This is only the first set of answers to come in from our Greek comrades. We hope shortly to receive further perspectives from other elements of the Greek uprising, so we can provide a comprehensive background on the context and dynamics of the revolt. If you or someone you know is situated to give your own answers to these questions, please email them to us at rollingthunder@crimethinc.com.

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How were the actions coordinated within cities? How about between cities?

There are hundreds of small, totally closed affinity groups—groups based in longstanding friendship and 100% trust—and some bigger groups like the people from the three big squats in Athens and three more in Thessaloniki. There are more than 50 social centers in Greece, and anarchist political spaces in all the universities of the country; also, the Antiauthoritarian Movement has sections in all major cities, and there is a network of affinity groups of the Black Bloc active in all Greek cities, based on personal relations and communicating via telephone and mail. For all of them, Indymedia is very important as a strategic point for collecting and sharing useful information—where conflicts are happening, where the police are, where secret police are making arrests, what is happening everywhere minute by minute; it is also useful on a  political level, for publishing announcements and calls for demonstrations and actions.

Of course, we can’t forget that in practice the primary form of coordination was from friend to friend through mobile phones; that was also the main approach used by young students for coordinating their initiatives, demonstrations, and direct actions.

What kinds of organizing structures appeared?

a.) All sorts of small companies of friends were making spontaneous decisions in the streets, planning actions and carrying them out themselves in a chaotic, uncontrollable manner: thousands of actions taking place at the same time everywhere around the country . . .

b.) Every afternoon there was a General Assembly in squatted schools, squatted public buildings, and squatted universities . . .

c.) Indymedia was used for announcements and strategic coordination of actions . . .

d.) The various communist parties also organized their own confederations of students . . .

e.) . . . And also, one especially influential federation was organized by the friends of Alexis, to organize the students’ demonstrations and actions, the squatting of schools, and to publish general announcements from the students’ struggle.

Were there any structures already in existence that people used to organize?

For the young students who were in the streets for the first time, and also for the immigrants who participated, the telephone was more than enough; this produced a totally chaotic and unpredictable element in the situations. On the other hand, for anarchists and anti-authoritarians, the General Assemblies are the organizing tool they have used for the last 30 years during any kind of movement. All affinity groups, squats, social centers, university occupations, and other organizations have their own assemblies, as well. Some other participants included left political organizations and left and anarchist university political spaces. During the fight, a lot of new blogs appeared, and new coordinating networks of high-school students.

What different kinds of people have participated in the actions?

The majority were anarchists, half of them older ones, some at high risk as they had previous charges for actions and would have to face custody if they were arrested. Beside them were thousands of school students 16-18 years old. Alongside these groups were immigrants, thousands of university students, many “gypsy” [Romani] kids taking revenge for social repression and racism, and old revolutionaries with previous experience from other social struggles.

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What different forms have the actions taken?

a.) Smashing, looting, and burning were the main actions that the young people used. They often attacked the expensive shopping districts, opened the fancy luxury shops, took everything from inside, and set fire to it in order to counteract the effects of the tear gas in the air. Many turned cars upside down to serve as barricades, keeping the police at a distance and thus creating liberated areas. The police used over 4600 tear gas bombs—nearly 4 tons—but people set countless fires, enough to maintain areas in which you could breathe despite this chemical warfare waged by the state against the people.

When the thousands of people on the streets realized that the black smoke of the fires could cancel out the white smoke of the tear gas, they used the tactic of burning everything at hand as a protection from the tear gas. Other techniques included the smashing of the pavement with hammers, to produce thousands of stones for people to use as projectiles; and, of course, the personal initiative of producing and throwing molotov cocktails. This last tactic was used especially to force the riot police to fear and respect the demonstrators, and also as a way of controlling the space and time of attack and escape.

b.) Attacks with sticks, stones and molotov cocktails were carried out against countless banks, police stations, and police cars across the country. In smaller cities, the banks and the police were the primary or only targets, as the small-scale society and face-to-face relations discouraged the smashing of shops, with the exception of a few multinational corporate franchises.

c.) Hundreds of symbolic occupations were carried out in all kinds of public buildings, municipal offices, public service offices, theaters, radio stations, TV stations, and other buildings by groups of 50-70 people. Also, there were many symbolic acts of sabotage and blockading of streets, highways, offices, metro stations, public services, and so on, usually accompanied by the distribution of thousands and thousands of pamphlets to people in the area.

d.) Every day there were silent protests, art happenings, and non-violent actions in front of the parliament and in all cities. Most of them were brutally attacked by the police, who used tear gas and arrested people.

e.) Leftists organized concerts in public spaces with the participation of underground bands and also politically conscious pop stars. The biggest one in Athens involved more than 40 artists and drew over 10,000 people.

f.) Controlled student demonstrations were organized by the Communist Party. Many of these attracted much less participation than the chaotic spontaneous student demonstrations.

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How many of the participants in the actions have been involved in similar actions earlier? For how many of them do you think this is their “first time”?

Many thousands of people were experienced anarchist insurrectionists, anti-authoritarians, and libertarian autonomists; half of them were older anarchists who come into the streets only in very important struggles, as most of them have previous charges. There were also many thousands of young people who were radicalized over the last three years in the course of the social struggles for Social Insurance and against the privatization of education, and also in the huge spontaneous demonstrations that took place during the fires that burned almost 25% of the natural areas of Greece in the summer of 2007. We estimate that for about 30% of the people, this was their first rioting.

Which of the tactics used in the actions have been used before in Greece? Did they spread in the course of this rebellion? If they did, how did it happen?

Most of the tactics used in this struggle have been used for a long time now in Greece. The most important new characteristic of this struggle was the immediate appearance of actions all over the country. The assassination of a young boy in the most important area of anarchist activity provoked an instantaneous reaction; within five minutes of his death, anarchist cells all over the country had been activated. In some cases, the police were informed much later than the anarchists about the reason they were facing attacks from the people. For Greek society, it was a surprise that the majority of young people in the country adopted the tactics of “anarchist violence, smashing and burning,” but this was a result of the generalized influence that anarchists’ actions and ideas have had in Greek society over the past four years.

Have any conflicts emerged between participants in the actions?

The Communist Party separated itself from anarchists and leftists, and organized separate demonstrations. Also, the announcements that the Communist Party published, their appearances in the corporate media, their speeches to the parliament, and the negative propaganda that they carried on against all leftist organizations prove that they are a real enemy of any kind of efforts for social change.

What is the opinion of the “general public” about the actions?

What is called “general public” during a period of tele-democracy is something that needs a lot of discussion.

Generally speaking, the “general public” feel fear when the TV says that we were “burning the poor people’s shops,” but the people know well what kind of shops exist in the expensive districts where the riots took place; they feel fear when the TV says that angry immigrants came out to the streets and looted, but also they know that the immigrants are poor and desperate, and also that it was only a minority of them that came to the streets. There were many artists, theoreticians, sociologists, and other such personages who offered explanations about the revolt, and many of them were beneficial for our causes; some were probably trapped by their need to participate in the spirit of the times, while others were using the situation as an opportunity to honestly express their real ideas. The “general public” is angry about the murder of a 15-year-old boy by a police officer, and they hate the police much more than before; anyway, nobody liked the police in the first place. The majority of “normal” people in Greece don’t trust the right wing government or the past (and probably future) socialist government, and they don’t like the police, expensive shops, or banks. Now a new public opinion is appearing that offers all the social and ethical justifications of revolt. If it was difficult to govern Greece before, now it will be much more difficult.

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How important to the context of these events is the legacy of the dictatorship in Greece? How does it influence popular opinions and actions in this case?

In 1973, the young people were the only ones who took the risk to revolt against the seven-year-running dictatorship; even if this was not the only cause of the end of dictatorship, it remains in the collective memory that the students saved Greece from the dictators and the domination of the US. It is a common belief that young people will put themselves at great risk for the benefit of all, and this produces a feeling of hope and a tolerance of the students’ actions. Of course, this story is now an old story and though it influences the background of the fights, it is not mentioned in reference to this conflict.

Another influence comes from the student struggles of 1991 and 1995 against the privatization of education, which succeeded in changing the plans of the government and saved public education until today. Granted, the revolt of December 2008 was probably the apex of the anarchist movement in Greece until now, as it appeared all around the country and with a great deal of influence on the actions and slogans and ideas of a general part of the society; but the earlier student struggles, especially in Athens in 1991 were more visible and more generalized.

Do you think troubles in the economy are as important in these events as the corporate media is saying?

The young people from the many rich areas of Athens also attacked the police stations of their areas, so even the class war Marxists have serious troubles to explain what is happening: the separation of the rich and poor doesn’t seem to matter as much as long-existing solidarity and participation in the fight for equality and social justice.

On the other hand, Greeks between the ages of 25 and 35 cannot make families and have children, because of the economy. Greece is the most underpopulated society in all Europe. But we don’t talk about that here as the cause of the revolt. Young people are angry and they hate the police, capitalist cynicism, and the government in a natural, instinctual way that doesn’t need explanations or a political agenda. The local media tried not to speak in depth about social conditions here the way the English, French, or US media have. The local corporate TV stations attempt to pass off lies about chaotic “masketeers” with no ideas and no social identity, because the moral influence of anarchists is so strong now in this society that if they start to talk seriously about our ideas on television, society could explode. With the exception of some TV programs and newspapers, most of the mass media are trying to separate economic issues from the chaotic revolt.

Even the leftists from the May ’68 generation, when they speak to the media, say that the smashing and the riots are not political expressions of the needs and the hopes of the people—that the anarchists and young people don’t have the ability to express a political agenda, and the people need other kinds of political representation. Of course, all this has little influence on the young people who will participate in the social struggles of the future, as after this struggle there exists high tension and a great distance between the younger people and any kind of political leadership or authority.

What other motivations, besides anger against the police and the economy, do you think are driving people to participate?

The personal and collective need for adventure; the need to participate in making history; the chaotic negation of any kind of politics, political parties, and “serious” political ideas; the cultural gap of hating any kind of TV star, sociologist, or expert who claims to analyze you as a social phenomenon, the need to exist and be heard as you are; the enthusiasm of fighting against the authorities and ridiculing the riot police, the power in your heart and the fire in your hands, the amazing experience of throwing molotovs and stones against the cops in front of the parliament, in the expensive shopping districts, or in your small silent town, in your village, in the square of your neighborhood.

Other motivations include the collective feeling of planning an action with your best friends, making it come true, and later hearing people tell you about this action as an incredible story that they heard from someone else; the enthusiasm of reading about some action that you did with your friends in a newspaper or TV program from the other side of the planet; the feeling of responsibility that you have to create stories, actions, and plans that will become global examples for the future struggles. It is also the great celebrative fun of smashing the shops, taking the products and then burning them, seeing the false promises and dreams of capitalism burned in the streets; the hatred for all authorities, the need to take part in the collective ceremony of revenge for the death of a person that could have been you, the personal vendetta of feeling that the police have to pay for the death of Alexis across the whole country; the need to send a powerful message to the government that if police violence increases, we have the power to fight back and society will explode—the need to send a direct message to society that everyone has to wake up, and a message to the authorities that they have to take us seriously because we are everywhere and we are coming to change everything.

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Are political parties succeeding in co-opting energy from the uprising?

In “real” numbers, the Socialists have increased their lead over the right wing government, gaining an 8% lead in the polls; the “European Social Forum communists” lost 1% even though they helped the revolt, but still they are in third place with 12%; the Communist Party has 8%, the Nationalist neo-fascists 4.5%, and the Green Party is holding steady at 3.5%.

It is also interesting that the leader of the Socialists appears now to be regarded as first in “capability to govern the country” after many years with much less popularity than the right wing prime minister. The riots had a great effect on the political scene: the political parties seemed unable to understand, explain, or react to the massive wave of violence and participation from every level of society. Their announcements were irrelevant to what was really happening. Their popularity decreased dramatically among the younger population, who don’t see themselves in the logic and the politics of the political parties and don’t feel represented by them.

What has been the role of anarchists in starting and continuing the actions? How clearly is their participation seen by the rest of society?

Over the past few years, anarchists have created a network of communities, groups, organizations, squats, and social centers in almost all the major cities in Greece. Many don’t like each other, as there exist many significant differences among the groups and individuals. This helps the movement, though, as the movement now can cover a great variety of subjects. Many different kinds of people find their comrades in different anarchist movements and, all together, push each other—in a positive, if antagonistic, way—to communicate with society. This communication includes creating neighborhood assemblies, participating in social struggles, and planning actions that have a meaning for the general society. After 30 years of anti-social anarchism, the anarchist movement in Greece today, with all its problems, limitations, and internal conflicts, has the capability to look outside of the anarchist microcosm and take actions that improve society at large in ways that are readily apparent. Of course, it will take a lot of effort for this to be obvious, but day by day nobody can deny it.

As for the role of anarchists in starting and continuing the actions . . . especially at the beginning—Saturday and Sunday, December 6 and 7—and also in the continuation after Wednesday, December 10, the anarchists were the vast majority of those who carried out the actions. In the middle days, especially on Monday when the destructive Armageddon took place, students and immigrants played a very important role. But the vast majority of students found it easy to feel satisfied after one, two, or three days of smashing, and then went home or attended demonstrations with a more pacifist atmosphere. Likewise, immigrants had to face a very strong backlash from locals, and they were afraid to return to the streets.

So the 20,000 anarchists in Greece started it, and continued it when everybody else returned to normality. And we have to mention that the fear of returning to normality helped us to keep up the fight for ten days more, putting ourselves into great danger as acts of vengeance for the assassination of our comrade transformed, in our fantasies, into preparations for a general strike. Now European society knows once and for all what a social insurrection looks like, and that it is not difficult to change the world in some months.

But you need all the people to participate and play their roles. The young people of Greece sent an invitation to all the societies throughout Europe. We are awaiting their responses now.

How much visibility do anarchists have in Greece in general? How “seriously” is anarchism taken by the majority of Greek people?

In a way, you can say that it is just three or four years now since anarchists started to take themselves “seriously” so we are seen that way in the broader society. It is only in the past few years that we have succeeded in expanding beyond the limitations of the anti-police strategy that had characterized our efforts for 25 years. According to that strategy, we attack the police, they arrest people, and we do solidarity actions, over and over again. It took us 25 years to escape from this routine. Of course, the anti-police attacks and fights continue, and the prisoner solidarity movement is stronger than ever, but the anti-social element inside the anarchist movement is under conscious self-control and we can speak, care, and act for the benefit of the whole society now, using actions and plans that can be comprehended much more clearly by at least a part of the society.

Many actions, like the attacks on supermarkets and the free distribution of stolen products to the people, became very popular and well-accepted. The attacks on banks, especially now following the economic crisis, are well-accepted also, and the attacks on police stations have been adapted and utilized by high-school students around the country. In one way or another, we have been the first subject in the news for the last 15 days. Generally speaking, with our participation in students’ or workers’ struggles and also in ecological struggles, every week some action taken by anarchists attracts attention and offers visibility to the anarchist movement.

This doesn’t mean that “anarchism” is taken seriously by the majority of Greek people, as most people still believe the lies of television that describe us as “masketeers” and criminals, and also the majority don’t have any idea about how an anarchist society could ever function—that includes most of the anarchists, also, who refuse to address this question! But our actions, critiques, and ideas have strong influence now on left and progressive people. It’s not possible anymore to say that we don’t exist, and now our existence radicalizes the majority of the younger generation.

What role have subcultural groups—like punk, squatting, and so on—played in making the uprising possible?

After ’93 we had a strong tendency in the Greek anarchist movement—accompanied by many serious internal fights—that eliminated the influence of “subcultural” styles inside the movement. This means that there is no punk, rock, metal or whatever anarchist identity in the Greek anarchist movement—you can be whatever you like, you can listen to whatever music you like, you can have whatever style or fashion you like, but that is not a political identity.

In the street fights this month, many “emos” participated, together with hippy freaks and ravers, many punks, heavy metal boys and girls, and also trendy, normal kids and students that like Greek music or whatever. It has to be social and political consciousness, social critiques and collective understandings that bring you to participate in the anarchist movements, not fashion. Of course, for at least the last 19 years the Void Network and similar collectives have played the role of offering a cultural introduction to radical political spaces. Such groups organize many cultural/political events, festivals, and parties every year and have the power to attract thousands and thousands of people to underground cultures. But even Void Network doesn’t create subcultural identities, doesn’t separate the different subcultures, and tries to organize events that include most of the underground cultures. It’s true, though, that the majority of the people in the scene attend and participate in most of the events of the d.i.y. underground culture; many events are organized every month in liberated spaces.

What things have made the anarchist movement healthy in Greece?

The separation from subcultural identity politics made people understand that to call yourself an anarchist it takes much more serious participation, planning, creativity, and action than just wearing a t-shirt with the antichrist on it and walking around in punk concerts drinking beer and taking hypnotic pills. Now there is an understanding that to call yourself an anarchist you have to come to demonstrations, to come out into the streets with banners and black or red-and-black flags, shouting slogans together and manifesting an anarchist presence. Also, that you should participate every week in one, two, or three different assemblies with people for one, or two, or three different preparations of different actions, plans, or struggles to call yourself an anarchist. You have to be friends with people you trust 100% to plan anything dangerous, you have to be aware and informed about anything that is happening in this world to decide what the proper course of action is, you have to be crazy and enthusiastic, to feel that you can do incredible things—you have to be ready to give your life, your time, your years in a struggle that will never end. It is healthy not to have expectations, because then you don’t get disappointed. You don’t expect to win. You are used to appearing, fighting, and then disappearing again; you know how to become invisible as a person and visible as collective power; you know that you are not the center of the universe, but that any time you can become the center of your society.

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In what ways do you think the anarchist movement in Greece could be better or stronger?

We need to find more intelligent ways of explaining our ideas to people. We need techniques of political communication with all of society, better and stronger ways to make the “political translation” of our actions and put the whole struggle in its social context. In a tele-democracy, where the politicians are nothing more than television superstars, our refusal to communicate with or through the mass media is healthy, but we need to find new ways to overcome the mass media “consensus reality,” the media propaganda against us, and find ways to explain the causes of our actions to society. As long as whatever the TV shows “exists” and whatever doesn’t appear on TV “doesn’t exist,” we will be there with our crazy ideas, the dangerous actions and the street fights to break the normality of the TV program, we will use the negative advertisement of our actions to kidnap the fantasies and dreams of the common people. But how can we explain our positive ideas to everyone? How can we help people cease to trust the media? How can we come into contact with millions and millions of people?

It will take millions and millions of posters and free pamphlets, traveling hand by hand in the streets; it will take millions of invitations for demonstrations and participation in social struggles; it will take more free public services in sections that the government don’t want or cannot cover—free anarchist doctors and teachers, free food, free accommodation, information, underground  culture, and so on—that can bring people closer to our ideas. It will also take more and more squats and social centers. If you can start a squat, that is better, but even if it’s not possible to squat in your town, rent a building with your friends, take care of the bureaucracy, make a collective, start an assembly, and put the black or red-and-black flag in the entrance. Start offering the people of your city a living example of a world without racism, patriarchy, or homophobia, a place of equality, freedom, and respect for differences, a world with love and sharing. We need more “Autonomia” in the insurrectionism of the Greek anarchist movement, to make it shine as a paradigm of a new wave of social life and demonstrate this novel survival methodology in the metropolis.

How effective has police repression been in shutting down the anarchist movement? How have people resisted it?

The dreams and plans of the insurrectionists came true: a huge wave of participation “overpassed” the anarchists, and for many chaotic days people traveled and fought in the city like never before, in an unfamiliar time and space of existence.

In the same days, of course, they came face to face with the limitations of insurrection. The people now spend many hours in long discussions about how to expand popular understanding and invent practices, actions, and methods that will sustain and enrich the struggle. Many people think about ways that will bring really close all the different elements of this revolt. The police repression didn’t play a more important role in the conclusion of the riots than physical fatigue did. All of us share a feeling of completion and a feeling of beginning, and these are feelings that the police can not touch.

What do you think the final result of the events of December will be?

Ongoing struggle! A never-ending fight for political, social, and economic equality! Constant expansion of freedom!

In the future, neoliberal governments in Greece and throughout Europe will think very seriously before attempting to implement any kind of economic or social change. The riots in Athens and the economic crisis ended the cynicism of the authorities, banks, and corporations, radicalized a new generation in Greece, and gave our society a chance to open a dialogue about the massive social struggles of the future.

As the slogan of December 2008 in Athens and Exarchia goes:

WE ARE AN IMAGE FROM THE FUTURE.

Questions answered by Void Network (Theory, Utopia, Empathy, Ephemeral Arts); posed by the CrimethInc. ex-Workers’ Collective

Appendix I: Links to the Blogs of the Occupied Universities

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-This is the blog of Polytechnic University that was in the center of the riots, 200 meters from the area where Alexis was assassinated. Here you can find links for most of the squats and initiatives that were organized in schools, universities, and many public buildings during the revolt in all country.

-Though most of it is in Greek, this is the blog from the squatted Athens School of Economics, which accommodated hundreds of different anarchist, autonomist, libertarian, utopian and antiauthoritarian movements, actions, and  groups. It is located 500 meters away from Polytechnic School in the center of Athens.

-Again, most of it is in Greek, but this is the blog from the first ever occupation of the building of the General Federation of Greek Workers, a syndicalist institution that has functioned as an obstacle to workers’ struggles for the past 90 years. The building is located between the Economics University and the Polytechnic School.

-Though it seems that it wasn’t used as much for political work and the sharing of ideas as the other blogs, this is the blog of the squatted University of Law in Athens, the main center of the Anti-Authoritarian Movement and many other leftist groups.

Appendix II: Important Squats in Greece

There are countless other buildings, social centers and projects in Greece—these are just a few.

In Athens:
Villa Amalias - http://villa-amalias.blogspot.com/ (since 1990)
Lela Karagianni - http://www.geocities.com/lelas_k/index.htm (since 1988)
Farm Prapopoulos - http://protovouliaxalandriou.blogspot.com/ (since 2006)
. . . and also we have to mention Nosotros - http://www.nosotros.gr/ (Free Social Space) in Exarchia, even though that social center is not a squat but a rented building.

In Thessaloniki:
Fabrika Yfanet - http://fiveprime.org/hivemind/Tags/yfanet (since 2004)
Terra Incognita - http://www.flickr.com/photos/20222375@N07/2280591376 (since 2005)
Delta squat - http://delta.blogs.squat.gr/ (since 2007)

Rolling Thunder #5
September 24th, 2008 · review by Tom Fiction

I first encountered CrimethInc. some years ago as I sat in a cramped living room chatting with friends. On the coffee table lay a truly battered and well thumbed copy of Days of War, Nights of Love (CrimethInc.’s flagship publication). I was a young punk kid lightly politicised by the threat of war in Iraq but with no real knowledge of radical culture. Anarchy was just a word printed on the sleeves of my parents old punk records. The text and images I found in those faded pages offered something new and engaging that I had never experienced.

A couple of years passed and Days of War was joined on my bookcase by more astute radical literature whilst its felt like CrimethInc. had almost gone into hibernation. Or so it seemed. The last few months have seen a flurry of activity from CrimethInc. with a new publication (the excellent Expect Resistance) and a new issue of Rolling Thunder, their sporadically released anarchist journal of dangerous living. This, the fifth in the series represents how much CrimethInc. has developed over the years. The contents present some of the best critical analysis of the anarchist movement both in the United States and in Europe I have read in recent years, largely focusing on the effectiveness of (direct) actions as well as how they can fail and how to respond when they do. Highlights come in the form of a report on the green scare (the FBI’s crackdown on members of ALF and ELF) and what it means to be a government informant, as well as a well written and descriptive report of the events surrounding the 2007 G8 protests.

Rolling Thunder is not likely to act as a recruiting tool for anarchism but provides necessary analysis and debate on some of the most crucial topics activists face today. A worthy read for activists left feeling helpless and demotivated by most conventional forms of resistance.

Note: In the original text, “CrimethInc.” appeared with incorrect punctuation (as “Crimethinc”). We’ve corrected that throughout, along with the other spelling and typographical errors in the original, same as we must for the RAND corporation and others.

As our final belated contribution to this effort, we present these two posters. Please print these out and put them up fast!

Obama: “One and One Million” [684k]
McCain: “McCain for Prisoner of War” [76k]

In addition to these posters and our new pamphlet on the shortcomings of and alternatives to democracy, it appears that at least one other group is working on an election-specific publication.

Also, allow us to direct readers to the latest from the Center for Strategic Anarchy, a speculative discussion of the ramifications of the upcoming election insofar as they will affect radicals in the US.

Finally, let’s end with a look back on the actions anarchists carried out around the elections four years ago:

Blast from the Past: Rejecting the Election of 2004
(excerpted from “Demonstrating Resistance”)

Many anarchists seized the 2004 election as an opportunity for nationwide autonomous actions emphasizing opposition to the farce of representative democracy. Unlike any summit or local issue, the election happened everywhere at once, focusing public attention on a wide range of issues that could be addressed on a variety of fronts. A nationwide campaign on the theme “Don’t (Just) Vote, Get Active” urged people to take action on election day to demonstrate all the possibilities for political engagement beyond the voting booth.

The diversity and scope of the actions anarchists carried out around the election make several of them worth recounting. In Washington, DC, fifteen polling stations were decorated the night before election day with a stencil design fifteen feet long and four feet high reading “Our dreams will never fit in their ballot boxes.” In Baltimore, the following afternoon, a Reclaim the Streets action on the same theme attracted sixty people.

In Portland, Oregon, one thousand people struggled with police to march through the streets. A “Don’t Just Vote, Take Action” march of two hundred people in Tucson, Arizona was attacked by police employing pepper bullets. A spontaneous march of almost two hundred people in downtown Philadelphia blocked a major bridge to New Jersey; everyone escaped arrest except a reporter from a local television news station who was inexplicably attacked by police while marchers chanted “We don’t need no water, let the motherfucker burn!” In New Orleans, a radical Day of the Dead march featuring a marching band, seventy-five skeletons, and an alter screamed and moaned its way through the French Quarter to the riverfront, at which the alter was filled with remembrances of deceased loved ones and then set afire as a naked attendant swam it out to sea; on the return route, participants dragged newspaper boxes and garbage cans into the streets and smashed the window of a stretch-SUV deemed too revolting to ignore.

During Chicago’s “Don’t Just Vote Week of Resistance,” which included several demonstrations and other events, police tried and failed to prevent over one thousand people from taking the streets in a massive unpermitted march. At another incident in Chicago, a rock was thrown through the window of a GOP office in which Republicans were gathered to watch election results, sending glass flying all over the room. Large rocks were also thrown through the windows of the Republican headquarters in downtown Buffalo, New York and a nearby army recruiting center, and the local news station received a letter claiming responsibility.

In Red Hook, New York, 250 Bard college students shut down an intersection in the center of town for almost an hour until police forcibly dispersed them. In northern Los Angeles county, a group carried out what they suggested might be the first banner drop in their area, with a banner on the “Don’t (Just) Vote” theme reading “Workers: Which Millionaire Will You Vote For?” In Vermillion, South Dakota, a town of only 10,000 residents, fifty people maintained a presence outside a voting booth, stretching a volleyball net to bear a variety of signs, sharing food, and inviting all with grudges of their own against the system to join them. The same town was to host another such demonstration two and a half months later on the day of the Inauguration, attracting media coverage from as far away as San Diego, CA.

The day after the election, a march in downtown Washington, DC on the theme “No Matter, Who Won, The System Is Rotten” attracted one hundred people. Equipped with a powerful sound system, it snaked through the streets, disruptive and rowdy, evading police repression. In San Francisco, five thousand people marched against Bush; afterwards, a breakaway group built a bonfire out of US flags and an effigy of Bush, then marched through the city pulling urban debris and newspaper boxes into the street and smashing the windows of two banks. In San Diego, fliers posted the preceding night on UCSD campus reading “Where’s the Riot?” attracted one hundred people to an impromptu forum as to what forms resistance could take next. When the question “Who’s willing to get arrested today?” was broached, many raised their hands.

Two days later, in perhaps the most militant participatory action of the week, a surprise march of over one hundred people bearing torches, drums, anarchist banners, and a two-headed effigy of Bush and Kerry took over downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, decorating the streets with graffiti and destroying bank machines until it reached the state headquarters of the Republican Party. The windows of the building were smashed, its walls were covered in spraypaint, fireworks were set off inside, and the effigy was set afire in the front yard. The following day, over fifty-eight major media outlets ran a story covering the event, in which the state GOP chief of staff was quoted as saying that campaign offices and party headquarters were being vandalized throughout the nation. “They have a right to disagree,” he pleaded, “but to do it agreeably.”

The following night, yet another spontaneous march occurred in Washington, DC, leaving spraypaint in its wake and meeting with enthusiasm from locals. From one side of the country to the other, by day and by night, militants carried out actions that demonstrated the seriousness of their discontent and invited others to express their own.

The next few weeks should offer ample opportunities to distribute these everywhere people are unsatisfied with their current options and groping for something better.

Rolling Thunder #6 focuses on experimentation—the processes by which radicals invent and refine new approaches. It features an evaluation of the model activists have used to target the animal testing corporation HLS, discussing whether it could be effective in other contexts; a photoessay documenting the efforts of Swedish anarchists who, unable to defend a squat, built a social center from the ground up; a consideration of the role proper support plays in cultivating communities of resistance; a report from student strikes and riots in Colombia; and an analysis of the past decade of anarchist organizing in NYC. In addition, the issue includes an investigation of the function of gift shops in maintaining global empire, historical accounts of Bakunin’s daring escape from Sibera and the riots that killed off the hated poll tax in Britain, and lots more. As usual, there are 16 pages of full color, plenty of fun tidbits, and no advertisements or filler.

The next Rolling Thunder will be out precisely on schedule, to offer definitive coverage of last summer’s DNC/RNC protests and a great deal more.

What the hell is going on with the economy? As part of our commitment to serve all the investors, bankers, and realty agents who rely on this site, we’ve solicited a brief introductory analysis.

Capitalism without failure is like religion without sin—it just doesn’t work. Far from abnormal, the boom/bust cycle is as predictable as the furious scapegoating and wild-eyed cheerleading that accompany it. But every situation, even the most predictable, presents unique opportunities. We present this analysis in the interest of deriving strategic advantages from our enemies’ temporary imbalance.

So what exactly is going on with the economy right now? The only honest answer is that no one is exactly sure. The American financial system operates on a variety of levels of transparency, making it impossible to know with certainty who has what and how much it is worth. The system also relies upon a high level of interconnectedness between different institutions and industries, making it difficult to predict the implications of failure.

But we can identify a few things that may give us the beginnings of a coherent answer.

The basic outline of the situation is this: starting in the mid-1990’s, the American government began deregulating the banking industry, repealing laws that had governed the terms of credit and investment since the Great Depression, due in large part to the money-soaked lobbying of commercial banks. Simultaneously, it created institutional and consumer incentives for home buying, motivated in part by statistical evidence that home ownership was the single greatest determinate of a family’s financial success. At the same time, the dot-com boom was putting (fake) money into consumers’ and bankers’ pockets, and although that bubble burst in 2001, it was quickly replaced by a new bubble in real estate.

Thus began a massive surge in home buying. Part of this up-tick in buying was made possible by “sub-prime mortgages”: loans with adjustable interest rates given to people who probably can’t afford to buy a house in the first place. They function much like credit cards: if homebuyers miss a payment, which they are likely to do, the interest rate doubles or even triples, dramatically increasing the cost of their monthly payments. These were attractive loans for banks to make since they assumed that all but a few homeowners would continue making payments after the upward adjustment of their interest rates.

The scheme seems idiotic in hindsight. A huge rise in demand for homes led to rapidly rising real estate values. To keep the market booming, less qualified buyers were found and given sub-prime mortgages to buy houses at inflated prices. Because prices were rising and wages were stagnant, lots of people with sub-prime mortgages were unable to keep up with payments. Their interest rates rose, but instead of paying banks a premium, many of them had to stop paying entirely. Now, at least two million of the seven million sub-prime mortgages used to buy homes since 1998 are expected to default.

What exactly led to the failures of Lehman Brothers, AIG, Morgan Stanley, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac, the news of which has cable news anchors on the verge of tears? The precise answer is more complicated than space allows. To put it in very general terms, the trading of sub-prime loans became a market unto itself, a market that was almost completely unregulated and pushed to wildly unrealistic heights by mountains of debt. When the loans themselves started going bad, the obscure little financial products based on them—which had been virtually printing money for investment banks—turned to shit. All of a sudden banks had a lot less money, making it impossible for some of them to pay for everything else they do.

Now, the U.S government is planning to buy most of those bad loans for $700 billion. This will take them off the balance sheets of banks and put them on the balance sheet of the Federal government. Naturally, Wall Street is ecstatic, for the moment.

Where things go from here is difficult to predict, but we can safely assume that there will be a lot less money floating around for loans, at least for a while. This means businesses will have a harder time expanding and fewer people will be able to afford homes, cars, and higher educations. This will have broad negative implications for the economy and growth will almost definitely slow; whether that will be an apocalyptic recession or a brief lull is up for debate. And if the federal government ends up spending upward of $1 trillion bailing out failing businesses, we can expect less government spending for a good long while.

What does all of this mean for anarchists and our projects? It means that our context is about to change. As if the change in presidential administration weren’t enough of a game-changer, this will shift the terrain even more. Here’s some highly subjective advice for taking advantage of the new circumstances:

1) This is going to sound insane, but if you have been thinking about buying a house or land, try to do it in the next 18 months, especially if you won’t need a mortgage. Reasonable mortgages will be hard to come by, even if you have good credit, but real estate prices are going to continue to drop. Looking at a house priced in the low five figures or less in some dying Rust Belt city? Negotiate downward as much as possible—which you’ll likely have the leverage to do—and pull the trigger.

In places like Greece, anarchist neighborhoods—yes, neighborhoods—are the foundation from which much anarchist resistance, from community meals to bank robberies, is launched. This could be our generation’s chance to establish something similar.

2) Be the wrecking ball to gentrification’s fragile edifice. The housing bubble facilitated the rapid gentrification that has transformed many neglected inner-city neighborhoods into atrocious playgrounds for young affluent types. During that process, anarchists weren’t exactly the sand in gentrification’s proverbial diesel engine. Now we have the chance to make up some ground.

The credit crunch will make it temporarily more difficult to expand or even maintain the current reach of gentrification, leaving gentrifying areas more vulnerable to resistance. The recent RNC solidarity actions in Pittsburgh have been an inspiration to many, but keep in mind that going on the offensive also means establishing alternatives that allow more and more of us to survive and resist outside of the labor market. If mutual aid can effectively substitute for spending money, that can be just as damaging to business as a broken window.

3) Propagandize. The contraction of the economy and the change in presidential administration both provide powerful propaganda opportunities. We can offer a unique economic analysis by providing a total critique of capitalism—prominently explaining the natural role played by the boom/bust cycle—and offer the immediate, tangible alternative of mutual aid, unlike authoritarian Leftists who can offer only ineffectual protest and a dystopian vision of the future. Anti-capitalist and anti-political propaganda that is intelligible and relevant to non-anarchists will play better over the next year or two.

That said, you can’t fire a cannon from a canoe. Propaganda alone is just more useless paper. It should function as a component of direct action, whether that means Really Really Free Markets or riots. When it appears as part of an amazing experience or a useful gift, what otherwise would have appeared to be extremist claptrap is suddenly worth reading.

The theme of this issue of Brand is work. CrimethInc. calls itself an “Ex-Workers’ Collective.” What does “work” mean for you and why have you left it behind?

It’s not so much that everyone involved with CrimethInc. has permanently left work behind, but that we focus on what we can do outside our role as workers in the capitalist economy. Identifying as ex-workers is a way to emphasize that we want our lives to revolve around what we do freely outside wage labor and capitalist competition.

We feel that capitalist competition rewards the most ruthless and selfish people with the most power, and that participating in such an economy drains us of all our potential as human beings, turning our creativity and labor power into monsters (such as global warming and patriarchal propaganda) that destroy and subjugate us. The less any person can contribute to this, the better—and the more we can realize our potential outside of the economy, the better we can fight it.

In the realm of capitalist ideology, there are some who identify with their role as workers—they measure their value according to what they produce and earn, the same way the economy does. Today there are probably more workers who don’t identify with their role as workers at all—for them, it is obvious that they’re only working because they’re forced to earn money to pay bills. Their “real lives” are elsewhere—in leisure consumption, for example. So identifying with the non-work aspects of life doesn’t necessarily make a worker into a revolutionary. All the same, we feel the tensions in this aspect of modern society can easily give rise to revolutionary desires, if we make demands that the capitalist economy cannot fulfill. One example of this is demanding that we should be free to live life to the fullest at all times; obviously, as long as capitalism exists, this will be impossible for most of us, so this desire can inspire people to revolt and resistance.

In the realm of anti-capitalist ideology, there are also some who identify with their role as workers. For them, the primary way they see to contest capitalism is by organizing with other workers to strike for higher wages and so on. In the best case scenario, aspiring revolutionary workers can hope to seize their workplaces and use them to produce goods to be shared by all, as Marx and various anarcho-syndicalists have described. But a lot has changed since 1848. In the era of climate change and alienating technology, it is becoming very difficult to believe that anything worthwhile can be produced in some of those workplaces. Because of this, we feel it is especially important for aspiring revolutionaries to be experimenting outside the workplace as well, where our activities and our sense of self are not dictated by the necessities of production and competition. In organizing a squatted social center or a Really Really Free Market, we discover more hints of the world we want to live in than we ever could under the bosses’ whip. Marx and Lenin might call this bourgeois; we would counter that we want revolution as much as they did, but unlike them we can imagine a society without authoritarian structures or destructive mass production.

So calling ourselves ex-workers is also a challenge to ourselves and to others to make the most of our potential outside the exchange economy right now, in order to fight that economy. Of course, different individuals, classes, genders, and nationalities have different relationships to that potential, according to how dispossessed they are by hierarchical social structures and repression. Some workers outside Europe and the US—say, in Korea—have almost no free time and resources outside the workplace; their primary weapon against capitalism is their ability to refuse to work. Elsewhere in the world—say, in India and Africa—there are millions of people who are already unemployed. Some dogmatic Marxists say they cannot be part of the “revolutionary subject” because they are not positioned to seize the means of production; we would counter that they too can participate in revolutionary struggle by interrupting the channels of distribution and control (think of Argentina’s piqueteros, or the street urchins who raided the World Social Forum in Africa).

But let’s be honest, young Swedish workers: in Sweden and the US, many of us have a great deal of unused potential to act outside the exchange economy to fight capitalism. In our countries, there is some degree of social mobility and social security, and many luxuries are available on credit; these can seduce workers so they conflate their interests with those of the middle class, rather than desiring freedom via the abolition of capitalism. So one of the primary challenges in our context is to spread a value system that counters middle class values in workers. Middle class values mean that, since the worker might one day be able to afford to own his own house, he identifies with the laws of the wealthy that protect those with big houses—even if these laws are used against other poor people like him. An example of counter-values would be valuing togetherness over property, so workers (or ex-workers!) could find fulfillment in living cheaply in collective spaces without a lot of status-oriented consumerism. The less we need to buy to feel good about ourselves, the less we are at the mercy of our enemies. This holds true for workplace organizing as well—the less workers feel they need the luxuries produced by capitalism and the more their necessities come from outside the capitalist economy, the longer and harder they can strike.

Incidentally, really beautiful things sometimes happen when workers go on strike: they write plays about their workplace conditions, they get to know each other outside the constraints of the shop floor, they help each other, they get to stand in the sunlight and raise their voices—sometimes they even utilize corporate equipment to make things according to their own desires. Perhaps you could say “ex-workers” are attempting to stage a permanent strike, to seize the means of production in the form of our own time and energy, as a step towards provoking a general strike.

CrimethInc. organizes an impressive number of projects and publishes an impressive number of books and journals. Is this not work?

Let’s not waste too much time on semantics—let’s just say we consider there to be a fundamental difference between voluntary labor and wage work. Obviously, we are not against labor—we put a tremendous amount of effort into our projects. Some of it is not “fun” at all—for example, supporting our friends through trials and lengthy prison sentences, or washing all the dishes after three hundred people eat at a Really Really Free Market. But the important matter is that it’s all activity we have chosen for ourselves, rather than activity the economy coerced us into.

Okay, what about praxis then: How can we imagine the effort of a CrimethInc. collective to, say, bring out a book or organize a convergence? There are CrimethInc. texts rejecting mandatory meetings, consensus decision-making, even individual commitment to collective processes. So what happens when you get together in order to plan a project?

You know, there is no “CrimethInc. party line” about anything, so you can find CrimethInc. texts rejecting things that other CrimethInc. texts (and agents!) embrace. Different structures are appropriate for different situations. In some cases, you need a structure that works for a lot of people who don’t know each other, that guarantees that all of them will have an equal voice. But really strict formal structures tend to be more exhausting, so they sometimes break down over time. We make use of such forms when needed, but we are also trying to stage a long-term struggle that will go on for the rest of our lives if need be, so we try not to use them unnecessarily. Because we are not trying to make decisions for whole neighborhoods, but only to collaborate on specific creative projects, we can afford to be more fluid. Most of our projects function on a basis of informal or semi-formal consensus among groups of comrades who share affinity and have been working together a long time. It seems that this structure has proved to be the most efficient and long-lasting for us. It means that the people cooperating on a project share long-term investment in it and know what to expect from each other, so we don’t have to start over from scratch again and again.

If we follow what you’ve said so far, it sounds like your understanding of work is strongly tied to the wage labor system. Obviously, many folks are dependent on this system, otherwise they can’t pay their bills, feed themselves and their families, etc. How do you think these folks should deal with their situation?

I hope it’s clear from the answer above that we see the refusal of work as a strategic approach for those who can make use of it, not as a litmus test to determine who is really radical. The point is simply that to the extent to which people can realize their potential outside the exchange economy, this can be a point of departure for anti-capitalist resistance. It’s not the only point of departure, and it’s not available to everyone, or to the same degree.

You are familiar with the critique that the CrimethInc. ex/non-working stance might function for young, healthy individuals with few responsibilities, maybe in particular for white middle class kids who have their color and class privileges to fall back onto in a bind. What do you make of this?

The refusal of work is a strategy that takes different tactical forms in different situations; obviously, specific tactics are better suited for people in some situations than for others. We’re not saying that working single mothers who slave all day cleaning floors to feed their children should quit their jobs and live on the street; but we are saying that anarchists who make comfortable incomes from wage labor should consider cutting down on their hours to start free childcare programs. We’re not saying African American men in the US who are always watched by racist security guards should steal (though many of them already have to do so); we’re saying that white radicals who have an easier time stealing should steal resources for collective projects that help everyone who needs food. We’re not saying that “freedom” means middle class punk kids dropping out of school to hitchhike around the world for a couple years before getting high-paying jobs at NGOs; we’re saying nobody is really free until all of us can make decisions based on desire rather than economic need, and the first step towards real freedom is for us to commit our lives to lifelong resistance… whether or not it comes with a salary.

Working class and middle class anarchists in the US and Sweden should be honest about acknowledging our privileges: we have access to resources and opportunities others around the globe do not, and we owe it to them and to ourselves to use those for everyone’s benefit. That means spending less time at work earning money for our own personal advancement in capitalist society, and more time fighting capitalism tooth and nail. Most full-time participants in CrimethInc. projects and related anti-capitalist activities have no bank accounts, no insurance, no retirement funds, no fancy wardrobe, and often have to steal and scam from one meal to the next; some of our harshest critics are probably much better off, financially speaking.

What about ex-working ethics in the context of communities where unemployment is rampant: many communities of color in the US, whole regions of Eastern Europe, vast areas of the so-called “Third World”? Usually, the lack of available (wage labor) work is seen as a serious problem within these communities. Some political activists have accused CrimethInc. of “cynicism” with regard to this situation, also in the context of the infamous blurb on the Evasion back cover.

Free-market intellectuals always defend corporate exploitation of “third world” nations (including US ghettos) by saying the exploiters are “creating jobs” that are desperately needed. Of course, once upon a time, long before European colonialism, the ancestors of these potential employees had access to the resources around them without having to trade their lives for them as wage slaves. People in rural Mexico and Brazil don’t need corporate exploitation so much as they need land reform. Lack of wage labor is only a problem when it is coupled with capitalist domination; to campaign for jobs for all, rather than for the abolition of capitalism, is cynical if anything is.

But this whole question is somewhat beside the point. Just because someone needs a job to get an income in Belgrade doesn’t mean a radical in Malmö is doing them a favor by working a lot instead of developing local anarchist projects and international solidarity efforts. Likewise, there are people who deliberately refuse and avoid wage work all around the world, even in the poorest regions. In some cases, these are people whose non-capitalist traditions are still alive, who are resisting assimilation into the culture of production, competition, and violence.

Evasion has to be seen specifically in the context of our efforts to promote a “counter-values” in the US, where middle class values have infected so much of the working class. In presenting an adventure story in which the protagonist makes the most of a life without financial means or stability, we were countering the pervasive message in the capitalist media that there is no pleasure or freedom without money. Many young people who start from an uncritical fascination with Evasion subsequently move on to more serious anti-capitalist ideas and efforts. The book is certainly not representative of most of what we do, but it has been surprisingly effective at accomplishing its specific purpose. It would be more sensible for political activists who feel it is not relevant to their lives to simply ignore it, rather than obsessing over it.

Incidentally, all the criticism of Evasion I’ve ever heard has come from middle class or working poor people. When the book was first published, the middle-aged African American and white homeless men with whom I shared tasks at Food Not Bombs said they thought it was right on, including the quote on the back cover. That quote was removed after the first printing, all the same, out of respect for the frustration some had expressed with it.

Can there be any place for trade unions? What about syndicalism? Class analysis? Is this all outdated leftist baggage, or can it still be a worthwhile pursuit, at least under certain circumstances?

Oh, syndicalism is still relevant, absolutely! I think most people involved in CrimethInc. projects see it as a complimentary strategy, not a competing ideology. Some people simultaneously participate in syndicalist organizing and anti-work organizing; others try to find connections between the two, such as providing dumpstered or stolen food to day laborers and those on picket lines. As for class analysis, we’re simply saying that it’s not radical enough to frame our interests as workers in this society—we have to start developing new conceptions of what our interests might be outside capitalist structures, or else our solutions will always be based in capitalist assumptions.

In light of this, what are your prospects for the ex-workers’ movement?

As the economy becomes more and more based on “precarious” work, it will be more important than ever to experiment with forms of resistance that are based outside the workplace. Likewise, in the US, where most trade unions have been totally absorbed into the machinery that perpetuates capitalist domination, we desperately need other starting points for class war. Effective anti-work struggles can only complement workplace organizing—that is, so long as we don’t misunderstand them as conflicting approaches.

Could you end with some examples of what “ex-workers” do besides publishing books and organizing protests and convergences?

In the community where I live, a town of less than 15,000 people, we maintain a number of community-oriented programs that we could never do if we had full-time jobs. We operate a free grocery distribution in the two low-income neighborhoods, and we sometimes do a free breakfast program for migrant laborers as well. We get the food for these from dumpstering, and also from sneaky employees—another reason to cultivate connections between workers and ex-workers, and to popularize anti-corporate theft. Every month, we help with a Really Really Free Market, at which hundreds of local people from all walks of life come together to give and receive resources without any capitalist exchange. We maintain a program sending free books to prisoners, since US prison conditions are terrible and prisoners otherwise have no access to reading material. We run a free zine distribution of perhaps 6000 zines, which we produce by means of theft and scams, for tabling at public events. There are underground networks to provide health care to people who cannot afford it, especially women. And of course we have gardens, bands, reading groups, postering and graffiti, and great parties.

These are just a few examples of what we focus on in the spare time we get from living outside the economy. In the US, unlike in Sweden, there is no government funding for any social programs or cultural projects, so we have to do these things on our own. Perhaps this is healthy, because it means we are never seduced to do things because they pay more. Sometimes one of us gets arrested for shoplifting, but we support each other and so far it has not been a serious problem—at least not compared to the long prison sentences some comrades are serving for ecological direct action.

Thanks very much for the opportunity to talk about this subject. If anyone has more questions, email us at hello@crimethinc.com. Good luck in everything you are doing there!

At both the DNC and RNC, anarchists showed themselves to have seized the initiative to determine the character of street demonstrations. The US anarchist movement has survived several years of repression and attempted co-optation, proving that the upsurge associated with the anti-globalization era was not a flash in the pan: if anything, we are stronger today than ten years ago.

Read our predictions and analysis here; absurd local media coverage here; corporate media coverage here; and legal updates here.

This year’s CrimethInc. Convergence occurred 40 miles outside of Milwaukee, WI, on the outskirts of the tiny town of Waldo. It began with appropriate theatrics. As participants descended upon the campsite on the first day, so did a massive supercell—spawning a tornado touchdown a mere 15 miles away—and with it, 70 mph horizontal winds and rain that threatened to carry everyone off. The early arrivals lucky enough to experience the storm had to hold on for dear life to prevent the temporary structures from blowing away. Despite this challenge, everything was cleaned up and reconstructed in time for the opening circle at dusk.

Most of the week’s activities took place at the actual campsite: workshops under tarps in the grassy fields and beneath trees in the surrounding woods, rowdy direct action simulations, cooking over a wood-fire trench on chain link fencing, writing letters at the prisoner support station, perusing hundreds of free ’zines and books in the library, childcare volunteers chasing after the temporary community’s rad kids, day-and-night swimming in the nearby pond, and possibly the most inclusive and spirited event of the week—the Convergence Cabaret, featuring fabulous queer dance troupes, contortionist burlesque, anticapitalist hip hop, stand up comedy, and obscene puppetry.

Readers familiar with the discussion questions following last summer’s convergence will be pleased to hear that this year there were neither tensions between subcultural groups nor attempts from wingnuts to co-opt the convergence to their own purposes. Practically everyone in attendance made an effort to contribute to an atmosphere of respect and consent-based interaction, and it’s notable that this is the first convergence at which the sobriety policy was not challenged. There were a couple uncomfortable moments, such as an unplanned fireside routine that many felt smacked of cultural appropriation, but participants generally appeared open to dialogue and critique; if anything, such events indicate that the convergence is drawing participants from outside homogenous anarchist circles, who nonetheless are willing to learn new ways to respect others and be accountable for their actions. The closest to last year’s 2012 workshop debacle was a prank on the opening night by an anonymous team of self-proclaimed Maximum Ultraists, which offered a harmless lightning rod for drama and speculation without derailing anything or distracting anyone.

The only off-site event was an anti-I-69 house demo carried out by 70 people on Saturday night. Afterwards, when everyone had regrouped at camp around the fire, another cloudburst inspired a midnight swim and a dance party characterized by a degree of passionate abandon not seen in North America since the first CrimethInc. convergence in 2002.

Longtime organizers from past convergences agree that this year was the best yet in terms of wide diffusion of responsibility. The Milwaukee locals did an enthusiastic job of assembling infrastructure, and no one had to go without sleep or sanity to keep things on track. At this point, the format of the convergence is understood widely enough to be practically self-sustaining. It remains to those who will plan next summer’s convergence to invent some new experiment that is not yet familiar to anyone, so it will be possible for something to go wrong.

With a final puppet show on the electoral spectacle, the campsite to clean, and yet another impending thunderstorm on the horizon, there wasn’t time in the closing circle for a comprehensive discussion of what went well, what could have been improved, and what participants would like to try next year. If you were in Waldo last week, please share your perspective in the comments section here!

Attendees—expect a lot from yourselves. It’s up to you to challenge yourselves and everyone else to break out of routines and into restricted spaces. Arrive with the understanding that you are responsible for yourselves—and for a lot more than that. Bring plans, bring surprises, bring infernal machines.

A shadowy international network of crazies has spent months preparing for the crowd of fugitive office workers and other assorted loons who will descend on Milwaukee. They will need as much help as they can get. Plan on helping out.

Rumors abound regarding the content planned for the week. Reports from the anarchist struggle in South Africa. Discussion of the gender dynamics of bringing down electoral politics. Some wackos want to start an anarchist university, others want to train you to be a convention-disrupting wrecking ball. Some maniacs think they can put an end to attrition in the anarchist community in a single afternoon, with one workshop. There are shouts and murmurs of dozens of other topics as well, but you’ll need to show up to find out what they are. And of course there will be the ones you bring.

Speaking of bringing things . . . You can expect to be provided with food, water, a place to set up a tent, and oodles of interesting people. Aside from that, you should pack in anything you will need for five days in the woods. Some good things to bring are:

-tent
-sleeping bag
-mattress pad
-flashlights
-canteens
-things to give away!!
-medical supplies
-INFERNAL MACHINES

. . . And if you have extra space in your pack:

-Propane tanks
-Single burner stoves
-rope!
-Lots of free literature
-Lots of cardboard
-tools (hatchets, saws, shovels, ratchets, screw drivers, wrenches, etc.)
-two-way radios (walkie-talkies)
-tables and chairs
-cooking gear
-equipment for dishwashing
-plates and cups and silverware
-sponges
-water jugs
-fire-making and -controlling supplies (matches, fire starters, fire extinguishers, etc.)
-oil lamps, tiki torches, torch-making materials (e.g., coffee cans, dowels, shirt fabric, lamp oil)
-first aid gear
-condoms
-toilet paper
-soap and hand sanitizer
-bug repellent
-sunscreen
-herbal tea
-tinctures
-rescue remedy
-snacks/comfort foods
-paper, pens, envelopes and stamps (for the prisoner-writing station)
-duct tape and packing tape
-box cutters
-batteries
-acetate
-x-acto knives
-sewing needles
-dental floss
-bandanas
-bike tubes
-five gallon buckets
-mason jars
-sidewalk chalk
-sheets and other banner material
-paint and brushes
-spraypaint
-butcher paper
-big markers
-floatational devices
-musical instruments (bucket drums, drumsticks, Boviphonic Ohm Cannons, etc.)
-toys (for the childcare area)
-outlandish costumes

Rideshare board: make comments here.

POLICIES

The organizers of this year’s convergence have some requests for everyone who participates; for the most part, these are modified from previous convergences. Please respect the wishes of those who have worked to make this event happen. If you don’t like these policies, use this event as a chance to find others with whom to organize your own convergence according to your own desires.

Respect — We ask for your respect for the campsite and the local area. We aim to leave as minimal a trace as possible on the land we have selected for this year’s convergence. Please dispose of your trash in a manageable fashion and shit only in the designated areas. Exercise discretion while interacting with the local community. Please, no aimless graffiti or similar activity.

Consent — Any interaction you have with others here, whether sexual or otherwise, should be consensual. Silence and passivity do not count as consent. If someone says no to something or is unsure and you badger them until they say yes, that’s not consent; if someone is intoxicated they may not be in a position to give you consent. If someone says you violated their wishes, that counts as breach of consent, whatever a court of law would say. By the same token, don’t define others’ experiences for them: the person who has an experience gets to decide whether or not their wishes were respected in it, and also what, if anything, the community should do about it.

Security — Security is a consent issue just as much as sex is. Don’t say or do anything that puts others at risk unless you have their express permission; don’t speak about their involvement in illegal activity or endanger them by your own actions. Be aware that you may be under observation by your enemies at all times. Don’t alienate others by speculating about whether they are informants or ostracizing them based on suspicion; at the same time, don’t put yourself at risk by trusting people just because they’re here. Also, please don’t needlessly break the law, as that will cause trouble for all of us; there will plenty of time after this week to hone your criminal skills. Food, shelter, and everything else you might want are already provided here.

Drinking and Drugs — There is a strict policy of no alcohol or drug use on the campsite. This is for several reasons, but the most important are to comply with the express wishes of our hosts and to avoid giving the authorities a pretext for harassing us. If you do wish to drink or use intoxicants, please do so elsewhere, perhaps in a home to which you’ve been invited, but do not return to campsite until you are sober. There is no judgment or morality attached to this policy; the last thing we want is an obvious division between people who drink and people who don’t. If you smoke cigarettes, please do not scatter them on the campsite. If you pack it in, you should pack it out.

Photographs — Don’t photograph anyone or anything without permission. This is also an issue of consent and respect.

Money — Nothing is bought or sold at the Convergence. Occasionally people have asked for donations for items as benefits for political prisoners or projects. This is fine in small doses, but generally the Convergence shouldn’t be a place where a lot of money changes hands.

Non-humans — Organizers at previous convergences have expressed frustration with people bringing dogs and not keeping up with them. If you bring an animal companion to this convergence, please understand you are responsible for keeping up with him or her 24 hours a day.

Exclusion — Because this convergence should be a safe space for everyone, people who violate these policies may be asked to leave. In cases of breach of consent, both sexual and security, we will 1) trust the survivor and 2) abide by the survivor’s wishes. For example, if you gave information to the police about someone without their permission and they don’t want you in this space, we will ask you to leave; likewise, if you have sexually assaulted someone and they are comfortable with you being here as long as you participate in a mediated discussion about their boundaries during this event, we will ask you to do so, or else to leave.

This is not a matter of permanently excluding “undesirables” from the anarchist movement, but simply of making things work in a limited space for a limited time. People can be asked to leave the campsite without being exiled from our communities. If anything, this simply provides an incentive for individuals and communities to work out their conflicts in advance of events like this, so we won’t all have to deal with unresolved conflicts here.

–And one more policy:

Pronouns — Part of respecting each other means respecting our varied and infinite gender identities. In the pursuit of making this convergence a safer space for people of all genders, its vitally important to respect one another’s pronouns. The world of gender is a huge and complicated terrain, but it can be more easily navigable with some simple guidelines: Don’t assume someone’s gender simply based on your perception. ASK! People will be glad you did. Make sure to refer to people by their chosen gender (or non-gendered) pronouns. If you mess up, apologize and work on that in the future. If in doubt, ‘they’ works wonders.

The CrimethInc. convergence is a self-organized gathering to circulate skills, deepen networks, and build morale in North America in order to foster a culture of resistance worldwide. Everyone who comes is encouraged to be a presenter and performer. This year’s convergence will focus on developing direct action skills such as might be useful at the Democratic and Republican National Conventions this summer, and also on creative pastimes, subversive ideas, and survival strategies that have nothing to do with them. Anarchists from overseas will also be present to offer perspectives from other contexts.

Like previous convergences, this one will be a sober, consent-based, anticapitalist space. That means no drugs or drinking on the premises; accountability processes will be in effect according to the wishes of survivors; and that camping, eating, literature, and everything else are totally free (though participants are discouraged from selling things except to raise funds for political prisoners). We’ll have more details on the policies stipulated by the local organizers shortly.

Bring camping gear, food, arts and crafts materials, literature to share, plays to perform, workshops to present, songs to sing, poetry to recite, stunts to pull off, plans to whisper, and the sort of wild-eyed romantic idealism that can make the most boring situation into a crazy adventure.

Childcare, medical services, and conflict mediation will all be provided.

RSVP: crimethincbooking@yahoo.com
Contact the local organizers: blowedupwisconsin@gmail.com

Please download promotional materials to invite people from your community.

CrimethInc. reports from some previous convergences:
2007 : 2006 : 2004 : 2003

Corporate media reporting on previous convergences—mind you, these are generally of dubious merit:
Harper’s : Elle : Athens News : Winona Daily News

Call for Workshops

If you are planning on performing or presenting this year, please send in a brief description of what you’ll be doing, so we can announce it in advance. Email it to crimethincbooking@yahoo.com.

We encourage everyone to see the CrimethInc. convergence as a space to try out ideas that would never see the light in any other context. This is a chance to risk everything, to debut brand new formats with your knees knocking together in terror! Don’t just drone through the old standards—challenge yourself and others! Draw on your passions and anomalous interests to offer your comrades points of departure they would never come across anywhere else, including in other anarchist circles. If your two true loves are lobsters and William Blake, put on a puppet show: Songs of Experience as Interpreted by Creatures of the Deep! If you’re quite comfortable discussing post-structuralist theory, try something you’ve never done before—put on a burlesque show, or do the research for a presentation on the history of anti-state responses to domestic violence, or volunteer at the childcare station all week! If we are careful and conservative in spaces like this that belong to us, we’re bound to stay careful and conservation in the rest of our lives, too. GO FOR IT!

Here are a few examples of this year’s workshops and performances. We’ll post more as they come in!

Publishing A Small Periodical Newspaper
A comprehensive crash-course in the production of a community newspaper: learn how you and 3 or 4 friends can publish a small-scale newspaper or community journal! Covers outreach-writing methodology, theme-selection, presentation, and distribution. This workshop covers the nuts and bolts of newspaper projects; the “Small Town Organizing” workshop functions well as a complement.

Small Town Organizing for Anarchists
Do you feel stuck—like you’re running in place—in a small town? Come share your experience and hear insight from our work in the field: this workshop offers a walking tour through strategic models for mutual-aid outreach, DIY-community building, public relations, literature distribution, broader network health, and morale boosting. We’ll also tackle such obstacles as poor social dynamics within small-town DIY communities, practical consensus for beginners, and how small and well-known anarchist cells can avoid being singled out as criminals.

Designing Posters and Other Propaganda
This workshop isn’t for designers only; rather, we’ll take a look at conventional anarchist design methods and style and analyze their effectiveness in communicating meaning. In addition to theory, this workshop includes some basic tutorials for both old (cut & paste) and new (digital design) schools, and offers some useful instances for both. This workshop emphasizes utilizing equipment and resources that are freely accessible to most people.

Storytelling Revisited
Security Culture meets Resistance Mythology in this dynamic workshop of storytelling and storytelling about storytelling. Learn about the elements and sequence of a good story, about the fascinating characteristics of compelling characters, enjoy irony and satire in their natural habitat, and consider how to escape moralism and encourage appreciation for good stories at the same time. Learn how to utilize these ingredients to talk your way across a border or into a building; learn how good storytelling—and listening—skills can protect participants in direct actions and simultaneously nurture momentum for resistance.

Direct Action Planning: Mock Spokescouncil
In this exercise, participants will break into affinity groups to plan a mock action via the spokescouncil model. Excellent practice for publicly coordinated actions that demand layers of privacy within and between groups.

Direct Action Role-Playing: Staying Safe in the Streets
This workshop offers real-time, real-space experience for groups to move securely together in stressful situations, to protect themselves against attacks, avoid being boxed in, stay aware in changing environments, and achieve objectives.

Performer: Testament
I am not a rapper, I am just a revolutionary who raps good. I’m taking hip-hop back to its revolutionary roots and spreading dissent through the powerful, thought-provoking rhymes. I’m here to save hip-hop from the glorified violence, materialism, sexism, and racism that the music industry creates, promotes, and markets for their own capitalist purposes. The revolution will not be signed to a record deal.

In lieu of a ride board, please post offers of and requests for empty seats to the convergence in the comments section below.

In case any intrepid reviewers require additional assistance, we’ve added a new feature to our reading library: “The Fine Art of Criticism: A How-To Guide for Aspiring Journalists.” This controversial screed originally appeared in the third issue of Rolling Thunder, and remains as relevant today as it was then—however relevant that is.

Tune in next time for the follow-up, “A User’s Guide to Expect Resistance,” a preview of which is pictured above.

July 24 - Thurs - Pittsburgh, PA - with Reproach (Belgium), Caustic Christ, A.N.S. (TX)
July 25 - Fri - Buffalo, NY
July 26 - Sat - Cleveland, OH
July 27 - Sun - Detroit, MI
July 28 - Mon - Grand Rapids. MI
July 29 - Tues - Chicago, IL
July 30 - Wed - Madison, WI
July 31 - Thurs - Winona, MN
Aug 1 - Fri - Brainerd, MN
Aug 2 - Sat - Minneapolis, MN
Aug 3 - Sun - Fargo, ND
Aug 4 - Mon - Sioux Falls, SD
Aug 5 - Tues - Iowa City, IA
Aug 6 - Wed - Des Moines, IA
Aug 7 - Thur - Lawrence, KS
Aug 8 - Fri - St. Louis, MO
Aug 9 - Sat - Bloomington, IN
Aug 10 - Sun - day off
Aug 11 - Mon - Nashville, TN
Aug 12 - Tues - Birmingham, AL
Aug 13 - Wed - Pensacola, FL
Aug 14 - Thurs - New Orleans, LA
Aug 15 - Fri - day off
Aug 16 - Sat - Baton Rouge, LA
Aug 17 - Sun - Houston, TX
Aug 18 - Mon - Austin, TX
Aug 19 - Tues - Fort Worth, TX
Aug 20 - Wed - Oklahoma City, OK
Aug 21 - Thurs - Amarillo, TX
Aug 22 - Fri - Colorado Springs, CO
Aug 23 - Sat - Denver, CO

False Hope vs. Real Change PDF [3.2 MB]

CrimethInc. Far East will be including copies of this paper in orders. To obtain copies in bulk for distribution, email falsehopeorrealchange08@riseup.net.

From the release announcement:

False Hope vs. Real Change: An Anti-Partisan (Beyond) Voting Guide to the 2008 Elections argues passionately for direct action in the face of war, environmental destruction, militarized borders, and the alienation of American life—while exposing how politicians profit from these crises even as they claim to offer solutions to them. Beyond merely telling people not to vote, this colorful, engaging eight-page newspaper offers concrete examples of how to participate directly in resisting oppression and creating alternatives to voting. By responding directly to many of the reasons why people who are disillusioned or cynical about politics continue to vote, the articles explore how our most empowering options for participation exist outside of the ballot boxes. The writers examine the possibilities of direct action, collectives, mutual aid, and anarchy, analyzing their potential as tools to move beyond the constraints of voting, party politics, capitalism, and government. Highly recommended as a tool for explaining anarchist critiques of elections and voting, and for building momentum towards the 2008 Republican and Democratic National Convention protests.