A Ransom Note

Hi! 'm Smedley. I once was called “editor” of this zine,
which sounds better than owner or creator... some shit
like that. But, If anything created this artifact, it was the
moment in time and space where it was assembled. No,
this isn't only one person playing with rey names, and
Yes we really all do exist. Well at least we did at the
various moments this came together. As for me, I'm a
robber. As to the rest of the staff... Idontt tell peo-ple
others’ business like that. But 1| say all of our
imprisonment resulted from appropriations of property
and fighting cops. I hope this issue doesn't come off as
overly propagandistic... other than that, I make no
apologies for what you might get out of this, Do you, for
what you get out of life?

Are we political prisoners? Prisoners of the class war?
You decide. You were going to anyways...

Oh, and by the way. For the next few minutes we'll aim
to hold your attention for ransom. But the moment is
always yours. Remember that, It's your first step to
freedom.

To holler @ the Smeditor, write:

Dave Gurz EB1596

R.D. 10 Box 10 Greensburg, PA 15601,

Yeah, I'll write back. No, I don't have slimy plots
brewing. If you're a racist or other type of hater - save
your postage.

"Darkness Descending’ by Art Smith EA 1560 same joint.

SO. CHICAGO ABC ZINE DISTRO

PUBLISHER & DISTRIBUTO!
P.0. BOX 721
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“(,%NQUE&QS
IEPREDADORES

The Chow Insurrection

They started fucking with our food. It came down the pike from the main
office and serving sizes were cut. We got tired of losing weight and being
hungry all the time. So cleven of us refused to push our trays back out the
slotin the door. The Warden came. Thea the Director of food managemeat
came. Then the write-ups came. Maybe dinaer wil be bigger. [ll probably
be here in the hole with Smizz for the rest o the summer, but if you're gonaa
die - die with your boots on. To Solidarity!

Some still call them

PIGS.

“Darkness Descends”

Unpure is the wrath of this unfiltared light,
ading shadows of doubt as dark as the night.
Violence lingers with vengeance on hold, ready to

h terrors untold

A tramp under a bridge cries out in pain, a victim
of darkness and its colorless flames

Rage and fury fight to unfold, total decimation,
blackness and cold.

Soon only roaches and rats will remain, bacoming
presidents and kings of this vast domain.

Human hands laid the plans on all that was dona,

80 I hope thay died happy and got what they wanted.

Because, daylight is dead stirring uneasily in its
grave, another victim of darkness on the dawn of its
age.

unl

Written by “Smiz"

~ Gulag Blues ~

These fuckers took a copy of Thought Bombs 417 off of one of the guys
back here I'd let read it. The bastards sent it to the security/intelligence office
along with a copy of Enrico Malatesta’s The Anarchist Revolurion 1 had leat to
the guy. 1 don’t know - I didn’t consider them like “Mine! All mine!™ So, it
was more like I usually do with Anarchist and other lterature, put it up 25
common material, using a “library” approach. Same as with all the stuf
{hut's been collectivized out in population with the Radical Element
Subterranean Information Network (Resin Collective.)

Still it sucks that these gestapo scumbags taxed 1.1, ‘Iese pigs are so
over-sensitive these days to anything they can construe as possibly a secarity
Uhreat. Key word there is construe. O course they have no problem with
mainstream medis that “advocates violence.” But when there’s mention of
going counter to the politieal game accepted by the US government, forget it
The violence pumped through the v is acceptable to them. Not “Hollywood™
violence, but the violence against civilians by the military and corporations.

Yeah, yesh, we all know that when it serves the military industrial
complex, these incidents are milked for all they're worth. Case in point:

Sept. 1. How many people - average US cifizens - realize that its not their
war that those workers in the WTC perished over? If's so fucking blatant:
Government policy wrote a check which was cashed in the blood of s civilian
population. Did the religious fanatics who cashed that check have sny
Justifiable reason 1o do that? Fuck no! They were controlled by religion in
the way that the US soldiers at My Lai were controlled by patriotism.

Does he Afghan child, starving ia the wasteland of Kandahar have any
more say about the acts of Islamic Fundamentalism than the orphaned New
York child crying for a Mother who will never come home from work bas
with US foreign policy?

Yet, look who remains unscathed: the leaders of the network allegedly
responsible for the attacks and the leaders of the US. Fucking cannon fodder.
That's all we are to the ruling class. Face it, the working underclass is at best
2 Iabor pool for the wealth holders, the power holders, the ideologues asd
capitalists.

Disposable asd controliable - that's how they keep us. Disposable with
wars and wage slavery which works the main of the population to deatb, and
controllable through the spparatus of the prison state. Now, see the shift post
9.11 10 each end of that spectrum - militant nationalism becomes the main, the
leaders encourage more spending (o boost the economy & create jobs to keep
the people busy while the real money concentrates in the hands of the military
contractors.

"And on the other side of the coin: enhanced police powers to il the still
expanding prison system. Of which who really profits? Society by the
criminalization of further and further activities? Look how well the War on
Drugs has failed! Oh, yes, I see now - the deterreat factor of penological
incapacifation. Mmm, hmm. That's why crime rates have been dropping
‘while imprisonment rates have been climbing.

So, then, you ask what profits from all this? What ever profits? Author
and leaders are justified by the pheaomena of crime and war which they
create to assure their own protection and position starding atop the necks of
the working class poor, minorifies and womea.

And with that, here reprinted is the Anarchist Solution to the Problem of
Crime.

e
fn,a‘rfifi"sb
lution, to the

& 5o don g pamphlet
“The first thing people want from government
is that it maintain the peace and administer justice.
Yet governments have killed more people and seized
more goods than any private criminal ever has, and
today's governments threaten either to wipe out hu-
manity in a nuclear war or to submerge the world in
a system of 1984-style superstates. Governmentand
law enforcement actually perpetuate the conditions
thatbreed crime--poverty, racism, alienation, sexual
repression. Evenas the numbers oflaws, judgesand
jails increases, so do the rates of murder, rape,
assault, robbery, burglary and larceny.

Anarchists believe that if government is abo-
lished the evils it causes will disappear and the evil
it supposedly prevents - -antisocial behavior - -will get
noworseand may evendecrease. A popular miscon-
ception of anarchy pictures people running amok, a
complete breakdown of humane and sensible behavior.
This is not what anarchists aim at, since an orgy of
violence would immediately lead to the restoration of
government. The basic idea of anarchism is thata
peacable, harmonious social system can be founded
on the willingness of most people to work together
without coercion.

THE FAILURE OF LAW ENFORCEMENT
Law supposedly has four functions: 1) to es-
tablish the rights, privileges and powers of govern-
ment and to regulate the economy; 2) to control pri-
vate activities suchas sex, drinking, drug-taking and
gambling on the basis of moral judgments; 3) to act
as anarbiter of disputes andan enforcer of contracts;
4) to prohibit acts that actually injure people. The
first three kinds of law have little intrinsic value ex-
cept to maintain many of the frustrations and inequi-
ties thatincite crime, and the forbidding and punishing
of antisocial acts doesnt prevent them or help their

victims. Belief in law and law-enforcement diverts
attention and effort from solutions that would deal
with the cause of crime.

The failure of law-enforcement is dramatically
demonstrated byone criminologist's estimate thati,
New York City in 1972 there were 300, 000 robbesies
andonly 20,000 arrests. Police sometimes prevent
crimes andjailskeepa few criminals off the strects,
But this is like trying to cure a fever with an ice pack.
Government officials need crimeand will consciously
or unconsciously promote it and insist that there ia no
sensible solution to the crime problem except more
government. But each step in this direction--each
newlaw and each new bureaucratic office --adds to the
taxburden and moves us closer to a society in whicl
all of us are under constant surveillance and tatally
at the mercy of an all-powerful police,

Punishment, the keystone of crime-control in
this society, isanutter failure. Cagedand degraded,
the condemned manlearns only that justice is not re.
habilitationbut retaliation. The most humane prison
system is still based on forcibly depriving people of
their {reedom, teaching the lesson that itis permis-
sable to use force to impose one's will on others,

Crime is as natural toour kind of coercive so.
cletyas cirrhosis of the liver is toan alcoholic, Wes.
tern civilization has for thousands of years inflicted
onits childrena morality that torments the mind with
fear of punishment, frustration, self-loathing, rage.
Morality doesn't make people behave themselves, it
creates the inner conflicts and repressed rages that
provoke crime. Socially sanctioned violence provides
amodeland oftena justification for criminal violence.
And the U.S. economic system, which allows most
money and property to accumulate in the hands of a
few, rewards financial success no matter how attained
and provokes and punishes the poor while protecting

the rich, couldn't be better designed to generate an
ever -increasing crime rate.

THE ANARCHIST ALTERNATIVE

It may seem hard to imagine that civilization
could survive without government, butitonce seemed
impossible that civilization could exist without slavery.
Human nature, contrary to what many people believe, is
not dangerous and in need of control.

Itis sometimes argued that since man has formed
governments throughout history, both government
and its abuses are natural tohumans. Butthe fact that
people tend to rely informally on leadership does not
make monarchies, oligarchies or even republics and
democracies inevitable. Most of the preconditions of
an anarchist society existed in the more unsettled
arcas of North America onlya century ago. To solve
their immediate problems, people decided to surren-
der some of their {reedom toa local sheriff. Only too
late did they realize that giving upa little bit of free-
dom is like contracting a little bit of cancer. The
memoirs of old Western settlers are full of regrets
for the unfettered individualism of the frontier. The
lessontobe drawn is that freedom demands a certain
toughness, an insistence on self-reliance and, as the
proverb has it, eternal vigilance.

Anarchism doesn't promise a perfect world--
only something better that whatwe've got. The abo-
lition of the state won't instantly transform humanity
intoa race of kindly, enlightened creatures. But we
can rely on the probablity that, set free, people will
pursuc their interests with prudence and enough ima-
gination tobe able to envision long-run consequences.

That could be and should be enough to make this a
happier world.
Libertarian Morality: The violent type of human
being is produced by our current methods of child-
rearing. The repressive, authoritarian, coercive
practices currently used in many families and schools
are necessary only to condition children to live in a
government-run society. Libertarian, free-form fa-
milies and schools--the open family, the Summer -
hill-type school, the free association of men, womes
and children without authoritarian control--will not
produce the violent, twisted types so common in to-
day's society. The abolition of coercive law will lead
toa society free of sexual suppressionand sexistmale
domination. Without the support of force these forms
of oppression will be unable to compete with more at-
tractive ideas and practices. As sexual repression
disappears, so will violent sex crimes.

The Nonviolent Society: Evenin thebestof so-
cieties itis tobe expected that some persons will still
make trouble. Murder. Rape. Pilfering. Attempts
todefraud. How todeal withthese do-badders? Man-
kind's tribes, clans, bands and free communes have
developed a variety of methods for dealing with the
person who harms others. Nonviolentapproaches in-
clude ostracism, public denunciation (especially ef-
fective when, as with the Quakers, the culprit is wept
over and forgiven), payments by the wrongdoer to his
victims, persuasion, education, socialpressure, non-
compulsory therapy, the help of friends and neighbors,
non-collaboration and nonviolent resistance.

Inthe view of some anarchists, anyuse of force
is coercive, and the evils anarchists are trying to
overcome canonlybe corrected by complete renuncia-

tion of force, but others propose a range of seli-
defense methods which, the believe, are compati-

ble with libertarian principles. One sure deterrentto
the criminal is fear of his victimis possible retaliation,
Many anarchists accept the idea of local defense
groups; different communities will produce many so-
lutions to the problem of the defense of the peace of
the community through free experimentation with any
andeveryappropriate form. The key to every method
is that itis to be used defensively only, against per.
sons who initiate violence. Obviously, freedomis
basedon self-regulation and self-restraint. It is cop.
sistent with a belief in the possibility of freedom to
expectpeople tolimit their use of violence to defensive
measures only,

The Abundant Economy: Prevailing economic
systems, whether they call themselves socialist or
capitalist, use force to maintain state-sanctioned
property relations. Anarchism rejects the use of
state power for anypurpose. Whatever economic ar-
rangements, collectivist or free-enterprise, people
make in a free society willbe voluntary. There will
probablybe freely accepted rules, like the rules of a
game, such as, perhaps, that property be respected,
But the right of anyone to anything he needs will be
equally respected. Enlightened self-interest recog-
nizes thatthere mustbe alternatives between refusing
the necessities of life to those in want or forcibly
making all property communal. Borrowing with mu.
tual consent or sharing, from an individual or from a
common store, will probably be the most common kind
ofproperty distribution. Butin the abundant economy
made possible by total freedom individuals will rarely
be in want. Historical experience has shown that
Populationdeclines with the spread of material pros-
perity and awareness of contraception. Technology
can supply the basic needs of the entire human race. -
eventoday this is possible. Total freedom will allow.
an enormous increase in creativity, inventiveness,
productivity. Man enjoys work when itisn't alienat.
ing and he isn't coerced into i

12
-

Since general acceptance of anarchist ideas isa
necessary precondition to a worldwide liberated so-
ciety, antisocial behavior within the free community
will probablybe rare. The remedies will also be in-
dividualized and peculiar to each situation. In some
cases, undoubtedly, a community will decide thatthe
antisocial person was right and the community was
wrong.

‘Anarchists do not believe in unalterable laws,
butonlyin general policies. The acme of anarchism
is the policy of non-invasiveness or non-coercion--
Mind Your Own Business. We don't expect people to
behave like saints; we expect of them simply that they
leave one another alone.

FROM ARCHY TO ANARCHY

The crucial question is, How do we get from
where we are to where we want to be? Basically what
is needed is a change of attitudes, and the job of to-
day's anarchists is to spreadthe idea of the stateless
society by every available means. Here are some of
the things they are doing:

1) Thinking about, studying and discussing an-
archist ideas. Developing a new attitude toward
crime, refusing to see itasa fearsome problem to be
solved by more governmentpower. Tryingto see the
criminalas a fellow human under pressure and asking
themselves what he would be like in a free society.

2) Devising personal codes of conduct based on
non-injury toward others. Self-discipline is the other
side of the coin of self-liberation.

3) Liberating oneself. Thewise anarchist does
not think of himself as a liberator of his fellow men,
but as one in need of liberation. The main thing an-
archism offers right now is not a new social system
but an ideal of personal liberation from the attitudes
and habits of authoritarian society. The new society
Al

Will come to be when enough individuals have freed
themselves.

4) After self-liberation, organizing in groups
for the liberation of society. These can begin simply
2s study groups for mutual education and communes
for mutualaid. Such groups will help to promote the
idea of freedom wherever they are formed.

5) Building regional, continental and world -wide
federations of autonomous groups towork together to
spread ideas of liberty, encourage self-initiative
among people and oppose oppression.

6) Withdrawing support from government by
everymeans. Refusingto obey laws that do not pro-
hibitantisocial behavior but merelyassertor enhance
the power of government. The ultimate form of non-
violentresistance is the general strike, whereby peo-
pleinallwalks of life refuse to work until the state is
dismantled.

At the climax of the movie They Might Be Giants,
the hero, who thinks he is the great crime-fighter
Sherlock Holmes, says, "We're living in the Garden
of Eden. We've never left it. This is Paradise all
around us." Man is not fallen andin need of control;
he is as he is, and that is good enough. To discover
Paradise aroundus we have to give up our distrust of
people, which means giving up our distrust of our-

selves.
+

These people and others, not listed, contributed to the
writing and editing of this pamphlet: Doug Benson, Dr.
Horace Naismith, Robert Shea, Joffre Stewart, Chicago;
Jim Bumpas, Linda Bumpas, Mountain View, California;
Robert Anton Wilson, San Francisco; Timothy J. Wheeler,
Shelbyville, Indiana. The opinions expréssed in the pam-.
phletare notnecessarily those of any particular contri-
butor.

SRAF: 713 W. Armitage, Chicago 60614; Box 4091, Mtn.
View,CA94040; Box 2827, 5ta. A, Edmonton, Alberta.

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