Wednesday, November 18, 2015

Solidarity with SXE MADRID across the globe


Against the colonial-spanish state
Against capitalism and cages of all sizes worldwide
For total liberation and in solidarity with SXE MADRID
XVX (A)

Sunday, November 8, 2015

5 members of Straight Edge Madrid have been arrested after a raid on their collective


UPDATE 11/11/2015:

Here is the writing  address of a couple people in kidnapped by the state:

Borja Marquerie Echave
Centro Penitenciario Madrid II
Carretera Meco, 5
28805
Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, España.

Juan Manuel Bustamante Vergara (Nahuel)
Centro Penitenciario Madrid V
Carretera M-609, km. 3,5.
28791
Soto del Real, Madrid, España.

Spread the adress and show solidarity!


English translation:

RAID: 5 Straight Edge Madrid Collective members detained this early morning.


The repressed collective defines itself as drug-free, promoting human, Animal and Earth liberation.

This update was posted on their FB wall:

5 STRAIGHT EDGE MADRID COMRADES JAILED THIS MORNING

November 4th 2015


This early morning, Information Brigade has broken into the houses of 5 of our comrades, searching around and taking the collective's material, ending with our comrades detentions.
Right now they're at Moratalaz Commisary and they are not allowed to see their lawyer until tomorrow. They're expected to be facing trial this Friday.
SOLIDARITY AND DIFFUSION.

YOUR REPRESSION DOES NOT FRIGHTEN US.
On the other hand, we have had access to people close to some members of Straight Edge Madrid, who have informed us that the cops have also broken into the house of a member of the Collective who wasn't in Madrid, taking with them an anarchist flag, the family computer and possibly some other material. This individual must now return to Madrid to face trial.

So far, the reasons of prosecution are being withheld, as well as what "felony" they are being charged with.

Social movements call to demonstrate tomorrow, Thursday Nov 5th at 20 hs at Moratalaz Boulevard, Madrid.


Official version of P.D, published at the official website of Interior Ministry is this:

"Information Brigade Agents of Madrid National Police have detained five people, members of the anarchist Straight Edge group, who are charged with belonging to a criminal organization with terrorist goals, damages to property and terrorism. During the raids we have found materials to create explosive artifacts, diverse amounts of gun powder and manuals to create home-made bombs."


Several organizations and social activists have expressed their discontent via social media, demanding for their innocence presumption and raising doubts about the accuracy of the police statements. In summary, skepticism, disbelief and rejection towards these detentions and accusations which are not convincing to several groups.

The most dangerous part of this is that even in case of verifying the detained people innocence, no one will erase the damages suffered at any level. This is, animical, falsely accusatory, mistreating and disrupts/loss of their usual life (work, study, family life). Innocence presumption is a basic of every democratic society. It appears that facts are raising all possible doubts, especially about the authority and many are unclear of the actions of security forces and their communications policies. In the video of the raid, detention and exhibition of seized material, instead of the mentioned bombing elements, we can only see sportswear, banners, screws and a laptop, as proof to justify the raids and detentions this morning.

Stay tuned as this situation updates...

What is STRAIGHT EDGE MADRID?

"We are a drug free collective, anti-speciesist, anti-fascist in promotion of freedom.With conviction and commitment we are looking to change this mediocre life of capitalist misery. We also know that is not only in our hands but in the hands of all who are able to achieve this challenge in one way or another. We will not submit under any form of oppression, as did many in the course of this history. The struggle for freedom is daily and not as a hobby but as the only way to change.

In response to this we are faced with the system firmly in place without bowing the head. We are not part of the mechanisms of struggle that the system caters to nor will we submit ourselves to this mechanism of repression. We are at war against the state and capital, but the war is not only in the street, but against the system that we have internalized. We say "Enough is Enough!" We swallow anger and we yell rebellion. Do not expect anyone fix the problems for us, we take the reins of our own lives.

For us the STRAIGHT EDGE converges in an ideological development that goes hand in hand with the positioning of revolutionary ideas as something more specific and serious, as a policy of self-determination to be validating as theoretical underpinning and not as a cultural representation alternative within capitalism, but as a legitimization of anarchic ideas. There is in this convergence in the discourse and practices with ideas of freedom, thus building an anarchic reference within STRAIGHT EDGE.

More than fine words and emotional speeches. Daily action against the power and the capital in all its forms. For autonomy and total liberation.

https://straightedgemadrid.wordpress.com/que-es-straight-edge-madrid/

Friday, October 9, 2015

"Ayotzinapa Cronica de un crimen de Estate" documentary film screening at The Feral Space Saturday Oct. 10th 7pm


Ayotzinapa Cronica de un crimen de Estate
In Spanish with English subtitles Director: Xavier Robles


The night of September 26, 2014, in the city of Iguala, Guerrero, in Mexico, more the 100 young students of the Escuela Normal Rural of Ayotzinapa, were attacked by police forces, resulting in 3 students dying, more then 20 injured, and 43 kidnapped by the police. The Mexican military is also implicated in this crime. Within a few days tens of thousands of voices, especially young voices, echoed through streets and avenues of cities of Mexico and the world, demanding the safe return of the "disappeared" students, and denouncing this act as a Crime of State - although it remains to this day unpunished. In their testimony and the commentary of other witnesses and experts,two student survivors of the Iguala massacre reconstruct the climate of impunity, corruption, and criminality that exists, not only in the state of Guerrero but in the entire country.

Donation are welcome (half of the proceeds will go to Escuela Normal Rural of Ayotzinapa, with the other half going to the filmmaker to cover production costs)
Translation

La noche del 26 de Septiembre de 2014, en la Ciudad de Iguala, Guerrero, en México, más de cien jóvenes estudiantes de la Normal Rural de Ayotzinapa, que habían salido de su escuela a realizar una colecta pública, para poder viajar a la Ciudad de México, fueron atacados por fuerzas policíacas, resultando muertos 3 normalistas, más de 20 heridos y 43 secuestrados por la policía, con la complicidad del ejército mexicano.

Las voces de los entrevistados, entre ellos dos estudiantes sobrevivientes de la masacre de Iguala, reconstruyen el clima de impunidad, corrupción y criminalidad que hay, no sólo en el estado de Guerrero, sino en todo el país. A través de un relato entretejido, los entrevistados cuentan la historia de la descomposición actual de México, a partir del crimen de Iguala, denunciándolo no como una acción aislada, sino como un suceso con antecedentes históricos criminales y que son parte de la política del narcoestado mexicano.


"Nos querían callar, pero a Ayotzinapa no lo callan nunca",
dice uno de los jóvenes sobrevivientes.


A unos días de haberse perpetrado el crimen, decenas de miles de voces, sobre todo voces jóvenes, resonaron en calles y avenidas de ciudades y poblados de México y del mundo, exigiendo la aparición con vida de los 43 estudiantes víctimas de desaparición forzada y denunciando este acto como un crimen de Estado, que hasta la fecha sigue impune. ! “Ayotzinapa: Crónica de un Crimen de Estado" es un documental realizado por cineastas mexicanos comprometidos con su realidad.

Monday, September 21, 2015

We are now selling "Support Eric King" T-Shirts! All proceeds go to vegan anarchist Eric King!






The title pretty much says it all! The Feral Space collective never charges for film screening events, zines or anything else we do-except for when it comes to supporting prisoners! We just got an order of shirts in and we are selling them for 20 bucks. Ths money will go towards Eric's stamps, paper, pens, vegan food and anything else he needs.

Yes we can ship you a shirt but we would have to charge for shipping. We will have these shirts at any events our zine distro tables at now so you can always pick them up there as well. Much love and solidarity with Eric King, fire to the prisons and the settler-colonial courts! (A) XVX

For more info on Eric G. King visit https://supportericking.wordpress.com/about-eric-2/

Friday, September 18, 2015

Ex-Members of Direct Action Everywhere unite and speak out

UPDATE 9/23/2015:

After receiving more information related to this shit show of a situation, we wanted to make it clear to BOTH sides that while we stand behind the victims/survivors of this situation, we whole-heartedly stand against predators, abusers, manipulators, deceivers and anyone else who is not a victim/survivor in this who merely seeks to compromise and sabotage for whatever selfish reason. We want to make it clear that when sharing the original victims/survivors statement we stand behind them as well as any other victim/survivor involved here that we are unaware of. It is important for those from both sides reading this to know that we do not know enough about every single accusation, wrongdoing and so on to take sides. We only heard about victims/survivors who were being silenced and we expressed support by giving their statement a voice on our blog. Were not even part of the network. It seems since then the shit has gotten thicker. It is important for DxE members reading this to understand our position as vegans anarchists is not to get involved with slinging balls of shit from either side to the other, but to merely express and act upon support and solidarity with the victims/survivors. We would also like to remind everyone involved that there are in fact DxE chapters and individual members who have been on top of keeping a secured safe space and are currently working hard to address this issues from others, including taking direction from other victim/survivors. The Feral Space collective does not need DxE chapters or members to remind us of their hard efforts to maintain safe spaces. We already know. But try to understand this is not about your hard work and consistency. It's about the victims/survivors and it's about others, including main organizers, being called out, in a network that you are part of. Every DxE chapter that takes itself and its safe space policies seriously should be contacting the victims/survivors and taking direction from them, or at the very least having meetings that involve all chapters addressing these issues directly. In a movement like this, yes, a few folks affects ALL. Yes, if one is involved, ALL are involved, it is the responsibility of ALL to address these issues.

Last but not least, we have noticed a rather scary trend developing as well in light of all this. To ex-dxe or soon to be ex-dxe, movements come and go. Not to say this one will go, because that is up to the dxe movement, but PLEASE try to realize that DxE does NOT represent the AR community or movement in whole. You leaving DxE for whatever reason you may have does NOT mean you no longer have a voice. It does NOT mean non-human animals will receive less support. Please remember that you have a voice that carries your veganism as a weapon of war. Not only are there many other groups and organizations to still to be part of, there are COMMUNITIES of people to work with DIRECTLY, strategies and methods of organizing and mobilizing against speciesism, non-human animal oppression and capitalist exploitation. YOU have the ability to be as strong as you were while in a group, maybe even stronger alone. With or without organizations the fight for non-human animal liberation continues and ALWAYS will. We at The Feral Space collective do our own vegan outreach, film screenings and community work related to veganism, anti-speciesism and eco-defense. There are many other collectives and local groups like us. We are not an organization and we have no leaders. Our policies will not bend on ANY issue related to anti-oppression. And this is why our original statement of disassociation with DxE will remain. Take care of each other. Listen to each other. Stop slinging shit at each other and put the words "solidarity", "Mutual aid" and "accountability" to action. This is the last and final update we will make regarding this situation because this is NOT about us. This is about the victims/survivors (on either side) and those who violated them.

Original statement.

We were notified by fellow activists that something sinister was happening behind the curtains of Direct Action Everywhere. A movement that prides itself as intersectional and accountable, for non-human and human animals alike. We at The Feral Space feel it is important for us to stand behind this statement not only in solidarity and support with the victims, but in maintaining our own dedication and commitment to intersectionality, accountability and total liberation.

When a group, organization or movement has chapters or individual members that violate the very principles foundational to the movement, it is the responsibility of that group, organization or movement as a whole to take action against these violations starting with the most basic and important task of showing support; listening to those who have been violated and harmed. This very basic act of support is evidently lacking in the Direct Action Everywhere movement as these voices were silenced and disregarded, and the movement as a whole carried on. When voices are silenced, oppression carries on in an anti-oppression movement, making a mockery of all of our commitment and collective struggles for intersectional total liberation.

While The Feral Space collective continues to fight speciesism, anthropocentrism and the settler-colonial capitalist state, we do not, and can not find affinity with the Direct Action Everywhere movement as long as these issues remain. We can not, and will not support and work with those who support and work with a movement that continues to place public image above the well-being of its own members. We feel that every current member of DxE reading this will now have an opportunity to take another kind of action; solidarity with the victims of this movement, or further perpetuate the silencing of their voices. We feel there are too many voices already silenced by global oppression-we will not participate in being silent, nor will we allow a statement by the oppressed to be silenced. Here is their statement and these are there voices.

It’s Not Intersectional, It’s DxE: An Exposé Written By DxE’s Victims


Shared from https://dismantledxe.wordpress.com/2015/09/16/10/

Dear Animal Rights Community,

The misery, torture, and sheer suffering animals endure at the hands of our capitalist economy has outraged us. We have all seen gruesome footage of what it means to be an animal in the modern day factory farm and have chosen to side with compassion. We have made a decision to work towards creating a world where animal oppression is no longer a reality. We, as animal rights activists, do our best to ensure that animals’ voices are represented, that animals are given the dignity they deserve, and that our fellow humans are awakened to the unfathomable violence embedded in their everyday choices.

As activists in the animal rights community, we also recognize that the suffering of humans, based on systems of power and privilege rooted in colonialism, is very much connected to animal oppression. Therefore, we acknowledge the necessary social justice activism baseline of intersectionality. We simultaneously work to undermine all systems of oppression, race, class, gender, sexuality, ability, and species, because we see them as fundamentally intertwined.

Given our anti-oppressive stance, it has become morally impossible for us to keep silent about the various violences we see in the animal rights community. An infamous animal rights group, Direct Action Everywhere (DxE), has wholeheartedly violated fundamental social justice activism principles and continues to do so. As their group begins branching out, we find it imperative to publicize how they completely lack intersectionality, abuse those who disagree, and manipulate or derail their way out of conflict situations. DxE claims to be an intersectional group working towards Total Animal Liberation, the idea that “every sentient being deserves the same safety, freedom, and happiness.” However, this group has a horrendous history of racist, sexist, and homophobic behavior, in addition to harboring sexual predators and tokenizing People of Color. Not to mention, the group has a flawed and inept accountability process which leaves victims feeling manipulated, dismissed, or attacked. Direct Action Everywhere is not intersectional, not a safe space, and certainly not revolutionary.

This letter is being issued by the growing number of DxE’s victims. We are here. We are many. We are no longer afraid. We are making our voices heard. And we will no longer allow our movement to be co-opted by corporate pseudo-activists disinterested in genuine change. Our intent is not to share individual stories, for valid fear of reactionary attack by the DxE core, but to make these grievances public. Too many people have been personally attacked and/or sexually assaulted by DxE leadership and it is essential that we make this a public conversation in the animal rights community. Our central goal is to make you question DxE and rethink joining a group known to host abusers, manipulate activists, and undermine and attack oppressed peoples.

A direct message to DxE’s current followers: please consider if this is a group you want to identify and work with. DxE’s dirty secrets are starting to become public knowledge. These scandals are no longer instances which the core can quietly shove under the rug. Victims are speaking out to prevent future victimization. Listen.

DxE is racist.

DxE is homophobic.

DxE is sexist.

DxE is zionist.

DxE is abusive.

If these sentences shock you, good. They should. If you identify with DxE, think DxE is magical, intersectional, and perfect at what they do ‒ this letter is for you. Stop and think. Don’t get immediately defensive, just stop. Stop. Think. We’ve all been there. We believed in DxE too. Now that we’ve come out the other side, been manipulated, attacked, publicly humiliated, and shunned, we have seen the reality. There is nothing intersectional or safe about DxE. Reconsider your allegiance. Question DxE.

This entire project has been orchestrated and organized by Womxn of Color victims of DxE, and all contributors are Womxn victims of DxE, save one male of Color. Take into account our identities and how DxE continues to reproduce hierarchal power structures, by attacking, undermining, and invalidating womxn, People of Color, queer, gender-nonconforming, and other marginalized communities. Also, take into account what it means for you to undermine or further invalidate our experiences, if you choose to do so.

Here are the voices of DxE’s victims. Each and every single one of these people has been attacked by DxE. Each and every single one of these people was deeply involved in DxE. Some contributors are former core members. Some contributors have been with DxE since the beginning. Some have been dedicated members for years. Some decided to speak out and all hell broke loose. Please take a moment to listen to our stories.

 ◇◇◇

I am devastated by the way Direct Action Everywhere have treated my friends and I, former long-time members since the group’s inception. We dedicated ourselves entirely to seeing DxE succeed as we truly believed that not only was DxE working to help animals, but also looking out for us as womxn and people of color.

Despite the leader being a person of color; DxE is set up with the leader’s favorite friends (read: heterosexual cis-gender white men) at the top of the hierarchy. The “leadership” roles he gives to some womxn and people of color are facades. DxE’s leader and his core completely used my friends and I to do all of the non-glamorous jobs in DxE, objectified us as sexual conquests, and tokenized us as womxn and people of color to pretend they are “intersectional…” even long after many of us have left the group. When we tried to express our concerns we were gaslit and lovebombed by their “Conflict Resolution Team.” It was either going to be complete submission to the DxE leader OR face a smear campaign and ex-communication from the community we grew to love and care for.

When we decided to stop being guilt-tripped by them (“for the animals/intersectionality”) into doing things that were hurting us; they subjected us to further sexism and racism, victim-blamed us, and turned the DxE community against us with their half-truths, outright lies, and attacks to our character. And why? Because we stood up for each other and ourselves when DxE’s leader and core were bullying us into silence.

Knowing that DxE continues to grow and victimize more people; I cannot be silent anymore. Direct Action Everywhere is NOT a safe space for womxn or people of color. And for everyone else, please know Direct Action Everywhere is NOT an organization to support if you consider yourself an ally.

                                                              ◇◇◇


I was thrilled to begin working with DxE. I loved the idea of their grassroots, open network model, that appeared to have no hierarchical structure and was intersectional in approach. It wasn’t long before I noticed there is indeed a hierarchy, with Wayne and Priya, two controlling and calculating narcissists, at the top.

I had a wake up call as to the leaders true characters when one of their activists admitted to committing sex crimes. I discovered that there were many womxn activists who were victims of rape, revenge porn and sexual harassment by men in DxE’s core who were gaslighted or shamed into silence by the leaders.

Before knowing better, I confided in Priya something serious that was happening to me. Not only was she cold and uncaring, a few days later I was removed as a DxE organizer for telling another activist in private that I thought they handled things terribly. I was told Priya was in charge of this decision. Already feeling robbed of my dignity and autonomy, I was devastated.

This network had meant everything to me. Wayne also dismissed my concerns and said that I and others were threatening DxE’s reputation. They showed absolutely no concern as to the injustice we had faced and witnessed. The more I questioned, the longer the list of offences I had allegedly committed, grew. This is the famous DxE ‘Conflict Resolution Process’.

In other words, forget everything that has happened to you, accept that you are in the wrong, act remorseful, and make the brand look as good as possible or we’ll make things worse for you. When a friend publicly said their decision making did not feel like a victim-oriented approach, they immediately began a smear campaign against him. Anyone who vocalized disagreement was punished by either being removed from the group, or slandered.

I worry about current and future activists, particularly youths, joining DxE. Fighting for animals in what appears to be a warm loving community of activists with a shared dream of animal and human liberation in a harsh nonvegan world is an attractive picture. I fear this group will get worse as Wayne’s lust for power grows and DxE becomes a major player in the movement.

They routinely silence womxn and people of color and commit character assassinations against those who dare to speak out against injustice within their ranks. I now see that they are standing in the way of any real grassroots intersectional movement.

◇◇◇

I was shattered by DxE’s behavior. I was a member of the group for over a year and considered myself very involved and respected. However, when I pointed out some fundamental flaws in DxE’s politics (specifically how they support groups which condone military occupation and colonization) and power structure (a rigid hierarchy which disallows non-core activists from decision making processes), the core berated me. Honestly, the things DxE’s core said to me are some of the most racist things anyone has ever said to me. I was more horrified, not by Kelly or Kitty’s racist attacks or Wayne’s absurd derailing attempts, but by how every single individual in the group remained silent. Not one individual was willing to stand up to their bigotry. The degree of obedience and loyalty to the DxE setup became very clear to me in that moment. DxE is ultimately nothing more than a loyalty contest (to Waye), not an activist space. Not even close.

DxE has normalized hypermasculinity, hierarchal power structures, rape culture, racism, sexism, tokenization, and zionism in the animal rights movement. If you try to point this out to them, they simply destroy you.

At the time, it was unfathomable to me that a supposedly intersectional and socially-conscious group was facilitating this dehumanization, delegitimation, and outright attack on a Womxn of Color. It was a very difficult, abrupt, and vicious process by which I was forced to realize that DxE is in the business of producing and protecting a brand, while simultaneously doing everything in its power to discredit, undermine, and eliminate threats to its structure, by any means necessary. Now I understand why they did what they did. They don’t care about doing the hard work necessary for radical change. They are only interested in viral videos and new chapters.

Nonetheless, the extent to which they hurl offensive vitriol at oppressed peoples continues to baffle me. They are doing absolutely nothing intersectional as far as I am concerned. In fact, in my personal experience, they have been the most racist and tokenizing group I have ever encountered. I am speaking up now, to prevent further victims to DxE violence.

◇◇◇

As a former member of dxe’s core I have seen and participated in the abuse of others. Getting involved with the group was my first experience with any kind of activism and I remember feeling exhilarated and enthralled to be working alongside Wayne. In the beginning it felt as if we were all equals, and that we truly operated on a consensus-based decision making model, but later on as we started to have disagreements it was always that Wayne would veto whomever and the rest of the group would follow his lead.

I was not the first person in the group to bring up issues of sexism and women’s safety. That person was met with silence and then dismissal, and afterward we reassured each other that this person’s claims were ultimately vague and that we didn’t know how to address or resolve any of them. That became a pattern in dxe. It became a problem as more instances of sexual predation and harassment cropped up over time. The group’s “accountability process” early on was that Wayne would have a private conversation with the accused (that nobody else was ever privy to)… But it was always that the ones held accountable and whatever accountability meant was clearly based upon Wayne’s own personal opinion and affection for the attacker.

As I began to voice my own criticisms within the group I slowly became the pariah. Being core and having some meaningful ties within dxe they afforded me some sort of protection from vicious attack, but there came a time that whenever I began to speak that Priya and Kelly would look at each other and roll their eyes. It began to feel more like I was fighting for justice within the group than fighting for animal liberation and it was draining. I kept going to demos but stopped attending weekly meetings. My communication with the group remained steady through emails.

Everything came to a head over the decision to publicly endorse a recorded 269 demo with depictions of extreme violence against women. I got into a very heated argument with Wayne in some private emails and he derailed the conversation by telling me that I was more concerned with women’s issues within the group instead of racial issues. That was the point where I severed ties with them.

About a year after leaving I have had multiple people approach me to confirm as to whether or not I was physically violent toward another member of the group. It was insinuated that I had assaulted my former partner and I have only found out recently certain members of the group have been telling this to other activists, and also warning others to keep away from me. On a public comment thread on Facebook, Priya stated that my behavior within the group was racist and physically violent. I reached out to her privately more than once to clarify and have only been met with silence.

I am only speaking to my own experience, but I do personally know others who have been victimized by dxe in very similar and dissimilar ways. Some are far worse than what I’ve been through and I count myself lucky to have left the group with barely a scratch, but my hope is that others will listen and learn from what those who have been so negatively affected have to say.

◇◇◇

I am a victim of relentless bullying and character assassination based on outright lies by DxE’s core. This became my reality for daring to speak out publicly about DxE concerning their non-intersectional politics and total disregard for creating safe spaces for activists. Over time, I have seen a pattern of this exact type of fraudulent character assassination happening to almost everyone who dare challenge DxE and I find this manipulative behavior inexcusable and disgusting. I am speaking out because I cannot sit back and watch more and more victims come forward with personal accounts of the abuses they have experienced at the hands of DxE, experiences far worse than mine. DxE, the skeletons in your closet are being exposed, the bullying, sexism, manipulating, victim blaming and predator insulating behavior running rampant within your community has gone unchecked far too long.

◇◇◇

I worked with DxE for a year, initially ecstatic that I had found what I thought to be an amazing model and network of activists who actually cared about intersectional issues. I believed that DxE cared about its members and cared about being an anti-oppressive group. Was I ever wrong. Over the course of the year I discovered things that they were engaged in that shocked me. I was devastated when things began coming to light showing their true nature.

When I tried to “call in” DxE for oppressive behavior against women, a lack of true intersectionality, and affiliation with problematic and violently offensive groups, I was gaslighted and slandered within the group. I witnessed firsthand what happens when someone challenges DxE on their oppressive and hypocritical behaviors and practices. I discovered what happens when someone attempts to hold them accountable to their own principles of “intersectionality.” I was called “crazy” and “divisive” for daring to bring up oppressive behaviors that were occurring. I was silenced, dismissed, and gaslighted for merely trying to hold DxE accountable to its own principles. The “core” manipulated the situation so as to appear that I was the problem.

I was betrayed by people who I thought were close friends, who stayed silent and allowed me to be treated this way. People who I thought were my friends cared more about staying on Wayne, Priya, and Kelly’s good side than actually standing up against injustice. Since distancing myself from them I have met far too many people who have had similar awful experiences of being silenced and shunned for daring to question DxE’s oppressive behavior. I have seen a horrible pattern of silencing, gaslighting, and cutting off anyone who dares to question their oppressive behaviors or hierarchical structure. They claim to have a space for criticism, but this is false. They claim to be a safe space for marginalized groups, but as I have experienced and witnessed, this could not be further from the truth. This experience was so hurtful that I have not participated in animal rights work for over a year. I hope that by speaking up we can prevent other activists from being mistreated and falling victim to DxE’s manipulation and lies.

◇◇◇

As an activist who had been seeking an animal rights group strong on community-building and activism, I was infinitely thrilled to have found such a dynamic and seemingly altruistic support in Direct Action Everywhere, who touted vital principles and notions of intersectionality spanning across all realms of social injustices. The pace was fast, frenetic and uplifting and and the group enjoyed fast-rising growth. The friendships formed were many and made one feel supported and protected. What I did not expect, was to witness some of those solid bonds unravel in the most hurtful of ways by those who had helped form them. When members of a group become prey and mere toys to more experienced, older members it’s hurtful. When long-time members are maligned, vilified and ostracized for agenda gains and to protect male organizers who have become notorious for engaging in predatory behavior, it breaches all of the trust and credibility that was focal and crucial to the group and it’s a painful experience for those who believed in those friendships. This is not ethical, just or intersectional in the least. Particularly disturbing are the cases of male members coming on to very young female members, especially when those male members are from the organizing core. There is an obvious power-play in effect within the core of the group that is very subtly played and used to keep people in control, and not just in a sexual way, but in emotionally charged and guilt-imposing ways. What’s worse is the way these issues are dismissed when they are brought up by those who speak up. In most cases insinuations of racism and sexism are dished out liberally against those who question, along with a healthy dosage of victim-blaming. In other words, for DxE to continue to claim that they care about women’s safety and womens’ rights as well as other issues is nothing short of offensive. Too many people have dropped out of the community feeling betrayed and abandoned. Too many people have been hurt. Smart, insightful, good people. This is no coincidence. And to continue to ignore or to make excuses for these serious infractions is a mistake, because there should be no more cases of people being manipulated and hurt by an organization who is supposed to care about all beings.

◇◇◇

I was an early member of DxE when it first started. I came to DxE believing they were a new wave of activists creating incremental change. DxE claims to fight for true intersectionality with various people from all races, sexes, and heritages working together to abolish oppression that is all connected.

Then I noticed some red flags slowly creeping up. I started working with one of the most well respected, to this day, activists in DxE. He uses activism as a platform to pick up women at actions. I was doing countless hours of work for DxE, and his behavior often made me feel weird. However, since Wayne and the core approved of his behavior; I felt forced to accept that kind of environment for women.

This one golden and respected DxE activist, Assaf, made inappropriate comments, rape jokes, sexual advances, and racial slurs to women and people of color in and outside of the group. Racist jokes were aimed at my family and I. Sexist comments were aimed at one of my partners. I felt uneasy as I realized this is the culture of DxE. Many women and people of color left DxE, because of this harassment.

I confronted Wayne about various issues, including this one, but instead of solving the issue he responded with “well, he is still a great activist.” Wayne also shared with me and a few other men his own personal history of sexual harassment of women when he was in graduate school. I suspect he shared this little known fact about him to help normalize the mistreatment of women in DxE among DxE men. Wayne’s response made me understand that fighting oppression isn’t important to DxE. They are only interested in getting a bigger (activist) body count and publicity for Wayne.

The final straw came when Assaf proudly told me some things he did at Burning Man which constitutes as date rape of multiple women. It left me feeling disgusted and physically ill. So, I distanced myself from Assaf after months of constant abuse from him. That abuse was never addressed by Wayne and the core. In fact, Wayne and Priya, once my close friends, turned on me.

Chris and Priya sent out a statement about me full of slanderous lies. They aimed the statement at vulnerable activists who Wayne emotionally and mentally manipulates, including one of my partners. I received death threats from people Wayne is allied with now. I was torn and suicidal. I suffered from anxiety and panic attacks for weeks. During that time, Wayne had the nerve to contact me inviting me to a men’s only group meeting about creating safe spaces for women (no women were allowed at this meeting). So long as I sought out Wayne’s guidance and did everything Wayne said; Wayne would “help” me rejoin DxE and become a “better” person/DxE activist. I, in good consciousness, didn’t accept Wayne’s bargain.

All of my friends and extraordinary activists from the DxE community who spoke out against Wayne, Chris, Priya, and the DxE core’s smear campaign of me were labeled as sexist, racist, and overall just bullies. Just like everyone else who left DxE in the past; DxE gaslit them as abandoning animals and intersectional progress.

So, beware that DxE is not safe for anyone unless you’re into racism, sexual assault, and pseudo-­activism.

◇◇◇

I used to organize off and on for DxE last year. I became increasingly frustrated by certain DxE posts and organizers, and what I thought was grandstanding. I felt like the group wasn’t as inclusive or welcoming as they say they are especially with so many snarky posts and comments.

After the posting of a meme appropriating DxE to Civil Rights protesters, another red flag emerged when core members confronted someone who expressed that she did not want to further engage with them. By then I was already cautious of the group but hoping they were willing to correct any wrongs when confronted. After confronting them on the inconsistencies of public statements vs. actual actions, I was cut from the group pages and communications.

I have seen the core members twist words, lie and manipulate to protect their personal agendas under the guise of another agenda (e.g. protecting women of revenge porn). I am aware of them protecting and ignoring victim blamers. I was reminded that DxE is a “grassroots org,” there is no leadership and I can participate in many ways, but I know that’s not true. I clearly see a leadership structure. In good conscience I could not participate and knew I needed to cut ties.

I saw good friends carelessly labeled as dangerous and hurtful to victims because they dared to speak out about their truth and experiences. Everyone who spoke out against their actions was later met with smear campaigns, threatening their reputations. I saw people wrongly and unfairly characterized in their mass email communications for the purpose of garnering sympathy and a call to action on behalf of DxE. This group is not safe for anyone. I am speaking up to further prevent good people from being harmed.

◇◇◇

So when I found DxE 2 years ago, it was something I needed to help me find my voice for the animals and also gain more confidence. I did just that. I made some amazing friends and met so many people to help me make some big things a reality. I really thought the SF Bay DxE core and supporters were my friends and that I could really count on them. I really thought that they were doing something for the AR movement that seemed to be missing.

So, I started questioning things more when I started seeing the core and other supporters calling out and targeting vegans or activists for various things they said negatively towards DxE. I expressed my concerns to the core that I felt this wasn’t cool because we should all be working together and they told me things to shut me up and move along. Then the Hugo incident happened and I was even more upset. Many people started saying they didn’t want DxE to be at events because they simply didn’t agree with the way they do things and some don’t feel safe around DxE members. There are so many other incidents after this that were all upsetting, especially how they handled them publicly or how they chose not to handle them at all. They tried to discredit 3 of my friends who had never been in DxE and targeted 3 of my friends who used to also be in DxE, for things that were lies and uncalled for. Not to mention there were several “favorites” within the core members who did things that should have been made public, but they weren’t because of their privilege in DxE. I remembered all the negative things that I had heard people say about them over the years, which come to find out most were true. I discovered that when the core calls its criticisms “all a fabrication” while derailing it to be about how people dislike their tactics, it is to get you to think everything is all good on their end.

When I confronted them again about how they were still handling things so badly, I was asked by a core member “Who’s side are you on?” I should not have to pick a side. I want everyone to work peacefully together but they don’t see what they’re doing is bad. That was when I realized I have had enough. They really hurt me because I thought they were my friends. I caught 4 core members in lies, to make themselves look better and throw other people under the bus. They only care about how they are perceived by their followers, so they look like angels and I say followers because I’m starting to realize they have cult-like qualities. It just hurts to see how messed up things have gotten when we are supposed to be fighting for animals and not against each other! So in short, if you have anything negative to say about DxE, they will let everyone know and try to get all their followers to make you think there is nothing wrong with anything they do.

◇◇◇

When I joined DxE, I was so excited for the chance to work with a passionate group of people who proclaimed the ideal of liberation for all, humans and non-humans. I truly believed we valued the necessity for ending all oppressive power structures, the ones that plague many of our own lives included.

This could not be farther from reality within DxE. Contrary to how they advertise, there is a hierarchy within the organization, where those at the top (the core) are primarily invested in building the image/brand of DxE, at the expense of committed and well-intentioned activists, and DxE’s own integrity. Following my long-term involvement in the DxE community, my trust in the core members who had led me to believe that they valued intersectional principles, my friendship, and contributions to DxE, was completely shattered.

I was heartbroken to learn of situations where men in positions of power in DxE were preying upon and taking advantage of vulnerable, and much younger women. I was disgusted by the victim-blaming, smear-campaigning, and dismissive responses I received from Priya (and silence from male leaders) when I expressed my concerns about this, all while DxE were publicly claiming to support victims. I realized I could not continue to support DxE, with this deep hypocrisy built into the fabric of the organization.

I soon became aware of even more defamatory smear campaigns against current (at the time) and former DxE activists. The extent of dishonesty and hurt the core members are willing to inflict on those they once called friends and claimed to love, is devastating. DxE touts their “family” vibe and strong loving community but any member of that community is totally disposable if they don’t participate unquestioningly in what DxE has become.

The core members of DxE routinely engage in manipulation, both of people, and of accounts of events, in efforts to control and manage information, then throw around words like “integrity” and “transparency.” This is no way to treat people who call each other friends and allies for justice. It’s toxic for a community of activists and kills the trust in the honesty, integrity, and open communication that is purported to be central to DxE.

Safer spaces for activists both in real life and online, are things that DxE has no respect for. I endured baseless personal attacks from Wayne and Priya in retaliation for removing members (who happened to be affiliated with DxE) from a Facebook group I moderate for repeatedly violating the safer space policy of the group. Many activists have been similarly targeted over the course of DxE’s activity.

I continue to have concerns for the safety and well-being of current and potential future members. Especially those who are younger and vulnerable, who are being given a false sense of safety and care in the DxE community; and those who are marginalized by oppressive power structures around race, gender, class and ability that are reinforced interpersonally in DxE spaces while they label the group “intersectional” in name only.

If your motivation for animal rights activism is based in a sense of empathy and compassion for the rights and well-being of others, please make an informed decision about supporting or becoming involved with DxE.

◇◇◇

If you have any comments, questions, or concerns, please send them to questiondxe@gmail.com.

Also visit the FB support page https://www.facebook.com/SupportDxEVictims

Sunday, August 9, 2015

SUPPORT FOR MATHEW ERICKSON NEEDED!



Matthew Erickson grew up in South Seattle and has been a vocal critic of police brutality, especially as it effects Black communities, communities of color, and working class/poor communities in the city. He is one of the founders of Seattle Copwatch (a group that films the police to ensure they do not harass or brutalize people). He was also a prominent member of the Decolonize/ Occupy Seattle movement.


Last year, Mr. Erickson was filming officers Chase and Clay at Westlake park as they were harassing a young man of color. While he was filming, the officers called over a crowd of youth, telling them it would be “dangerous for them” to have Mr. Erickson around. The youth began to threaten Mr. Erickson with weapons, demanding that he stop filming the police. It appears that the two officers incited the crowd; at the very least, they allowed the crowd to attack Mr. Erickson.


Fearing for his life, Mr. Erickson defended himself by holding a knife in front of him as he backed away from the crowd. He did not actually hurt anyone with the knife. The two officers arrested him at gunpoint; they did not arrest any of his attackers. He dropped the knife, and as he was arrested he covered his face and upper torso out of fear the cops might allow the crowd to attack him further. Indeed, video footage from the Pacific Place mall security cameras shows the officers rolling him toward the crowd, and at least one individual in the crowd stomps or kicks him as he is held down by the officers.


Because of this situation, Mr. Erickson was recently tried and convicted of resisting arrest and use of an illegal weapon, in a trial presided over by Judge Rosen. His public defender failed to argue the fact that his knife was indeed legal. There was not a single Black person on the jury, so it was not a jury of his peers. And Judge Rosen instructed the jury not to consider Mr. Erickson’s actions self-defense, claiming he should have relied on the police officers for safety instead of using his knife, even though there is evidence they incited the crowd and/ or granted them impunity to attack him.


Because Mr. Erickson is a well-respected member of multiple, diverse communities, dozens of people came out to his trial to support him. When people expressed spontaneous verbal reactions to the clearly unjust verdict, Judge Rosen had them arrested and slapped them with maximum contempt charges (30 days each for two people, and eight for the third). He also set a ridiculously high $50,000 bail for Mr. Erickson; his friends and supporters raised the bond for this on short notice.


To many of us, this is an unsurprising situation; it is a continuation of what Michelle Alexander calls the New Jim Crow regime, where Black people are disproportionally criminalized due to lack of adequate defense representation, and court procedures that favor the prosecution. To some, this may seem to be a bizarre incident; it might seem unbelievable until one watches the footage and hears the court testimony (which is available at https://stoplegallynching.wordpress.com).

In either respect, this situation calls into question the city of Seattle’s claims to be a diverse and racially equitable city. It also calls into question the Seattle Police Department’s community policing initiatives, which officers Chase and Clay mentioned they were a part of during their trial testimonies.

FOR MORE INFORMATION INCLUDING A VIDEO OF THE INCIDENT PLEASE VISIT https://stoplegallynching.wordpress.com

OR CONTACT
stoplegallynching@gmail.com

Friday, August 7, 2015

Essential Questions on Ecology & Decolonization


Essential Questions on Ecology & Decolonization




Personal Questions, Part I
Where does your water come from? Where does your food come from? Who makes the things you use? Under what conditions? Where does your poop go when you dispose of it? Where do your other wastes end up? Who lives within 200 feet of you when you sleep? How well do you know them? Do you interact more with creatures, or plastic?
Ecology Questions, Part I
Does the moon currently wax or wane? What wild flora, fauna, and fungi live around you? Which local native species do you know? What watershed do you live in? Which ones border it? What do you know about your local bioregion? Polar, temperate, or tropical climate? Do you know your latitude, humidity, and elevation? Your hardiness zone? The direction and source of your winds and rains? What terrestrial biomes predominate locally? This can include tropical rainforest, tropical savanna, desert, chaparral, grassland, temperate deciduous forest, temperate boreal forest, arctic and alpine tundra. What terrestrial and freshwater ecoregion types do you live within?
Indigenous Questions
Which various indigenous peoples inhabit(ed) your region? What do you know of their subsistence methods (e.g. scavenging, hunting, trapping, fishing, gathering, collecting, horticulture, herding, husbandry, intensive agriculture, raiding)? What significance do or did specific species of local flora, fauna, and fungi hold for the natives? What do you know of their settlement patterns (i.e. nomadic, semi-nomadic, sedentary)? What do you know of their social organization (i.e. bands, tribes, chiefdoms, States)? Consider how different native cultures related to one another as well. What do you know of colonization history, and the current conditions or fate of local indigenous peoples?
Ecology Questions, Part II
What did your landbase (wildlife, watershed, biomes, bioregion) look like across various geological phases, before modification by agrarian, pastoral, urban, and industrial cultures? How have agrarian, pastoral, urban, and industrial cultures affected your landbase? Which ecological issues does your landbase face? This could include such issues as habitat destruction, disruption, and volatility; keystone species die offs; mass species die offs; pollution & toxification; drawdown & overshoot.
Personal Questions, Part II
How did your ancestors define and practice their ethnicity and spirituality? Look as far back as you can, tracing each change you can locate. What values do you hold, and how do you live them out? What provides obstacles and opportunities? How does all this relate back to your landbase: do your values foster regenerative, sustainable, or extractive relations? How about your behaviors? What dies so that you may live? How do you give back?

[1] 14 Major Terrestrial Ecoregion Types:
1. Tropical & subtropical moist broadleaf forests (tropical & subtropical, humid)
2. Tropical & subtropical dry broadleaf forests (tropical & subtropical, semihumid)
3. Tropical & subtropical coniferous forests (tropical & subtropical, semihumid)
4. Temperate broadleaf & mixed forests (temperate, humid)
5. Temperate coniferous forests (temperate, humid to semihumid)
6. Boreal forests/taiga (subarctic, humid)
7. Tropical & subtropical grasslands, savannas, & shrublands (tropical & subtropical, semiarid)
8. Temperate grasslands, savannas, & shrublands (temperate, semiarid)
9. Flooded grasslands & savannas (temperate to tropical, fresh or brackish water inundated)
10. Montane grasslands & shrublands (alpine or montane climate)
11. Tundra (Arctic)
12. Mediterranean forests, woodlands, & scrub or sclerophyll forests (temperate warm, semihumid to semiarid with winter rainfall)
13. Deserts & xeric shrublands (temperate to tropical, arid)
14. Mangrove (subtropical & tropical, salt water inundated)
[2] 12 Major Freshwater Ecoregion Types:
1. Large lakes
2. Large river deltas
3. Polar freshwaters
4. Montane freshwaters
5. Temperate coastal rivers
6. Temperate floodplain rivers & wetlands
7. Temperate upland rivers
8. Tropical & subtropical coastal rivers
9. Tropical & subtropical floodplain rivers & wetlands
10. Tropical & subtropical upland rivers
11. Xeric freshwaters & endorheic basins
12. Oceanic islands

Friday, July 17, 2015

The Feral Space/Warzone Distro tabling at Fed Up Fest Chicago Queercore Fest 2015


We are a collective of queer and trans punks here at the feral space and we are SO happy to announce we will be tabling Fed Up Fest Chicago for the second time. We will have FREE zines on various topics including radical veganism, gender anarchy, straight edge/radical sobriety, critical race theory, anti-colonialism, anti-civ/green anarchy and so on. Come visit us and enjoy this AMAZING fest!

About Fed Up Fest Chicago:

  • JULY 24th - 26th, 2015
    CHICAGO, IL
    ▼ Ⓐ ⚧

  • FED UP FEST is a three day, all ages, DIY music and workshop festival showcasing and celebrating queer and transgender voices in punk communities. We are a collectively run group that actively opposes racism, sexism, homophobia, transphobia, xenophobia, ableism, capitalism, and all other fucked up “isms” and “phobias” at macro and micro levels. FED UP FEST is inspired from the short lived direct action coalition FED UP QUEERS (FUQ) that existed in New York city from 1989-1990 that grew out of the Aids Coalition to Unleash Power.

    By organizing FED UP FEST we hope to engage our communities in a dialogue that will work to confront and challenge the perpetuation of oppression and abuse in our scenes, and to help create stronger and more sustainable bonds between and across radical queer and punk communities. Due to underlying homophobic and transphobic tendencies, the presence of queer and trans people in punk scenes is so frequently a site of volatility. By solidifying our presence and voices through solidarity and with consistent radical frameworks, that center marginalized voices, we can help confront the oppressive attitudes that pervade our scenes on structural and personal levels. As a collective, we firmly believe that punk should be a site of resistance to shitty mainstream values. We hope that FED UP FEST creates a space of defiance, empowerment, pogoing and change.

    -----------

    ***we understand that queer is a very complicated ambiguous term that people don’t always align with. for the purposes for this fest,though, it makes the most practical sense to use this phrase as an umbrella term.

    ***though the collective and the fest are organized specifically around queer and trans issues, we want to prioritize the voices and safety of those who face intersectional oppressions, specifically queer people of color, trans women, and differently abled queers.

    CONTACT US AT:
    chicagoqueercore@gmail.com

    PERPETRATOR ACCOUNTABILITY STATEMENT/STATEMENT ON CREATING A SAFE(R) SPACE FOR SURVIVORS:

    The Fed Up Fest collective prioritizes the boundaries and needs of survivors of sexual assault and other forms of interpersonal violence. If we are informed of a perpetrator in attendance, we will take whatever action we can to support the survivor and respect their wishes. This includes asking folks to leave the space or having other conversations with those who have caused harm in a way that will make the survivor feel supported and as safe as they possibly can. While we understand that interpersonal violence is often a complex and multifaceted issue, we are not interested in investigating situations of abuse/rape/violence/etc. Rather, we will unquestionably believe the survivor. We strongly feel that it is our responsibility to do everything in our power to create and maintain the safest space possible.
        Facebook event: https://www.facebook.com/events/1578948069016330/

Tuesday, July 7, 2015

July 31st Global Day of Action Against Fascism and Racism 2015! Community Film Screening and Discussion Event Hosted at The Feral Space.

Every year on July 31, militants and organizers across the U.S., Canada, and Europe participate in the International Day of Action Against Fascism and Racism. Please join us on July 31, 2015, as we collaborate again to struggle against white supremacists organizing in our communities and abroad!

Who: Revolutionaries everywhere!

What: Organizing events and actions against fascism and white supremacy!
When: July 31, 2015!
Where: Wherever you are!
Why: To smash oppression of ALL forms!

We as The Feral Space collective have chosen to put out a call to action again this year as a means of coordinating anti-fascist struggles. In 2014, we saw a variety of actions and efforts that reflected the diversity of the participating organizations, which included benefit shows, public events, protests, and public outings of white supremacists. Only by organizing against white supremacists and fascists can we protect ourselves from their violent attacks, and not by putting faith in the police and legal systems that enforce borders and criminalize People of Color.

Last year we had a great turn out of people who attended from our community. We had discussions, ate delicious vegan food and enjoyed a sober environment of people learning more about colonialism, white supremacy and fascism. This year we hope to have MORE people at this event coming together to build community resistance and individual empowerment.

On July 31, 2015, join together with radical anti-fascists to take it to the streets and oppose racism and fascism in YOUR communities. Fight where you stand!

-Straight Edge Vegan ANTIFA

Monday, June 22, 2015

New Federal Trial Date (10/26) and Update For Vegan Anarchist Eric King

Capture

From https://supportericking.wordpress.com/


A quick update for supporters around the world. A continuance has been 
filed for Eric King’s federal trial, pushing the trial date back from July13th to October 26th. We will keep you updated on the progress of his case and reach out when we’re starting to prepare to pack the court for his trial.

In the mean time, Eric remains housed in segregation at CCA Leavenworth.
We ask for all your love and solidarity while he continues to fight for medical care, including outside testing for an increasingly serious medical situation. We will update everyone as we get more information about his health.

Right now, Eric’s nutrition is of the utmost importance and we want to be able to help him achieve proper nutrition to keep his body as healthy as possible. We need help sending him commissary each month so he can buy adequate amounts of vegan food and vitamins in addition to other necessities. Any donation helps!

The link to the fundraiser is here! https://fundrazr.com/campaigns/0yoZc/sh/a4jVK6

The above photo is a mock-up for support t-shirts that should be available very soon! Keep an eye out.

Until all are free!

Solidarity (A)

Friday, June 19, 2015

The Feral Space collective and Warzone Distro tabling at "BENEFICIO PARA VIDEO CLUB EN RESISTENCIA" punk show

We will be tabling at this event with tons of free zines in English and Spanish. If you are in the Chicago area come check out some amazing bands and pick up some zines on anti-colonization, radical sobriety, anti-speciesism and
eco-defense!



Thursday, May 14, 2015

A Short Anarchist Essay on the Domesticating and Colonizing Effects of Addiction and Intoxication Culture
















"There is no more profound way of understanding the course of history than in terms of this effort to escape from one's own 'sweating self' and to experience even temporary states of euphoria or relief of discomfort regardless of the cost."
- Nathan S. Kline


From its earliest inceptions, sedentary life brought with it a drudging misery for its inhabitants, and with such misery quickly arose the need to placate the unruly and desensitize the weary. As social beings, the disassociated conventions of civilized life have never come naturally, and these impositions into and upon our lives have induced massive, collective trauma. The infrastructure of civilization surrounds, envelops, and teaches us to embody its qualities. It's modern totality is the magnum opus of the domestication set out upon less than a dozen millennia ago, and we are it’s equally insane offspring, each generation's pathology more dysfunctional than the last. What began over ten thousand years ago when we began domesticating plants and animals to meet food demands, and from there led to the deforestation of the lands of Mesopotamia and beyond in order to meet the needs of agriculture, what meant the forcing of other peoples off the land wanted, has continued into the present today. We bind ourselves to its unreasonable and unsustainable demands, suffering a commitment to a lifestyle that demands constant production and expansion through ever-increasing and deepening levels of exploitation and an unwavering devotion to this culture as not only beneficial and enlightening, but the only way in which our species can survive. As demands increase and complicate, so do our techniques and our technologies. Exploitation is no longer enough, for we are no longer just consuming. We need hyper-exploitation for hyper-consumption. Our concept of Progress only serves to reinforce the process of converting the living to the dead.


Our every relationship is framed by through coercion. In the absence of wildness, our desire for direct experience is left unfulfilled. In its place, the hollowness of modernity: a psychically and ecologically barren monoculture of hyper-consumption makes a pathetic attempt, if any, to replace the engagement our species demands. Lacking the balance of a sustainable and natural experience, civilization deals with extremes, such as the bounce between over and under-stimulation, neither one satisfying or healthy for us in any way. In place of the forager's quest, we stand slack-jawed in the aisles of supermarkets (how many times have you heard someone say in those aisles, “there's just too much to choose from, I wish this were easier?”), a place where even the "original" hits of pop radio are replaced with tamed, detail-less muzak®, as is the warmth and light of the sun with the eerie glow of fluorescents. The conversation around the campfire is relegated to rare and novelty occurrences, if ever, as we take to replacing emotion with "emoticons," and even the voices of our friends and families over telephone lines are becoming more and more often replaced with the beeping and buzzing of text message notifications. It was once written that "our generation will go to its grave shouting its last words into a cell phone,"3 but this dying world may not hear our screams. It has become frighteningly more realistic that we will go to our deaths silently, pressing keys and holding the "send" button.


We are truly surrounded/alone. Our social networking profiles boas legions of online friends, but the reality is we are isolated as we click our way through pseudo-relationships - it's not just quantity over quality, it is, like all of domestication, the abolition of quality itself. We surround ourselves with techno-comforts whilst prisoners within our increasingly standardized and dehumanized, our experiences overwhelmingly clustered yet simultaneously crushingly separated by walls physical and emotional. Fredy Perlman passed away before the permeation of the internet, cell phones, and so much of what shapes the technological ghost limb of many in this culture today, but the writing had been on the wall long before these "advances," and his words ring truer today than ever before when he wrote that "civilization is a humanly meaningless web of unnatural constraints."4 It is in our ever widening disconnect from reality and its pervasiveness of boredom and teeter-totter of over and under-stimulation that the misery of this culture expands into every facet of our existence.


Whether bombarded or deprived, the terror has started to blend into a painful dullness, and we search desperately for comfort, for euphoria, for anything that tells us we are actually alive. At every turn, our quest for connection finds itself funneled into ever-isolating and unfulfilling activities - escapes that replace outlets for the type of ecstatic energy life should create, diverting our desires and replacing them with false engagement, framing our relationship to such experiences originally through the habitual use of intoxicants and now through nearly every mediated aspect of civilization.


This undercurrent developed with the rise of domestication, deepening and strengthening with the onset of the enveloping hopelessness of the first cities. As David T. Courtwright so keenly observed in Forces of Habit: Drugs and the Making of the Modern World:

“After the Neolithic Revolution, most humans lived as peasants in crowded, oppressive, and disease-ridden societies. The misery and grinding poverty that were the lot of 90 percent of humanity in the early modern would go far toward explaining why tobacco and other novel drugs became objects of mass consumption. They were unexpected weapons against the human condition, newfound tools of escape from the mean prison of everyday existence."

The once-free were no longer so. Trapped inside, the now-broken were under a constant barrage of fear – the fierce coercion of the Big Man, the uncertainty of early agricultural food production, even the water that was once trusted to sustain was poisoned, diseased. It was no mere accident that the use of intoxicants grew rapidly into regular inoculations. In fact, inoculation is often what one intoxicant provided, as Bert L. Vallee discussed in Alcohol in the Western World: A History, his June 1998 Scientific American article:

“In the context of contaminated water supply, ethyl alcohol may indeed have been mother’s milk to a nascent Western civilization. Beer and wine were free of pathogens. And the antiseptic power of alcohol, as well as the natural acidity of wine and beer, killed many pathogens when the alcoholic drinks were diluted with the sullied water supply.”


As civilization expanded and complicated, so too did its connection to intoxicants and our dependency upon them. The coming of the industrial age only served to increase demands of precision and timeliness that weighed down those laborers chained (sometimes literally) to the engines of production. Concerning the constantly rising levels of alcoholism amongst workers in the early 19th century, Zerzan notes that this addiction “[wa]s an obvious register of strain and alienation, of the inability to cope with the burden of daily life.”6 Be it social control or survival, the relationship was there. Domestication and intoxication became inseparable, one augmenting the other - a vicious cycle that so suitably illustrates the functions of both.


“Alcohol has been around since the beginning of civilization. In fact, people loved alcohol so much that they forgot their nomadic ways and decided to settle down, just so they could grow the grains necessary to make beer. Just think: if it weren’t for alcohol, we’d still be wandering around pitching tents every night.”


- Drinkfocus.com, a website whose “aim is to empower consumers through providing information that may help in the development of informed decisions.”


Intoxication Culture is defined as a “set of institutions, behaviors, and mindsets around consumption of drugs and alcohol” by the author of Towards a Less Fucked Up World: Sobriety and Anarchist Struggle.7 To be clear, Intoxication Culture is not the same as intoxication itself. As mentioned earlier, many prehistoric (or is it pre-hysteric?) foraging people have, and their modern descendants continue to carry, knowledge of intoxicating plants and substances. The difference between an individual experience and our habitude is just that: what for the primal person is an individualized, conditional moment is for the civilized a compulsion. I have chosen to use the term Addiction Culture to expand and extend this concept to include other psychoactive substances, the pharmaceuticals that are pushed by mental and other conventional health industries, the aforementioned dependence upon technological mediation, and in fact the whole of domesticated existence.


In My Name is Chellis and I’m in Recovery From Western Civilization, Chellis Glendinning writes, “As an outgrowth of trauma, addiction is an attempt to confront the pain that lies at the heart of the traumatic experience.” Elsewhere, she cites Morris Berman when he delved even deeper into the core of the matter:

"Addiction, in one form or another, characterizes every aspect of industrial society… Dependence on alcohol (food, drugs, tobacco…) is not formally different from dependence on prestige, career achievement, world influence, wealth, the need to build more ingenious bombs, or the need to exercise control over everything."

Glendinning was one of the first to recognize not only the trauma of civilization and its relationship to literal addiction, but the similarities between how addictive behavior and civilization are rationalized. She identified the major characteristics of addiction as “an out-of-control, often aimless, compulsion to fill the lost sense of belonging, integrity, and communion” which is “shielded from awareness by denial: pretending everything is normal, not admitting pain or vulnerability,” followed by “an attraction to repeated trauma.” Let us explore theses concepts now.


An out-of control, often aimless, compulsion:
The entire natural world shudders beneath the load that our culture has created. Our entire lifeway - from our food acquisition to our social structures - has asked more from the natural world than it has ever been able to provide. At every rejection of our demands, we have thus forced our will upon the planet. We have desertified once-beautiful wild lands for our food staples: wheat, rice, soy, corn, and so on. We have thrust our drills deep within the earth to extract its black blood, and we have nearly bled her dry so that our daily activities continue. We have dredged the oceans, nearly wiping out all large sea mammals. We have blown the tops off mountains. We kill billions upon billions of land animals in factory farms and slaughterhouses. We've dammed (or is it damned? the answer is most likely both) the mightiest rivers for even more power. More food, more power… we constantly extract at insanely exploitative levels so that our culture, one of what we perceive as convenience, might survive. In turn, we have spread famine, poverty, disease, and every facet of destruction thinkable – and some unthinkable. We've even created weapons that in moments can undo billions of years of planetary development, leaving a scorched wasteland as our only legacy: a vicious cycle of rapacious consumption and incomprehensible desecration.

Denial:
“We cannot go back.”
“It was here way before us.”
“We can’t take something this big down.”
“It’s too late. There is nothing we can do about it now.”
“We can change the bad things about this and keep the good things.”
“Were would we even begin if we did want to stop?”
“We’ll find a new way to make things work without it falling apart”
“You are being pessimistic.”
“You are the one who lives in a fantasy world.”
“It’s not my problem. It’s not OUR problem.”
“I don’t even want to think about this.”
… Is there any doubt about the depths of our refusal to accept the reality of our situation?

Attraction to repeated trauma:
Easter Island. Mesopotamia. Maya. Rome. Anasazi.
Waterloo Creek. Wounded Knee. The Great Purge. The Holocaust. My Lai. Darfur.
American Bison. Northern Spotted Owl. Bali Tiger. Mexican Grizzly Bear. Passenger Pigeon.
Time after time. Failure after failure. Over and over again. Forever and ever into oblivion.


Civilization is the culture of unrelenting trauma, its inhabitants helpless addicts seeking refuge from excruciating distress.


Not that our search for reprieve, however artificial, is condemnable, as the temperance and prohibition ideologies would have us believe (their intoxication being moral absolutism). Rather, such a search is only expected of a creature deprived and cut off. Erich Fromm wrote in Escape From Freedom that, “to feel completely alone and isolated leads to mental disintegration just as physical starvation leads to death.”13 All animals need engagement and without it the need for tranquilization quickly follow in hopes of survival. Courtwright again points to the confinement of domesticated life when he writes, “species seek and consume intoxicants in the wild, but they do so more often and more compulsively under conditions of captivity.” One can reflect upon the terrifying experiences of those confined in cages, from vivisection labs to psych wards to schools to Super Max prisons. Many of the more literal hostages of this culture die, whether physically, mentally, or emotionally, before their captors can administer all the appropriate tests/diagnosis/degrees/sentences - often from their implacable misery. Put simply, life is impossible without stimuli. Biologically, humans (and again, many other beings) just don't survive under such denied circumstances – in other words, even within its own scientific reasoning, we are at odds with civilization.


Our participation within this culture is driving us absolutely insane. We see the pathology playing out all around us – the news stories of people “snapping” have gone from freakish occurrences to freakishly often occurrences. Rates of autism and schizophrenia, among other mental illnesses, rise at what should be alarming rates – people turning within themselves, people tearing themselves into pieces, people unable to cope with the barrage of daily life. Perhaps these persons aren’t so much ill as more rooted in reality than the rest of us; perhaps it is the rest of us who have somehow managed to disassociate ourselves. Perhaps the real sickness is not automatically reacting with confusion or panic or dejectedness when faced with civilization.


Addiction Culture provides the context necessary for placation and pacification, to further disempower us, to more easily break us. Under its enchantment, we perpetuate a cycle of docility and destruction. That is why it is called addiction.
And that is why we must resist Addiction Culture’s promises of a lull in the torrent of civilized misery. Some may argue, as Courtwright has, that “the use of drugs to cope with fatigue and obliterate misery is in many ways a byproduct of civilization itself,” but it increasingly seems more feasible that Addiction Culture is not an unintended consequence, but rather an integral and vital part of the domesticating process. Without civilization addiction culture would not exist, but just as importantly without addiction culture, civilization could not exist. Relief from domestication through civilization has always been the mythology handed to those who would otherwise resist. The fix, whatever it may be, has always been just around the corner, requiring just another act of subservience from us.


Just as the environmental movement will never save any ecosystem, just as the worker’s movement will never abolish work, a culture of false and/or detached pleasure will never bring about a participatory experience. There never was and never will be balm in Gilead, to borrow from the western mythical tradition. Sadly, the stranglehold of addiction was in place long before our struggle to undo it, and it is to no surprise that anarchist communities suffer as much as any other from the pitfalls of Addiction Culture, amongst the many other undesirable aspects of civilization. What is surprising, however, has been the absence (and in some cases removal) of dialogue around the subject, particularly within the context of resistance to civilization and the unlearning of domestication. As Glendinning showed, denial is a central part of the addict pathology. Until we acknowledge the major deficiency of praxis our resistance suffers from by perpetuating Addiction Culture, our opposition will continue to falter, stumbling drunkenly towards abject failure, towards the realization of domestication and civilization: extinction.


As with so many of the problems facing those hoping to overcome and outlive civilization, this undertaking will not be easy, and I make no claim to have all or even any answers to this problem. I can only say that the damage wrought by this culture is deep and manifests itself widely, and the rewilding of our planet and our selves must go as deep as civilization’s despoliation. Our hopes for a life engaged and enmeshed within actual experiences lay within an attack on the totality of civilization and nothing less. The only way we will achieve total liberation from this culture is by tearing out every last vestige of the malicious roots of domestication from within our communities and ourselves. Anarchists purport to be fighting against the world that creates such wretchedness while seeking, building, and sustaining communities free of the stifling woe that is necessary for civilization to continue and that Addiction Culture numbs us to. To end oppression of all kinds, we must confront it by any means necessary and must also be willing to look critically at, speak openly about, and fight vigorously against such an omnipresent component of oppression, simultaneously seeking to heal, working to support on another in our recovery.


An anarchist world is a world of liberatory reality, of daily engagement and constant stimulation, with rewarding experiences and real relations – a world without domestication or civilization, without this web of boredom, depression, docility and misery.

This essay was shared from http://green-anarchy.wikidot.com/intoxication-culture