Every moment in the forest, the desert, the meadow, and dune is deeply different from the last and from the next. But the subtle shifts and transitions each life makes remain largely imperceptible. Especially to those who need significant change to arouse their senses. Some speculate that humans were once more sensitive to subtle shifts in their environment that might indicate a need to do something differently. This is not difficult to imagine. Other animals – even plants – appear to have a more immediate awareness of impending danger and imminently desirable conditions, thus a less forced reaction, than I tend to. It’s amazing to watch a plant curve its leaves upward when sensing a coming rain when dry, bending downward when they’ve had enough. Turning east towards the sun at dawn, to the west near the end of day. I have often marveled at a bird of prey languishing on the shifting winds, the thermals that hold them aloft. Never beating a wing yet gliding endlessly to nowhere.

Change may be gradual or sudden, fluid or jarring, organic or directed, micro and macro, chaotic or ordered, cyclical or linear — though these words imply that life exists in binary states. This is the way modern humans seem to see things and I think we miss a lot of inbetweens. No matter which way change comes, it takes an accumulation of moments to notice it. Sometimes it takes many years worth of a look-back to see what is different and why.

I have gone through so many changes in my five decades, that at times, I barely recognize who I’ve been and where I’ve come from through all my wanderings. The accumulation of some changes are visible, even expected — my gnarling hands, the wrinkles around my eyes, the stiffness in my walk. But the most intense are invisible to others, though their impact on me is stunning. I have become “hypersensitive” to the high-tech world. Intolerant of petrochemicals, colognes, florescent lighting, mechanical hums, screaming engines. I get horrendous headaches, nausea, agitation, even an inexplicable rage when I spend much time around them. This is, of course, considered an abnormality, an “autoimmune” condition. But, I think I am more like the canary in the mine shaft, only a nomadic early warning.

Some changes have been most welcome. I can hear a long way off. Feel the breeze as striations of warm and cool, of soft and tingling threads instead of a single force. I have amazingly vivid memory-visions too now, almost as if seeing “my whole life pass before my very eyes”. I remember that the changes that brought me the most joy, that increased my well-being, were those I made when I listened to my gut and my heart at least as much as my mind and others’ advice. Ten years ago, my sight underwent an amazing change following a late night call from a doctor, telling me I had lymphoma. The next day when I stepped outside for an early morning, contemplative walk, trees had ceased to be blobs of brown and green in the distance. Then and now I see the fluttering of each individual leaf dancing in the breeze.

That doctor was wrong, a pattern that has repeated itself numerous times as specialists puzzle over what is going on inside me. Inside our biosphere. But I got the warning, and in listening, moved towards the simpler life away from the city I had always dreamed of. Without the things I had always thought were necessary – the illusory stability of a job, a “real” house with electricity, a computer, phone, and the like — I regained a modicum of health lost through years of overwork, over-stress, over-everything. Everything but what I really wanted — to run free as the wind. I began to need less and less of what I didn’t want, to have more and more of what I did. But a couple years ago, I went back, back into the thick of things, certain that I was healthy enough to join the fight against all the shit sickening me and those around me. Before it could fully invade my insular world. I missed something back then, it seems. Now, I am suffering again and am unclear what changes I need to make to get back to myself.

Obviously, filtering some of life’s chaos is critical to maintaining an equilibrium, otherwise we would have to be too much on guard. This must be one of the key aspects of adaptation/evolution and I don’t think our adjustments have ceased. Does this mean ‘hard-wired’ changes? I don’t know the answer to that and neither does anyone else. What I do know is that I find myself easily overstimulated when surrounded by the constant noisome, jarring changes that define civilized life. It is difficult enough to tune into the signals of the few dangers in the natural world — poison plant or snake, the rare bear or mountain lion, the buried water flow — how does one differentiate between useful, desirable, dangerous, neutral, etc. in the city when so much spins around at the same time? In my rare visits there, I have to consciously — at first anyway — turn down certain senses while amping up others to block out what I can, but still feel safe. This is why I avoid the city like the plague. So, I understand the ubiquity of the car stereo, the boombox, walkman, and now the ipod. The downers and uppers and mood controllers and clubs and bars and sports and gadgets…, all the endless entertainment possibilities that fill the empty spaces where work and obligation can be forgotten for a time. It makes a kind of civilized sense for people to embrace newer and more potent distractions. But just as certain is the difficulty that accompanies any attempt to give up those coping mechanisms. Even when we know deep inside, these changes are necessary to be stronger, healthier, more free. Radical change is hard, perhaps frightening. Most folks settle for merely a little different. For a newness that is mostly just more of the same. Yet we anarchists are audacious enough to ask — if not demand — enormous, unprecedented change from the entire world! Do we really wonder why so few are interested?

The worst possible scenario for those who want a wild human future is any sort of deterministic condition that keeps us in chains. If our brains or genes or psyche are now malformed and so crave the “comforts” of domesticated life, how can we imagine transforming into free creatures? If we need to wait until Science finds the solution to “fix” us, we are totally fucked! Scientists are not one iota concerned with helping humans move towards a free, more primal way of being. They are focused exactly where the System has needed them from the beginning: to continue refining the domestication process, designing better weapons, solving problems created with their previous experiments. To keep churning out theories and proofs, formulas and materials that convince us They are in the right when managing — if not controlling — the unruly, organic matter pressing against Their fragile order. To push predictability to the nth degree, often by keeping us guessing which direction to turn; unable to predict what change will be foisted on us next.

Humans are big animals. We have big needs, big desires, big ideas. It makes sense that our continuum was more nomadic than fixed. Sedentism has brought with it dangerous habits. We keep getting to that oh-so-familiar point where we’ve taken too much, for too long, and our environment begins to suffer enough to grab our attention. Of course, we suffer right along with it in our struggle to keep things together as weather, water, soil, animal and plant life become nonsupporting to human life. Some folks cope with consciousness-altering rituals or substances, but even that gets old and we need more… something. We get antsy, fight more with our families and friends. Ignoring the signs inside and out; warning us that things are sliding in a dangerous direction. Eventually (and the timing is quite variable depending on where and when) we begin to exert a pressure that can no longer be sustained without breaking something. Setting off the chain reaction that keeps on and on. And we have only so many options: do nothing, change our ways, change the environment, or move on for a time. Most humans choose to squeeze every last drop out — and then some — rather than make changes that might bring back a robust and healthy equilibrium. Interesting how this pattern is reflected in our friendships. With our loves.

What if that restlessness, that boredom, that need to get new things, are signals that something about your way of life is hurting you? Or might kill you — and everything you need around you – too quickly if you don’t change? Out of fear of the unknown, confusion about how to go about it, or futile resignation, might we be ignoring an inner voice that says “Move on for a while. Rest and heal yourself, but come back. At least to see if the places you came to know and love are also returned to health. Return, but with a lighter, more sensitive touch.”

I am going through The Change now. It is a critical time of my life, I think. The way in which I acknowledge and adapt to each new body alteration, mind warp, bizarre dreamscape is key to what my remaining days will be like. For if nothing else, this change is a reminder of the ultimate change — death. The impacts we have on each other – the earth beings around me and I — during this time are greater than ever before. Especially in the change-time called winter. I need to rip huge amounts of wood from the forest to stay warm and dry against the rains and snows that threaten to dissolve me. I need more help from others who have enough to do caring for themselves. I’ve known for a long time that I need to fly south before it turns too cold. But I have not been heeding the bone-deep aches of warning because it has become difficult to travel alone any more. And those I love most are content to stay put or have made choices that preclude a going.

The choices I’ve made in service to others’ ideals are haunting me — ‘if I had only known then what I know now’... I am increasingly difficult to be around. Irritable. Short tempered. Some even say arrogant and self-righteous at times. I wish they were wrong. I don’t know why I have so little patience these days. Perhaps it’s because I see the pain and too rapid breakdown of my body, my psyche, reflected in the devastation all around me. And so I push too hard against what I interpret as a stubborn resistance to thinking deeper and doing things in radically different ways. I am also not so polite or so accepting of others’ impositions as I was too much of my life. I am breaking free from as many remaining bonds as I can, that continue to entangle me, that keep me when I want to go. Before it’s too late. Sometimes those that care for me the most, hold me the tightest. Sometimes, the heaviest chain of all is love.

Have I turned my loathing of the mundane and predictable inward? Do I cling to an illusion of a different sort of haven, a more intuitive and chaotic stability? If the way I lived was itself an act of defiance, a revolt against all that is killing me long before my time, would I, could I feel more settled? I don’t know… but soon I think, a change is coming, a big one. I feel it in some deep, indescribable part of me. Will I be the agent of that change or its victim? I know this; it is for me to decide. Alone. Are my vivid dreams and flights of fancy — that have become my refuge, the mainstay of impassioned exploration and resistance — hints of what might soon be? I lost my fear of death a good while back, but I am so afraid of dying in resignation instead of rebellion.

If “re-connecting” and “re-wilding” are real desires and goals and not just a novelty of another sort, why aren’t we talking about and experimenting with ways to re-sensitize ourselves to the subtle indications that momentous change is coming or is necessary? To become our own curious scientists — more experiential and experimental. Sharing what we’ve learned for and about ourselves, without assigning good or bad, right and wrong to others’ choices. Even Science need not be wholly discarded. Yet. But why give it more weight than our own experiences and of those folks we know and trust? This means making one of the most difficult changes of all, tearing up one of civilization’s heartiest roots: the belief system that insists the ideas and proofs of others, particularly those set up as life’s authorities, are superior to anything we imagine, attempt, and experience ourselves. And that is a change, my friends, that few seem ready to make, no matter how rad they are. And so we linger in agitated comfort and watch our possibilities get swallowed up by the deterministic few.

In the world of my dreams, the chaotic winds cease being a single homogeneous force. They are known for what they really are: immeasurable individual entities traveling together. We would feel their temperature and motion as nuanced qualities that need no measurement. To enjoy their dance of many, that only appears as one. And, only for a time. We would hear again each moan and hum. Each wail resonating inside, through, and around us. So it would be with the rain. With our love. Free again. Free as the wind.

The Amor y Resistencia Collective (Love and Resistance) are sad to report that David Venegas, an activist with VOCAL (Oaxacan Voices Creating Liberty and Autonomy) has again been denied release and will continue imprisoned at Oaxaca’s central prison, Santa Marìa Ixcotel. It is important to remember that there are still prisoners from the Oaxaca uprising including autonomists and anarchists like David Venegas.

V.O.C.A.L. ACTIVIST DAVID VENEGAS DENIED FREEDOM AGAIN

On September 20, 2007, the Oaxaca state government authorities made yet another dirty move against our compañero David Venegas “El Alebrije”.

Just a few days before, the federal authorities had responded to the petition for a protective writ for David against the pre-trial detention order on charges of SEDITION, CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY, and ARSON, granting him a protective writ for the second time. He is due to be released,given that the federal authorities recognized that there was no legal basis for any of the three charges against him.

Yesterday, however, the day he should have been released, the authorities of the Ulises Ruíz government issued a new pre-trail detention order on reconfigured charges which are:

“Attacking a Thoroughfare, Resisting Arrest, Rebellion [!],
Aggravated Assault, and Crimes Against Public Officials.”

As a result, our compañero has not been released and is still unjustly held prisoner at Oaxaca’s central prison, Santa Marìa Ixcotel, when he should have already been released unconditionally.

IRON BARS CAN NOT SILENCE THE TRUTH! FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS!

Free David!

For more info check out amor y resistencia / love & resistance

A member of the editorial collective of El Libertario prepared this article for the 6th edition of the Costa Rican (A) journal La Libertad (September 2007; revistalalibertad.blogspot.com) in response to an inconsistent effort to establish impossible affinities between Chavism and Anarchism.

1) One of the successes of the inter-bourgeois confrontation that has been happening in Venezuela for almost a decade is the moving of the media polarization into an international space. This biased and infantilized point of view could well confuse some less awakened libertarian spirits. This indeed seems to be the case with the opinions voiced by companero Rogelio Cedeno in his text ‘Venezuela today: Realities and half truths’, published in # 5 of the Costa Rican journal La Libertad. Cedeno in a turnabout of intellectual prestidigitation asks for the social situation in Costa Rica precisely what he denies for that of Venezuela: a non-problematic and non-Manichean point of view. While, on the one hand, the Costa Rican movement opposed to the Free Trade Agreement is “…a wholly plural movement that breaks with the simplistic schema based upon the existence of a presumed polarization between left and right”, on the other hand, in Venezuela, the forces that are not aligned with the government represent, “…the brutal violence and cynicism of the forces of reaction”, that desperately yearn for a return to the days of the adeco-copeyan democracy. A strange business this…barely a paragraph earlier Cedeno had affirmed that, “visions in black and white are of little use to those of us who keep on thinking and struggling for a better world.” This very same horizon is shared by a constellation of revolutionary left-wing groups who, despite being made invisible by the propaganda of both the private sector and the state, reject the past as much as they do the present and continue, against the current, to struggle for a better future.

2) Cedeno reproduces the logic and history manufactured by the government in Caracas. Repeating the mythologizing excesses of Chavism, he locates the genesis of, “…the political and social dynamics of the end of the century,” and the, “…emergence of a revolutionary situation,” in Venezuela, in the attempts at a military coup led by Chavez himself in 1992. A simple glance at Venezuelan history would, as many diverse studies ratify, place the foundational stone of the current situation in the mid 80’s when, as a consequence of the economic crisis, a series of social movements catalyzed the discontent of the average citizen which in turn led to a brutal explosion during the occurrences of the ‘Caracazo’. During that February of 1989 a wave of popular protest reacted to the imposition of a package of neoliberal reforms. This social fabric expanded through various different dynamics, formally founding the first human rights organisations, networks of ecologists and women, student and neighbourhood associations, through employment conflicts and countercultural niches. This subjectivity and will for change is what Chavez capitalized on for his electoral victory. Venezuela thus confirms the words of Cornelius Castoriadis: Popular revolts in the Third World are always channelled and recuperated by a new bureaucracy.

3) Venezuelan anarchists reject the coup d’etat that occurred in April 2002, as we also repudiate those that happened ten years earlier. Similarly we have denounced the distortion and manipulation of the facts. This is a long and complex history, but here we will only refute the elements repeated by Cedeno. If it is indeed true that the president counted on a certain mobilization in his favour on the 11th April 2002, then quantitatively the demonstration against him was considerably larger. On the other hand, those that died belonged to both sides, not exclusively to the Chavez side as has been suggested- and the formation of a ‘Truth commission’, which would have examined the events in an impartial manner, was boycotted with the same impetus by members of the government and by the opposition. If the demonstrations of the 13th April and the morning of the 14th really were significant, they in no way “…stopped fascism”, nor “…contained the forces of reaction.” The coup against Chavez and his later return was negotiated across desktops by military officials, without a single mediative shot being fired between soldiers. The evidence is considerable, but due to lack of space we will present just one piece: no soldier was tried for their participation in the events.

4) The author examines the reasons why large sections of the popular classes profess support for the president. Some answers to this question can be found in the cultural nuances of the continent, which has catalyzed the appearance of various populists and strong men with widespread social support, such as Peron in Argentina and Trujillo in the Dominican Republic. The history of Venezuela is itself, a long succession of civil and military strongmen that counted on, in their time, the staunch support of the popular sectors of society: Juan Vicente Gómez, Marcos Perez Jimenez, Romulo Betancourt and Carlos Andres Perez. However, Cedeno, expanding the mystification of the state, prefers linear explanations of a metaphysical nature. A population that has been impoverished for decades projects its demands in a mass that is personified by the figure of Hugo Chavez, transforming him into the means by which the government can, “…respond to a series of demands and requirements…”

Let us concentrate on this issue, for the propaganda that surrounds social politics in Venezuela confuses local people much less than it does foreigners. Our country is experiencing one of its most significant economic booms of the last thirty years as a result of high oil prices. However, considering the wealth of resources available, the social policies that have been implemented, almost exclusively through the ‘missions’, are superficial and ineffective. It is not just we, the anarchists, who are pointing this out; this has been affirmed by NGO’s that monitor the human rights situation in the country. While we at the bottom receive the scraps from the feast of black gold, a new bureaucracy- nicknamed the ‘boliburguesía’ (contraction of Bolivarian bourgeoisie) – has appeared reinforcing the role that economic globalization has assigned to us: that of providing energy in a ‘secure and trustworthy way’ to the international marketplace. Leaving aside questions about the social and environmental consequences of this type of development, the President recently summed up in a phrase the project of the red elite in power: petro-socialism.

5) Independent of the restructuring of the State, the return of governability and the ‘democratic’ opening in Venezuela – all seriously damaged during the rioting of the Caracazo of 1989, and a bad example for other countries in the region -, is it possible to suggest that the Chavez phenomenon strengthens democratic and self-determining organisational processes? The National Executive has repeatedly imposed from above different and successive organisational models that have mortgaged the autonomy of the Chavista bases, eclipsing local leadership structures, electoralizing agendas and dynamics and imposing militarizing logic and a single party. ‘Participation’ is possible as long as its innocuous, ‘protaganism’ non-existant. There are interesting initiatives that exist in the grass roots structures of the Chavez project, but there exceptionality confirms the rule: In any given field, any initiatives are the exclusive property of the head of state. Examples abound, like the constitutional reform that is currently being discussed in absolute secrecy, or extraordinary powers such as the Ley Habilitante, which gives the president the ability to pass laws by decree. We shall refer to one of the lesser known examples. As a result of a mandate from above, Conarepol, a plural commission was charged with designing a new policing model for the country. To that end they conducted 70,000 consultations with different actors over the length and breadth of the country, including those communities affected by uniformed violence. The entire Conarepol projected was basketed over a single phrase, “…it’s a right-wing project”, and now a centralisation of the police forces has been decided through the Ley Habilitante.

In this part of the Caribbean we don’t suffer ‘deja vú’ for the CNT-FAI of 1936 nor do we allow ourselves to be confused by the re-semantization of demagoguery. Last year 402 prisoners, coming from the popular classes, died violently in the prisons of the ‘Bolivarian Revolution’. More than 60 leaders of trade union and neighbourhood groups were in court because of their participation in strikes, blockades and demonstrations to demand their rights. As Bakunin said, the people will not feel better to see that the club with which they’re beaten with bears their own name. We, the libertarian creoles, have assumed the attitudes of any consistent anarchist: to confront power and stand side by side with the oppressed, gathering together means and ends, constructing free spaces and refusing to be either victim or tyrant. We leave the ‘tactical alliances’ and ‘critical support’, the smokescreens and mirrors to the politicians, of whom there are so many in Venezuela today, fattening their egos and bank accounts, hallucinating a 21st Century socialism that is both military and imperialist by nature, with its epicentre in Caracas.

Neither Bush, Nor Chavez: Anti-Bush Protest. Rosario, Argentina

Well, it’s 1am and I just finished cooking some pasta before leaving for tomorrow’s protest in Jena, a 4 hour drive from New Orleans. For tomorrow, I am bringing some chips and salsa, and a bag of roasted peanuts to eat. All purchases bought at my college’s convenience store with the scholarship food money they supply to me for some reason. Why they want to fund the activities of an anarchist dedicated to the destruction of capitalism and the state? I have no idea. Maybe there’s some undercover anarchists running the college, but in any case, the people I’m driving up with will sure appreciate the chips. Thanks college.

My eyes feel heavier by the minute, and the clock is crushing me with it’s slowness every time I glance at it. Maybe John Zerzan is right, because right now this clock feels like a jack-booted prison guard stomping on my desires. I am waiting for the minutes to tick by until 1:45am, when I need to head out onto the dark, abandoned, sketchy streets of New Orleans on my bike, to the parking lot of a grocery store flooded and abandoned after Katrina, where we are meeting up. I am reluctant to bike there, it being only about 3 weeks since I was shoved off my bike by 3 guys who proceeded to split my lip open and bruise me up trying to get my bike, which they didn’t get. The attack happened on a street which is totally abandoned, without a street light or occupied house for blocks, where it’s hard to see the potholes to avoid them at night. So, I am still feeling an aversion to late-night cycling excursions.

All day, protest slogans to write on my sign have swirled through my head. From the simple “Free the Jena 6”, to the solidarity-minded “White Southerners Against Racism”, to “The justice system is the most racist institution in America,” aimed at a wider audience, and to the more anarchist “Destroy the prison system.”

For weeks now I have been following mainstream media articles about the Jena 6 case, and I’d kept up on it through the independent press even earlier than that. Knowing central Louisiana, having gone to a high school in South Carolina where tension between racist rednecks and blacks was ever-present, and knowing about the justice system in Amerikkka, I understood exactly what was going on in Jena.

So at 10 til 2 I ride my bike through the darkness to find a parking lot full of empty cars, with no other people in sight. The girl I was supposed to ride with was having car troubles, so I went to her house a few blocks away, and she found me around ride with a caravan of 4 cars meeting at the same parking lot in an hour. We ended up leaving, after chilling with some folks and having a few beers (it IS New Orleans) and chicken in the parking lot, waiting for all the cars to arrive, at around 3:30am.

When we finally hit the road, everyone is pretty excited. Our first pit stop heightens that feeling when we talk to 2 employees at a Waffle House who are on break, one of whom just got out of jail yesterday, about the Jena 6 and prisons, and they give us free coffee and wish us luck. We invite them along, but they’ve got bills to pay, so we give them a flier for Critical Resistance New Orleans, an anti-prison group that a bunch of folks in the caravan are involved in.

The car I am in is filled with 4 young white ladies, 3 of whom are excited and talkative. The driver has brought along her 11 year-old daughter, who was going by the self-appointed name of Bubbles, and was the only one not talking and trying to sleep. Only one of the ladies is an experienced activist, the other two are her friends who wanted to come along, so they are really excited for this new experience.

When we pull into a gas station outside of Alexandria at 4:30am, the place is packed, with everyone there going to Jena! Jena is going to be big! This really gets folks excited, and everyone takes the time to meet each other, as well as the purple haired, black, gay gas station worker, who serves up Boudin sausages to our crew. The entire sign on the outside of the gas station actually just says “Boudin” in giant letters. Louisiana charm. As folks in our caravan meet the black bikers and Nation of Islam dudes in huge Escalades at the pumps, I take a minute to deposit a few Fighting For Our Lives in a real estate box out front of the gas station. One day I will do a serious anarchy tour of small town Louisiana, bringing folks ideas not mentioned in their schools, and often not even found at the local library. But we’ve got to get going for now, there is supposed to be traffic in Jena and we want to try to beat it.

As we speed along the highway the air becomes less humid and chillier than we’re used to in our swampland home, and we all oohh and ahhh at the beautiful pink pre-dawn glow illuminating the layer of fog blanketing the fields and forests we pass by. It’s a beautiful morning.

As we get closer and closer, the ‘what ifs’ for the protest, gossip about the protests and Jena, and excitement all continue to pile up. I sleep for about 20 minutes all night, and start feeling exhausted and grumpy as we hit the two-lane roads that will take us into the twilight zone that is rural central Louisiana. But the tiredness and anticipation remind me of the struggle going to other big protests I’ve been to, and it makes me smile. I’ll gladly go without sleep to stand up for justice.

We get to Pollack, LA, the last town before Jena, and are ecstatic to see at least 70 buses parked along the shoulder, and a miles long traffic jam of folks heading to Jena. A civil rights traffic jam. Welcome to 2007. Cops are directing traffic, and just as we arrive, around 8:30am, the convoy of buses pulls out to head to Jena. I heard later that they had been stopped there by the cops to make them late, although when we got there they were heading out, so I don’t know. But judging by the fat, old, white, crew cut pigs waving traffic around, I wouldn’t be surprised. The endless line of buses gave us a preview of who was going to Jena. Almost everyone we saw was black. There were buses from church groups, many college groups from black colleges, NAACP buses, and cars full of families or groups of usually college-aged friends. One woman in our car made her celebrity debut during the traffic jam, getting out of the car to flirt with some cute guys and show them her sign that read “Not all white people are crazy.” All the black folks LOVED it, she was an instant celebrity. She loved it too, after 2 cups of waffle house coffee, she was SO giddy and excited about her first big protest and about seeing so many other people all going to Jena she was yelling and sitting out the window of the car with her sign for all to see. The digitalization of America was in full effect, with everyone pointing cameras at everyone else to document the trip, and possibly for uploading to Youtube or Flickr. After Pollack, we passed a jelly warehouse that was open to the public, and our excited friend exclaimed “We’re gonna come back from Jena on fire for civil rights and with tons of jelly and boudin!” Hilarious. I get on the phone with a friend who is already in Jena, who says there is thousands of people there already. We agree to call each other and meet up when we arrive. At about 9am, we get to Jena. There is a huge traffic jam. There is 2 white high school girls standing next to the ‘Jena Town Limit’ road sign waving with posters saying “We are not racist.” We show them the sign we have and wave back. I feel bad they live in Jena. There is a Latino family sitting in lawn chairs in front of their home, waving at everyone, yelling “Como estas?” We answer “Muy bien,” and are momentarily heartened by the warm and unexpected receptions. But we soon realize that not everyone is so glad to see us, as we pass yards roped off with big no trespassing signs hung up, and white business owners roping off their parking lots so people can’t park there. They are listening and talking over walkie talkies. I wave and say hello, they return silent stares. I find out who the enemy is.

The cops we come across don’t seem tense or even unfriendly, they are just out directing traffic, but we are suspicious and have no clue whether they are directing us the right way or not. But we don’t have a choice and just have to go where they point. The line of cars is never-ending, and finding parking in town takes us over an hour. We follow the cars in front of us, and watch as the few frustrated white residents, all with short hair and in pickup trucks, who dared to try to go anywhere this morning, slam on the gas and scowl once they get through the crowded part of the street. They seem very annoyed with the traffic, and my guess is with the black people, too. We end up parking in the town’s new Wal-Mart’s parking lot, which brings out the manager and workers who section off half the lot with shopping carts and refuse to allow parking in that half. But we made it into the half where it was allowed. The Wal-Mart workers are friendly, taking pictures and chatting, as our group gets it together to leave. We have action medics who have to pack up their supplies, Critical Resistance folks who are readying their fliers, which were printed for free by a sympathetic Kinko’s worker in New Orleans when he found out what they were for, and of course, the celebrity with the sign from our car, who posed for probably 20 photos while we were still the parking lot.

We finally head off into the steady stream of people walking in the road towards downtown Jena. I talk to a 40-something well dressed black woman from Alexandria who is carrying a little lunch bag, who said she took off work and came up by herself. Walking along the road, the group from the car I rode in is slowed by constant photo requests from our celebrity sign holder. The black folks love her sign, and she loves the attention and excitement. The masses of people everywhere has been quite stunning all morning, and I am glad to see it. The surprising thing was how few white faces I saw. There were probably only 100-200 white people there out of a crowd of at least 20,000. I got pretty upset at how fucking racist white people in the south are. Even many who say they aren’t racist, or say they admire MLK Jr., are still shockingly racist when it comes to what they think when you ask them about black people today. And most white people see Jena as a ‘black issue,’ which it’s not; it’s about justice.

As I continue down the road, people can hear the faint sounds of an angry sounding speech being made through the woods in the distance. It’s definitely a white voice, but no one can make out the exact words. It kind of sounds like an old recording being blared through speakers. It is spooky, but soon forgotten as I see a white family, with dad and son in camouflage baseball caps merge onto the road, and all the black folks around me kind of give them some space, unsure of their intentions. I say hello and ask what they think about so many people coming to their small town. They say it’s great, and you can sense the black folks around us relax. I thank them for hosting us in their town, and they say they are happy to. Later, I’d see this same family on CNN, saying they pulled their son out of the public school and are moving out of Jena because of the racism. I wonder what was said or done to them to make them take such drastic action, and I feel bad for them, but very proud of them for speaking out.

I made it to downtown in the endless stream of people. There is utter confusion. People wandering every which way. Lots of people taking pictures. Some RCP lady yelling and selling papers. I try to make my way toward the courthouse, but there is multiple stretch SUV limos trying to pull out through the tightly packed crowd, with National Action Network people yelling at people to watch out. Fucking parasites, Al Sharpton, Jesse Jackson, and whoever else was in those SUVs. What happened to the idea of a humble leader who stood with the people? These ‘leaders’ in their SUVs are buffoons trying to appear impressive and setting a bad example. But what impresses me is the masses of people from around the entire country who’ve showed up to fight the slide back to the Jim Crow 1950s. I make it past the king-fools, and hear the distinctive rythm of a brass band. I look up to see umbrellas and tubas bobbing up and down with the rythm, and am drawn to the music of my hometown. The band is right-on, with their chorus a call and response of “Let’s go get ‘em!” “Outta jail!” The folks from other parts of the US mention to each other that “They must be from New Orleans” and New Orleanians move their feet to the beat. It is so tightly packed and so hot outside that I have to get out of the brass band area after a couple minutes. Their is a man on top of an RV with a headset mic, looking like a black Jerry Lewis, raising money from the crowd for Mychal Bell’s bail. They needed $9,000. They raised $16,000 by the end of the day, but Mychal is still sitting in jail. Their is a conga drum circle pounding out tribal rythms not far away with folks dancing around near it, and the entire square in front of the courthouse is so packed with people I can’t even go in it. It seemed like no one really knew what to do. There had been a march at 8am, but we, and the 70 buses from Pollack, missed that, and the party wasn’t supposed to begin in the park outside of town until Noon. Me and one other anarchist stick together, but we lose the rest of our group, so we just hand out hundreds of Critical Resistance New Orleans fliers to people passing by. Everyone is dressed in black. Everyone except me that is. Somehow I didn’t hear about that part. I stuck out even more that just with my white skin because of that, but I had a black bandanna that I tied around my neck to at least have some black on.

What struck me was the number of different organizations present. There was everyone from hundreds of black bikers, to office worker looking middle aged women, to tons of black students and black civic groups and radicals. There were many groups I had never heard of, like the Nubian Kruzers and Buffalo Soldiers, and also many I recognized like the Nation of Islam, NAACP chapters, National Lawyers Guild observers, the RCP, National Action Network, Eracism, some black quakers, the Socialist Workers Party, SCLC, and the American Postal Workers Union. I tried calling my friend who had arrived earlier, but cell phones were not working at all in Jena. I assume it was because there was not enough cell towers to handle all the calls being made, but who knows, it could’ve been the cops or a racist phone company worker who turned the system off, but there’s no evidence to suggest that was the case. So, we couldn’t get in touch with the rest of our group to reunite, either.

I don’t know what it was like during the actual 8am march, but I didn’t once hear any kind of organized chant get going, and the silence and wandering left me feeling like things were very disorganized, and wishing there was an organized anarchist group I could’ve gone up with. I wanted people to feel the unity and power of collective action, instead of just the oppression of the crushing crowds and the energy draining heat. I didn’t get the felling of unity that I’ve often felt at large demos when people are fired up and chanting and marching together, and felt too isolated to try to get that going alone.

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, at one point, was standing right next to me shaking hands with black folks, and I was talking to an organizer from New Orleans who has been working with the Jena 6 families. He has been trying to take the direction of how to proceed in the struggle from the families and help them, and he says the national groups and politicians haven’t done that, and just do whatever will get them in the press looking like leaders. We wanted to confront Nagin about how public housing is still closed down in New Orleans, but there were so many people wanting to go and shake his hand, and he was surrounded by plain clothes NOPD cops, that we decided against it.

We had made it out to the park on the edge of town where the party/BBQ was supposed to begin around Noon. Music didn’t actually start until 3:30pm. We just sat in the shade and wondered about the rest of our crew as we watched buses pile people on and take off for places like Detroit and Memphis. When the music started, the DJ asked the all-black, 150 person crowd who there was from Jena, and about 80 people raised their hands. It was cool to see that black folks in Jena were all behind the days events as much as the out of town people were. Rumors had been circulating about Mychal Bell being released from jail all day, and after the second song in the first performer’s set, the DJ comes on the mic and announces Mychal Bell has been released. The crowd, all sitting in folding chairs on a baseball outfield in the hot sun, erupts in cheering. It is a sincere, moving, beautiful expression of joy and hope that gave me chills down my spine when I heard it. An older black activist woman behind me yells repeatedly “That’s black power!” It sure felt like it to me.

We found a couple people from our group, and headed back toward our car around 4pm. A black dude from Jena gave us a ride down a shortcut ATV trail, all four of us precariously balanced on the back of his ATV, scared shitless as he told us to hold on, and went down steep 5 foot high ditches in the trail. He dropped us off on the road and after walking for about 1 minute, another black Jenan gave us a lift in the back of his pickup truck back to our car, sparing us a 30 minute walk in the hot sun. And sparing my already very sunburned face more punishment.

Getting home at 10pm, I crashed out immediately, and awoke the next day to the disappointing news that Mychal was still in jail, and, later that day, that his bail was denied in juvenile court. This made me sick. I wish we had rioted in Jena now. Fucking racist pieces of shit. 20,000 people demanding his releasing and $16,000 didn’t affect the stubborn, pig-headed judges and DAs who infest our criminal justice system. We should have listened to the brass band, and second lined right up to that jail and taken him out, brick by brick. The news today has also told of the ‘racist backlash’ to the protest, including nooses in N.C. and in Alexandria, LA, just outside of Jena. The news showed a picture of a house we passed on the way to Jena, a very out of place house. Bubbles said, “Wow, look at that house” as we had passed by it. I told her the gated compound with the giant mansionesque house looked like houses in California. It was totally out of place, and an in your face display of greed in an otherwise very poor area. The news today showed it with a giant confederate flag hung on the 10-foot high iron fence surrounding the house. It must have been put up the day after the protest because it wasn’t there when we went by it. The rich will continue to use race as a way to exploit white people who, because of lack of education, blame the problems of capitalism, and it’s logic of colonization and exploitation, on black people who are suffering under the same conditions.

The Jena protest felt like a crossroads, leading either to the emergence of a new civil-rights movement (one hopefully centered around the criminal justice system), or just to filling the pockets of people like Al Sharpton and leading to a disappointing and defeating feeling about the ability to create change, that will bury the inevitable social explosion for a few years longer. The test will be if there needs to be another big demo in Jena, will more people come than came 2 days ago? And will white people step up to the plate and force the racists to stop making white people look bad? And maybe even help them recognize how the system actually works in America, so they’ll stop blaming those with no power for the problems caused by rich, powerful men in Washington, and in extravagant gated California-style homes just down the road? I hope so, and I hope next time anarchists can have an organized presence in Jena and up the struggle with some tactical freshness and organized power. Perhaps staying in Jena as long as it takes until Mychal is released? Perhaps a protest at the home of the DA or judge or school administrators who caused this mess? Perhaps a protest camp in front of the jail where Mychal is being held? Perhaps a protest camp in front of the courthouse? Anarchists have an amazing ability to organize and act on our own initiative, and we need to demonstrate that people can and should do that in the struggle to free the Jena 6 by doing it ourselves and becoming the threat that is a good example.

Although I was a bit let down in some ways by the Jena protest, I am looking forward to the IMF/World Bank protests in October to again find that feeling of unity, courage, and possibility, because the issues of the Jena 6 and the IMF/World Bank are part of the same struggle for freedom, equality, and justice from a system that refuses to provide any. Free the Jena 6, y’all!

PASS ON THE WORD!!!

The “Unplug America” campaign was introduced by Indigenous Peoples in 1992 in response to the 500 year anniversary of the arrival of Columbus to the Americas. October 13, 1992 was designated as a starting point to look forward to the next 500 years and work to make a sustainable and just world, starting by giving Mother Earth a rest!

Unplug Day is an invitation to all people to show our love and respect for Mother Earth by challenging unhealthy patterns of consumption and the continued production of poisons that destroy our environment. October 13th is a day to unplug – turn off the TV and radio, shut off the taps, and leave the fossil-fuel burning vehicle at home! Instead, take a walk with friends and family, tell stories, do something artistic, and say a prayer for Mother Earth and our communities. It’s only one day but also a fist step in reducing our carbon footprint, exploring consumer choices and ways of life that are more healthy and sustainable, and acting for future generations!

Visit www.ipetitions.com/petition/unplug_day to let us know what you plan to do for Unplug Day!

For more information, contact:

Jihan Gearon
Indigenous Environmental Network
P.O. Box 2696
Flagstaff, AZ 86003
928-214-8301
ienenergy@igc.org