FIRE
TO
THE
PRISONS
Issue 8//Winter 2010
An Insurrectionary Quarterly

“WE SHOULD NOT

BE WAITING FOR

OUR EVERYDAY

LIVES TO REFLECT

‘1984’, BECAUSE

AT THAT POINT

MOST OF US WILL
HAVE ADAPTED.”

DISCLAIMER:

F

ire to the Prisons is for informational
and educational purposes only. This
magazine in no way encourages or
supports any illegal behavior in any
way. This magazine looks only to
provide a printed forum for conversation and news. We are reporting not inciting. The entirety of the content in this
magazine was found as public information, and
later compiled or re-organized for this magazine.
Nothing here is the original content of those responsible for this magazine. Any attempt by anyone to
connect this publication to any illegal behavior is a
complete fabrication by forces looking to impede
the spreading of information such as this. The topics brought up in this magazine in no way reflect
the perspective of any specific person allegedly involved with this publication. They also do not reflect the perspectives or outlooks of any individual
or group mentioned in or receiving this publication.

WITH THAT SAID:
“WE MIGHT NEED IT”

CONTENT
T
his magazine is in NO-WAY
a “for profit” publication;
nor is it in anyway a formal enterprise or business.
We encourage the re-distribution and re-printing of
everything in this magazine, as well as the
magazine in it’s entirety. Printable PDFs
are available for re-distribution or viewing
on our web site included below.
If your reading this, it means that this issue
is done. Please let us know what you think,
if you would like to order more or become
a distributor, or if you have any questions,
by contacting us at the information listed at
the bottom of this page.
This magazine is free to people currently
incarcerated by contacting the prisoner
support groups mentioned at the end of the
repression chapter. This magazine is also
free to other prisoner support or not-forprofit groups who share the outlook of this
magazine. We would hope in this case, any
money made from selling this publication
by these groups would go to benefit various projects and endeavors we may find
intriguing...
Special thanks to our proof-readers, both in
the empire, and across the country in the
bay. Special thanks to those who provided
the resources, space, and patience needed
for this publication to exist. Special thanks
to all those who helped to produce the content in this issue; whether we know you or
not. Special thanks to the Big Apple for
your Nightlife. Without it we would never
be able to go to print.
Agitating till the grave,
Fire to the Prisons:
www.firetotheprisons.com
firetotheprisons@gmail.com
c/o Shoelacetown ABC
P.O. Box 8085
Paramus, NJ, 07652, USA

WHAT AND WHY:
A quick briefing - Pg. 3

TURNING THE TABLES
IN DEFENSE OF THE EXCEPTIONS:
Advocating a revolutionary voice in defense of the
“cop-killer”.
By Another Delinquent - Pg. 10
WE’LL GET WHAT WE CAN TAKE:
A brief chronology of recent events in the
California Student-Worker Movement. - Pg. 17

THE BRICKS WE THROW AT POLICE TODAY WILL
BUILD THE LIBERATION SCHOOLS OF TOMORROW
By Three Non-Matriculating Proletarians - Pg. 23
BLAST FROM THE PAST:
BLACK MASK AND
UP AGAINST THE WALL MOTHERFUCKER
The story of a small underground 1960’s
Revolutionary group in New York City. - Pg. 28
OUR TEARS MAKE THE FLOWERS GROW
On the situation in greece. - Pg. 37
RIOT:
The Olympics are coming. - Pg. 41
WE DID NOT HAVE OUR “BROKENHAGEN”
On the actions against the climate summit
“Cop15” in Copenhagen.
By Some Unwanted Children of Capitalism - Pg. 46
REPRESSION:
Updates on the legal cases or situations of those
enemy to the state. - Pg. 48
REVOLUTIONARY SOLIDARITY
Actions claimed in solidarity with other struggles,
arrested individuals, or unrest. - Pg. 73
A CHRONOLOGY:
Of North American Prisoner Resistance. - Pg. 80
ANARCHIST RESISTANCE
Attacks claimed by Anarchists. - Pg. 84
NATIVE CONFLICT:
Under reported actions of Indigenous and “Third”
World struggles. - Pg. 87
REMEMBERING IVAN KHUTORSKOY
+ RESISTING FASCISM - Pg. 90
ETC:
Shout Outs, Further Reading, News. - Pg. 94

A QUICK BRIEFING

WHAT

&

WHY

T

here are some things
most of us can agree on.
There are some things
most of us dislike, but
choose to accept. For
example: most people
hate the police and most people dislike
work. Two things most of us can agree
on. But two things most of us accept.

If we can’t work, we can’t eat. If we
don’t behave, we go to jail. We reserve
the serotonin in our minds and the love
in our hearts for holidays, vacations,
weekends, or drugs.

Most people dislike the wars in the
world. But in response all we do is
voice our passive disagreement, “support the troops, and bad mouth the administration at hand. What else can
we do, right?

We don’t concern ourselves with what
it is that feeds us, we just keep working, as long as our stomachs remain
full or there is a roof over our head.

Most people dislike that there are
starving children in the world, while
others suffer with obesity.
Some people have to steal food to survive. While others donate to charity
and struggle with new diets.
Most people prefer to spend their days
with the people they love. Most people
end up spending most of their time
with coworkers, clients, or bosses.
Most of us have no choice.

Most of us accept this, and bite our
teeth, until the next moment we can
declare as ours.

Our job is our key to money, and money is the key to our survival. Otherwise
we would be starving and lost. Life is
just unfair. So we are told.
We ignore our disconnection from our
nourishment, and accept the industrial
process that produces our menus.
If our stomachs are full, it is not our
hands that produced the ingredients,
it is our jobs that satisfied our hunger.
Our understanding of nourishment is
purely within the system of production
the economy mediates. In this case
capitalism is what feeds us; at the same
time it is also what starves us.

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-What & Why-Pg. 3

The workplace is one scenario some of
us can agree on as a part of our lives
we don’t enjoy, but are forced to accept,
over and over and over again.
Most of us despise our disconnection
and dis-empowerment, where our conditions are determined by our role in
a global world as opposed to our immediate realities. We choose to distract
ourselves from these feelings and conditions, and choose to absorb the numbing opium of sitcoms, or film following
a hard day’s work. We are too tired to
play sports ourselves, laugh ourselves,
or experience action or adventure in our
own lives, unless we are lucky enough
to get paid for it. We watch others do
what it is we can’t. Whether or not its
real, whether or not we are doing it, we
are too tired to do this ourselves, and
we accept our everyday visual as the
boring alternative.
Most of our conversations are filled
with the stories of new episodes on television, news of the rich and famous, or
those who have it worse. As opposed to
new episodes in our own lives.
“The war in Iraq.” “Gay marriage.”
“Lost.” “H&M is having a sale.”
“Spare some change.” “No, sorry.”
“I’ll have a copy of the times.” “One
coffee please.” “Thanks for the tip.”
“You’re welcome.”
Everything is pre-determined.
Everything is mediated.
The conditions beyond our control, set
forth by the institutions that make up
this society, act not only as the medium
for our physical nourishment and comfort, but also act as a force in determining our inter-personal relationships.
We live harder in second life, and
feel less shy on facebook. Our social
lives have adapted to our lack of time
for them. Our relations are now more
measured and more
predictable. We are
now more connected, through the mediums that make it
possible for our literal disconnection.

In the process of nourishing our social
desires, we are forced to calculate a
self, making the dive in the social cess
pool of modern alienation more comfortable.
We constantly strive for our sense of
uniqueness, to become an “I”, and
separate from the “we”. We look for
this distinction and identity in music,
sports, art, spirituality, clothing, etc.
We are so alienated from one another,
that to reach out into the mass presented before us without an identity, would
be like a nightmare where we see ourself in our middle school home room
class naked.
Culture makes for a diverse market
place.
In a world where you can constantly
be surrounded by people and still feel
alone, we rely on culture and the market place to help us design our “selves”.
In this world, the individual is calculated by the trends of the market place.
There is a niche for everyone, and
a price tag on all of it. We have our
“own” restaurants, venues, channels,
drinks, bands, neighborhoods, grocery
stores, diets, gyms, workout routines,
hobbies, clothing brands, or cars. In our
strife for individuality we further our
alienation. The “individual” groomed
and fostered in the market place helps
to further distinct us from one another,
only being connected by the next ideas
of the marketplace. Under capitalism,
in the strife for individuality, we not
only further our alienation from each
other, we further our alienation from
our own sense of sincere desire or self.
Our desires are in congruent with valued products someone else produced,
as opposed to valued experiences
achieved by our own will and possibility.

Even our rebellious urges are subject to
a medium, before even being worthy of
taking seriously.
In the case of questioning or challenging our conditions, we are forced to
seek the approval of the same standards, politics, and sciences that rationalize our conditions to begin with.
We always have our own opinions. We
always have our own questions. We’ll
get drunk and discuss these perspectives or concerns with our friends, but
that will be it, that’s as far as we go. We
are encouraged to flirt with questionable ideas or scandalous questions in
the “appropriate” context. Our friends
are not the place for a serious dialogue
in this world, its the professors that can
tell us if we are wrong or right. The
questions have all been asked by the
social scientists and philosophers of the
world is what we are told. Our ideas
and questions are something to present
to academia, not our everyday conditions. We have to rationalize them to
the intellectuals and inside the colleges, before we can even rationalize our
ideas to ourselves or the people we care
about.
We accept our era as the end of history,
because we are told that everything has
been done. All the questions have been
asked and all the questions have been
answered. Our minds are boring compared to the internet, our possibilities
are boring compared to special effects.
We are at the end of human possibility,
and taught as if there is nothing more
to learn.
If we do question, if we are not happy,
we adapt, under the assumption that we
if we don’t, we are failures, we have not
undertaken the opportunities set before
us. Whether or not the opportunities set
forth can go far enough to satisfy our
ambitions.
Our jobs are our
faults if we don’t
like them.
Success is for the kids
that paid attention
in school. For the
kids who could

Culture makes for a
diverse market place.

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-What & Why-Pg. 4

afford college, or choose to stay the
whole four years. If we don’t enjoy our
jobs, we need to regret skipping out on
a few classes in high school. If we are
not making as much as we want, we
chose the wrong profession.
Although capitalism forces us to exchange our time for money, so we can
survive, whether or not we like it, if
our everyday life is undesirable within
capitalism, it is our fault. Capitalism
defines opportunity, if our ambitions go
beyond its matrix of possibility, we are
failures within capitalism.
Are this simply the statements of a cynical personality? Will our questions or
critiques be ignored as the obvious? If
this is obvious, if these are things we
ask ourself, then are they things we are
just supposed to accept?
Some have asked these questions as
a pre-requisite to experimentation.
Some have chosen to “materialize”
the frustration that comes with such
contemplation per-se. Some do not
see conclusion in the means available
for so-called “change” as we know it.

Some do not see satisfaction as feasible before the opportunities available.
Some have chosen to pursue the road
less taken, aware of the risk of experiencing all the consequences that come
with it. Some have chosen to take action in their own hands, whether or not
they are granted permission. Some
have decided that they are not in control of their lives, and to reclaim them
requires going above and beyond the
opportunities and mediums we are given to deal with them.
Although some may have asked the
same questions or drawn the same frustrations, the same people may be alienated by our reports of violent attacks
on institutions or companies cited in
this magazine (if you haven’t read this
magazine before, just start turning the
pages). This is something we would
like to confront here.
In the realm of everyday life, there are
specific situations of violence that we
are taught to condone or disapprove of.
We see both informal or institutional violence in our everyday lives, or at least
on the news. The armed forces, whether

police or military would be an example
of institutional violence we are told to
accept and condone. There of course is
also the non-formal violence we commonly hear of. Rape, torture, or armed
robbery being a few. These would be
bad forms of violence, or a form of informal common violence we hear about
frequently. This unlike the police and
military we are told is a negative violence, and distinct. What in actuality
determines informal (“bad”) or institutional (“good”) violence is whether
or not the behavior is approved by the
existing state. As the state is deemed
the only licensed provider of appropriate violence in the process of it sustaining itself and mediating inappropriate
violence.
The state in some cases allows instances of non-formal violence like tenants
and home-owners defending themselves against burglars, women defending themselves against rapists (in some
cases), or stores defending themselves
against robbery, and so on. These are
acceptable in the eyes of the law (in
some cases), and those responsible
for enforcing it, the police, military,

“Some have chosen to “materialize” the frustration that comes with
such contemplation per-se. Some do not see conclusion in the means
available for so-called “change” as we know it.

Some do not see satisfaction as feasible before the opportunities available. Some have chosen to pursue the road less taken, aware of the risk
of experiencing all the consequences that come with it. “

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-What & Why-Pg. 5

or government. These
acts are recognized in
some cases as self-defense by the state, and
deemed appropriate by
its courts. What defines
self-defense though?
What defines appropriate non-formal violence
and not? More importantly who is responsible for defining this?
If a more unique situation was to exist, where
the same people we
need to defend our lives
from were in control of
the laws and the prisons
that consequence us for
violating its standards
of right and wrong violence or self-defense, at
that point, this sort of
self-defense would become a struggle.

“If we are frustrated, if we do not like
how were forced to live, we choose to
accept it. Why am I special? Life isn’t
fair. The statements we say to ourselves, are the same cited in movies.
The statements we ask ourselves when
questioning our conditions, leave us
adapting and accepting, because acceptance and adaptation make this
society function.

DIFFERENT QUESTIONS NEED
TO BE ASKED. ADAPTING AND
ACCEPTING LEAVE US WITH A
COMPROMISED LIFE.”

At this point, if we felt the need to use
violence to defend our lives against
regulating forces like the police or
military, we are criminals. If we found
the need to deal more forcefully with
visible institutions responsible for mediating our lives in the process of defending their quality and possibility, if
the state approves of the enterprises we
are choosing to attack, we have chosen
to become an enemy of the state, and
run the risk of being consequenced for
defending ourselves. Or the more common term used today when self-defense
becomes a conflict or struggle with the
state, would be “terrorism”.
Our first thought of inappropriate violence or self-defense is “terrorism”.
People suicide bombing or sniping
soldiers in the Middle East. We ignore
the circumstances motivating these
desperate displays of violence, because
they are conducted against those who
are licensed to be violent. In this specific case, those who declare or fund
the war, are exempt from judgement
because they are entitled to engage in
war, they are the specialists in violence,
carrying the license of state approval.

We are either too disconnected from
“these people” to even feel that it is
our place to judge, or we understand
that these people hate us (depending
on who is reading this), because they
are attacking those who are appointed
to represent us and protect us (depending on who is reading this). But obviously unconventional violence can be
seen in more scenarios than just what
the media and state deems as the “war
on terror”.
Violence is motivated by a set of conditions; rape or abuse are two examples,
occupation or unconsentual mediation
could be two others.
Self-defense is usually only thought of
as an isolated incident, based on an isolated conflict.
But can self-defense only be justified
in the immediate situation? Could
self-defense be a consistent battle and
struggle to defend our own lives against
a forced set of conditions separate our
own doing?
If we are frustrated, if we do not like
how we are forced to live, we choose

to accept it. Why am
I special? Life isn’t
fair. The statements
we make to ourselves, are the same
cited in movies. The
questions we ask
ourselves when examining our conditions, leave us adapting and accepting,
because acceptance
and adaptation make
this society function.
Different questions
need to be asked.
Adapting and accepting leave us with a
compromised life.

Of course some
choose the unique
approach, or as some
call it, the “conscientious” approach,
adopting the way of activism or politics. If we want change, “we have
to accept the mediums to achieve it;
working within the system per-se” (is
what we are told), whether or not the
mediums are determined by the same
thing we are looking to change. Writing letters to congress, raising money
for charity, or writing about specific issues we have with the world seems to
be the conclusions or purposes of the
“conscious” minded; the activists or the
politicos.
But some, well in fact many people,
whether or not they are aware of it,
have chosen an even more unique approach to change, or one could maybe
say: satisfying their own sense of “justice”.
Some have chosen different paths,
some have chosen to not utilize the mediums for change or wait for approval,
some have chosen to act on their desires or feelings now, hoping others
will support and repeat. Some people
are looking to work not with the forces
of power, but the forces of themselves
and the communities that nurture them.
Some people are looking to re-appro-

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-What & Why-Pg. 6

priate their conditions or everyday lives
on their own terms. Some are reaching
out to those who share the conditions,
as opposed to those who mediate it.
Some are looking for immediate gratification, not compromise.
Are these people terrorists?
Because the state and media would
have us see them this way. More importantly, the state and media hope to
have us see these people as separate of
ourselves. As specialists as opposed to
us. Such an approach is too “extreme”
to be accessible to the average person.
Because the average person is apparently a pathetic person. Dealing with
our conditions directly, on our terms
is simply “insanity”. Something to be
afraid of when you hear about it, as opposed to inspired.
In that case, is this approach to change
or “justice”, when not conducted by the
state, a strategy that celebrates terrorism?
Or could these people be us, our
friends, our communities: us; or an opportunity to learn new ways to appease
our desires and frustrations on our own
terms?
Until the police come to our house, or
put us in jail, they are defending us.
But at any point this could happen.
Until we are starving and on the street,
we are the privileged ones. But at any
point this could happen. If our options
are this thin, are we living the way we
want to?
There is a social contract signed from
birth, where we have to survive a certain way. Otherwise, we will starve or
be imprisoned. There may be “rights”
with this contract, but if someone else
can take them away at any point, what
do they matter? If we are not determining this framework, or if we are not
happy with the way things are, but have
no choice other than to accept it, are we
dealing with a case of coercion? Are
we being attacked, and just constantly
looking to survive it?

Coercion is not a positive word to anyone. We accept formal coercion in the
form of armed police, restitutions, jail
terms, or bail. We dislike non-formal
coercion like blackmail, robbery, or
rape. These are some specific examples of where one could experience
coercion. In each case, ranging in different forms of intensity, you would
be experiencing coercion, in all cases
you are dealing with a form of attack.
There is an offensive act that leads to us
comply with what or who is conducting it. But again, can it go beyond the
specific? Can there be an entire system
in place built on formal coercion and us
adapting to it?
If the entirety of our everyday lives are
pre-determined by a system of production and mediation, and our lives are
not exactly the way we want them to
be, would the forces determining this
set up be behaving in a coercive way?
If the set up is a process of coercion,
then the system determining it would
be a system that attacks more or less
that which it is regulating. We are
forced to accept this, and consequenced
if we don’t.
Some choose to view the current conditions we are experiencing as a form
of attack on our everyday life, and engaging in resistance to it, violent or not,
would be an act of self-defense.
We have assumed this outlook.
We report on clandestine violence, illegal occupation of space, or riots because we see this behavior as ruptures
in this social framework. We see this
as acts of defending lives against an
unconsentual arrangement. We will
not disagree with the accusation that
these acts are violent or “criminal”, but
we refuse to scoff or demonize them;
on the contrary, we look to recognize
them as positive ruptures before the
normalcy of this constant attack we
experience in our everyday lives. As
something that brings us closer to each
other, and avenges our possibilities lost
before the framework found in this mediated society.

Our intention with this magazine is to
present a common enemy, and a common way of dealing with this. We look
to nurture learning opportunities for
those interested in producing conflict
with the current “system” in place. We
look to provide examples of others courageous enough to attack that which is
attacking them, especially when its not
popular in the mainstream papers and
blogs, or to avenge someone’s memory
before a demonizing media. We look
to provide examples of people coming
together against a common enemy, and
fighting it not on its terms. We are a
force for agitation in this society, and
look to help further an awareness and
dialogue that will be in permanent
conflict with the conditions created by
capitalist society, or civilization as we
know it, as long as they are not on our
own terms.
As the government isolates such a sentiment as “terrorist”.
We support self-defense, in its most unconventional form.
We consider ourselves a quarterly
magazine, but our intention is never
to continue. We are not interested in
becoming just another news source.
We are interested in helping to foster a
revolutionary and borderless solidarity
among frustrated forces and communities in conflict with the current reality.
We are interested in connecting different movements, and identifying unrecognized struggles. We are interested in
exposing ruptures in the social framework, and not allowing them to be isolated. We are a magazine for its own
destruction. Our content is intended
not to be read, but realized. We report
to inspire, and write for response. We
aren’t looking to be heard by academia,
the same way we are not looking to
be appreciated by journalists. We are
discontent people, in conflict with our
conditions, and in solidarity with those
who share them. We represent no distinct movement, we only wish to present resistance with a common enemy.
As we cited earlier, prison has helped
to maintain the social framework as

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-What & Why-Pg. 7

we know it. In maintaining it, it is also
there to prevent us from trying to overcome it. Bank robbery, drug dealing,
fraud, or prostitution would certainly
be a few of the more common reasons
as to why people are imprisoned. These
account for the majority of people incarcerated. It is obvious that all of this
behavior stems from the same struggle
- that being survival under capitalism. Some can’t get jobs, some do not
want to be limited to their jobs; these
are some of the attainable alternatives.
In this magazine, those imprisoned (or
currently dealing with legal battles or
police harassment) we choose to mention have chosen a more unique path in
“overcoming” capitalist society. Like
the outlaws and criminal entrepreneurs,
those cited here have specifically chosen not to accept the means for survival
they are granted, and look for gratification beyond the framework we are
presented. This also goes for those
mentioned who are currently in trouble
for aiding other lives or engaging in
revolutionary forms of solidarity. We
have taken responsibility for being a
different voice for those falling under
the raining anvils of the state. We want
to defend those choosing a different
path, and help realize the implications
of really “overcoming”.
War continues everyday, around the
world. It is not just between nations, it
is also between classes, races, species,
religions, and other divisions produced
to keep us apart. Pre-existing social
tensions remain as consistent as the
social institutions predetermining our
existences. The United States is not
unique to this. In fact the United States
is completely prepared for the fluctuation of this war’s intensity, and are active in privately engaging in it.
Specifically, Americans are taught to be
infatuated with its “constitution”. The
vital paper that sanctions the spectacle
of this liberal civilization, leading its
mass to accept its “imperfections”, and
feel far superior to its “less” desirable
alternatives. Many of those arrested or
in jail that we report on here, have fallen into the cracks of information, and
made only available to communities of

special-interest, or whomever would
currently sympathize with whatever
motivations brought forth the “crimes”
mentioned. Although the opportunities
and possibilities of American capitalism do reflect the same appearance of
any “Western Civilization”, sentencing
guidelines for crime do not. By order of the “constitution”, the paper so
greatly praised by American nationalists, we are entitled to bear arms or take
actions to preserve the “free state”. We
do not remember the 1941 statute still
on the books (nor do we remember that
such privileges were only designated to
a select few from the start; obviously
native and black communities were not
part of the constituted new club). Following the industrial revolution, the
“Smith Act” was created. This act is a
United States federal statute that makes
it a criminal offense for anyone to
“knowingly or willfully advocate, abet,
advise, or teach the duty, necessity, desirability, or propriety of overthrowing
the Government of the United States
or of any State by force or violence,
or for anyone to organize any association which teaches, advises, or encourages such an overthrow, or for anyone
to become a member of, or to affiliate
with, any such association.” This was
first practiced in response to the dawn
of the American “communist” movement. In 1941, multiple members of
the American communist movement
were put on trial for violating this act.
This helped to indict multiple members of the Socialist Workers Party in
Minneapolis at the time, and convict a
select few. The evidence against them
was primarily based on the rhetoric of
political leaders associated with the
Communist movement. Excerpts from
books by Trotsky and Marx were two
examples of evidence used to indict
and convict. Once the theories of such
thinkers turned into a reality for parts of
the world, it became a violation of the
“constitution”; a threat to the stability
of American culture.
The era of repression has not ended. It
is always here, and becomes more visible each time dissent becomes a real
threat. If there is a state, there will be
repression. The state will always pro-

tect itself, by liquidating anything that
threatens its stability by isolating such
forces with prison or public deception
of them.
We are not utilizing our right to free
speech. Whether or not we are putting
this magazine out in the United States,
a place where literature is not taken seriously. Whether or not we are immediately experiencing the repercussions of
being an insurrectionary voice in such
a repressive era. It is a risk we always
face. Because if literature is taken seriously, if it becomes a threat or significant, by this we mean, if it becomes a
reality or largely visible gesture, such a
right will and can be revoked.
Of course we all are aware of the
“War on Terrorism” and the patriot act.
These are simply examples of state opportunism and continuing the inherent
tradition of all governments: repression
to everything that threatens its own protection.
Once vivisection companies were going out of business from resistance
conducted by animal liberation groups,
we had the “Animal Enterprise Terrorism” act created. Individuals were going to jail for making people aware of
company behaviors, and encouraging
people who cared about animal suffering to respond. Individuals were put in
jail for years, as soon as campaigns became successful.
The victory of “getting away with it”
was becoming too obvious to the police regarding anonymous actions in
defense of the earth by “Earth Liberation” groups in the last 15 years. Sentencing a few people “caught” at the
dawn of their concerns to “rapist and
murderer” like prison terms for crimes
where only property was destroyed was
not enough. Infiltration and entrapment
helped to further intimidate. Groups of
people were being arrested for crimes
that happened years ago via wire-taps
and paid snitches. Infiltration and intimidation helped to spread distrust
and deception among people arrested
or interested in the cause; humiliating
the same communities before on-lookers. Sentencing before the crime even

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-What & Why-Pg. 8

took place, became possible as the FBI
started to create spies to entrap and sentence individuals who were potentially
interested in acting in defense of the
earth by means of claiming “conspiratorial” intentions. This helped to create
a new style of pre-meditated arrests by
the state, using the “conspiracy” accusation as the entirety of its evidence.
Stopping this movement in its tracks,
before even taking its next step.
Raids and indictments are coming out
in response to the new momentum of
riots in the United States. This is seen
as a manifestation of the new “insurrectionary” and “anti-state” forces
sweeping Europe and South America
as well. Terrorism is no longer seen as
the standard “clandestine” actions done
anonymously in the night, it can also

be public displays of discontent; riots.
Riots are a participatory violence that
act as a safe space for discontent. Now
they are just deemed as public “terrorism”, if done in direct conflict with the
state or its public rituals (Republican
National Convention or G20 being two
examples).
Even if no evidence exists, a grand jury
can always lock someone up for at least
a year and a half before even having a
case.
When something starts to spread, when
something becomes “serious”, the state
will be there to stop it. We have seen
this in the recent occupations of University campuses in California by students. Students being beaten by police,
arrested in mass, and some put in jail

facing insane charges. We see this in
Western Canada, as anarchists, aboriginal peoples, and others opposed to
the upcoming winter games suffer the
wrath of its “security” to come. We
see this in Greece as the new “socialist party” begins to isolate and liquidate “anarchists”. They are aware of
their potential, as they have continued
to foster unrest before the state, since
the death of a teenager sparked riots
across the country last December ‘08.
Millions of people are incarcerated in
prisons across the world. Uprisings are
frequent and consistent inside prisons,
as long as they exist. Without outside
resources, these acts will remain isolated, and perceived only as routine.

Therefore we look to connect and foster conflict and agitation towards a common enemy.
We want to prevent certain struggles from
remaining isolated; while at the same time
prevent individuals arrested for engaging
in these struggles from being forgotten. We
want to present a message both critical and
frustrated with the conditions were forced
to accept before this civilization, and hope
readers will more then sympathize, but actually relate.
This is why we exist. This is why we will continue. But like we said, we hope to not be
around forever, because like all revolutionary
literature, we will only continue to exist until
the current conditions we are frustrated with
cease to.

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-What & Why-Pg. 9

TURNING THE

TABLES
IN DEFENSE OF THE EXCEPTIONS
ADVOCATING A REVOLUTIONARY VOICE IN DEFENSE OF THE “COP-KILLER”
By Another Delinquent

W

henever there is an attack on a police
officer or force, the spokesperson or
commissioner always mentions the
courage the police officers had. Apparently its an understood thing that
assaults and attacks on police are an
inherent possibility and frequent experience for street officers. We agree with this recognition of
courage the police so arrogantly spout. We see this courage
as the same one that would manifest in war. Like soldiers in
war, the police act as the enforcers of peace and normalcy
before our everyday conditions. They are the infantry preserving a stability for reality as we know it. They are the foot
soldiers of an institutional fear that maintains our everyday
relations and movements. The police are public evidence to
the low-intensity social war we experience everyday.
The job of the police is to be at the forefront of mediation
for all of us, to let us know that if we behave independent of
the norm, we will be further isolated, either through arrest
or physical abuse. They realize that they are engaging in a
constant war against everything and everyone that looks to
disrupt the peace and silence before our current reality. They
are the everyday visual for why it is that we choose not to
question, but to adapt and survive.
The police realize that most of us appreciate them, similarly
to the same way many appreciate god; through fear of what
would happen if we chose to not accept them. There are the
exceptions though. As some choose to not accept them, the

same choose to not be afraid. As some choose to take the
risk of negating God and being damned to an eternity in hell;
some choose to negate the police’s power, and run the risk of
being damned to an eternity in prison.
As the police continue their careers of torment and repression, the anxiety we all feel surviving their presence will certainly lead some to break. Sometimes people choose not to
flee the police, but to pursue them. So in some ways, yes we
agree that there is some bravery to being a police officer, but
we would say the same bravery is true for a bully.
The Hollywood bully we all think of is simply a younger or
non-formal version of the police. As the police walk around
lashing out on the poor or so called “minorities” in society,
they are looking out for the interests of the wealthy or the
elite. As the bully walks through school tormenting the ugly
or weird, they are protecting the status of the popular and
normal. As the police walk around the streets looking for
victims to add to their quota, the bully wanders the cafeteria.
Knowing nobody likes them, but taking money and causing
tears, because they know everyone is frightened of them just like the police. It’s actually quite sad that the police and
the bullies of the world would ever take such pride in this
sort of courage, but unfortunately in this society, personal
power and pride is recognized by your advantage or power
over others. Being respected through a common fear is not
necessarily a positive thing for most people. In the case of
bullies, bosses, politicians, or the police, it is the entirety of
their existence.
Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Cop Killer-Pg. 10

Similarly to the recent escalation of attacks specifically targeting the police
in the United States, the
last ten years provides
evidence of a common
breaking point for the
tormented youth of this
country as well. Someone
is always going to break.
Someone is always going
to take the initiative of
being the exception. The
under dog that bit back
per se. We’ve seen this in
the case of Maurice Clemmons (accused of shooting 4 police officers in a coffee shop in , Lakewood,
Washington) or Lovelle Mixon, (accused of shooting four police officers
in the streets of Oakland, California on
March, 21st, 2009. This came shortly
after the Bay Area Rapid Transit police
shot a black man named Oscar Grant in
the back while he was on his stomach.
). Just like we’ve seen this in the case of
14 year old Elizabeth Catherine Bush
in Williamsport, Pa, or Eric Harris, and
Dylan Klebold of Columbine, Colorado. As some may trip the bully in front
of a large crowd, punch the bully while
he or she is not looking, or start a rumor
to embarrass the bully, others in some
cases have chosen to lose all hope.
Some have chosen to bring fully automatic weapons to school, and shoot the
bully, and anyone who laughed at the
bully’s shenanigans at their expense.

“How often are we
made into suicide
reports?
How often did our
wallets look like guns?
How often did our
appearance seem
suspicious?”

Of course we do not consider either
Columbine, the Williamsport, PA
school shooting, or similar incidents
as positive attacks on the current social
order. We also would like to add that
we do not support these acts, or understand why certain people were killed,
and of course we do not like hearing
about teenagers dying or killing each
other. But we do understand why they
happened. We think that the scandal of
violent ruptures in American schools,
takes a lot of the same forms of civilian
defense against the police. Most people hate the police. Most people have
just adapted to them. The streets of the
world are plagued with the formalized

bullies of the world; the police. And
the possibility of an explosion in tension, is always the case.
Whenever an attack is made on the police, anywhere in the world, it is an act
of war. Because our people, our part of
this war; the poor, the youth, the discontent ones who the police protect,
this society and those who rule it from,
are the targets of every officers gun.
How often are we made into suicide
reports?
How often did our wallets look like
guns?
How often did our appearance seem
suspicious?
The bullets of the police are made for
us, and they will be used in any moment where we try to stand up to them
or the system they protect. Realizing
this, would anything other then a smirk
of pleasure come onto our faces when
we hear about this? Of course there are
less violent and more efficient ways to
prevent more arrests from being made,
and put a dent in the efficiency of the
police for a day or two (attacking police communication and operation infrastructure as opposed to the police
bodies themselves).
For every dead cop, one of us is protected, one of us is avenged. For every dead officer, fear is driven into the
hearts of a thousand others, and for a
moment the tables are turned.

It is sad that revolutionaries have
been so scared to celebrate. Will we
really indulge them with their own
sentimentality? Did they do this for
Billy Panas or Oscar Grant? Did they
shed tears when Sean Bell was shot 50
times in New York? They did not. In
fact, any apology was dragged out of
them by our resistance to them. We
really only hear an apology when we
riot. If Rodney King wasn’t caught
on video, and L.A wasn’t in flames,
would Rodney have just been another
case of “resisting arrest”? If Oscar
Grant getting shot in the back wasn’t
caught on video, would it have been
self-defense? If Billy Panas wasn’t
stumbling with friends when a drunk
off-duty Philadelphia police officer
shot him in a random outburst of drunken rage, would Billy have just been
another one of the “troubled youth”?
These are some of the recent police on
people murders that have had the privilege to become media frenzies towards
the end of 2009. Imagine all the “dead
niggers” or “out-of-control youth” the
police have murdered in the shadows
of this society, that no one was there to
witness, that just became statistics.
There is an accountability in this war,
and it should be understood, that people
are going to break. Some of us can not
handle the constraint, and its more important for some to strike back than it is
to continue to survive the heat.
If some dare to fight back (whether that
is individuals or communities) in any
way, it is understood that they may be
killed by the cops, or stripped of their
livelihood by the justice system the
police represent. The police know as
well, that some people are not cowards, and some will make it very clear
what side of the fence they stand on.
Of course these exceptions, the Davids
who try to take on the Goliath police
forces of the world, will always be
made out to sound like demons. Apparently, anyone who shoots police, or
really engages in any non-institutional
violence against any facet of the current
social framework, will be destroyed by
the media presenting their case to the
world. No longer does this individual

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Cop Killer-Pg. 11

“There is an accountability in this war, and it should
be understood, that people are going to break. Some
of us can not handle the constraint, and its more important for some to strike back then it is to continue
to survive the heat.”
become an inspiration to youths and
repressed people across the world to
stand up to the police. The individuals
become “Terrorists”, the communities
become “Dangerous”, and our assumptions and understanding all become
routine.
Of course the individual was never acting in self-defense. The news informs
us that they were always acting in congruence with their own insanity. We
want to say here that we will not bow
down to the sacredness the media fabricates for these dead cops.
We will have to be the exception, in our
support for the exceptions.
We are saddened by the death of “suspect” Maurice Clemmons; the man who
killed 4 police in Lakewood, Washington this last November. We aren’t even
positive that this was the man who
committed the act. Maurice was killed
before even being taken to trial or being
heard from directly.
A little history about Maurice:
Maurice was sentenced to 108 years in
Arkansas in 1989 when he was 16 years
old. His charges were aggravated assault, robbery, and firearms possession.
In 2000 he managed to get released 15
years before his original parole date of
2015. Maurice claimed during parole
hearings that his “crimes” from when
he was 16 were motivated by a need to
survive both logistically and socially
in his high-crime neighborhood in Arkansas after moving there from Seattle
when he was a teenager. Not to mention that he was 16 years old, and more
or less given life for crimes where nobody was even killed, we can’t imagine

the deep-seeded resentment towards
the police or prison system such an individual would begin to experience.
After 11 years in prison, Maurice returned to his home-state Washington
as a 27 year old man.
In July 2001
Maurice was convicted of another robbery case, and given 10 years in jail.
He made bail 3 years later, on March
18th 2004. The media has told us that
it is believed that Maurice alledgedly
committed other armed robberies since
his parole. They also throw in that he
“may” have been drug smuggling. Of
course on top of those unprovable accusations, they don’t forget to throw in
that he was “talking crazy about god”,
or thought “he’d been cursed by a devilworshipper”. What this has to do with
murdering police; we have no idea, but
apparently its important information to
throw in when discussing this man. Its
said that six months before the attack,
Maurice was accused of “assaulting an
officer” and “child rape”. As uncomfortable as it is to never have a conclusion on the accusation of raping a child
(considering how vile we find the act),
Maurice is dead, and the accusation has
now become truth by the media, as it
continues to demonize this dead man
who can only remain silent.
Its important that we add that Maurice
was out on bail, because his friends and
family collectively put up the bond on
his 150,000 dollar bail, and although
he was apparently an awful man, there
were people that cared about him. Although we also have no faith in trials,
we do find it interesting that they are so
important to the spectacle of American
“integrity, justice, and freedom”, but
when cops are shot, there is no need for
them.

Maurice was killed by a cop, when he
was pulled over for alledgedly driving
a stolen car following the incident. Before Maurice was even found, he was
the scapegoat murderer of the 4 police
officers, and wanted dead or alive. We
managed to compile tons of news reports about the situation and failed to
find something mentioning that a gun
was stolen from the scene of the crime.
In fact it seems relatively impractical to steal a gun from the scene of a
crime where one wounded officer is
shooting at you. Its also obvious that
whomever it was who shot the four police, had intended to get away from the
scene, making it seem relatively stupid
to have a firearm easily connecting you
to the murder. But in the reports of the
officer who shot him, Maurice apparently had an odd wound visible on his
stomach, and was armed with the hand
gun of one of the officers. Interesting
that a man whose been in and out of jail
for weapons charges would need to be
carrying a handgun from the scene of a
crime he was alledgedly fleeing from.
But as its reported, he fit the description, and during a confrontation, Maurice was shot and killed by an officer
during a routine stop in the middle of
the night.
We cannot imagine the high-fives and
vacation time the officer received for
killing Maurice. We imagine every officer in the North West was hoping for
the same opportunity to kill him. It
didn’t end there though. Killing Maurice was not enough for the police, it
was time to get his family and friends
too. Darcus Allen who served time
with Maurice in Arkansas, was accused
of driving Maurice to and from the incident in Lakewood. Prosecution against
Darcus states that he was questioned

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Cop Killer-Pg. 12

following Maurice’s death,
and denied having a relation- PICTURE BELOW:
ship with Maurice for some One of the Police cars Christopher Monfort is accused of destroying.
time. Although his original
statement was this, and he
continues to claim innocence, following his arrest,
its now stated (following
police custody) that Darcus
admits to driving Maurice
to the scene, but was forced
into helping Maurice. He is
currently being held without
bail. Five other people have
also been accused of aiding
Maurice, most of whom are
relatives. Although Darcus
was denied bail, some relatives accused of providing
Maurice with assistance
have been released out on
bail fees ranging up to fivehundred thousand dollars.
We don’t know if it was
Maurice who killed those
four police, or if the five
people accused of helping
Maurice did either. All that
we have are the statements
of the police and the media.
We understand that Maurice, although painted as a
scoundrel of a human being by the media, clearly
had friends and family who
cared for him. If friends and family
were not only willing to have bailed
him out of jail and been there for him
his whole life, and the state is correct
that his friends and family were there
to help him, allegedly being aware of
the repercussions, he clearly had people who unconditionally cared for him.
Were they also demons?
It is unclear what motivated this act. If
it was Maurice though, was it an act of
insanity? Or was it an act of revenge
for years of police abuse and torment,
in prison and on the streets? Could it
have been that he was sentenced to 108
years at the age of sixteen by a 1980s
southern jury? Could it have been the
guards he encountered as a black teenager and man during his 11 year prison
term in an Arkansas prison? Could the

neighbors accounts of Maurice’s living
situation be true, when one neighbor
mentions the consistent police intimidation on Maurice by the local department? Saying that undercover police
were outside his house watching and
following him everyday, being so obvious about it that the neighborhood
just accepted it as routine. Could his
surveillance cameras have been out of
a fear that the police were going to attack him one day? We will never know
the answers to these questions. But it is
important for us to shatter the fear we
have to ask them. Its important for us to
go beyond the reactionary understanding were taught to have on violence
against the police. When understanding the cop-killer he allegedly was, it
seems like these questions should also
be part of the equation.

Maurice is not an isolated incident. The month
prior in Seattle had some
frightening moments for
the local police. On October 22nd, the same day
of a local anti-police brutality march in Seattle,
three police cars were set
ablaze. It was said that
a six foot man wearing a
back pack was seen running from the three cars.
Following this incident,
on October 31st, veteran
officer Timothy Brenton
was killed in a drive by
shooting. At the scene
of his death, pamphlets
were left citing a recent
beating of a fifteen year
old black girl by two
white officers in a Seattle
jail cell. The incident the
pamphlets are referring to
is when two officers, Paul
Schene and Travis Brunner were escorting a 15
year old black girl to her
holding cell. In response
to the teenager kicking
her shoe off at them when
they got her inside, the
two officers punched her
in the face, then threw
her against the concrete
wall, then onto the floor. One officer
proceeded to punch her in the back of
the head three times while the other officer held her on the cement floor. She
was then handcuffed her, had her face
smashed her face into the floor, followed by being picked up and dragged
out of the cell by her hair, The incident
was caught on camera, and since the arrest, the “rookie” officer was sentenced
to 5 days unpaid suspension, while the
other officer faces fourth-degree assault. We have seen this video, and
could respond with nothing but tears
and anger ourselves.
Since the drive-by shooting, one man
was quickly made suspect when he
was arrested for threatening an officer
following the incident. That man was
released on 30,000 dollar bond. Fol-

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Cop Killer-Pg. 13

lowing this original scapegoat, Seattle
police questioned a man named Christopher Monfort. While questioning
Christopher, police say he tried pulling a gun out on them, and in turn they
shot him in the head. It is not cited in
original reports, following his arrest,
but it now says that pamphlets threatening police and citing prior incidents
of police abuse like the 15 year old girl,
were also left at the arson on police vehicles prior to the murder of Timothy
Brenton.
Christopher, who is half black and half
white man, living in a notoriously racially segregated city
like Seattle, was someone
dedicated to confronting “judicial racism”. He took the
“justice program” at the community college he attended,
although this class has been
known to educate many future cops, it was understood
by people that his intention
with the class was not to
help create his career as a
police officer, but to “make a
change in society.” Monfort
ended up graduating from the
University of Washington in
2008, with a degree in “Law,
societies, and justice”. Following his education, he applied for a minority-scholars program.
For years, Christopher Monfort was
active in trying to create a career for
himself as someone fighting the system
from the inside. Something all frustrated youth are told to do.
Although the officers who shot Monfort in the head claim they found the
firearms used in the killing of the officer
in Monfort’s house, as well as booby
traps and explosives in his kitchen, and
the car used in the scene of the killed
officer’s death; we do not know if this
is all true. We can never know. But if it
were true, we choose to ask ourselves,
why would someone do this?

police cars? Could it have been witnessing the beating of a fifteen year old
as we described earlier? Was Christopher maybe fed up with the bureaucracy and deception of trying to pursue a career in being a “lawyer of the
people”? Whatever it was, this or that,
whether or not he did it, these are the
questions we choose to ask.
Christopher is currently on trial for
murder and arson. Although he still
claims innocence, as a result of the bullet to the head, he is paralyzed from the
waist down.

the line of duty. Since writing this article, one man tried to add one more to
the list.
Raymond Martinez, a young New
Yorker died while trying to flee police
in Times Sq. on Thursday, December
10th, 2009. He was a rap artist who
sold CDs on the street in Times Sq.,
New York City. When two undercover
police approached him for selling his
CDs on the street without a Vendor’s
permit, he chose to run instead of going to jail. After running a few blocks,
in the parking lot of the Marquis hotel,
Raymond pulled out a Mac10 semi-automatic pistol. He
fired two shots and the gun
jammed. The bullets broke
2 store windows, but didn’t
hit either of the police chasing Raymond. Although his
gun jammed, the officers
continued to fire, wounding his arm, and killing him
with a shot to the stomach.
When the officers ran over
to his dying body, Raymond
continued to struggle, and
continues to try and resist the
officers. At this point, Raymond’s brother ran up to the
officer to hold his murdered
brother. Raymond’s brother
was arrested as well, but was
released shortly after due to there being
no charges. According to mainstream
papers Raymond’s brother chose only
to comment on his hatred for the police and pain over his brother’s death.
Following reports include a statement
from NYPD commissioner Raymond
Kelly stating that they found a business
card in the wallet of Raymond with a
hand-written message that said: “I pity
the cop that tries to put me in his paddywagon”.

IS THIS

NOT

REVENGE?

Could discrimination by police for
being half-black his whole life have
driven him to want to help blacks in the
American justice system, or brought
him to kill an officer and blow up some

Like Maurice, Christopher chose to
attack the police. In both cases they
were shot by police before being able
to make a statement. We do not know
the truth about whether or not either of
them had anything to do with the acts.
We do understand the acts though, and
choose to draw more unique questions
from them.
Will we just accept these acts as isolated situations of insanity? Or will we
ask ourselves this: why would anyone
want to attack the police? More importantly, why would anyone want to, for
once, be on the offensive?
Unfortunately its hard to read about
all the attacks on the police that occur.
Since 1792, when the first American
police force was created, something
like 19,000 police have been killed in

Since the shooting, street peddlers have
been coming together. The police have
always represented starvation for them
and those who rely on them, as street
vendors in New York run the risk of
losing all of their merchandise to the
police at any moment. The police have
always tormented them, bribed them,
and pushed them off the streets, hop-

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Cop Killer-Pg. 14

ing to clear the way for a more visually comfortable place like Times Sq.
or Soho, two places that act as a crossroads for the international wealthy and
elite. For Raymond Martinez, enough
was clearly enough.
In the cases of those like Lovelle
Mixon, Andres Raya, (a 19 year old
ex-marine who shot 2 police officers,
killing one and wounding the other, following his return from his time served
as a Marine in Iraq. The incident came
after he also broke into a school, burning American flags and spray-painting
“Fuck Bush” throughout the building.
After his original shoot out with two
officers, he went on the run. While fugitive, he was shot 18 times during a
confrontation with police, who were
conducting a stake out with the intention to find him.) Christopher Monfort,
or Maurice Clemmons, the frustration
was too strong, and the consequences
were worth sacrificing for the moment
of attempted revenge. In a society that
tolerates only the institutional forms of
intolerant behavior, not allowing ourselves to feel joy or empathy when we
hear of this type of self-defense (that is
violence against the police) is simply
preserving the normalcy of their brutal
existence. How could revolutionaries
ignore this pattern, the unique ones who
have had the courage to break away
from the acceptance of state control?
How could we savor even the thought
of mourning for these police officers?
Such a concern should bring nothing
but a vile taste in our mouths. Is this
not revenge?
Revolutionaries must be responsible
for assuming the role of not mourning
the police, but defending the memory
and recognition of the individuals
who choose to go out, instead of stand
down. In all cases, the police represent
common frustrations we all feel. In all
cases, the actions they conducted are
things many dream of, if not every moment, as soon they come face to face
with the backseat of a cop car, or the
coldness of a jail cell. The institutional
power that police or the military hold
has only been able to exist through
generations of murder and repression.

The social geography of our global
era has come about through the same
conduct, because the social order of
our global era is maintained by the
police and militaries of the world. If
agitation is something that we look to
generalize, the implication of these random outbursts should suggest nothing
but excitement. We should be looking
out for the families of these individuals, and comforting them, letting them
know that they are not alone. Providing financial aid and legal support, and
screaming over the voice of the media,
to prevent further demonization.
Its sad to know that the police will
shatter any solidarity among the street
peddlers. We know that they will torment and raid all of their stands to demonize Raymond’s memory. To create
more division between struggling street
vendors, and help to further mediate
and maintain a normal market place
for tourism and the wealthy. It’s the
responsibility of the active minority of
revolutionary minded folks to be there
to shatter such harassment and make
sure that his memory is not demonized. It is also their responsibility to
ensure that people realize that it is not
Raymond fining, arresting, or harassing
them - it’s the police and the state that
produces them.
When someone is killed by the police, due to the institutional power that
comes with the uniform, “it is never
the fault of the state”. All responsibility
is projected onto the individual killed
for violating a pre-determined social
contract were all forced to sign from
birth. That is to follow the law, accept
your conditions, and survive. Anyone
that breaches this social contract is simply suicidal in the eyes of the state or
media. We are taught to see the bullet as self-inflicted by the law-breaker,
because the police are not people, they
are the material presence of the abstraction known as law. There are the exceptions, as we mentioned earlier, like
when the police murder and it is caught
on tape. Or when the cops get sloppy
and the story is just too scandalous,
when it becomes too obvious to the
public as to who the police represent.

Sometimes they have to sacrifice officers to deceive us into believing in their
justice.
Lets of course remember Roger Magana, an officer in Lane County, Oregon.
An officer who the police had to sacrifice in 2004 when a serial rapist investigation led police back to themselves.
From 1997 to 2003 officer Roger
Magana would cruise Lane County,
Oregon looking for prostitutes to sexually coerce. Demanding blow jobs and
sex in exchange for not arresting them.
If they didn’t respond to his threats
of arrest he would pull out a gun and
threaten to kill the women if they didn’t
respond to his requests.
Throughout his police career, multiple
woman contacted the police to complain about being raped or threatened.
One woman who called the police on
officer Magana was ignored by the
Lieutenant at the time, Pete Kerns she claimed. We’re assuming she was
ignored because of her assumed occupation: prostitution. The case became
too scandalous to be ignored, and after
six years, Magana was put on trial and
convicted of 52 counts of rape and harassment.
Since then, the officer who ignored the
original complaints of Magana’s policing has been promoted to the police
chief of the Lane County police department. Magana somehow became
the exception, but just like all the exceptions were told to look at when accepting the validity of the police and
the justice they protect, imagine all the
woman who have been ignored. Imagine having a gun pointed at your head
and forced to give a police officer a
blow job so you won’t be arrested or
killed. Imagine how often this happens
and we don’t hear about it. Imagine all
the kick backs and blow jobs the poor
and struggling are forced to give as they
try to survive off the scraps of the market place the police protect and force
us to survive in. The police are there
to protect this market place, to mediate
the relations of it, and preserve its permanence. Prostitutes, street peddlers,
convicts, or just discontent people are

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Cop Killer-Pg. 15

If our goals
are to
generalize
resistance and
frustration
with the
common
conditions we
face in our
everyday lives,
revolutionaries
must be an
active voice
of support
for attacks on
the police.

the enemy of police, because they
are the enemy of the state and the
market place it protects. Revolutionaries are also the enemy of the
police, because they look to produce agitation against the social
framework the police are responsible for preserving. A solidarity
can be found in this.
It is important to shatter the morality and sacredness of these
situations, and provide a light of
support for the underdog. Revolutionary communities should be
listening to these complaints, looking for an opportunity to foster the
frustration. The attacks mentioned
here, as well as the attacks never
reported on, are ruptures in the social framework of a policed society, and are as wide-spread as the
police. It’s important to recognize
the conditions that provoke each
rupture and be there to formally
connect them as not isolated incidents, but something that naturally
generalizes before a similar repression.
We need to be there so people like
Maurice, Christopher, and Raymond receive the support they deserve. We need to be there so when
the police sacrifice one of their

own to further deceive us into appreciating their justice, we will be
a voice for ourselves, our friends,
and our loved ones reminding each
other that this is what the police
do, not one officer. It is a manifestation of their entire reason for
existing: to coerce us into accepting them, and what supports and
condones them, capitalist society.
If our goals are to generalize resistance and frustration with the common conditions we face in our everyday lives, revolutionaries must
be an active voice of support for
attacks on the police. We need to
be there asking different questions,
sharing different feelings, and providing support for the individuals
convicted or killed for attacking
the police, or those affected by association. We should be fostering
memories of the demonized, and
the so called murderers. “Folk heroes not murderers” may be a good
start. The media and the justice
system can not conclude these incidents as another story in history.
We must preserve each moment of
attack on the social order, and encourage others to understand them
from a different point of view.

We can not succumb to the morality of our oppressors. The fight against the state is not pretty.
To take on a society built by systematic or militaristic violence, there will have to be a violent
force that grows just as rapidly as our mass misery before our everyday life conditions.

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Cop Killer-Pg. 16

WE’LL GET WHAT WE CAN

TAKE

A brief chronology of recent events in the California Student-Worker Movement.

“And we have yet to
invent
Anything so pure as the
guillotine, an instrument
Known also as the little
window. But what shall
We hope to see there?
The marriage of the
beautiful
And the trivial? That the
sky finally
Emptied of clouds must
now say a new thing?”
-A Participant in the
California Events[1]

H

ow does one chronicle a struggle? To
locate the precise
confluence of events
that form a “movement”, to force into
linearity the collective memory of
masses of disparate experiences, all
of this obscures the power of what
really happened. It highlights the euphoria of success at the expense of
the greater lessons taught by failure.
Events, complicated with contradiction, resist analysis and struggle to
affirm themselves purely, quite apart
from merely political concerns. A
movement is more than the sum of
its parts. But is there something concrete to speak of? The emergence of
a student movement?. Such things
satisfy no one at this point...
In the weeks ahead of the start of the
2009-2010 school year, the Board of
Regents of the University of California announces a wave of austerity
measures, ostensibly in response to
the economic crisis in California and
the looming state budget shortfall.

Mass layoffs of workers, increased
student fees, and larger class sizes
are just some of the more egregious
steps that the UC governing body intends to push though.
In rapid succession, hurriedly created collectives of students, professors and union activists mobilize
in protest. UPTE, the largest union
at UC, calls for a one-day strike on
September 24th and other groups
rush to organize around this date.
In late September, as thousands of
students and university workers prepare for a state-wide walkout, a new
text emerges, Communiqué from an
Absent Future, written by an anonymous group calling itself “Research
and Destroy”. Inspired by the student occupations at the New School
for Social Research which occurred
earlier in the year, they argue that
the crisis of education is deeper than
merely that of preserving a privileged student-hood. The university,
as a crucial site of domination, must
be undermined and its functions
blocked if its struggles are to have
any lasting meaning. “A free univer-

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Get What We Can Take-Pg. 17

sity in the midst of a capitalist society
is like the reading room of a prison,”
it states, in opposition to the traditional
liberal ideal of an educational oasis free
from the repressive contradictions of
society.
Clearly placing itself within the larger
movement against the privatization of
higher education but going beyond the
paltry demands of the upcoming official mobilization, they advise that as
students and workers
“we must act on our own behalf directly, without mediation. We must break
with any groups that seek to limit the
struggle by telling us to go back to work
or class, to negotiate, to reconcile”[2].
Immediately, students across California
begin to buzz with the thought of further escalation beyond that of a simple
walk out.
On September 24th, tens of thousands
students walk out of classes across the
UC system in defiance to the proposed
austerity measures. Within this context
some participants see an opportunity to
push harder.
At UC Santa Cruz, a group splits off
from the campus march and seizes the
Graduate Student Commons. Fences
are ripped from the ground and dumpsters overturned to block possible police movements. The occupiers block
the entrances of the building with overturned tables, trip the elevators and attach cable locks to all the doors. Setting
up a website, they post a communique
which rapidly spreads across the state:
“As undergraduates, graduate students, faculty, and
staff, we call on everyone at the UC to
support this occupation by continuing the walkouts
and strikes into
tomorrow, the next
day, and for the indefinite future. We
call on the people
of California to
occupy and escalate.”[3]

THE SPECTER APPEARS.
Meanwhile, 60 miles to the North, at
UC Berkeley, a much different outcome would emerge from a more ambitious occupation attempt. An ongoing
General Assembly, which had begun to
take shape over the weeks ahead of the
walk-out, announces a campus-wide
meeting . Created amid hopes that a
new movement might accomplish complicated decision making free of the
standard politicking that pocks most
student campaigns, its qualities start to
rapidly deteriorate. Internal leadership
is quickly co-opted by internal factions
and student political parties twisting
the process to their own political ends.
Many participants abandon the process as hopelessly recuperated, more
interested in forming endless committees and voting on every possible scenario for what to do next time rather
than emphasizing what students can do
now, in the moment, in a self-organized
fashion. In spite of internal criticism, a
massive meeting of the GA is convened
in Wheeler Hall, a UC Berkeley auditorium. Some participants, undoubtedly inspired by news of the recent
Santa Cruz occupation read the newly
released communique over the microphone to the growing body.
Chants of “Occupy, Occupy!” reverberate throughout the auditorium
in response. Feeling that the window
for direct action is quickly presenting
itself, some of those present rush to
lock down the doors, while those inside

struggle to have an immediate occupation of the space put up for a vote. External doors are left open for those who
wish to leave.
At that moment Ricardo Gomez, a
leader of the liberally-oriented on-campus political party CALSERVE, rushed
to the stage to denounce the occupation
as “undemocratic”. As a later statement
about the events observed, what did undermine the power of the room was in
fact
“the proceduralism of the leadership [of
the GA] which refused to respect the
will of the people present. Gomez knew
what he was doing: he was consciously
destroying the radical energy of the
people gathered there. Rather than calling a vote on occupation, he pushed the
gullible to tears by insinuating that they
had been taken hostage when this was
not the case. This was a disgusting and
despicable case of the worst form of
opportunism, the effects of which are
only beginning to be felt.”[4]
Sixty minutes later, three UC police
officers were freely allowed to walk
in and cut the locks on the doors. The
potential for a radical outburst seemed
increasingly unlikely even as the occupation by students to the south was
moving swimmingly along.
Over the next seven days the UC
Santa Cruz administration hesitates to
send in the police and for the whole
week, nightly dance parties rock from
the balcony, attracting hundreds of students from across campus. The copy
machines are expropriated and used to
pump out a steady
stream of insurrectionary
literature
thrown to the growing crowds outside.
Initially, the students
inside hope that their
provocation would
move other students
and workers on campus to seize more
university property
but this strategy
proves a little premature. Eventually,

“we must act on our own
behalf directly, without mediation. We must break with
any groups that seek to limit
the struggle by telling us to
go back to work or class, to
negotiate, to reconcile”[2].

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Get What We Can Take-Pg. 18

seeing the opportunity to leave without being arrested and identified, they
abandon the occupation.
Over the next two months, participants in both occupations reevaluated
their strategies, attempting to locate
how and why both experiences came up
short. At Berkeley, a slightly less ambitious strategy of direct action would
be employed to build up excitement.
Called “soft occupations” by some, a
term which seems slightly
unfortunate, students hold
a series of library “studyins”, sleeping overnight in
the Anthropology library,
an important student resource on campus that
had recently had its hours
significantly reduced due
to cut backs. Once again,
administrators
hesitate
to send police in and students are able to hold the
space through the night
before leaving willingly
the next morning. Though
not technically an occupation, as administrators and
police were allowed to
enter the space, for some
of those present this provides them
their first experience in participating
in an illegal tactic and proves to be a
substantial boost to what they consider
possible. Meanwhile, a rapidly different struggle, 5000 miles away, would
have a considerable impact on how the
movement viewed itself.

Skype conference calls and exchange
messages sharing tactics and discussing strategy, such as the political nature
of demands and how to coordinate in
the future.
On October 24th, a mass conference
gathers in Berkeley to plan a state-wide
strategy to fight the budget cuts. Many
attendees leave unsatisfied as the usual
sects of student politicians dominate
the proceedings; but throughout the

Campbell Hall, renaming it CarterHuggins Hall, after two Black Panthers
assassinated there in 1969. They hold
the space until the evening, releasing a
statement declaring:
“We will ask nothing. We will demand
nothing. We will take, we will occupy.
We have to learn not to tip toe through
a space which ought by right to belong
to everyone.”[5]

“We will ask nothing.
We will demand nothing. We will take, we
will occupy. We have
to learn not to tip toe
through a space which
ought by right to belong to everyone.”[5]

THE ACADEMY OF REFUSAL
In Vienna, Austria, striking students of
the Academy of Fine Arts march triumphantly into an auditorium by the
thousands and declare it occupied, renaming it the “Academy of Refusal”.
Among their first publically released
statements is a gesture of solidarity to
the student struggle in California. Suddenly, what had seemed to be merely
a California-centric education movement had become a global student occupation movement. The relationship
between Austria and California continued to be mutually supportive as factions from the struggles hold extended

day, hundreds of students pushing for
a more conflictual approach are able
to network and coordinate actions for
the next months. Shortly after the conference, a separate Berkeley student
group, the Solidarity Alliance, puts out
a call for a three day strike beginning
on November 18th, the day of the Regents meeting, at which the proposed
cuts are expected to be passed. Once
again, buzz builds around the capacity
for conflict.
On Wednesday, November 18th, the
student strike spawns occupations,
walk outs and mass demonstrations
across the state. Occupation of student and administrative spaces occur
at multiple schools.
At UC Davis,
an occupation of Mrak Hall results in
the arrest of 52 students, shortly after
their release they march back and reoccupy the same building. At UCLA,
as five thousand students rally outside
the Regents meeting and interrupt the
proceedings inside with shouts and
civil disobedience, a group occupies

At Berkeley, after a rally
in Sproul Plaza organized
by the official student
leadership, a thousand
students march around
the city of Berkeley. As
the march arrives back on
campus, a ring of bodies
forms around California
Hall, the main campus administration building. Immediately a small group
of masked individuals
begin to crowd around
the entrance, attempting to force their way in.
The two police officers
stationed outside seem
overwhelmed and unsure of how to handle the situation. A
small projectile is thrown at the door as
some administrators struggle to enter
the building,. Eventually the cops pull
back inside and block the doors. At this
point, official representatives of student groups, upset that their control of
the situation is rapidly escaping them,
direct the crowd to sit down and vote
on proposals. Many of those present
react violently to this idea and chant
for the crowd to “tear down the fucking door”. One demonstrator grabs the
megaphone from the hands of a student
activist and attempts to rally the crowd
into doing “what working people have
always done to win struggles, to make
rich people afraid of you!” Elements of
the crowd rush back to the door but the
moderators of the meeting have already
succeeded in deescalating the energy.
A statement put out four days later describes the way the student leadership
intentionally re-routed the momentum
of the moment to avoid a situation they
couldn’t control:

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Get What We Can Take-Pg. 19

“They [activists] forever need to stand
on the edge of the reality that something could pop off, because it is in that
possibility that they can control the situation and ensure that things do, in fact,
move in their way towards nowhere.
When things get hot, the self-elected of
the student movement are waiting with
their trusty fire extinguishers ready in
hand because they know that when people act on their own and valorize their
self-interest, their authority crumbles
and everyone can see how bankrupt
their strategy of social containment
actually is. The student activist stuttersteps on the path of nothingness.”[6]
But farther away on campus, another
occupation is attempted. Thirty people
rush into the offices of Capital Projects, the university investment office,
and try to blockade themselves inside.
The vice-chancellor of Finance, possibly the most hated administrator on
campus, locks himself in his office and
calls the police who are able to force
themselves inside before the students
can fully blockade the doors. They
are cited and released. Once again, an
ambitious occupation at Berkeley has
failed. But during the hour long event
a substantial crowd of supporters gathers outside and heartened by a such a
strong base of support some elements,
left unsatisfied with the recent turn of
events, sense this as a major development and call a meeting to propose one
last-ditch effort for a building occupation, one which would ultimately become the most combative action in the
short history of the movement.
THE TAKING
OF WHEELER HALL
Early in the morning on November
20th, two days after the failed attempt
to occupy Capital Projects, 41 students
surreptitiously gain access to Wheeler
Hall a massive classroom building on
the Berkeley campus. One hour later,
as three people are reportedly pushing over vending machines to block
ground-level doors, a group of campus police move in and trap them in a
hallway. They are immediately taken to

Berkeley City jail and booked on felony burglary charges,. But the majority
of the occupiers rush to the upper floors
and sealed off the entrances, locking
themselves in securely with u-locks,
chains and a blockade of metal chairs.
They hold the space for nearly 18 hours
as a a crowd of thousands slowly grows
outside.
Throughout the day several masked
occupiers appear in a window and read
their demands to the students outside
who throw food and water to their
friends. They demand amnesty for all
those arrested throughout the strike.
They also demand the reinstatement of
recently fired custodians and the end to
the eviction of a student housing cooperative.
The Berkeley administration, sensing
that events are getting out of hand, call
in Oakland police and Alameda Sheriffs
who form a perimeter around Wheeler.
In defense a three deep line of supporters rings the police line. A pouring rain
begins to fall but the crowds continue to
grow an eventually the police attempt
to push back the crowds to deescalate,
but to no avail, the students stand their
ground, convinced that if they maintain
a constant presence the administration
will be forced to allow the occupiers to
leave on their own terms.
Fire alarms are pulled in the surrounding buildings, forcing thousands of
students to abandon classes and join
the crowd. At some point, interactions
between the two sides becomes violent
with cops pushing through the crowd
to get police vans into place for a raid.
One graduate student has her hand broken by a police baton, requiring reconstructive surgery. As one particularly
large cop beats back a group of demonstrators, one student is seen taking
a protest sign and beating the heads of
several riot police with its long wooden
handle before they push him back and
beat him down. Other students rush to
his defense and pull him out of the way,
allowing him to escape. After negotiations with the occupiers break down
due to their unrelenting stance on having their demands met, the administration plans to have the police forcibly
go in and then book them in County
Jail, but due to the continued threat of a

riot outside Wheeler Hall, they are prevented from doing so. As tensions continue to run high, and the pouring rain
dampens spirits, the police are forced to
only cite and release the occupiers after
the SWAT team moves in and breaks
through the barricades. A opinion piece
released the next day demonstrates the
threat posed by the defensive crowd
outside:
“Students who, by all outward appearance, could have been members of
sororities or fraternities, demanded to
know where bodies were most needed
to maintain a strong and impermeable
perimeter. Let this be clear: if the students were arrested and carried out,
there was going to be a fight. A riot?
Perhaps (this much depended on the
police). A fight? Mos def.”[7]
Meanwhile, at UC Santa Cruz, hundreds occupy Kresge Town Hall, and
vote to take another building. Without
knowing their destination they begin
to march in an effort to locate the best
possible target. Amazingly, the crowd
manages to force its way into Kerr
Hall, the main administration building.
For the first time in the movement, the
tactic of occupation is become expanded to that of taking over multiple buildings. At Kerr Hall, students take over
the Chancellor’s office and rummage
through his refrigerator, eating his food
and watching footage from the recent
Greek riots on the chancellor’s entertainment system. They hold the space
for several days and eventually force
the administration to enter into negotiations to allow them to leave without
being arrested.
THE AFTERMATH OF
NOVEMBER 20TH
Across the state, November 20th continues to be the high point of events, but
this by no means fully eclipses the stern
student response that appears throughout the Bay Area over the next month.
During the last week of school before finals, known as “Dead Week” on
Berkeley campus because most classes
are given a break so that students may
study for the upcoming exams, a sepa-

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Get What We Can Take-Pg. 20

rate group retakes Wheeler Hall and
declares it an “Open University.” Police and Administration agree to let
them stay through the end of the week.
Poetry readings, teach-ins on the class
composition of the university system
and dance parties are held every night.
Two days later, on December 12th,
students occupy the Business Administration building at San Francisco
State and rename it Oscar Grant Hall,
after the the young black male shot in
the back by police on New Years Day
2009. Huge, interlocking piles of metal
chairs are seen stacked in front of the
doors. Due once again to a quick mobilization of support outside, the occupiers are able to hold it for nearly 24
hours. A series of small general assemblies spontaneously meet at entrances
around the building, discussing how to
mobilize defense. But by now police
forces have already learned the lessons
of November 20th. Correctly anticipating that a militarized stand-off with a
large crowd of students would result
in a riot, officers from the San Francisco Police break through a ground
floor window at 1 AM, when most of
the outside supporting crowd had gone
home for the night, and arrest the 28 inside along with a small group of outside
supporters who refuse to move out of
the way. Moving just as swiftly, supporters of the occupation learn from a
similar tactic that had been seen at UC
Berkeley, that of physically blocking
police vans by anticipating their possible movements. For nearly an hour
a small crowd gathers in the street immediately outside the campus leading
to the police station. Later, a police
captain would admit to a local news
channel that they were indeed unable
to get the police vehicles through the
street blockade and were forced to
wait out the crowd and hope that the
tension would diffuse. Fortunately for
them, the crowd quickly lost steam and
the police vehicles were able to speed
through, leading one to imagine what
would have occurred had the crowd
stood its ground and kept growing.
One day later, the students gathered
in the “open university” at Wheeler
Hall are awoken at 5 AM and arrested
by campus police, not surprisingly,

breaking their earlier promise that they
would allowed to continue the study-in.
Some are not allowed to put on their
clothes and are loaded into awaiting
police buses in their underwear. They
are released 12 hours later but charges
are later dropped.
The next night, outraged by the arrests, a torch-bearing crowd marches
on the Chancellor’s mansion, breaking his windows, smashing planters,
and hurling the torches at approaching police vehicles. 8 bystanders are
cornered and arrested by police and
charged with felony attempted arson,
burglary, and assault. As they are being held on $132,000 bail, governor
Schwarzenegger releases a statement
denouncing them as “terrorists” .
Once again, a post-action communique
would emerge, placing the action in the
context of the larger student occupation
movement:
“As students, we are supposed to be
the embodiment of society producing
its own future, but this society has no
future; there will be no “return to normal” and we must find ways to inhabit
this reality. From Berkeley to Greece
and back around the other side, we are
in civil war. This is the basis of modern life, and it is high time we illuminate this fact for any who remain confused.”[8]
After being held for four days and having their faces paraded on the local
news, county prosecutors acknowledge
they have no specific evidence against
those arrested and release the 8 to their
supporters.
Following all of these actions across
a time line, it is remarkable to notice
the natural escalation of tactics which
happens after every action. What is
unacceptable, even deemed “undemocratic,” one week is suddenly common
practice the next. From walkouts, to sitins, to occupations, to property destruction, the genealogy of the movement is
perfectly demonstrative of how an active minority of participants, acting not
as a vanguard but as a material force,
and pushing constantly harder, can
have an overwhelming effect on the increasingly radical nature of a struggle.

WE ARE THE CRISIS
California, the world’s fifth largest
economy, increasingly finds itself in a
deeper crisis, even beyond that of the
general financial crisis now plaguing
global markets. Along with this will
come further austerity, further repression and further reconstruction of Capital. California can be seen as a laboratory of capitalism, experimenting with
economic and political measures which
will soon become common place across
the US as other states experience budget
crises. Public services will be among
those first to be cut, and the opportunity
this provides us now is to experiment
with modes of refusal which also have
the potential to be employed by those
resiting such austerity.
While those of a leftist orientation
would like to think of this nascent
movement as the first reaction by the
Left to the global economic crisis, to
look further one can recognize that
much of what has occurred has also
been a reaction the response of the Left.
As students and workers across the state
notice the vapidity and impotence of
the official student, union and political
effort, self-directed activity has instead
begun to show what people are capable
of once they abandon traditionally accepted forms of protest and organize on
a more conflictual basis. Santa Cruz in
particular has been exemplary in this
regard, even as some radical elements
have struggled to emerge from the repressive control of the official student
movement, such as that at Berkeley
and UCLA. Any future radical strategy
will need to contain these recuperative
factions and should strive to mobilize
students to act autonomously to demonstrate the power of converging across
a set of shared conditions.
To go further, also to be abandoned is
the idea of the student as a distinct sociological category and instead recognize
the interplay of identity that forms the
being of the student. 51% of Americans
are former or current college students.
What must be avoided is not necessarily
student struggles themselves but rather
the tendency of student-led movements
to either directly or implicitly demand

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Get What We Can Take-Pg. 21

the protection or furtherance of a privileged student-hood.
But just as California can be seen as a
laboratory of struggle so it can also be
seen as a laboratory of repression. As
the tactics and strategies of the student
movement evolve so will those of the
police forces. What worked on November 20th in Berkeley as a mode of defense failed two weeks later at SF State
when police avoided the possibility of
day-long street conflict by moving in
at night when most supporters and bystanders had left. Any evolution of tactics will need to have a serious evaluation of the strengths and weaknesses
of occupation and expand its arsenal to
include that of the whole campus. To
take the 1968 San Francisco Student
Strike as an example, students shut
down the campus for five and a half
months, resisting police attacks nearly
every day. Does limiting the arsenal of
the movement to the tactic of occupation impede its ability to adapt? What
other modes of refusal can participants
employ that have the capacity to generalize? These are just some of the many
prescient concerns as we enter the coming semester.

To return to the Communique from
an Absent Future, a text to which this
movement seems fortunately tethered:
“the fact that today the economic crisis
precedes the coming political uprising
means we may finally supersede the
co-optation and neutralization of past
struggles”.[9]

To either resign
ourselves to defeat
for fear of recuperation or hope
for the best in spite
of our failures will
toll the death knell
of this new movement; we can only
continue to scour
the terrain for its
wider possibilities
and new weapons.

FOOT NOTES
[1]Joshua Clover, The Totality for
Kids, 2007, UC Press
[2]Communique From an Absent
Future, Research and Destroy, htwewanteverything.wordpress.
com/2009/09/24/communique-froman-absent-future
[3]UCSC GSC Occupation Communique, www.occupyca.wordpress.
com/2009/09/24/occupy-california/
[4]“UC ‘Student’ Leaders Sabotage Occupation of Wheeler
Hall”, www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/09/25/18623229.php
[5]UCLA Student Occupation Communique, www.uclaresists.blogspot.
com/2009/11/communique-from-uclaoccupation.html
[6]The Bricks We Throw at Police Today Will Build the Liberation Schools
of Tomorrow, included in this issue
[7]Behind the Privatization of UC: a
Line of Riot Cops, George CiccarielloMaher, www.counterpunch.org/maher11242009.html
[8]A Torchlit Evening with Birgeneau, www.indybay.org/newsitems/2009/12/12/18632362.php
[9]Research & Destroy, op.cit.

D[[UP~

E

~-

"THIn
Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Get What We Can Take-Pg. 22

THE BRICKS WE
THROW AT POLICE
TODAY WILL BUILD
THE LIBERATION
SCHOOLS OF
TOMORROW
“If you’re scared today you'll be scared tomorrow as well and always and so you've got to
make a start now right away we must show that in this school we aren't slaves we have to
do it so we can do what they're doing in all other schools to show that we're the ones to
decide because the school is ours.” -The Unseen, Nanni Balestrini

NOTE
The following article
was written by three
participants in the
events mentioned in
“We’ll Get What We
Can Take”. The article presents critiques
and ideas of and
around the UC Worker-Student movement,
that stem from direct
experiences. It was
was written only a
week after the last occupation was evicted.

D

ays later, voices in unison still ring in our ears.
“Who’s university?” At
night in bed, we mumble
the reply to ourselves
in our dreams. “Our
university!” And in the midst of building occupations and the festive and fierce
skirmishes with the police, concepts like
belonging and ownership take the opportunity to assume a wholly new character.
Only the village idiot or, the modern equivalent, a bureaucrat in the university administration would think we were screaming
about something as suffocating as property
rights when last week we announced, “The
School is Ours!” When the day erupted,
when the escape plan from the drudgery
of college life was hatched, it was clear to
everyone that the university not only belonged to the students who were forcefully
reasserting their claim but also to the faculty, to every professor and TA who wishes

they could enliven the mandatory curriculum in their repetitive 101 class, to the service workers who can’t wait for their shift
to end, and to every other wage-earner on
campus ensuring the daily functioning of
the school.
Last week, the actualization of our communal will gave us a new clarity. The
usual divisiveness of proprietorship was
forcefully challenged; cascades of hidden meaning rush onto rigid notions of
possession and our eyes look past surface
appearances. So now when asked, “who
does the university belong to?” we can’t
fail to recognize that the college itself was
built by labor from generations past, the
notebook paper is produced by workers
in South America, the campus computers
are the output of work in Chinese factories, the food in the student cafe is touched
by innumerable hands before it reaches the
plates, and all the furniture at UC Berke-

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-The Bricks We Throw Today-Pg. 23

ley is produced by the incarcerated at
San Quentin. Thus the university, its
normal operation and existence, ought
to be attributed to far more than it
regularly is. To claim that the school is
ours requires our definition of ownership to not only shatter the repressive
myth that the college belongs to the
State of California and the Regents but
to also extend belonging past national
and state borders and throughout time.
It’s clear, the entire university, for that
matter, every university belongs to everyone, employed and unemployed, all
students and all workers, to everyone
of the global class that produces and
reproduces the world as we now know
it. The school is ours because it’s everyone’s and the destruction of the
property relation, with all its damaging
and limiting consequences, is implicit
in the affirmation of this truth. It’s our
university...
…but, as of now, in its present configuration, who would want something so
disgusting as a school?
THE POVERTY OF STUDENT
LIFE IS THE POVERTY OF
CAPITALIST SOCIETY
It’s now larger than any conspiratorial plot by Thomas Huxley. In fact, he
could have never envisioned the extent
to which contemporary class society
would transform education as such into
another separated activity, detached
from the totality of life and devoid of
any practical worth or good, while, simultaneously, being in perfect accord
with the needs of capitalist production.
Learning is now sapped of all its content, education is but another part of the
assembly line in the social factory, and
the university itself serves an important function within the reproduction
of disjointed life in this divided society.
While the collegiate apparatus infests
countless minds with the logic and
technical knowledge of capital, the illusion is being sold that somehow academic labor is divorced from the world
of work. Our apologies, but a term paper is not the production of autonomous
and creative knowledge, it is work and

therefore exploitation. It is human activity animated for the sake of capital
not for humanity itself. The conditioning and preparation of students for a life
crushed by regimented value creation is
the essential purpose of the college: to
teach the young how to give and take
orders. Nothing about the university is
neutral; its role in society is clear. The
lines are being drawn.
You will always be offered dialogue
as if that were its own end; it will die
in bureaucracy’s stale air, as if trapped
in a soundless room. In insurrectionary times, action is the speech that can
be heard. -Slogan written on a Digital
Wall
Far before last week’s events, we’ve
located them in the enemy’s camp. Student activist-leaders shamed, begged,
pleaded, and finally began to shriek
and scream at us when we ignored
their megaphone-amplified orders. In
their last ditch effort to see their commands followed, they physically assisted the police in blocking us from
occupying buildings and protected the
outnumbered cops from our punches
and shoves. It’s obvious they’ve chosen their side some time ago. These are
the idiots who were telling people who
tried to break down the door of California Hall on November 18th that they
should not do so because “there was no
consensus.” These are the same fools
who sabotaged the attempted storming
of the Regents meeting at UCLA and
the occupation of Covel Hall, ruining
months of self-directed planning, after
declaring the crowd had become too
“agitated.” The Cynthias, who later
that day went on to disrupt the occupation of Carter-Huggins Hall. These
are the same politicians, who grabbed
the megaphone as students marched in
to the President’s office in Downtown
Oakland, prepared to raise utter hell
and instead directed them into a dialogue with middle-level administrators,
later issuing an order that the crowd
must leave “peacefully.” Disgusting,
yet typical. The only consensus they
want is rallied around the social peace
and the preservation of the existent institutions and the only alteration they

want of the power structure is their
ascent to the top of it. By actively collaborating with the administration and
police, by orchestrating arrests, by frittering away the momentum of the angry, they validate the insults we flung at
them and they revealed themselves for
the “student cops,” “class traitors” and
“snitches” they are.
For them it’s a knee-jerk reaction:
challenge their power and they fall
back on identity politics. If they don’t
get their way they cry privilege. When
the actions escalate, when we begin to
feel our power, the self-appointed are
waiting to remind us that there may be
the undocumented present – the activist super-ego. Somehow in their tiny
paternalistic brains they believe they
know what’s best for immigrants implying that the undocumented are too
stupid to understand the consequences
of their actions and god granted the student leaders the wisdom to guide these
lost souls. In their foolish heads, immigrants remain passive sheep, black
people never confront the police and
just enjoy the beatings they get, and the
working class always takes orders from
the boss.
In pseudo-progressive tongue they
speak a state-like discourse of diversity; the groans of the student-activist
zombie is the grammar of the dead revolutions of the past. Their vision of race
politics ignores the triumphs and wallows in the failures of the 60’s movements. The stagnant ghosts of yesterday’s deadlocked struggle; they are the
hated consequences of the civil rights
era that produced a rainbow of tyranny
with a Black president mutilating Afghanis, Asian cops brutalizing students
on campus, and Latino prison guards
chaining prisoners. In this same way,
the opportunists act out their complicity with the structures of order. When
students defy preset racial categories
and unify in order to take action on their
own behalf, the student cops attempt to
reinforce the present day’s violent separations and reestablish governance.
They fail to recognize that divisions
among proletarians are questioned only
within the struggle itself and the festering scissions between the exploited can
only be sutured with hands steadied by

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-The Bricks We Throw Today-Pg. 24

“Some may ask, “Why have these
hooligans come to our campus?”
“They’ve come to ruin everything!”
the student leaders will say.
AND FOR ONCE, WE AGREE.”
combat with the exploiters.
Like a scalpel used to reopen
stitched wounds, the student
activists’ brand of multiculturalism is undoubtedly a
tool of state repression.
During the scuffle with the
police in front of California
Hall on the inaugural day of
the strike, one of the student
cops asked, “What’s going
to happen when we get into
the building?” For us, given the social context of the
strike, the answer is obvious,
for them, even the question
is problematic because of the
risk it poses to their position
of dominance. In the moment
of rupture, their role as managers becomes void. Self-directed action crowds out the
programmatic. They forever
need to stand on the edge of
the reality that something
could pop off, because it is
in that possibility that they
can control the situation and
ensure that things do, in fact,
move in their way towards
nowhere. When things get
hot, the self-elected of the
student movement are waiting with their trusty fire extinguishers ready in hand because they know that when
people act on their own and
valorize their self-interest,
their authority crumbles and
everyone can see how bankrupt their strategy of social
containment actually is. The
student activist stutter-steps
on the path of nothingness.

But we hope to turn the mob
against them. To seize their
megaphones and declare:
“Death to Bureaucracy!”
Some may ask, “Why have
these hooligans come to our
campus?” “They’ve come to
ruin everything!” the student
leaders will say.
And for once, we agree.
WE ARE NOT
STUDENTS,
WE ARE DYNAMITE!
A movement results from
combinations that even its
own participants cannot control. And that its enemies
cannot calculate. It evolves
in ways that cannot be predicted, and even those who
foresee it are taken by surprise. -Paco Ignacio Taibo
Many will ask then, why
have we thrown ourselves
into the ‘student movement?’
We are not students, at least
not now and never in the UC
system. It is not feasible for
us to attend the UC in the
first place, either because of
the cost or the lack of desire
to live the rest of our lives
ridden with overwhelming
debt.
We have not come to the
university to make demands
of the Board of Regents or
the university administration. Nor do we wish to
participate in some form of

‘democracy’ where the ‘student movement’ decides (or
is told to do so by student
leaders) how to negotiate
with the power structure.
For us, Sacramento and its
budget referendums are as
useless as the empty words
spewing from the mouths
of the union leaders and activists on campus. Nothing
about the “democratizing”
the school system or forcing
it to become better managed
or more “transparent” even
mildly entices us. No, we
didn’t join the student movement to obtain any of these
paltry demands.
Last week, we began to attack the university not just
because we are proletarians
scorned by and excluded
from the UC, or that we hope
by resisting we may reduce
costs and thus join the UC
system and elevate our class
positions. Our choice to collaborate in the assault on
California’s school was driven solely by our own selfish
class interest: to take its shit
and use it for ourselves. Occupied buildings become
spaces from which to further strike the exploiters of
this world and, at the same
time, disrupt and suppress
the ability of the college to
function.
Like any other institution
structured by class society,
the university is one of our
targets. We made our pres-

ence in the student movement to break down the
divisions between students
angry over fee hikes, workers striking against lay offs,
and faculty at odds with the
administration over cuts and
furloughs. These are not
separate struggles over different issues, but sections
of a class that have a clear
and unified enemy. We have
come for the same reason we
intervene in any tension: to
push for the total destruction
of capitalist exploitation and
for the re-composition of the
proletariat towards communism.
And so, ask yourself how
could one even go about
reforming something as debilitating as a university?
Demanding its democratization would only mean a reconfiguration of horror. To
ask for transparency is nothing but a request for a front
row seat to watch an atrocity
exhibition. Even the seemingly reasonable appeal for
reducing the cost of tuition
will leave the noose of debt
wrapped snuggly around our
necks. There’s nothing the
university can give anyone,
but last week’s accomplishments show that there is
everything for us to take. If
anything, our actions, as a
means in themselves, were
more important than any of
the crumbs the UC system
or the Regents Board might

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-The Bricks We Throw Today-Pg. 25

…And So It Must Spread

wipe off the table for us. During these
days, we felt the need for obliterating
renewal give rise to intense enthusiasm.
We felt the spirit irradiate throughout
campus and press everyone “to push
the university struggle [not only] to its
limits,” but to its ultimate conclusion:
against the university itself.
…And So It Must Spread
“It is surely not difficult to see that our
time is a time of birth and transition
to a new period. The spirit has broken
with what was hitherto the world of its
existence and imagination and is about
to submerge all this in the past; it is at
work giving itself a new form.” -The
Phenomenology of Spirit
The stench that the university emits
has become unbearable and students
everywhere are reacting against the
institution that has perpetually rotted away their being via an arsenal of
disciplinary techniques. At campuses
across California the corrosion of life
is brought to a quick halt when the college’s daily mechanism of power is given the Luddite treatment, and suddenly,

studying becomes quite meaningless.
Shamefully, the administration, terrified they are losing control and supervision of the pupils they spent so much
time training, turn riot police on anyone
ripping off their chains. At UC Santa
Cruz, UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC Davis,
SF State and CSU Fresno the unlimited
occupations display the universal need
for free and liberated space. The recalcitrance is spreading. In Austria, students left their occupied territory at the
Fine Arts Academy to march on the US
embassy in solidarity with the police
repression on California campuses. On
the same continent, the occupations in
Greece have now extended outside the
universities into the high schools and
even the middle schools. Everywhere,
the youth are recognizing the school as
a vapid dungeon stunting their growth
and, at the same time, they are refusing submission to the crushing of their
bodily order. All over, a new generation
is seeking the passion for the real, for
what is immediately practicable, here
and now.
The assaults on police officers, the
confrontations with the administration,
the refusal of lectures, and the squatted

buildings point the objective struggle
in the direction of the complete and total negation of the university. That is,
brick by brick smashing the academic
monolith into pieces and abolishing the
college as a specialized institution restricted to a specific segment of society.
This will require the instillation of technique known as learning to be wholly
subverted and recomposing education
as a generalized and practical activity
of the entire population; an undermining through which the student shall
auto-destruct.
Going halfway always spells defeat,
and so, the spreading of movement is
our only assurance against this stagnation. Complete self-abolition necessitates that the logic of revolt spill out
of the universities and flood the entire
social terrain. But the weapons of normalcy are concealed everywhere and
especially within the most mundane
characteristics of daily life. The allegiance to the bourgeois family structure
and interruptions by holiday vacations
and school breaks threaten to douse the
fuse before its ignition and hinder our
momentum.

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-The Bricks We Throw Today-Pg. 26

LET US NOT LOSE SIGHT
OF THE TASKS BEFORE
US.

“Take out your
hairspray and
your lighter”!
Tear down the
education
factory.
Attack the Left
and everything
that it
“represents.”
Attack the new
bosses before
they become the
old ones.
Life serves the
risk taker – and
we’re rolling the
fucking dice!

We must forcefully eject the police from the campus. Find their
holes and burn them out. Block
their movements near occupied
spaces. Build barricades; protect
that which has been re-taken.
We need only to look to Chile or
Greece to see the immense advantage movements possess once
they seize territory and declare
it free of police. Blockade the
entrances and gates of the campus as the students have already
begun to experiment with at UC
Santa Cruz.
We must also denounce and
destroy the student Left (the recuperative, the parasitic, the
“representative”) that seeks to
de-escalate the movement and
integrate it back into politics. Our
venom is not only directed at those
who assisted the police in blocking angry students from entering
California Hall at UC Berkeley
or obstructed the crowds during
the Regents meeting at UCLA
but also of those who sought to
negotiate with the police “on behalf” of the occupiers of Wheeler
Hall. It is telling that the police
will negotiate with them, because
to the cops, they are reasonable.
We are not, however, because we
seek the immediate annihilation
of both the pigs and the activists.
Renew the strikes and extend
their reach. Occupy the student
stores and loot them. Sell off
the computers in the lab to raise
funds. Set up social spaces for
students and non-students alike to
come in and use freely. Appropriate the copy machines and make
news of the revolt. Takeover the
cafeterias and bars and begin preparing the communal feast. Burn
the debt records and the construction plans. Chisel away the statues and vandalize the pictures
of the old order. In short, create
not an ‘alternative’ that can easily make its fit within the existent,

but rather a commune in which
power is built to destroy capitalist
society. When faced with a university building, the choices are
limited; either convert it to ashes
or begin the immediate materialization of the international soviet.
To all waged and unwaged workers – students or not, unemployed,
precarious or criminal we call on
you to join this struggle. The universities can become not only our
playgrounds but also the foundations from which we can build a
partisan war machine fit for the
battle to retrieve our stolen lives.
And to the majority of the students, from those paying their
way to those swimming in debt,
all used as collateral by the Regents, who bravely occupied
buildings across California and
fought the police against the barricades – we say this clearly: we
are with you! We stood by you as
you faced down the police in the
storming rain and defended the
occupiers. Your actions are an inspiration to us all and we hope to
meet you again on the front lines.
In you we see the spirit of insurgent students everywhere.
As our Austrian friends recently
told us, “Take out your hairspray
and your lighter”! Tear down
the education factory. Attack the
Left and everything that it “represents.” Attack the new bosses
before they become the old ones.
Life serves the risk taker – and
we’re rolling the fucking dice!
For Anarchy +
Communism.
-Three Non-Matriculating
Proletarians

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-The Bricks We Throw Today-Pg. 27

BLAST FROM THE PAST:
BLACK MASK AND UP AGAINST THE WALL MOTHERFUCKER

THE STORY OF A SMALL UNDERGROUND 1960’s REVOLUTIONARY GROUP IN NEW YORK CITY

A

“DESTROY THE MUSEUMS.
OUR STRUGGLE CANNOT
BE HUNG ON WALLS. A NEW
SPIRIT IS RISING. LIKE THE
STREETS OF WATTS WE
BURN WITH REVOLUTION”
-October 10th,1966//NYC

handful of young
guys and girls, having stalked up from
New York’s Lower
East Side scattering
leaflets calling for
the closure of the
Museum of Modern Art, are stopped
just outside the Museum entrance by
a whole phalanx of cops and crash
barriers. The story had leaked, and
the cops, on the ball as ever, had
sensed a new and very real type of
threat months before anyone else:
the cops at least have got it clear just
whose side art is on. The director of
the museum (largest collection of
Dada in the world) out on the steps,
wringing his hands, almost in tears,
only too anxious to plead: “Why are
you doing
this? We haven’t done
anything.” The group, unheard of
before this, called BLACK MASK.
Next, early one morning, black balaclava hoods pulled down to their

eyes, cracked rictus skulls skewered
on stakes, BLACK MASK, swollen
to 15, marched from Canal Street
down Lower Broadway to Wall
Street. Throwaways reading Traders
in stocks and bones shriek for New
Frontiers. “Bull markets of murder
deal in a stock exchange at death.
WALL STREET IS WAR STREET.”
The cops and the overdressed corporation errand boys plain dumbfounded; the only people to get really uptight were, predictably enough, alas,
a group of straight proles showed up.
A relative flop, all in all. Too much
sub-Committee of 100 stuff - Grosvenor Square = Genocide Square,
etc. In fact all BLACK MASK’s
early experiments with Provo-type
tactics were far more trenchant and
original when applied to the culture
scene. It was official ‘experimental’
art rather than official left wing politics that they’d broken out of. And
they loathed its guts.

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Black Mask and U.A.T.W.M.F-Pg. 28

That first year BLACK MASK seized
every possible opportunity of fucking
up culture. They moved in at a moment’s notice and improvised as they
went along. They heckled, disrupted
and generally sabotaged dozens of art
congresses, lectures, exhibitions, and
happenings. For a group that hailed Futurism and Dada as its only forebears,
this type of shit was diametrically opposed to the permanent, multi-dimensional revolutionizing of immediate
experience demanded by all the high
points of modern art: See what you can
make with a cathedral and a little dynamite. Probably their most notorious
escapade was the wrecking of the three
day marathon seminar on Modern Art
sponsored by the Loeb Student Centre.
Howls of “ART IS DEAD”, “BURN
THE MUSEUMS, BABY”, and “POETRY IS REVOLUTION”. Tables
were kicked over, windows smashed,
and scuffles broke out. Larry Rivers
was roughed up a bit in the best Futurist manner. The theoretical dimension “Fuck off, you cunt” - equally worthy
of the occasion.

free food, free booze” - at the same
time and same place as the ambush,
and handed them out to the hardest bastards they could find in Harlem and the
Lower East Side, eight hours before the
fun was due to start.
The ambush was riddled like a colander. All night really uptight black and
white down-and-outs were hammering
on the doors, Intermittently crashing
them and furiously demanding their
free food, drinks, and women.
The interpretation of Dada was correct
by even the strictest academic standards - hadn’t Huelsenbeck written, so
long before, Dada is a club? All the
same, the scandal resulted in BLACK
MASK being ostracized right along the
line. Artists couldn’t understand the
politics, politicos couldn’t understand
the art, and neither could stomach the
violence. The group was dealt with by
the normal avant-garde techniques of
repression: silence In the media, prurient whispers of fascism over the vernissage cocktails. Not that BLACK MASK
wasn’t pretty damn unrecognizable
when it hit in late ‘66. The two original animators of the group, Ron Hahne
and Ben Morea, were kids straight off
the streets, not middle class dropouts.
Morea had been mixed up with the delinquent street gangs, been on H (heroin) and done a stretch in Sing-Sing
before he turned to painting and discovered the Futurists. This background al-

lowed them to get through to Futurism
straight away - to the real Futurism: science, elegance, and violence, the most
purely delinquent of all 20th century
art spearheads. Not the art of a Soffici
or a Boccioni, but the post-artistic way
of life of a Marinetti. Marinetti beating up Wyndham Lewis in an all night
urinal and hanging him up on some
adjacent spiked railings by his coat
collar. Marinetti imprisoning a bevy
of wealthy culture-vultures in a bell
tent, and driving his motorbike over it
full throttle time after time. Marinetti,
even at the end, at one of Mussolini’s
galas, kicking over a banquet table on
top of Hitler, just to show that he really
couldn’t give a fuck.

They grasped, almost intuitively, the
crux of the 1910-1925 art crisis: that
the content of modern art, the vision
of a totally re-created world stemming
from the first Romantics, was potentially the most vitriolic attack on bourgeois civilization ever made; while on
the contrary, its FORM straight jacketed it within a purely reactionary role.
Taken literally it is dynamite. Taken
Reaction wasn’t slow to follow. In fact
culturally it is one of the system’s main
it was the one systematic attempt the
supports. Kubla Khan can be taken
official avant-garde made to deal with
and used as a metaphor, a blueprint,
them that allowed BLACK MASK to
of a real paradise; Kubla Khan can be
pull off their neatest single coup. A
taken and used as a fantasy, a means of
panel of experts on Futurism, Dada,
evading the real hell in which we live,
and Surrealism advertised a ‘Trap for
a compensation for it. Everything deBlack Mask’ throughout the Underpends on whether it is related to one’s
ground (sic) press: a souped-up panel
own everyday life or whether it is rediscussion on the true
lated to the labyrinth of
revolutionary meaning “BLACK
MASK, ALONG WITH THE our Byzantine culture,
of modern art, a bait to
where no road leads
which they imagined, FRENCH SITUATIONISTS, WERE THE to Xanadu. The quick
correctly
BLACK ONLY WHITES AT THE TIME WHO RE- of the 20th century
MASK was bound to
crisis: creativALLY GRASPED THE REVOLUTIONARY cultural
rise. They also imagity must break free of
ined, far less happily, FEELING COMING TO THE BOIL IN THE all its previous fetters
that their own erudition US ‘RACE’ RIOTS: THEY UNDERSTOOD and forms; it must stop
and wit was such that
being the creation of a
BLACK MASK could THAT THERE WAS A REALLY POSITIVE separated and imagionly be put down. Re- CONTENT TO THE LOOTING, ARSON nary world, and beally hard, once and for
the transformaAND TENTATIVE GUNPLAY, SENSED THE come
all. BLACK MASK
tion of real experience
excelled themselves. REAL JOY AND AFFIRMATION IN WHAT itself.
Thus Tzars:
They ran off thousands THE WHOLE LEFT SHRUGGED OFF AS ‘Life and Art are One.
of passably well printThe modern artist does
ed “Invitations to a free COMPLETE NIHILISM.”
not paint, he creates
party - free sounds,
directly.’ This Is why
Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Black Mask and U.A.T.W.M.F-Pg. 29

“What is today the opium of the rebel will tomorrow
be the opium of every normal slob in the street.”
BLACK MASK was more advanced
than the relatively more sophisticated
‘Rebel Worker’ or the Resurgence
Youth Movement’, or, for that matter,
the great Marcuse himself. From the
start they demanded complete identity
of theory and practice and really tried,
whatever their fuck-ups, to create an
organization in line with this.
At the time, there was only one force
with which they could identify: the
post-Watts[1] BLACKS. Only the
Blacks’ rejection of everything was
as high-handed and demonic as their
own. Only the Blacks were in a position where they had to really DO
something, not just sit on their asses
and talk. BLACK MASK, along with
the French Situationists, were the only
whites at the time who really grasped
the revolutionary feeling coming to
the boil in the US ‘race’ riots. They
understood that there was a really positive content to the looting, arson and
tentative gunplay, and sensed the real
joy and affirmation in what the whole
Left shrugged off as complete nihilism.
They quoted a couple of newspaper
clippings: ‘At times, amidst the scenes
of riot and destruction that made parts
of the city look like a battlefield, there
was an almost carnival atmosphere.’
‘New York Times’ 7/16/67 and ‘Said
Governor Hughes after a tour of the
riot blighted streets. “The thing that
repelled me most was the holiday atmosphere... It’s like laughing at a funeral.’ ‘ ‘Time’ 7/21/67. One reporter
from Detroit described suddenly seeing a huge bunch of gladioll skipping
through the rubble. As it passed, a 7
or 8 year old Negro kid poked his head
out of the middle. “I am a sex maniac”
he yelled, and disappeared among the
gutted buildings. What is this if not the
consummation of modern art; its death
and rebirth: DADA! And what 20th
century avant-garde vision of Utopian
architecture can hold a candle to the
barbaric, almost elemental splendor of
Detroit in flames? Playing with fire purely aristocratic philosophy. Nero

beggared by a mob of semi-illiterate
teenage “nigras”.
Not withstanding which they still
couldn’t break through the mistrust,
on any, except the most personal basis,
of the Blacks of ‘67. They were stuck
with the whites, and moreover, though
they had defined their own goal as a
form of action which transcends the
separation between art and politics’,
they were lumbered with precisely this
separation: with the culturally oriented
Hippies and the politically oriented
New Left.
While they were utterly disgusted by
everything about ‘Flower Power’, they
recognized that out of the whole white
opposition, the dropouts were the group
potentially closest to them. They too
had rebelled, in however half-assed a
way, against the whole of life as it is.
BLACK MASK completely agreed
with their basic conviction that work
was to be avoided at any cost, that the
American dream was so much crap and
that life should be devoted exclusively
to experiment with the perimeters of
lived experience - to a new, post-industrial life-style. Stirring up the Hippies meant really laying into the whole
‘Flower Power’ scene. In England, the
Black Hand Gang are the best critics of
Hippiedom: ‘In the desperate passivity
of a ‘groovy’ pad, the hell crawls down
the walls and across the floor. The silent circle in the candlelight pretends
to be absorbed, without success. The
nightmare of· consumption consumes
the consumer. You don’t smoke the
hash, the hash smokes you. The record
on the box makes sure that nobody
sings or dances... And suddenly the
whole non-communication, the sense
of being lost in the middle of nowhere
snaps into focus: the ‘underground’ is
just another range of consumer goods,
of articles whose non-participatory
consumption follows the same rules in
Betsy Coed as in Notting Hill: passivity
and through passivity, isolation. What
is happening?

Sweet fuck, all is happening. The latest goods and the latest poses are being
exhibited, envied, bought and exhibited
again. As the Situationists have said,
“IT’S ALL A SHOW”. A show that can
only go on because everyone pretends
to be enjoying it - because everyone
thinks that he alone is the total misfit.
Conformity is a reign of terror.
The Beatles, Zappa, the Crazy World of
Arthur Brown. Shit, the lot of it, products like these mark nothing more than
the furthest frontiers yet of consumer
society. Its most gratuitous, decadent,
and self-destructive products. Its most
snobbish pre-release, and no more
than its pre-release. What is today
the opium of the rebel will tomorrow
be the opium of every normal slob in
the street. Reynold’s Tobacco Corporation has already patented the brand
names of every variety of pot. Twenty
Acapulco Gold. Ten Congo Brown.
They’ll be in the vending machines,
along with the ontology and bubblegum.’, from ‘Songs of the Black Hand
Gang’, ‘Hapt’ 8.
BLACK MASK’s agitation snapped
into sharper focus: showing the Hippies
that their refusal to work was, however,
unconsciously a perfectly accurate assessment of the freedom which could
be granted by automation and cyber nation today - the eradication of all forms
of involuntary labour - the creation of
a society based on free creativity, on
PLAY - that their fundamentally Utopian vision could, if only it were taken
seriously and no longer etherealized
as drug and culture fantasy, but as one
of the most highly explosive forces in
play today. The Lower East Side was
plastered with fly posters and littered
with throwaway: ‘WE CONDEMN:
Timothy Leary. Not for new ideas but
for organized religion. Not for expanding the mind but for limiting the revolution. Allen Ginsberg. For embracing
Johnson in the face of death. For giving ‘Time-Life Inc.’ a safe rebel. For
leading youth away from revolution.

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Black Mask and U.A.T.W.M.F-Pg. 30

The idiot Left has allowed the specific objective phenomena of modern social alienation to be passed over in terms of purely
subjective neurosis. Practically, they tried
to turn demos into riots. To turn everyone
on to the complete shit of everything: the
cars, the buildings, the goods for sale, every aspect of their immediate experience.
To turn them on to the physical excitement

VIOLENCE.

REVOLUTIONARY
TURN THEM ON TO

At the same time they tried desperately to
snap the usual New Left rent-a-crowd militants out of their inertia to get beyond counting assholes. Intellectually, they lashed out
at the whole Vietnam and Third World industries, and at the condition of mass hypnosis
they sustained. Time after time they plugged
the fact that the only effect of issue politics
in general -- is to distract everyone’s attention away from the terrible fucking state they
are in themselves. The whole “Third World”
vs. “First World” ratio in misery, has come to
be no more than the crudest monopolization
of the meaning of the word poverty. Poverty
is only allowed to mean hunger, disease, exposure, etc. (Also considered the poverty of
imperialistic exploitation or the last remaining pockets of 19th century western industrial poverty) - while the atrocious modern
poverty of the over-developed countries - the
sexual, pleasure, and general energy frustration produced by a totally self-destructive
and anti-life economy or the universal conditions of passivity, isolation, boredom, nausea
and general crack-up in every direction - this
modern poverty has become something completely intangible.

B

and euphoria of actually fighting it all,
fighting it fully, here and now, fighting it
with their hands not only their minds. To
turn everyone on to the fact that the only
possible value, or pleasure today, the only
way to really get across to anyone else, to
one’s self, is to join together to combat the
whole of reality.

TO 			

USCO. For adding new lights to old art. For
a new media with the same message.’ With
Detroit and Newark, BLACK MASK decided to hold street meetings on the Lower
East Side. They were a mixed success. They
muscled in on local community meetings in
Tompkins Square Park, but they were really
just too much. The local community leadershit was more interested in getting progressively minded College-boy cops to come
along and ‘help’, rather than getting mixed up
with a bunch of rabid anarchists. The majority of the Hippies were still grooving on the
dreary vision of the ‘Barb’ and the ‘Oracle’,
and felt much the same way. Specific groups
like New York Provo actually went so far as
to denounce BLACK MASK to the cops.

LACK MASK
saw themselves
as a catalyst: a
small, tightlyknit
guerrilla
unit. It’s tactics
pre-planned, it’s objective to
precipitate a state of mass hypnosis into a Reichian outburst of
anxiety, anger and festivity. They
began to be in and around SDS
(Students for a Democratic Society) and were one of the groups
most involved in the initial experiment of mobile tactics - the
first steps towards any future
urban guerrilla - taking place
at that time. The first time they
were involved practically in illustrating the enormous tactical
superiority of small autonomous
groups over huge remote-controlled crowds was during the big
Dean Rusk demo organized by
SDS in November: roving bands
blocked the main traffic intersections, took confrontation right off
the area designated by the cops,
jumped isolated cops they’d
lured down side streets, etc.
The ‘mill-in’ at Macy’s (a huge
department store) during the
Christmas shopping rush was
even more effective. Large numbers of people, either alone or in
small groups, flooded the store
at its peak hour. None of them
looked like demonstrators, and
they were free to impersonate
normal shoppers, floorwalkers,
and staff in various configurations. They moved goods around
in a business-like way. They
soiled, broke, stole, and gave
them away. Half-starved dogs
and cats were let loose in the food
department. A hysterical buzzard
flew around the china section,
smashing more and more hideous
crockery as equally hysterical
sales girls either tried to catch
or escape from it. Decoys with
flags and banners planted themselves in the middle of groups
of straight middle-class shoppers

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Black Mask and U.A.T.W.M.F-Pg. 31

who were promptly roughed up and
hustled outside by cops and floorwalkers. Utter chaos... With hindsight, one
could say that it was at about this time,
winter 67/68 that the whole atmosphere
of the States began to change. A longtime underground process began to
break out into the open. And, as Burroughs remarks somewhere, whatever
it is that has seeped and crawled its way
out is enough to make an ambulance attendant puke. Perhaps even 18 months
ago it was possible to have some illusions. Not any more, not with suburban housewives practicing in the riflerange, and with cops patrolling every
subway train. America is on the brink
of a disintegration unparalleled since
the collapse of the Middle Ages. And,
in this card house world, its fall will almost certainly flip the rest of the planet
over with it: global night and fire.
To specify in terms of the ‘avantgarde’, the ‘youth revolt’, or whatever. Politically, the fiasco of the huge
Whitehall demos in December (panavision version of the October 27 panto in
London) not only spell out the futility
of mass demonstrations in general but
also that their futility couldn’t solely be
put down to their tactics. The New Left
was reduced to zero. Even the pretense
of an avant-garde sub-culture folded
up, and really folded up, at much the
same time. It wasn’t even nihilistic or
vapid any more. It just wasn’t anything
at all any more. Just another commodity, like lilacs or beans on toast. And
we all know about the last days of the
drug scene - the twilight of the garlanded TWA expense-account shamans,
behaviorist lushes and Calcutta airport
hustlers trying to make the big time; the
soft drugs gone about as soft as putty;
then the speed scene, and first killings.
The West Coast kids are all on speed
and most everyone else smacked out
just for a bit of peace.
A civilization coming down like the
House of Usher and its slow motion fall
sweeping all forms of experience into
one - ‘Because when the smack begins
to flow / I really don’t care any more
/ About all the tensions in this town.
And all the politicians making crazy

sounds I And everybody putting everybody else down / And all the dead bodies piled up around.’ This convergence
is a real process and has expressed itself concretely in the formation of’ the
GHETTO. The ghetto: an ambiguous
and dialectical phenomenon par excellence. Negatively, it stands for the dissolution of everything. It’s no transitional experimental station or enclave:
no Tangier, no Big Sur. It’s pure hell.
One window, one door, four walls. A
dead end. The ghetto: the place you
go when there’s nothing else left to do,
when there’s nowhere else left to go.
The prison without bars. The loony
bin so big no one can even see its there.
Back rooms and endless nights. Neurosis, inertia. The abyss opens ... The
horror, the horror... Yet, at the same
time, dissidence becoming conscious,
an organizational problem, a problem
of actual city space. Isolated individuals gathering into a mob, a mob in a
distinctly desperate and ugly mood,
and gathering permanently, everyday,
so it can’t be busted that easily just for
loitering. A state of mind claiming its
own real space, its physical interplay,
and thus, oddly· enough, the first step
towards a revolutionary concept of the
city, of life together: a Heaven built in
Hell’s despite. The ghettoization of the
young white dropout allowed BLACK
MASK to grapple, concretely, with this
upsurge of a qualitatively different revolt which has been rising clearly for
at least 5 years now, a revolt without
a name, ‘youth revolt’, ‘dropout’, ‘new
lumpen’, what you will. At last this
new revolt became tangible: the Lower
East Side in early ‘68 was a potentially
revolutionary COMMUNITY.
BLACK MASK - whose real axis was
still essentially abstract and ethereal: a
magazine - dissolved itself and a hard
core of some 20 odd people reformed
as the Lower East Side SDS chapter:
UP AGAINST THE WALL MOTHERFUCKER... AND INTO THE TRASH
CAN...
The first thing they really got their
teeth into was the Lower East Side Garbage Strike. As a metaphor the giant
rat-infested heaps of rotting garbage

were a godsend: now no one could, or
would, shift the shit out of sight any
more. Not only were they up against
the wall, they were quite literally in the
trash can. From street to street they
fired the spread-eagled mounds, drank
and danced round them and when the
firemen finally arrived (there was a
big Firemen’s Strike at the same time)
climbed on to the tenement roofs (roofs,
like sewers are major unpatrolled
zones) and lobbed bricks, slates and
anything else to hand down on them to
cries of ‘black-legs’. Unwashed and
ragged, dancing, singing, hammering
tom-toms, they ferried load after load
of muck via the subway and dumped it
in glossy uptown Rockefeller Plaza.
They were the perfect catalyst. Numbers grew fast, and as they did, their
activity really took off, it became permanent, polymorphic, a revolutionary
life-style. They threw off a thousand
gags to precipitate the crisis at the heart
of the modern ghetto -- its oscillation
between groovy zonked-out reservation and a real focused, sensual, communal and aggressive underground - to
build up general iconoclasm and agitation in a more systematic manner than
anyone before them, ATMOSPHERICS: revolutionary technique designed
to exacerbate the contradiction between
what people apparently feel and what
they really feel: to invert all the symbols and stereotypes in any given area.
They ‘shot’ (with blanks, alas) the
‘poet’ Keneth Koch as he was giving a
reading In a local church to what he actually referred to as his ‘congregation’.
They lumbered an entire lavatory down
to St. Marks Place and held a community ‘shit-in’ which proved highly popular until a squad of infuriated, blushing, highly Protestant fuzz arrived.
This was a perfect symbolical end of
a perfect symbolical evening, literally
beat it to pieces with their nightsticks.
They triggered off militant demonstrations outside the precinct nick every
time anyone was busted for drugs (at
the same time spacing out the more
inane heads and dealers all over town
in search of phantasmal deals they had
set up). They infiltrated the kitchens
of the most fashionable artsy cafes and

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bars, spiking the more expensive drinks
and dishes with an assortment of drugs,
violent emetics, sleepers, or hallucinogens... A couple of the posh hangouts
were forced to close down...
They spearheaded the city’s first real
Hippy riot (during which they fought
their way through a throng of cops
guarding a squad car in which one
of the Motherfuckers was locked,
wrenched the lock, freed him, and all
got away)... They organized some 400
Lower East Side dropouts in the storming of the Museum of Modern Art for
putting on an exhibition ‘Dada, Surrealism and their heritage’ (heritage being
the usual crock of shit; Rauschenberg,
Funk et al). Struggling, dishevelled and
distinctly unbeautiful people screaming obscenities, hurling paint, flour and
smoke bombs at the First Night crowd
with the cops defending them. They
printed invitations from one of the major ghetto stores offering, at a specified
time on a specified day, as many free
goods’ as their customers could carry
away. Fifty of the Motherfuckers set
the ball rolling. They had been training
in karate for over a year and had further
refined their street tactics with hot copies of the National Guard manual ‘How
To Deal With Civil Disorders’ (particularly attracted to the idea of unleashing
Alsatians with hand grenades strapped
to them). They were terrifying when actually in action. They would break out
of the main body of demonstrators like
greased lightning, smashing windows,
kicking over trash cans and road signs,
setting fire to anything that would burn,
setting off a series of intersection traffic jams to disperse standard cop dispersion procedure, and then pick them
off one by one. They waded in using
karate chops, brandishing knives and
slashing with bicycle chains strapped
to their wrists, screaming:
“UP AGAINST THE WALL I MOTHERFUCKER. They baptized this mercurial street guerrilla, DIAL-A-PIG or
IF YOU’RE TAKING TWO STEPS
BACK I FOR EVERY STEP FORWARD I TURN AROUND I AND GO
THE OTHER WAY.”

Their basic tactic in all of this was
sticking their neck right out - then trying to work with anyone attracted to
their extremism. In this they hoped to
pull the most desperate elements of the
Lower East Side together: to create en
embryo community. They hustled the
bread to set up a ‘free store’ (a “store”
where people can come in and take
whatever they want) called the Rathole.
Although written off by some since
as a mere ‘hip Salvation Army’ - it in
actuality was used as a general coordination and meeting point for both the
Motherfuckers (by now 30 hard core
with a further 300 in and around) and
anyone else who cared to fall by. An
experiment In re-occupying a fraction
of the land that has been stolen from
us. A move to erode the whole system
of isolation that is the basis of hierarchical power - a grid system holding
itself together by holding us apart - all
the objective aspects of which are unified and summed up concretely in the
structure of the ‘city. Irradiating from
this they tried to reinforce the dropout’s
new belligerence, and to ward off the
chill police heat it was calling forth.
They tried to infiltrate the local social
services, to use them as a front to shelter real militancy which, as it grew in
strength, could afford to shatter them
and expose the purely repressive role
they play. They became embroiled in
tenants’ struggles over rent strikes and
the idea of street and block committees.
They helped set up a number of crash
pads. They tried to turn hustling - dog
eating dog - into more organized libertarian forms of crime, by working out
steady illegal supplies of everything
from food and medical supplies to actual hardware. Here as elsewhere coherent self-defense proved inseparable
from actual aggression.
They stepped up the typical ghetto tension over public use of what are nominally public places, and acted to turn
the conversation into a dialogue used
in combat zones ‘True friendship is
made on the battlefield’. Announcements of neighborhood conflict would
help to invite those interested in aiding the tension: “Raids on the Fillmore
East Theatre are going on at the mo-

ment” once this was announced, ‘mobs
of long haired gits regularly smashing
their way in, reasserted the conflict’s
aim. In this instance specifically, the
theatre became known as “The Werehouse”, and was then used as a community center, with free food and drink,
music, dancing, drugs, discussions of
tactics and organization for resistance,
free karate classes, and a space for other revolutionary activities. Moreover,
their initial zeroing in on one specific
area, far from becoming stultifying,
getting them stuck in a blind alley,
lead naturally through more and more
far-flung connections along a sketchy
but thoroughly real national network.
The ghetto is fast becoming one of the
most vital nerve centers of this feverish doomed society. Crooks, middle
class culture dropouts, immigrants, and
working class delinquent street gangs
all put right on the same intolerable
spot. Not only did alliances with other
dropout communities all over the States
spring up, but for the first time a group
of young whites really got across to
the Blacks; they were accepted as having identical interests. This coalition
reached the point of Eldridge Cleaver
offering the Vice-Presidency of the
Black Panthers to one of the Motherfuckers - and being turned down. Politics is shit, man, deadpanned the Mothers. Anarchy realized it was black a
century before the Third World. And
Lucifer, Prince of Morning, right in the
dawn of time.
They also closed in on one of the richest sources feeding the ghetto and
which any ghetto organization must
embrace: the school and university system. They systematically freaked out
all the SDS summits they could get to;
they wreaked havoc on the various attempts made to bureaucratize the New
York Teachers Strike. In both cases
they used the same Durruti-like tactics
of pulling together the extremists they
attracted and then leaving them to organize their own scene themselves. Their
most notorious intervention was during
the occupation of Columbia. Electricity put out of commission, then some
really swashbuckling radio dropout
over the university’s own broadcasting

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system. Successful attempts to involve
the local Black and Puerto Rican youth
gangs and to take the confrontation right
out of its piddling academic context.
During actual fighting with the police,
they covered the front of the barricades
with the choicest items from the university collection of ceramics and old
masters, (headline: Policeman Smashes Art Treasure) this finally got them
kicked out. Perhaps the most radical
aspect of all during the summer of ‘68
can be seen as their persistent attempt
to create a new form of self expression
beyond art and politics: a new revolutionary language. In the first place,
they started to write in the language of
the streets. What, a few months before,
had been ‘The poverty against which
man has been constantly struggling,
is not merely the poverty of material
goods; in fact, in Industrially advanced
countries the disappearance of material poverty has revealed the poverty
of existence itself’ became ‘Your community represents death. You eat dead
food. You live dead lives. You fuck
dead women. Everything about you is
dead. The struggle is for real life....’
From the Situationist SALON down
to Skid Row. Form changed along
with style. The apparently Puritanical
BLACK MASK switched into a stabbing crossfire of grotty leaflets, obscene
broadsheets, posters, comics, slogans,
spray can graffiti, banners, chants,
songs, tom tom tattoos. Sculpture, music, literature, all forms dissolved and
regained their unity. Trails of slime
and giant footprints meandered through
back-alleys. Snakes with propaganda
painted along their backs. Dogs and
rabbits with similar tags. And the cops
trying to round them up, with nets. But
even the most inflammatory smut sheet
remains trapped within the official
definition of ‘communication’. The
scene, wrote the Mothers, ‘is now going through a process of polarization those who want to continue the media
‘blow-out’ and those who want to blow
out the media’. For communication
if it is to have any meaning at all, can
only be Inter-change and inter-play between people, a dialogue, while all the
mass media, however mixed, work by
definition in one direction only. They

are a broadcast, a show, a spectacle
that can only be consumed by a passive
spectator. Novel, film or symphony,
you can’t talk back to any of them. And
what communication can there be when
one can never reply? Sweet fuck all,
comrade, sweet fuck all. What passes
as communication is in fact the installation of total non-communication, of
passivity, isolation and abstraction - the
media is the material expression of participation in non-participatory society.
The whole crock of shit comes down to
the assumption that communication is a
matter of just talking. It’s nothing of’
the sort - it’s a matter of acting, of acting together. The Motherfuckers’ real
importance was that they were trying to
create this new revolutionary language.
Language as collective action. This is
why they got off so much on riots. Riots, probably the first significant breakthrough in mass communication since
Marconi (Italian creator of the radiotelegraph). Communication is a group
project and adventure - a shared predicament, dangerous, illegal - a world
suddenly tense, expectant and tonic, a
situation whose outcome depends solely on the verve and audacity of one’s
own intervention. Riot, like love, gives
a brief taste of real surreality: the moment everything totters on the brink, the
past and the personality gone, the present and the body found, all the senses
called into play. If you want to find
yourself, get lost. Violence seemed the
only shock brusque enough to snap dissidents out of their trance and its dream
syntax: a karate-trained Dadaist commando actually fighting in the gutter is
enough to complete the demoralization
of any intellectual, whether it’s Ayler or George Simmel he’s pickled in.
‘Revolution in dreams / Revolution in
books/ Revolution in cars / Revolution
In advertising / But everywhere repression... Your biggest enemy is your
OWN ASS / Pick it up / Let it move...”
Inertia is the real enemy.
As the summer drew on they entered
the realm of revolutionary folklore.
Their enthusiasm for any kind of hardware left all but the most rabid Panthers
looking sallow. Huey Newton’s ‘If you

don’t believe in Jead, you’re already
dead’ was much quoted - and most of
the shooting on the white scene last
summer was inevitably Motherfuckers. Not only were they responsible for
the sporadic, apparently Hippy rooftop sniping at cops on the Lower East
Side, they were also toting the guns and
cocktails on the Berkeley and HaightAshbury barricades. In September, they
blew up the Berkeley water supply as
a reprisal raid for Chicago. They were
the unknown terrorists who since January have, deep in the country, at the
dead of night, been dynamiting California’s electricity grid (electricity, the
basis of the real power that keeps the
machine running... Without it nothing
can work... The world becomes black
anarchy...). UP AGAINST THE WALL
MOTHERFUCKER began to pay for
the notoriety: What a good nights work
pig did / Got his rocks off swinging
clubs after being frustrated all Friday
/ Arrests a member of UP AGAINST
THE WALL MOTHERFUCKER for
standing on the street. Charge: conspiracy In the 4th degree. Arrests a
girl for protesting his arrest. Arrests a
Yippee for standing on the street corner. Charge: disorderly conduct. Arrests 8 people on Sixth Street for trying
to block the street to traffic after a kid
was hit by a car. Arrests a guy carrying
a drum. Arrests a guy for backing up
his car after getting 4 tickets. Charge:
trying to run over a cop. Arrests a girl
trying to put up bail to get out the others
arrested. The police are coming down
heavy on the Motherfuckers.
By the end of the summer their hard core
was up on countless criminal charges,
with penalties ranging from 10 days to
10 years - the worst of which was late
July when Ben Morea was arrested for
having knifed a couple of servicemen,
a Marine and an airman. Them, along
with some 20 odd other right-minded
citizens had cornered 4 of the Motherfuckers in a Boston back alley and laid
into them with bricks and clubs. His
trial opened in November and is still
going on at this minute. There was
paranoia the whole time, and there’s no
paranoia like New York paranoia. The
uproar, the filth and neon, the sense of

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Black Mask and U.A.T.W.M.F-Pg. 34

being trapped. Politics or dope, it feels like they could come
and get you at any time. Telephones bugged, with a transmitter picking up sounds all over the apartment. Smoking over
the bog seat with one hand on the handle. People scared of
even being seen with you. And the Motherfuckers prowling
around spitting at every cop they happened to come across
on the street. When the heat really began to move in a lot of
them split New York City. They traveled from one end of the
country to the other. Fucking up things from Alaska to New
Mexico, and trying to link the various people they made contact with. Attempts to make a nationwide network of guerrilla cells were put together during this period. Rounded off
by the formation of the I.W.W.E. The International Werewolf
Conspiracy - trade joke on the I.W.W. - which more or less
brings it up to now.
The Motherfuckers are the classic ‘left-wing adventurists’
- that old alibi of the straight revolutionary, and his dam
against the visceral revolt in himself. Acting within a new
and completely unexplored theatre of operations - community as opposed to factory organization and strife - and exposing themselves 1000% to police victimization, they have
galvanized a vast area of the American scene. They shit on
the ‘tactical’ ruminations of the usual left wing ass holes
(only ‘adventurists’ are entitled to talk tactics) and pop the
balloon of the Maoist’s straight faced absurdities with the
wild laughter of real aggression against a real enemy. And
their extemporization has paid off as a catalyst: in the realm
of atmospherics they have changed the tenor not only of the
whole post-Flower-Power underground, but also of SDS.
And there is still a great deal to be done in this field. ‘The
positive aspects of the major hallucinogens, for example, is
still submerged under the sales talk of the ‘87 psychedelic
merchants. Their rudimentary deconditioning, partial egodissolving properties and stripping bare of the social structuring of perception - these have still to be appropriated by
revolutionaries and put into terms of practical sensual activity’ (Marx). But the role of catalyst has its drawbacks, and the
group has now reached a turning point. With the International Were Wolf Conspiracy there is both an attempt to grapple
with the problems of a large scale decentralized network, and
an unequivocal desire to get at least a major part of the whole
organization well out of the lime light. Personal audacity is
of the greatest possible values in ending this bloody nightmare - is it me or them, that’s insane? In parading what one
really feels - but putting the finger on oneself the whole time
can only end up with the bastards sitting outside your door
all day, setting you up for a five year stretch. Some of the
least cool Motherfuckers are beginning to disappear from the
front line - disappearing to re-appear with a changed name, a
changed address, a changed persona. One day a scruffy wild
eyed git, the next flashy executive with aerosol DNT in his
briefcase, and a week later a mild mannered union official
quietly fucking up the union comptometer. The whole vast
problem of structuring open and closed organization.

The depersonalization and anonymity of bureaucratic civilization is the jungle of the urban guerrilla.
Obviously violence has an enormous power, but as Reich
underlined time after time, a flood of pleasure, anxiety and
fury, merely indicates the sweeping aside of the first major
level of inhibition, of character and body armor. One’s sense
of an enormous underlying manic-depressive swing with the
Motherfuckers would seem to confirm Reich’s claim that the
fundamental question is one of re-connecting on a far, far
deeper level - on the level of a primordial energy - and let’s
hope it is a slightly more serene and ineluctable trip. The
case of the Mothers raises the question of the aims, imperative, and pitfalls of a revolutionary affinity group. Behind a
hard, imaginative, and identifiable front, an occult network
of resistance. Along with breaking through to the deepest
and most intoxicating levels of our real selves, a non-stop
and intelligible harassment of the prevailing organization of
reality. War, therapy, community. No part of the project can
be separated from the others. But these are practical problems, and they can never be solved on a big table covered
with pieces of paper.
THE END.
*Taken from ‘Black Mask’, by Ron Hahne and Ben Morea.
NOTE:
[1]The term Watts Riots of 1965 refers to a large-scale riot
which lasted 6 days in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, California, in August 1965. By the time the riot subsided,
34 people had been killed, 1,032 injured, and 3,952 arrested.
It would stand as the most severe riot in Los Angeles history
until the Los Angeles riots of 1992. The riot ostensibly was a
reaction to a long record of police brutality by the LAPD and
other racial injustices suffered by black Americans in Los
Angeles, including job and housing discrimination.

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Black Mask and U.A.T.W.M.F-Pg. 35

PICTURE
BELOW:
The picture below records seconds before
a member of the ruling class at the time,
was attacked with a
shit-smeared blanket
by the Motheruckers.
The text included
over the picture is
from a communique at the time that
claimed the action.

,

Ii.

.i.

"
•

-Nechaev

.. •

~

f,

“Full
steam
ahead
through
the shit”

"

•

•
“These
smut
sheets,
are today’s
Molotov
cocktails
thrown at
respectability and
decency in
our
nation...

They encourage
depravity
and Irresponsibility,
and they
nurture a
breakdown
in· the
continued
capacity of
the government t0
conduct
an orderly
and constitutional
society.”

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Black Mask and U.A.T.W.M.F-Pg. 36

OUR
TEARS
MAKE
THE
FLOWERS
GROW
ON THE SITUATION IN GREECE
BY KIRILOV

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Our Tears Make the Flowers Grow-Pg. 37

“FIRE CAN
ONLY BE
ANSWERED
WITH FIRE,
VIOLENCE
MET BY
VIOLENCE,
AND HENCE THE
PROTRACTED
STRUGGLE IS
THE ONLY
APPROPRIATE
RESPONSE TO
UNILATERAL
TERROR.”

I

n a world drenched with images, like swirls of pictures
dancing on strings, even that
which is in plain sight, directly located within our vision, can become obscured.

Often, only a flash of negativity will
allow us to see what is in all that is.
The “Broken doors, smashed shop
fronts, smoke from the torched buildings, the chaos of the sabotages,” described by the Conspiracy Cells of Fire
in an autumn communiqué, is not only
“a network of communication beyond
and outside the foreseeable,” but also
clarifies what stands right in front of
us albeit always hidden. It’s the magic
of the makeshift explosive that cuts up
and collages, with the technique of a
high-modernist, the endlessly generated stream of pictorial text called
society and thus it makes things understandable; it adds appropriate punctuation to make words readable, and,
most importantly, it reveals what everyone already implicitly knew.
In this same fashion, The Conspiracy
Cells of Fire detonated a bomb during
ex-prime minister Karamanlis’s last
and most important campaign rally set
to take place two days before elections.
Everyone in greece was certain Karamanlis would not be re-elected once
the votes had been counted, and so, the
nihilist guerrilla faction fittingly transformed the farcical campaign rally into
a pyrotechnic farewell celebration.
The blast symbolized to all of greece
that Karamanlis’s right-wing and scandal-ridden Nea Democratia party, after
its five year rule, had truly collapsed
into total disarray. Like salt sprinkled
on a wound, the explosion emphasized
the defeated party’s inability to control the domestic insurgency that had
grown in both quantity and quality in
the past half decade - especially after
the December insurrection. Almost
dancing in the faces of the anti-terror
police, the Cells of Fire once again
proved that they can only get better
with every attack; with each strike they
are more confident and with each strike
they become more severe.

On October 6, 2009, the greek socialist
party PASOK, led by now prime minister Papandreou, became the new ruling
regime, and consequently, inherited
the problem of containing an uncontrollable revolutionary surge from the
incapable Nea Democratia party. Far
better skilled in the art of state-craft
than their predecessors, PASOK immediately instituted a variety of social
control mechanisms to accentuate the
already present brute force, and oftentimes counter-productive, repression
characteristic of Karmanalis’s previous reign. In addition to the monopoly of “legitimate” physical violence
essential to any State, the instillation
of corrective disciplinary techniques,
the deployment of security measures,
and the dissemination of false ideology (but filtered through recuperative
discourse unlike Nea Democratia)
quickly became the new weapons of
constraint used in PASOK’s recent
counter-insurgent strategy. The more
refined and subtle methods of governmentality marked the rise of socialist
tyranny while, at the same time, reshaped the battleground for the war
fought by other means.
Less than a week after taking power,
the socialist administration ordered
the police to occupy the Exarchia district, perform random stop and search
seizures of its residents, and establish
checkpoints at all major entrances to
Athens’ classically left-wing and intellectual neighborhood. The massive
quarantining effort, a literal police
swarming in a way never before seen
in the country, was justified by the government as a response to a small – in
greek standards – solidarity attack on
a bank outside of Exarchia. Neighborhood residents were forced to kneel on
the pavement before being subjected to
degrading bodily examinations; a tactic which best exemplified the State’s
new disciplinary approach aimed at
censuring the movement and imposing
docility into those who frequent the
revolutionary hotbed. The police occupation of Exarchia resulted in the detainment of over a hundred people and
became the first instance of the mass
temporary arrests that would continue

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Our Tears Make the Flowers Grow-Pg. 38

throughout the fall and winter months.
Given the overwhelming State reaction to a relatively minor bank attack,
the socialist’s inaugural show of force
can now be seen as a dress rehearsal for
their forthcoming preventive program.
Hoping to ward off the lingering phantom of December 2008, the hallmark
of progressive containment centered
on preemptive security measures intended to block the eventual recurrence
of the insurrectionary moment. Thus,
similar police occupations and detainment operations took place again before the massive protests expected on
the November 17th anniversary of the
junta’s collapse and again before the
first year memorial of Alexi’s murder at
the end of the first week of December.
But while discipline produces order,
its complement is a security apparatus
that regulates disorder by asserting the
probability of the undesirable event,
calculating the relations of risk and,
lastly, segmenting the population related to the results.
To temper the street-conflicts that
would inevitably spur from the upcoming demonstrations, the State conducted several anticipatory sieges on
greek universities; the deterritorialized
home-bases of revolutionary activity
throughout the country. Recognizing
the university’s constitutionally granted asylum from the police as one of the
foremost tactical advantage of the insurgency, the socialists attempted to the
storm the headquarters of revolt without the use of asphyxiating tear gas and
bone-shattering truncheons; a move
that intended to somewhat diminish the
future need for repressive weaponry in
the approaching days designated for
street battles. And so, the bloodless
conquest began by PASOK collaborating with the deans and rectors of the
schools to reconstruct a discourse to
shift the perception of the university
from a center of the armed struggle
and return it to an academic institution.
Even the Indymedia servers on campus
became an issue of contention when
the scholastic value of the network was
made a topic of public debate. In their
last ditch effort to reclaim the public
schools, epidemiologic prevention and

medicalization of social control took
an almost comedic literal significance
when the PASOK cordoned off universities all over greece under the pretense
that the colleges had become infested
with the swine flu coincidentally only
days before the scheduled nation-wide
demonstrations in December. The blatant biopolitical farce was of course
motivated not by concern for the health
of greek citizens but targeted the specter of the koukoulafori, the prophesized
hooded-ones set to maraud the metropolis in the days to come, and aimed at
dissipating the masked apparitions before they even materialized.
An important corollary effect of subtle
bodily manipulation and preventive security is the consequential marking of
those resistant to correction, thus isolating uncontrollable segments to the brutal force of sovereign law. Throughout
the past few months, the fine tuning
of the State has made violent repression much more acute but, at the same
time, more widespread within the distinguishable revolutionary area. The
police have gone on a witch-hunt for
suspected members of the Conspiracy
Cells of Fire and have arrested over
half a dozen people, eager to tie them
to the clandestine guerrilla group, each
time on flimsy evidence. Police persecution also refocused on the heroic
illegalist Yannis Dimatriks, who was
scheduled for a retrial in December,
and huge rewards were offered for the
capture of his alleged co-conspirators.
PASOK also began new “anti-anarchist” legislation and has gone as far
as proposing the very same laws they
once denounced as fascist during the
Nea Democratia government. Before
the socialist victory, the now minister
of public order Chrisochoidis referred
to the mask laws as “laughable in
themselves, besides the fact that they
are legally groundless” but now after
securing power, PASOK reneged from
the left-wing coalition against the draconian regulations and sought to use
them to tack 10 years on to the sentences of protesters arrested in a demonstration in Nikea. The judicial system then used terror-enhancement laws
to imprison Ilias Nikolaou for 7 years;

an extremely harsh sentence by greek
standards as its length is comparable
to those handed out here in america
during the Green Scare. Although the
list of repression seems endless, the
blood that soaked the concrete during
Alexi’s memorial demonstration stands
out among the cowardly and incessant
violence attributed to the armed mercenaries of law and order. The Delta
Force police squad, formed after the
December uprising, charged the march
on their motorcycles leaving a veteran
prisoner of the anti-junta struggle and
member of the militant Trotskyist party EEK, Ms. Koutsoumbou in critical
condition. During the week of demonstrations commemorating Alexis, the
wave of terror perpetrated by the greek
police went unchecked by the government and the only opposition came
from the stones and molotov cocktails
flying from behind barricades with the
cadence of machine gun fire.
In any duel, a simple attack can only
be defeated by parry and riposte and
the same goes for the clash between
the State vs. the anti-State. Fire can
only be answered with fire, violence
met by violence, and hence the protracted struggle is the only appropriate
response to unilateral terror. Always
in solidarity with imprisoned comrades, clandestine bomb attacks are on
the rise and almost every day a newly
formed group claims responsibility for
the destruction of a symbol of capitalist tyranny. In the streets, the 17th of
November demonstrations proved to
be one of the largest since the tradition
began in the 1970s and the revolutionary anarchist contingent numbered over
4,000 despite any preparations made by
the State. Weeks later, after days of vicious barricade fighting and close hand
to hand combat with the police during
Alexis’ memorial protests, the week
ended with an equally large demonstration proving that the growing mass of
the disobedient refuse to be thwarted by
intimidation and repression.
While the greek police worry as to how
they will acquire their much dreamt
about armored anti-riot tanks, those in
struggle should remember that the most

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Our Tears Make the Flowers Grow-Pg. 39

...the
detonation
symbolized
that life
can spring
from the
void and
announced
clearly that
irreconcilable contradictions
can never
be laid to
rest in the
graveyard
of politics.

damaging weapon to the furtherance of
revolutionary movement is the retrograde inertia of democracy – whether
representative or direct. Similarly, the
first law against partisan warfare is to
gain the populations’ “tacit support, its
submission to law and order, its consensus – taken for granted in normal
times”; that is, instilling the techniques
of internal government within the social
body, the auto-control of souls and flesh,
and the individualization of subjects
with the police implanted firmly within.
This double movement of capture is of
the utmost importance in today’s greece,
where the parasitic PASOK, claiming
to be anti-authoritarians in office, continually try to leech the rebels’ power
to turn cities into a blistering infernos
and, thereby, redirect insurrectionary
potential into mediated demands set to
be appeased in parliament. Considering
that our country’s proletariat is largely
pacified seemingly though its own volition, the technologies of inner repression should also be of particular interest
to the american reader. If we define the
ideologically obscure term “radical” as
a measure of practical break with the existent order of things, then we can easily
judge the undeniably reformist greek socialist party far more radical than at least
70 percent of the american revolutionary milieu. Considering that the greek
communist party KKE, the third largest
in the country, frequently rattles off partial critique never even put on the table
in the States in a situationist discourse
so perfect you would swear, its chairwoman, Aleka Papariga was the zombie
of Guy Debord, it could be easily asserted that the Stalinists put 80 percent of
so-called revolutionaries in the states to
shame. Lastly, when the radical-left coalition, constituting a small minority in
parliament, is clearly more radical than
95 percent of self-described american
revolutionaries, undoubtedly the question must be begged as to what extent do
we here in the states go about policing
ourselves? How does our perpetual selfregulation contribute to the obliteration
of the possibilities of rupture before
they have an opportunity to actualize?
To what degree are we all complicit in
the eternal return of sameness and normality?

JUMP CUT
The Conspiracy Cells of Fire struck
again on December 27, 2009, this time
placing an even more sophisticated, yet
still homemade, explosive in the offices
of the National Insurance Company.
The blast, heard literally five miles
away, not only ripped whole chunks
off the building but flattened every
car parked nearby. Like a dark amber
carnation, the color of deep oxygenated plasma, sprouting from a makeshift
configuration of factory-produced steel,
the detonation symbolized that life can
spring from the void and announced
clearly that irreconcilable contradictions
can never be laid to rest in the graveyard
of politics. The explosion was heard
five miles away but could anyone feel
it at a further distance? Did we get the
message across the Atlantic? How do
we respond back? Only through a force
equal or greater can meaningful dialogue begin. Our reply may not at this
time necessitate the use of dynamite, but
what, in fact, is essential is that you/us/
we become the post-human manifestation of dynamite. A metamorphosis
shattering the boundaries between internal and external, unleashing an affect
which pushes tender newborn skin to
pierce through the calloused outer-layer
of gangrened cadavers and recomposes
each appendage of our bodies into organic artillery aimed at everything. A
rebirth, in which each of our limbs is fit
to strike with an intensity that makes everything stop; the clock, the personnel,
the factory, the church. An eyes, hands,
and kiss strike. A nobody breathe strike.
A strike in which silence is born so that
we can hear with crystal clarity the Conspiracy Cells of Fire, this time, answering one of our messages.

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Our Tears Make the Flowers Grow-Pg. 40

RIOT
THE OLYMPICS ARE COMING...

S

ince the beginning of
this magazine, the 2010
Olympics have been
something cited at least
briefly in every issue.
The 2010 Olympics
will be taking place in
British Colombia, Canada next February. Although the Olympics have
specifically sparked opposition and
agitation from misc. revolutionary and
native groups, Canada will also be hosting the G8 and Security and Prosperity
Partnership in 2010. As the Olympics
approach, their most typical effects
have already come into play. Before
the 4,500 expected Canadian soldiers,
1,800 provincial cops, 5,200 Royal
Canadian Mounted Police, and 5,000
private security personnel swarm Western Canada, being the largest domestic
police or military operation planned in
Canadian history, signs what is to come
have already been displaying.
The Canadian police are beginning to
escalate repression and let individuals
preparing to resist the Olympics know
that they are paying attention to them.

One person has been deported for
“overstay” following a film screening
about the upcoming Olympics. American National Security agencies are actively speaking more and more with the
Canadian government, aiding its concern and preparation for potential riots
at the upcoming events.
New offices and agencies are being
set up at different borders in Western
Canada to allegedly help mediate those
entering or leaving Canada before and
during the Olympic games. Canadians
and Americans who have been accused
of being critical of the Olympics, or
associated with groups resisting the
Olympics have been subject to detention, interrogation, and refusal at the
Canadian and American borders, even
harsher than the typical border experience. Which, may we add, fucking
sucks. In fact a brand new 4 million
dollar communications office was built
45 miles south of the games. This was
solely to host different American Federal law enforcement and emergency
response teams during the upcoming
games.
Native groups, anarchists, and others

in conflict with the upcoming Olympic
games have been subject to questioning,
home raids, harassment, deportation,
and multiple types of traditional police
intimidation. The Vancouver 2010 Integrated Security Unit, or VISU, is the
newly designed security unit that has
been created to pressure 2010 critics.
Their responsibility is to exercise all of
these types of intimidation specifically
around resisting the Olympic games.
VISU has been making sure to attend public meetings, especially those
by Native groups looking to resist the
vile gesture of further colonization.
They have also been sure to attend
meetings held by Vancouver’s east side
(the hood) community groups trying to
defend neighborhoods before planned
developments. They have chosen to
make their presence completely visible
at meetings, hoping to intimidate those
involved.
Months before the Olympics VISU
has been visiting the homes or workplaces of individuals associated with
the anti-olympic sentiment, as well as
their friends or family members if they
are unsuccessful with being direct.

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Riot: The Olympics are Coming-Pg. 41

Individuals have been visited across
Canada, not just in British Columbia;
visits in Ontario and Quebec have also
been frequent. Dozens of security cameras are being put up in and around the
city of Vancouver. Police claim these
are temporary cameras that will only
be used by a temporary security center.
They do mention that the cameras may
remain for future “special events” or
“traffic control”. Clearly, the concern
around the games is helping to rationalize new opportunities in surveillance
by local officials under the guise of
Olympic security. Vancouver police
are beginning to stock-pile non-lethal
crowd control equipment that has yet to
be used in their country. Similarly to
the G20 Summit in Pittsburgh in September 2009, Canadian police are planning to also use the LRAD “acoustic
weapon”, which uses deafening tones
to clear crowds. Although it should be
noted that this was not successful in the
case of Pittsburgh, other than simply
annoying rioters the same way any incredibly annoying car alarm would.
With all this planned for the upcoming games, private security companies
have been recruiting for the Olympics
in towns specifically close to reservations. Ignoring the implications of
holding the Olympics in British, Colombia, security companies are claiming to provide opportunities for the aboriginal communities of this province.
As they plan to hire 5,000 people across
Canada to work as private security during the Olympics, they plan for 1,500 to
2,000 of them to be of Native descent.
They claim that they will go through
an extensive training process, helping
those without jobs to acquire skills they
can use in the future. While clearly taking advantage of Aboriginal poverty in
Canada, they are also creating divisions
among native groups in Western Canada. All together the security budget
for the Olympics alone is 900 million
dollars. But what has been so unique
about this 2 year hype of resistance and
riot before the 2010 Olympics, is that
even before such intense state posturing, action and solidarity continues
to be stoic and uncompromising just
months before the planned Olympic
police state in Western Canada.

Vancouver is also witnessing the development plans the Canadian province
hopes to achieve with the upcoming
games. Tenants specifically in Vancouver or Victora are being evicted in
mass from their homes, making space
for Olympic tourists before an expected hotel scarcity. As people are being
forced to leave their homes before the
winter just starts to get colder in Western Canada, tenants can go online and
see their small tenement buildings being advertised for special Olympic
rates. One group of tenants discovered,
after being evicted from their 9 bedroom home, that it suddenly was going
for $11,900 for a minimum 2 week stay,
or $34,000 dollars for the full 2 months
of the Olympics.
This sort of hyper displacement was
expected prior to the games. Although
discussed by community groups within the city, the displacement of a large
part of Vancouver’s east side (considered the Ghetto by some), has created
a 373% increase in homelessness in
Vancouver. It is now estimated that
3000 people are living on the streets.
Police have handed over 2000 tickets
for minor by-law infractions like jaywalking specifically in the East side
of Vancouver. This is most likely to
drain and intimidate the homeless from
feeling comfortable, but alas, clearing
apartment buildings and fining are not
enough. New laws are being passed as
well to help clear the cities of its “scum”
or “undesirables”. Just months before
the games, the British Columbia’s provincial government passed a law allowing police in Vancouver and Victoria to
forcefully remove homeless people off
the street and into shelters. They claim
the law only entitles them to do this
during extreme weather conditions, but
considering the timing, it is clear what
the intentions are. Once this law was
made public, it was a bit too ridiculous
to ignore. After a fuss was made, the
law was reformed to only allow officers
to forcefully remove homeless people
off the street, and to the shelter, but
they could not force the person to stay.
However they could just keep picking
them up and taking them there. It is expected that large parts of the city will be
shut down for the Olympics, making it

impossible for large amounts of homeless people to stay where they are anyway. The VISU is refusing to reveal
what neighborhoods they are closing
until its closer to the Olympics.
As notorious officer Bud Mercer is appointed key cop during Olympic security, we can understand what the Canadians are planning. With a resume of
repressive police conduct, specifically
during confrontations with Native or
student groups, we are assuming they
want to provide the appropriate face for
what is to come. But with everything
said here, we want to include some of
the things that have happened in the last
few months. Resistance continues on
all fronts before the upcoming games.
Night time actions on corporate sponsors has not diminished whatsoever.
Even though Canada plans to put a
crown on the few Chiefs embracing the
games, it is losing the support of some
of the most loyal tribal governments and
chiefs, as frustration with the games becomes more and more popular among
Native groups across Canada. East side
Vancouver fears that the Neighborhood
as it’s known will be destroyed and appropriated by the games. Protests of
the police are becoming more and more
attended and appreciated by the neighborhood as homelessness is rising and
police intimidation grows harsher as
the Olympics grow closer.
The Olympics are helping to pave the
way for a new dawn of surveillance for
Western Canada, a more comfortable
tourist attraction for the wealthy of the
world. Along with being another opportunity to help further spit in the face
of the aboriginal peoples of Canada,
that unlike the United States, had yet
to succumb to the European settlement
known as the Canadian government.
Since the Olympics, the G8, and Security and Prosperity partnership meetings were set to take place in Canada.
Confrontation and clandestine resistance have been helping to preserve
a discomfort for the games, and solidarity for those who are experiencing
the repercussions of it across the nation. The rituals of the political elite

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Riot: The Olympics are Coming-Pg. 42

will not be tolerated by the excluded,
discontent, and revolutionary of Canada. The spectacle of excitement and
comfort the public relation projects of
these events continue to fabricate are
constantly shattered by the gestures of
“violent” hooligans in the night, and
mobs of hostility greeting every event
specifically celebrating the games.

tacked an RBC on Cook st. We broke
two windows and left into the early
morning. We did this because we hate
banks, we hate the rich, and we hate the
bosses and their Olympics. Solidarity
against the torch run that leaves here on
the thirtieth!

The Olympics are a historical event
that celebrates the Nation-States of the
world. They provide governments with
pride, and hosting countries with funding and opportunities for expansion and
development with the influence of the
global world. The Olympics celebrate
a time for governments and businesses
to come together. The Olympics were
first practiced at the dawn of Western
civilization, and re-introduced into the
modern world through the dreams of
a French aristocrat. They are a peaceful war of Nations, competing for the
place of best and most powerful. They
celebrate the standards of capital, and
foster the feelings of nationalism. They
bring us together to divide us, and help
us to further understand our humanity
only through borders.

Week of December 10th,
2009, Ottawa, Canada: Five
Royal Bank of Canada properties
vandalized.

In the case of the 2010 Olympics, there
seems to also be an opportunity for enemies of bother government and business to come together as well, in riot
and resistance, and most importantly
solidarity.
We compiled a short list of statements
and news clips describing resistance
that has happened or is expected to continue happening around the Olympics.
Please visit the links included at the end
of this article to stay updated with the
continued anti-Olympic momentum, or
how to help out against the games.

CLANDESTINE
ACTIONS
October 22, 2009, Victoria,
Canada: Olympic sponsor, the Royal
Bank of Canada, has windows attacked.
Communique:
Last night in Victoria, Canada, we at-

-Anarchists.

Excerpt from the communiqué:
No Olympics On Stolen Native Land!
Starting February 12 the winter Olympics will take place in occupied
British Colombia.
To date most Indigenous Nations in
British Colombia haven’t entered into
treaties with the British Crown or the
Canadian government.
This means that, according to International Law, most of British Colombia is
illegally occupied by the Canadian
state...
The Royal Bank of Canada is also a
sponsor of the 2010 Olympics.
We say fuck RBC. Due to their sponsorship of the Olympics, and the fact
that they are generally heinous, we vandalized 5 RBCs in Ottawa, smashing
one of their branches windows in the
early morning...
RBCs in Ottawa have been repeatedly
targeted with property damage, and we
felt that we should also do our bit.
We know that this action is just a drop
in the bucket, but we also know
that enough drops will fill that bucket
up!
-The ‘damage to property is violent’
collective.
Week of December 10th,
2009, Montreal, Canada:
Two Royal Bank of Canada properties attacked in solidarity against the
Olympic torch run.
Communique:
The Olympic Torch is in town! Last
night, to celebrate, two Royal Banks

were attacked in Montreal. The Royal
Bank is a sponsor of the 2010 Olympic
games which are a gross display of capitalism, colonialism, displacement, repression, and overall bad taste. We did
this miniscule thing in solidarity with
comrades on the West Coast of this vast
occupied island. Fuck RBC and fuck
the Olympics - lets extinguish the colonizer’s flame and start some real fires!
October 28th, 2009, Athens,
Greece: No statement of solidarity
with specifically the 2010 Olympics in
Canada was published, but a high explosive bomb was left around 4 a.m. at
the Olympic games offices in the Pangrati quarter of Athens. The explosion
caused damage to the buildings structure, and to two vehicles parked nearby.
The 2004 summer Olympics in Athens caused riots and resistance across
the country. Similarly to the security
planned for the 2010 Winter Olympic
games, the Greek government utilized
the same concerns of unrest, as an opportunity to escalate its already existing
repression to revolutionary anarchist
groups in Athens. In this specific instance, the Greek government started
to test out its new anti-terror laws with
the support of international government
funding, and the little bit of Nationalist support around the Olympic games.
Since then, the surveillance and new
laws the Olympics helped to rationalize for the Greek state have become the
norm of Greek police conduct.

TORCH
RELAY
DISRUPTIONS
Following a call out by the Native
Youth Movement, demonstrations
against the torch relay were organized
across major cities in Canada that
were planning to hold large celebrations greeting the Olympic ritual. Native groups also blocked or refused the
Torch from entering certain areas that
were cited on the torch path across the
nation. Olympic torch relays were unknown until modern times. They have
their roots in flame races called lam-

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Riot: The Olympics are Coming-Pg. 43

padedromia held in ancient Greece to
honour certain gods. But the first torch
relay associated with the modern Olympic Games did not occur until 1936 in
Berlin. It was organized by the Nazis
who believed that classical Greece was
an Aryan forerunner of the modern
German Reich and was intended to link
the modern and ancient Games. The
Torch relay helped provide examples of
conflict to come, and an understanding
that the games will not be welcomed by
many across Canada. We included the
call out here, followed by a few news
clips regarding disruptions of the Torch
relay when it entered some of Canada’s
major cities.
Confront Invasion:
Protest 2010 Olympic Torch
Relay
For the next 106 days the Olympic
Torch will run over our Great Lands.
The Olympic torch, a flamed staff that
represents white supremacy, is running
through Indigenous Nations and Territories, symbolizing their theft and dominance of our Lands and Ways. For 106
days every Indigenous Nation in these
Lands has the opportunity to talk to
the world about your issues and show
Unity between all Nations here who
have a common oppressor, and common Invader, KKKlanada (“Canada”).
Let us Unite voices and show the World
we are a Proud and Independent People
who will never Surrender our Lands.
Not only is the Torch running our
Lands, they are also going to get Native
people to participate in their evil ceremonies. KKKanada wants the world
to think Native people are compliant
and even eager to be assimilated into
the white way of life.
We call on all Native Nations of the
North to show the World we are Strong
and Dignified People, the Survivors
of a 500 year old Holocaust that has
taken 250 million Indigenous lives,
whose Lands are illegally occupied and
destroyed, who are a People who will
never accept defeat.
Ever since their invasion we have resisted. As this is written, indigenous
people are blockading roads to prevent
destruction. Original people are still

living on the land not dependent on
the invading governments for survival,
only needing clean land, air and water
for sustenance. The goal of the invaders
is to make us fully dependent on them
to survive, giving us no choice but to
live white. When we refuse we are arrested or murdered.
This is a unification call to the Proud
and Strong Nations of the North, the
Songhees, Kwakwaka’wakw, Nuuchah-nulth, Halkomelem, Cowichen,
Tuchone Tlinget, Inuit, Innu, Mohawk, Six Nation Confederacy, Annishinabe, Cree, Algonquin, MikM’aq,
Maliseet, Wabanaki, Siskita, Dakota,
Nakota, Stoney, Dene, Gwich’in, Tahltan, Gitsan, Wetsuitan, Haisla, Nisga,
Sekani, Dakelh, Tsimshian, Nuxalk, Heiltsuk,Tsilcotin, Secwepemc,
Nlaka’pamux, Okanagan, Ktnuxa,
St’at’imc, Stolo and all unmentioned
Nations.
When the Torch passes through your
Lands and communities, this is your
opportunity to let the world know what
is happening in your land. It’s your opportunity to tell them the true story and
the real relationship between the Invaders known as KKKanada and your Indigenous Nation. Let the world know
the land and water can never be sold
and natural law is more powerful than
man-made law.
They fear our Unity.
Plan some form of action when the
torch passes your area, stop it or chase
them to the edge of your Lands and let
the next Nation pick up where you left
off.
No Evil Invader Torch on Native Land!
-Native Youth Movement Warrior
Society
October 30th, 2009: First day of
Olympic torch run disrupted:
After scandals of a Greek athlete who
has been accused of using steroids in
the 2004 Greek Olympic games, the
torch arrived in the Victoria International airport in British Colombia. The

Olympic torch arrived in a Canadian
military jumbo jet. It was first handed
to token Indian chiefs who embrace
Canada’s “Indian Act”. An act established by the Canadian parliament in
1876 to help mediate the aboriginal
people of Canada. The Minister of
Indian Affairs and Northern Development are the formal department that
administers the “Indian Act”. This was
established to determine who was and
was not native in the eyes of the Canadian state. It was created to determine who is eligible for Indian status
and who is not. The process of “affording” native status before the Indian Act
requires registering with the Canadian
government, and complying with a set
of guidelines and standards created by
the Canadian parliament.
Once the torch was given to the Chief,
and brought in a canoe to a cauldron
representing the Olympic games. Following this, the torch was given to celebrity athletes, corporate employees,
and “important” citizens to be flaunted
around the city. At the same time, hundreds of protestors were coming together to shatter the praise of the torch and
what it represented. About 400 people
snaked through the streets of Victoria,
blocking intersections during Victoria’s
rush hour. They allegedly used marbles
to help fight off police on horses trying
to divide the march. Although helicopters, roof-top snipers, and hundreds of
police were also there to greet the demonstrators, large portions of the torch
run that day were cancelled due to police concerns around the march.
December 11th, 2009: Torch
relay disrupted in Montreal.
In Montreal, 200 people came together
to hiss, boo, and embarrass the Torch
relay as it entered the city. Confetti and
literature were thrown onto the crowd
there to greet the Torch, which lead
police to attack the mob. The group
of people forced an hour delay of the
relay, due to police concern of a riot.
Amazingly, the two and a half hour
spectacle ended up being a 30 minute
event without a planned finale including fireworks.

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Riot: The Olympics are Coming-Pg. 44

“We have this in common. We have a common oppressor, a common exploiter
and a common discriminator. But once we realize that we have a common
enemy, then we can unite--on the basis of what we have in common...”
										
—Malcolm X, 1954
December 17th, 2009: Toronto Olympic torch run disrupted.
In Toronto the Torch run was met
by 250 people holding a banner saying “No Olympics on Stolen Land”
gathered around a 15 foot tall make
shift torch themselves. Statements
against the Torch run were read in
solidarity with Six Nations or native
groups struggling against the invasion of the Olympics in their territories. Some protestors infiltrated
the crowds of support, passing out
information against the games, describing the effects of Olympics
and popular disapproval over them
specifically by Native groups. Apparently you could hear boos coming not just from the angry mob
that had come to criticize, but also
among the “supporting” crowd. As
soon as the Torch event formally
began, the crowd of 250 took to the
streets, immediately being chased
by the police. As the mob ran hissing and booing the torch event, they
were met with a group of riot police.
While all of this was going on, the
March in Honour of Harriet Nahanee, led by indigenous women, had
split off to follow the torch. During this, someone climbed an arch
directly opposite of the main stage
that was celebrating and welcoming
the torch, and hung a banner reading “Gego Olympics Da-Te-Snoon
Nishnaabe-Giing Ga-Gmooding”
(No Olympics on Stolen Native
Land in Anishinaabemowin). The
banner stayed up till the end of the
festivities. One fight broke out between a speaker against the games
and a citizen supporter. Two arrests
were made. But the event did not
go disrupted as it continued its way
across the nation, and according to
the mainstream media, the Torch
was “blocked”.

CONCLUSION:
NO CONCLUSION
By the time this issue is printed,
there will not be another issue until
the Olympics in Canada are over.
As you can see from news clips we
compiled here, or in prior issues,
attack and conflict have been constant. Revolutionaries around the
world should learn from this project
against the 2010 Olympics. Similarly to the Mapuche and anarchist
struggles in Chile against the entirety of the state, the fight against this
year’s Winter games have helped
bring groups together to realize a
common enemy.
The Olympics are simply a hyperexample of wealth and power in its
most vain form. But opportunities
to create popular conflict with the
institutions of control in society are
everywhere at every moment. Its
the responsibility of revolutionaries to learn from this project, as the
sentiment around the 2010 Olympics has shattered divisions among
the discontent across Canada. The
No 2010 project was an accessible
project of resistance. Unlike most
of the charity or activist groups you
would expect to jump on the consequences of the Olympic games,
resistance to them has not been a
specialized or passive task.
There is not one organization fighting the games. There is not one
group of people, isolated according
to their identity, fighting the Olympics. It is the homeless fighting the
police in East Vancouver, refusing
to be taken from their make-shift
homes or further humiliated by police. It is Native defense of land. It
is violence against sponsors in the
night. It is theft of Olympic infrastructure and disruption of Olympic

ritual. It is blockades in the streets
and highways. It is the shattering
of comfort for Nationalism and
wealth. It is anonymous and nonanonymous statements of solidarity that transcend a struggle solely
based on identity. It is the recognition of a common enemy, yet to
be discovered communities and
friendships.
Whether or not the Olympics get
shut down. Whether or not the police run a blood bath, or the city of
Vancouver is in flames; networks
of solidarity against the state, that
transcend the typical leftist infrastructure, will remain. The build-up
to the games has already presented
a great deal of resistance. The momentum can only continue to grow.

NOTE
Just a few days before going to
print, 8 arrests were made in Ontario, as a result of a group of people
trying to blockade a highway to disrupt the Olympic torch relay once
again. Those 8 have been released.
But resistance and repression continues everyday. Please visit the following web sites to stay up to date:

NO 2010; Olympics on
Stolen Land
www.no2010.com
Native Youth Media +
Redwire Magazine
www.redwiremag.com
Olympic Resistance
Network
olympicresistance.net

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Riot: The Olympics are Coming-Pg. 45

THIS
WAS NOT OUR
BROKENHAGEN:
On the actions
against the
climate summit
“COP15” in
Copenhagen

On the actions against the
climate summit cop15 in
copenhagen

T

he news we’ve heard before heading off for
the actions against the COP15-climate summit definitely weren`t those you want to
hear when you plan to make the trouble this
city needed.

We all were pretty excited, seeing the need of turning this
spectacle from a friendly, green capitalist theatre play by
the United Nations into a raging festival of flames and dust.
The city of Copenhagen and the cops installed a new law,
the “lömmelpakken”, wich should make it possible to preemptedly arrest people for up to 40 days without any charge.
Also the “Schengen-Agreement” got suspended for the time
of the summit. This made it possible for the cops of Sweden,
Germany and Denmark to control the borders to keep the
dreaded “troublemakers” out.
The Danish press ran wild before the summit, creating stories about international hordes of anarchists who plan to
destroy the city of Copenhagen completely. The group
painted as the face of this anarchist momentum was recognized by its slogan: “Never trust a COP”. For more info and
the call to actions prior to the event check out: www.nevertrustacop.org. The “NTAC”-network dissolved right before
the summit, stating that the goal of mobilizing radicals to
the summit in copenhagen was accomplished. Also there
where rumors that the cops where trying to find out who
formed the network so they could be arrested.

When we finally arrived in Copenhagen, fortunately without being controlled at the border, we heard that on friday
the 11th a lot of people were arrested already. When a
small demo under the slogan “don`t buy the lie” passed the
“Hopenhagen” exhibition (the pro COP-15 campaign was
called “Hopenhagen”), and more than 60 arrests were made.
Immediately following this, whole busses of people were
taken to jail and immediately deported.
When we arrived, all we got to know about the next day
was that there was going to be an international anti-capitalist block at the big demonstration on Saturday, meeting in
the very center of Copenhagen. When the demo was about
to start, we arrived after being detained and searched on the
way. It became clear that we weren’t that many. A black
block of about 150 masked people, armed with stones and
fireworks was formed in the demo of about 100.000 demonstrators who obviously weren’t that happy about us showing up. The general attitude of the big demonstration as a
whole was awfully naive, claiming “climate justice” and
promoting a “sustainable lifestyle”.
We weren’t in Copenhagen to find our friends among the
international environmental NGOs. Right after the demo
started, the small black bloc found its place behind the truck
of the so called “radical” Climate Justice Action-Block.
After a few hundred meters the Danish Foreign Ministry
building was attacked with stones and fireworks. Windows
were smashed and we kept walking on in chains. The cops

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-This was not our “Brokenhagen”-Pg. 46

started immediately to split up the
mass demo behind the black bloc and
attacked after a few minutes. We defended ourselves and tried to hide in the
next blocs. Some fucked up socialists
pushed masked and black dressed comrades back towards the cops. A typical
gesture of solidarity that can be expected from NGOs or leftists. Since the
Danish police borrowed German and
Swedish cop cars for the summit, some
German police cars -among others- got
smashed . So the German comrades felt
quite at home. The black bloc disappeared. People changed clothes and
headed away from the demo while the
cops started to make mass arrests.
After these few minutes of clash some
smaller fights with cops occurred
around the former-squatted district of
Christiania (now its nearly just a touristic place, where people sell and buy
drugs). The whole night through the
cops controlled the area around Christiania, a few times smaller troops of cops
rushed into the district but left again.
Nearly everywhere people were either
detained, searched, or arrested. All in
all about 900 arrests during Saturday
were made. Of course there were some
comrades among those arrested, but the
majority of those arrested were people
that had been arrested during the massdemo.
The whole week through the cops held
to this tactic of arresting as many as
possible and acted very violent. On
December 14th, the clashes outside
Christiania continued. The cops seized
the district for hours, and finally they
raided the district and made massarrests. The night through there were
burning barricades and smaller clashes
around Christiania, which the cops held
occupied for hours after making multiple arrests.
On Saturday and the whole week
through a large number of the arrested
were held in make-shift jail cells designed like big steel-cages, in which
people were put in groups of up to 20.
In the late hours of December 12th prisoners tried to escape through the rest
rooms. A door was destroyed and some

walls were damaged. All in all throughout the time of the summit the cops
made around 1,915 arrests. The biggest
amount of them were administrative
which means without a suspicion.
Our goals, to smash the spectacle being
put up by politicians and NGOs on one
hand and reformist activists and political parties on the other hand failed. We
think that summits have nothing to do
with everyday social war. They choose
the battlefield and we join the games.
But we also think that searching for escalation under other circumstances can
give us strength and experiences. Even
if we didn’t create the necessary disaster needed against the summit during
those days we still stood strong against
their repression with revolutionary
solidarity. There were a lot of solidarity demonstrations and actions everywhere. In Kiel (Germany) and Berlin
comrades attacked the Danish embassies. Even if this wasn’t our Brokenhagen it was still an empowering battle.

FOLLOWING THE
SUMMIT, SOME
ARE STILL FACING
REPRESSION
Regarding Denver Anarchist Noah
Weiss:
Of the 1,500 arrests made during the
COP-15 actions, 7 individuals were
kept in prison for weeks after the events.
Facing multiple charges ranging from
misdemeanors to felonies. One of them
was an anarchist from Denver named
Noah “Rockslide” Weiss. He was released a shortly before going into print,
but weeks after his arrest. Noah moved
to Copenhagen a few months before the
COP-15 summit for grad school and to
organize groundwork for anti-capitalist
actions and infrastructure during the
summit. He was arrested after police
spent months surveilling organizers,
following them home, and so on.

Noah was arrested on the street and
has been charged with Violence Toward Police, Destruction of Property,
Disturbing the Peace, and Wearing
a Mask--in short, two felonies and
two misdemeanors. He was originally being held without bail and had
little chance of release before his trial.
Shortly before going into print, Noah
was released and must return to stand
trial in March. Since public defenders
and pro-bono lawyers are not permitted
in Denmark, Noah will have to have a
state-appointed lawyer who he’ll have
to pay unless he wins on all counts. If
Noah is convicted of either felony or
any additional charges, we are told to
expect a sentence of one year in jail
(all sentences are served concurrently).
For the entirety of his imprisonment,
we did not know how he was doing, but
from sources, we indirectly heard that
he chose to remain strong, get some exercising, reading, and writing done, and
remained in good spirits.
To remain up to date with Noah’s case
building up to his trial in March:
Donation and contact:
supportrockslide@gmail.com
Noah’s Support
1065 Lipan St, Denver CO 80204
Also visit:
denverabc.wordpress.com
A huge thanks to Copenhagen ABC and
everyone who looked out for our comrade across the Atlantic.
Social war is everyday.
For vengeance, pleasure, and social
war!
-Some Unwanted Children of
Capitalism // Anarchists from the
North.

The Danish legal system is confusing,
but this is how we understand things:
Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-This was not our “Brokenhagen”-Pg. 47

REPRESSION
UPDATES ON THE LEGAL CASES OR SITUATIONS OF THOSE ENEMY TO THE STATE

SOME OF THE
BETTER NEWS
KATYANNE MARIE KIBBY
ACQUITTED OF ALL
CHARGES AGAINST FBI
INFORMANT BRANDON
DARBY!
Katyanne Marie Kibby is a Texas woman who was accused
of sending a “threatening” message via email to FBI informant Brandon Darby. Katyanne was acquitted of all charges
this past November. Although comments expressing com-

plete contempt for the snitch Brandon Darby flare all over
the internet, and an entire website exists (Brandondarby.
com) to expose Brandon Darby to the world for the shameful
human being he is, Katyanne fell victim to state opportunism. Her case was another attempt to make an example out of
someone for acting out, in this case allegedly by email, frustrations with the state (considering Brandon Darby is an ally
of the state). The alleged email reflected frustration with the
state’s infiltration of our communities of resistance, and resulting perpetuation of distrust and dysfunction among those
in active conflict with everything the state protects.
Katyanne was originally facing 20 years for allegedly emailing Brandon Darby a threatening message after he was exposed as an FBI informant when Brad Crowder and David
Mckay were both arrested and accused of possessing firearms. The firearms the state refers to are Molotov cocktails
allegedly planned for an attack on police cars around the
time of the Republican National Convention in 2008. The arrest was made based on Brandon’s testimony about the two.
Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Repression-Pg. 48

Katyanne chose to remain stoic and
uncooperative during the trial as she
stuck with her story, and refused to accept a plea deal, despite reports that the
defense provided pages upon pages of
evidence of Brandon Darby’s embarrassing character and irresponsible
demeanor. The prosecution, although
pushing for a 20 year sentence, had
nothing on the defense’s statements,
leading to a unanimous not-guilty verdict by the jury.
Reports mention that the FBI stated
during the trial that informant Brandon
Darby was no longer a use to them,
since he publicly claimed responsibility on “activist” websites for turning
over Brad Crowder and David Mckay
to the police. He claims he found it
more important to prevent a violent attack on the state, than to protect two
young lives. Although most people
become FBI informants when selfishly
trying to avoid other charges, Brandon
claims he chose to work with the state
at his own will, in fact voluntarily. With
this, one can understand the coercive
and cowardly opportunism the state
showed when it asked Katyanne to cooperate. The FBI offered Katyanne two
alternatives to trial; the first was a plea
deal where she would enter a separate
trial that can only carry a maximum of
four years; the other was becoming an
informant, infiltrating specific groups
and individuals in Austin, Texas, and
New York City. According to Katyanne, she was provided a long list of
people, many of which she didn’t even
know, in New York and Austin, hoping
she would assume responsibility where
Brandon Darby left off. Katyanne simply said no, and chose to go to trial.
It’s scary to hear about FBI attempts
to infiltrate our communities of resistance. It’s incredible, however, to
hear of someone staying strong, even
before such intimidation by the Federal government. It’s inspiring to hear
about someone not backing down, being smart, and not compromising her
friends, or even those she didn’t know.
We send our regards and solidarity to
Katyanne, and our utter disgust to the
likes of Brandon Darby and his FBI

“handler,” Tim Sellers. Disgracing his
friends and family was not enough to
stop Brandon in continuing to torment
our community. The statements and
personality of Brandon Darby should
be a learning experience for all of us
who live in active conflict with the
state. More importantly, the behavior
and will of Katyanne should be an inspiration to all of us.
To learn more about the case of the Texas 2 (Brad Crowder and David Mckay)
please visit:
www.freethetexas2.com
To learn more about the egocentric tool
box Brandon Darby visit:
www.brandondarby.com
To stay up to date with informants,
snitches, and other ways the FBI and
state police are trying to infiltrate communities of resistance visit:
www.snitchwire.blogspot.com

OJORE LUTALO
RELEASED
Anarchist and New Afrikan political
prisoner, Ojore Lutalo, was recently
released from prison in Trenton, New
Jersey. He served 26 years, most of it
in isolation, all in the service of revolutionary struggle and the Black Liberation Army (BLA). Ojore’s own words
describe:
“serving a parole violation sentence
(we received 14 to 17 years) stemming
from a 1977 conviction for expropriating money from a capitalist state bank
(in order to finance our activities) and
engaging the police in a gun battle in
December 1975 in order to effect our
departure from the bank, and to ensure
success of the operation...After my
parole violation sentence terminated
in December 1987, I started serving a
forty year sentence with a twenty year
parole ineligibility (I was paroled in
1980, and I have been back in captivity since April 20, 1982) that I have received in 1982 for having a gun-fight
with a drug dealer. The overall strategy

of assaulting a drug dealer is to secure
monies to finance one’s activities, and
to rid the oppressed communities of
drug dealers.”
Ojore became an anarchist in prison after becoming disillusioned with Marxism and reading anarchist texts suggested by Kuwasi Balagoon. His supporters
are asking for financial assistance that
will allow Ojore to transition more
smoothly, giving him the needed time
to readjust to the life on the outside that
he hasn’t experienced since 1982.
To make a donation, checks or money
orders payable to Tim Fasnacht can be
sent to:
Philadelphia ABCF
Post Office Box 42129
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19101

JEFF “FREE”
LUERS RELEASED
FROM PRISON!
In 2001, Jeff “Free” Luers was originally sentenced to 22 years and 8
months for burning 3 SUVs in Eugene,
Oregon. Sadly, only 40,000 dollars in
damage was done, and all 3 SUVs were
fixed and eventually sold. Following
year’s worth of attempts to file an appeal, Jeff Luers was finally given a sentence reduction that allowed him to be
released after 9.5 years on December
16, 2009. He was originally released
for one day on October 20, 2009, but
was snatched back by the state the next
day. The state claimed there was a mistake, and that he was not supposed to
be released until 2 months later. This
was an obvious attempt to continue
tormenting Jeff while they have him directly under their thumb. On a brighter
note though, Jeff is out of prison. He
has chosen to remain stoic and uncompromising throughout his time, and not
allowed his experience to break him.
We want to express our excitement and
joy for his release, as Jeff has been a
reminder of the courage some can display when overcoming the obstacles

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Repression-Pg. 49

set forth by the state, and resisting the
society it exists to protect. An “official”
media statement was sent out upon his
release. We have included an excerpt
from this statement by Jeff, below. We
recommend learning more about Jeff’s
case and history. His experience helped
to mark the dawn of much of the harsh
repression in recent years, conducted
in the shadows of American justice,
against similar cases of eco-influenced
resistance. At the same time, his consistency and strength throughout his time
in prison should be an inspiration to us
all.
Letters congratulating Jeff can be sent
to:
Jeffrey Free Luers
c/o Free’s Support Network
PO Box 3
Eugene, OR 97440
For more information on Jeff and his
case please visit:
www.freefreenow.org
Statement from Jeff Luers and his lawyer:
“The last 9½ years have been difficult
at best. I have witnessed things in prison that I will carry with me for the rest
of my life. I have endured hardship and
loss. Without a doubt, this experience
has changed me. What hasn’t changed
is my commitment to environmental
and social justice.”
“I would like to thank all the people
who have supported me through the
years; especially the dedicated few
who worked tirelessly to get me out of
prison. I look forward to spending time
with my loved ones and continuing my
education, as well as continuing my activism.”

RNC WINDOW
SMASHER JESSE
JAMES RELEASED
FROM JAIL!

Jesse James Forrey was sentenced in
September 2009 to 4 months in jail for
property damage to a bank during the
2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, MN. He was finally
released early on December 1st. Jesse
was originally due to be released on
November 30th, but was held an extra
two days, during which his he was told
he may be extradited to California for
a separate warrant, and held for up to 3
months waiting to see if the warrant is
acted upon by authorities. Fortunately
on December 1st he was released from
jail, and able to return to his home,
friends, and family in California.
Jesse James needs help covering over
$18,000 in legal expenses. Information
on how to donate can be found on his
support website at:
www.supportjessejames.wordpress.
com

JACOB CONROY
OF SHAC 7
RELEASED!
Jacob Conroy, one of the SHAC 7, was
released from prison on November 6,
2009 after 3 years. The SHAC 7 is six
individuals and a corporation, “Stop
Huntingdon Animal Cruelty” who were
given sentences varying from 1 to 6
years in prison for promoting an essentially legal activist campaign against
Huntingdon Life Sciences, a notorious
animal testing company. Of the six,
only two remain inside prison nowLauren Gazzola and Kevin Kjonaas.
To learn more about how to support the
remaining two SHAC7 defendants in
jail, or about the background and implications of their case, please visit:
www.shac7.com
Don’t forget to write letters of support
to Lauren and Kevin. They can receive
letters to the following address:

FCI Danbury
Federal Correctional Institution
Route #37
Danbury, CT 06811
Kevin Kjonaas #93502-011
Unit I
FCI Sandstone
P.O. Box 1000
Sandstone, MN 55072

LAST
CONSPIRACY
CHARGE IN THE
SAN FRANCISCO
8 CASE HAS BEEN
DROPPED!
News clip:
“In court today, December 3rd, the
prosecution dropped the conspiracy
charge against Francisco (Cisco) Torres, citing lack of evidence. The defense has argued from the beginning
that the conspiracy charges against
the San Francisco 8 from 37 years ago
had no validity because the statute of
limitations passed long ago. The state’s
motion to dismiss this count two (conspiracy) tacitly acknowledges the defense arguments which had already led
to dismissing the conspiracy charges
against Richard O’Neal, Herman Bell,
Hank Jones, Ray Boudreaux, Richard
Brown, and Harold Taylor. In January
2007, the 8 were arrested for their alleged involvement in the 1971 murder
of Sgt. John V. Young at Ingleside station, a thirty year old unsolved crime
for which the men were originally
charged for at the time, but the charges
were dropped by the judge presiding
over the case in response to the police
torturing confessions out of them.”
Support the SF8 and donate to their legal defense at:
www.freethesf8.org

Lauren Gazzola #93497-011
Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Repression-Pg. 50

ARIEL ATTACK
SENTENCED TO
11 MONTHS OF
UNSUPERVISED
RELEASE
Note:
The Democratic Party Headquarters in
Denver had eleven windows smashed
out with hammers early on the morning
of August 25, 2009. The damage was
estimated at $11,000. It was exactly the
one year anniversary of the commencement of the 2008 Democratic National
Convention in Denver. Police reported
seeing two vandals who fled. A single
arrest was made (the police witness
and arrest seems to have been a case
of bad luck). That individual, Ariel
Attack, was held in Denver City Jail
for about 36 hours before a bail hearing and the full $5000 bail was raised
quickly. Since then Ariel was sentenced
to 11 months of unsupervised probation. The following article is a statement from her support group following
the court’s decision. After that is an
original statement from Ariel submitted
for this issue.
Support team’s statement following the
ruling:
Ariel Attack Still Livin’ at Large!
“Today in Denver, we have cause to
celebrate as one warm body became
secure in its relative freedom--the sort
of freedom that reminds us of what we
still must do in order to be free. Yesterday morning Ariel Attack plead to
Class 2 Misdemeanor (Criminal Mischief) in return for the dropping of the
original Felony charge, and the court
set the sentence at 11 months (?!?) of
unsupervised probation and full payment of $5,600 restitution, allowing
Ariel to stay on the streets and in the
arms of friends. This is much better
than the possible 2-6 year bit they were
facing. The restitution had to be paid in
full and up front (by taking out a loan)
for the deal to go through.

A year unsupervised is not a bad deal
considering the circumstances of Ariel’s arrest and their refusal to name
the ‘accomplice’. In case you’re just
tuning in, Ariel was involved in an attack against the Colorado Democratic
Party Headquarters in August by means
of hammers and the resulting media
clusterfuck. We feel there has been a lot
of luck mixed up in this situation, but
we’ll publish a narrative of the events
so that anarchists out there can see if
there’s anything they can learn. Look
out for that in the next couple of weeks.
Meanwhile, friends close by and far
away are feeling the cold grip of state
repression, and the struggle continues.
There are two Denver-based anarchists
facing felony charges and massive legal fees, and we extend our solidarity
to Jeff and Noah, along with Carrie and
Scott, David Japenga, the RNC8, all of
our imprisoned comrades; the list is far
too long to finish.
While Ariel’s legal battle has wrapped
up, we are making one last request for
donations to help cut away at Ariel’s
debt--about $6,000--and we still have
some of these fly Hammer Time t-shirts
to move. Friendsofariel@riseup.net to
get hooked up.
A brief message from Ariel: “To everyone who has had my back these past
months, with everything from letters
and cash to screenprinting, fashion advice, words, and all of that intangible “I
got your back” stuff, Thank you! And,
yeah, it was fun.”
Freedom, however, is not something
stable on which we can place our feet.
It is a struggle we fight day by day. Yesterday was not a shallow victory--there
is nothing shallow about the warmth of
friends’ arms, the taste of good food,
the drag of fingernails across skin. Still,
this sense of freedom is nothing compared to what we will experience when
we destroy the prisons.”
The following is an original statement
from Ariel for this issue of Fire to the
Prisons:

In August, I was taken into custody and
charged with an attack on the headquarters of the Colorado Democratic
Party with another individual who was
never identified. For the curious--I
got caught because, no lookout, a cop
drove by, and my bike chain fell off all
at once. “...allegedly.”
After all that bad luck, my traipse
through the halls of justice went well.
And now that I’ve made a plea in court
to a lesser charge and received eleven
months’ unsupervised probation as
punishment, now the case is closed,
I feel some compulsion to address a
question that has been put to me many
times--the question of why.
Well, who asks ‘why’ when hooligans
trash their school at night or prisoners
set their prison alight? It is appropriate
to a political target that there must be
a message, that the action is not for its
own sake but for the purpose of communication and negotiation; such is
the nature of politics. Well, politics is
something I admit to exist within even
while recognizing its destruction as
necessary--just as I once existed within
schooling. But to the question of why,
of messaging, there is no answer I can
give that would be as satisfactory as
complete silence. Especially considering the silence and anonymity of the
missing accomplice. Theirs is an appropriate condition and one that I envy,
and wish to return to soon.
There is still the question of blood
and defense. The legal process I went
through had a far better conclusion than
I originally feared, which says little of
the benevolence of the system and much
about the pessimism I set up in preparing myself for the worst, the choice
of a good lawyer who exerted himself
toward my freedom and the decisions
I made to fuck with the courts even as
I navigated them. I was able to assert
certain choices throughout the process
and I was lucky to not have to compromise. Seriously, I’m fucking tickled that I never apologized to a judge
or anybody. But seriously, I had little
pressure to do so, I got lucky, and we

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Repression-Pg. 51

need to make space for our comrades to
make their own decisions in how they
defend themselves (save snitching of
course) and support those decisions.
Most of all, I was and remain overwhelmed by the immensity of the
support I received from people in the
wake of my arrest. I cannot thank you
enough, the best I can do is get your
back when the state comes for you.
On that note, for the amount of attention my case has received in the mainstream media and from anarchists, let’s
recognize that 11 months unsupervised
probation aint nothin and there are so
many others facing some serious repression, as I’m sure these pages testify
to. So forget about me, and let’s make
prisons a memory.
Forever onward,
Ariel.
Still get in touch with Ariel’s support
team for whatever reason, including a
fly Hammer Time t-shirt sold for her
defense.
Contacts:
friendsofariel@riseup.net
1065 Lipan St / Denver CO 80204
www.denverabc.wordpress.com

ANARCHIST
PRISONER
CASSIDY
WHEELER
RELEASED!
Cassidy Wheeler was released from
Twin Rivers after nearly 8 years incarcerated. He currently resides with his
partner in Portland, Oregon and is in
good spirits. Monetary donations can
still be sent through paypal to antiracistactionstore@gmail.com (please make
note its for Cassidy) and cash, checks,
and money orders (left blank, please)
can be sent to:
Shoelacetown Anarchist Black Cross
PO Box 8085

Paramus, NJ 07652
-orABC Pittsburgh
PO Box 9272
Pittsburgh, PA 15224
Cassidy was sentenced to 99 months for
what the state dubbed “armed robbery”
and “assaulting an officer” for shoplifting a pair of socks and refusing to be
passive when the courtrooms cops beat
him for cursing the verdict. Despite the
screws and Neo-Nazi inmates’ attempts
to dissuade him, he has remained active
throughout his incarceration.
For more information, email:
sabc@riseup.net or
abcpittsburgh@riseup.net

IN
TROUBLE
ALFREDO
BONANNO AND
CHRISTOS
STRATIGOPULOS
REMAIN IN JAIL!
Alfredo Bonanno and Christos Stratigopulos both remain in Greek prison
after being arrested for an alleged
bank robbery earlier this year in Trikala, Greece. Police claim that Christos conducted the robbery, leaving the
bank with 46,900 euros. They claim
that when Christos left the bank he
handed the money to Alfredo in a
rented car. Following a citizen’s tip,
Alfredo and Christos were pulled over
near the town Kalambaka, where police say they found the money. Christos, 46, is a respected Greek comrade
who was arrested in Italy years ago
and sentenced for a similar crime. Alfredo Bonanno, 73, who was recently
released for health reasons from an Italian prison is a well known author and

insurrectionary in Europe, and across
the world. Some of his more famous
writings have been: “The Anarchist
Tension” (which was actually a speech
that was transcribed and published),
“Lets Destroy Work, Lets Destroy the
Economy”, “Against Amnesty”, and
most notoriously, a pamphlet he served
18 months in Italian prison for writing
in the late 70’s called “Armed Joy”. As
of now, we only know that Alfredo and
Christos are currently being held in the
Amfissa prison, a prison reserved specifically for individuals like Christos
and Alfredo, where “convicts” are held
in cells with upwards of 20-50 other
people at all times. Since the arrest,
Christos has claimed that Alfredo was
unaware of the robbery, and that he accepts all responsibility for it. The judge
has chosen to continue to prosecute Alfredo anyway.
Obviously the response by the Greek
state is tempered by Alfredo’s background and associations. As Alfredo is
respected and loved by revolutionaries
across the world, he is the enemy of
governments everywhere. He has been
framed and appointed as an “ideological leader” by the Italian government
during the notorious “Marini Trial”,
and penalized for simply communicating his perspective. Christos and Alfredo both, of course, deserve our utmost
support and attention across the world.
Alfredo specifically deserves our urgent attention considering his health
condition. It is unclear as to whether or
not the Greek government plans to deport Bonanno, but we’re assuming that,
considering he was out of jail for health
reasons, being arrested for an alleged
bank robbery in another country will
probably not help a positive greeting
back in Italy
We included below the closest thing
we have found to a support website and
email address for Christos and Alfredo.
We apologize to both Alfredo, Christos,
and the reader for our lack of up-to-date
details or ways to support. Information
has been hard to find due to distance
and language barriers. We do understand that Alfredo and Christos are able
to receive letters addressed to them at:

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Repression-Pg. 52

(Name)
TZAMALA 3
33100 AMFISSA
GREECE
You can send donations to:
Conto corrente postale n° 23852353,
directed to A. Medeot - C.P. 3431 Trieste (Italy), with a letter stating
“sottoscrizione arresti in Grecia”
The most important thing to understand
here, though, is that two anarchists were
arrested for allegedly robbing a bank
intending to use the money to help further revolutionary projects. Therefore,
they deserve our utmost and unconditional support during these hard times.
From the writings of Alfredo, and the
statements of Christos and friends of
Alfredo, the most important support
that can be shown are acts of revolutionary solidarity. We find inspiration
for our discontent when hearing about
two comrades suffering in prisons who
continue to struggle against the state,
which is responsible for their suffering.
Both have dedicated their lives to fighting against it.
Visit:
www.arobberyingreece.blogspot.com
or
www.aftertrikala.blogspot.com
Email:
smolikas2@gmail.gr
From a letter by Christos to the new
Greek “Minister of Justice”:
“I do not wish to tire you with my
words, esteemed Minister of Justice,
but I say to you directly that if I had
the possibility to decide for the prison
system personally I would destroy everything or at least close everything.
Personally, I have the possibility of
dreaming of a different form of social
restitution of debt, of so-called justice,
that I cannot imagine you would ever
be in a position to support.”
From Alfredo M. Bonanno inside the
Rebibbia prison, on March 20th, 1997:
“The revolutionary project of anarchists

is to struggle along with the exploited
and push them to rebel against all abuse
and repression, so also against prison.
What moves them is the desire for a
better world, a better life with dignity
and ethic, where economy and politics
have been destroyed.
There can be no place for prison in that
world.
That is why anarchists scare power.
That is why they are locked up in prison.”

AN UPDATE ON
ERIC MCDAVID
Eric McDavid is a political prisoner,
cur­rently serving a 19 year and 7 month
sen­tence in federal prison for alleged
“conspir­acy” charges.” He was arrested
in January 2006 after being targeted by
an undercover informant who formulated a crime and en­trapped Eric in it.
Eric was targeted by the state for his
political beliefs, and his case is important for everyone who dares to stand
up. He is currently filing for an appeal
of his sentence. At the point of his arrest no criminal damage has actually
oc­curred. Please refer to back issues of
Fire to the Prisons, or visit his web site
below for more in depth description of
Eric’s case. Included before his support
information is the most recent statement from his support group. Its dated
January 13th, 2010.
“Dear friends,
Today marks the fourth year of Eric’s
incarceration. These are not the kind
of milestones we would like to be writing about to you. While other people
have been celebrating the New Year,
we have been incredibly conscious of
the passage of time in an entirely different way. For four years, New Years
has served as a reminder to us – as it
probably does to
millions of others - of how long we
have been separated from our loved
one. While others are celebrating new
beginnings, we are faced with the real-

ity that, so far, there has been no new
beginning as far as Eric’s physical freedom is concerned. Some things remain
painfully the same. Eric is still locked
away by the state. Please remember
that this time of year can be particularly difficult for folks who are locked up.
Take a minute to write Eric – or another
political prisoner – and let them know
that folks on the outside are still thinking of them and supporting them.
Appeal Update
Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of news
about the appeal. The
government’s response to Eric’s opening brief is currently due on Feb. 1
(they’ve now asked for two extensions). We will let you know as soon as
we hear anything more. Once the government files their response, Eric’s lawyer will have two weeks to file his final
response (more potential extensions
notwithstanding ). Once everything is
filed it could be more than a year before
a decision is made.
How to Help
We recently added a PayPal button to
Eric’s website (again). You can find it
on the “Help” page: www.supporteric.
org/howtohelp.htm Please consider
making a donation to Eric’s support
fund. Currently the majority of these
funds are being used to help his partner
cover the costs of going to visit him.
These visits are incredibly important
to Eric and his partner and are imperative for maintaining everyone’s sanity.
They would not be possible without all
of the support that Eric has received.
Our sincerest thanks to everyone who
has donated in the past. If you would
like to donate but would prefer not to
use PayPal, please let us know and we
will send you the details about who to
make the check out to and where to
send it.
If you cannot donate money, there are
other ways you can help. Eric is locked
away from his loved ones and his communities and he doesn’t have access to
a lot of information. Receiving news
from the outside helps him feel a little

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Repression-Pg. 53

more connected to the issues he cares
about. If you run across a good article
from an independent media source that
you think Eric might like, please send it
his way. Just keep in mind that Eric is
still in the appeals process, and everything he receives is read by the authorities. Even unsolicited mail can result in
sanctions against prisoners. Please be
prudent with your choice of material.
Our thanks to everyone for all of your
support these last 4 years.
Yours,
Eric’s Support Crew”
Subscribe to his email support list at:
sacprisonersupport@riseup.net
Please write Eric here:
16209-097, FCI Victorville, Medium
II, Federal Correctional Institution, PO
Box 5300, Adelanto, CA 92301, USA.
For further information and updates on
his case please visit:
www.supporteric.org

SUPPORTING
FITTJA 10
IN SWEDEN
A police intervention at a youth center
in Fittja, outside of Stockholm, resulted
in three nights of unrest. Ten people are
now charged with preparing arson; one
of them was charged with rioting, as
well.
During the last year, riots and arsons
have spread through urban areas in
Sweden.Youth in poorer communities
have started fires, and attacked firefighters and cops on arrival. The unrest
is clearly linked to a discontentedness
with the situation they face; the segregated cities, the poor living conditions
in their areas, the discrimination they
face in mainstream society. Wherever
they go they carry their areas’ reputation with them.
The police intervention at the youth

center happened on Sunday, October
25th. The Tuesday after, one person
was arrested, and the following day riot
police raided the apartment that person
shares with others in Fittja, arresting
another nine people. The following
weekend, they were all detained, and
charged with preparing arson. One of
these people was also charged with rioting. Police and media claimed from
the beginning that the arrested were
“known members of Antifascist Action” who had traveled to Fittja after
the unrest began.
Write letters of support to them. You
can send letters through ABC, Box
4081, 102 62 Stockholm, Sweden and
they’ll forward the mail. You can also
send messages to abc-stockholm@anarkisterna.com. Remember that everything will be read by the prosecutor.
You can also support them financially:
IBAN SE12 9500 0099 6034 0873
8973
BIC NDEASESS
Nordea, Sweden

MAY DAY
FUGITIVE TURNS
HIMSELF IN TO BE
SENTENCED
Daniel Wilson is currently serving his
sentence at the Thurston County Jail in
Olympia, WA after pleading guilty to
attacking a Bank of America and U.S.
Bank branch in Olympia on May Day
2008. After being a fugitive in Canada
for several months, he is the last of four
arrested on that May Day to be charged
and sentenced. Largely as a result of his
partner being pregnant with his child,
he decided to turn himself in at the
Canada-United States border in hopes
of clearing up his legal problems, and
taking care of his child. He is currently
scheduled to be released March 6th of
this year, but may face additional time
for allegedly vandalizing a pro-life
van during a critical mass bike ride in

Olympia in September 2008. He is also
being ordered to pay $15,000 in restitution to US Bank and Bank of America.
Please write Daniel in jail:
Daniel Wilson
c/o Thurston County
Corrections Facility
2000 Lakeridge Drive SW
Olympia, WA 98502

UPDATES ON
REPRESSION
IN ITALY
Daniele Casalini and Francesco Gioia
are two Italian anarchists arrested on
June 12, 2007 on suspicion of a Post
Office robbery and “subversive conspiracy”. They were sentenced to 4
years and 2 months. On October 29th,
2009, the charge of “subversive conspiracy” was dropped. They were both
released immediately. Upon their release, they expressed the utmost appreciation for the solidarity and support
they had throughout their 3 years of
imprisonment.
Leonardo Landi was facing the same
charges in connection with the robbery
as well as “various terrorist attacks”.
He was on the run until captured in Ventimilia, a border town between France
and Italy. His trial will start on March
5, 2010. Its been rumored that all three
anarchists are alleged members or former members of the Il Silvestre collective, a group responsible for publishing
the Italian green anarchist publication,
Terra Selvaggia (Wild Earth). Leonardo Landi and Francesco Gioia specifically are said to have been the main
editors of Terra Selvaggia. They were
originally sentenced to 3 years and 6
months imprisonment, and 5 years and
2 months imprisonment, respectively,
in 2006, for alleged connection with
the activities of the Marxist-influenced
Revolutionary Offensive Cells (COR).
This was based solely on the evidence
that COR had sent Terra Selvaggia a
communiqué about its actions anonymously.

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Repression-Pg. 54

On July 3, 2009 during an ROS operation (Special Operation Team of Carabinieri) called Operation “SHADOW”,
40 houses across Italy were raided with
the charge of “subversive conspiracy”.
Two Italian comrades, Sergio and Alessandro, were arrested. They are accused
of “subversive conspiracy”, grand theft
auto, and attempting to sabotage public
transportation. Both of them are being
held at Alessandria Jail, in the special
section for the anarchist prisoners.
Write these Italian comrades:
Sergio Maria Stefani
Carcere San Michele
Via Casale, 50/A
15122 San Michele (AL)
Italy
Alessandro Settepani
Carcere San Michele
Via Casale, 50/A
15122 San Michele (AL)
Italy
Leonardo Landi
Carcere Sanremo
Via Armea, 144
18038 Sanremo (IM)
Italy

“OUR FIRE
ILLUMINATES THE
NIGHT!”: UPDATES
ON REPRESSION
IN MEXICO AS
ANARCHIST
RESISTANCE
CONTINUES TO
SWEEP ACROSS
THE COUNTRY
16-year-old Suspected Mexican ELF
Arsonist Arrested and Released:
On October 27, 2009, a 16-year-old
known as “Diego A.” was arrested in
Mexico for possession of 4 incendiary

devices and other suspicious materials. The police took him into custody,
took pictures of him, and discovered he
was vegan. They brought him before a
judge two days later where it was ruled
that there was not enough evidence to
send him to a special prison for young
men under 18, and he was released to
his parents. He is suspected by the police of involvement in at least 6 arson
attacks claimed by the Earth Liberation Front, Animal Liberation Front, or
“eco-anarchists”.
Recently, there has been a wave of ecoanarchist motivated bombings, arsons,
and other actions in Mexico. While the
Animal Liberation Front has been active in Mexico for a long time, the rhetoric of their communiqués in the past
few years reflects broadened horizons
of resistance, echoing anti-civilization
tendencies. These actions have been
impressive quantitatively and qualitatively, signaling that there are definitely a good number of people doing
the actions, with or without connection
to each other. It is important for the
Mexican state to deny this and blame
as many actions as possible on the few
people they are able to arrest. It is also
interesting to note, however, that while
the state is attempting to discredit actions by claiming there is no movement
behind them, they also unintentionally
imply that a small number of people
can have a hugely devastating impact.
This serves as a testament to the power
of individuals that act upon their desire
for a different existence. The state has
almost always preferred to shift fears of
mass revolt to fears of ‘lone wolves’. It
is the most common way the state has
attempted to downplay movements,
preferring to excite fear of ‘fringe extreme elements’ than admit to general
sentiments of dissatisfaction within the
status quo. It is unfortunate for them
that they sometimes have too little of a
grip on reality to effectively repress the
tendencies they wish to crush.
Since our last issue, we have read that
3 other arrests have been made in response to the continued attacks. Abraham López, Carlos Orozco, and Fermín
Gómez were arrested on December

17th, 2009. Unfortunately, whether
due to language barriers or not, we
have found very little information outlining the details or providing updates
of their arrest since we first discovered
the news. A statement communicating
a need for an international solidarity
around the momentum of anarchist resistance in Mexico was sent out across
the internet to sympathizers and comrades around the world immediately
following the 3 arrests. This is the only
message we’ve seen that cites the arrests. We have included this statement
found on December 18th, 2009, signed
by the “Coordinadora Informal Anarquista”:
“Greetings comrades:
We are sending you a communiqué
from the Anarchist Black Cross of the
Federal District inviting you to a solidarity mobilization for the comrades
Abraham López, Carlos Orozco, and
Fermín Gómez; arrested yesterday
morning by Federal District authorities.
Although this year has seen an extension of anarchist struggle in Mexico,
showing an undeniable qualitative leap
in libertarian insurrectional actions,
we have also had some defeats, such
as the arrest of these young comrades,
or the detention of comrade Emmanuel
Hernández. All the same we are aware
that state repression only demonstrates
two things: 1) that insurrectional anarchist antagonism is a concrete reality
in Mexico today, abandoning for good,
reactionary immobility and nostalgic
activism; 2.) that now, more than ever,
it is necessary to take precautions and
carry out actions carefully, planning
our activities well.
Today our imprisoned comrades know
that they are not alone, that solidarity
has stopped being a dead letter written
in lower case, and is now a “DIRECT
SOLIDARITY” for our kidnapped
comrades. The actions of the comrades
of Acción Anarquista Anónima (Anonymous Anarchist Action) of Tijuana, of
the comrades of the “Brigada de Ecosaboteadores”, and of all demonstrations of SOLIDARIETA’ DIRETTA

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Repression-Pg. 55

(“DIRECT SOLIDARITY”) are for
comrade Emmanuel Hernández.
That is why we are calling for an increase in SOLIDARITY to our comrades kidnapped here, as well as in
Chile, in Greece, in Italy, in Spain and
in all the world.
May the night light up!
Against the State and Capital!
For Anarchy!”

TWO ANIMAL
LIBERATIONISTS
ARRESTED IN
HOLLAND
Two women were arrested in November 2009 in Holland in connection to
5000 mink being freed from a fur farm.
For legal reasons, neither of their names
are being released at this time. There is
rumor of a third arrest in connection
with the same case. Messages of support, however, are encouraged and can
be emailed to the addresses below.
Anonymous Female Prisoner One: holland@die-tierbefreier.de
Anonymous Female Prisoner Two:
dbf-sg@riseup.net

JUSTIN SOLONDZ
CAPTURED
IN CHINA!
Justin Solondz, wanted since 2006
in connection to an Earth Liberation
Front arson at the University of Washington’s Center for Urban Horticulture
that caused $7 million in damages, was
arrested for manufacturing drugs in
Dali City, Yunnan Province, China and
sentenced to 3 years. This is considered a lucky sentence in a country that
regularly executes prisoners for drug
crimes. Justin’s American citizenship
and warrant in the United States likely
lead to this relatively light sentence.

After serving his sentence in China, he
will be deported to the United States
to face being charged with placing the
incendiary devices that caused the arson. He will be the fifth person to face
charges for the arson, the others being
Lacey Phillabaum (Snitch), Jennifer
Kolar (Snitch), Bill Rodgers (Committed suicide before trial), and Briana
Waters (Currently serving a 6 year sentence).
Information is currently very limited;
no contact information, or information
about support and status is available.
If you have any of this information,
please contact Fire to the Prisons, so
we can help spread the world.

GREEK BANK
ROBBERS ON THE
RUN
Greek officials say they are offering
a reward of $887,000 for information
leading to the arrest of the “robbers in
black.” Identified as brothers Simeon
and Marios Seisidis and Grigoris Tsironis, they are wanted not only for a 2006
bank robbery but for possible links to
anarchist groups accused of domestic
terrorism, the Athens newspaper Kathimerini reported. Sources told Kathimerini that forensic evidence has linked
one of the “robbers in black” with a
2007 attack on a former judge’s private
guard and to a later shooting at an Athens police station claimed by the group
Revolutionary Struggle.

KEVIN OLLIFF
CONTINUES TO
STRUGGLE
BEFORE
CONSISTENT
REPRESSION
Kevin Olliff is an Animal Rights Activist who was arrested on April 18th,
2009. He was unjustly arrested on a

three year old protest charge and now
faces 10 felony counts. These felonies
are multiple counts of: stalking, conspiracy, conspiracy to stalk, and the
threatening of a public servant. He is
also being charged with a “street gang
statute” that, if passed, will add more
time to his sentence. These charges
stem from legal protest activity against
UCLA animal researchers. His bail was
set at approximately $460,000. He did
not meet bail and will receive credit for
time served, and is currently awaiting
trial. Kevin has been a victim of ongoing repression for several years now
and needs support. His next court date
is January 17, 2010.
For ongoing updates and ways to support Kevin:
www.supportkevin.org
Write Kevin:
Kevin Olliff, #1300931
TTCF 161 D-POD
450 Bauchet ST.
Los Angeles, CA 90012

TWO MEN
ARRESTED AND
SENTENCED FOR
“THREATENING”
INVESTORS AND
EMPLOYEES OF
ANIMAL TESTING
LABORATORIES
Two men have been sentenced to a total
of three year’s imprisonment at Oxford
Crown Court on November 12, 2009 in
Britain. Robert Griffiths, 59, of Kingfield Oval, Stoke-on-Trent, and Robert
Lewis, 62, of Pheasant Road, Trebanos,
Swansea, pleaded guilty to offences under section 146 of the Serious and Organised Crime and Police Act of 2005
on October 12, 2009. They were each
sentenced to 18 months imprisonment
and given a 10 year anti-social behavior order. The convictions relate to a

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Repression-Pg. 56

number of offences across the UK and
the United States between January 1st,
2002, and January 27th, 2009, in which
threatening letters were sent to companies linked to drug testing on animals,
as well as their business partners and
employees.
Write them:
Robert Lewis
HMP Bullingdon
PO Box 50
Bicester
OXON
OX25 1PZ
England
Robert Griffiths
HMP Bullingdon
PO Box 50
Bicester
OXON
OX25 1PZ
England

MARSHA P.
JOHNSON
COLLECTIVE IN
MEMPHIS,
TENNESSEE
RAIDED
Statement regarding the raid:
“In the late hours of Saturday, October
3rd, while most Bash Backers were out
running errands or partying the night
away; a fleet of five or so cop cars made
their way toward the Marsha P. Johnson Queer Collective (known to many
as simply the “Bash Back!” Memphis
Squat) on Bruce Street.
Upon arrival, without any announcement to vacate or any eviction notice
in tow, two of the cops promptly approached a side window, using their
steel flashlights to break through.
With guns drawn; several cops entered
the community room adjacent to the

broken window, where two queer youth
who had been staying at the collective
were making love. They immediately
ordered the partially-dressed duo outside, dragging them through the broken
window pane.
By this time, several supportive neighbors had began to rally across the street
in their defense, screaming things at the
cops like “Leave our neighborhood,
pigs” and “Leave those kids alone”. At
one point, one neighbor, an older person of color, was told if he did not settle
down and leave he would be arrested
also.
Our next door neighbors who collaborated with the police in the sting, however, began screaming homophobic and
racist obscenities and were never asked
to “settle down”.
The youth were questioned but refused
to give the location of any other house
members.
As of today the two youth were released
to the custody of their parents without
formal charges, while patrol cars have
been seen cruising Bruce Street nonstop. The house has not been boarded
up yet, and both the locks and our goals
remain the same.
Fuck the cops,
-Bash Back! Memphis.”

LONDON G20
RIOTER
SENTENCED TO
TWO YEARS FOR
ATTEMPTED
ARSON
A demonstrator at the April 2nd, 2009
G20 summit in London, who tried to
burn down a bank in the City of London at the height of clashes with police
was jailed on December 1, 2009 for
two years. Mindaugus Lenartavicius, a

Lithuanian, was sentenced to two years
for repeatedly attempting to set light
to window blinds at the Royal Bank of
Scotland after a fellow protester had
smashed windows. The 22-year-old,
who had been staying in a squat on the
North Circular Road in Palmers Green
in North London, admitted to one count
of arson on April 2nd, 2009 this year.
Sentencing, Judge Geoffrey Rivlin QC
said:
“There is no doubt you helped to turn a
peaceful protest into a violent and angry protest.”
Because Lenartavicius’s sentence is
more than 12 months, he faces automatic deportation. Welsh told the court
the defendant had arrived from Lithuania days before the G20 protest and
had planned to return immediately afterwards.

UPDATES ON THE
“TARNAC” GROUP
IN FRANCE
The Tarnac 9 are nine individuals in
France facing terrorism charges for
allegedly sabotaging high speed train
lines. The principal piece of evidence
against them has been their alleged
connection to the popular anti-capitalist
text, “The Coming Insurrection”.
On November 24th, 2009 a new arrest
was made related to the Tarnac case. A
statement from their support group discusses the arrest here:
“This morning at 6:30 am, [1] the AntiTerrorist Police (SDAT) allowed themselves to undertake a new arrest among
those “close” to the indicted. Judge
Fragnoli almost brought us to tears last
week when he boasted in the pages of
Liberation that he would proceed in this
case with all the “humanity” of which
he is capable. This morning he again
once showed the finesse that we have
come to recognize in him: 15 wise-asses from the SDAT to break down the
door and aim their weapons at two chil-

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Repression-Pg. 57

dren, 4 and 6 years old, in their beds.
All that just to question someone who
had already been arrested on November
11th 2008, based upon the most fantastic elements of the case, which they
have had in their possession from the
very first day.
Obviously we understand what is at
work here. While the two central elements in their accusations, namely the
fabrications concerning Julien and Yildune and the witness “X,” have largely
been swept away by recent revelations,
the sad clowns continue their flight
ahead, using pretexts that are always
more laughable to create a diversion.
One notes that it was in fact Judge
Fragnoli himself who declared to the
journalists that he would not make a
reconstruction of the so-called night of
sabotage. Thus, he definitively seems to
want to cover up what each day a little
more seems to have been fakes created
by the SDAT. We wish him good luck;
he’ll need it.
In this pathetic attempt at diversion we
once more see what anti-terrorism permits and permits itself. As when, during
the last two waves of arrests, friends of
the indicted were arrested in broad daylight on the street and forced to submit
to 96 hours of observation, pressure,
and humiliation. This democracy maintains itself any way it can.
We interpret this new attempt at intimidation as the only response that Mr.
Ragnoli could find to the collapse of
his case. We bet that the weeks to come
will permit us to definitively have done
with this farce, and his career.”
[1] Translator’s note: The day before
several lawyers for the suspects and
various Left legislators were to speak
in front of the National Assembly. In
a communiqué, they protested against
the use of anti-terrorist laws that have
been “diverted against political activists.”
On December 18th, 2009, the so called
“Tarnac” group was appointed new legal obligations, to help further mediate their release as they are out of jail

under judicial supervision. The most
troubling state demand restricted communication among the group. We are
not sure, but assume this would be the
harshest demand of all. For a group that
has been appointed as the authors of a
book like “The Coming Insurrection”,
we’re assuming that their comrades are
a main source of good in their lives.
This is obviously a tactic to further isolate them from each other, and forcefully disrupt the intimacy of the group.
A statement regarding the demand,
titled “Why we will no longer respect
the judicial restraints placed upon us”
is as follows:
“Imagine that you have the right to see
whomever you like, except for those
whom you love; that you can live anywhere except your home; that you can
speak freely on the telephone or in the
presence of unknown people, but that
anything you say can, one day or another, be used against you. Imagine that
you can do whatever you like, except
for what you hold dear.”
For ongoing updates and ways to support the Tarnac 9:
www.tarnac9.wordpress.com

AN UPDATE ON
ECO-PRISONER
MARIE MASON
Marie Mason was sentenced to 22
years in prison in 2009 for a 1999 attack against Michigan State University
in protest of genetically-modified crop
research, attacks on luxury houses under construction, and attacks on boats
owned by a mink farmer.
Here we included the most recent update from Marie Mason’s support
group:
“You might have noticed that we’ve
been quiet on Marie Mason’s situation
since she has entered the federal prison
system. Mostly she has been trying to
adjust to life at Waseca and get her basic needs met. The good news is that

she was initially assigned a job in the
kitchen, but was able to be transferred
to a job as a guitar instructor. She recently played a holiday gig inside the
prison with her new group!
Unfortunately, Marie Mason’s other
needs are not being met. Mail delivery
has continuously been disrupted. Contact with her appeal lawyer was halted
at one point, and he had to intervene
to re-establish it. Contact with other
lawyers is uncertain. Certain supporters were barred from contacting her,
but then allowed to – only to find their
communications were still censored or
parts of them “lost”. Mason’s attempts
to receive instruction in her chosen
spiritual path also seems to be running
into problems, and outside organizations have had to be informed regarding
the situation.
The worst is her food situation; Mason
is vegan, but has been unable to consistently receive vegan meals. She has
been buying additional food from the
commissary, but this too has caused a
problem. There was too much money in
her commissary account and therefore
a monthly amount has been garnished
(since Mason has to pay restitution as
part of her plea bargain). This has created a vicious cycle: the prison system
is refusing to provide her with vegan
food, forcing her to buy food from the
commissary; but because there is money in her commissary account to buy
the food, they are punishing her for it.
Mason is looking at options to get the
prison to serve her vegan food. She is
vegan partly for medical reasons, and
her inability to receive a vegan diet is
causing her significant health problems.
At this juncture, she wants supporters
to be aware of the situation, but NOT to
take any action. We also ask that supporters do NOT place money directly
in her commissary account, but rather
provide any funds directly to her family.
Supporters should be aware that the
prison has notified that Mason will not
be allowed to use the new email system they are installing (although other
Green Scare prisoners can). Addition-

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Repression-Pg. 58

ally that they are implementing a list
of 100 people that she can write to;
all of these people must be authorized
ahead of time. This can potentially
limit contact with supporters, making
events such as letter-writing nights
impossible. We are not sure if this is
a system-wide change or one that is
more limited; we will post updates on
this situation as they become available.
However, as of this time (October 19,
2009), anyone can still write Mason, so
if you’ve been thinking about doing so,
right now is the time.
Lastly, Mason’s appeal is still underway, and details will be posted as they
become available.”
Keep up to date and support Marie at:
/www.supportmariemason.org
Write Marie:
Marie Mason #04672-061
FCI Waseca
Federal Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 1731, Waseca, MN 56093

MAN JAILED
WITHOUT TRIAL
FOR SABOTAGING
ARMS PRODUCER
On January 18, 2009, Elijah Smith, a
former British Soldier, was arrested in
Brighton, England. He was arrested under the assumption that he had spent the
previous night decommissioning the
EDO/MBM/ITT factory in Brighton,
in an attempt to stop it from providing
parts for weapons being used by the Israeli army to bomb civilians in Gaza.
Nobody was injured or harassed during
their action, which was one of property
damage. He and his co-defendants did
not resist arrest. A year later and he is
still on remand and it looks as if he is
likely to remain in prison until the trial
actually starts. The trial is expected
to take place on May 17th, 2010, by
which time he’ll have spent 16 months
imprisoned already before his trial.

Write Elijah:
Elijah Smith VP 7551
HMP Lewes
1 Brighton Rd
Lewes, Sussex
BN7 1EA, England

awaits his sentence, Alex also remains
in jail awaiting his trial. Both deserve
our utmost support at this time.
Updates on the case:
www.voiceofthevoiceless.org

BJ VIEHL
SENTENCED FOR
AN ANIMAL
LIBERATION
FRONT MINK
RELEASE!
On November 19, 2009, William “BJ”
Viehl faced sentencing for a release of
650 mink in Utah with co-defendant
Alex Hall. While the sentencing guidelines for the plea agreement he was
seeking originally called for a 6 month
sentence, the judge was greatly influenced by the fur farm’s owner taking
the stand and crying like a baby over
his lost mink, saying it was cruel to the
“wasted” animals that would not end
up as fur coats and that BJ should be
charged with animal welfare violations.
This case was going to be Utah’s first
to be sentenced under the guidelines of
the “Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act”,
which adds enhancements for those
convicted of causing large amounts of
financial damage to animal enterprises.
The judge expressed he wished to go
well above the guidelines and give a
2 year sentence. The sentencing was
postponed to December 11th, when, the
argument was made by BJ’s defense, a
new judge should be sought, given the
original one’s unwillingness to follow
the recommendations of the sentencing
guidelines. Sentencing has been postponed again. At the next date, there is
likely to be a decision on replacing the
judge and sentence. Since the turn for
the worse in BJ’s plea deal, Alex Hall
has stated his intention to take his case
to trial. Although BJ has chosen to plea
guilty, there is no evidence that his plea
deal involved incriminating anyone
else, and both BJ and Alex’s support
groups completely support BJ. As BJ

Support info:
www.supportbjandalex.com
Write BJ and Alex:
William James Viehl
Inmate #2009-05735
Davis County Jail
800 West State St.
Farmington, UT 84025
Alex Hall
Inmate #2009-06304
Davis County Jail
800 West State St.
Farmington, UT 84025

BELGIAN
ANTI-FASCISTS
SENTENCED
TO 12 AND 6
MONTHS
On October 6, 2009, a debate was organized by different fascist student
groups at the College of Gent in Belgium. Shortly afterward, four fascists
were beaten down and fire was set to
several garbage cans, banks, ATMs,
and a prison-related construction company. Jürgen Goethals and Gian-Paolo
Melis were arrested on October 25th
and charged with the fires set. Since
then, they were sentenced to 12 and
6 months and are currently out of jail
awaiting their prison terms.

SIX SERBIAN
ANARCHISTS
ARRESTED FOR
SOLIDARITY WITH
GREEK UNREST

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Repression-Pg. 59

Six anarchists have been held in Belgrade, Serbia by the state since September 5, 2009. They are accused of writing graffiti on the Greek embassy on
August 25th and throwing a Molotov
cocktail that only damaged a window.
The attack is understood as an expression of solidarity with the unrest that
has flared across Greece recently. They
face “international terrorism” charges
carrying the potential for 15 years in
prison. Financial support and solidarity
is urgently requested.
Support website:
www.asi.zsp.net.pl
You can send a cheque made out to the
CNT AIT, with the words “Solidarité
Belgrade” on the back, to the following
address:
CNT AIT
108 rue Damrémont, 75018 PARIS

TWO
INDIVIDUALS
SUBJECT TO
FEDERAL GRAND
JURY IN THE
MID-WEST USA
On Tuesday, November 17, 2009,
Carrie Feldman and Scott DeMuth of
Minneapolis were called before a federal grand jury in Davenport, Iowa. The
grand jury is investigating an unsolved
Animal Liberation Front action at the
University of Iowa in 2004, in which
research equipment was damaged and
hundreds of animals were liberated
and placed in loving homes. Carrie and
Scott were subpoenaed in the most
recent use of Green Scare tactics in
Minnesota, the government’s desperate attempt to obtain information about
activists, grasp at straws to file charges
against them, and disrupt radical animal-rights and environmental movements both above- and below-ground.
Rightfully so, Carrie and Scott refused
to cooperate and testify.

At the request of Prosecutor Cliff Cronk,
District Judge John Jarvey found them
in contempt of court and had them taken into custody immediately. Scott was
charged with conspiracy under the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA)
two days later, becoming the seventh
person charged under this dangerous
law passed through shady procedures
in 2006. Once he was facing a criminal charge, his charge of civil contempt
was dropped and he became eligible
for release. Cronk tried to keep him
locked up by arguing that his political
beliefs and associations make him a
“domestic terrorist,” but these ridiculous arguments failed and Scott was released after about two weeks. Carrie’s
situation has been drastically different.
She remains locked up in Iowa as the
government punishes her for her political beliefs and resistance to the grand
jury process. She could be held for the
duration of the grand jury--another 9
months. In early December, her lawyer
filed a motion to have her released, but
it was denied. The decision is currently
under appeal.
Carrie is 20 years old and has worked
with a variety of projects in the Twin
Cities, including Coldsnap Legal Collective, EWOK! (Earth Warriors are
OK!), and the Jack Pine Community
Center. A former student of the College
of St. Catherine, Carrie is currently taking a year off from school and, until
her detention, spent her time traveling,
doing personal care assistant work for
her grandma, and working on activist
projects.
Scott is 22 and has been involved in
several projects in the Twin Cities, including the Anarchist Black Cross and
the Jack Pine Community Center. He is
currently a member of EWOK!, Oyate
Nipi Kte, and the editorial collective
for the Dakota community journal Anpao Duta. He is also a Dakota language
student and a graduate student in the
Sociology Department at the University of Minnesota.
These two are being targeted because
they are committed radical activists
who refuse to be intimidated into coop-

erating in the repression of dissent, not
because the Feds believe they actually
had anything to do with the 2004 University of Iowa incident. Despite the
empty nature of the case, the Feds have
enormous power to pursue it and Carrie
and Scott need our support--financial,
personal, and political--at every step
of this process. This is one of countless examples of the ways that the State
utilizes the court system to subvert and
disrupt movements for social change,
and we owe it to our friends and our
movement to fight this battle.
Grand juries have historically been
used to repress dissent and disrupt social movements by intimidating people
into abandoning their activism, unjustly
incarcerating them and separating them
from their communities, and conducting fishing expeditions for information
about movements. Despite the government’s claims that grand juries are
necessary to uphold the law and create
a just society, their true purpose has
been demonstrated in the persecution
of people ranging from journalists who
refused to identify their sources to five
of the Black Panthers known as the San
Francisco 8 to activists involved in the
Puerto Rican independence movement
to earth and animal liberation activists.
Unlike the “petit” jury, which is used to
determine guilt in a trial, a grand jury
consists of 16 to 23 jurors who are not
screened for bias. The purpose of the
grand jury is not to determine guilt or
innocence, but to decide whether there
is probable cause to prosecute someone
for a felony crime. The grand jury operates in secrecy and the normal rules
of evidence do not apply. The prosecutor runs the proceedings and no judge
is present. Defense lawyers are not allowed to be present in the grand jury
room and cannot present evidence, but
may be available outside the room to
consult with witnesses. The prosecutor
and the grand jury members may not
reveal what occurred in the grand jury
room and witnesses cannot always obtain a transcript of their testimony.
Because of their broad subpoena powers and secretive nature, grand juries

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Repression-Pg. 60

have been used by the government to
gather information on political movements and to disrupt those movements
by causing fear and mistrust. The
grand jury lends itself to being used
for improper political investigations
due in part to the prosecutor’s ability
to question witnesses without regard
for rules that prohibit irrelevant, unreliable, or unlawfully obtained evidence. Those called before the grand
jury may be compelled to answer any
question, even those relating to lawful
personal and political activities. That
information has been used by the government as a basis to conduct further
surveillance and disruption of political dissent. When used against political movements, the grand jury causes
fear and mistrust because persons who
refuse to answer questions about their
First Amendment political activities,
friends and associates may be jailed
for the life of the grand jury: up to 18
months. If a witness asserts her Fifth
Amendment right to remain silent, she
may be forced to accept immunity or go
to jail for contempt, which is what happened to Carrie. Even a witness who
attempts to cooperate can be jailed if
minor inconsistencies are found in her
testimony. Such a perjury charge may
stand even when the grand jury fails to
hand down any indictment for what it
was ostensibly investigating.
As if using a grand jury wasn’t bad
enough, Cronk pulled a conspiracy
charge under the AETA out of his bag
of dirty prosecution tricks to pressure
Scott into giving him the information
he wants (and thinks Scott knows). The
AETA qualifies interference with and
protest of animal enterprises, including
First Amendment-protected activities,
as terrorism. The AETA is a frightening expansion of an already outrageous
and undemocratic piece of legislation,
the Animal Enterprise Protection Act.
Pushed through Congress by animal industry lobbyists and passed with only a
handful of Congress members present,
the AETA is a testament to the desperation of animal enterprises in an era of
growing popular support for animal
rights causes. Matthew Strugar, a cooperating attorney with the Center for

Constitutional Rights, points out that
AETA could even criminalize such
traditional protest tactics as economic
boycotts if they endanger profits for an
industry benefiting from experimentation on animals. The AETA is a dangerous piece of legislation whose very existence threatens not just animal rights
activists but anyone with an interest in
effecting meaningful social change in
this society. To date, only seven people
have been charged under the AETA. In
addition to Scott, they are: California
activists Joseph Buddenburg, Maryam
Khajavi, Nathan Pope, and Adriana
Stumpo (the “AETA 4′′); and Utah activists Alex Hall and B.J. Viehl.
The legal battles that Carrie and Scott
are fighting are some of the most recent
instances of the systemic repression
that the State has used to disrupt, weaken, and destroy movements for justice
and liberation. Their struggles are thus
tied to the struggles of radical activists
from many movements and eras. And
the outcomes of their struggles will affect all of us for however many more
years the Empire will retain its power.
We strengthen our movement when we
stand in solidarity with those the State
has stolen away from us by demonstrating our refusal to allow its repressive
actions to destroy our efforts at creating a better world, a world built on liberation for all and mutual aid. We also
directly help our comrades when they
need us the most.
For more information about Carrie and
Scott and to donate to their defense
fund, visit www.davenportgrandjury.
wordpress.com. You can also join the
“Support Scott and Carrie” Facebook
group and cause to stay informed and
get involved in supporting them. Anyone can host a fundraiser, print and distribute the flyers available on the support website, and talk to their friends
and families about the issues and why
we all must fight back and stand in solidarity with Carrie and Scott.
Carrie also needs support from folks in
the form of letters and books. You can
write to her and send her books (she’s
asked for books on math and science

fiction novels) at:
Carolyn Feldman
Washington County Jail.
2185 Lexington Blvd. PO Box 6
Washington, IA 52353
Some of the information on grand juries
came from grandjuryresistanceproject.
org and some of the information on the
AETA came from aeta4.org. Check out
those websites for further information.

STATEMENT
REGARDING
RAIDS ACROSS
CHILE ON
DECEMBER 11TH
“At 6am today, Friday the 11th of December, an intense police operation
began headed by the ‘Bombing Investigation’ Division; with squatted social centers and private homes raided
throughout the metropolitan region...
Until now six spaces have been raided:
3 squatted buildings and 3 private residences, in the areas of Central Santiago,
Macul, Renca, El Bosque and Recoleta.
Corporate media reports that there are
12 people who are being detained, 8 of
whom have been interrogated.
The raids were carried out by armed
contingents of the PDI (Investigative
Police Bureau) and the Carabineros
(The National Police force). At the Sacco and Vanzetti Squatted Social Center
and Library, located in central Santiago,
4 comrades have been detained and are
being held incommunicado by the BIPE
(special department of the investigative
police). It appears that the Social Center was defended due to reports of the
remains of many broken bottles scattering the streets in front of the building.
Well known squats La Crota and La
Idea and El Hogar were also raided by
strong contingents of armed police. It is
reported that the police took computer
equipment, bikes, propaganda, and cell
phones from all of the squats.”

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Repression-Pg. 61

From Liberacion Total:
“We issue a call out for international
solidarity! Stay alert, informed, and
ready to fight! To our comrades from
the social centers and squats: you are
not alone, we understand and assume
the consequences of declaring ourselves and acting as daily enemies of
authority.
The comrades who have had their
houses raided and who are detained
have faced this difficult moment with
their heads held high, standing up as
enemies of authority, as a consequence
our solidarity ought to be brandished
like the threatening weapon it is!
We will smash, liberate, paint, stone,
burn, detonate, and communicate...
Our offensive and our vengeance will
spread like the black plague and echo
in their ears, because if you touch one
of us, you touch us all!”
To stay up to date with the outcome of
these raids, and further repression and
resistance in South America, visit:
liberaciontotal.entodaspartes.net
(En Espanol)
thisisourjob.wordpress.com (English)

FOUR ARRESTED
AND RELEASED
ON CRAZY
CHARGES AND
BAIL OVER
MOUNTAINTOP
REMOVAL MINING
SITE
On November 21st two people locked
down to a massive drill rig in a blasting zone on a coal mining mountaintop
removal site in West Virginia. Progress
was stopped for the day at the site and
resulted in 4 people arrested. Bail was
set at $2000 cash only for each person,
all four have the same charges: trespassing, conspiracy (misdemeanor),

obstruction, and littering (thats from
having a banner). This action took
place on Coal River Mountain which
has been a rally point for the area;
Blowing up this enormous mountain
for our disgusting gluttonous energy habits is the line in the sand. This
mountain provides hope and a future to
the communities surrounding it, these
are the last jobs, the last headwaters to
streams.The Nov 21st action is the first
of many to come. We will not lose this
mountain. Its time to escalate. Fear is in
the industries eyes, placing high bails
and ridiculous charges.

Part of her ruling inadvertently pointed
out the absurdity of the case, noting that
“no specific individual or entity is enumerated as a victim in the complaint.”

Monetary support and people are needed, donations to legal fund can be made
to:
Climate Ground Zero PO Box 166
Rock Creek WV 25174 (specify legal)

Some other pretrial rulings have been
less promising. The judge did not require the prosecution to disclose important evidence about RNC informants,
such as personnel files. In one case,
it seems the state won’t need to give
information about cops who tried to
“adopt a sector” for the first day of the
RNC; we found much of the story in an
officer’s book (see tinyurl.com/RNCcopbook).

Or online at this website:
climategroundzero.org

DEFEND THE
RNC 8!
The RNC 8 are anarchist organizers
against the 2008 Minneapolis--St. Paul
Republican National Convention who
were charged in response to their political organizing: Luce Guillen-Givins,
Max Specktor, Nathanael Secor, Eryn
Trimmer, Monica Bicking, Erik Oseland, Robert Czernik and Garrett
Fitzgerald. Originally charged with terrorism, they now each face two felony
charges of conspiracy to riot and conspiracy to damage property. Here’s a bit
of what’s happened in their case over
the last several months:
The RNC 8 Will Be Tried Together:
In a significant victory, in December
Judge Teresa Warner granted the RNC
8 a joint trial, not the eight or three
separate trials favored by the prosecution. The state had wanted to break the
8’s solidarity and strain their supporters’ resources by having multiple trials.
But the judge rightly realized that a
single trial makes the most sense.

Both inside and outside the courtroom,
the best defense against the state comes
through standing together in solidarity.
The RNC 8 and their defense committee have treated the case as singular
from day one, and are looking forward
to standing together as both a trial strategy and a movement-building strategy.
Other Rulings:

The judge also denied a request to
suppress evidence from a warrantless
search of the van Max Specktor was
riding in. Besides not having a warrant,
the police drove the van themselves to
a police station before searching it out
of public view, a highly unusual procedure prompting questions about the
validity of the evidence.
Susan Gaertner:
Prosecutor Susan Gaertner happens to
be running for the Democratic nomination for Governor of Minnesota. Although we tend to care less about elections, we figured that we’d give Susan a
choice: drop the charges, or we’ll drop
your campaign. Annoying politicians
is fun and takes little effort, so we’ve
followed through by regularly showing
up outside her events.
Now, political insiders tell us that her
campaign is floundering, largely thanks
to us. You could help the cause by
giving her a call (county office 651266-3222; campaign 651-645-2010; or
email info@susangaertner.com--please

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Repression-Pg. 62

be polite) and asking her to drop the
charges on the RNC 8. Bonus points
if you say you’re a Democratic bigwig
with 50K to spare!
We’re Getting Ready... For Trial! Come
to Minnesota!
If you were at the 2008 RNC, know the
RNC 8, or need a road trip, make plans
to come to Minneapolis--St. Paul! The
snowdrifts should be gone when trial
begins, perhaps in spring or early summer. We’ve packed the courtrooms at
every appearance so far, and need to
do so at trial, also. Court solidarity is
an effective tactic and, just like at the
RNC, we seek to counter the state’s repressive spectacle with our own theater
of resistance.
If the monthly free dinners cooked by
the RNC 8 and supporters since last
spring are any indication, you’ll have
plenty of good food and friends while
you’re here. To stay in the loop, go
to our website--RNC8.org--and click
“Get Updates” to sign up for our email
announcements list, text messages or
more.
Finally, please consider donating to the
defense fund by visiting:
rnc8.org/donations
You can also send party proceeds or
love notes to:
Friends of the RNC 8, PO Box 7475,
Minneapolis, MN 55407.

AN ANATOMY
OF STATE
REPRESSION:
FROM TIN-CAN
TO TORTUGA
The first strike for us came far from our
home, 347 miles to be exact. Some of
us had traveled to the Pittsburgh area
in late September to help others who
wished to break the scripted reality of
orderly dissent with the annual meeting of the G-20. We were working with

a collective to provide an alternative
information line for people interested
in the protests during the week of the
G-20 meetings. To achieve this the Tin
Can Communications Collective created software to work with Twitter to provide street coverage of the events. This
of course had been done in Moldova,
Guatemala, and most notably in Iran to
allow people to organize against repressive regimes. These early uses of Twitter for protests in other countries was
met with overblown support from the
media and the U.S. State Department.
Our use of the same tactics and technology used in the United States would
find a very different reaction from the
media and the State. On Sept.23rd, at
approximately 3:00pm, Pennsylvania
Police broke into a hotel room of two
Tin Can members outside the airport
(23 miles from Pittsburgh). When the
police were asked for a warrant the defendants were told it was sealed for 30
days with no more explanation. Police
spokespeople said they raided a “makeshift protest communications center”
in the mom and pop motel. What they
actually found and seized were a road
atlas, one lap-top computer, two cellphones and a Radio Shack TRS-Scanner
and a refrigerator full of frozen burritos
and hummus. The raid lasted for about
an hour and included forensics teams.
This all occurred in the first hour of the
first day of the planned protests, before
many had even left the park to march
in the street. The two Tin Can members
Elliott Madison (42 y/o anarchist and
psychiatric Social Worker) and Michael
Wallschlaeger (46 y/o anarchist radio
producer of “This Week in Radical History”) were arrested with 2 felonies and
1 misdemeanor each. If convicted the
charges would have them behind bars
for up to 15 years. The charges were
all related to allegedly using Twitter to
communicate that an order of dispersal
had been given by the police. The two
volunteers were then taken to the FBI
office to be processed before going to
the Allegheny County Jail for about 30
hours until their $35,000 bail could be
raised.
Exactly a week later , On October 1st
2009, the anarchist collective Tortuga

House (where Elliott, Michael and others resided) was raided at dawn by the
JTTF which included FBI agents and
NYPD. Approximately twenty agents
with drawn guns stormed through the
house while more agents waited outside and helicopters buzzed through
their Queens neighborhood. This raid,
much like the one in Pittsburgh, also
had a sealed warrant but this time with
no date for the unsealing of it. For 16
hours the State agents went through
everything and taking items willynilly from the house. The collection of
seized items is so absurd it is almost
beyond belief: kitchen magnets, posters, needle-point heirlooms, steampunk
costumes, fiction books, birth certificates, business cards and IDs, Buffy the
Vampire Slayer dvds, stuffed toys, etc.
In their search they supposedly found
a handful of firecrackers which they
used to re-arrest Elliott Madison and
remove him from his home during the
raid. When asked to see the firecrackers they refused to show him. They also
removed Michael from the home using
a 2 year-old outstanding parking ticket
as the pretense, which was immediately
dismissed by the Judge. The reason
for these ridiculous arrests at the raid
was to remove them from the house
causing greater stress for the remaining housemates. In the aftermath, the
house was left with broken doors and
the residents without any cell-phones,
computers, address books and many
other cherished possessions. In a sense
they were cut-off. This is how state
repression works, it seeks to keep you
afraid but also to cut you off as much as
possible from your community. We decided to fight back and had our lawyer
put in a motion to stop the State from
going through our illegally seized items
without probable cause. There were a
number of motions filed from both
sides—ours and the state’s. At first the
judge permitted an emergency injunction until she could weigh the merits of
the case, thus preventing the cops from
going through our seized personal belongings. This motion and injunction
lifted the veil off the secretive house
raid and soon there was a minor media sensation. Reactionary rags like
the NY Post and Daily News wrote ar-

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Repression-Pg. 63

ticles about the “Queens Terror Raid”
and Elliott and Michael names became
public. This is another tool of the state,
anyone the dares to oppose it is at risk
to have their names leaked to the press
and their reputations tarnished under
the label of “terrorist.” The State went
even further by sending 2 FBI agents
and a Secret Service agent to visit Elliott’s place of work to try to ruin his
reputation. They did not go to ask any
questions or investigate a crime but
only to spread false information about
Elliott and then promptly left without
doing any investigation.
So what were they really looking for
when they raided Tortuga? That is a
good question. From court documents
related to the various motions about
the injunction we know they were supposedly looking for evidence related to
violation of the Federal Interstate AntiRioting Act. This law, also known as
the Rapp Brown Law, was originally
used against the Chicago 8 and their
supporters in Seattle (both groups were
acquitted) in 1968 and 1969. That was
the last time this law was used. So why
would Obama’s Justice Department
waste time resurrecting this failed 30+
year old law to raid a home in Queens?
Until the warrant is unsealed no one
but the State knows. How does a needle-point or Buffy DVDs qualify as
evidence of breaking the Federal AntiRioting laws? The answer is of course
they don’t. The whole exercise is an attempt to criminalize anarchist beliefs.
The residents of Tortuga are just the
latest target of State’s campaign against
anarchists.
Despite a preponderance of case law
and ample legal arguments the Judge
ruled in early November to lift the
Temporary Restraining Order, thereby
giving a green light for the Feds to go
through our stuff. Our lawyers waited
for an official statement from the Judge
that was over two weeks after the restraining order was lifted. We appealed
the lifting of the restraining order and
argued that the facts remained unchanged and that the warrant was on its
face unlawful (by the state’s own rules)
because it was overly broad as evi-

denced by the large and varied amount
of things taken from our home. Unsurprisingly, the 2nd circuit Court of Appeals did not grant our motion.
Out of all of this legal maneuvering we
did find out that our raid was part of a
Grand Jury Investigation in the Eastern
District in New York. At this point we
do not know if anyone in at Tortuga is
the subject of an investigation or not.
As far as we know no one else in New
York has been subpoenaed to testify at
this Grand Jury. Later in November Elliott and Michael’s lawyer attempted
to get the sealed search warrant for the
motel raid unsealed, as it had already
been extended for another 30 days in
preparation for their preliminary hearing. The motion was not heard because
the prosecution informed the judge
that they were withdrawing all charges
against both defendants in the “furtherance of justice” and as not to interfere
with the on-going federal investigation.
A week later the judge again granted
another 30 day extension to the warrant
claiming the ex-defendants no longer
had compelling interest. Our lawyer in
Pittsburgh will persist in getting this secret 18-page document unsealed.
November also was the first date for
Elliott’s fireworks charge, a City Ordinance violation, which he and his lawyer went to fight. A motion for discovery
was presented to the Queens Ordinance
Court to be ruled on in December.
Eventually the court ruled that discovery was unnecessary because there was
no evidence that any violation had occurred. Since the state failed to provide
any evidence, even eye-witness testimony that fireworks were found in the
house or that they belonged to Elliott,
the case was dismissed. Unfortunately,
this destroyed another chance for us to
get the New York sealed probable cause
documents unsealed.
In December the government responded to a court order stipulating
the government to give a full listing
of items taken from the house, as well
as a time-line of when non-evidentiary items were to be given back to the
residents of Tortuga. In response, the

government argued that the temporary
restraining order and the sheer amount
of materials taken from our home did
not allow them to meet the time-line set
out by the court. The court gave them
an extension until January 11th to fulfill
the court’s judgment.
So as of today, no one in the house is
charged with any crime or violation in
New York or elsewhere. We know there
is a Federal grand jury investigating
something and someone. We also know
the State has gone through our personal
lives including personal journals, letters to friends & comrades and everything on our computers. We have not
received any of our stuff back or even
been given a complete list of what they
have and what they plan to keep. This is
how secret police operate—You are not
allowed to see the supposed evidence
against you or even know what you
are being accused of doing. The state
breaks into your home and takes all of
your stuff and then looks for enough to
cobble together a charge or at least add
to their growing files of political undesirables. The government even fails
to comply with court orders but there
are no ramifications. The courts reject
their own laws regarding search and
seizures all under the blanket of secret
evidence. The residents of Tortuga are
left in a limbo of not knowing if we
will be charged with anything, whether
we will ever get our stuff back, or if we
will ever see what was in those sealed
documents that allowed the state to
disrupt our lives in the first place. We
are strengthened by the fact that their
intimidation has not worked and their
visits to our neighbors, workplaces and
smear campaigns in the main-stream
press have failed to silence us. We fully
expect more shenanigans from the state
but we will never apologize for being
anarchists.
Visit:
friendsoftortuga.wordpress.com

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Repression-Pg. 64

A STATEMENT
FROM
PITTSBURGH G20
ARRESTEE: DAVID
JAPENGA
“On the night of September 24th I was
arrested in Pittsburgh during the antiG20 demonstrations. During my incarceration my bail was set at a $500
percentage bond, and within hours revoked and my bail was denied.
Several days later they reinstated and
raised my bail to a $15,000 straight
cash bond. When my friends rose to
the occasion, raising the full amount
in hours, the State took it’s sweet time
setting up the other conditions of my
release. I sat in jail for 20 days as I
waited for them to set up a House Arrest Electronic Monitoring System as
an extra condition of my bail.
On October 14th I was released from
Allegheny County Jail into a house
shared with some very supportive
friends. As I await trial, a process that
could take up to a year, I am not allowed
to leave my front door. The few exception include going directly to and from
a State approved job and appearing in
court. As of this writing I’ve spent 80
days under these restrictive conditions
despite being guilty of no crime and
being a resident of Pittsburgh with no
flight risk. I filed a motion to travel
to Michigan in order to spend Christmas with my family. Judge Jeffrey
Manning callously denied the motion.
I have been subject to surveillance including one confirmed case of the contents of the trashcan in the alley behind
my house being photographed and sent
to officers in charge of my case. Other
forms of surveillance and monitoring
are suspected.
At this time I am awaiting trial for a
handful of fabricated felony and misdemeanor allegations regarding $15,000
worth of property destruction to a Citizens bank and surrounding businesses.
I had a Conspiracy charge dropped at

my preliminary hearing when State
Trooper Boyd Wass failed to include
anything resembling conspiracy in his
fairy tale that he tried to pass for testimony.
There has been considerable effort to
raise funds that have made a large dent
on, but not eliminated, my towering legal defense fees. While I hope our efforts will keep from spending anymore
time in prison, I have no illusions of a
Judges’ ability to administer any semblance of justice.
To a world with out prisons, police, or
judges.”
-David Japenga, 01/03/10
For more information or to make donations, email freedavidjapenga@hushmail.com and abcpittsburgh@riseup.
net.

UPDATE ON
SWEDISH
PRISONER
JONATAN

there is nothing hand written. Also if
you send him CDs they have to be original otherwise he won’t get them.
Jonatan is interested in (green) anarchism, anti-civilization theory, indigenous struggles, and things regarding
“The Wild”. He likes music of all kinds
(from HC to HipHop, Drum and Bass,
to Folk...). He would also be really
happy about posters and flyers citing
outside resistance going on...
There is a new infoblog about revolutionary solidarity and Jonatan in english
called: againstthewaiting.blogsport.de
Nothing forgiven - No one forgotten!”
Using the guidelines mentioned above,
you can write Jonatan at:
Jonatan Strandberg
BOX 248
593 23 Vastervik
Sweden
This was a message from ABC-Orkan (anarchist black cross group from
northern germany), more information
on that project can be found at:
noprisonnostate.blogsport.de

“Jonatan Stranderg” is 20-year old
Swedish man sentenced to 15 months
imprisonment after admitting damaging a communication tower used by the
Department of Defence, by cutting the
cables on a crane used in creating urban
sprawl, and damaging a vehicle used in
the logging industry.
The following is the most recent update on Jonatan from his support group,
“ABC-Orkan”, submitted for this issue:
“Jonatan is in a closed prison far away
from his comrades, friends and supporters now. He really needs support.
His mood is changing a lot and sometimes it’s hard for him to stand the isolation and loneliness. We also would
like you all to maybe think of sending
him something during these hard days.
He won’t get a lot visits at this time.
If you send him books, make sure that

REGARDING A
SNITCH NAMED
CHRISTOPHER
BOETTE
From Pittsburgh Anarchist Black Cross:
Christopher Boette testified before a
Federal Grand Jury convened to investigate charges relating to an April
25th incident in which $110,000 worth
of damage was dealt to two banks in
Washington, DC. It has been erroneously published that he testified in an
investigation of the G20 riots in Pittsburgh, PA. At this point in time we
have no reason to believe he has provided any information regarding the
summit.

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Repression-Pg. 65

Grand juries are convened to ascertain
whether or not there is sufficient evidence to indict individuals for specific
crimes. The state subpoenas individuals to testify before a grand jury to provide information regarding the specific
crimes it was convened to investigate.
Therefore, when an individual testifies they assist the state in investigating, and ultimately prosecuting, those
crimes. Mr. Boette made this decision in stark contrast to the exemplary
conduct of Jordan Halliday and Carrie
Feldman, who deserve nothing more
than our full support. By providing testimony in a grand jury proceeding and
helping to further a state investigation,
he has earned the contemptible title of
“snitch.”
Our position is one of practicality and
not of morality and piety. There is no
place among those who must struggle
against the state and capital for individuals such as Mr. Boette, who treat
their involvement within this struggle
as a game they can quit when they no
longer find it fun. We are disheartened
that Mr. Boette is still welcomed at social events and in the communities he
turned his back on. We are confused
that Mr. Boette can still find friends and
supporters, especially in light of his
decision to side with the state against
them.
The following was authored anonymously by some of his former supporters. We hope that it helps to make a
firm statement: that Chris Boette will
find himself standing alone, with not
even the state which he was so quick to
support, behind him. We whole heartedly wish him the worst.
For unlimited distribution:
The following are facts regarding Chris
Boette’s cooperation with a grand jury
in Washington, DC. This document has
been put together by folks in Pittsburgh
and DC who had been doing support
work for Chris prior to his decision to
cooperate.
-Chris was informed that the grand jury
was investigating conspiracy charges.

The legal definition of conspiracy requires that there be a plan to commit a
crime and then an act in furtherance of
it.
-Chris provided testimony to the grand
jury and the United States Attorney assigned to prosecute the case.
-Chris told the US Attorney who from
Pittsburgh he traveled to DC with.
-Chris told the US Attorney that he was
staying at the mass housing offered by
a church that houses several solidarity projects and has come under flack
before for allegedly allowing “violent”
protesters to stay there.
-Chris told the US Attorney how he
traveled to a meeting, and told the US
attorney that “redecoration” was talked
about - which he said he understood
to mean property destruction - and at
which people decided how to meet up
later.
-The prosecutor asked what was at
the alleged meeting. Chris replied that
there was a map there. The US attorney asked what it was for. Chris said
it was to determine where to go. Chris
said he wasn’t paying close attention
to the places being mentioned because
he didn’t know DC. Chris said it was
mostly DC people doing the talking.
-Chris told DC support people who
picked him up from jail that he would
not be giving out names of people.
-Chris identified people who were at
the alleged meeting by at least their
first names, including naming people
who routinely deal with harassment
and surveillance by DC and federal law
enforcement agencies.
-Chris identified cities where he saw
people at the meeting in the months
between the meeting and his testimony.
-Chris told the prosecutor who he traveled with to the alleged action where
the arrests took place.
-Chris confirmed knowing people after
being presented their photos.
-Chris was asked “Do you know [a specific individual from Pittsburgh] from
Pittsburgh?” and confirmed that he did.
-Chris was informed multiple times
of his right to confer with consul after
every question, and had also discussed
his ability to do so with several people
in Pittsburgh in the months prior to his

testimony. After his testimony, He later
told DC support people that he “didn’t
know [he] could do that.”
-Chris stated to multiple people that
he would not testify under any circumstance and never discussed, privately or
publicly, the possibility that he might
testify with any of the directly affected
parties, with only one exception, to the
best of our knowledge.
For information on snitches or informants inside and outside of currently
active revolutionary communties and
struggles, please visit the following
website. Please also if you have information or concerns regarding informants, infiltrators, or snitches, please
contact the email below this note. We
also ask that you send in your information to Fire to the Prisons, so we can include it in this magazine as well. Stay
safe.
Website:
snitchwire.blogspot.com
Email:
snitchwire@riseup.net

THE VOICE OF A
FUGITIVE:
LETTERS FROM
DIEGO RIOS
Note:
On June 24, 2009, the Johnny Cariqueo
Social Centro was ransacked by the
‘Grupo de Operaciones Especiales
(GOPE)’, Special Forces of the Chilean
State, as part of investigations into recent bombings against the government
and capitalist institutions. They were
searching for Diego Rios because they
had found a bag with material for the
manufacture of explosives in the house
of his mother. The police have not
found Diego, and he is now a fugitive.
Since Diego has been on the run, he’s
been visually recognized via actions of
solidarity. His obvious strength before
these difficult circumstances, shown in

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Repression-Pg. 66

his clandestine letters are something we
thought would be essential to including
at the end of this section.

be firm and your footprints invisible).
In our hearts is the seed of insurrection
Punky Mauri!

Communiqué claiming an action with
fugitive Diego Rios:

For the propagation of the insurrection
and the destruction of this disgusting
reality.

“On Monday, November 23, at 11:50
pm, we installed an incendiary device
in a slaughterhouse (located in the immediate vicinity of Juan Cristóbal, comuna de Recoleta) activated by an easily operated timer. The objective was
not to burn the place completely, but to
cause damage to a freezer soiled with
death and torture.
We believe that direct action is largely
the way to propagate an idea in a practical way, and with an increase of attacks
on capital in all its expressions; the
state, prison, laboratories, cages, and
no end of targets.
Because of this we decided to carry
out this action, during the international
week of agitation for prisoners, given
that we identify authority and the exploitation of the land and its beings as
the great common enemy of all the battles of anti-authoritarian insurrection.
We also want to salute and send fraternal embraces to the imprisoned
comrades around the world, especially
Pablo and Matías, Axel Osorio, Cristian Cancino, Pompo Da Silva and to
all those sequestered and tortured for
capital, be they human or non-human
animals.
Also to salute and send much strength
and energy to those comrades at war in
Mexico, Spain, Greece, Italy the U.S.,
and throughout the world, that their attack will be each time more constant
and effective against all authority.
As they say, “The earth is not dying,
it is being killed and the killers have
names and addresses”.
Lastly we want to dedicate this and
other actions to those comrades and
brothers Diego Rios and Mauricio
Morales (we send much affection and
hugs, Fuerza Dieguito, may your steps

-Autonomous cell of the Earth Liberation Front”
Since Diego has been on the run, he
has bravely continued to have his voice
heard, as he has, on 3 occasions, written
clandestine letters regarding his situation that have appeared on the internet.
We include those 3 statements here:
Letter #1
“To all the comrades that are in a position of war because they want to reclaim their lives: As many now know,
the police entered the home of my
mother in the centre of Sanitago where
they found two bags with diverse materials for building explosives. Since
that moment I have been searched for
and pursued by the state and its repressive apparatus. I learned of this by
telephone and then hours later learned
that the police had gone to the Johnny
Cariqueo Social Centre and Libertarian
Library (where I live) under the pretext
of finding me, and upon not finding me,
took all the texts, publications, and propaganda that they could find. So I decided to run. I am not guilty of anything
but neither am I innocent... I am simply
their enemy.
I don’t remember the day or a place
when I decided that I could not live
a tranquil, peaceful life. I decided to
complicate my life to the point of no
return... Since then I am a declared
enemy of the social order, enemy of
society, of all forms of authority and
exploitation, be it bourgeois or proletarian. I understood that the fight for
freedom is the war of every individual
for the reclamation of their lives. It is
the refusal to be part of the mass, where
someone else thinks for you and tells
you how to act. It is the refusal of ideologies, the refusal of numbers and
roles charged with a conformism and

passivity that assures the continuation
of the system. In the most important
moments of growth in my life, and in
concrete attacks (material and ideological) that I realized against capitalism, I
was always surrounded by people who
did not conceive of horizontal organization, it did not just mean a vote, but it
was the product of a shared confidence
and desire to destroy everything that
oppressed us. Within this relationship,
I understood that the most effective
weapon is this qualitative change; to
attempt every day to make the whole
of our lives a propaganda of the deed;
to discover in our everyday lives that
in every destructive impulse we create something that strengthens us. And
it is this that today agitates my spirit
and affirms my convictions, and consequently makes me proud and dignified.
In these days I can’t forget to mention
the words of a prisoner who said “the
anarchists carry prison in their genetics” and perhaps, in some senses this is
true. We all know that prison is a possible consequence for those that attack
the state and capital; who are not mere
revolutionary simulations continuing
on with a comfortable and assured life;
I’m talking of the ones who believe it is
necessary to augment and multiply the
attack, taking as much care as possible
to not fall into the hands of the enemy.
I will avoid prison as much as I can. It
is because of this that I accept my mistakes and I make a self critique with the
intention of nurturing my insurrectional praxis. Today, I see that the affinity
group that decides on action and counts
on using the autonomous infrastructure
(in all its manifestations) must develop
their plans with the utmost security and
trust. I stumbled with this mistake, but I
believe that anti-authoritarians must be
like salmon, and learn after every fall,
continuing firmly against the current. I
send my love to all my brothers and sisters who are so far away from me now,
only you can understand this... And to
my enemies that analyze this text, be it
to locate me or to write an academic or
ideological response, I feel from you a
profound disgust for the life I chose and
defend. Axel Osorio, Christian Cancino
and so many others.., by way of these
words I send you a warm greeting and

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Repression-Pg. 67

have certainty that many outside do not
waste their lives but fight daily for the
destruction of what today oppresses
them, but I believe not even the prison
can stop the fight against power.
For the destruction of all jails and cages. We will make war on Society.”
Letter #2
October 3, 2009
“This is an eye for an eye and a tooth
for a tooth.
Many feelings and reasons have led me
to sketch out some ideas and post them
to the web. Above all, I want to give
brotherly thanks and support for all the
displays of affection and insurrectional
solidarity actions that have taken place
recently (and for those to come, why
not?). For me and for all those who
share the desire to destroy this society
of passive slaves, it always pleases,
excites, and boosts morale to know
about the daring and constant attacks
on power being carried out by groups
and individuals who—despite the
acutely repressive context, anywhere
in the world—don’t bow their heads,
and continue to put the dangerous force
of liberty into practice without hiding
under the bed in anticipation of better
times.
One inevitably reflects—and many
do as yet another act on the stage on
which our lives/struggles (an indivisible formula for enemies of the existing
order) unfold—that to share and learn
about the experiences of others while
cautiously intensifying one’s own becomes extremely necessary in order
to avoid the errors and desertions that
eagerly invite repression. As a result,
imagination and historical knowledge
become part of an arsenal that can give
us a good start to never being stopped;
thus, if we are faced with, among other
things, a technological/military apparatus, we should fight the conformism
and fear within ourselves in the same
way that society (and all its moralist,
reformist, intellectual, consumerist,
etc., expressions) looks to constrain

us. Every day, all of us who confront
all forms of authority and exploitation
and refuse to be comfortable accomplices should reaffirm the difficult path
we have selected and show ourselves
that that we are worthy of our chosen
objective.
For me, it has already been several
months during which I have needed
to act with the utmost secrecy, avoiding the investigations of the police apparatus moving behind me, since I am
certainly the perfect media excuse with
which the Capital-State intends to return false security to and absolute dominance over life, despite being thwarted
by so many anonymous shadows, every day, everywhere. I’m sure that the
police don’t have the naïve suspicion
that capturing me would dismantle
some terrorist organization, although
it doesn’t surprise me that it figures in
their reasoning. They know that no permanent or rigid structure exists behind
me, but their attempt to theoretically
understand affinity groups and informal organization is not in vain, and I
believe that it would be an error to underestimate them. Today they pursue
me because they want to immobilize
me; with an exemplary punishment,
they want to curb the spread of an insurrectional idea that necessarily leads
to practice. They pursue me because I
practice and promote a way of life that
destroys the foundations of the established order, because I am part of a dynamic and diffuse force that grows and
asserts that not all of us are resigned to
surviving within the submissive routine
of exploitation, that we do not accept
life as an obligatory and monotonous
process that stems from what we are
permitted, that there are many who are
not seeking dialogue with or concessions from authority, but who instead
aim for its total destruction.
If today my will/escape is an expression of how avoidable or vulnerable the
system’s control can be, of the various
ways of opposing the manipulation of
our wishes or the submission of society,
then I want to express it openly. In the
same way, I reaffirm my free choice to
live underground, which does not at all

mean that “I have been staying home,”
as I continue to reject what life is under
the dominance of economic, political,
police, or any other form of power. I
remain obstinately zealous about making the totality of life a war against
the existing world, which represents a
tremendous challenge to all those who
decide to confront it. I believe in the
necessity and consequences of being a
living testament to the negation of this
world. It thus follows that solidarity and
propaganda by the deed have the same
value to me, just like they drive me far
from the bright lights of the capitalist
spectacle. My mistakes and carelessness brought these circumstances—in
which I choose to keep myself far away
from everyone I love and everything
that forms part of my daily life—upon
me; therefore, they have sparked a process of self-examination and personal
growth, and they ensure that I now take
additional precautions to keep myself
out of the clutches of our enemies. Everything has changed for me, but my
feelings and potency have only become
stronger.
From the distant road I travel, I hope
that my words will in some way be a
support and an expression of affection
to all my comrades and all those inside
and outside the prison walls, who are
part of the force and energy of inexhaustible conflict.
Finally, I salute all actions that attack
power, and with the hope that they continue, I say good-bye.
*Or do you have any doubt, Sub-Inspector Ismael Andrade?”
Letter #3
November 21, 2009
“I do not know prison; I have never
been in one, and I just cannot imagine
the smell of the air there, or the unbearable walks through its corridors, or
much less the loneliness of its cells. Today—on the open road, in secret, leaving no trace—I can enjoy the wind, the
night, the rain (which is always a good
reason to hide my face), the company
of a stray dog, the knowledge that I am

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Repression-Pg. 68

far away from the swine who are paid to hunt me. Today I run
far from the city, but it is not only the generous oxygen from
the trees that swells my chest, it is also the pride of knowing
that I have more brothers and sisters than I can possibly be
aware of. But knowing that they are there does not matter;
their actions speak to me, they are their actions.
My footsteps no longer have the certainty of a fixed destination, but they are still heading toward the destruction of
power, so they have become quicker and more unpredictable;
I am carrying all my hatred and contempt for its laws, its
authority, its society, and I have no room for guilt or fear of
punishment. I have also thrown away the naive idea that freedom is the place that exists outside the prison walls.
For me, freedom is neither place nor permission; it is action,
it is the anti-authoritarian meaning that fills each act, it is the
nervousness that precedes attack, it is the uncontrollable regard for a comrade, it is feeling alive because you know that
your life no longer belongs to capital, but confronts it.
The destination to which the road I now travel leads me no
longer matters; there I will find free and wild individuals
with whom to attempt revolt, with whom to sharpen solidarity, with whom to support the unbreakable will to blow up the
existing order, to destroy every jail and every cell. I do not
need to enter a prison in order to feel the anguish of seclusion
in my own skin, so I hope that each one of these words arrives loaded with all the force and affection with which they
are written, to each one of the comrades captured by the state
and by capital, anywhere in the world. Also know that many
of us continue to fight the monster that holds your bodies,
that we are defending you from oblivion, that no walls will
be able to isolate you from all the warmth that we are sending your way—no matter how high or how thick, we will find
something to burn.
I and many other comrades living the insurrectional life
know that each act/action brings consequences—favorable
or unfavorable, successes or mistakes—and we assume responsibility because we take pride in being as consistent as
possible. For that reason, I accept and learn from my errors,
and I look to share and multiply my experiences of attack,
no matter that they look to terrorize us with their prisons and
with the agencies after us; we will not be silenced, we will
remain concerned and engaged so that our captured brothers
and sisters can be with us, so that their struggle can spread
and be known, so that we can keep sharing all our affection
with them. We do not forget, and we live to urgently wield
solidarity against this society of submission and apathy.
Each word of this communiqué looks to destroy the silence
that attempts to isolate our captured brothers and sisters; behind the words are lives that insist on doing the same, with
something more than words. For each prisoner—for Axel,
Cristian, Matías, Pablo, Flora, Marco, Gabriel—for all those
who do not submit and who remain ready to go to war: In

every life and in every action, you are also alive and present; you, whose lives exceeded the limits of this world, all
of you who died confronting power, we do not forget you,
including Matías and Jaime, whose murderers did not even
have the slightest courage to shoot face-to-face. I also especially want to remember Johnny Cariqueo and Mauri the
punk, with whom I was fortunate to know the happiness of
exchanging a few words and gestures, and today I have the
pleasure of making sure that their lives continue to confront
power. Thank you for teaching us that, against power, the
only lost battle is the one not fought.
- Diego Ríos”
A letter was written in solidarity with Diego Rios by Gabriel
Pombo Da Silva. Gabriel has been mentioned multiple times
in this magazine. Gabriel is an anarchist who along with
another, Jose Fernandez Delgado, escaped from the brutal
F.I.E.S prison system of the Spanish State in 2004. Gabriel
and Jose are now residing in the jails of Germany, after a gun
battle with German cops at a checkpoint following their escape. Gabriel is sentenced to 13 years and Jose to 14. Gabriel
has been imprisoned for over 24 years, 14 of which were
spent in isolation (he is only 40). Throughout his time in
prison he has remained an active voice for insurrection and
discontent. He is currently on hunger strike during the time
that we are compiling this article.
From Gabriel:
“To Diego Rios,
The complicity and affection awakened in me by your letters
(communiqués) from underground is inspiring me to write
these words. Not just your letters, but your rebellious attitude
in a world/society that becomes more uniform and submissive every day . . .
The smell of the air in prison is nothing unusual; prison generally smells like cheap disinfectant, rancid tobacco, and the
nauseating sweat of some “piglets” who are allergic to soap
or showering.
The only ones here who “perfume” themselves are the
guards, social workers, psychologists, and priests. We prisoners are forbidden to “perfume” ourselves, I imagine for
reasons of “conformity” or “security.”
Fortunately, the fresh air and the rain (still) know nothing
of prohibitions, and that’s why―for one hour each day―I
can feel them enter my asthmatic lungs, causing a delicious
tickling sensation . . .
Apart from the rain and the fresh air, prison is no more than
an architectural construct designed to discipline and control
the movements/existences of those taken captive by prison
society . . .
Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Repression-Pg. 69

The only pleasant smell in prison comes from the little brothers and sisters who come to see us, or when everything burns
in the fire of a riot. How beautiful, comrade! The smell of
the burning mattresses, the smoke filling the cell blocks, the
“perfumed ones” terrified and “imprisoned” (what a paradox
. . .), and the freed prisoners writing banners, securing positions, turning each tool into a weapon and each burning
object into a “Molotov” . . .
Insurrection is beautiful when it breaks out. It is uncontrollable (like freedom) and subversive. In those moments, the
prisoner is not a prisoner, and the consequences mean shit.
No matter how long it lasts, insurrection is something that
remains etched in fire on the soul. The beatings, the torture,
the isolation, the vindictive destruction of your things (photos, letters, books, clothing, etc.) will always be the bitter
consequences of defeat, but the images, moments, sounds,
and smells of insurrection will accompany you for life . . .
Their system of discipline and control, their administration
of torture and slow death will stay on its feet as long they are
able to divide us with “privileges and punishments” (like out
there), but not when we are united and totally determined.
Other things we experience during insurrectional rebellion
are the ties between rebels, the friendships that usually last
all your life.
Cast those stereotypical images of prison out of your mind,
compa, and―with subversive pleasure―discover freedom
(which is nothing other than insurrection) . . .

SERVING TIME
GRANT BARNES

##137563, San Carlos Correctional Facility, PO Box 3,
Pueblo, CO 81002, USA.
Serving 12 years for setting fire to a num­ber of SUV vehicles.
The letters ELF were spray painted onto all of the vehicles.

NATHAN BLOCK

#36359-086, FCI Lompoc, Federal Correc­tional Institution,
3600 Guard Road, Lom­poc, CA 93436, USA.
Serving 7 years & 8 months for an ELF ar­son against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an SUV dealership.
Also ad­mitted his role in an ELF/ALF conspiracy.

MARCO CAMENISCH

Postfach 3143, CH-8105 Regensdorf, Switzerland.
Serving 18 years. Ten years for using explo­sives to destroy
electricity pylons leading from nuclear power stations. Eight
years for the murder of a Swiss Boarder Guard whilst on the
run. In ‘02 Marco completed a 12-year sentence in Italy for
destroying electricity pylons in Italy.

DANIEL MCGOWAN

#63794-053, USP Marion, US Penitentiary, PO Box 1000,
Marion, IL 62959, USA.

By losing our fear (which has contaminated us since we were
“little ones,” and especially as “adults”), we become great
and free, and that is much more than any of them (jailers
and politicians) are willing to “tolerate” from prisoners and
“citizens” . . .

Serving 7 years for an ELF arson against a Poplar Tree Farm
and an ELF arson against an old growth logging corporation.
Admit­ted his role in an ELF/ALF conspiracy. Also recently
found in civil contempt for his refusal to answer questions
before a grand jury.

Let’s be insufferable and subversive!

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:
www.supportdaniel.org

From the dungeons of northern Europe, a freedom-filled embrace for you, Diego . . .
- Gabriel Pombo Da Silva, Aachen, 11.26.09”

MICHAEL SYKES

#696693, Richard A. Handlon Correctional Facility, 1728
Bluewater Highway, Ionia, MI 48846, USA.
Serving four to ten years for anti-urban development construction arsons, crimi­nal damage to a utility pole, spraypainting political graffiti, and burning the American flag.
Michael has very little support com­pared to other prisoners
serving time for similarly motivated crimes. Michael was arrested when he was 17 years old, sen­tenced as an adult, and
had very little con­nection with a broader radical community.
We have little information on Michael, but we firmly support
you writing him. See past issues of this magazine more inFire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Repression-Pg. 70

depth information on his case.

BRIANA WATERS

#36432-086, FCI Danbury, Federal Correc­tional Institution,
Route 37, Danbury, CT 06811, USA.
Serving a six year sentence for alleged in­volvement in an
arson at the University of Washington’s Center for Urban
Horticul­ture. The facility aided in the DNA map­ping of trees,
making it easier for forestry companies to produce profit.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION:
www.supportbriana.org/

JOYANNA ZACHER

#36360-086, FCI Dublin, Federal Correc­tional Institution,
5701 8th St - Camp Parks - Unit F, Dublin, CA 94568 USA.
Serving 7 years & 8 months for an ELF ar­son against a Poplar Tree Farm and an ELF arson against an SUV dealership.
Also ad­mitted her role in an ELF/ALF conspiracy.

AWAITING
TRIAL AND
NOT CITED
BEFORE
THE OAKLAND 100

Updates on the cases of those arrested during the Oakland
riots in January 2009; over the murder of Oscar Grant by the
police.
supporttheoakland100.wordpress.com

SUPPORT HUGH AND TIGA

Tiga and Hugh were arrested separately on April 24th,
2009. Snatched from their lives and friends on an unremarkable Friday morning, they were each transported by
Indiana State Police to the Pike County Jail in Petersburg, a
small town in southern Indiana. Their bonds were set high:
$10,000 for Tiga and $20,000 for Hugh. Each sat in jail
for days before friends and supporters across the country
scraped together enough money to bail them out. Certain
details of the arrest warrants differ, but their charges are
basically the same: two counts of misdemeanor intimidation, two counts of misdemeanor conversion, and one count
of felony racketeering.

As we go into print, both are currently facing trial. Please
visit the following links to stay up to date with their case:
www.mostlyeverything.net
freetigaandhugh@mostlyeverything.net

TO STAY
UPDATED
WITH
REPRESSION
AS IT GOES
DOWN
BREAK THE CHAINS
www.breakthechains.info

PRISON ACTIVIST
RE­SOURCE CENTER
www.prisonactivist.org

WRITING PRISONERS:
HOW TO

anti-politics.net/distro/download/writingprisonersflyer.pdf

GREEN SCARE
www.greenscare.org

GRAND JURY RESISTANCE
grandjuryresistance.org

GRAND JURY INFO
grandjuryinfo.wordpress.com

ANARCHIST BLACK CROSS
FEDERATION
www.abcf.net

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Repression-Pg. 71

PRISONER
SUPPORT
GROUPS
These projects provide free literature and support for people
currently incarcerated or facing jail time. The postal information is provided so that prisoners without access to the
internet will be able to get in contact and request support.
We apologize for only including projects based in the United
States; we only have so much space.

SHOELACETOWN ABC

Will send free litera­ture to prisoners, in­cluding copies of this
magazine.
P.O BOX 8085, Paramus, NJ, 07652, USA

CENTRAL GEORGIA ABC
P.O Box 610, Roberta, GA 31078, USA

NEW YORK CITY ABC
P.O Box 110034, Brooklyn, NY, 11211

HOUSTON ABC

P.O Box 667614, Houston, TX, 77266-7614, USA

MODESTO
ANARCHO

ABC PITTSBURGH
PO Box 9272, Pittsburgh, PA 15224

LEGAL
INFORMATION/
SECURITY
SECURITY,
PRIVACY,
& ANONYMITY
www.security.resist.ca

SECURITY AND COUNTERSURVEIL­LANCE

www.anti-politics.net/distro/2009/warriorsecurity-read.pdf

MIDNIGHT
SPECIAL LAW COLLECTIVE
www.midnightspecial.net

CIVIL LIBERTIES DEFENSE
CENTER
www.cldc.org

Will send free litera­ture to prisoners, in­cluding copies of this
magazine.
PO Box 3027, Modesto, CA, 95353, USA

UNCHAINED BOOKS

Will send free literature to prisoners, including copies of this
magazine.
PO Box 784, Fort Collins, CO 80522
unchainedbooks@riseup.net
unchainedbooks.wordpress.com

BOSTON ABC

Will send free literature to prisoners, including copies of this
magazine.
PO Box 230182, Boston, MA 02123
BostonABC@riseup.net
Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Repression-Pg. 72

REVOLUTIONARY SOLIDARITY
Actions claimed in solidarity with other struggles, arrested individuals, or unrest.

November 1st 2009, Sussex
UK: Revolutionaries across Europe
have been going directly to the jail to
direct their rage and support their imprisoned comrades. In Sussex, Anarchists caused quite a disturbance at
the Lewes Prison in one such action.
A communique read: “In the early
evening of the 1st November a rabble
of anarchists were up at the dirty old
prison of Lewes, with some fireworks
for the inmates and rage against the
prison society. Waving a skull and
crossbones banner, the anarchists made
a loud presence outside the main gate.
Shouting slogans like: “The Passion for
Freedom is Stronger than the Prison,”
and “No Prison, No Border - Fuck Law
& Order.” The prisoners heard and saw
us, and called back, waving, holding
up lighters and shouting into the night
sky between us which was broken by
the boom-crack of our rockets, which
illuminated the darkness. Then a second box blossomed towards the stars
and another stray rocket found its way
under a car before we dispersed. This
was for all prisoners in struggle, like
Elijah Smith, an anarchist comrade imprisoned in Lewes right now for antimilitarist sabotage against Israeli war
crimes.”

November 22nd, 2009, Brussels: A neighborhood police station
was set ablaze in a Molotov cocktail attack when violence erupted after dark
in a Brussels suburb leading to more
than 50 arrests.
This attack was one of several acts of
violence and vandalism in the Anderlecht neighborhood, on the western
rim of Brussels, which the authorities
claim have been organized through text
messages. Those arrested in the attacks
were aged between 15 and 20, and at
least six vehicles were damaged. The
violence against the police has been
brought on by anger over the mistreatment of detainees in the nearby Forest
prison. “These are professional vandals... people who are trained urban
guerrillas and who themselves train
very young adolescents,” stated Anderlecht’s deputy mayor Fabrice Cumps.
The police stated in the media that none
of those arrests were directly linked to
earlier Molotov cocktail attacks which
caused substantial damage to the police
station. Municipal offices in the same
building were damaged as well.
November 30th 2009, Milan:
Milan continues to be the site of contin-

ued militant struggle against the treatment of women (and everyone else)
locked inside immigrant detention facilities. In an attack on Sodexo (which
provides foods for schools, military
organizations, and prisons across the
world), an action involving arson was
carried out in solidarity with all prisoners in Belgium and Italy. According
to the communique: “In the detention
centers the police rape and Sodexo exploits the immigrants.” 5 days earlier
on the 25th of November, during the
“International Day Against Violence
on Women”, the cops viciously charged
the women comrades who gathered to
denounce the violence and rape that
immigrant women are subjected to inside the detention centers. According to
comrades on the scene, the pretext for
the charges was the fact that they refused to take away their banner saying:
“The police rape inside the detention
centers for immigrants”. Several days
later in Brussels, the Sodexo head office was attacked. According to a communique released: “Sunday at dawn,
with a sledge hammer we smashed
about twenty reinforced windows and
the main door of the headquarters of
Sodexo in rue Charles Lemaire. A ‘tag’
was left to remind passersby that So-

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Revolutionary Solidarity-Pg. 73

dexo is a collaborator of the centres
of reclusion.” Being that Sodexo operates in many countries throughout the
world, the possibilities for solidarity
actions against these disgusting acts of
rape and torture are endless.
December 2009, Germany:
Since the police murder of Alexis in
late 2008, Germany has erupted with
actions and riots in solidarity with the
insurrection in Greece. Some of the
most inspiring and brave attacks include actions against a police stations
in Berlin and Hamburg, which were
attacked during the night by persons
wearing masks. In Hamburg, the police
station windows were smashed and a
police car was set alight. Another had
its windows smashed out. In Berlin,
Molotov cocktails and paint bombs
were thrown at a federal police office.
These actions were claimed through a
communique which was posted on directactionde.blogspot.com: “December
6 one year ago, Alexis was struck down
dead in Athens. To commemorate him
and the revolts that followed, on December 4th, 2009 we attacked the police
headquarters in Berlin, with Molotovs,
stones and paint. The police are a key
element at the helm of the collaboration
of European security, whose objective
is to destroy social struggles and is responsible for the sentence against Axel,
Florian and Oliver as presumed members of militant groups. Our solidarity
to all those who are starting to attack
the dominion of power and capital who
are pouring their rage into the streets
and fighting. To be clear - the price will
continue to get higher.”

coats. The hunger strike left Horne with
kidney damage and failing eyesight,
but it was neither the first nor the last
he embarked upon, and when he died
of liver failure in 2001, at the age of
49, he had not eaten for 15 days. In the
communique, militants with the Animal Liberation Front claim to have released various deer back into the wild:
“A few months ago we learned that a
company called Venison Deer (www.
venisondeer.com) located in Marugán,
Segovia, was engaged in raising deer
to sell their dead bodies to restaurants
and butcher shops. In addition, some of
these were used to repopulate hunting
grounds and others sent to a hospital in
Toledo as if they were just material to
be experimented on.
After several weeks of researching the
business and numerous evening visits to
the farm, the night of October 30th we
went to the town of Marugán to return
freedom to the deer that the speciesist
businessman Javier Martín had stolen
from them. For more than three hours
we cut the wire fence, and sabotaged
the all-terrain vehicle and the electric
generator. After having torn down more
than half of the fence, we led the deer
towards the multiple avenues of escape.
We know that at least 50 of them managed to regain their freedom and we
think that at dawn many more would
realize that there was now no fence to
prevent their return to the fields. Anyway, if any were left inside, we will return for them. We frame this liberation
as part of the actions in memory of our
compañero Barry Horne, who gave his
life on November 5, 2001 in a hunger
strike for animal liberation.”

October 30th 2009, Marugán,
Segovia: Animal liberationists remembered the life and death of militant
Barry Horne, who died as a result of
a hunger strike while in prison. Barry
became known around the world in
December 1998, when he engaged in
a hunger strike that lasted 68 days in
an effort to persuade the British government to hold a public inquiry into
animal testing. The hunger strike took
place while Horne was serving an 18year sentence for planting incendiary
devices in stores in Bristol that sold fur

Spain, Solidarity with Amadeu
Casellas: Actions continue to happen in solidarity with Spanish anarchist
prisoner, Amadeu Casselas, (who has
been covered throughout this magazine), as he courageously continues to
resist the state from the inside. Amadeu
took part in the robbing of banks back
in the 1970’s in order to support labor
struggles. He was arrested for these daring actions, and in the 1980’s, became a
member of the PIS (Prisoners of Struggle). During his incarceration, he went
on hunger strike starting on June 22nd,

2008, for a variety of reasons. Amadeu wanted to bring attention to those
responsible for torture within Spanish
prisons: courts and politicians. At this
time, Amadeu had been incarcerated
for over 2 decades, which meant according to Spanish law he legally could
be freed; however, the state ‘upgraded’ Amadeu to a “third grade” prison
which had ‘better conditions.’ This in
itself was a small victory, being that the
Spanish state carried out the moving after 77 days of hunger striking. Amadeu
stopped his hunger strike, but started it
up again on April 20th, 2009 after he
had received no information about his
release. After 82 days on hunger strike,
Amadeu then began a thirst strike. His
courage to resist his imprisonment and
stay true to his revolutionary anarchist
ideals is an inspiration to those who
struggle for freedom and liberation everywhere. To stay up on his case, visit:
www.llibertatamadeu.blogspot.com
Solidarity actions have also been undertaken by comrades. In the Spanish
city of Segovia, attacks were launched
at Television stations and City Hall. A
communique posting read: “The action
consisted of stoning the windows of
COPE and Popular TV, after which city
hall was smashed with rocks. Later, the
action was claimed via telephone calls
to both media outlets, in which we demanded the release of Amadeu Casellas
Ramón and that something to that effect is published in the bourgeois media
in order to reveal this crime of the state
to society . . .Free Amadeu Casellas!”
Another attack was carried out, after
a package was detonated that consisted of an envelope containing a ‘lowstrength explosive.’ The blast occurred
while the General Direct of Juvenile
Justice and the Ministry of Justice was
in the area. Police came onto the scene
after they received a telephone call announcing the presence of the package.
An individual was later arrested for this
attempted bombing, and is mentioned
later in this article.
Shortly after the controlled explosion,
an anarchist demonstration demanding
the release of Amadeu Casellas took
place at the same location.

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Revolutionary Solidarity-Pg. 74

In September, several knapsacks that
appeared to contain explosives were
placed at PSOE headquarters in different districts of Madrid, including
Aranjuez and Coslada. Each knapsack
also contained a written claim demanding that the government immediately
free comrade Amadeu Casellas Ramón,
along with the clear threat that next
time “the fuse will be lit.”
In October, a communique claimed
responsibility for various acts of sabotage: “Fourteen machines of all types
were sabotaged during the last week
in the city of Barcelona. Sugar in fuel
tanks, punctured tires, and severed wiring have been the way to act against
and mark ACS, a company involved in
the construction of buildings such as
prisons and police stations.
We know that these actions are small
and the damages are minimal compared
to the enormous sums of money that
drive this multinational company. But
the fact of being able to demonstrate
that their security doesn’t work, that
their property is accessible, and that
solidarity is in the streets is sufficient
motivation for us to continue multiplying our attacks. Freedom for Amadeu!”
On October 5th, unknown rebels in
Barcelona acting in solidarity with
Amadeu attacked the Catalan Police
Force, Mossos D’Esquadra, who are
known for their hatred of anarchists
and the okupa (squatting) movement.
Here is the communique used to claim
the action: “On the dawn of Monday
5 of October we decided to attack the
Mossos. Amadeu, companion, we are
with you. The situation: Carmel, workers district of Barcelona. The urbanistic
chaos of the pro-Franco development
policy created hundreds of districts
like this, all decided by the state. Narrow streets, multiple stairs and drawing
up roads without apparent order, with
anticipation of that and knowledge of
the terrain, it is a perfect scene for an
ambush. The method: Containers burn
in the street and a call warns the Mossos of the event. With luck a little patrol
arrives at the place in 5 minutes. They
get out of the car and they approach
the containers and a rain of stones falls

on them from a street that is at a level
superior, to about 2 meters. The result:
Both police agents flee terrified down
the street looking for refuge. The windows of the patrol car are broken. The
ingenuous security that characterizes
them we saw once again cut short. One
of the things that we can learn from our
Greek friends is that with determination and creativity we can overcome
any obstacle.
For the extension of the class struggle.
For the destruction of all prisons.”
Another action in October was claimed
on Spanish indymedia that read: “October 11, we stoned the DNI office of the
national police on Calle Castillejos in
Barcelona. Free Amadeu!”
In Barcelona in late October 2009 , a
group of about twenty people occupied
the premises of Radio Catalogne (Av
Diagonal, 614) in protest against the
silence of the media about the case of
Amadeu Casellas. Another numerous
group stayed outside the building.
On Saturday, October 24th, a group of
people in solidarity stormed the cathedral of Saint-Jacques de Compostelle
to unfurl a banner on the balustrade in
solidarity with Amadeu Casellas. For
over an hour they shouted slogans for
his freedom, against the State and its
extermination centres until they were
expelled by the cops.
Three days later, the solidarity didn’t
stop! As demonstrations and attacks
against banks and other state/capitalist institutions continued. As one report
read, “We wanted to show with stones
and hammers that solidarity is not just
a word. Amadeu is still in prison. May
the solidarity not stop!”
On October 30th, the Greeks got in on
the action, as they attacked the Spanish
consulate in Thessaloniki. A communique released read: “Imprisoned since
the eighties, now for over 25 years anarchist Amadeu Casellas “is paying”
the price of his personal decisions. He
is accused of bank robberies for financing factory occupations and direct action

The Spanish government, well known
for its repressive practices developed
to destroy the revolutionary movement
that has threatened its social stability
over many years, is now trying and is
finally managing through propaganda,
recuperation and persecution to isolate and control the most active part of
revolutionary struggles past and present. That has resulted in many combatants having spent their lives in prison
and some have even died there. But
behind the bars the battle doesn’t stop.
The imprisoned, in spite of the disastrous conditions they put up with, do
not cease struggling for their ‘rights’,
but above all for their dignity. One of
them is Amadeu, who with many hunger strikes and other kinds of protest
has shown that for a revolutionary the
struggle never ends and continues to
exist no matter what the circumstances
they find themselves in.
After the acts of sabotage, and the
occupations and dynamic demonstrations that have taken place in Spain, we
have decided to ‘decorate’ the Honorary Consulate of Thessaloniki with an
explosive device in solidarity with anarchist Amadeu Casellas. The hunger
strike might end, but the struggle continues. Until the liberation of the last
prisoner, right to the destruction of the
last prison in the whole world.
International Chamber for the spreading of revolutionary violence.”
On November 1st, anarchists in Guadalajar attacked the offices of the PSOE
(Spanish Socialist Party) and the I.U
(Izquierda Unida, left coalition) during
the same night.
The two headquarters woke up to find
their locks blocked with silicone and
their façades full of red paint.
The next night, in Ségovia, TV studios
and city hall were attacked in solidarity with Amadeu. The communique
read: “The action consisted of breaking
the windows of Cope and Popular TV
studios, then breaking the windows of
the town hall. It was later claimed by
telephone to the two media attacked,
demanding the liberation of Amadeu
Casellas Ramon and it be publicized
in the bourgeois media to expose this

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Revolutionary Solidarity-Pg. 75

State crime against society... Freedom
for Amadeu Casellas!”
Resistance for the freedom of Amadeu, both by himself inside, and his
comrades outside, continues.
On December 17th, Tamara, an anarchist comrade from Madrid, was arrested and jailed in the woman’s prison
Wad-Ras, and then later transferred
to the Can Brians prison, both in Barcelona. She is accused of having sent
an explosive package to Albert Batlle,
secretary of penitentiary services of the
Catalan regional government.
It was initially reported that a demonstration in solidarity with Amadeu Casellas began in front of a Prison Services Headquarters after a letter-bomb had
been detonated by the TEDAX bomb
disposal unit. In actuality, TEDAX detonated the explosive inside the building
while the demonstration was going on
outside, without warning to the demonstrators or the workers in the building.
The building was never evacuated,
and the quantity of explosive used in
the letter-bomb was apparently so miniscule that no one besides the TEDAX
agents involved even noticed its detonation. Much doubt exists regarding the
letter-bomb’s capacity to even cause
physical injury, much less kill, which
means that Tamara’s attempted murder
charge is, as usual, totally out-of-proportion with the facts.
Prison Services Secretary Albert Batlle
was in his office on the day in question,
and a group of demonstrators―including Casellas’ mother―stormed into his
office and demanded a meeting with
him. At this time, he just so happened
to be meeting with Justice Councilor
Montserrat Tura, and both were assured
that the letter-bomb contained very little explosive material. Neither Battle
nor Tura took any special measures in
response, and their meeting continued
as planned.
The distance between Getafe, where
Tamara lives and was arrested, and
Barcelona, where she was charged and
imprisoned, is some 700 kilometers.
Immediately following her arrest, a
demonstration took place outside her
original holding unit at the Wad-Ras

prison. Chants and messages of solidarity through these hard times were
said to be heard by Tamara through the
prisons walls. As Tamara put it, hearing her comrades outside the prison
helped her to feel “filled with strength”.
Following her arrest, a call-out for
solidarity stated by her comrades was
visibly heard across the world. In Santiago, Chile, two police stations had
vehicles firebombed outside of them; a
communique was issued declaring the
act “vengeance for Tamara”. Shortly
before this attack in Chile, a Chilean
consulate was attacked in Spain. The
attack was claimed in solidarity with
Freddy Fuentevilla and Marcelo Villaroel, who were recently extradited
from Neuquen prison in Argentina,
where they were serving a sentence for
weapons possession, to Chile, where
they are facing state repression and
imprisonment for getting caught expropriating money to fund revolutionary activity. The attack was also motivated by the hunger strike of multiple
anarchists across Europe, in solidarity
with one another against the state. Tamara was also cited in the attack. An
incendiary device was left next to a
police station in Madrid; claimed as
vengeance for the recent escalation in
repression. The communique stated
that “Repression means attack; let’s
destroy the state. Beginning with its
guardians”. Two days after her arrest,
two banks were set afire in Barcelona;
both were claimed as acts of solidarity
with Tamara, as well as recent repression in Chile and other parts of Europe.
Tamara has not gone forgotten, nor has
she become isolated in prison. She is
supported through the actions of those
concerned enough to take the risk of
standing up in her name, and helping to
create a momentum for her and others
experiencing the same current conditions.
She is accused of acting in solidarity
with Amadeu Casselas, another comrade experiencing a similar repression. As the Spanish state tries to ruin
our informal networks of support and
comradery, anonymous comrades who
remain unknown and uncaught, help to

set a precedent, that their solidarity will
only continue to be strengthened even
before continued gestures of state control.
November 2nd 2009, Barcelona: In the run up to the COP-15
summit, the company Konica-Minolta
was attacked and had the windows of
its main offices broken. As the communique read: “This is our way of
welcoming the preparatory meeting
organized by governments and companies in view of the Copenhagen (COP15) summit. Konica-Minolta is one of
the main sponsors of the Barcelona
pre-summit that began yesterday November 2nd, and will end on the 6th.
During the COP-15 of Copenhagen, as
in all the preceding summits, governments and companies will build new
and juicy affairs under the cover of durable development and action against
climate change. We know their intentions very well: improve capitalism to
perpetuate its existence. Now the time
of green capitalism has arrived. The
forms change, but the repression, the
destruction of the Earth, the exploitation of everything possible continues.
They talk to us about the weather. Not
us. Which means direct action against
their lies. Not just here and now. Always and everywhere. ...For anarchy!
(Liberación Total)
Note:
The events that happened following
this action at the summit in Denmark
are cited in the “This was not our Brokenhagen” article in this issue of the
magazine.
November 2nd 2009, Brighton
(UK): The Royal Bank of Scotland was
attacked in solidarity with various anarchist prisoners. The communique read:
“We take responsibility for attacking
the Brighton HQ of the Royal Bank of
Scotland on the evening of November
2nd, 2009. All banks are part of the
same system which is destroying everything and has to go. Banks are the
most visible manifestation of the exploitation and annihilation of our lives,
carried out by state and capital. We

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Revolutionary Solidarity-Pg. 76

haven’t forgotten the role of RBS in the
financial crisis and the April G20 where
Ian Tomlinson was killed by police, nor
do we forgive. We dedicate this action
to Yiannis Dimitrakis, Amadeu Casellas, Thomas Meyer-Falk, Alfredo M.
Bonanno and Christos Stratigopulos,
anarchist comrades in prison for expropriations who chose to directly attack
this system, as well as all other rebels
who are in struggle inside and outside
the prison walls. We will not stop.”
Anarchists.
December 7th, Mexico: A bombing was carried out at the Banamex
branch in Coacalco Mexico, destroying the bank’s doors and windows.
The explosion at a Banamex branch
alerted Coacalco police at around 5:45
a.m., and agents found two undetonated
butane gas canisters at the scene. The
communiqué released after the action
read:
“In the early morning of December 7,
we detonated two butane gas canisters
taped to a homemade explosive made
out of dynamite, a fuse, and a delay
timer at the Banamex bank branch located in Coacalco, Mexico State. However, due to an unfortunate fault in our
device, the canisters did not serve their
function. But the dynamite explosive
did, and it destroyed part of the infrastructure, all the windows, and the
doors of that hateful branch of bloodsucking banks.
We did this: unknown to the state,
masked up, with our hands full of vengeance, ready to break the established
order and turn it into chaos. We are a
result of this system, of this alienating and absurd society that creates its
own destruction day by day. We are
the ideas of abolition gestating in our
minds, turned into direct action.
One year after the death of a Greek
anarchist at the hands of the police, we
declare ourselves in complicity and solidarity with the struggle of the Greek
anarcho-insurrectionalists, whose courage is like Molotov cocktails exploding
in the bodies of the guardians of order!
Through our action, we also position
ourselves against the COP-15 summit in Copenhagen, Denmark. Global

warming is not a game; it is nothing
less than a problem that concerns everyone, a problem about which we have
worried, and we decided to do something so that all the people responsible
pay for it and pay dearly.
We’re also making use of this space to
send words of support to the anarchists
imprisoned by the Mexican state: Víctor Herrera Govea, locked up and tortured on October 2nd, during the riots
resulting from a demonstration that was
interrupted by Marcelo Ebrad’s riot
police in Mexico City, and Emanuel
Hernández, under investigation since
2006 and accused of carrying Molotov
cocktails during the demonstrations
against the World Water Forum. We
show solidarity with them through our
bombing, because although we have
never seen their faces, an idea, a feeling, and our most ferocious instincts for
freedom, strength, and resistance unite
us as we move forward. We wish them
the best!
- Unforgettable Vengeance
Eco-Sabotage Brigade”
November 30th, Tijuana, Baja
Mexico: Anarchists set fire to 28 police trucks in Tijuana. Their communique read: “We are not a new organization presenting its beloved acronym to
the controlling, foolish mass media. We
are not a new guerrilla group, nor are
we a new party. We are no Vanguard,
nor do we want or try to be one; we
do not direct or represent anyone. We
represent ourselves, and we therefore
take the shape of an affinity group and
resolve to self-manage the struggle
against everything that oppresses and
exploits us. We decide to counterattack,
to respond to the death imposed on us
by capitalism and the state in their obsession to conquer.
Exactly one week ago, last Monday
[November 30], we attacked—with anarchist fire—the fleet of patrol vehicles
ready to be delivered to the municipal
authorities in the Bulevar O’Higgins
parking lot (on the Vía Rápida) in the
Fortín de las Flores community, near
the Mazda dealership and Mega Dulces
in that city.

We managed to destroy 28 new patrol
vehicles—the 2010 Ford F-150 model
pickup (Lobo edition)—belonging to
the Department of Public Municipal
Security. Six were totally destroyed,
and 22 suffered considerable damage,
which amounts to millions of pesos in
expenses.
This action is not an incident of vandalism, nor is it an “organized crime”
operation on the orders of Arellano,
Dr. Caro, El Teo, or Muletas; this is an
anonymous anarchist action in solidarity with all our prisoners in the hands
of the state, for the International Week
of Agitation and Pressure in Solidarity with the Prisoners Seized by the
Chilean State, and in support of comrade Gabriel Pombo Da Silva’s call
for a hunger strike as a means of revolutionary struggle for our comrades
in prison. Our action is in solidarity
with comrade Emmanuel Hernández
Hernández (prisoner in Mexico City),
Gabriel Pombo Da Silva, Marco Camenisch, Juan Carlos Rico Rodríguez,
Sergio María Stefani, Francesco Porcu,
Alessandro Settepani, Leonardo Landi,
Pablo Carvajal, Matías Castro, Axel
Osorio, Diego Petrissans, Amadeu Casellas Ramón, Alfredo María Bonanno,
Christos Stratigopoulos, and all the anarchist prisoners of the social war.
May the smoke from our action’s insurrectionary flames reach your cells, so
you can smell the liberating aroma of
gasoline. The cry of each one of your
names will echo in the ears of the powerful.”
October 3rd - 4th, Santiago
Chile: Anarchists through communiques claimed the following action:
“There are many reasons why we went
out to disrupt the order of those who
we consider our enemies. During an
impromptu tour of the disgusting city,
we found bourgeois property, butchers, doctors and bankers, those who
protect and maintain their lives through
this nauseating system of domination,
those who love the monotony of workconsumption, aiming to get just a little
power, that’s what gives them the tranquility they need to sleep at night. We
sabotaged: 4 luxury cars (3 4x4 trucks

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Revolutionary Solidarity-Pg. 77

and 1 car) had their tires split, 4 luxury
cars were scratched with a sharp, metal
tool, leaving chaotic designs ruining
the expensive paint jobs, 6 meat markets ended-up with the locks on the
doors and the padlocks on their shutters sealed with metal pieces and superglue. A psychiatric clinic was left
with its doors glued. A “BancoEstado”
bank branch was attacked with stones,
resulting in two windows and the entry
door shattered.
The war has also cost the deaths of
many comrades throughout the world,
recently it took away our friend Mauri
from us, the product of an accident that
could have been avoided. Mauri will
be remembered as the warrior that he
was, loving comrades and desiring the
death of enemies, a savage in the war
against society, Mauri this is for you
and as well as all the actions that are
still to come!
For the companion Diego Rios, who 4
months ago made his escape and went
underground refusing to fall into the
hands of the authority. To him we say,
flee, Diego, run and continue to expose
the vulnerability of the powerful, from
here we embrace every word of your
communiques and with these actions
we salute you.”
November 2nd, Brighton (UK):
A probation office was attack with
stones and paint. A communique claiming the action was posted online that
read: “last night we smashed the windows of the probation office on dyke
road in Brighton. This was done in solidarity with prisoners everywhere, in
every single prison, whether this means
being locked up behind bars or being a
prisoner in this society of coercion and
control which tries to force us into being nothing but slaves to the capitalist
system. We are fucking disgusted by
this society and its delegates such as
the pigs, the screws, the bosses etc. We
have smashed these windows and we
will do it again.”
November 2009, Germany:
After police raided two radical houses
(Liebig 34 and Liebig 14), a spontaneous demo took place to show that we
won’t stand for their actions and intimi-

dation. Around 800 people took part in
what was a strong and loud demo that
showed the anger of many against arbitrary state violence and oppression. At
least 800 participated in the demonstration.
According to a report issued: “We refuse to be intimidated by their tactics.
With arrests made, houses raided, and
people controlled we must not be afraid
to confront them. As the right-wing
press labels us terrorists, we must be a
positive force striving to save our free
spaces and creating a dominant force
against their oppression. People all
over Berlin are feeling the pressure of
state dominance, from the student protests, to workers struggles and the new
campaign of hate against the left. We
must unite our struggles and strive to
create a world free from exploitation.”
October 13th, Berlin Germany:
Unknown persons attacked a police station in Lichtenberg; smashing several
windows with stones, afterwards they
lit smoke bombs, which reached the
inner part of the building through the
damaged windows. Also they left some
calthrops (nail balls) on the streets
which damaged the police cars who
wanted to search for the vandals - who
were then given more time to flee the
scene. The police first arrested three
persons in the area but had to release
them quite fast. Civil cops found a bag
in the near of the action containing flyers who had a connection to the ongoing arsons on cars.
The following claim was published
recently on the internet: “You keep our
comrades Masouras, Hadjimichelakis
and Yospus prisoners in Athens. You
took Christoph T. And Alexandra R.
in general preventive kidnapping, you
want to make an example with the prisoners of the first of May, you organized
a farce process against alleged members of the MG, therefore we visited
you. In solidarity with all the ones who
are on our side of the barricade and take
action against your social terror-control
and your anti-insurrection combating. A special greeting goes to Alfredo
Bonanno and Christos Stratigopoulos,
kept in pre-trial detention in
Greece. We do not know borders and

we will hit your agencies everywhere”
November 15th, Berlin Germany: After three posh cars got torched in
Friedrichshain, Berlin, as almost every
night happens, a young man named Tobias Poge was arrested. The police are
accusing him of conducting the two actions. They said he was carrying gasoline for firelighters on himself. Immediately after his arrest, the next morning’s
tabloid press published his pictures and
full name and address, since he lives in
a house project, the Liebig 14 (on the
corner of Rigaerstrasse) which is due to
be evicted.
Since his arrest a posh car got torched
in another district and the Social Democrat party got smashed in solidarity
with Toby; around the same time seven
Neo-Nazi targets (private houses, meeting points, and so on) got attacked in
connection with an upcoming yearly
demo for Silvio Meier, squatter and
Anti-Fascist stabbed to death in 1992
by the Nazis in Friedrichshain
Write Tobias at:
Tobias Poge
Buchungsnummer 3054/09/1
JVA Moabit
Alt Moabit 12A
10559 Berlin
Germany
December 8th, Washington
DC: In solidarity with the ongoing
rebellion in Greece, bricks were used
to shatter the windows of the Greek
Embassy at 2228 Massachusetts Ave
NW Washington, D.C. A communique
posting online stated: “This action was
done in solidarity with those who have
taken to the streets in Greece on the recent anniversary of the murder of Alexis Grigoropoulos. The recent socialist
government has shown through its use
of state repression that is no different
in character from the right wing government that took Grigoropoulos’s life.
State power, regardless of who wields
it will be used to repress and murder,
and we will never be free of this violence until we’ve dismantled the rule of
state and capital, and confront the roots
of power and hierarchy wherever they
manifest themselves.

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Revolutionary Solidarity-Pg. 78

December 21st, 2009,
Sanitago, Chile: A bomb
attack on the “Chilena Consolidada” insurance company cause
major damage to the facade of the
building. The action was claimed
in solidarity with Swiss and German prisoners recently beginning
a hunger strike.
Excerpts from the communique:
Through the following e-mail,
we want to claim responsibility
for the bombing carried out last
night against the Chilena Consolidada (a member of the Zurich [economic] Group) building.
Said action marks the beginning
of the December 20–January 1
international hunger strike for
political prisoners called by Gabriel Pombo Da Silva from the
prison death camp of Aachen,
Germany.
The attack against this company—an exponent of Chilean
finance capitalism allied with
Swiss capitalist interests—is a
gesture of solidarity with Marco
Camenisch, revolutionary pris-

oner of the Swiss capital-state.
Although words heal nothing, we
regret that someone experienced
slight hearing trauma, despite the
fact that the low-strength charge
was designed to only damage the
infrastructure of capital.

On the night of December 15 to
December 16, we attacked a real
estate agency at the intersection
of Calle Toledo and Calle Constitució in the Sants neighborhood
of Barcelona, in solidarity with
the Greek rebels.

This is a call to burn black powder and continue the unforgettable offensive. Where there is
misery, there will be rebellion.
Freedom for all the World’s AntiCapitalist Prisoners.

December 19, 2009, Barcelona, Spain: Bank attacked
in solidarity with Greek unrest.

-Agustín Rueda Sierra (1) Autonomous Group; Santiago, Chile;
Monday, December 21, 2009
1)Agustín Rueda Sierra was an
anarchist who was tortured to
death by guards in Carabanchel
prison when he refused to snitch
on his escape companions.
December 21, 2009 Barcelona, Spain: Attack on a
real estate agency in solidarity
with unrest in Greece.
Communique:

Communique:
In solidarity with the Greek comrades and their revolt, we set fire
to a bank in the Poble Nou neighborhood of Barcelona on Saturday night.
In this way, we show our best
weapon of solidarity—direct action—to the many arrested, imprisoned, and judged, in Greece
and everywhere.
Against this world and its chains.
Domination is everywhere, but
so is insurrection.
We’ll see you in the streets.

Revolutionary solidarity keeps struggles together when the
state and its borders try to keep them apart. Revolutionary
solidarity is a strategy of preventing ruptures in the social
framework from becoming isolated incidents. Revolutionary
solidarity is a statement that goes beyond words, it materializes an affinity, and sets a precedent for the need of a conflict
to grow. Revolutionary solidarity exists in both comfortable
and uncomfortable circumstances for revolt. In both the day
and the night. In both visible form, and invisible form. How
we would define revolutionary solidarity, is as a project of
generalization, where one must creatively produce an evidence beyond words that “we are everywhere.”

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Revolutionary Solidarity-Pg. 79

A
CHRONOLOGY
OF
NORTH AMERICAN PRISONER RESISTANCE

N

aturally, the proliferation of the prison has
been met with significant resistance from
those most affected
by it. This may be
best understood as a simple conflict
of interests: the interests of prisoners
against the interests of the prison itself, which does everything necessary
to maintain their confinement.
Riots, escapes, inmate fights, staff assaults, refusal of orders, and disturbances of all kinds are some ways in
which the tension of this conflict is
manifested. Each time the prison cannot proceed with routine operations it
loses control of itself; each time the
prison loses control, its inhabitants are
able to act outside of its constraints, in
accordance with their own interests.
All actions which impede prison’s aim
of social control can be considered
tangible resistance.
With only media reports as our sources, it is impossible to document every
single case. While reading this list it
is important to keep in mind that the
inmate is always living in resistance to
prison, regardless of whether or not a
newspaper article is published about
it. The actions reported here are only
to serve as examples of those who even up against the grandeur of the
prison and its near-insurmountable
walls – manage to act out despite the
dismal reality of the situation.

15 September - Newport,
Arkansas, United States - A
Crawford County inmate escaped
from a transport van while being driven back to the McPherson Unit after a
court appearance.

15 September - Raiford, Florida, United States - A Union
Correctional Institution officer was
stabbed in the chest while extracting
a prisoner from their cell.

15 September - Frederick,
Maryland, United States - A
correctional officer at the Frederick
County Adult Detention Center got
several a stitches above their right eye
after being struck by an inmate.

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Chronology of N.A. Prisoner Resistance-Pg. 80

17 September - Adel, Georgia,
United States - A Cook County
inmate assigned to buff floors instead
walked out a side door and into a vehicle waiting to pick them up. They
were caught more than a week later in
Florida.

29 September - Norman, Oklahoma, United States - An inmate being booked into the Cleveland
County Jail mixed in with a group of
prisoners being released on bond and
walked out. Unfortunately, they were
recaptured 5 days later.

17 September - Rolling Meadows, Illinois, United States
- Another Cook County inmate escaped custody, this time while being
transported to a court appearance. The
inmate overpowered the two state attorney’s office investigators, disarmed
them, ordered them to pull over in a
nearby Meijer store. He was caught
two days later but left numerous carjackings and two armed bank robberies
in his wake.

1 October - Manhattan, New
York, United States - A threepace-suit wearing defendant bolted out
of an unlocked State Supreme Court
holding area on the 12th floor of the
courthouse. A court officer even approached him on the 11th floor and addressed him as counselor. Unfortunately, he was caught the next day stepping
off a city bus.

19 September - Galveston,
Texas, United States - An inmate
broke out of a secure room at the University of Texas Medical Branch prison
medical center by crawling through an
air vent using several blankets tied together. He was recaptured five days later more than 300 miles away. This was
the inmate’s third successful escape.
23 September - Wichita Falls,
Texas, United States - A Wichita
County Jail inmate stabbed a detention officer four times with a makeshift
weapon and assaulted another with his
fists during a partial power outage.
27 September - Knox, Indiana,
United States - A fire that authorities say was deliberately set forced the
evacuation of 80 prisoners at the Starke
County Jail. The fire, which allegedly
started in a pile of mattresses and other
debris, caused one jail official to be
treated at the scene for smoke inhalation.
28 September - Olympia,
Washington, United States - A
corrections officer at the Olympia City
Jail was slashed across the face with
shards from a broken plastic mug. The
injury required three stitches on the left
side of his forehead and three stitches
on his right lower cheek.

3 October - Susanville, California, United States - A 66 year
old inmate escaped from the California
Correctional Center but was caught
later that day.
3 October - Lumberton, North
Carolina, United States - A
Robeson County Jail inmate assaulted a
guard while being taken to see the doctor and ran out the jail door. They were
caught 5 days later.
4 October - Brandon, Manitoba, Canada - 27 inmates at the
Brandon Correctional Centre refused
to return to their cells and instead spent
four hours breaking windows and dealing several thousand dollars worth of
damage to interior walls that divided
the sub-units and an external wall to a
fenced area.
4 October - Buffalo, New York,
United States - A Erie County
Holding Center inmate stole a police
radio and climbed to the roof of the
facility after a deputy forgot to lock a
door. The inmate kept police at bay for
more than two hours until they were
persuaded to come down.
6 October - Vernon, Indiana,
United States - Three teenage
inmates at the Jennings County Jail
sprayed three jail officers with pepper spray they had taken from a storage closet then took one hostage and

stabbed the two others before being
subdued by officers with stun guns.
6 October - Portage, Wisconsin, United States - An inmate attempted to scale a razor-wire lined perimeter fence with newspapers stuffed
in their clothes for protection, but cut
their hand and fell.
7 October - Yakima, Washington, United States - A Yakima
County Main Corrections Facility inmate “went missing” after completing
work for the day. They weren’t found
for over two weeks.
10 October - Las Cruces, New
Mexico, United States - Seven
“residents” escaped from a half-way
house, but were all recaptured within a
few days.
11 October - Oakland, Maryland, United States - A Garrett County Detention Center inmate
punched a correctional officer in the
eye.
16 October - Indio, California,
United States - Four inmates escaped from a Riverside County Sheriff’s Department vehicle and were recaptured shortly afterwards.
17 October - Green Bay, Wisconsin, United States - Two inmates in the Gulf Pod of the Brown
County Jail assaulted a correctional
officer.
18 October - Mitchells, Virginia, United States - Culpeper Juvenile Correctional Center inmates took
control of their pod, breaking furniture
and using it as weapons to break glass
and other property and attack guards. It
took five hours to regain control.
23 October - Santa Bárbara,
Santa Bárbara, Honduras - 79
escaped inmates set fire to a prison,
a public market and a cultural center
before authorities were able to stop
the riot and capture 76 of the inmates.
Three others remain at large.

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Chronology of N.A. Prisoner Resistance-Pg. 81

25 October - Mount Olive,
West Virginia, United States A pair of inmates escaped from a work
camp just outside of the Mount Olive
Correctional Facility by climbing over
a chain-link perimeter fence. They
remained free until they turned themselves in on November 7th and 9th, respectively.
29 October - Somerset, Pennsylvania, United States - Two
Somerset Correctional Institution correctional officers were assaulted when
they tried to intervene in a dispute between two inmates.
29 October - San Francisco de
Macoris, Duarte, Dominican
Republic - Prison inmates knocked
down part of a wall, threw stones, destroyed several cells and set fire to
mattresses and bedding to demand the
removal of security supervisor, whom
they blamed for physical mistreatment,
and to demand better food than the jail
normally gave them. Officials said that
at the time when some of the inmates
were delivering their requests, many
of their fellow-prisoners were attacking the guards, grabbing and throwing
stones from a wall they knocked down.
31 October - Clearwater, Florida, United States - An inmate attacked his two attorneys during a visitation at the Pinellas County Jail.
31 October - Carthage, North
Carolina, United States - An officer at the Moore County Detention
Center was assaulted by an inmate and
treated for a fracture and cuts to the
right side of his face.
2 November - Clovis, New
Mexico, United States - A Curry
County Adult Detention Center correctional officer was stabbed.
4 November - Shirley, Massachusetts, United States - An
inmate at the Souza Baranowski Correctional Center pulled a homemade
weapon and slashing on their escorting
officers in the throat and stabbed another in the cheek. Two other officers re-

ceived minor injuries before the inmate
could be contained.
12 November - Camden, Tennessee, United States - A Benton
County Jail inmate scaled the perimeter
fence and took off. Unfortunately, they
were caught later that day.
13 November - Gastonia,
North Carolina, United States
- An inmate punched a Gaston County
Sheriff’s Office detention officer in the
face after being told they had to go see
the jail doctor.
14 November - Russelville, Alabama, United States - A Franklin County Jail inmate walked off of
trash detail. They were recaptured three
weeks later over 500 miles away.
15 November - Iowa City, Iowa,
United States - Two separate attacks on correctional officers occurred
at the Oakdale Medical and Classification Center.
17 November - Peoria, Illinois,
United States - Two Peoria County
Jail inmates cut a hole in the ceiling of
their cell, carved a hole in the concrete
block roof, stood on a stack of books
and got to the roof. From there, they
used a rope fashioned from bedsheets
tied together to rappel to the ground.
Unfortunately, they were both apprehended within two days.
17 November - St. Louis,
Michigan, United States - The
attention of 11 inmates, armed with
homemade knives, shifted from each
other to the correction officers on duty
in the lunchroom at the St. Louis Correctional Facility. Three officers were
injured in the fight, with two being taken to a nearby medical center.
18 November - San Antonio,
Texas, United States - An inmate
managed to escape the Bexar County
Sheriff’s custody in leg shackles and
even managed to lead deputies on a
short foot chase before being recaptured.

21 November - Warren, Maine,
United States - For the second time
in a month an inmate escaped the Bolduc Correctional Facility. They were
caught two weeks later.
22 November - Little Rock,
Arkansas, United States - An
inmate stole a Pulaski County Sheriff’s
van and took off while being moved
from a satellite center to the main jail.
A week later they were recaptured.
24 November - Hamilton, Ontario, Canada - A Hamilton Wentworth Detention Centre was broken out
of a hospital by two gunmen who then
led in a Ministry of Correction Services
vehicle. Three days later all three were
captured.
24 November - Albany, New
York, United States - Three days
after their arrival, an Albany County
Correctional Facility inmate tried to
kick out a half-inch thick, three-layer
window in their cell but is subdued before they were able to.
26 November - Philadelphia,
Pennsylvania, United States
- An inmate being held at the CurranFromhold Correctional Facility became
the first to escape in the history of Philadelphia’s newest and largest prison.
After obtaining an unauthorized pass
for access to the visitors’ room they
changed into a light-colored T-shirt and
pair of dark pants, they got through two
sets of controlled double doors and a
dozen jail employees before walking
out the visitors’ lobby. They were found
3 weeks later just outside of the city.
27 November - Bridgewater,
Massachusetts, United States
- A prisoner escaped from the Bridgewater Correctional Complex after
learning of they had been indicted on
further charges before prison officials.
They were free for over a month.
29 November - Inex, Kentucky,
United States - Three Big Sandy
Federal Prison guards were assaulted
during a routine cell search.

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Chronology of N.A. Prisoner Resistance-Pg. 82

30 November - Huntsville,
Texas, United States - An inmate
being transferred from the Estelle Unit
brandished a loaded gun, handcuffed
his two escorts and relieved them of
their weapons. He jumped from his
wheelchair, which until now he claimed
he needed for mobility, and took off on
foot. The inmate was caught a week
later.
2 December - Ridgeville,
South Carolina, United States
- A Lieber Correctional Institute officer
was stabbed multiple times by two inmates.

Hospital but was re-arrested was found
with a concealed deadly weapon in a
courtroom.
10 December - Colfax, Louisiana, United States - A Grant
Parish Detention Center overpowered a
guard while being transported to a nearby hospital and drove off in a sheriff’s
office vehicle, but was caught later that
afternoon.
10 December - Kokomon, Indiana, United States - A Howard
County Jail was assaulted as they tried
to give an inmate their medication.

4 December - Monterrey, Nuevo León, Mexico - Gunmen drove a
van through the door of a local jail and
opened fire, killing two police officers
and setting free 23 inmates.

13 December - Atlanta, Georgia, United States - A three-alarm
blaze broke out in a housing unit at the
Atlanta Federal Penitentiary, the cause
of which is still under investigation.

4 December - Conyers, Georgia, United States - Fire sprinklers
from three dorms in the same Rockdale
County Jail pod were deliberately set
off within five minutes of each other.

14 December - Pinckneyville,
Illinois, United States - An inmate of the Pinckneyville Correctional
Center held a prison employee hostage
for 72 hours before being shot and
killed.

5 December - Lafayette, Louisiana, United States - A Lafayette Parish Correctional Center inmate
on work detail hopped into a sheriff’s
office truck and drove off, but was rearrested two hours later.
8 December - Greeley, Colorado, United States - An inmate attempt an escape at the North Colorado
Medical Center by fighting off nurses
and deputies with a towel bar.
9 December - Carson City,
Michigan, United States - Five
inmates on work detail at the Carson
City Correctional Facility assaulted an
officer and took off in a transport van.
All the inmates were recaptured after a
70 mile chase. The corrections officer
sustained a pitchfork stab wound and
multiple upper body wounds that were
a result of blunt force trauma.
9 December - Chattanooga,
Tennessee, United States - An
inmate who had recently escaped from
the Moccasin Bend Mental Psychiatric

15 December - Bartlesville,
Oklahoma, United States - Two
Washington County Jail detention officers were tased by an inmate after one
of their tasers was wrestled away from
them.
20 December - Prince George,
British Columbia, Canada - A
fire was deliberately set in the Prince
George Regional Correctional Centre.
21 December - Charlotte, Tennessee, United States - Two
inmates attempted to escape from
the Dickson County Jail by throwing
bleach in two correctional officers’ eyes
and taking their keys and radios. Both
inmates were apprehended in a hallway
on the north side of the building.
22 December - Waterloo,
Iowa, United States - An inmate
was placed on escape status after they
failed to return to work at the Waterloo
Work Release Facility. Later that week
they were recaptured.

22 December - Somers, Connecticut, United States - A
Northern Correctional Institution officer was taking an inmate out of their
cell for a return security check when the
inmate turned and punched the guard,
slashed them with the weapon and
continued fighting until other guards
stepped in.
24 December - Decatur, Georgia, United States - Two DeKalb
County Jail officers were assaulted during a routine cell inspection.
25 December - Nacogdoches,
Texas, United States - An inmate stabbed a Nacogdoches County
Jail detention officer in the head with a
ballpoint pen and fought with two others trying to subdue him as he tried to
escape.
29 December - Represa, California, United States - A Folsom
Correctional officer had their neck slit
by a homemade weapon, warranting 68
stitches across their neck, jaw and ear.
29 December - Vicksburg,
Mississippi - A burning mattress
forced deputies to temporarily move 16
Warren County Jail inmates from a second floor cell block.
30 December - Warrenton, Virginia, United States - A Fauquier
County Sheriff’s deputy was shot in
the leg and another stabbed in the face
by an inmate awaiting a hearing at the
county courthouse.

“Prison is the ideal kind
of death for the state
because it eliminates in
mass those who the state
finds to be enemies, but
otherwise could only
physically kill in very small
numbers.
More or less: prison is
the state’s alternative to
death”

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Chronology of N.A. Prisoner Resistance-Pg. 83

ANARCHIST
RESISTANCE
““...one of those young fanatics.
Who knows no doubts, who fear nothing,and
who realize that many of them will perish at the
hands of the government but have nevertheless
decided that they will not relent until the people
rise. They are magnificent, these young fanatics,
believers without God, heroes without rhetoric.”
October 24th, 2009,
Chicago, IL: “Anti-capitalist activists” dropped at least five banners
denouncing capitalism and the bailout
of large banks from bridges throughout Chicago. The dropping of the
banners happened to co-inside with
the passing of a boat filled with bankers during a tour that crossed under
the bridge. The bankers were in town
for the American Bankers Association
national convention. Banners read
“Capitalism Is A Sinking Ship,” and
“Fuck Capitalism.” Some less revolutionary banners also were seen with
slogans such as “Assholes Bankrupting America,” “Jail ‘Em Don’t Bail
‘Em,” and “People Not Profit.” While
we applaud the actions of anyone who
acts in conflict with our class enemies

- why bother “speaking truth to power” with activist slogans? Especially
when there are so many other things
one can drop while bankers are passing right below you! Living in major
cities, a banner drop can actually be
heard, and should be a tactic of propagandists everywhere.
July - October 2009, Santa
Cruz, CA: According to an anonymous post on Santa Cruz indymedia,
vandals took responsibility for attacks
against various surveillance cameras
located throughout the downtown of
Santa Cruz. According to the communique, the actions were carried out
from the months of July up until October.

As the communique read: “Thirty
cameras had their cables cut, rendering them inoperable. This was done
as an act of resistance against increasingly pervasive surveillance technologies. Modern technologies have perfected social control to a point never
before imaginable, allowing the transformation of the entire urban space
into an open-air prison. The police are
clear about the fact that they wish our
communities to live in fear. Recently,
cops and bureaucrats have advocated installing additional surveillance
cameras in downtown Santa Cruz. We
will continue to resist this totalitarian
re-engineering of our world.”
October 19th, 2009, Poitiers,
France: A group of youths wearing

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Anarchist Resistance-Pg. 84

black clothing and hoods interrupted a
street parade, and “started destroying
everything in sight.” In what police
described as an organized attack, the
youths shattered store windows, damaged several banks, and spray-painted
anarchist slogans on government buildings. Rebels even fractured a plaque
commemorating Joan of Arc’s interrogation, by scrawling in Latin “Everything belongs to everybody’’ on a stone
baptistery. “We will destroy your morbid world,’’ stated one sprayed-painted
on a wall near the city’s landmark Notre
Dame Cathedral.
November 3rd, 2009, Brigend,
UK: A solidarity action in Scotland
against eco-destruction was claimed.
The communiqué reads: “In the early
hours of Tuesday, November 3rd, AntiOpencast activists visited Apex Drilling based near Bridgend. They are integral to the expanding opencast monster
and are currently active at Mainshill
in Scotland. Cameras were disabled,
containers and vehicles had their locks
glued, windscreens were etched with
‘No opencast,’ wires and pipes were cut
on heavy vehicles, fuel systems were
contaminated, anti opencast graffiti
sprayed all over the compound and the
main site gate locked shut. This company and others will be repeatedly targeted until they are put out of business.
No compromise in defense of mother
earth.”
Open-cast refers to a type of mining
that uses a method of extracting rock
or minerals from the earth by their removal from an open pit.
November 5th 2009, Chile: A
bombing at the “BancoEstado” branch
in Chile took place, which is located in
the Recoleta municipality of Santiago.
The explosion resulted in significant
damage to the windows, as well as other damage. In addition to the infrastructural damage, the device caused a fire
inside the bank.
November 11th 2009,
Santiago, Chile: A bomb exploded
outside a Banco del Estado branch in
Santiago, damaging the windows, ac-

cording to Chilean authorities. The
attack was similar to other blasts that
have also been directed at the “Banco
de Credito y Inversiones” branch inside
a Marriott hotel in Santiago’s affluent
Las Condes neighborhood that shattered windows and wounded a security
guard. That attacked was followed by
a communique from an anarchist group
that stated, “The tranquility of the
world being built by defenders and administrators of this order of hunger and
servitude has ended.”
The message also criticized the Marriott’s management for not heeding
a telephone warning to evacuate the
building, said to have been delivered
15 minutes before the explosion. Calling the attack a “conscious act, charged
with libertarian content,” the group
vowed to carry out more bombings.
“Today we bomb this building, tomorrow there will be others. Attacks of this
kind will continue, will expand and
will intensify.” Chile has experienced
102 such bombings since 2004, most of
them involving low-power, homemade
explosive devices. No one has died in
the incidents.
November 10th, 2009, Washington DC: “Queers Against Assimilation,” targeted the Human Rights
Campaign HQ in Washington DC. The
group targeted the HRC because of
their corporate backers and connections to governments - not to mention
their pro-assimilation attitude and assimilation efforts to limit the insurrectionary potential of queer discontent in
a hetero-normative social order - making them the enemy of all those seeking liberation. The communique read:
“HRC headquarters was rocked by an
act of glamdalism last night by a crew
of radical queer and allied folks armed
with pink and black paint and glitter
grenades. Beside the front entrance the
inscribed mission statement now reads
a tag: “Quit leaving queers behind.”
Just like society today, the HRC is run
by a few wealthy elites who are in bed
with corporate sponsors who proliferate militarism, hetero-normativity, and
capitalist exploitation. The sweatshops
(Nike), war crimes (Lockheed Martin),
assaults on working class people (Bank

of America, Deloitte, Chase Bank, Citi
Group, Wachovia Bank) and patriarchy
(American Apparel) caused by their
sponsors is a hypocrisy for an organization with “human rights” in their
name. The queer liberation movement
has been misrepresented and co-opted
by the HRC. The HRC marginalizes us
into a limited struggle for aspiring homosexual elites to regain the privilege
that they’ve lost and climb the social
ladder towards becoming bourgeoisie.
Last night, Obama spoke at the HRC
fund raising gala and currently the HRC
web site declares, “President Obama
underlines his unwavering support for
LGBT Americans.” The vast amount of
organizing resources the HRC wastes
on their false alliance with the Democratic party leaves radical queers on the
margins to fend for themselves. Our
struggle has always had to resist the repression of conservative tendencies in
government and society to gain liberation in our lives.
Most of all we disagree that collective
liberation will be granted by the state
or its institutions like prisons, marriage,
and the military. We need to escalate
our struggle, or it will collapse.”
For more information on militant and
confrontational groups of queers building the fight back, check out Bash Back!
at: bashbacknews.wordpress.com
November 18th, 2009, Chile:
A Chilean group claimed responsibility for an attack against Servipag, a bill
paying service. The communique read:
“At around 2:30 a.m., the Black Antiauthoritarian Cell evaded the state’s
guardians once again. Armed and ready
to destroy the daily routine that reigns
over society these days, we began our
action, heading to one of the properties
located on Calle Pajaritos in Maipú that
keeps civilization in order every day by
supplying it via bill payments and motor vehicle taxes.
Organized, two of us entered: jumping
fences, avoiding security, and drenching the walls, ground, sign, and metal
gate with gasoline. Jumping the fences
again, two comrades were waiting for
us outside with two paint bombs and
three Molotov cocktails; we sprung
into action, and the property went up in

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Anarchist Resistance-Pg. 85

flames. Before disappearing from the
scene, we dropped leaflets that read:
“For the destruction of all ideologies
imposed by power, so that words turn
into fire and chaos reigns over this
cowardly, submissive society.”
November 15th, 2009, Barcelona, Spain: A Spanish group
claimed responsibility for an attack
against the Center for Advanced Security Training. The communique
read: “We paid a visit to the Center
for Advanced Security Training in
Barcelona. The result was a fire in an
electrical junction box, leaving the
entire electrical system out of commission. This is our message of absolute contempt to all security forces,
state or private, because we sincerely
despise all authority. For all the comrades in prison, and against all the
walls of oppression.”

“For the destruction
of all ideologies
imposed by power, so
that words turn into
fire and chaos reigns
over this cowardly,
submissive society.”

November
29th,
Geneva
Switzerland: The social peace
of more than 3,000 protesting activists was shattered during talks by the
World Trade Organization (WTO),
when anarchists in black blocs began
attacking hotels, shop windows, and
setting fire to parked cars. Swiss pigs
answered back with violence of their
own. They shot tear gas and rubber
bullets at the rioters. As long as capital exists, there can be no peace. Activism is a praxis for those who seek
to manage this system of misery and
exploitation, not destroy it.
The pictures used for opening and
closing this section is from the WTO
in November.
December 17th, 2009, Washington DC: A post on anarchistnews.org claimed responsibility for
an attack on the PNC bank. The communique read: “Gleeful, adventurous
children fell upon a PNC Bank in
downtown Washington, DC on 15th
and L St NW, breaking the windows
with a loud crack! Pow! Boom! The
message: Everybody knows, PNC
bank, you fucked up. Blah blah blah,
gentrification, blah blah blah, imperialism, blah blah blah, bailout.”
Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Anarchist Resistance-Pg. 86

NATIVE CONFLICT
UNDER REPORTED ACTIONS OF INDIGENOUS AND “THIRD” WORLD STRUGGLES.

“DecoIonization
is always a violent
phenomenon... the
proof of success
lies in a whole
social structure
being changed
from the bottom
up...
Decolonization is
the meeting of two
forces, opposed to
each other by their
very nature.”
-Frantz Fanon

A

s the “first world”
scrambles to retain
its comfort and superiority before a
failing
economy
or more and more
frustrated population, the “third
class” of the “third world” continues
to struggle to survive as unrecognized citizens of a global society.
Capitalist society looks to claim and
profit from every facet of life and
land; constant development is inherent to capitalist society. It’s trajectory moves only in a direction of
constant expansion, under the veil
of progress. Expansion and imposition is indispensable to both power
and profit; two of capitalism’s most
defining features.
In a global era, all life that looks to
exist outside of the capitalist framework must be dealt with as an enemy of capitalist society. This is
dealt with either through a process
of recuperation, where this “enemy”
is manipulated through coercion, in
order to serve the interests of profit

and expansion. Or, through a process
of liquidation.
Living in the “first world”, it is hard
to feel connected to everyday life
struggles of the kind mentioned after this introduction, but the fight for
safe, self-sufficient, or free communities is one that we see all the time,
in different ways, across the world,
From the Brooklyn projects to the
Brazilian rainforests.
We all face the same enemies. And
they all stem from the same enemy:
civilization as we know it.
In a global world so mediated by
information technology, industrial
production, and a global economy;
native communities act as evidence
to possibilities of living differently,
as our bodies fine very little hope
outside of the current system.
Migrant communities or lower caste
villages in the third world provide
examples of how the excluded organize in defense of their collective

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Native Conflict-Pg. 87

livelihood, overcome the social divisions between them and limitations before them, set forth by global capital.
There is an inherent conflict between a
global economy looking to expand, and
communities looking to remain autonomous.
We hope this section has helped in the
past, and continues to help shine a light
on such inspiring conflict
We could only fit a few reports that
caught our attention, but struggles such
as these are historic-happening nowand will continue to exist until civilization as we know it dies in its plundering
tracks.
Latin America, October 12th,
2009: Indigenous people took to the
streets of Latin American Monday in
protest of the colonization and genocide brought on by the conquest of the
New World by Columbus.
Columbus Day is celebrated as the Day
of Hispanic Heritage in Latin America,
but protesters marked the holiday as
a reminder of the atrocities Spanish
conquistadors wrought on indigenous
people throughout the region.
In Guatemala City, 19-year-old demonstrator Imer Boror was murdered by
police and several others were wounded as Mayan indians blockaded entry
points into the capital; protestingi the
government’s extractive mining industries.
In Columbia, whole villages of indigenous people marched out, joining larger demonstrations, in protest against the
government’s environmental policies
and ongoing violence between paramilitary and government forces.
The Venezuelan government has even
tried co-opting the movement by sponsoring the day of resistance and protest,
while the government continues to deal
in oil which polluted many native communities.
In Panama, native peoples closed the
Panama/Costa Rican border for several
hours in the morning, in protest against
dams and mining operations on their
lands.

Bangladesh, October 31st,
2009: Two people were killed and
100 were hurt, as workers rioted in
Bangladesh over unpaid wages.
Local pigs, who tried to contain the
crowd of 15 thousand with rubber bullets, as workers attacked them with
stones and rocks and blocked streets
with barricades. Workers were demanding three months of back pay
from the owners of the garment factory in which they worked, who had
recently shut down the plant. Several
police were hurt in the fierce battles.
These clashes were the most severe
since the global downturn began to affect the output of apparel factories. As
the global recession gets worse, bosses
are shutting down factories and fleeing
before paying workers. Forty percent
of Bangladesh’s industrial workforce is
employed in the garment sector.
Jordan, November 15th, 2009:
Violent riots errupted in Jordan recently, as Rakhri Kreishan died after slipping into a coma; the result of a severe
beating to the head by police officers.
Rioters blocked traffic on highways at
certain points in the night, attacked police property and vehicles, and shot at
police. Maan, the area in Jordan where
the riots broke out has a history of
clashes with authorities. This began in
1989, when violent protests broke out
after a national economic crisis caused
a rise in commodity and fuel prices.
Riots also recently broke out after the
similar death of Hai Al Tafeileh in est
Amman, also beaten to death by the
police.
Bagua, Peru: December 2nd:
Awajun and Wampis people held employees of the Canadian mining company IAMGOLD hostage. According
to the indigenous people, the company
did not have any authoritization to enter their territory. People in these territories are attempting to halt and stop all
mining going on across their lands - by
any means nessessary.
Cancun, Mexico, November
24th, 2009: Indigenous Mayans
were arrested after setting up a road-

block just south of Cancun. During
the night, communal farmers blocked
the main highway leading to Cancun
after they learned that the government
would only pay half of the reimbursement money that they promised to pay
out after crops were ruined due to lack
of rain during this year’s monsoon season. Police brutally repressed the protestors, and arrested 228 people.
As indigenous groups in support of
those detained by the police wrote: “We
mention also that these actions of the
peasantry are a product of the evident
inequality and the contrasts that exist
in the state of Quintana Roo which receives a great deal of investment in the
north, in the tourist zones and we see
that there are no development projects
for the mayan communities that live
in the same conditions as they did five
hundred years ago while these communities are owners of the natural resources of the state.”
Brazil, October 29th, 2009:
Guarani communities continue to reclaim their lands even as they face more
and more evictions, disappearances of
teachers, and arson attacks on villages. On October 29th, over 50 Guarani
People occupied the headquarters of
the FUNAI, Brazil’s Federal Authority
of Indigenous Affairs, in the southern
state of Rio Grande do Sul. The move
to occupy was decided upon after FUNAI’s failure to publish a report about
the Gurani’s traditional lands.
The Mapuche struggle in Chile
refuses to rest: Mapuche people,
mentioned in previous issues of Fire
to the Prisons, have wages on ongoing
struggle for their lands against the Chilean state. Anarchists in Chile have also
offered their solidarity time and time
again, understanding a common enemy
in the colonial state and capitalism between their two camps. Anarchists often show their solidarity violently in the
street as the attack property and the police, and in solidarity actions. Recently,
the Mapuche released a ‘Declaration of
War’ with the Chilean state on Oct. 20,
the same day that two trucks belonging
to the El Bosque forestry corporation
were intercepted by CAM (Mapuche

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Native Conflict-Pg. 88

Communities in Conflict) and set on
fire in the province of Malleco.
The declaration, much more than a
symbolic gesture, comes at a time of
increasing violence against Mapuche
children and youths, particularly over
the past three months, when Mapuche communities began reclaiming
illegally occupied lands in the region
of Araucania.
Repression against Mapuche communities has been brutal. In one
case, a group of military police were
caught on film beating a Mapuche
youth who was trying to find some
information about a member of his
community who was arrested a week
earlier. According to Aporrea, the
beating “stopped only when other police shouted that the press was there
and they were being recorded.” Felipe Marilan Morales, a ten year old
boy was shot in the forehead after the
failed eviction of Mapuche from the
estate of La Romana, one of dozens
of privately-owned estates scattered
on Mapuche lands. There is thus little
reason why the Mapuche would wish
to declare war on the Chilean state
- and why anarchists would declare
them alies and comrades.
Actions in solidarity with the Mapuche people have been viscious and
ongoing. On November 11th, the
Marriot Hotel was bombed. The communique posted read:
“We understand that the existence of
those who dominate within society,
be they bourgeois or bureaucrats, is
directly related to the existence of the
state. It is they who shape it, they who
reproduce and reinforce it, strengthening and extending social relations
based on authoritarianism and the
domination of millions of people. It is
they who think of themselves as “illuminated,” they who see themselves
as protected by the existence of the
state. As a concrete example, we can
mention what is happening today in
Mapuche Territory: brutal repression
and harassment by the Chilean state
against the weichafes, with the sole
intention of defending the interests of
those who dominate.

Attack. This is the maxim chosen by
countless groups in this social war.
We attack the physical spaces where
the daily life of the exploiters takes
place. We attack the planned centers
of economic and military occupation
in the territories we inhabit. We attack the simulated perfection of the
violent world they represent.”
On November 19th, a bombing was
carried out at the Banco Ciudad in Argentina. The communique read:
“We attacked a Banco Ciudad (in
Bernardo de Irigoyen) on the morning of the 16th in order to show our
hatred toward the Argentine state
for having captured and locked up
(comrade) Chilean political prisoners Marcelo Villarroel and Freddy
Fuentevilla—imprisoned in unit N
11 in Neuquen—in its extermination
chambers since March 2008.
We reject all oppression and injustice
committed against the Nation of Mapuche People, in the same way that
we also reject the resignation of the
new metropolitan police chief Eugenio Burzaco, who was advising Jorge
Sobisch, then governor of Neuquen,
on security matters when the police
repression that ended the life of Carlos Fuentealba was ordered. We hate
UCEP (Public Space Control Unit)!
Disband it now!”
Actions by and in solidarity with the
Mapuche continue in Chile - the war
is still on.
Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico,
October 31st, 2009: Mexican
indigenous farmers took over a UN
over in Chiaps, in order to demand
the release of three jailed leaders.
The leaders were arrested by authorites, who charged them with drug
and weapons trafficing. Native farmers claim that the state is in fact only
clamping down harder on “social
struggle.”

“ATTACK.
This is
the maxim
chosen by
countless
groups in
this social
war.”

STAY UP
TO DATE ON
GLOBAL
NATIVE
STRUGGLES
INTERCONTINENTAL CRY
www.intercontinentalcry.org
SURVIVAL
INTERNATIONAL;
THE MOVEMENT FOR
TRIBAL PEOPLE’S
www.survival-international.org

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Native Conflict-Pg. 89

THE MURDER OF IVAN KHUTORSKOY
AND UPDATES IN THE STRUGGLE AGAINST
GRASSROOTS FASCISM EVERYWHERE

T

his section is dedicated to the life of Ivan Khutorskoy, who was murdered by Russian fascists this last November. His murder was following 3 other attempts by fascists to kill him.
One of which was earlier this same year, resulting in multiple stab wounds. An article is
included here describing the events, as well as a brief description of his history as a courageous and inspiring enemy of grassroots fascism in Russia, which holds quite possibly the
most powerful and dangerous fascist movement in the world. Although in the states, fascist
rhetoric or ideology flares so commonly in the mainstream, many of us find distinctions
between fascist tendencies in the rhetoric of mass media or politics, and so called “Neo-Nazis”, simply based
on the uniform. In Russia though, the state is far less concerned about distancing itself from the efforts of
grassroots fascists, considering that in all cases of the state, fascists are there most unique supporters. Unlike
the police, fascists take a pride in grounding a stabile context for the state to rule, or preserving the overall
status quo, but without pay. The only difference is this. Ivan’s bravery and courage will not go forgotten. He
is an inspiration to people, of all interests, everywhere. He will live on forever in our contempt for fascism,
in all its forms.
NEWSCLIP REGARDING THE
DEATH OF IVAN KHUTORSKOY
November 16th marks the death of a
very well known and committed Russian anti-fascist. Ivan Khutorsky was
known among the punk and anarchist
scenes in Russia as being an extremely
dedicated anti-fascist, as well as one of
the founding member of Russia RASH
(Red and Anarchist Skinheads). He
was considered a friend by every major

punk or antifa group, including members of the apolitical and patriotic Trad
skinheads in Moscow, despite his antiauthoritarian stance.
According to Russian Antifa sites and
articles written by people who knew
him, Ivan had been attack three times
before the most recent, and fatal, attack.
In 2005 he was attacked with a razorblade, and recieved a large cut on his
head. Footage of this captured by CCT-

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Dedicated to the Memory of Anti-Fascist Ivan Khutorskoy-Pg. 90

Vs was later used in a documentary on
anti-fascism in Russia called Ordinary
Antifascism. The second time, later
that same year, Ivan was attacked at
his own home, recieving multiple stab
wounds in his neck from a sharpened
screwdriver (a popular weapon among
Russian neo-nazis) and several blows
from a baseball bat. Miraculously he
survived. The third time, in January of
2009, was during a street fight where
he recieved a near fatal stab in his
stomach.
Friends of Ivan are not sure why Ivan
went back to his house the evening
that he was murdered. Because of his
involvement in the anti-fascist movement, and his notoriety as a competent mixed martial arts fighter, fascists
viewed him as an important, and dangerous, part of antifa. His address had
been posted on several neo-nazi websites. According to some reports, Ivan
was shot twice in the head.
The headquarters of a nationalist
youth front, Young Russia, was attacked by friends of Ivan in solidarity
in solidarity with him and his family.
Around 80 anti-fascists took part in
the attack, and none were arrested.
The situation in Russia has become
a window to the future of a fascist
future. There is an estimated 85,000
neo-nazis in Russia, one of the highest concentrations in one country in
the world. Violent assualts against immigrants have sharply risen ever since
the 90’s. Twenty-one people being
murdered in 2006 and over 100 murders in 2008. This, of course, does not
include the attacks and murders that
happen to anarchist and anti-fascist
individuals. The kids in Russia are
literally on the frontlines in the fight
against fascism. Simply passing out
anti-racist literature or going to a punk
show could land someone in the middle of a brutal street fight, or worse.
To show solidarity with those Russia
means to completely destroy fascist
elements whenever they rear their
ugly heads, before they have a time to
create a foot hold.

SOME UPDATES FROM THE
GLOBAL STRUGGLE AGAINST
GRASSROOTS FASCISM
MAN IN BULGARIA
SENTENCED TO 20 YEARS
FOR ALLEGEDLY KILLING A
FASCIST IN SELF-DEFENSE
On December 28 2007 Australian born
Paul “Jock” Palfreeman intervened in
a racially motivated street fight in Sofia, a city in Bulgaria, that ended in
the death of a neo-nazi. According to
Jock’s statement and the statement of
two security guards, a group of neonazi football hooligans were chasing
two Roma males when Jock stepped
in. Jock was then chased and attacked
by the fascists. It was at this point that
Jock began swinging a knife he carried
for self-defense. Two of the neo-nazis
were struck by the blade, and one, Andrei Monov, later died due to blood
loss.
Jock was sentenced to 20 years in prison on December 2, 2009. Bulgaria has
high racial tensions between Bulgarian
nationals and Roma (gypsy) people.
Taking this into account, along with
the fact that the nazi that was killed is
the son of a distinguished psychiatrist,
there is no doubt that this a purely political case. Furthermore, the evidence
used by those against Jock has been
inconsistent. Solidarity with Jock and
everyone who takes a stand against fascist violence!
The Federation of Anarchists of Bulgaria have shown their true colors
in this matter by releasing an official
statement claiming that Palfreeman is
guilty and that they do not support him.
More information at:
www.freejock.net
CONFRONTING
ANTI-IMMIGRATION FASCIST
FRONT GROUPS IN THE USA
The police once again make their alle-

giances known when they used chemical sprays and handcuffs on several
anti-fascist protesters at an anti-immigration rally in Austin Texas during
October. The National Socialist Movement (NSM) has become one of the
loudest, and still hilariously irrelavant,
neo-nazi groups attempting to latch
on to the wave of anti-immigration
through the US, and it was them who
had organized this rally that was met
by anti-racist and anti-fascist counterdemonstrators.
According to a police report by Austin police, a group of around 30 antifa
demonstrators met the fascists with
thrown objects, including tomatos and
cups of Jell-O as they pushed their way
up to anti-immigrant speakers. As tension rose, members of ARA broke the
sound system being used by the NSM,
before being attacked by police. Austin
police chief Paul Phillup said his officers did the right thing.
A similar rally was organized by the
NSM in Phoenix Arizona, which was
also met by heavy community resistance. According to several sources,
including the Phoenix New Times,
around 200 anti-fascist demonstrators,
including 150 anarchists, indigenous
groups, and queer groups, met the 60
members of the NSM and 100 members of the Phoenix Police force in the
streets.
Police did a good job of creating a buffer between the nazis and anti-fascists,
which ultimately served the interests of
the NSM. Despite this, however, antifascist demonstrators were able to take
advantage of banners and other objects
to obstruct the view of the police as objects were thrown at the fascists.
While there wasn’t any physical confrontation between anti-racist community members and the neo-nazis, the
NSM was forced to pack up early due
to being out numbered and out-yelled.

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Dedicated to the Memory of Anti-Fascist Ivan Khutorskoy-Pg. 91

No one was injured at the demonstration, however a car full of nazis was at
fault for a car accident that happened as
they were leaving, which left one nazi
with a broken leg.
ANTI-FASCIST
RIOT IN GERMANY
The youth front group for the German
Nationalist Party, NPD, known as Junge
Nationaldemokraten held a march in
October of 2009. Originally the march
was supposed to be comprised of 600
neo-nazi youth, however, when more
than twice that number showed up, the
Leipzeg police stalled the beginning of
the march in order to check ID’s and
wait for more pigs to show up. Neonazis became impatient and began attacking police.
Meanwhile, a counter demonstration
was taking part in another part of the
city that was made up of anarchists
and other community members totalling over 3,000. Mostly peaceful, the
march became violent as anarchists began confronting and scuffling with the
police.

of history.”
These were the words that appeared on
the hacked website of Holocaust denier
and Neo-Nazi “historian” David Irving.
Not long afterward, various anti-fascist
groups from New York and New Jersey
confronted Irving and his band of nazi
scum in a hotel outside of Wayne, New
Jersey. Contrary to the usual tough and
macho neo-nazi talk, when a member
of ARA bumped into three fascists in
a secluded bathroom, including Alex
Carmichael (a self-described “next Hitler), the nazi turned tail and called the
police.
The group of anti-fascists then proceeded to enter the hotel chanting “This
is OUR community! Fascists out! Fascists out,” before being forced into the
parking lot by the police. This did not
deter them, however, as they proceeded
to bang on the windows of the room
where David Irving’s talk was taking
place. Antifa members even called out
attendees by name, letting them know
that they will no longer be able to hide
behind the police and the anonymity of
the internet.

The march ended with three burned
out cars, including a bus that a group
of neo-nazis rode in on, four injured
police, including police chief, Horst
Warwrzynsk. There was no actual
confrontation between antifa and neonazis, however the sheer number of
people that mobilized in opposition to
fascism is something that needs to be
taken into account. Any act of resistance to fascism, whether against its
institutional or grassroots form, should
be celebrated.

This event proved successful as Irving
eventually called it quits, and the police
escorted the terrified fascists out of the
hotel.

HOLOCAUST DENIER,
DAVID IRVING, FORCED TO
CANCEL THE MAJORITY OF
HIS AMERICAN SPEAKING
TOUR

In New York, David Irving’s planned
lecture at the double tree hotel in Times
Sq. was met with the utmost hostility.

“To David Irving and all aspiring
white-power, anti-immigrant, queerbashing, racist pigs - give it up! We will
fight you on the streets and on the internet until you are swept into the dustbin

A week later, this happened to Irving
and his fascist dogs in Illinois, as a
group of black-clad anti-fascists physically disrupted a speech being given
at Edelweiss Restaurant in Norridge.
Several people were arrested in Norridge, however all of them are out with
disorderly conduct charges.

Following extensive research to actually find where his speaking gig was
happening (considering David will
make multiple fake events to confuse
those hostile), it was finally discovered
that his real event will be in the Double
Tree. As him and his supporters stupid-

ly began their vile conversations, it was
not a long wait until a mob of angry
anti-fascists stormed the floor. As soon
as they entered, one of his followers
cowardly shut the door, but not quick
enough to evade some of the oncoming projectiles being thrown their way.
Shortly after the confrontation began,
some of the hotel’s security, as well as
some of his followers began to engage
the angry mob. Realizing their weakness, the police were called, and the
mob stumbled out, while fighting off
security and followers the whole way.
Following a game of cat and mouse
with the police, only a few remained
to stand ground as a voice against the
event. As a result of the first conflict,
and the threats of those who stayed after, even with the heat rising, the hotel
was forced to tell David the event could
not continue, and if it did, they would
actually call the police.
No one was arrested.

“Yo”
“What?”
“Why do you
bury Nazis (or
cops) six-feetunder?”
“Why?”
“Cause deep
down...
They’re good
people...”

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Dedicated to the Memory of Anti-Fascist Ivan Khutorskoy-Pg. 92

I

THE STRUGGLE
AGAINST FASCISM,
IS THE STRUGGLE
AGAINST THE STATE

t almost seems like yesterday but days turned into
years and finally years began approaching a decade.
The United States invaded Iraq and the international left responded in outrage. Bureaucrats called
for mass mobilizations and city streets around the
world were flooded with protestors. At every demonstration, in any city, one could be sure to find the
same placard held above some protestor’s head displaying a
caricature of that abominable tyrant George W. Bush donning the brown shirt, iron cross and a tiny moustache. The
mainstream anti-war movement declared US aggression illegal, an overt violation of international law, while the left
cried fascism and quickly likened the 43rd president of the
united states to the german furher. At the mandatory rallies convening before every demonstration, a speaker would
religiously recite the death toll of Operation Iraqi Freedom
much like every made for TV documentary on the History
Channel (The World War II Network) repeatedly recounts
the number of lives lost as a result of the rise of the Nazis
in Europe. On many occasions, protestors dragged empty
coffins throughout the streets to symbolically rearticulate the
inevitable price of war.
The comparisons of Bush to Hitler undoubtedly loses its
strength when considering that the former didn’t leave office,
fearing coup d’etat, by a fatal self-inflicted gunshot wound
but instead ceremoniously handed his power over to the next
democratically elected incumbent. After the pre-scheduled
eight years and without climax, the “totalitarian” regime fell
without a bang and the left, exhibiting that its memory is
not much better than the typical American citizen, forgot all
about the fallen despot. Today, only the far-right equates the
current president Obama with the leader of german national
socialism thus proving the emptiness and irresponsibility of
the earlier fascist allegations. In fact, what is most damaging
about carelessly hurling these far-flung accusations is that
they leave the brutal oppression continually perpetuated by
modern progressive democracies without reproach and, furthermore, imply, the equally if not more hideous, possibilities of non-fascist governments, tolerant police and democratic militaries.

Most importantly, labeling the State or one of its vestiges as
fascist always neglects the far more crucial fact that fascism
is that of governance as such. In other words, fascism is the
very form of liberal democratic rule. Liberal democracy can
only be established and ensure its continuance by constantly
suspending the rights and laws that give it legitimacy, and,
by remaining in this permanent state of emergency, the State
repeatedly reveals the necessary totalitarianism at its foundation. In the same way that the underlying fascism of government is often overlooked, the left fails to notice its ritual
of abstract body counting, which implicitly separates sacred
life from the profane, only reinforces the humanist individual
and drags with it the violent forces of sovereignty and power
essential for its construction. If society is not completely
annihilated, totalitarianism will always serve as its basis and
subtlety traverse all the discourses and truths it produces, the
practices it sanctions, and the subjects that ensure its existence,
By continually reverting to its exceptional or fascist form,
the State clearly shows that its real essence lies solely in its
self-preservation and the relentless warding off of its own
destruction. In other words, the government can be fundamentally defined as a strategic relation continually blocking
the insurrectionary moment. The State is counter-revolution
and counter-revolution is the State. Thus, it comes as no
surprise that the Italian government openly utilized fascists
in their strategy of tension against revolutionaries during the
1969-1981 insurrectionary sequence. In greece, where social revolution is again placed upon the table, it has become
commonplace to see the fascists of Golden Dawn during riots hiding behind police waiting for the perfect moment to
swing their engraved knives at insurgents.
Death to fascism must always mean death to the State. Only
by murdering the State can we finally rid ourselves of fascism. Finally, it is of no shock that the neo-nazis who killed
Ivan Khutorskoy were on the Russian government’s payroll.
Let us not mince words, death to fascism!

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Dedicated to the Memory of Anti-Fascist Ivan Khutorskoy-Pg. 93

E
T
C.

News That Matters
Further Research
Shout Outs
Links
AMOR Y RESISTENCIA:
Reports from the global social war.
amoryresistencia.blogspot.com

FIRES NEVER
EXTINGUISHED
firesneverextinguished.blogspot.com

MAKE TOTAL DESTROY:
A Shameless Riot Porn Blog
maketotaldestroy.blogspot.com

LIBCOM
libcom.org

THIS IS OUR JOB:
Insurrectionary missives and tidbits
from the Spanish-speaking world,
translated into English
thisisourjob.wordpress.com

ATTACK!
These web sites
act as a helpful
source for the news
reported on in this
magazine.

SOCIAL WAR CHICAGO:
Violence is the fundamental truth of
politics.
socialwarchicago.blogspot.com
325:
Insurrectionary News and Publishing
from the UK
325.nostate.net
SOCIAL RUPTURE
socialrupture.blogspot.com
BASH BACK NEWS:
“Not Gay as in happy.
But queer as in fuck you”.
bashbacknews.wordpress.com
AFTER THE GREEK RIOTS:
Updates and analysis of unrest in
Greece.
occupiedlondon.org/blog
DIRECT ACTION IN
GERMANY
directactionde.blogspot.com

SOCIAL WAR IN GREECE
greeceriots.blogspot.com
THIS IS OUR EMERGENCY
likelostchildren.blogspot.com
OUR WAR:
Insurrectionary News from South
America
ourwar.org
WHENUA FENUA ENUA
VANUA
Revolutionary Anti-Colonialism and
Anti-Capitalism.
uriohau.blogspot.com
ACTIONS INTERESTING TO
ANARCHISTS
action.anarchistnews.org
‘TIL IT BREAKS:
DENVER SOCIAL WAR
itbreaks.wordpress.com
BITE BACK:
News in defense of animals.
directaction.info
NAELFPO:
News in defense of the earth.
elfpressoffice.org

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Internet Links-Pg. 94

ONLINE
WRITING

PROLE
prole.info

ANTI-POLITICS LIBRARY
anti-politics.net/distro

Arsenals of
read-for-free
texts.

INSURGENT DESIRE
insurgentdesire.org.uk

BUREAU OF PUBLIC
SECRETS
bopsecrets.org

BOOKS
Recommended
for reading in
book format,
either somewhere
you really like or
somewhere you
really hate.

PUBLISHERS
Keeping print culture
alive; somehow.

SITUATIONIST ARCHIVE
nothingness.org/si

ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN
By Fredy Perlman
Available in book format from
Red and Black Press.
THE COMING
INSURRECTION
By the Invisible Committee
Available in book format or
online at: tarnac9.wordpress.com/
texts/the-coming-insurrection

THE ANARCHIST LIBRARY
theanarchistlibrary.org

SOCIETY OF THE
SPECTACLE
By Guy Debord
Available in most bookstores.
AT DAGGERS DRAWN
Available from Eberhardt Press.

ELEPHANT EDITIONS:
Insurrectionary Publisher out of
the UK
alphabetthreat.co.uk/elephantedi
tions

MODESTO ANARCHO
modestoanarcho.org

HALIFAX ANARCHIST
DISTRO
myspace.com/dissenthalifax

WARRIOR PUBLICATIONS
warriorpublications.com

LITTLE BLACK CART
littleblackcart.com

EBERHARDT PRESS
eberhardtpress.org

Fire to the Prisons-Issue 8-Internet Links-Pg. 95

“FORWARD
EVERYONE!
AND WITH ARMS AND HEARTS,

SPEECH AND PEN,
DAGGER AND RIFLE,
IRONY AND BLASPHEMY,
THEFT, POISONING, AND FIRE,

LET US MAKE...

WAR ON

SOCIETY.”

N

NO.

EVERY
THING
MUST GO.