Direct action gets the goods

The law doesn’t keep us safe: we keep us safe

What kind of future we face depends to a great extent on how well we can develop and spread empowering methods to confront the many problems we face in life, from the mundane to the catastrophic. Feeding ourselves in a way that’s healthy and sustainable… getting treatment for all the health problems caused by the toxins released in our environment or the stress placed on our bodies… dealing with addiction… healing from abuse and other forms of harm… mediating conflict without damaging our relationships and the larger collectives we rely on… resisting land theft… fighting for access to abortion and gender affirming care… stopping deportations and genocidal wars… regenerating ecosystems… surviving the ecological crisis…

The economy stops when we make it stop. And we make it stop when we acknowledge that it’s killing us or killing those we care about.

I think it’s just as important to emphasize that what we’re developing—in some cases ancestral methods, in other cases newer innovations, but generally anarchic—aren’t alternatives. They’re not alternatives because no one within mainstream politics actually has a viable plan for addressing these problems.

The Right is actively stigmatizing and attacking trans people, stealing power and resources from pregnant people, defunding healthcare, allowing even more poisons into our air, water, and food, criminalizing addiction while spreading the conditions that make addiction inevitable (and in the case of the major addictive drugs, selling it themselves (alcohol), permitting major corporations to make a killing off it (opioids), and with heroin or cocaine funding and training organizations or states that profit off the trade and in at least a couple cases that we know of involving the CIA, the DEA, and numerous police departments, doing the selling themselves for their own profit, to raise dark money that goes to arming death squads, or as part of a counterinsurgency strategy intended to harm racialized and lower class communities that are often a base of revolutionary movements). They exult in terrorizing immigrant communities with deportation raids, in stealing Indigenous land, in pumping oil and gas.

As for the Left, the Center has amply demonstrated that they have the Left on a tight leash. In the US and most other countries with center/left governments, they haven’t effectively stood up for trans people, deportations and border deaths continue to rise, new gas and oil projects flourish, and greenhouse gas emissions are going up. At the very best, the Center and Left accomplish legal reforms. In fact this is how they define victory: by getting a new law or policy passed. It would be fairly accurate to say that the main difference between the Left and anarchists or traditional Indigenous peoples is that the Left wants to validate and improve the State whereas the rest of us have the history to know how naïve (or dishonest and self-serving) that proposition is.

I’m actually not as dogmatic as I probably come across. For example I think people who are working to get certain changes in policy or law—as long as they’re not snitching or selling out others—are doing potentially useful work. But most of the actual force that causes changes in policy or law almost always come from the same radical movements that NGO directors and progressive politicians throw under the bus.

And anyone who works for policy reform is putting us in harm’s way if they spread the idea that laws keep us safe. A law change is a temporary victory at best, because we don’t control the law. The law does not belong to us, it’s not our tool. In fact it’s a weapon that was designed to hurt us.

It takes so much blood, sweat, and tears to win a change in the law, but when the political winds change, they can take it away with a snap of their fingers.

So who actually keeps us safe? We do.

Sylvia.

It’s direct action, sabotage, blockades, marches, encampments, and prayer ceremonies that stop gas pipelines or oil wells from being built (together with all the legal support, the self-defense trainings, the group facilitation, the cooking, the care, the education, the storytelling, and the healing that those other actions need in order to flourish).

It’s the smashing of banks, the stomping of cops, the illegal seizure of urban space for memorials, and the burning down of police stations that force an entire society to acknowledge the nature of the police, the white supremacy and the hatred of the poor that exist at its very heart.

It’s networks of nurses and witches and thieves and friends who maintain access to abortions or gender affirming care whether it’s legal or illegal.

Heroes.

It’s wild and crazy queers with tasers and guns, people who know how to collect and share information about far Right paramilitaries, friends who will set up fundraisers at the drop of a hat or help you move or give you a shoulder to cry on, who create some measure of safety against transphobia and homophobia.

All of these methods are necessary for self-defense and survival. That means they are valid, no matter what the law says.

Our resistance isn’t strong enough yet, not by a long shot, but it will grow stronger the more people admit that we are fighting for our lives.

If people offer constructive criticism, if their point of departure is that everyone’s survival is at stake, that’s good. We need criticism to get better at what we do. But our basic methodology is solid: direct action, mutual aid, solidarity, voluntary association, decentralized resistance, and no trust for any of the institutions that have profited off these oppressions.

Those who claim such methods are irresponsible, unrealistic, or unnecessary are either saying we should just learn to live side by side with the forces and institutions that don’t even recognize our right to survival, or they’re selling a method that’s already proven not to work.

Please, spread this. It really is revolution or death. There is no other plan on the table. The Right and the Center are actively trying to kill us, and the Left is hoping we forget about the past so they can gain power again and fuck it up one more time.

What do we do? Stand up, fight back.

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I got an article published this week in Belt Magazine, “Turtle Lake”. It’s about patriarchy, colonialism, and a little lake near here. It’s a hard one.

Next week I should have an article out about imagining an ecological revolution. Keep your eyes open.

I’m giving book talks in Pittsburgh on February 7 (at The Big Idea), Milwaukee on February 17 (at Lion’s Tooth), Madison on February 19, Indianapolis on February 20, Bloomington on February 21. Stop by if you’re in those parts. Bring a friend.

Here’s an interview with a couple anarchists in Syria, about resistance there. It’s in Spanish, then English. Share please! https://www.regeneracionlibertaria.org/2024/12/23/entrevista-a-lucha-anarquista-sobre-la-situacion-en-siria/

“The Militia and the Mole” an in-depth article on how a freelance researcher infiltrated far Right militias over a period of years, discovering their connections with high-ranking cops and government prosecutors.

Finally, I wanted to include two things from the last newsletter, just to get some additional support:

*As the future of Syria hangs in the balance, it’s important to remember the Syrian revolution and to remember Omar Aziz, the Syrian anarchist murdered by the Assad regime and one of the most influential organizers of the decentralized network of free towns and cities, involving hundreds of thousands of people holding out for over five years despite the onslaught of Assad’s brutal army and the Islamic fundamentalists of ISIL. Many participants in this uprising were killed, many fled, and many were able to survive inside Syria. As some of the exiles return, as prisoners are released, and as the dead are remembered, it’s vital for people all over the world to support them. There’s a special commemoration on February 16 to Remember the Revolution, Remember Omar Aziz. The site is in English and Arabic. There’s a book you can download and a call-out for events around the world to remember the Syrian revolution and support its remembrance and its revival! Please check it out and help spread it! Anyone have a group or a social center to organize something on the 16^th? A print shop or an unguarded printer at your job to print out DIY copies of the book? Go for it!

*A friend recommended this mutual aid fundraiser for anyone who wants to contribute funds to help people in LA survive and recover: https://hcb.hackclub.com/donations/start/malan