#anarchist prisoner

[dailyanarchistposts]

I wrote this many years ago about my codefendant Avalon (state name: William Rodgers). He took his life today in 2005 as an act of defiance and in response to our indictments. Like most people, Avalon was complicated but a good person and kind soul.

There is not much to note that is new other than the rage I felt at listening to my rat codefendant mention his name on the Burn Wild podcast and tell a tale of how the Vail action happened (contradicted by all other accounts). RIP Avalon

dm 12.21.22

December 21st, 2007

This is a eulogy, two years too late, for my friend William Rodgers — known to friends, family and the movement as Avalon. Avalon took his life on December 21, 2005. This was just two weeks after our arrests in the Operation Backfire case and, by no coincidence, the Winter Solstice. In his absence, much has been made of his role in our Earth Liberation Front (ELF) group. Not surprisingly, the prosecutors in the case have painted him as a leader who recruited young, impressionable activists to do his bidding. This is not only false, but also insulting to the younger people in the case, who did get involved on their own. Snitches in the case have used his inability to respond to dramatically maximize his role in certain actions in an attempt to lesson the consequences of their own actions. One person went so far as submitting to the judge video evidence and testimony that has not been made public because it was deemed too personal for public consumption. Others on the margins have chosen to focus on Avalon’s flaws by spreading rumors or even by talking to the private investigators hired by the snitches.

I first met Avalon in the months leading up to the World Trade Organization (WTO) protests in Seattle in late 1999 and developed a friendship with him instantly. His sly grin, easygoing and warm personality and humility impressed me, and I was happy to see that this quiet, older enviro was up to more than attending the EF! gatherings at which I first saw him. His rationality and quick thinking prevented disaster for our affinity group during the Seattle protests (I’m proud to say we took part in the Black Bloc). I distinctly remember getting ready to leave Seattle, and hearing his suggestion to “keep in touch.” Well, we did keep in touch. Much has been said of what we did in the years after that, but that will be told elsewhere.

Like so many of us, Avalon suffered from depression and despair, fueled by the realization of what our species is doing the planet. Living underground, juggling details of planned actions and double lives, and eschewing many of the things that our movement allies had access to is stressful. I know because I did it, and yet Avalon’s experience in that underground life dwarfed mine. I can’t help but think that this isolation and despair were major factors in his suicide. We moved on, and yet the cruel hand of the past — in the form of old friends and a Joint Terrorism Task Force — pulled us all back into our secret histories. Maybe for Avalon, it was the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. We will never know for sure. I remember seeing his name in a list of arrestees in a New York Times article while sitting in a New York City jail. It gave me some hope — I thought we could all fight these charges together, as a group of people who had lifelong solidarity with each other, as people who honored the oaths we made to each other. Sometimes, I lie there at night asking the questions I try to avoid: Could Avalon have stemmed the tide of informing? Would he have been the person who, having known some of the snitches for much longer than I, could really reach them — beyond their fears and to their core? I’ll never know these answers, but I do know this: Avalon would rather die and make a jailbreak than cooperate in any way with this immoral and unjust process.

The prosecution, knowing only hierarchy and bureaucracy, cannot conceive of a group without a leader, a pecking order and strict rules. Without Bill around to protest and because he was older than all of us, they found their puppet master. Suddenly the so-called “book club” was his invention and was deemed a “training school for arson.” Meyerhoff and Gerlach, grand quislings that they are, had the audacity to say with a straight face that Avalon pretty much did the Vail arson all by himself. Just reading about the ski resort’s geography, the large amount of fuel that was used and Bill’s slight stature made me laugh bitterly to myself about these lies. On some level, it’s the way the game is played for snitches. The government tells them what it wants to hear, and the cooperating witnesses jump through hoops like the well-trained pets that they are. To be clear, everyone involved with these actions and the “book club” are people like you and me. We have skills — some of us excel at one thing, others of us at another. However, there was no formalized hierarchy as suggested by the prosecution, and William Rodgers was no kingpin or leader of the ELF.

Avalon, like all of us, had his flaws and made mistakes, both personally and politically, in the way he lived his life and how he resisted environmental destruction. Our group attempted to deal with one of these areas — an accusation of sexual misconduct — and I’m sorry to say that we failed, due to not being equipped with the right ideas and strategies. It is all too easy to assuage our guilt about our own shortcomings by attacking others. I think it’s a better idea to focus on what we are doing in this world, rather than criticizing people who are not here to defend themselves. I thought of this often in court when I looked at my family, seeing the pained looks on their faces as they listened to attacks on me. Bill’s family and partner have had to endure a lot of grief in the last two years.

So when I think of Avalon, I don’t believe the hype spewed by aggressive and narrow prosecutors. No, I think of a soft-spoken, caring person who would give you the shirt off his back or carry a snake off the road; an avid, even obsessive recycler; someone who supported indigenous struggles and really got the connection between Earth-based cultures and ecological action. I knew Avalon was involved in the struggle against the Mount Graham telescope, but only after his death did I find out that he and his infoshop, The Catalyst, supported the campaign to protect the San Francisco Peaks (see Earth First! Journal May-June 2005).

When snitch Jacob Ferguson recorded a conversation with me through a wiretap in 2005, I asked him how Avalon was. He lied to me (big shock!) and told me that Avalon was happy and lived in an intentional community in Canada. I remember being really happy for him and hoping to run into him again one day, but for different reasons than why we last saw each other.

Avalon has been gone two years now, and yet it still isn’t real to me. Since I haven’t seen him for years, I can’t really take it all in without getting upset. Yes, one of our own betrayed us, and that action caused the death of my friend. How do I reconcile the truth? I don’t have a good answer except to say that we need to talk about these things and confront death in our movement. We need to grieve for our friends. Most of all, we cannot forget. This is my contribution to never forgetting William Rodgers: radical environmentalist, ELF activist, cave lover and sweet, kind man. I miss you, buddy.

–As printed in the Earth First! Journal, November-December 2007 issue.

[whereserpentswalk]

Remember that abolish slavery meant no more slavery at all. And abolish monarchy meant no more kings at all. They were thought to be unrealistic in their time, things that went agaisnt human nature, but those activists understood that they needed a zero tolerance policy on those things.

So when we say abolish police, that means no police. When we say abolish prisons, that means no prisons. When we say abolish capitalism, that means no capitalism. It isn't unrealistic. It can't be compromised.

[jewish-microwave-laser]

as you discuss donald trump being found guilty on all 34 counts, please keep the following in mind, especially if you consider yourself a prison abolitionist or hold any sort of critical opinions towards the criminal justice system:

being found guilty of a felony does not automatically mean you are a bad person, are incapable of doing good things, or that you should have your rights taken away. felons are people who should be treated with respect

[id: a variation on the "insult deflection" meme. the shooter labeled "you" is shooting a laser labeled "haha you're a felon" at a person labeled trump, who uses a mirror to deflect the laser, which hits a third person labeled "people who have been victimized by the criminal "justice" system and have had their rights taken away because of a felony charge" /end id]

[pr-m-t-ve]

Humans are not meant to be calm and collected 24/7. We do not have to be mature or the bigger person every day. We are animals, we will get scared, stressed, enraged, overstimulated, etc. the idea that one bite, push, or yell will make us forever bad is flawed. They are trying to remove us from natural reactions to situations so that they can have better control. Our behaviors will be punished just like people punish pets for just being an animal. We shall be punished for being human.

[trans-axolotl]

Hi - I am planning to move to a large city soon and I desperately want to get involved with community organizing, mutual aid, protests, etc but I have 0 experience beyond attending a few small protests over the years. I've only ever lived in a small suburb and none of the people currently in my life are involved in anything. Do you have any advice for how to get materially involved for someone who doesn't know what that looks like? Is it a matter of networking via attending events, that kind of thing? Apologies if this is a silly question, I'm going to try my best to figure it out on my own but I feel extremely inexperienced and uninformed.

Not a silly question at all! So many times I see people telling other people "go out and get involved" like that's something that's really simple but there can be a lot more steps to making that happen! I'll share some general tips that have worked for me in the cities I've worked with, and other followers feel free to add on with relevant advice in your city.

One thing that was really hard for me when I first moved to a new city is that I didn't know anyone, so it was hard to find out what groups even existed. Because I didn't know anyone, I also didn't have anyone to vouch for me, and there are a lot of groups that (understandably) need people to vouch for you because of police infiltrators and other bad actors.

I think my biggest advice is to try to find a group with open membership, even if it isn't the thing you're the most passionate about, and start showing up regularly in order to get connected with other people. In my area, the groups that are most easy to get involved with are mutual aid groups and outreach groups. Particularly, if Food Not Bombs has a chapter in your area, in my experience they've been a lot easier to get involved with than some other groups. A lot of harm reduction groups in my area have things like supply kit packing nights, which are SUCH a great way for new people to get involved and meet people without having to make a huge commitment. Keeping an eye out for one time events like that, or other events like teach-ins about specific topics, can be a great way to get your foot in the door and start meeting more people who can connect you with organizing in the city. You can also go and access the services from a mutual aid group or Food Not Bombs group if those are relevant for you! A lot of groups will have days they do outreach that they'll post on social media, or other ways to get in contact. A lot of the ways I've gotten involved in harm reduction organizing is because I'll go to syringe exchange drop-in hours to get needles for myself, and then ask the people working how I can volunteer with them. From there, you might be able to get connected with groups that might have more intensive onboarding processes.

I also think it's really helpful to start showing up to protests and trying to get familiar with what groups are active in your city, but I think that's a hard way to meet new people, since a lot of people understandably have a lot of additional security concerns at protests and might not want to give out their name or contact info in that environment. But it can be a great way to get more familiar with the patterns of action in your new city and figure out what orgs to trust and what orgs to avoid. And once you're more involved in other orgs, it can be easier to find a crew of people to go to protests with.

In order to find out what all these groups are and when protests are happening, I usually go to instagram and start trying to follow as many organizations as I can. I usually start by searching for groups that I think I know are going to exist, like food not bombs, the local chapter of Black Lives Matter, local chapter of Palestinian Youth Movement, and then start looking for city specific mutual aid orgs, harm reduction orgs, sex work advocacy orgs, books to prisons or letters to prisons project, mask blocs, street medic collectives, anarchist and prison abolitionist collectives, tenants unions, sexual violence advocacy orgs, disability orgs, LGBTQ orgs, etc.And then, I go into the followers tab for each of these orgs and find out what organizations they're following--that has really, really helped me start to be able to map who's active, who knows who, and usually at least some of those orgs will be active on Instagram and publicizing events, protests, outreach, donation drives, etc. Also, if there's a leftist bookstore or infoshop in your city, they might have a pretty good calendar of events and be a good way to get looped in. (most of the cities I've lived in haven't had that though lmfao).

I think my biggest advice is to not get discouraged if it takes some research to find groups with open memberships or if there are groups that you're interested in but can't join right away. I'd also say it's definitely helpful to think through what your interests are and what your skills are. Are you particularly passionate about a certain cause? Do you enjoy cooking and want to help prepare food for mutual aid? Do you like doing social media graphics? What resources do you have that you can bring to groups--access to craft supplies, free printing, a space to host events, medic skills, good at building things, etc? There's so many different types of groups to get involved in that are doing direct organizing work for so many different specific causes, and I'm sure you could bring a lot to whatever group you're passionate about.

One random thing that I do want to mention is that a lot of times when I see people answering this question, the advice they give is to get involved in orgs like DSA, PSL (Party for socialism and liberation/ANSWER coalition), or other branches of national orgs like that. I disagree with that advice and I don't actually think it's the most helpful way to meet people or get involved. Although I think DSA is better than PSL, I have my own political issues with DSA and REALLY really do not trust PSL at all because I think that PSL is a really bad actor who actively endangers people in every city I've organized where they're in. (Here's links to articles that describe some of the issues--trigger warning for sexual violence. Article 1. Article 2. I can go more in depth into my personal experiences in another post if needed) But beyond that, I don't always think that's the most helpful way to get looped into other things happening in your city or direct mutual aid or direct action work--I think groups like DSA and PSL often have a lot of other priorities like intra party dynamics, electoral politics, etc, and that other things like protesting or mutual aid work is often a secondary priority for those groups. The only reason I wanted to mention this is because I think that these groups do a lot of recruiting, and that oftentimes these groups are the most visible organizations with open membership for new people in a city to find. PSL in particular does a lot of predatory recruiting, in my experience. And I've had a lot of friends who originally joined groups like these to try to get connected and involved and ended up just sort of sucked into a lot of unrelated drama, so I just wanted to briefly mention that!

Overall, I think the biggest things that have helped me get really involved is just consistently showing up places and also doing research when I first move to a city. Once I was able to meet more people, I was able to get looped into more types of organizing, including more secure or involved organizing that I wasn't able to join when I first got to a new city.

I hope that helped, and please feel free to reach out with any other questions! If any other followers have tips, please add on!

[nando161mando]

Nabat" anarchists in prison, 1922 - photo found in the archives of the Security Service of Ukraine in Kyiv.

via Philip Ruff

[useless-catalanfacts]

2nd February 2024. Photos from Vilaweb.

Demonstration in front of the High Court of Justice of Catalonia (the highest court of the Spanish judiciary system in Catalonia) in Barcelona in support of Dani Gallardo, a young Spanish anarchist who is sentenced to prison because the took part in a peaceful demonstration held in Madrid (Spain's capital city) in favour of Catalan people's right to self-determination and against the Spanish police's violence against Catalan people.

We have explained Dani's case before, you can read it in this post:

Dani has been sentenced guilty to send a message. Until his case, more than 4,200 Catalan people had been sentenced guilty for their involvement in the 2017 Catalan independence referendum or the protests that followed it. The Spanish judiciary system has proven that they won't stop at punishing Catalan people, they also sent the police to beat up the protestors who demonstrated for Catalonia in Madrid (Spain) and they're also jailing a Spanish man for his solidarity.

Dani was sentenced guilty of public disorder and attempt against authority with made-up claims that had been fabricated hours before he even got arrested. The Spanish police already planned to arrest people and blame them for this even before the event happened. Dani spent 13 months in pre-trial jail, then he was released for some time, and now has received the order to go to prison for 2 years and 11 months more.

Cases like this is why there is a demand for an amnesty. After the last elections to the Spanish government, the PSOE party needed the support of other parties to get enough votes to form government. One of the must-have demands of the Catalan political parties was an amnesty law (amnesty laws are not uncommon in Spain) that would cancel the punishments of people who have been found guilty of political crimes related to the independence movement since 2017, because none of these thousands of people committed real harmful crimes. This law is currently being negotiated, but the Spanish parties are trying to write it in a way that will leave as many people out of the amnesty as possible. At the same time, the Spanish judiciary system continues accusing new people of terrorism for attending peaceful political demonstrations.

For example, two democratically-elected pro-independence politicians (Puigdemont and Wagensberg) are being accused of terrorism for supposedly calling for people to protest in the Barcelona airport, a protest that was completely peaceful and which was called by a civil society organization and not by these politicians. But they're influential, so Spain looks for any way to punish them. How are the Spanish judiciaries claiming that Puigdemont and Wagensberg should be sentenced guilty of terrorism for an action where there was no terrorism? The Spanish judges' imagination has no limits when it comes to sentencing Catalans and Basques. They are saying that it's terrorism because some of the protestors had weapons. What weapons? Fire extinguishers, bottles, and the metal carts that people use to carry their luggage:

Because there were fire extinguishers and luggage carts in the airport and people brought their own water, a completely peaceful protest that happened there is terrorism. The worst part is that it doesn't outrage or surprise us anymore, because we're so used to this nonsense.

[memphisfoodnotbombs]

@radicalgraff

[mrsblackruby]

There are no good humans. There are no perfect victims

There are no bad humans. There are no bad victims. There are humans and they can be victims or perpetrators at times

Do not forget that in war if all will it there can be peace

You have no enemies

We’re all one in the same

Made out of the same star dust

No one deserves to be hurt

Please break out of the lies you fed your moral imagination

And look at the parts that make up our reality for the beautiful chaos it is

[spoilsoftheheart]

OONA, No Prisons No Borders, 2023

Screenprint

IMAGE ID

Black ink screenprint on cream paper. Top text NO PRISONS. Bottom text NO BORDERS. Font is a a black sans serif with subtly distressed edges. In the center is an abstracted depiction of a wall crumbling, represented by chunks of vaguely rectangular shapes, each one unique with fraying edges. The shapes are larger and closer together at the top and become smaller and farther apart as the structure crumbles.

END ID

[dailyanarchistposts]

I am currently detained in an Israeli jail, the result of refusing to attend or cooperate with criminal charges laid against me and two others for joining Palestinian protests in the West Bank against Israel’s colonial rule. Because I am an Israeli citizen, the proceedings in the case are held in an Israeli court in Jerusalem and not at the military court, where Palestinians are tried.

It has been almost nine years since the last time I was incarcerated for more than a day or two. Much has changed since. Politically, reality does not even resemble that of a decade ago, and none of the changes were for the better.

Politically, the world seems to have lost much of its interest in the Palestinian struggle for liberation, placing Israel at one of the historical peaks of its political strength. I am in no position to discuss the profound changes within Israeli society and how even farther to the right it has drifted. Israeli liberals are much better suited for such a task, because they hold their country dear and feel a sense of belonging that I cannot feel and do not want to feel.

Personally, I am older, more tired and, mostly, not as healthy as I was. Of course, the price I have paid for my part in the struggle is a fraction of that paid by Palestinian comrades, but I cannot deny its subjective weight on me: from physical injuries, some irreversible, through sporadic despair, anxiety and sense of helplessness, to the encumbering sensation of loss and the presence of death – and the grip all these have on my day-to-day life. And yet, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Right now, just as it was back then, sitting in prison is better than any other alternative available to me.

The legal fallacies that riddle the case against us are of little significance. While it is fair to assume that had I agreed to cooperate, the trial would have ended up with an acquittal, my refusal to recognize the court’s legitimacy is based on two main grounds.

The first is that my Palestinian comrades do not enjoy the luxury of being tried in the relatively comfortable conditions of the Israeli courts. Rather, they are tried as subjects in the parody of a legal system that are Israel’s military courts. Unlike me, Palestinians do not have the option of refusing to cooperate with their captors, since the vast majority of them are tried while remanded into custody for the duration of their proceedings.

Additionally, the punishment Palestinians are faced with is significantly harsher than that specified in Israeli law. Thus, in this regard as well, despite refusing to recognize the court’s legitimacy, the price I am likely to pay is significantly lower than that paid by my comrades.

The second, more fundamental ground to refuse to cooperate is that all Israeli courts, military or otherwise, lack any legitimacy to preside over matters of resisting Israeli colonial rule, which employs a hybrid regime, ranging between a distorted and racially discriminatory democracy in its sovereign territory and a flat-out military dictatorship in the occupied territories.

Faced with the tremendous shift to the right in Israeli politics, the shrinking remnants of the Zionist left – once the country’s dominant elite group – are consumed by lamenting the decline of Israeli democracy. But what democracy is it they wish to defend? The one that has dispossessed its Palestinian citizens of their lands and their rights? The one that, at best, views these Palestinian citizens as second-class? Perhaps it is the democracy that governs the Gaza Strip through vicious siege while it reigns as a military dictatorship in the West Bank?

Despite the obvious nature of the Israeli regime, Israeli liberals are not willing to contest the fundamental premise of internal Israeli discourse and acknowledge that the State of Israel simply is not a democracy. Never was.

To join the fight to topple Israeli apartheid, the few Jewish citizens of Israel willing to do so will first have to recognize that they are overprivileged and be willing to pay the price of relinquishing that status. An open rebellion against the regime has been taking place for decades, carried out by the Palestinian resistance movement. The price paid by those involved in it is immense. Jewish citizens of Israel must cross over and walk in their footsteps.

[little-soldiers]

a lot of cc!forever’s decisions in the presidency are really good / make sense from a meta perspective (creating interesting storylines and conflict) but it makes q!forever SUCH a funny fucking character.

[ganondorf]

sometimes i see people on here talk about anarchism and it's very clear their understanding of it is on par with people whose understanding of communism is "under communism we all use the same toothbrush"

[phxabc]

Friendly reminder to shut the fuck up

[anarchistfrogposting]

Genuine question. How does an anarchist state deal with people who want to kill for fun? Do we just let them, because to have rules is to oppose ever single anarchist value, or do we stop them because true anarchism like that would be the death of humanity?

It’s a question that anarchists get a lot. I’ll say first and foremost that, like any other field I personally am not involved in the organisation of, public safety is better left to professionals who understand its machinations (and hence how to deconstruct its inherent hierarchies) better than myself (and no, I don’t mean the police).

I’ll also posit that anarchist society is absolutely not founded on the concept of an absence of rules, just an absence of hierarchical (as opposed to self-) government. I don’t blame you for thinking that; it’s a very common perception of anarchism, especially considering the associations people tend to form with the word anarchism and anarchy in modern lexicon.

It’s true that sometimes, somehow, people end up in a path of life wherein they would do something as heinous as kill for fun, or other various unjust reasons.

I’d first like to posit that such people and situations, whilst sensationalised, are in fact pretty rare.

But they might still exist, so what do we do about them? The first step, like in much anarchist praxis, is to shift perceptions and culture. Whilst it’s true that humans love gossip, I would also posit that much of the culture around serial murders and the like exists because media companies exaggerate and glamorise murder in order to grab clicks/interactions/readers. This is most stark, for example, in the cycle of American gun violence.

Familial units would be significantly less isolated as a result of their integration into their communities, meaning the cycles and chains of domestic abuse that often lead to the proliferation of those violent tendencies would be much less common. It’s worth remembering that capitalism’s rise came hand in hand with the breakdown in communities; that it had to in order to succeed.

But let’s say the revolution has happened, culture has shifted and yet there’s still mass and serial murderers out and about. What do we do about it?

Community self government also means community self defence. On a voluntary basis, that means that communities can set up security measures like communal watches, (extensively trained, cyclically employable and imminently accountable and recallable) guards, and even detainment revolving around the attempted reformation and treatment of those individuals.

Fundamentally, detainment exists as a means to reform individuals, and the workers in those facilities would all receive training and all be fully accountable and recallable to and by their communities. Accountability measures include enforcing transparency and setting up dual power that includes the prisoners themselves, the communities concerned with those facilities, and the staff volunteering in it.

This approach is contentious, and different anarchists have different opinions on the most effective strategies. A great example of a leading prison abolitionist is Angela Davis, if you’re interested in learning more about systems of justice outside of imprisonment.

Keep sending in your questions! I’ll do my best to answer (as long as you’re asking in good faith!) no (genuine) question is too silly.

[anarchotahdigism]

"

Detainees at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma were subjected to tear gas, had guns pointed at them, and were physically restrained during a hunger strike last year for better living conditions.

Advocates for the detainees released footage Thursday of what happened to several protesters after chemical agents were used on them at the privately run facility.

The 41-minute video from Feb. 1, 2023, shows heavily armored guards entering the common area of Unit F4 at the processing center with rifles drawn, and then taking away one of the detainees in plastic cuffs."