The first all new issue of Crap Hound in eight years! Featuring 96 pages of glorious religious and patriotic imagery! Despite the nearly decade stretch between new issues, editor Sean Tejaratchi has been dutifully culling the choicest hight-contrast art, lovingly lifted from vintage catalogs, advertising, obscure books, and found ephemera.

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!

The purpose of the Deep Breath Tour is very simple: To stimulate the magic and intimacy already present in the communities being visited while teaching and learning with one another to build a stronger network of resistance to dominant culture — this is a big summer and there is a lot to talk about.

The following dates are either confirmed or pending — still needing help with those! — and, as you can see, many are still open. If you live in any of the pending stops or between any towns listed below and would like to host this, email froseph@crimethinc.com to start collaborating. An intimate house show in a basement, living room, or backyard with other DIY acts from the area and/or traveling through would be ideal. But any park, infoshop, or community center would be great, too. Also, this tour would like to visit as many small towns as possible.

THE ITINERARY:

June 30th - Winona, MN DDBC Bicycle Co-op, 129 Walnut St. 8pm w/ preceding benefit art auction for the Down N’ Dirty Bike Club

July 2nd - Viroqua, WI The Shack, 607 E South St. 8pm

July 3rd - Madison, WI Lothlorien Co-op, 244 LakeLawn 8pm w/Thistle. This will be a benefit show for the GrassRoutes Caravan, a bicycle village of resistance traveling to the RNC protests in St. Paul, MN.

July 5th - Minneapolis, MN TBA

July 6th - St. Cloud, MN TBA

July 7th - Bemidji, MN Gypsy Cabin, 11413 Lumberjack Rd NW 5:45 fancy dinner followed by campfire & music w/ Shannon Murray & friends Call Shannon at (218) 368-8002 for directions

July 8th - Duluth, MN (pending)

July 9th - Appleton, WI (pending)

July 10th - Oshkosh, WI TBA

July 11th - Manitowoc, WI The Treehouse 8pm 806A Buffalo St. w/Saddleshoes

July 15th–20th - Milwaukee, WI CrimethInc. Convergence

July 21st - Chicago, IL (pending)

July 22nd - Fort Wayne, IN (pending)

July 23rd - Kalamazoo, MI (pending)

July 25th - Buffalo, NY w/ From The Depths

July 27th - Pittsburgh, PA (pending)

July 28th - Punxsutawney, PA (pending)

August 1st - Warwick, NJ Stanley Demming Park w/ Shoelacetown Anarchist Black Cross, Passionate Existence Distro, A Longing for Collapse Press, G.U.T.S Distro, and Easy As ABC. Also, a potluck dinner and a game of Manhunt.

August 3rd - New York, NY TBA

August 4th - Easton, PA Riverside Park, Larry Holmes Dr. w/ TBA

August 5th - Philadelphia, PA TBA. Will be here for at least a few days on break.

August 11 - Baltimore, MD (pending)

August 12th - Washington D.C. (pending)

August 13th - Richmond, VA (pending)

August 15th - Athens, OH (pending)

August 17th - Lexington, KY TBA

August 21st - Des Moines, IA w/ The Rice & Bean Underground

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

While we have yet to unearth the great anarchist comic of our generation, we have discovered a ’zine that satirizes the North American anarchist subculture to great effect. Allow us to introduce the Super Happy Anarcho Fun Pages, the 12th issue of which has just been released. All twelve issues are freely available online, courtesy of www.tangledwilderness.org.

The SHAFP offer enlightening takes on many subjects, including the environment…

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…animal liberation…

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…pacifism…

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…direct action…

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…privilege…

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…expropriation…

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…alternatives to anarchism…

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…cross-subcultural organizing…

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…recruiting for the cause…

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…and the utopian vision of a better world than motivates anarchist struggle:

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Suffice it to say that, should you happen to share the author’s subcultural reference points, you will find this ’zine very funny. On the other hand, if you do not, you will be puzzled as to why we directed you to something that appears to be the work of a three-year-old.

After years of planning, we finally threw our first Really Really Free Market! Organizing and promoting it was a long, arduous task. We live in a small town: Winona has only 27,000 people, and has the largest radical community of any place within 100 miles from us. It has always been tough for us to make things happen here—small town outreach work is always hard. All but one of our anarchist community are originally from Winona, and owing to our slim population, we’re fortunate enough to have a very wide social network. When we started a monthly community newspaper—think of a hybrid of a local indymedia project and Harbinger—we knew it would help us reach people that we had been struggling to connect with for years. We began promoting the ‘Free Market in the first issue, albeit subtly, and by the third issue, we had warmed up to the subject enough to devote an entire two pages inviting people to participate in the event.

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We invested a lot of energy into connecting with new social circles: we made close friends with the local homeless shelter; we knew the administrators at the food bank well enough to solicit their help distributing fliers; the punks were down to give away free bicycles; even the local food co-op was putting food aside for us. Representatives from all of these different social circles and more met four times before our first ‘Free Market to discuss logistics—we devised promotional schemes and dreamt up ideas and dispersed. When the day came, the first organizer arrived at the park 30 minutes early, to find to his surprise that over two dozen people were already there, waiting for the market to start. An hour into it, that number had grown to 200, and the event was a huge success. It went on that way for four hours: people giving away carloads of clothes, furniture, food, a box of hundreds of toothbrushes! A trash-bag full of condoms, starter plants for a garden, and five kids bikes were given away via a free raffle. We were all really inspired and pleased with the event, knowing that most of the work was out of our hands.

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We plan to bring the lessons we’ve learned to this year’s CrimethInc. Convergence in Milwaukee, WI. We’ll have plenty of examples of our community newspaper and plan to hold a workshop instructing anyone how to produce an effective, high-quality newspaper to nourish their radical community for under $250 a month. We know how difficult it can be for small midwest towns to get things off the ground—we’ve been struggling to for years. Hopefully, news of our successful ‘Free Market will motivate other small-town anarchist communities to attempt similar feats.

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I work for the Daily Toreador, the official newspaper of my college campus, Texas Tech University. Two days ago as of writing this, I was fired for supposedly plagiarizing a certain Christiaan Briggs, allegedly taking material from his weblog concerning an article supporting plagiarism.

My cousin sent me the book Days of War, Nights of Love, and I read it cover to cover in less than a week. It inspired me greatly, and I decided to find some sort of medium through which to spread these ideals. After all, the book claims that CrimethInc. encourages the plagiarism of their concepts, even suggesting several ways to do so. These include the broadcasting of readings over pirate radio, the reprinting of ideas in unwary newspapers, and complete republication of the book under a different name. So I took that idea and ran with it.

I published several articles, talking about living life to the fullest (and not behind a desk), morality and how everyone should establish their own moral code, mainstreams and their devastating effect on society, and the natural “sidelines” phenomenon, among other subjects. All was fine and good until I published a two-piece entry on plagiarism. It encouraged plagiarism in the name of spreading revolutionary ideas to everyone, with no emphasis on who owns the ideas or where they come from. I defamed intellectual property rights, brazenly stating their obvious defects. I tried to rebuke the negative aura surrounding plagiarism, though NOT the lazy plagiarism of students turning in other papers as their own or mimicking those around them, rather the plagiarism in the context of an understanding of the work and the passing on of ideas.

Anyway, it turns out that Briggs beat me to the punch and published almost the same exact article that I did, both of us apparently relying heavily on the book’s words. That’s cool with me, he’s doing what I’m trying to do and probably reaching many more people. I certainly approve of both our actions. Unfortunately, because Briggs posted his article first, things got a little twisted, and I was accused of plagiarizing not the book, but Briggs’ article supporting plagiarism.

The editor informed me that they have a strict policy on citing work.
“Why didn’t you attribute your information to this other guy?”
“Because I didn’t get any of my information from this guy. I got it from a book, and so did he.”
“Why didn’t you attribute the book?”
“Because the book doesn’t want to be attributed. It encourages plagiarism and is not copyrighted. I’ll bring it to you if you want.”
“Don’t bother.”
“So I’m fired?”
“Yeah, this makes me sick to my stomach. We’ll be publishing an article retracting your work and stating an apology, also the reason why we fired you.”
“Wow, that’s awesome and totally necessary. Thanks.”

I understand that the newspaper staff feels a need to cover its own ass, and that the editor is getting a lot of pressure from faculty members to chop someone’s head off, specifically mine. I understand all of that, but I don’t understand why they need to publicly humiliate me in a paper that thousands of people read. The actual article they wrote listed my full name and the actions I performed. Despite what I told them about what my source was, they retained the opinion that I plagiarized from Briggs and published this opinion as a fact. I know it shouldn’t shock me, but I was stunned at the absolute nerve they had, talking about integrity and maintaining a strict honesty policy, when in fact they knowingly did not publish the entire story.

In addition, I was not a paid writer. I voluntarily wrote articles for this paper using my own time and my own freedom. I was providing the newspaper a service, and the paper could not run without contributions from writers such as myself. Despite these dynamics, the editors did not hesitate to completely bury me in the mud.

After several polite requests directed at the editors to allow me to publish my side of things, or perhaps some sort of explanation, I was met with one response: “Absolutely not.” When I emailed them each again, asking why they blatantly lied about what had happened, or at least had passed off their opinions of the situation as truth, I received no reply whatsoever.

I don’t care at all that I’ve been fired, and I believe I made my point. I stood for what I believed to be write, and did my best to walk the CrimethInc. walk. I will certainly find a way to get my side of the story out there, hopefully along with more revolutionary material. As long as I was able to get a few people on campus to think though, even in this painfully conservative town, then I’m happy.

P.S. This story was not plagiarized.

To quote the Center themselves:

This blog exists to bring matters of note to the attention of those seeking the destruction of hierarchy and the institutionalized perpetuation of misery, along with germane commentary and suitable analysis.* Most of these items are drawn from readily available mainstream news sources, which are chock-full of valuable information since our enemies can afford to make their strategies public—such is their hegemony and/or stupidity, depending on the enemy. There will also be some items drawn from the anarchist/radical press, when they detail matters of particular interest, but our goal is to provide a service not available elsewhere rather than to duplicate the anarchist media, so expect only occasional, relevant posts on “internal” news.

It is our hope that the Center’s efforts will help make strategic thinking the norm, a reflexive part of planning and formulating our projects, a way of thinking that posits us as players in an international geo-political struggle—rather than as idealists, beautiful idiots, or true believers who refuse to light a candle in the darkness because of a romantic insistence that faith alone will guide us.

The Center has already put forward several insightful analyses. Long before the Blackwater scandal, the Center published a report on Private Military Firms, arguing that in the post-9/11 series of wars capitalism is phasing out the nation-state as the primary enforcer of its projects and shifting its force into the hands of corporations—whose private contractors now outnumber government troops in Iraq, for example. In High Pressure, Low Pressure, the Center explicates the shifts taking place in America’s socio-economic landscape and the implications for anarchists seeking sites for intervention and resistance. And in Disasters: Now and Forever, the Center contributes to the post-Katrina dialogue on how anarchists can best equip themselves to deal with the consequences of large-scale disasters.

We commend this effort and hope to see more of our comrades engage in nuanced, ambitious projects like this.

*Editor’s note: Not balking at a nihilism that calls even for our own annihilation, we CWC ex-Workers too seek the destruction of “germane commentary and suitable analysis,” though that’s probably not what our friend at the Center was getting at in this unusually structured sentence.

Friday, October 19, over two hundred people staged an unpermitted march in one of the expensive shopping districts of Washington, D.C. to manifest opposition to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. To our knowledge, this was probably the most—if not only—effective use of the black bloc tactic in Washington, D.C. since the Presidential Inauguration in 2005. This is promising, given the opportunities for mass action coming up in 2008. At the same time, there were some things that could have been improved, which we chalk up to inexperience and the usual internal dissension; in the interests of constructive criticism, we’ll chiefly be reviewing those here.

To disclose the limitations of this analysis at the outset, none of us were involved in the organization leading up to the march, only in the action itself. We’ll leave it to others to derive and share specific lessons from the organizing process.

For more background: www.octoberrebellion.org -:- youtube footage

SCHEDULING

There were several other events in the course of the weekend; focusing on this one here is not intended the undercut the significance of the others. At the same time, it strikes us as a tremendous missed opportunity that so many “national mobilizations” in D.C. were scheduled for different days in October. Earlier in the month there had been an anti-war march, and the following Monday there was civil disobedience on the theme “no war, no warming”—and to make matters worse, an hour away in Baltimore there was a radical bookfair running the entire weekend. One of the lessons of the so-called “Anti-Globalization” movement was that the more events coincide with each other, the more effective each can be. The “no war, no warming” blockades on Monday morning—basically just lines of people with their arms linked together—could only have lasted longer than the few minutes they did if the police had been busy dealing with a militant march like the one that took place Friday night. Whether this was a failure of communication, diplomacy, or imagination, let’s hope that next time organizers will coordinate their efforts.

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LOCATION

Anyone who misses the connection between playgrounds of the wealthy such as Georgetown (the D.C. neighborhood in which the march took place) and the destructive policies of the IMF and World Bank needs to take Capitalism 101 over again.

Georgetown was an excellent location for this march. Some unpermitted marches in D.C. have passed through essentially empty streets, framing the anticapitalist struggle as a private grudge match between anarchists and police. It made a lot more sense to be in a space full of witnesses—this not only increases the visibility of our resistance, but also ties the hands of police, who prefer not to use chemical agents in spaces crowded with civilians or brutalize protesters in full view of the liberal bourgeoisie. A busy street also offers more crowd cover for safe dispersal and escape.

POLICE CONDUCT

Wealthy liberal bystanders or no, the police had their hands tied by stronger cords—the consequences of the various lawsuits brought against them following their outrageous conduct at earlier demonstrations, including the “People’s Strike” protests at the IMF/World Bank meetings five years previous. This was a real boon to Friday’s march: though several hundred police accompanied the protest, attempting to line it on both sides with motorcycle cops and trailing it with an entourage several blocks long, the police stayed away from the front of the march and did not try to penetrate its lines even when participants began throwing bricks and tearing up trash cans. Years ago, such a march would almost certainly have ended in an attempted mass arrest; this time, when the police finally moved in to cordon off the march after a full hour in the streets, they didn’t even search people, instead allowing them to leave in small groups.

This hesitancy on the part of the police is a priceless gift from the ghosts of IMF protests past. It is up to current protesters to take maximum advantage of it, while not forgetting how to stage unpermitted marches without such restraint on the part of the police. If we ever become as effective as we were in 2000-2002, the police will return to their old methods no matter how much it costs them.

Many of the participants in the march were not familiar with the recent history of anarchist and police activity in D.C., and so were not equipped to predict probable police tactics. It is extremely important that people study the precedents before participating in an action—asking what has happened when people have tried similar tactics in the same place, and how things have changed since then. The October Rebellion march had a lot in common with the “Smash the State of the Union” march of 2003—and in fact the authorities used the same strategy to police both, right down to the line of motorcycles around the march, although this time they were more restrained.

The organizers of the October Rebellion would have done well to have distributed more information about the precedents for Friday’s action—presuming they’ve been around long enough to be familiar with them. At the convergence point Friday night, around the time the march should have been getting started, many people were still milling around the periphery in small groups, afraid that they would be mass-arrested if they dared venture across the street. Can you imagine how much safer it would be for everyone if we showed up all at once at exactly the time called for and set out right then—instead of walking around for an hour, passing the same police and cameras over and over without masks on, waiting for someone else to go first?

DIVISION

The march divided into two groups, apparently following conflicts over tactics in the organizing process. Whatever factors led to this—and we are not situated to comment on them—let us note that historically, the organizers of black bloc actions have rarely displayed excellent social skills. This is a black eye for anarchists, in that it gives the erroneous impression that we engage in violent tactics because we are jerks. Ideally, those who organize the most militant actions would be the gentlest and most sensitive, so as to be best prepared to deal with the intense stress involved in such organizing and to avoid making hotheaded decisions. The better our social skills are, the more broad-based our mobilizations can be and the more effective our efforts will prove.

While some have complained that it was unfortunate that the march was split in two, this division could conceivably be regarded as a clever strategic move. Not only did it create space for participants who had different needs, it also stretched the police out over a space of several blocks, which must have further limited their capabilities. In the future it might be a good idea to plan for two contingents from the outset: this could enable a wider range of people to participate, and avoid needless conflicts over tactics.

A rumor has reached our ears that the non-violent section of the march was identified as the “anarchafeminist” contingent. If this was intended to differentiate it from the more militant bloc, it was in markedly poor taste. The militant contingent included people of a variety of genders, and the anarchafeminist tradition has included a wide range of orientations towards violence. If a sub-group in the march organized as an explicitly anarchafeminist cluster and then decided to march separately from the rest of the group, it makes perfectly good sense that they called themselves the anarchafeminist contingent. But if a group deciding to avoid potentially violent confrontation then dubbed themselves the “anarchafeminist” group in order to make a gendered moral stance out of their decision, or others subsequently identified them as anarchafeminist on account of that decision, that is either grossly manipulative or grossly sexist. Anyway, we don’t know enough to say more than this.

ENERGY, EQUIPMENT, AND MESSAGING

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The energy and enthusiasm of the participants was inspiring. Several dozen came equipped with helmets; there were enough people with shields to comprise at least one full shield wall spanning the width of the march, though it wasn’t always at the very front where it should have been. The majority of the participants seemed to be organized in affinity groups, which is essential for any militant march; most of the crowd behind the shield wall walked in lines with arms linked, like the black blocs in Germany during this past summer’s anti-G8 protests. There was a palpable difference between Friday night’s passionate chanting and the tame chants heard Monday morning during the No War, No Warming blockades: it’s one thing to mumble “Whose streets?” from the sidewalk as you watch the police drag off arrestees, another thing entirely to roar “Our streets!” from the pavement when you’re prepared to defend them.

We can’t draw conclusions about the police response described above without taking these factors into account. Rather than drawing police repression, militant preparation often discourages it—police will generally push a crowd as far as they think they can, civil liberties or no. Readiness to stand your ground will usually get you a lot further than a paper permit.

There was a little property destruction, too—the odd rock hitting a corporate window, including one belonging to Starbucks. It was nothing compared to the damage that occurred the night of the last Presidential Inauguration—but there were no police around the march that night. This time they lined the march on all sides, so it was impressive anything took place at all.

That’s the good news. But it must be said that this seemed to be a fairly new crowd—most of the participants were probably just getting involved in things like this around the time of the last Inauguration, and that’s not a lot of time to build a skill base, especially in a relatively quiet era. If the police had forcefully attacked the march rather than simply accompanying it, who knows whether the kids holding shields would have stood their ground or broken ranks and fled? Hopefully those who participated have gained enough experience and morale to be more prepared for such a situation next time. It’s one thing to look militant, but another thing entirely to deal with the terrifying situation of actual street fighting. Looking at pictures from the G8 demo on the internet is not enough to prepare you for that.

As for preparation, all the shields looked impressive, but hard banners—long, solid banners made out of wood or insulation board, such that police cannot smash them or snatch people through them—have proved more effective in practice. [Let it be said once again here that PVC pipe is NOT useful for defense, as was demonstrated most recently at the daytime march during the last Presidential Inauguration!] Police can pierce a line of kids with shields easily enough, but a solid wall of full-height hard banners is hard to penetrate, and you can’t get an assault charge for holding one; several hard banners can be linked together into a jointed mobile wall to safeguard an entire crowd. Perhaps people feared it would be difficult to get such massive items past police to the departure point, but they could have been stashed early along the march route and brought into it as the crowd passed.

The lack of banners of any kind—or any kind of coherent messaging whatsoever—in the militant contingent was a real missed opportunity. A big, artfully painted banner across the front of the march would have made all the difference. We want it to be clear to everyone exactly why we’re doing this, don’t we? When the crowd was first gathering, lots of locals were asking what the march was about, and few people took the time to explain in detail. A couple skaters who did receive a satisfactory explanation chose to come along—let’s never underestimate the importance of articulating what we’re doing and why.

Finally, though the chanting was refreshingly passionate, why was there no drum corps? There was barely a five gallon drum to be seen, and only one whistle. Music helps maintain the spirits of a moving crowd; if we can’t follow the Europeans in accompanying our marches with techno-blasting sound trucks, the least we can do is pull together a few percussion instruments.

TRAGEDY

A stray brick, thrown apparently without careful aim or consideration, hit a spectator in the head. She wasn’t a police officer or even a heckler, just a person passing by.

This is totally unacceptable. If anything separates us from police and other terrorists, it is that we do not countenance so-called “collateral damages.” People are bound to get hurt in a revolutionary struggle, but this was utterly pointless: the fact that so few bystanders have been injured at black bloc actions in the past decade attests to this. We may throw rocks at police, but they know exactly what they are getting into—and we do so not because they deserve to be injured, but because it is necessary to defend ourselves and the freedoms for which we struggle. From a purely tactical perspective, a person who wishes to throw a brick at a corporate window should wait for an absolutely clear shot, or send a friend to clear the sidewalk (just as well-organized black blocs used to be accompanied by a person whose task was to dissuade photographers), or else aim at the endless line of police windshields behind the crowd.

Head trauma can cause long term effects that drastically impact a person’s life. Let’s all hope that this woman recovers completely, and that no bystanders are ever injured by projectiles from our marches again. A personal apology is in order from whomever threw that thoughtless brick; it will have to be anonymous, seeing as how we can’t trust the “justice” of the state, but if accountability means anything in our circles, he or she should assume responsibility for the consequences of that poor decision.

DISPERSAL, DISPERSAL, DISPERSAL!

The mistake most frequently made in organizing unpermitted marches and similar actions is that insufficient attention is given to how the affair will end. Perhaps this issue was discussed in the organizing for this march, but it was impossible to tell by the results: the police eventually trapped everyone and let people out in small groups, on the condition that all disturbances cease. If we plan realistically for how our actions will end, we can conclude them on our own terms; this is safer for us, and usually avoids needless arrests. It’s always better to quit while we’re ahead, retaining the initiative and the sense that we control our own destiny, than to continue aimlessly until the police figure out how to shut us down. Really tight black bloc planning involves getting into the area, going through the target zone, and getting the entire group to a place where everyone can disperse safely.

After the march disbanded, it was distressing to see many people nonchalantly walking down the street blocks away with their masks and gear still on. This may be safe enough in D.C. right now, but in just about every other time and place the rule is that masked individuals away from the main bloc are ruthlessly targeted by police. Those who cut their black bloc teeth in D.C. last Friday should not expect things to be so easy ever again. One of the essential challenges of participating in a black bloc is transitioning in and out of your gear quickly, out of sight of police and cameras, without spending any more time than necessary running around by yourself in a sketchy outfit.

PRELIMINARY CONCLUSIONS

Contrary to post-9/11 alarmism, it’s still possible to pull off militant unpermitted marches. In fact, as the effects of police misconduct during the last round of mass actions set in and the pendulum swings back to the Left in parts of the US, it may be more possible than ever.

SDS, whatever some say about it, offers a concrete convergence point for young people to get involved in revolutionary struggle; the networks it offers appear to be catalyzing new organizing efforts. This bodes well for 2008. Hopefully the SDS groups scattered across the nation will inspire non-affiliated anarchists to form their own affinity groups, so organizational structures will already be in place when radicals come together next summer for direct action at the Democratic and Republican National Conventions.

Finally, it was notable that very few of the participants in this march were involved in the black blocs that took place around the turn of the century. That’s bad news in that it suggests either a high turnover rate in participants or a poor rapport between longtime activists and this new generation… but we could look at it as good news, as well. Imagine if all the people on the East coast who were involved in black blocs seven or even three years ago had turned out for this one—it would have been huge, and the results would have been truly unpredictable! If the latest wave of radicals can establish bonds with the alumni of earlier generations, the results will be historic. That’s a big challenge, and a big opportunity, for this coming year.

An un-permitted parade of more than 150 costumed anarchists and their supporters filled North Court Street Saturday night. They barricaded the West State Street intersection and danced, chanted, climbed light poles, banged on objects and fire danced before police dispersed the crowd, using squad cars and pepper spray.

“We’re just having fun,” one marcher told a bystander who asked what they were protesting.

The parade participants were in Athens for the 2007 CrimethInc. Convergence. CrimethInc. is an international underground network made up of anarchists and other radicals.

After the crowd scattered, Athens Police made one arrest for disorderly conduct by intoxication, one for riot, and three for obstructing official business, according to a report released by Police Lt. Randy Gray. The identities of the individuals have not been released.

Gray reported that the Athens Police responded to a call made at 9:42 p.m. and arrived at the intersection to find a large group of people with flaming objects, stones, bricks and improvised drums blocking the street with road signs dragged from a construction site.

The flaming objects, known as “poi,” are professionally made chunks of burning rubber on chains used by fire dancers and circus performers for entertainment purposes. To extinguish the flame, poi artists turn from the audience and spin the burning chunks less rapidly while lowering them to the ground, according to one performer who attended the event.

According to the police report, Lt. Gray told one of the performers to extinguish the “burning objects.” The female said OK and turned away while continuing to twirl the poi. Gray tried to detain the person while another individual struck him in the back and grabbed his arm. Gray then used pepper spray to fend off other individuals who were converging on him, and further spray was used to disperse “what had become a violent and destructive crowd.”

The marchers claimed that the “parade” was intended to be peaceful fun, and police were unnecessarily violent in their reaction. Several people were pepper sprayed in the face from behind as they dispersed eastward, and one anonymous marcher claimed the mace almost hit an infant riding on a woman’s shoulder.

“I was standing by the BP talking to three people when Car 902 almost ran into us,” said Benjamin Ayer of Michigan. Ayer was documenting the incident from the sidewalk with his camera.

“It swiftly turned into the driveway without warning. Two people fell on me, they were just passersby, they were just asking me what was going on and almost got hit. After that I breathed in pepper gas,” said Ayer, who charged that police “gravely overreacted.”

After dispersing, many of the marchers gathered at The Wire Community Resource Center on Kern Street, which was promptly put under police surveillance. A local spokesperson for The Wire told police that the center was not involved in the event but was open for a music event and does not turn down people at its doors. (CrimethInc., however, did use The Wire’s “free space” as a redirect spot for out-of-towners looking for information on where the Convergence was being held.)

Police searched four cars outside The Wire with a K-9 unit after the event, but no arrests were made.

The parade was an impromptu activity organized by CrimethInc. The group’s Convergence was a communal campout that took place northeast of Athens since last Wednesday. The event offered collective workshops on topics ranging from “Nude Theory and Practice” to do-it-yourself shoemaking. Participants traveled from all over North America to attend the event, which was organized with the help of local volunteers.

According to CrimethInc.’s Web site, the group is an “underground network through which we work to realize our daydreams, to take the reigns of our lives and make our history rather than using the same energy to insist we are being made of it.”

The network is comprised of scattered collectives, travelers, music acts and publications that are invited to use the CrimethInc. label on their products and activities.

“There is no leader of CrimethInc.; it’s a movement on its own,” said a participant named Polly who traveled from North Carolina to attend the convergence. “It’s a movement comprised of fun and energy.”

Other participants said CrimethInc. is dedicated to creating alternative communities.

“I think it’s important to foster communities outside of the ‘real world,’” said Ben Croya of Illinois. Croya identifies has a “gender queer” and does not claim a specific gender or sexual orientation.

“Here individuals really have a say in there own lives,” Croya said.

There is no central location or headquarters for CrimethInc., and no one is quite sure when and where the network originated, though some speculate it has been around since the late 1980s. According to some participants, the ambiguous and decentralized nature of the organization enhances the romantic appeal of its existence and propaganda, which is popular among youth in the punk, anarchist and dropout cultures.

“They live more than the rest have ever dreamt to live,” said one participant who identified himself as Mad Fish the Norseman. “Follow those who only mumble, for they are already doing what doesn’t need to be said.”

CrimethInc. is responsible for several publications advocating an anti-capitalist lifestyle, including “Days of War Nights of Love,” “Fighting for Our Lives,” “Evasion” and a magazine titled Rolling Thunder, which chronicles the modern North American anarchist movement.

walking into daniel and jenny’s home this morning was like walking into an electrified field of emotions. the air crackled with the tension of all the feelings a morning such as this would bring. the gnawing feeling of sadness and anger that i woke up with exploded inside such an atmosphere. i had to swallow hard the growing lump in my throat, the tears begging to flow out from behind my eyelids. i didn’t want to cry, not yet. i busied myself, making breakfast with other friends, not wanting to stop. every time i did, when i looked at daniel, when i paused and felt the weight of what was coming, i could barely stand it.

daniel was trying to be normal, but the look on his face belied any of those efforts. i can’t even fucking imagine how heavy he must have felt, how it must feel to leave everyone you love, to leave your life, to be put into a concrete box for 7 years and have all the moments and possibilities of your life stolen away from you, taken by something you have dedicated your life to fighting against. it was hard not to cry. and i gave up trying not to.

we left the house. daniel left his house. he was walking ahead of us, with jenny, holding her hand, his partner’s hand. we are a small procession, daniel at the head. the documentary film team is following us. I feel sick to my stomach, like someone has punched me, hard. i feel like crawling out of my skin, what the fuck are we doing? why are we doing this? why are we taking our friend to this place? why are we calmly delivering him to everything we hate, to people who want to destroy us?

what the fuck are we doing? what the fuck are we doing? what the fuck are we doing? what the fuck are we doing?

we’re in the subway. daniel is always close to jenny. he grabs her hand. he whispers something in her ear. he kisses her. every moment precious of course because every fucking moment we’re hurtling ever closer to fucking prison.

but now we’re leaving the subway. we’ve met up with the lawyer who is going to represent him while he’s at the metropolitan detention center (mdc), and somehow we keep fucking walking, walking, calmly walking to mdc. the camera crew can’t film the front of the facility, and daniel prefers to say goodbye to us, his friends, now.

the brave faces come off. everybody cries. how does it feel to say goodbye to your friend? how does it feel to watch as something precious slips away from you? to see forces of state power win? to take away? to exert their power and influence in a way that is inescapable? that seems to turn everything around you into a barren field of powerlessness? well, it’s fucking painful. it’s terrible. it breaks something fragile inside, the shards of which dig deep and do not want to let go.

and daniel leaves. he is walking away. some of us won’t see him for at least 7 years, maybe 10. some of us may be given the “privilege” of seeing our friend, but only under their rules and with their restrictions. daniel moves away from us. he is out of sight.

out of sight. hidden behind walls, barriers, bars, concrete, fences, rules, brutality, authority. out of sight.

but not out of mind. not out of our hearts.

there is absolutely no way to make yourself feel better in this situation. there is no way you can console yourself with the little personal pressure valves that help maintain your ability to function in this world. there is no way to escape that we are not in a position to seriously fight these motherfuckers.

there is no way to not keep fighting. there is no way but to recognize that we shouldn’t function in their world, under their rules, with their morals, with their systems, with their limitations, oppressions, and exploitations. there is no way out of this but to seriously fight these motherfuckers.

to daniel, my friend: your courage inspires. i miss you already.

——————————————————————–

Appendix: How to Write Daniel in Prison

DANIEL McGOWAN
#63794-053
MDC BROOKLYN
METROPOLITAN DETENTION CENTER
P.O. BOX 329002
BROOKLYN, NY 11232

When sending a letter, it’s best to keep it simple. Write on blank
notebook or copy paper no bigger than 8.5×11 and don’t use any special
colored or gel pens or pencils, stamps, or stickers. Don’t write anything
on the outside or inside of the envelope except the prisoner’s address and
your full name and return address in the upper left hand corner of the
addressed side of the envelope. Use plain white envelopes without a clear
plastic address window, or any special decorations. Most prisons also
REQUIRE a return address on the envelope.

Please take a minute to read the following VERY IMPORTANT guidelines.
-Write on both sides of the paper, since the number of pages he can have
may be limited. It is also totally acceptable to type your letters. More
will fit on a page.
-Write your address inside your letter/card if you think he does not have
it, but DO NOT put an address label anywhere inside or on the letter/card.
Address labels are ONLY OK to go on your envelope.
-Do NOT send him stamps, envelopes (self-addressed or otherwise), blank
paper or notecards. He will not be able to receive them and he will be
denied your letter.
-Do NOT send him any form of currency, whether cash, check or money order.
-Do NOT send photographs larger than 4×6. Do not send polaroids and make
sure the content is appropriate.
-Do NOT include any paperclips, staples or any extra things in your letter.
-Do NOT send a card that has glitter or any 3-D objects in or on it.
-Do NOT send cards with paper inserts glued in them.
-Do NOT tape your envelope shut.
-Do NOT ever write “legal mail” or anything implying that you are an
attorney unless you are
-Please use your common sense; don’t write about anything that is likely
to get a prisoner in trouble in any way.

Daniel does not receive the envelope your letter is mailed in, so write
your return address and full name in the letter as well. Also, number the
pages like “1/5, 2/5,3/5…” so that a prisoner can tell if some pages are
missing.

If you send Daniel a letter and it gets returned to you, please let us
know about it so we can add any other restrictions to the guideline list.

Please do NOT send in any books to Daniel yet. We are in the process of
getting a system going for him to receive books. If you would like him to
receive books we would prefer you donate money and we will make sure to
get him a book on his request list and let you know about it.

Thanks so much,

Family & Friends of Daniel McGowan

homepage: www.supportdaniel.org