Judge Slaps Down an SPLC Hit Man

January 25, 2014   AFP

• Judge orders leftist group to pay $50K

By Pete Papaherakles

For years, organizations like the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) and the Anti-Defamation League have gotten away with harassing, smearing, suing, threatening and generally irritating prominent patriotic and free speech groups and individuals in the United States. That all changed in January, though, when an American Indian sued one of these groups and won after the conference he was scheduled to speak at was forced to shut down due to threats.

The lawsuit stemmed from an incident in February 2010, when One People’s Project (OPP), founded by Daryle Lamont Jenkins in 2000, targeted a conference set up by the New Century Foundation in North Carolina. After receiving considerable pressure as well as threats, the hotel was forced to cancel because so-called “white racists” and “bigots” were meeting there.

David Yeagley was one of the scheduled speakers. Although Yeagley is a Comanche Indian, he has very strong nationalist convictions and is a fierce advocate for the right of whites to defend their own interests. A true American patriot with multiple master’s degrees and a long list of achievements, he has been called the “American Indian Leonardo DaVinci.” Yeagley took it upon himself to file a lawsuit against  OPP and finally succeeded in getting justice in an Oklahoma court—amounting to a $50K judgment against OPP.

Over the years, OPP has targeted groups such as AMERICAN FREE PRESS, the Council of Conservative Citizens and even prominent revisionists like historian David Irving. OPP is supported by Morris Dees’s SPLC, which has reaped hundreds of millions of dollars by instigating racial tensions and capitalizing on the exploitation of alleged victims of racism.

Jenkins, an obviously self-indulgent man with secretive funding, directs small groups of young, unemployed leftists with too much time on their hands. He operates OPP’s website, which publishes phone numbers, home addresses and workplace addresses of individuals  OPP has targeted and slandered as being far right or racist.

This writer has also been a victim of OPP’s harassment. In 2009 Canadian free speech activist Paul Fromm spoke to a small gathering at my home. Members of OPP placed fliers throughout the neighborhood with my name, address and pictures of hooded Klansmen, misinforming them that a Klan meeting was taking place at my house.

The local media was even contacted, and the event made the evening news as a half-dozen disheveled demonstrators with signs protesting racism marched in front of my house.

Craig FitzGerald NATA interviewed by Dutch Zine Green Nationalist

From Green Nationalist

Can you please introduce yourselves for our Dutch readers?

My name is Craig FitzGerald, I am a spokesperson and co-founder of the National Anarchist Tribal Alliance of New York (NATA-NY).

How and against which back round NATA was founded?

NATA was founded in late 2010.  We organized as an alliance of anarchists of all hyphenations, along with libertarians and nationalists disenchanted by elections and political parties. Over fifteen years of on-and-off involvement with the anarchist movement in the NYC area left me very disillusioned. This was due mainly to constant infighting, denunciation of those who dissent or disagree, and a tendency to embrace leftwing and statist pet causes.  NATA was formed as an alternative to an anarchist movement that had become stale, reactionary, dogmatic and even statist.

You call yourselves NA what exactly is National Anarchism?

The “nation” in National Anarchism (NA) does not refer to a government, state, or arbitrary borders. The word nation comes from the Latin Natiowhich literally translates as "that which has been born." NA is essentially Pan Anarchism or anarcho-pluralism.   Anarchism in general can never be a one-size-fits-all label that means the same thing to everyone; the philosophy’s very nature requires heterogeneity.  Unlike the dogmatic, utopian, universal egalitarianism of many anarchists, NA is a realistic and pragmatic approach to the differences in opinion among anarchists.  I believe that NA has the potential to be a large umbrella under which numerous groups could identify; it can philosophically unite diverse hyphenated anarchists with one another, and with other anti-statist groups. This is because the people/community are the nation, not the state.

What would a National anarchist society look like?

A National Anarchist society would be extremely diverse,  seeing that the very nature and essence of NA is that each community has every right to self-determination.  This could manifest as a planned communist economy, a laissez-faire free market, a religious or racially separatist enclave, an environmentalist eco-tribe, or anything else. 

What are your most important source of inspiration?

My wife Jamie and other members of NATA are my greatest source of inspiration. That being said, I find great inspiration in the writing and work of Josiah Warren, Henry David Thoreau, Max Stirner, Benjamin Tucker, Gustav Lauder, Friedrich Nietzsche, Ricardo Flores Magon, Karl Hess, Richard Hunt, Ashanti Alston, Hakim Bey, the EZLN and many others.

How do you put your ideas into practice? What kind of activism are you engaged in & what kind of projects did you realize?

  

NATA and I are involved with a wide range of activities including homesteading, permaculture and organic farming, urban gardening, beekeeping, community organizing, intentional communities, alternative currencies, etc.  NATA has been involved with a variety of movements.  We support gun rights, antiwar efforts, 911 truth, an end to the Federal Reserve, Cannabis legalization, and Occupy Wall Street (OWS), among other movements. We have hosted film screenings, poetry readings and lectures, and provided much needed supplies to NYC’s homeless.

 and confronted “antifa” on multiple occasions.

How are your relations with the anarchist and nationalist scenes in general? 

 Do you cooperate with any other organizations, collectives or political parties/movements?

Despite opposition by some so-called “anarchists,” NATA has many allies in the greater anarchist and OWS movements. Those who have open minds and do not blindly believe the smear campaign “antifa” has levied against us continue to work with and support NATA. We also have many allies amongst populist/libertarian nationalists. Whether anarchist or nationalist, left or right, we put our differences aside and focus on working together on what we do agree upon: local autonomy and individual autarchy. NATA’s members continue to collaborate with groups as diverse as We Are Change, Occupy Wall Street, Earth First, the Libertarian Party and others.

Does Ecology have a role in your opinions, and so how?

Ecology absolutely has a role in NATA’s outlook.  We try as much as possible to be involved with and promote a culture of small scale  organic family farms and intentional communities.  Because the natural environment plays such a central role in all of our lives, it should be a local focus for moving forward in a decentralized world.  If individual communities can learn how to ecologically protect and nurture their land, the earth will benefit much more than if people continue to rely on governments and large NGO’s to “save” or “protect” the environment, especially when these institutions are in league with polluting corporations.  Not only that, but we need food to live, and our sustenance comes from the land.  We should not only be working the land to survive, but also to reestablish the harmonious relationship humanity used to have with the earth.

Can you tell us about the current situation in your country?

The experiment in American federal republicanism has failed and the U.S. has become the empire she unified to fight against.  The only ones who benefit are a plutocratic oligarchy. I won’t go into depth about the power elite’s exploitation of the people, whether political, corporate, etc.  The U.S. can be considered “the belly of the beast” in many ways, but it is also the birthplace of a lot of real resistance.  In my experience a lot of people are waking up to the reality that this country is not what it should be, and are asking themselves what they can do to make a difference.  I have seen a wide variety of people decide to get involved with activist movements, even when they previously had negative or indifferent opinions of such groups.

What are your views on Sub/counter cultures?

Any culture can be a sub/counter culture depending on what the dominant culture is.  It really about context—what is and is not status quo.  As a person who grew up as a part of various NYC subcultures, I can see their worth.  This is mostly because subcultures tend to form small, close-knit social groups, which is in line with NATA’s tribal anarchism.  Also, sub/counter culture can attack the system in a more subtle and indirect way, by building something free from the ground up.

Last comments to Dutch readers?

Please consider secession (from the UN, the EU, NATO, and even the Netherlands) as a practical means of achieving your goals and dismantling the global Anglo American Zionist Empire.

BBC nerds visit Chiapas two decades after the EZLN's rebellion, and provide no new insight on the Zapatista Movement

 

Struggling on: Zapatistas 20 years after the uprising

By Will Grant BBC Mundo, San Cristobal de las Casas 

The EZLN's charismatic leader with his pipe and balaclava soon became iconic for the indigenous struggle

There is a single bullet-hole in a banister on the second floor of the municipal palace in the southern Mexican city of San Cristobal de las Casas.

It is all that remains of events on New Year's Day 1994, when armed rebels stormed the building and caught the colonial city off guard.

But it was not just the mayor's office that was taken by surprise. The military and the federal government were, too.

There had been rumours for some weeks that the disparate indigenous groups in the region had been organising to form a rebel army.

Now, in a matter of hours, the EZLN, better known as the Zapatistas, took control of much of the southern state of Chiapas.

The fighting was short-lived as the army was sent in to restore order. Less than two weeks later, the Catholic Church negotiated a shaky ceasefire.

Basic demands

"In Mexico there is no justice. The government is completely deaf: they don't want to hear or listen." -Antonio Vazquez, Indigenous community leader

"These are all the newspapers from the time", says Concepcion Villafuerte directing me towards several boxes marked 1993-6.

Inside are stack upon stack of jumbled copies of El Tiempo, the left-wing publication she ran for many years with her husband.

After some searching we discover the edition closest to the date of the guerrilla uprising.

Hers was the newspaper in which the Zapatistas chose to publish their demands.

"The first six were very basic: land, a home, food, health, education and work," Ms Villafuerte
 recalls.

 

 

"The others were more general, for all of Mexico: justice, democracy and freedom. They were basic needs for everyone, for all poor people, not just Indians."

I ask her how many of those aims she thought had been achieved 20 years on.

"By the EZLN, none of them," she remarks grimly. "But then, nor have they been achieved by other Mexicans."

"We have a greater economic crisis today than in '94. And it's not just an economic crisis, it's [a crisis] in education, in healthcare."

Since the fighting ended, she explains, the Zapatistas have created their own autonomous municipalities, called caracoles, which are independent of local government on land they took back from large land-owners in the 1990s.

"I think the Zapatistas are better off than we are," Ms Villafuerte adds.

Rebel communities

After several days of petitioning, we were granted exclusive access to one such Zapatista municipality called Oventic, located just outside of San Cristobal.

The people of Oventic remain deeply wary of outsiders. Our guide, his face covered by a black balaclava, refused to tell us his name and only answered our questions in basic, monosyllabic Spanish.

 

Residents of Oventic remain deeply suspicious of outsiders

 

We were not permitted to film anyone without their balaclava on and the collective leadership, known as a Good Government Junta, would not talk on camera.

However, we did get a glimpse of how these secretive and closed communities are run.

We saw their new school, daubed with pro-EZLN graffiti and images of Che Guevara and the Zapatista leader, Subcomandante Marcos.

 

Oventic has its own small health clinic

 

Its school is emblazoned with Zapatista mottos and imagery

 

The residents have their own healthcare clinic and several second-hand ambulances.
Women have a much more equal role in decision-making than in other indigenous or rural communities.

In the fields, the men work to produce coffee, maize, chilli and beans. Some crops are sold to generate funds for the community, but mainly they are for consumption by the cooperative.

The Zapatistas ask for no help from the state, and are generally left to their own devices in return.

At one point, I peeled away for a moment to chat to some young people playing basketball.

That was enough to bring our visit to an abrupt end as our guide quickly led us back to the main gates.

'Just demands'

But a little further into the Chiapas countryside, we met an indigenous community who were keen to talk.

 

Almost 50 people were killed by paramilitaries in Acteal in 1997

 

Residents of the small village of Acteal set up an indigenous rights group called "Los Abejas" in the early 1990s. They agreed with the Zapatistas' basic demands, but did not support their use of violence.

Despite that crucial distinction, scores of paramilitaries entered Acteal in December 1997 and massacred 47 unarmed people, including children and pregnant women.

Elias Gomez lost seven family members in the attack, including his brother and his father. He showed us the site where the violence took place, which the villagers are turning it into a permanent memorial.

"When the Zapatistas rose up, we supported them because their demands were just," says community leader, Antonio Vazquez.

"It's what the people want, demand and cry for. In Mexico there is no justice. The government is completely deaf: they don't want to hear or listen."

 

 Residents of Acteal are proud of their indigenous traditions

The governing party, both in San Cristobal and at the federal level, is the same today as it was in 1994: the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI).

"The PRI now has more of a social conscience", says San Cristobal Mayor Francisco Martinez, insisting that the state has invested heavily in indigenous communities.

But the levels of poverty and marginalisation in Chiapas are among the highest in Mexico, particularly for indigenous peoples, who make up roughly 65% of the local population.

But these days, although they nominally remain at war with the Mexican state, the rebels' struggle is more ideological than armed in nature.

 

Subcomandante Marcos now takes to the airwaves rather than call to arms

 

Whatever they may or may not have achieved in the two decades since their uprising, few would disagree that the Zapatista rebellion has irrevocably shifted the relationship between the authorities and the indigenous population in Chiapas.

It is a sentiment neatly summed up by the sign at the entrance to Oventic: "You are in Zapatista territory in rebellion: here the people rule and the government must obey."

BLACK CROWN & BLACK ROSE Anarcho-Monarchism & Anarcho-Mysticism

By Hakim Bey

IN SLEEP WE DREAM of only two forms of government--anarchy & monarchy. Primordial root consciousness understands no politics & never plays fair. A democratic dream? a socialist dream? Impossible.
Whether my REMs bring verdical near-prophetic visions or mere Viennese wish-fulfillment, only kings & wild people populate my night. Monads & nomads.

Pallid day (when nothing shines by its own light) slinks & insinuates & suggests that we compromise with a sad & lackluster reality. But in dream we are never ruled except by love or sorcery, which are the skills of chaotes & sultans.
Among a people who cannot create or play, but can only work, artists also know no choice but anarchy & monarchy. Like the dreamer, they must possess & do possess their own perceptions, & for this they must sacrifice the merely social to a "tyrannical Muse." Art dies when treated "fairly." It must enjoy a caveman's wildness or else have its mouth filled with gold by some prince. Bureaucrats & sales personnel poison it, professors chew it up, & philosophers spit it out. Art is a kind of byzantine barbarity fit only for nobles & heathens. If you had known the sweetness of life as a poet in the reign of some venal, corrupt, decadent, ineffective & ridiculous Pasha or Emir, some Qajar shah, some King Farouk, some Queen of Persia, you would know that this is what every anarchist must want. How they loved poems & paintings, those dead luxurious fools, how they absorbed all roses & cool breezes, tulips & lutes! Hate their cruelty & caprice, yes--but at least they were human. The bureaucrats, however, who smear the walls of the mind with odorless filth--so kind, so gemutlich--who pollute the inner air with numbness--they're not even worthy of hate. They scarcely exist outside the bloodless Ideas they serve.
And besides: the dreamer, the artist, the anarchist--do they not share some tinge of cruel caprice with the most outrageous of moghuls? Can genuine life occur without some folly, some excess, some bouts of Heraclitan "strife"? We do not rule--but we cannot & will not be ruled.

In Russia the Narodnik-Anarchists would sometimes forge a ukase or manifesto in the name of the Czar; in it the Autocrat would complain that greedy lords & unfeeling officials had sealed him in his palace & cut him off from his beloved people. He would proclaim the end of serfdom & call on peasants & workers to rise in His Name against the government.
Several times this ploy actually succeeded in sparking revolts. Why? Because the single absolute ruler acts metaphorically as a mirror for the unique and utter absoluteness of the self. Each peasant looked into this glassy legend & beheld his or her own freedom--an illusion, but one that borrowed its magic from the logic of the dream.

A similar myth must have inspired the 17th century Ranters & Antinomians & Fifth Monarchy Men who flocked to the Jacobite standard with its erudite cabals & bloodproud conspiracies. The radical mystics were betrayed first by Cromwell & then by the Restoration--why not, finally, join with flippant cavaliers & foppish counts, with Rosicrucians & Scottish Rite Masons, to place an occult messiah on Albion's throne?

Among a people who cannot conceive human society without a monarch, the desires of radicals may be expressed in monarchical terms. Among a people who cannot conceive human existence without a religion, radical desires may speak the language of heresy.
Taoism rejected the whole of Confucian bureaucracy but retained the image of the Emperor-Sage, who would sit silent on his throne facing a propitious direction, doing absolutely nothing. In Islam the Ismailis took the idea of the Imam of the Prophet's Household & metamorphosed it into the Imam-of- one's-own-being, the perfected self who is beyond all Law & rule, who is atoned with the One. And this doctrine led them into revolt against Islam, to terror & assassination in the name of pure esoteric self-liberation & total realization.

Classical 19th century anarchism defined itself in the struggle against crown & church, & therefore on the waking level it considered itself egalitarian & atheist. This rhetoric however obscures what really happens: the "king" becomes the "anarchist," the "priest" a "heretic." In this strange duet of mutability the politician, the democrat, the socialist, the rational ideologue can find no place; they are deaf to the music & lack all sense of rhythm. Terrorist & monarch are archetypes; these others are mere functionaries.

Once anarch & king clutched each other's throats & waltzed a totentanz--a splendid battle. Now, however, both are relegated to history's trashbin--has-beens, curiosities of a leisurely & more cultivated past. They whirl around so fast that they seem to meld together...can they somehow have become one thing, a Siamese twin, a Janus, a freakish unity? "The sleep of Reason..." ah! most desirable & desirous monsters!

Ontological Anarchy proclaims flatly, bluntly, & almost brainlessly: yes, the two are now one. As a single entity the anarch/king now is reborn; each of us the ruler of our own flesh, our own creations--and as much of everything else as we can grab & hold.
Our actions are justified by fiat & our relations are shaped by treaties with other autarchs. We make the law for our own domains--& the chains of the law have been broken. At present perhaps we survive as mere Pretenders--but even so we may seize a few instants, a few square feet of reality over which to impose our absolute will, our royaume. L'etat, c'est moi.
If we are bound by any ethic or morality it must be one which we ourselves have imagined, fabulously more exalted & more liberating than the "moralic acid" of puritans & humanists. "Ye are as gods"--"Thou art That."
The words monarchism & mysticism are used here in part simply pour epater those egalito-atheist anarchists who react with pious horror to any mention of pomp or superstition-mongering. No champagne revolutions for them!

Our brand of anti-authoritarianism, however, thrives on baroque paradox; it favors states of consciousness, emotion & aesthetics over all petrified ideologies & dogma; it embraces multitudes & relishes contradictions. Ontological Anarchy is a hobgoblin for BIG minds. The translation of the title (& key term) of Max Stirner's magnum opus as The Ego & Its Own has led to a subtle misinterpretation of "individualism." The English-Latin word ego comes freighted & weighed with freudian & protestant baggage. A careful reading of Stirner suggests that The Unique & His Own-ness would better reflect his intentions, given that he never defines the ego in opposition to libido or id, or in opposition to "soul" or "spirit." The Unique (der Einzige) might best be construed simply as the individual self. Stirner commits no metaphysics, yet bestows on the Unique a certain absoluteness. In what way then does this Einzigediffer from the Self of Advaita Vedanta? Tat tvam asi: Thou (individual Self) art That (absolute Self).

Many believe that mysticism "dissolves the ego." Rubbish. Only death does that (or such at least is our Sadducean assumption). Nor does mysticism destroy the "carnal" or "animal" self--which would also amount to suicide. What mysticism really tries to surmount is false consciousness, illusion, Consensus Reality, & all the failures of self that accompany these ills. True mysticism creates a "self at peace," a self with power. The highest task of metaphysics (accomplished for example by Ibn Arabi, Boehme, Ramana Maharshi) is in a sense to self-destruct, to identify metaphysical & physical, transcendent & immanent, as ONE. Certain radical monists have pushed this doctrine far beyond mere pantheism or religious mysticism. An apprehension of the immanent oneness of being inspires certain antinomian heresies (the Ranters, the Assassins) whom we consider our ancestors.
Stirner himself seems deaf to the possible spiritual resonances of Individualism--& in this he belongs to the 19th century: born long after the deliquescence of Christendom, but long before the discovery of the Orient & of the hidden illuminist tradition in Western alchemy, revolutionary heresy & occult activism. Stirner quite correctly despised what he knew as "mysticism," a mere pietistic sentimentality based on self-abnegation & world hatred. Nietzsche nailed down the lid on "God" a few years later. Since then, who has dared to suggest that Individualism & mysticism might be reconciled & synthesized?

The missing ingredient in Stirner (Nietzsche comes closer) is a working concept of nonordinary consciousness. The realization of the unique self (or ubermensch) must reverberate & expand like waves or spirals or music to embrace direct experience or intuitive perception of the uniqueness of reality itself. This realization engulfs & erases all duality, dichotomy, & dialectic. It carries with itself, like an electric charge, an intense & wordless sense of value: it "divinizes" the self.
Being/consciousness/bliss (satchitananda) cannot be dismissed as merely another Stirnerian "spook" or "wheel in the head." It invokes no exclusively transcendent principle for which the Einzige must sacrifice his/her own-ness. It simply states that intense awareness of existence itself results in "bliss"--or in less loaded language, "valuative consciousness." The goal of the Unique after all is to possess everything; the radical monist attains this by identifying self with perception, like the Chinese inkbrush painter who "becomes the bamboo," so that "it paints itself."

Despite mysterious hints Stirner drops about a "union of Unique-ones" & despite Nietzsche's eternal "Yea" & exaltation of life, their Individualism seems somehow shaped by a certain coldness toward the other. In part they cultivated a bracing, cleansing chilliness against the warm suffocation of 19th century sentimentality & altruism; in part they simply despised what someone (Mencken?) called "Homo Boobensis."
And yet, reading behind & beneath the layer of ice, we uncover traces of a fiery doctrine--what Gaston Bachelard might have called "a Poetics of the Other." The Einzige'srelation with the Other cannot be defined or limited by any institution or idea. And yet clearly, however paradoxically, the Unique depends for completeness on the Other, & cannot & will not be realized in any bitter isolation.

The examples of "wolf children" or enfants sauvagessuggest that a human infant deprived of human company for too long will never attain conscious humanity--will never acquire language. The Wild Child perhaps provides a poetic metaphor for the Unique-one--and yet simultaneously marks the precise point where Unique & Other must meet, coalesce, unify--or else fail to attain & possess all of which they are capable.
The Other mirrors the Self--the Other is our witness. The Other completes the Self--the Other gives us the key to the perception of oneness-of-being. When we speak of being & consciousness, we point to the Self; when we speak of bliss we implicate the Other.
The acquisition of language falls under the sign of Eros-- all communication is essentially erotic, all relations are erotic. Avicenna & Dante claimed that love moves the very stars & planets in their courses--the Rg Veda & Hesiod's Theogony both proclaim Love the first god born after Chaos. Affections, affinities, aesthetic perceptions, beautiful creations, conviviality--all the most precious possessions of the Unique-one arise from the conjunction of Self & Other in the constellation of Desire.

Here again the project begun by Individualism can be evolved & revivified by a graft with mysticism--specifically with tantra. As an esoteric technique divorced from orthodox Hinduism, tantra provides a symbolic framework ("Net of Jewels") for the identification of sexual pleasure & non- ordinary consciousness. All antinomian sects have contained some "tantrik" aspect, from the families of Love & Free Brethren & Adamites of Europe to the pederast sufis of Persia to the Taoist alchemists of China. Even classical anarchism has enjoyed its tantrik moments: Fourier's Phalansteries; the "Mystical Anarchism" of G. Ivanov & other fin-de-siÉcle Russian symbolists; the incestuous erotism of Arzibashaev's Sanine; the weird combination of Nihilism & Kali-worship which inspired the Bengali Terrorist Party (to which my tantrik guru Sri Kamanaransan Biswas had the honor of belonging)...

We, however, propose a much deeper syncretism of anarchy & tantra than any of these. In fact, we simply suggest that Individual Anarchism & Radical Monism are to be considered henceforth one and the same movement.
This hybrid has been called "spiritual materialism," a term which burns up all metaphysics in the fire of oneness of spirit & matter. We also like "Ontological Anarchy" because it suggests that being itself remains in a state of "divine Chaos," of all-potentiality, of continual creation.
In this flux only the jiva mukti, or "liberated individual," is self-realized, and thus monarch or owner of his perceptions and relations. In this ceaseless flow only desire offers any principle of order, and thus the only possible society (as Fourier understood) is that of lovers.
Anarchism is dead, long live anarchy! We no longer need the baggage of revolutionary masochism or idealist self- sacrifice--or the frigidity of Individualism with its disdain for conviviality, of living together--or the vulgar superstitions of 19th century atheism, scientism, and progressism. All that dead weight! Frowsy proletarian suitcases, heavy bourgeois steamer-trunks, boring philosophical portmanteaux--over the side with them!

We want from these systems only their vitality, their life- forces, daring, intransigence, anger, heedlessness--their power, their shakti. Before we jettison the rubbish and the carpetbags, we'll rifle the luggage for billfolds, revolvers, jewels, drugs and other useful items--keep what we like and trash the rest. Why not? Are we priests of a cult, to croon over relics and mumble our martyrologies?
Monarchism too has something we want--a grace, an ease, a pride, a superabundance. We'll take these, and dump the woes of authority & torture in history's garbage bin. Mysticism has something we need--"self-overcoming," exalted awareness, reservoirs of psychic potency. These we will expropriate in the name of our insurrection--and leave the woes of morality & religion to rot & decompose.

As the Ranters used to say when greeting any "fellow creature"--from king to cut-purse--"Rejoice! All is ours!"

Police suspect anarchists in 60,000-euro post office robbery

The anti-terrorism squad was called in on Friday to investigate an armed robbery in the Peloponnese amid suspicion that self-styled anarchists may have been involved. At least four men are believed to have taken part in the robbery, during which 60,000 euros was stolen. Nobody was hurt in the incident.

from ekathimerini
The anti-terrorism squad was called in on Friday to investigate an armed robbery in the Peloponnese amid suspicion that self-styled anarchists may have been involved.
At least four men are believed to have taken part in the robbery, during which 60,000 euros was stolen. Nobody was hurt in the incident.
Two of the robbers, wearing masks, smashed their way into the post office at Vrachneika in Achaia shortly after a security guard dropped off the cash.
It is believed the men were armed with AK-47 assault rifles and spoke Greek without a foreign accent.
They made off in a stolen Nissan Sunny, which was found burned a short distance from the post office.
A police source told Kathimerini that the robbers’ modus operandi was similar to that used by anarchists in past raids.

Swiss Propose Basic Income Payment

 

By MARK ANDERSON

American Free Press

 A bold, unorthodox Swiss initiative has reached a striking new phase: On Oct. 4, Swiss activists dumped what were described as “8 million” 5-cent coins in the town square outside the parliament in Bern—to symbolize the financial well-being of Switzerland’s 8 million residents.

Those involved in Switzerland’s Unconditional Basic Income (UBI) ballot initiative poured a dump truck full of these shimmering coins onto the pavement to celebrate having surpassed the 100,000-signature requirement to eventually get the UBI on the ballot for Swiss voters to consider in their unique direct-democracy system.
While this initiative had about 40,000 signatures by the fall of 2012, one of Switzerland’s most influential monetary reformers, Francois de Siebenthal, informed this writer Sept. 30, 2013, that 116,000 signatures on petitions calling for a UBI vote had been certified as valid.
According to de Siebenthal, the UBI, if approved, would mean that the Swiss state would directly issue the equivalent of $2,800 US (2,500 Francs) per month — on a per-individual basis, not a per-household basis—to all Swiss citizens and legal residents in what appears to be the first nationwide proposal of its kind in human history.
This concept may strike some as odd—an unlikely libertarian-socialist hybrid, perhaps. As de Siebenthal and others behind the UBI see it, there is a large shortfall between the paltry purchasing power of the average citizen and the relative abundance of goods and services. That abundance is given an extra boost by the efficiency of automation. So, the tight money supply, as the thinking goes, must catch up with production, without people having to work for every cent—a bind which embeds the cost of providing salaries and wages into retail prices. That means that the more income is tied only to labor, the more things will cost.
That paradox creates a vicious cycle. How do we overcome it? Put some spending power into circulation outside the labor racket that becomes a guaranteed income, a societal dividend based on each person’s heritage as a citizen and his or her share in the natural resources of the earth, and in the cumulative wealth wrought by inventions and labor-saving devices.
This basic idea comes from “social credit,” which was brought forth most notably by a Scotsman, Clifford H. Douglas in the early 1900s. The Swiss UBI draws a little of its spirit from this school of thought that is making a comeback, though the Swiss proposal is not pure social credit as conceived.
Maybe human beings were not meant to be draft horses toiling their lives away on a global economic plantation. To improve things, the citizenry could create a commonwealth. As natural stakeholders in their nation’s abundance, there is some logic for them to have a foundational income without a “job” having to be the only means of acquiring purchasing power.
And as de Siebenthal also told this writer, Swiss UBI recipients could supplement that foundational income with standard employment income — mindful, however, that having their basic survival resting on much firmer ground allows them to pursue their life’s passions and the employment of their choice. Moreover, automation is seen as a liberator, not a job-stealer, because a UBI — a social dividend that could reduce or even replace welfare — should be paid to all inhabitants by birthright based on all production, including the automated kind.
Mr. de Siebenthal colorfully added: “We Swiss are all Kings, and the first duty of a King is to control the money creation, actually robbed by the bankers.” One hears echoes of the late Sen. Huey Long, the Louisiana “kingfish” who terrified the aristocracy with notions of commonwealth.
Mr. de Siebenthal explained: “The popular initiative for an unconditional basic income (UBI), which in the view of its supporters should be thought of as a civil right rather than social welfare, was launched in [April] 2012. It aims to have a new clause incorporated into the Swiss constitution that the Confederation ‘shall ensure the introduction of an unconditional basic income. The basic income shall enable the whole population to live in human dignity and participate in public life. The law shall particularly regulate the way in which the basic income is to be financed and the level at which it is set.’”
Put another way, a nation should issue its own public money directly, not borrow it into existence, at punishing interest, from predatory private bankers. That way, purchasing power and consumption can be increased, in approximate balance with production data, to buy what’s for sale and spur more production. That, in turn, creates sufficient jobs but also boosts automated manufacturing. The curse of full stores and empty wallets can, just maybe, be ended.
While the UBI proposal’s signatures were presented to the Swiss chancellery on Oct. 4 and the proposal could take at least two years to appear on the ballot, Switzerland’s voters just might be onto something here. Back in March, they already approved some of the world’s strictest controls on executive pay. And, since there’s more to life than shutdowns and debt ceilings, this latest money initiative deserves close observation.

Subcomandante Marcos and the Zapatista Movement: Land, Nationhood, and Autonomy

 This essay is included in the recently released NATIONAL-ANARCHISM: HEROES AND VILLAINS, edited by Troy Southgate and available from Black Front Press.

By Jamie O'Hara and Craig FitzGerald

In order for decentralized autonomy to flourish, independent communities must be internally cohesive. This tribal unity is the essence of nationalism, and indigenous groups have lived in accordance with the principle for millennia. However, people who are products of a globalized corporate state easily misunderstand this organicnationalism and therefore attack it. But this comes from the confusion of nations with states. The distinction between these two entities cannot be emphasized enough. Ward Churchill successfully expresses this difference, and the indigenous perspective within which he contextualizes his point only elucidates things further:

“One conflation of terms that...still seems to be plaguing the discourse, is the conflation of the term 'nation' and the term 'state.' ...A lot of anarchists [are] running around thinking they’re anti-nationalist, that nationality, nationalism in all forms, is necessarily some sort of an evil to be combated, when that’s exactly what they’re trying to create. You’ve got four or five thousand nations on the planet; you’ve got two hundred states. They’re using 'anti-nationalist' as a code word for being anti-statist. With indigenous peoples, nationality is an affirmative ideal, and it hasn’t got any similarity at all to state structures”. [1]

Something that has been intuitive for indigenous tribes throughout history is blocked from the consciousness of the rest of the world by schismatic mental constructs that exalt concepts and language over the nuances of practical reality. But not all radicals fall into this camp. Autonomous communities that have been influenced by indigenous methods of social organization are the best examples of sustainable independence. One of the most successful current examples of this is the Zapatista movement in Mexico, which syncretizes indigenous traditions and revolutionary political theory.

Chiapas was an ideal place for the Zapatista movement's birth. The Mayan ethnic groups who live there had for years experienced a de facto autonomy resulting from the government's neglect. [2] They also were self-organized according to their cultural values and customs. In 1983, three mestizos with backgrounds in the Mexican guerrilla group the National Liberation Forces arrived to the region and joined three indigenous people to found the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN in Spanish). One of those mestizos, known as Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos,had a very authoritarian approach to organizing the movement . However, he soon realized the necessity to include the indigenous villages who lived where he and his companeros planned to challenge the Mexican state. [3] Marcos explained to a group of young anarchists that he arrived feeling like the revolutionary vanguard, but later recognized the importance for all individuals to have a voice in the affairs of their homelands. [4] In another interview, Marcos describes this philosophical evolution:

...we learned that you can't impose a form of politics on the people because sooner or later you'll end up doing the same thing you criticized. You criticize a totalitarian system and then you offer another totalitarian system. You can't impose a political system by force. Before, they said 'let's get rid of this system of government and put in this other kind of system.' We say, 'no, the political system can't be the product of war.' The war should only be to open up space in the political arena so that the people can really have a choice. It doesn't matter who wins, it doesn't matter if it's the extreme right or the extreme left, as long as they earn the confidence of the people. [5]

Marcos learned that the methods of social organization used in these indigenous communities, including a horizontal decision making process, are ancient elements of Mayan culture. [6] By harmonizing his goals and methods with the local values and customs, Marcos evolved out of his totalitarian leftist dogmatism and deepened his understanding of the relationship between land, culture, nationhood and self-determination.

Since the Zapatista uprising in January 1994, [7] Subcomandante Marcos has been the subject of a disproportionate amount of media attention. To a certain degree, this makes sense—he is the group's spokesperson, and he possesses several traits (including a university education and eloquent language skills) that make him the ideal public relations representative. But at the same time, media outlets in Mexico and abroad were infatuated with Marcos and tended to neglect the majority of EZLN soldiers, the “humble and simple” [8] indigenous men and women who made the movement possible. Despite becoming somewhat of a celebrity, Marcos has consistently rejected a position of unilateral leadership. [9]

One example of this rejection is the Subcomandante's voluntary submission to the military hierarchy of the CCRI-CG (Clandestine Revolutionary Indigenous Committee – General Command). Similarly, in the EZLN's unarmed counterpart, the Other Campaign, [10] Marcos' title is “Delegate (or subdelegate) Zero.” The name, which was introduced in the context of Mexico's 2006 presidential election, accomplishes several things: it satirizes the candidates in the country's spotlight at the time, it communicates a sense of transcending political party conflicts, and it implies Marcos' own relative insignificance. This humility is not often seen in such influential political personas. It is important from an anarchist perspective because it demonstrates that leadership can be a fluid entity, and is not necessarily a question of absolute power. Rather than being inherently oppressive, true leadership is merely a manifestation of voluntary association. In an anarchist context, people can make a conscious decision to “follow” or support a certain individual for a particular purpose. Conversely, the “leader” also consciously chooses whether or not to assume responsibility and accountability to these supporters. Each side of the relationship is sovereign and can opt out of the situation altogether for any reason. This is the kind of leadership taken on by Marcos. The Zapatistas proclaim that they “command by obeying.”

Such reciprocal relationships among co-creators of communities (including within voluntary hierarchies like the EZLN) are a reflection of Mayan culture and spiritual worldview. This correspondence of political necessities and religious values also explains why land is so important from an indigenous perspective. “Tierra y Libertad!” was the slogan of the original Zapatista movement, and it continues to be a core value of the neo-Zapatistas. For indigenous people in Mexico and all over the world, land is more than a practical necessity. It is not merely the source of one's tangible livelihood; it is also the source of one's spiritual connection to the universe as a whole. Self-sufficiency that utilizes natural resources in harmony with the larger ecosystem is part of the process of fulfilling the destiny of humanity. Being indigenous or native to a particular piece of land adds a dimension of meaning to one's relationship with the earth and highlights the importance of local self-determination. People contribute to the symbiotic nature of the environment by playing unique, crucial roles in microcosmic bioregions. As Neyra P. Alvarado Solis explains in “Land and Indigenous Cosmovision,”

In Mexico today, there are officially fifty-six ethnic groups; within these can be found a linguistic and cultural variety which far exceeds that number. The cosmovision of each group expresses a regional and communal reality, elaborated through history. These are agrarian cultures where land is life, sustained by relationships with supernatural forces and nurtured in communal and familial rituals... [11]

Ethnic, linguistic, and cultural diversity are intrinsically connected to biological and natural diversity. There is value in the preservation of each life form, but there is also value in syncretism and diffusion, which are equally natural aspects of existence. Despite the fact that people inhabit different geographical areas with different flora, fauna, topography and aquatic systems, everyone has the same interdependent relationship with the earth, which we all need for survival. Consistent with Mayan religious symbol and myth, the Zapatistas use agrarian metaphors to describe their vision of conducting politics. In his closing speech to the National Indigenous Forum on January 9, 1996, Marcos says:

Brothers and sisters:

Each one has his own field, his own planting, but we all have the same village, although sometimes we speak different languages and wear different clothes. We invite each of you to plant your own plot and in your own way. We invite you to make of this forum a good tiller and make sure that everyone has seed and that the earth be well prepared. [12]

These words illustrate the cooperative relationship between diverse individual localities and the wider reality of the one earth we share. Such a relationship is not one of homogeneity or universalism, but complementarity in the sense that the infinite forms of matter in the universe co-create our experience. Zapatista identity extends outwardly into the macrocosm; their organization of “Intergalactic” activist meetings reflects this character.

For the Zapatista movement today (like that of the nineteenth century), nationhood is a flexible and layered concept. One's identification with the nation of Mexico does not preclude one's identification as indigenous, Maya, Chiapaneca, Tzotzil, female, elderly, and so on to the most microcosmic levels. In fact, these multiple nations are understood to constitute the essence of an autonomous world. As a result of this view, the rights of ethnic self-determination and cultural preservation are defended. Everyone is welcome, but the caracoles [13] do not have open door policies. Visitors must acquiesce to required application processes or have existing connections to individuals or groups with “Zapatista passports.” [14] This is an obvious necessity for security; the EZLN and the Other Campaign are aggressively targeted by the Mexican government and military.

According to Marcos, the Zapatistas believe that “Mexico should reconstruct the concept of nation.” [15] Despite the predominantly indigenous makeup of the Zapatista movement, and despite the EZLN's opposition to the Mexican state, the national identity of the Zapatistas as Mexican is upheld. This is criticized by many radicals, whose dogma makes it confusing to them. Why do the Zapatistas fly the Mexican flag above the black and red? Why do they employ constitutional arguments? Why are they willing to dialogue with the government? Why do they make national-chauvinistic comments like, “in no way will the EZLN's Sixth Committee accept any persons on their security team who are of any nationality other than Mexican”? [16] The answer is because, once again, the Zapatista conception of nationhood is a fluid one. It is malleable in the hands of each individual. Engaging a diversity of tactics in the struggle against such a pervasive oppression is not only pragmatic, but it indicates that the refusal to be limited by ideological schisms is the future of a decentralized, autonomous liberation movement.

Despite some anarchist and socialist nitpicking, [17] the Zapatistas have had great appeal because of their very defiance of political and ideological boxes. Scholars have remarked on this quality, [18] but Marcos himself captures the dynamic best by admitting guilt to a slew of charges from every possible angle. It is worth quoting at length:

The whites accuse him of being dark. Guilty.

The dark ones accuse him of being white. Guilty.

The authentic accuse him of being indigenous. Guilty.

The treasonous indigenous accuse him of being mestizo. Guilty.

The machos accuse him of being feminine. Guilty.

The feminists accuse him of being macho. Guilty.

The communists accuse him of being anarchist. Guilty.

The anarchists accuse him of being orthodox. Guilty.

The Anglos accuse him of being Chicano. Guilty.

The anti-Semites accuse him of being pro-Jews. Guilty.

The Jews accuse him of being pro-Arab. Guilty.

The Europeans accuse him of being Asiatic. Guilty.

The government officials accuse him of being an oppositionist. Guilty.

The reformists accuse him of being an extremist, a radical. Guilty.

The radicals accuse him of being reformist. Guilty.

The “historical vanguard” accuses him of appealing to the civic society and not to the proletariat. Guilty.

The civic society accuses him of disturbing their tranquility. Guilty.

The Stock Exchange accuses him of ruining their breakfast. Guilty.

The government accuses him of increasing the consumption of antacids by government agencies. Guilty.

The serious ones accuse him of being a jokester. Guilty.

The adults accuse him of being a child. Guilty.

The children accuse him of being an adult. Guilty.

The orthodox leftists accuse him of not condemning the homosexuals and lesbians. Guilty.

The theoreticians accuse him of being a practitioner. Guilty.

The practitioners accuse him of being a theorist. Guilty.

Everyone accuses him of everything bad that has happened. Guilty. [19]

This sentiment conveys a transcendence of dogma that is necessary for modern times. It also communicates a kind of lightheartedness that would benefit the radical political milieu. These accusations, as “true” as they all may be, cannot be taken too seriously. When people who believe in freedom and autonomy cease to argue with one another, they will have time to actually accomplish important things in their communities. It is important to be conscious of how we communicate and interact because the dynamic among diverse activists and tribes foreshadows the future without the state. This does not mean that everyone has to agree. The Zapatista vision encourages an endless range of different autonomies. The idea is to create “a world in which many worlds fit.” [20]

References

1. Churchill, Ward. Upping the Anti, No. 1.
2. Mattiace, Shannan L. “Mayan Utopias: Rethinking the State,” 188.
3. Higgins, Nicholas. “The Zapatista Uprising and the Poetics of Cultural Resistance.”
4. Weinberg, Bill. Homage to Chiapas, 197.
5. Subcomandante Marcos. Interview with Medea Benjamin, 61.
6. Subcomandante Marcos. “A Storm and a Prophecy: Chiapas: The Southeast in Two Winds,” 33. Aubry, Andres. “Autonomy in the San Andres Accords: Expression and Fulfillment of a New Federal Pact,” 225.
7. At midnight on New Years Day, the EZLN released the First Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle, in which they expressed their reasons for declaring war on the Mexican state. The EZLN seized several Chiapas locations, destroying military structures and liberating prisoners in San Cristobal de las Casas. Many books and articles have detailed these events, and Zapatista communiques were consistently issued. The First Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle is a good place to start.
8. EZLN. Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle.
9. Marcos has never appeared in public without wearing his mask. He explains that the mask is like a mirror. All individuals can look at his face and see themselves.
10. The EZLN is the miltary wing of the Zapatista movement. The Other Campaign, created in 2006, is a strictly civilian-oriented project aimed at facilitating autonomy for many different groups.
11. Alvarado Solis, Neyra P. “Land and Indigenous Cosmovision,” 127-8.
12. Subcomandante Marcos. Closing Words to the National Indigenous Forum (1996), 93.
13. Caracol, the Spanish word for snail shell, is a term the Zapatistas adopted to refer to their autonomous communities.
14. Aubry, Andres. “Autonomy in the San Andres Accords: Expression and Fulfillment of a New Federal Pact,” 229.
15. Subcomandante Marcos. “La entrevista insólita.” Proceso.
16. Subcomandante Marcos. “Subdelegado Zero on Security Issues.”
17. “The EZLN is not Anarchist: Or Struggles at the Margins and Revolutionary Solidarity.” Willful Disobedience.
18. Churchill, Ward. “A North American Indigenist View,” 154.
19. Subcomandante Marcos. “The Retreat is Making Us Almost Scratch the Sky,” 231.
20. EZLN. Fourth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle.

Works Cited

Alvarado Solis, Neyra P. “Land and Indigenous Cosmovision.” First World, Ha Ha Ha! The Zapatista Challenge. Katzenberger, Elaine, ed. San Francisco: City Lights, 1995.

Aubry, Andres. “Autonomy in the San Andres Accords: Expression and Fulfillment of a New Federal Pact.” Jan Rus, Rosalva Aída Hernández Castillo, and Shannan L. Mattiace, eds. Mayan Lives, Mayan Utopias: The Indigenous Peoples of Chiapas and the Zapatista Rebellion. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003.

Burguete Cal y Mayor, Araceli. “The de Facto Autonomous Process: New Jurisdictions and Parallel Governments in Rebellion.” Jan Rus, Rosalva Aída Hernández Castillo, and Shannan L. Mattiace, eds. Mayan Lives, Mayan Utopias: The Indigenous Peoples of Chiapas and the Zapatista Rebellion.Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003.

Churchill, Ward. “A North American Indigenist View.” First World, Ha Ha Ha! The Zapatista Challenge. Katzenberger, Elaine, ed. San Francisco: City Lights, 1995.

Churchill, Ward. “Indigenism, Anarchism, and the State: An Interview with Ward Churchill.” By Tom Keefer and Jerome Klassen. Upping the Anti, No. 1. http://uppingtheanti.org/journal/article/01-indigenism-anarchism-and-the-state/.

EZLN. First Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle. January 1994.

http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/mexico/ezln/ezlnwa.html.

EZLN. Fourth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle. January 1996.

http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/mexico/ezln/jung4.html.

EZLN. Sixth Declaration of the Lacandon Jungle. June 2005.

http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/sdsl-en/.

Higgins, Nicholas. “The Zapatista Uprising and the Poetics of Cultural Resistance.” Alternatives: Global, Local, Political. Vol. 25, Issue 3, Jul-Sep 2000.

Mattiace, Shannan L. “Mayan Utopias: Rethinking the State.” Jan Rus, Rosalva Aída Hernández Castillo, and Shannan L. Mattiace, eds. Mayan Lives, Mayan Utopias: The Indigenous Peoples of Chiapas and the Zapatista Rebellion.Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003.

Subcomandante Marcos. Closing Words to the National Indigenous Forum. (1996) Our Word is Our Weapon: Selected Writings of Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos. Ponce de Leon, Juana, ed. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2001.

Subcomandante Marcos. Conversations with Durito: Stories of the Zapatistas and Neoliberalism. Brooklyn: Autonomedia, 2005.

Subcomandante Marcos. “La entrevista insólita.” Proceso. 10 March, 2001. http://palabra.ezln.org.mx/comunicados/2001/2001_03_10_b.htm.

Subcomandante Marcos. “The Retreat is Making Us Almost Scratch the Sky.” (1995) Our Word is Our Weapon: Selected Writings of Subcomandante Insurgente Marcos. Ponce de Leon, Juana, ed. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2001.

Subcomandante Marcos. “Subdelegado Zero on Security Issues.” December 26, 2005. http://zaptranslations.blogspot.com/2005/12/subdelegado-zero-on-security-issues.html.

Weinberg, Bill. Homage to Chiapas: The New Indigenous Struggles in Mexico. New York: Verso, 2000.

Willful Disobedience, Vol. 2, No. 7. “The EZLN is not Anarchist: Or Struggles at the Margins and Revolutionary Solidarity.” 2001. http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/various-authors-willful-disobedience-volume-2-number-7#toc3.