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 HOMEWOOD, IL 60430 Toee 1850 449 105 | USANAME CosUSWR 1710 200 145 | b T 130 99 mWe 4007072 141 | Newbih T8 o2 96 St T30 “(,%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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