoming law. There was that included key positions a strong, positive correlation for 1,779 policy issues, Gilens between support from economic and Page gauged the degree of elites and likelihood of political support among the American success. If not a single wealthy public for a range of policies 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 person throws their backing and compared it to the Bencank audi proposed palleyauance behind a bill it has virtually no likelihood of Congress passing chance of passing, but if there a bill supporting that policy. is universal support among the They characterized their moneyed classes of America, it results as follows: 40% carries an optimistic 60% chance
“Clearly the median of passage through the people’s citizen or ‘median voter’ branch of government. at the heart of theories of How exactly did we get here? Majoritarian Electoral Has there been a recent coup Democracy does not do well de tat? Perhaps the military when put up against economic stormed the capitol while elites and organized interest everyone was taking a leak? This groups. The chief predictions of would certainly be comforting pure theories of Majoritarian 0% information to learn of. After all, Electoral Democracy can 0 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 if we wake up one morning like be decisively rejected. Not Percent favoring proposed policy change any other and learn our voices only do ordinary citizens not do not resonate one iota within have uniquely substantial power over policy decisions; they have _ the halls of power, then the most pertinent question to ask is; have little or no independent influence on policy at all...When the our voices ever mattered at all? For many people living here today, preferences of economic elites and the ze a the answer is certainly no. The United stands of organized interest groups are There was a strong, positive States has a far longer history of denying controlled for, the preferences of the Meeecacielesemeyaaiiasel support jaee)eem Lights to vast swaths of its population average American appear to have only then it has of ‘granting’ those same rights. a minuscule, near-zero, statistically non- Yet from time to time victories are won, significant impact upon public policy.” political success.’ emancipations are gained, and one can
Whether one of the 1,779 easily be fooled into seeing our history policy positions analyzed had no support among the American as an unstoppable, gradual, and altogether affable broadening people, full support, or somewhere in between, the results remain of freedom for all Americans. This would be a grave mistake.
a] r 40%
+ 30%
20%
10%
OF N WRN DN 1 Percent of cases (grey columns)
0%
Predicted probability of adoption
Economic Elites' Preferences
30% 20%
10%
CORN WR WH DN
Percent of cases (grey columns)
Predicted probability of adoption
economic elites and likelihood of
With every patriotic act of dissent has followed a Patriot Act of
censorship and surveillance, every Martin Luther King comes with ten Joseph R McCarthy’s. Oppressive actions in the US have been legal, illegal, and everywhere in
between and while volumes can be
(and have been) written about these
multitudes of crimes, I would like to
talk about just one of the most recent: 4 the Citizen's United Supreme Court ruling. for A M
Since 1905, various regulatory systems have been implemented to reform campaign financing. Even in those early years, the fundamental goals of reform advocates resonate with our present situation. To preserve democratic discourse, citizens fought to limit the disproportionate influence of wealthy individuals and special interest groups on the outcome of \\ | iil! federal elections, they fought to ¥ ° I a regulate spending in campaigns "iw for federal office, and to deter Sijimm abuses by mandating public disclosure of campaign finances. © In 1971 Congress passed the Federal Elections Campaign Act or FECA, establishing guidelines es to achieve these goals. Under E the newly established Federal 3 Elections Committee, limits were E placed on the amount individuals ™ and corporations could | contribute to political campaigns, = and all donations were required |yy_ to be disclosed to the public. As : E time went on, more regulations a were added in the hopes of preserving those democratic B ideals. Although many scandals certainly occurred, the FEC was instrumental in shaping an election system with the interests of the American people at heart. Such an organization clearly could not stand.
Into the arena steps the ultra-conservative non-profit organization Citizens United who, in 2008, brought a case against the FEC to the Supreme Court. At issue, was whether their self- funded “documentary” titled Hillary: The Movie shouldbe allowed to air weeks before the 2008 democratic primary. Although, the specific circumstances of the case may seem narrow and inconsequential, the Court’s ruling was anything but. In a 5-4 decision, the Majority found restricting corporate expenditures on_ political groups to be illegal; they declared money to be a form of speech, thus protecting any and all donations to Political Action Committees
(PAC). Mr. Moneybags had finally been set free, and he was just getting started.
“The likelihood of the laws being
enforced is slim. I never want to give
up, but ’'m not under any illusions.” - FEC Chair Ann Ravel
es |
In subsequent rulings, vast loopholes were created 501 c(4) organizations, you may know these organizations from their colloquial name: Super Pacs. These sound pretty bland right? Well the upshot of a Super Pac is that now, along with having no limits on how much they could donate, corporations EF R | C A to these oh so benevolent-sounding lobbyists without the requirement of ever disclosing one penny of their money publicly; the only caveat being that “social welfare” groups must not be primarily directed towards politics. What does “primarily directed” mean exactly? Well, to put it simply, it means LU Fiorina demonstrated quite ae) {AN FP * clearly in 2015.
ee TAEHAT ES Seah Like any of the multitude of Republicans in = the 2016 primaries, supporters . of Carly Fiorina formed a » Carly for America, to gather as much cash as possible. Of course, no Super Pac could be formed solely for the purpose A of supporting a presidential _ candidate; that would violate a 501 c(4) organization. In a rare case of government = oversight, the FEC issued an q order, not to disband the Super Pac, but simply to change * their name. Compliance was _illegally gathering unlimited, .,, Undisclosed money for a fae potential leader of the free = world, legitimized itself by = becoming Conservative, " Authentic, Responsive
the acronym is CARLY for America. You may believe that I am being hyperbolic. Perhaps I am just cherry-picking a few outrageous examples, in an otherwise tightly monitored election system. If that is the case, don't take my opinion on the FEC’s lack of oversight; take the word of likelihood of the laws being enforced is slim...I never want to give up, but ’m not under any illusions. People think the EE.C. is dysfunctional. It’s worse than dysfunctional...What'’s really going on is that the Republican commissioners don't want to enforce the law, except in the
allowing so-called “social welfare” special interests to register as could now funnel unlimited money
whatever the fuck people want it to mean, as friends of Carly : — Super Pac, naming theirs
their non-political status as
swift, overnight a Super Pac
Leadership for You and for America. In case you didn’t catch that, their chairwoman, Ann M. Ravel. “The
most obvious cases. The rules aren't being followed, and that’s
20
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destructive to the political process.” The committee is comprised of six members; three Democratic and three Republican appointees, in a surprise to absolutely nobody, rulings are perpetually split along party lines, thus preventing the committee from enforcing any regulations.
One does not have to look far to see the effects these changes have had in our electoral process. Since the 2004 presidential campaign, spending has exploded from roughly 700 million dollars to between 2 and 2.4 billion dollars per election cycle. Candidates are entering races sooner than at any other time in American history, out of necessity, to raise extravagant sums of money. Many prospective leaders often shun large, public rallies in favor of small and exclusive meet-and-greets with the nation’s ultra-wealthy. Congress men and women spend the majority of their time in Washington soliciting donations, often from those they are supposed to be regulating. Campaign advertising perpetually increases with ever more desperate pleas for money. And the American people become more and more disenchanted with our political process. At this time, our present situation must be addressed.
As I write this, Donald Trump has yet to be sworn in as President of these United States. Many forces have conspired to allow him to become the most powerful man in the world. While I do not understand all of these forces entirely, there is one thing I am certain of: the anger that has been directed at our political process is rooted in the perception of corruption in our electoral system. That is to say, the reason so many people feel that “the system is rigged” is because they believe elections to be rigged, not in favor of one party or the other, but to whomever donates the most money to both parties.
No government in history has been free of corruption. Our nation can endure a myriad of scandals, but what truly frightens me is not the presence of some unethical behavior in government, but the perception that government simply is too corrupt to bother with. When people cease to believe that government can be a tool for justice, cooperation, and peace then they vote for candidates supporting retribution, isolation, and hatred. If government becomes so tainted in our eyes, that it no longer can represent all people fairly, many will favor candidates that represent themselves unfairly.
Again, corruption in campaign finance does not fully explain why Donald Trump is president. Racism, xenophobia, misogyny, and fears of globalization all played a large role in this election. What cannot be denied however is that Donald Trump exploited the sense of powerlessness felt by millions of Americans, predominantly in the white working class. People outside of this demographic have felt this powerlessness for centuries, but as unjust as it is, if one group feels the loss of power they will not be comforted by knowing others have felt the same. In fact, what is far more likely is that they will seek to invalidate the suffering of others to make their own sense of loss feel more acute.
This will be a very difficult time for many who have been historically disenfranchised. An issue as vague and abstract
Donald J. Trump | October 16 at 12:32pm - @
i@ Like @ Comment
The election is absolutely being rigged by the dishonest and distorted media pushing Crooked Hillary - but also at many polling places - SAD!
a> Share
as campaign finance reform certainly is not on the minds of many people right now. I care far more about the 11 million undocumented immigrants that Donald Trump has vowed to rip away from their families then I do about whether Jeff Merkley, my Senator, has to disclose all of his campaign donors. But I think this misses the point. When people feel fairly treated, their better angels do emerge. The 60 million people who voted for Donald Trump are not devoid of compassion; I know some of them personally. But power is a zero sum game, and if the lions’ share of it remains firmly in the hands of the wealthy then one might expect those at the bottom will fight for as much as they can grasp, or simply lash out at the system which gave them so little.
But this view stands in contrast to our history. Although power has never been granted freely in this country, ours is not a tradition of splitting apart and fending for ourselves against those who seek to oppress. Ours is a history of coming together and striving to overcome. There are some so infatuated with hatred that they would prefer never to work with those they consider Other. But there are far, far more willing find common ground, if only they could be reached. Making campaign finance reform a priority, may demonstrate to those people that we all can succeed by sharing ideas and sharing power.
"But it is not enough for me to stand before you tonight and condemn riots. It would be morally irresponsible for me to do that without, at the same time, condemning the contingent, intolerable conditions that exist in our society. These conditions are the things that cause individuals to feel that they have no other alternative than to engage in violent rebellions to get attention. And I must say tonight that a riot is the language of the unheard. And what is it America has failed to hear? ... It has failed to hear that the promises of freedom and justice have not been met. And it has failed to hear that large segments of white society are more concerned about tranquility and the status quo than about justice and humanity."
--Martin Luther King Jr. The Other America 1968
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EARTH “3% ANIMAL LIBERATION LIBERATION FRONT . FRONT ractics for the wetense of
\ileged ELE/ALE (iernbers
“Our first victory is that we defend ourselves, despite the fact that nothing enables us to foresee victory.” -Mauvaise Troupe, Defending the ZAD
Once charged, the chances are slim that any alleged ALF/ELF member is walking away from a federal prosecution free and clear; evidence, or lack thereof, notwithstanding. The ALF/ ELF are “organizations” the U.S. government (i.e. the corporate state) considers by far and away the top domestic terrorist threat. According to the FBI, the ALF/ELF were responsible for 43 of the 57 reported “terrorist” attacks committed between 2000 and 2005. See FBI, Terrorism 2002-2005, 64-65 (2005) at: http:// www.fbi.gov/publications/terror/ terrorism2002-2005.pdf. No one was injured or killed in any of them. & The fact that both the ALF and ELF scrupulously avoid harming living
beings, including people, means
nothing to the US. government,
which slaughters people on a
daily basis in order to protect ae the property and interests of the corporations that control it. Hard evidence of the lengths to which
the US. government will go to
obtain convictions of alleged ALF/
ELF members, including outrageous overcharging, is available for all to see in, among other things, published case law. E.g., US. v. Tankersley, 537 F.3d 1100 (9th Cir. 2008); U.S. v. Christianson, 586 F.3d 532 (7th Cir. 2009); and USS. v. Waters, 627 F.3d 345 (9th Cir. 2010).
Unfortunately, there seems to be two things most, if not all, of the lawyers representing accused environmental militants fail to consider: 1) the righteousness of the ALF/ELF cause and actions; and 2) the reason U.S. government attorneys are so eager to plea
Daniel McGowan was impris- oned for seven years for an ELF arson against a logging company
bargain these cases is to avoid the publicity of a trial, or trials, that would easily expose the inherent corruption of the U.S. government, and the corporations it represents, to the light of the ALF/ELF cause. As Emma Goldman so wisely said, “My trial would give me a wonderful chance for propaganda. I must prepare for it. My defense in an open court should carry the message of anarchism to the whole country.’ Thus if all else fails, ALF/ELF defendants, who are going down for an alleged crime against the state and property, should step up and insure the state goes down with them by speaking out, like Goldman, by claiming and explaining their actions in public!
These two points, alone, give the defense a decided advantage when negotiating plea-bargain agreements, an advantage ALF/ELF defendants have evidently failed to capitalize on to date. If anything is clear in the miasma of the U.S. justice system, it is that government attorneys fear publicity and will negotiate to avoid a trial where an ALF/ELF defendant can take the stand and expound on their beliefs. Consequently, it boils down to a game of chicken - the government's fear of publicity versus the defendant's or defendants’ fear of a long sentence. What, after all, do you think the reason for prosecutorial overcharging is? It gives them something to bluff with!
In no uncertain terms, the defense should make clear to the prosecution they plan on taking the case to trial, while emphasizing every potential weakness in the case. For example,
in Marius Mason’s case, the fact his ex, Frank Ambrose, got caught and turned informant for a deal, throwing him under the bus, is something almost all people find abhorrent. Nobody likes a snitch, not even juries, but in our current patriarchal society a husband selling out his spouse is the absolute worst kind of snitch. Assuming the prosecution’s case would have been built around Ambrose’s testimony, Mason's lawyers should have let it be known they would be moving for a pretrial hearing, where they would call Ambrose, the agent-in-charge and the Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) to the stand and question them about Ambrose’s deal while under oath. As such, they would have established a record they could use on cross-examination at trial, which is a big signal they were going to trial and Mason would be taking the stand, even if their intent was to negotiate a plea bargain.
This bluffing has worked well for me over the course of the long-running Drug War. I once negotiated a potential sentence of 10 to 20 years all the way down to a 1-year, time- served sentence. In my case, since Ive a well-founded trust issue with most lawyers, who are, after all, officers of the court, the bluffing was applied to my lawyer as well as the prosecutor.
regarding any deals by any co-defendants, or potential co-defendants, in return for their testimony in court and remained adamant that I was going to a jury trial. Consequently, prior to my circuit court arraignment, the prosecution offered a plea bargain for 7 to 20 years. I turned it down flat. Subsequently, prior to a pretrial hearing, I was offered a sentence of 3 to 20 years, which I also turned down by stating I wanted to go to trial. Finally, on the day of trial, I was offered the 1-year, time-served plea bargain. However, by then, I'd figured out they had no case, so I turned that down, went to trial, and was
Marius Mason is still in prison on I demanded a pretrial motion be filed] g 9 2-year sentence for ELF arson
attacks against logging in Michigan
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acquitted. As officers of the court, most defense attorneys try to get you to take the first plea-bargain offered, especially court-appointed ones. Nevertheless, almost all of them are adverse to taking a case down to the wire and on trial. Especially, if they are being paid a flat fee. Time is money in the capitalist system, after all, and most lawyers are businesspersons first and foremost, officers of the court second, and your representatives third. Such being the case, I must definitely advise taking it to the wire. If the AUSAs call your bluff, then go to trial, take the stand and expose the duplicity of the prosecution, the _ evidence against you, pointing out that unconstitutional statutes are not law and let the jury know they have the right to acquit you regardless of what the law says.
The latter is called jury nullification. John Jay, the First Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) said in 1789, “The jury has a right to judge both the law as well as the fact in controversy.’ This statement was echoed by SCOTUS justices Samuel Chase in 1796, Oliver Wendell Holmes in 1902, and Harlan F Stone in 1941. See US. v. Doughtery, 473 F.2d 1113, 1139 (D.C. Cir. 1972).
1/2014
In sum, make a fucking stand for what you believe in. Wasn't that what you were doing in the first place? Use your trial as a platform to mobilize public opinion to support you and your case, especially if your bluff fails and you're going down anyway. Easy enough to do if your actions were aimed at saving the planet, the animals and all life from the grasping and destructive hands of greedy, self-serving, capitalist corporate scum!
Eco-sabotage is not dead! Earth First! Newswire reports unknown heroes have set fire to construction equipment along the route of the evil Dakota Access Pipeline and caused $2,000,000 in damages. Police have no suspects.
http://earthfirstjournal.org/news- wire/2016/10/17/series-of-arsons-along-dapIl- causes-2-million-in-damages/
Earth First!
Providing news and information about direct action in defense of living systems around the world.
24
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wow dailynews.com THE WORLD'S FAVOURITE NEWSPAPER weew daitynews.com THE WORLD'S FAVOURITE NEWSPAPER
Neo-Nazi Mob Murders Gay Rapper Pavlos Fyssas In Greece
Transgender Man Brandon Teena Raped and Murdered
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Matthew Shepard Bex Ugandan Legislature Tortured, Left To Die in pies Life in Prison oming for Sodomy
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25
Don t internalize the hate - Retaliate!
KILL HOMOPHOBL NOT YOURSELF
2/
Power means force. Literally. In every sense of the word. Power is kinetic, physical force, moving material objects to and fro. Sometimes the objects are cars and planes and turbines and assembly lines, sometimes the objects are human beings. The quest for control over power is the prime directive of systems of domination like the state and capitalism, racism and patriarchy. Political and economic power means, very literally, physical force acting upon human bodies. It also means the sources of electricity and combustion (power) that drive the machines that enhance political and economic power.
Very often, the capitalist, racist, and/or state forces in their quest for power attempt to exert control over both human bodies and sources of energy,
simultaneously. We're all familiar with the wars and destruction fought for
control over oil, one of the most precious and unholy of all sources of energy (power).
Right now, as this magazine goes to print, a skirmish is being fought on US-occupied territory in the center of the North American continent. The Standing Rock Sioux, a tribe of Native Americans, after enduring a century and a half of defeat, humiliation, and murder at the hands of white men (seeking power), make a
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last stand on the small plot of land they have left: the Standing Rock reservation. Energy Transfer Partners, a Fortune 500 gas company, plans to despoil and exploit this last small parcel the Standing Rock Sioux have left, by building a pipeline right through it, to move gas produced by fracking from the Bakken fields of North Dakota, to a terminal in Illinois where it can be processed. As we've seen over and over again, in Alabama and New York and hundreds of other places, these pipelines frequently leak, and sometimes catastrophically explode, spilling hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil, oftentimes into crucial water sources or #) sensitive ecosystems. This can poison drinking water and kill animals. It already has in many places. Indeed, the Dakota May Access Pipeline is already , understood to be so dangerous ‘j that the mostly white residents r 5 4 of Bismarck, North Dakota (not @ exactly a town full of hippies and environmentalists) voted against allowing the pipeline to travel through their city, *" because of the very reasonable ~ fears it would leak and poison their water resources. So instead it was rerouted to travel through an area where the residents have less power: the Standing Rock Native American reservation.
There, resistance has been fierce. Thousands of protesters have showed up to defend the land and the water and, crucially, to prevent the construction of new fossil fuel infrastructure. They've built barricades, charged at the police on horseback to break up their lines, chained themselves to construction equipment, and called on the world to demand the federal government and Energy Transfer Partners stop the pipeline.
The crackdown by police has been brutal. Dogs have set loose and bitten people, tear gas and pepper spray was sprayed aimlessly into the crowds, and thousands of largely peaceful protesters have been rounded up and arrested.
This is the essential relationship. The quest for control over energy is the quest for control over bodies. Controlling energy
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NO DAKOTA ACCESS PIPELINE
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NO DAKOTA ACCESS ‘PIPELINE
The quest for control over energy is the quest for control over bodies.
means stealing land and despoiling resources, controlling bodies means inflicting pain and preventing movement via restrictive devices like handcuffs. This is what capitalism is about, this is what it’s for. Control. More for the few at the top, less for everyone else. The energy being transferred by the Energy Transfer Partners is for powering the devices and systems that give more control to the capitalists, and reduce control for us.
But the brave indigenous resistance at Standing Rock aims to disrupt this process, to be ungovernable and uncontrollable, to keep chemical energy (power) in the ground lest it poison our water and heat up the Earth, and to resist and break out of the control (power) of the ruling class.
©2016 MAI
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AKOTA NO ACCESS
STOP THE BLACK SNAKE DAKOTA ACCESS PIPELINE
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STOP THE DAKOTA ACCESS PIPELINE
all art by Marty Two Bulls, 2016
AQUARIUS 21 January - 19 February
2 Never trust a cop, wi, especially not on ay | Thursdays.
ARIES 21 March - 20 April
“Power to the people” includes you too.
GEMINI \| 22 May - 21 June
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VIRGO 24 August - 23 September
Fire is a tool, and a useful one. Burn uncontrollably.
SCORPIO 24 October - 22 November
No prison can contain you anyway, but don’t let them
a) Scale document down
LEO 23 July - 23 August
Snitches get stitches.
LIBRA 24 September - 23 October
try. di Inspiration only comes from action. Don’t think, do. CAPRICORN SAGITTARIUS 22 December - 20 January AM ; 23 November - 21 December Smash authority ANS before it é | smashes you. he BS xt \ ; oy Revolution The ee: requires love, Thee ae $23 yw but it also J NS
requires hate. 30
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They Can’t Stop Us; Why Break Windows?
The attack is the most beautiful moments an anarchist can undertake. Feeling the adrenaline of rushing to a window with a rock in hand, or the moments before striking a cop with your fist. Planting the bomb, pulling the trigger, shouting FUCK THE POLICE!. The attack is an experience unlike any other, one many of us desire to experience, and many of us have experienced. We get tingles and a rush of adrenaline just thinking about it. Picturing ourselves tossing the lit Molotov at a line of riot police is one of the most entertaining day dreams all of us have. Power alone in scandalous thoughts many in our own milieu have tried to extinguish. They tell us we can't blow up a social relationship, but time and time again we show them we had a hell of a time trying.
Anarchist attack is a tradition, and a foundational base of anarchy. Without the attack as the actualization of our desires and dreams, what are we but bitter Marxists begging the working class to follow us? Without the attack we are but mere political elites, constantly talking down to the slaves “below” us in hopes of them joining our ranks, by signing up for our Listserv or joining in our boring chants all about the “power” of the “working class.” We are just sophisticated creatures who talk talk talk.
The attack serves as a reaction to the constant tension between those below and those above. Our declarations of hatred are a downtrodden reaction to the strengthening grip social order holds around our throats. The bomb is planted not only to instigate a reaction, but to defend against violence initiated against us, social and material grips on our self, locking the gate to our unique selves, declaring us criminals and roaches to be crushed under the boots of state tyranny, capital exploitation, and sexual shame. So much power pressing us against the walls in hopes to keep us there, willingly working and slaving away to continue the death march to extinction for profit and power. Boots on our throats, hands on our necks, and knives to our crotches, and they wonder why we react!
But among this reaction, this tension, we still do the work of our enemies for them. Shaming other comrades, letting them rot in prison alone without love and support, letting liberals boss us around because we dont fit the criteria for their petty leadership. Selling out other comrades on ideological lines and dogmatic principles. Solidarity can feel dead at times, even at a moment when passion burns brightest.
At this point in history we have reached an interesting rock and hard place with lines blurred between right and wrong, where the liberal fog of non-violent “resistance” is but a facade fewer and fewer individuals are upholding. A time when Molotov cocktails have been thrown in America. A time where it feels as if nihilist anarchism is growing in popularity. A time where Murray Bookchin’s ideas have actually inspired a revolution. We are currently holding our breaths, humming before the tension reaches a boiling point. So, why break windows you ask? Simply put, why the fuck not? However, before we can answer why...
an essay by Armenio Lewis illustrations by Laura Isabella
1: The Anarchist Tension
Asa child, do you remember feeling tense, agitated when your parental figure ordered you around the house? Demanding you pick up the toys, to do your homework, and be respectful. Initiating this false facade of “legit” authority over your young and adventurous self? At the time, or currently depending on your age you felt that tension. That bubbling rage inside desiring to shout NO! So petty we think now, but is it petty or is it microcosmic?
In school, work, or out on the town we can see and feel this tension everywhere. When the school child refuses an order barked at her solely because her skirt is “too short” and “distracts the boys.” When your boss demands you perform better because you “just look like you aren't performing at your best.” When the cop pulls the gun on the black person solely for walking where society doesn’t want them.
Tension is our conceptualization of the power produced between opposing forces, contradictory forces. Whiteness against Blackness, the state against the criminals, society against the individuals. Tension is how we describe the grasp of our throats by the boot and the pressure of conformity. Our own conceptualization of a bubbling force of againstness between us and them. Some say look at the grey, but it is as black and white as a dichotomy can be. There is no middle ground with power, you have it or you don’t. You are the powerful being in charge, or you are the bitter and resentful slave below.
Recognition of one’s social and material placement. An understanding that the weight is on our shoulders. Our daily interactions are upheld by this tension, as is the slave’s reaction. Confrontations on every street corner surround us, and hold dominion over our existence because that is what life is. A constant tension, a feeling of weakness.
But within this recognition, we find the difference between tension, and anarchist tension. The slave, the common worker, understands this relationship but accepts it with open arms. Opening the door to the unwanted guest out of a fear of repression and failure. Eager to please the ferocious monster, as it laughs. Selling their own child over to the beast to be sacrificed as they were, to become yet another common worker. To become yet another slave to drive the death march home to a decayed and destroyed earth, with only the faintest hint of nature left. This comrades, is what separates tension, from the anarchist tension.
The anarchist tension is not defined by the destructive and tyrannical relationship between the worker and the boss, rather it is defined by the bullet lodged in the boss’s head as the worker runs in gleeful hurry to the nearest safehouse. The anarchist tension is defined not by the “checking of privilege” but the fist to the face of the obnoxious bro calling the sexy lad a faggot. The anarchist tension is not defined by the unease of submission but the refusal and reaction against expected submission. The anarchist doesn't stop at saying no, they continue until death.
2. The Anarchist Reaction
Like tension, there exists a difference between reaction against power, and the anarchist reaction against power. For the common slave, a reaction is simply a venting of unease. Complaints amongst co-workers about how hyperbolic the boss presents themselves. Women in the club bathroom mocking the jocky dude bros who hit on them in the most asinine ways. The reaction of the slave is merely a tension reliever that does not confront those with power head on, but rather directs rage into small pockets that ventilate it so they can continue another day of miserable existence.
A more modern and personal example of this would be the petition. Internet sites such as Change.org, or Whitehouse.gov contain the possibility to make a petition, and then make it viral
one outside of social media. It should also be stated all of these sites feature ads, which generate revenue for these sites. This venting is not only useless, but it is commodified! Tired of racism and white supremacy? Read this article. Oh, and also generate us money while youre at it!
And this is where the anarchist reaction diverges from the simple reaction. As anarchists, we take things further. We are radical, rebellious, iconoclastic slightly nihilistic individuals whose only goal is to destroy what destroys us. Capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, all of these are apparatuses of domination that aim to control us, that expect us to submit. They are not met by a simple proclamation of againstness but a swift and decisive action that not only proclaims but shocks those in power. From the simple smashing of windows, to the placement of a bomb, or
for a week, in an attempt to garner as much gossip and support as possible. Then, when all is said and done, the petition and all talk of it disappears until a new petition takes its place, or a new social cause arises to get people riled up. Constantly shifting, but taking momentary pauses and going back to shopping, working, and general submission.
Another modern example would be the role of opinionated journalism sites that tout “social justice” as a meaningful concept such as Huffington Post, or Jezebel, or even Black Girl Dangerous, posting article after article about the hot new social issue affecting modern society and all of its inhabitants. Like petitions however, they are but minor ventilations that simply proclaim a sense of againstness, but never actualize into
the robbing of the bank, our actions are heard and felt rather than ignored and treated as everyday life.
As anarchists our reaction is not simply venting but constant and consistent anger and rage towards this society. Our anger isn’t centered and focused on minute details of specific apparatuses but against them in totality. Our anger isn’t brushed aside, it is fought back against with harsh repression. FBI raids, long prison sentences, infiltrating state agents. So many resources are placed against us because of our reaction, not because of our positioning. Anyone can proclaim that they are against the police, but that is but a reaction. We not only proclaim, but we act by smashing up the state’s vehicles and torching their offices, this is an anarchist reaction.
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3. Why Break Windows?
Finally, to the point of this essay; why break windows? As stated at the beginning this question has a very simple answer that doesnt need entire pages to explain and justify. The smashing of a window is simply a microcosm of grander actions taken by other anarchists. Whether you are pro-violence and nihilist terrorism, or if you are against it, we can all agree it is much grander than smashing a simple window. However, as anarchists grand is not the point of our rage. Whether we build a solidarity network to help those in our lives resist the control and abuse by tenants pulling sleazy tactics, or if we rob a bank to fund our revolutionary activities, we are all contributing to a simple idea that we are the creators of our experiences. Not society, not capitalism, not socially constructed systems of control like race or caste. In our
and simple attack with friends! Smashing a window is the most intense form of attack and tension building you can do without facing too much legal repercussions. Smashing a window is also ridiculously easy.
A wise anarchist once told me in his poetic writings that freedom is not an achievable goal, but rather a lived experience, that we feel when participating in clandestine and violent acts against the establishment. Tagging will make you feel free, smashing a window will make you feel free. Yelling FUCK THE POLICE with a crowd will make you feel free. Simple acts with no meaning, except the meaning that comes with the anarchist reaction and the anarchist tension.
Smashing windows is also a very popular, and very effective actualization of propaganda by the deed. I would not be
own ways, we all fight back and it is important not only tactically, but emotionally to support and declare solidarity with acts that resist and fight back. We can critique, and boy do we, but we can also accept and praise.
So rather than validate and justify window smashing, I would rather take a more risky route and attempt to convince you why you should the next opportunity you get.
The smashing of a window, like all acts of resistance, is as exciting as it is risky. The adrenaline of running up to a window and smacking it with a flag is an experience unlike those which we commonly experience. Telling a cop to fuck off is nothing compared to smashing his car’s window out! Tagging “Fuck gentrification” on the wall of that new coffee shop is nothing in comparison to smashing its windows out during a riot or a small
writing this if it wasn’t for an anarchist smashing a window in- front of me. How exciting and fun that looked! I kept hearing chants of “Anarchy now!” as well, so of course I went to google. Will smashing a window inspire everyone? Of course not! It will however, inspire someone.
Lastly, why not? Smashing windows largely take place in three possible situations. A riot, a street demo, or a night time action taken with comrades. Alternatively and most oftenly, the act takes place when all three are combined. In all of these situations you are there because you are an anarchist, so make it an anarchist reaction! Turn the boring chants into loud declarations and demands for freedom, then experience freedom and feel what it is like to resist and fight back as an individual, take power for yourself and throw the brick!
4, It Won't Change The World; But It Will Change Your Night!
The most common argument against smashing windows, really the only argument worth engaging, is that window smashing does nothing to advance the “anarchist cause/movement” and “only makes others hate you!” Let’s take a look at the various forms this argument exist in.
1. It both does, and does not, change things. Nobody is going to argue that smashing a window will incite a mass and global revolution where workers worldwide seize the means of production and finally abolish the state, absolutely nobody argues that, because that is not the point to breaking a window. Breaking a window is but an individual expression, an anarchist reaction. Breaking a window also separates the leftist charade, a.k.a. street parade, from the riot. Boring chants, boring leaders giving boring talks, boring walking in circles doing nothing but holding a sign. Until, that is, a window is smashed. Dumpsters being thrown into the street and set on fire, projectiles being thrown at cops. A tone and aura of againstness and rage culminating into the most exciting moment of your boring life. Smashing a window is not a logistical choice to strategically advance a movement, but an individual decision to react and fight back and finally feel a sliver of freedom.
2. Smashing windows do not hurt workers, and if they do, then shouldn't that business be smashed and torched? A common argument presented is that when you smash a window, workers pay for it. This is partly true, as workers pay for anything anyone does to or with the business, because they are workers. If a janitor has to clean up a broken window, is that not already part of their job? Workers are defined by their business and the roles in place, which is already a damaging relationship anarchists are against. Why do we pretend we are saving them when we choose not to, or stop someone from smashing a window? The only worker you are protecting is yourself to finally feel good about something you did and pretend as if you are some savior. Enough with this, anarchist! Lastly, let’s say the worker’s pay is docked because of a smashed window. Why don’t we organize a solidarity network and get that pay back? Hit them on multiple fronts, don’t discourage action for the sake of presentation.
3. Finally, it isn't about looking good. We are not politicians, we do not have to care about being presentable or respectable. We are anarchists for crying out loud! We state within our very name that we are against all this society stands for. Is it any wonder why they shame us? As if your union strikes are as well liked as teenage rioters. Both are presented as parasitic scum, damaging the core of this society. Both are presented as something to not follow and join in on, yet for some reason people do anyways. Why is that? Because either people will like us, or they will not. Treating ourselves like show dogs, making sure all our hair is trimmed and fluffy and cuddly, will not change a goddamn thing because at the end of the day we are still a show dog whose only reason for existence is to garner money for their owner.
Is it valid to not personally partake or agree with window smashing? Of course, but to so publicly shame and harass those who do? As if your existence is any more relevant?
5. Whatever You Do, Get Away With It.
The fear of repression is the state’s strongest enemy, so, how do we as anarchist combat this? Simple. BE SMART. Getting away with smashing a window is incredibly easy, so here are a few tips.
1. Wear gloves. Crime shows are fiction. They cannot simply get your prints from a cell phone app. Prints, in reality, are actually quite difficult to gain, however one should still take precaution. It is obvious why if you are already in the system from prior arrest, but if you are not here is something to remember. The state recognizes patterns extremely well. If fingerprints are reoccurring not only are they stored in the database, but our link together. If you do get caught, well there is the evidence. How to avoid this? WEAR GLOVES. Really any gloves will do. You can buy black gloves for a dollar at the dollar tree for example, or find them anywhere in a cheap store. Also, garden gloves will hide your prints. Lastly, for those extra cautious, wear latex gloves underneath your gloves.
2. Cameras are everywhere, hide your fucking face. The eyes and forehead, as well as the hair of an individual are not only the most recognizable features of the face, but when linked together make the state yell “Gotcha!” It’s very easy to hide all of this. WEAR ALL BLACK AND BLOC UP. Simple guides are everywhere, and if nervous about NSA spying, simply google “how to look like a ninja”
3. No time is better than now, but safety first. As important as it is to act and react, it is also just as important to not do so blatantly in front of a cop, or in the middle of a quiet time around a bunch of peace police. Some will argue, fuck that do it whenever and I agree with this position, but Iam me and they are themselves. Are you willing to face time in a cell? It’s okay if you arent, but take care of yourself and realize you could get caught.
4. Don't brag about it. It's awesome, exciting, fun, and something you really want to share with others but for the love of god keep your mouth shut because it will get you caught. In closing, smashing a window is fun but like all acts of resistance it has its own danger. I personally argue to not worry about getting caught, and merely take your rage with you in prison and beyond. However, I am me and my own individual being. We are anarchist, not Marxist. You make your own decisions. Are you all about getting away with it, or are you uncaring? Neither determine how much of an anarchist you are, rather they determine who you are and what is important to you and that is okay.
Smashing a window won't change the world, nor will it inspire a thousand new window smashers. It will make you feel a sliver of freedom and give you a memory worth keeping to keep yourself inspired and angry. It will grant you experience, knowledge, and excitement. It will give you something to be proud and happy about amongst the constant depression we all face about how miserable this world is. So, when asked why smash a window, answer back with...
woos WHY THE FUCK NOT
34
POWE R playlist
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36
WORD SEARCH OF FAMOUS ANARCHISTS
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B R D H x c s K xX N x E E Vv M D N @Q Mikhail Bakunin Bob Black Judith Butler Voltairine deCleyre Lorenzo Kom’Boa Ervin Emma Goldman Peter Kropotkin Lucy Parsons Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Lucia Sanchez Saornil Max Stirner John Zerzan Alexander Berkman Alfredo Bonnano Noam Chomsky Buenaventura Durruti Peter Gelderloos David Graeber Errico Malatesta Fredy Perlman
Rudolf Rocker Jean-Paul Sartre Oscar Wilde
Shout-out to some of our favorite publications... Stop by the ROAR Center in the EMU to check them out!
Earth First!
Media from the Frontlines of Ecological Resistance
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|
Resource Guide for STUDENT INSURGENTS
(that’s you) ROAR Center Groups Radical Organizing & Activism Resource Center (ROAR)
Stop by the suite 006 in the EMU or email roarcenter@gmail.com. The ROAR Center is home to SLAP. Student Insurgent, Young
Eugene and Campus Resources
Student Survivor Legal Services For free legal support to student survivors of sexual assault, dating violence, domestic violence, and stalking, call 541-346-
Democratic Socialists, and Oregon Voice. It is a place to learn about8619 or schedule an appointment online at law.uoregon.edu/
radical organizing, leftist political theory, and get involved with campus movements.
Student Labor Action Project (SLAP)
Past and current campaigns include petioning for Measure 97, $15 Now, Consumer Protection Finance Bureau Loan Forgiveness Pledge, GTFF strike, and protecting the rights of student dining
workers. Contanct uoslap@gmail.com to get involved.
Student Insurgent (that’s us)
studentinsurgent@gmail.com
Young Democratic Socialists
survivor.
Safe Ride and Designated Driver Shuttle
Call 541-346-RIDE(extension 2) to schedule a free ride! Want to get involed? Email saferide@uoregon.edu or asuodds@uoregon. edu.
Food Pantry
For up to date distribution times look at the Facebook page “Student Food Pantry” and the website ‘uostudentfoodpantry. wordpress.com.
Sexual Wellness Advocacy Team (SWAT)
Email swat@uoregon.edu to get information on SWAT’s workshops on consent, relationships, dating violence, and
bystander intervention.
YDS is the youth wing of the Democratic Socialists of America and Food Not Bombs - Eugene
fights for political reforms in the interesting of the working class, as well as feminist, anti-racist, environmentalist, and pro-LGBT actions.
UO Solidarity with Standing Rock
The ROAR Center has organized an ongoing campaign to raise awareness and solidarity with the Standing Rock tribe protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline. Ask a ROAR codirector for more information.
Oregon Voice
The Oregon Voice is a pop culture magazine on campus at the University of Oregon that is open to anyone interested in publishing their artistic creation: art, poetry, fiction.
Email is publisher@oregonvoice.com
FNB is a decentralized global network of collectives that aims to provide free, vegan meals for all and fight hunger. Get in contact
at eugenefoodnotbombs@gmail
UO Climate Justice League
Past and current campaigns include the effort to force the University of Oregon endowment to divest from fossil fuels, as well as pressing the university to power its facilities with renewable sources. Get in contact at
climatejusticeleague@gmail.com
Students for Choice Email s4choice@uoregon.edu to get involved with pro-choice activism and promote reproductive rights.
Anarchist Black Cross - Eugene
ABC is a century-old global network of activists and revolutionaries promoting solidarity and mutual aid with imprisoned individuals, especially imprisoned anarchists. Email is socialunlimited@gmail.com. Send mail to
Eugene ABC c/o Student Insurgent
ROAR Center
1228 East University Street
Eugene, OR 97403
Cascadia Forest Defenders
Direct action group focused on defending the forests of the Pacific Northwest from logging and development. Weekly meetings at
Growers’ Market Upstairs
454 Willamette Street
Eugene OR
https://forestdefensenow.wordpress.com/
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Student Insurgent ROAR Center
1228 East University St Eugene, OR 97403
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a ~The next télease of the Student Insurgentis _~the Party, Issue! Send us all your art}ipoetry; and proseyabout fat ragers and getting wasted, and about formal political organizations and electoral agendas. Tell us whatjyou.think*about toga parties and communist parties’ Rack your. brains onshipjbetwee and creative ideas about/the
relationship)between young people obliterating their minds with alcohol and the Democrats and Republicans obliterating your freedom with laws
and taxes. Any and all submissions (by post or email) are welcome!
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studentinsurgent@gmail.com