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1102 lines
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Plaintext
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Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit
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LOVE AND RAGE
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Electronic Edition
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|
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APRIL/MAY 1993
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Part 1
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Love and Rage is created by the Love and Rage Network, a group of
|
||
people from across North America who find themselves in general
|
||
political agreement. Love and Rage is one of the many projects of
|
||
the Network to which supporters contribute time, money and energy.
|
||
Major decisions and overall policies are set by the Network.
|
||
|
||
Individuals and supporting groups who participate in the Network
|
||
gather in an annual conference, at which most major decisions are
|
||
made. The Network Council, comprised of up to two delegates from
|
||
each supporting group, meet at least once between conferences to
|
||
make interim decisions. A popularly elected Coordinating Group
|
||
makes urgent decisions. Ongoing debates take place in our
|
||
Discussion Bulletin (Disco Bull), out every six to eight weeks.
|
||
More timely information goes out bi-weekly in the Network Bulletin.
|
||
Day to day editorial decisions about the paper are made by the
|
||
volunteer Production Group (PG). A group of elected Coordinators
|
||
shares responsibility for the general work of the Network. Two of
|
||
these Coordinators, the Co-Facilitators, work with the PG on
|
||
production of the paper and help coordinate the projects of the
|
||
Network. In an effort to further democratize and strengthen the
|
||
Network, temporary Regional Organizing Contacts volunteer to be a
|
||
contact for their local areas.
|
||
|
||
The Love and Rage Network is not a closed circle of friends. You
|
||
can become part of the Network and participate fully in the
|
||
decision-making process. Ask the person who sold or gave you this
|
||
paper, or write to one of the many Love and Rage contacts listed in
|
||
this paper.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Coordinating Group
|
||
|
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Erric, Atlanta, GA
|
||
Liz, Boston, MA
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||
Paul, Berkeley, CA
|
||
Ana, Mexico City
|
||
Terry, New York, NY
|
||
Crystal, Chicago, IL
|
||
Jodi, Columbus, OH
|
||
Jean-Marc, Minneapolis, MN
|
||
Fur, Atlanta GA
|
||
Gene, Newark, NJ
|
||
Ojore Lutalo, Trenton, NJ
|
||
|
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|
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Coordinators List
|
||
|
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Regions Coordinator
|
||
Britt, 702 S. Illinois Ave. Apt. 115
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Carbondale, IL 62901
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||
|
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Network Coordinator
|
||
Shannon c/o Love and Rage
|
||
|
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Interorganizational Coordinator
|
||
Phillip, 27 School Street
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||
Sommerville, MA 02143
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||
|
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International Coordinator
|
||
Todd c/o Love and Rage
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||
|
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Finance Coordinator
|
||
Matt c/o Love and Rage
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||
|
||
Fundraising Coordinator
|
||
Rick c/o Love and Rage
|
||
|
||
Info-Share Coordinator
|
||
Jodi c/o AA, PO Box 10007
|
||
Columbus OH 43201
|
||
|
||
Discussion Bulletin Coordinators
|
||
Jean-Marc and Nikolas
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||
PO Box 581354, Minneapolis, MN 55458-1354
|
||
|
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Co-Facilitators
|
||
Dema Crassy and Ms. Tommy Lawless
|
||
c/o Love and Rage
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||
|
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Production Group: Gene, Christopher, Bob, Matt L, Rick, Sara, Matt
|
||
B*, Shannon, Todd, ommy, Pablo, Dema, Greg, Beth, Paul, Dave
|
||
|
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[PG Members who didn't work on this issue are marked with an "*"]
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|
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Translators
|
||
Eugenio, Todd, Ana*, Gustavo*, Pablo
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||
|
||
Love and Rage is printed on recycled paper, using soy-based inks.
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Love and Rage is printed by a union printer. ISSN # 1065-2000.
|
||
Submission deadlines for the next two issues: April 15, and June
|
||
15. When we don't have the money to produce our regular twenty page
|
||
full-size edition, we produce an eight page "Broadsheet" edition.
|
||
If you're having trouble getting the paper, please call (212)
|
||
569-0989 or (201) 344-3397.
|
||
|
||
Boring Disclaimer
|
||
Look. Articles, Letters, Notes of Revolt, and other things printed
|
||
in Love and Rage do not necessarily represent the opinions or views
|
||
of the Love and Rage Network or of any person involved therein. We
|
||
print a variety of articles for a variety of reasons, including
|
||
articles we don't agree with, because we believe that they are
|
||
interesting or provocative. So there.
|
||
|
||
Love And Rage
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||
PO Box 3
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||
Prince Street Station
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New York, NY 10012
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||
(212) 569 0989 or (201) 344 3397
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||
e-mail: lnr%nyxfer@igc.apc.org
|
||
loveandrage@igc.apc.org
|
||
|
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-30-
|
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|
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LOVE AND RAGE
|
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Electronic Edition
|
||
|
||
APRIL/MAY 1993
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In this Issue
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||
|
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Part 1: North American News
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||
|
||
The Klan in Simi Valley
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Klan on the Run
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||
Anarchists Named in McLibel Suit
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||
Short Takes
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||
Correction
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||
|
||
Queer News Spread:
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||
|
||
Queer Killings Expose Left Hypocrisy
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||
My Own Private Islam
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||
Questioning (Queer) Authority
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||
The Right to Love, The Right to Kill
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||
|
||
Part 2: International News
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||
|
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Abortion Access Erodes in East Bloc
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||
Fiery Viruses Communique
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||
Anti-Fascist Action, Edinburgh
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||
Asian Student Movements of the '90s
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||
Moldavia: Repression of Anarcho-Syndicalists
|
||
Cuban Activists Can't Go Home
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||
Irish Border Protests
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||
Parcel Bomb Kills German Activist
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||
Repression in Greece Continues
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||
Partial Victory for Nigerian Anarchists
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InfoShops: The Medium is the Message
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||
International News Roundup
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||
Mexico: Amor y Rabia en Espanol
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||
|
||
Part 3: Prison News/ABC Page
|
||
|
||
Rita Bo Brown on Solidarity with Political Prisoners
|
||
League of Lesbian and Gay Prisoners
|
||
Panthers Up for Parole
|
||
Kenny Tolia Freed
|
||
Shocking Statistics: Political Prisoners in the USA
|
||
Current Campaigns for Political Prisoners
|
||
New Campaign: Poles in Prison
|
||
The Anarchist Black Cross
|
||
|
||
Part 4: Letters to the Editor, Notices
|
||
|
||
A Few Words About Politics
|
||
Where's AYF?
|
||
Writers Wanted!
|
||
New Journal on Childhood Sexual Abuse
|
||
Spanish Section Synopsis
|
||
Letters to Love and Rage
|
||
|
||
Part 5: Resources
|
||
|
||
Upcoming Events
|
||
Supporting Groups & Regional Contacts
|
||
Other Anarchist Contacts
|
||
New Directory of Radical Resources
|
||
Resources for Women's Rights
|
||
Running of the Bulls
|
||
|
||
..................................................................
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||
LOVE AND RAGE
|
||
Electronic Edition
|
||
|
||
APRIL/MAY 1993
|
||
|
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||
THE KLAN IN SIMI VALLEY
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by Chris Crass
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SIMI VALLEY, Calif -- ANTI-racist activists kept the Klan away on Jan
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30, 1993 in Simi Valley. The K.K.K. had planned to demonstrate in
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||
front of the Simi Valley Courthouse in support of the police
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||
officers who beat Rodney King. When news of this demonstration
|
||
spread, Neighbors Against Nazis organized a counter-demonstration.
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||
|
||
The rally against racism began in the morning with music and
|
||
speakers. Information tables were set up by such organizations as
|
||
People Against Racist Terror, Committee for the Impeachment of
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||
(California Governor) Pete Wilson, and the (anarchist) Southern
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||
California Web Collective.
|
||
|
||
Over 150 people came out for the rally to show opposition to racism
|
||
and police brutality. The largest faction of activists at the
|
||
protest was the anarchists. With more than 60 of us there, mainly
|
||
dressed in black, we were also the greatest concern to the police.
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||
|
||
The K.K.K. never showed up, apparently in fear of the anti-racists!
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||
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||
-30-
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||
KLAN ON THE RUN:
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||
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ANTI-RACIST ACTION ON THE PROWL
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||
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TORONTO -- ANTI-RACIST ACTION (A.R.A.) came together to bring people
|
||
out onto the streets to show the strength of our opposition to
|
||
fascism as well as our commitment to a multi-racial,
|
||
multi-cultural, sexually diverse, equal and fun society. A.R.A. is
|
||
an open group. Our meetings are wheelchair accessible, and
|
||
childcare is provided. Born in late Sept 1992, A.R.A. has already
|
||
mounted several successful actions and will build on our successes
|
||
with increased participation.
|
||
|
||
THE FASCIST THREAT TODAY?
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||
|
||
The experience of the Holocaust and the defeat of Hitler's Nazi
|
||
Germany led many to believe that the world had learned its lesson
|
||
and fascism was dead. But in 1992 we witnessed once again an
|
||
alarming resurgence of fascism throughout Europe. In Germany we
|
||
have seen racist assaults, firebombings of refugee hostels, mass
|
||
fascist rallies and riots, and an increasing identification with
|
||
fascist ideology among young people. The popularity of fascism has
|
||
spread through France, Italy, Greece, Belgium, England, Austria,
|
||
Spain, Poland and other European countries. It is happening here
|
||
too.
|
||
|
||
Fascist groups have also been growing across Canada. Now, spurred
|
||
by the "successes" of their European counterparts, they feel strong
|
||
enough to begin to organize publicly. Toronto's own fascist
|
||
movement is the "nerve center" for Canadian white supremacists of
|
||
all stripes. The Heritage Front, the Church of the Creator, the
|
||
Aryan Resistance Movement and the Ku Klux Klan (K.K.K.) are
|
||
networking and building their ranks in this city. The Heritage
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||
Front, which acts as the main recruiting front for Toronto's
|
||
neo-nazi/white supremacist movement, has been leafletting
|
||
neighbourhoods, postering and recruiting in high schools, hosting
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||
international neo-nazi speakers, holding rallies, making bomb
|
||
threats, vandalizing community centres, and promoting their
|
||
particular brand of hate. They have also been linked to the bombing
|
||
of the Morgentaler abortion clinic. Heritage Front leader Wolfgang
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||
Droege is a former leader of the Canadian Knights of the K.K.K. He
|
||
was convicted by a U.S. court of an attempted armed invasion of the
|
||
Caribbean island of Dominica (as well as cocaine trafficking) for
|
||
which he served two years in prison. Despite their infamous leader
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||
and explicitly racist platform, the Heritage Front have attempted
|
||
to present themselves as a legitimate political movement, committed
|
||
to "equal rights for whites."
|
||
|
||
We have seen the brutal results of fascist ideology. We have seen
|
||
millions executed at the hands of the Nazis during the Holocaust.
|
||
We cannot plead ignorance. Called "fascism," "neo- nazism" or
|
||
"white supremacy" these ideas equal racism, hatred and violence.
|
||
We have learned from history that fascism doesn't disappear by just
|
||
wishing it away. It must be confronted by an overwhelming majority
|
||
of people standing up and refusing to allow it to grow. We can
|
||
prevent the far-right from taking root in this country, but we must
|
||
act before it's too late.
|
||
|
||
The rise of fascism relies on our fear and our silence. We cannot
|
||
turn a blind eye while they poison our youth with their lies and
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||
hatred, instill fear in our communities, assault and murder our
|
||
brothers and sisters. We cannot allow them to organize in our city
|
||
and march on our streets. We must act up and fight back. The power
|
||
to defeat fascism lies in our hands. We will educate and mobilize
|
||
our communities, stop their organizing in our schools and take back
|
||
our streets!
|
||
|
||
The Heritage Front has singled out Toronto's high schools for
|
||
intensive recruitment drives through leafletting, postering and an
|
||
increasing presence. This attempt to peddle their racism and lies
|
||
to our youth is outrageous, offensive and will not be tolerated.
|
||
|
||
A.R.A. has been meeting with students, community leaders, teachers
|
||
and the Toronto Board of Education. A.R.A. has launched a campaign
|
||
of counter-leafletting and counter-postering in schools targeted by
|
||
the Heritage Front. We have been organizing in the schools,
|
||
supporting and developing anti-racist initiatives to raise
|
||
awareness and develop strategies to drive the nazis out of our
|
||
schools and streets.
|
||
|
||
ON THE PROWL
|
||
|
||
Sept 29, 1992: The Heritage Front organized a march on the
|
||
courthouse to defend their operation of a telephone hateline. With
|
||
40 hours notice, a counter-demonstration was organized, far
|
||
outnumbering the racists, many of whom fled the scene in panic.
|
||
A.R.A. was born.
|
||
|
||
Week of Nov 9, 1992: On the anniversary of Kristallnacht, A.R.A.
|
||
protested against the German government's inaction against the
|
||
rising tide of neo-fascism there. Similar actions took place around
|
||
the world, responding to a call by Germany's anti-fascist movement.
|
||
|
||
Nov 13, 1992: The Heritage Front sponsored a secret rally in
|
||
Toronto, hosting several prominent international neo-nazi speakers.
|
||
But A.R.A. was there to shut 'em down! Their meeting hall was
|
||
surrounded and pelted with eggs by an angry crowd demanding an end
|
||
to racist organizing in our city. Over a hundred humiliated racists
|
||
were forced to slink out of the building under police escort.
|
||
|
||
Dec 19, 1992: A.R.A. responded to the rise in queer-bashings
|
||
carried out by young K.K.K. and Heritage Front thugs in Toronto and
|
||
Montreal. Hundreds of people marched in Toronto's gay neighbourhood
|
||
to show our defiance: We will not be intimidated by fascist
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||
homophobes.
|
||
|
||
Jan 19, 1993: A.R.A. launched its campaign in Toronto high schools
|
||
with a mass rally and march beginning at Riverdale High School in
|
||
the east end of Toronto. Young anti-racists joined forces to show
|
||
fascist organizers that they have a bigger fight on their hands
|
||
than they anticipated.
|
||
|
||
When they come for our brothers and sisters, A.R.A. will be there.
|
||
Your involvement is the key to A.R.A.'s success! Whether in
|
||
educational campaigns, "Rock Against Racism" gigs or out in the
|
||
street, A.R.A. needs you!
|
||
|
||
A.R.A. has been helping high school students to build their own
|
||
independent A.R.A. groups in their schools. A.R.A. also meets as a
|
||
large body to coordinate actions and campaigns that bring together
|
||
concerns from various schools and communities.
|
||
|
||
*
|
||
|
||
If you want to join Anti-Racist Action, start an A.R.A. group in
|
||
your school or just get more information, contact us.
|
||
|
||
Anti-Racist Action
|
||
P.O. Box 664, Stn. C Toronto, Ont. M6J 3S1 Canada
|
||
Klanbusters Hotline: (416) 968-2127
|
||
|
||
-30-
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|
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ANARCHISTS NAMED IN MCLIBEL SUIT
|
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LONDON -- HELEN STEEL AND Dave Morris, two supporters of the
|
||
anarchist collective London Greenpeace, are named in a libel suit
|
||
brought on by McDonalds. The hamburger giant is angry about the
|
||
increasing visibility and success of anti-McDonalds activism in the
|
||
U.K. and everywhere.
|
||
|
||
McDonalds is the worlds largest retail property owner and food
|
||
service organization, with annual profits of billions of dollars
|
||
from exploiting workers, murdering animals, destroying the
|
||
environment, pushing unhealthy food, and indoctrinating children.
|
||
|
||
Over the years many people and groups have campaigned against
|
||
Mickey D's. In 1985 London Greenpeace, a small independent
|
||
collective since 1970, launched a general anti-McDonalds campaign
|
||
to try to coordinate and strengthen opposition. A special detailed
|
||
factsheet titled "What's wrong with McDonalds: Everything they
|
||
don't want you to know" was produced, translated and taken to
|
||
scores of countries.
|
||
|
||
Feeling the heat, McDonalds has responded with a two fisted attack.
|
||
On the one hand they have stepped up propaganda efforts, trying to
|
||
portray themselves as friends to the environment and community. On
|
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the other hand they are using the legal system to harass and
|
||
silence activists.
|
||
|
||
Libel laws are stacked in favor of the rich and powerful, and the
|
||
court proceedings can be extremely expensive and lengthy. A range
|
||
of organizations and media bodies were forced to apologize or
|
||
face libel suits for daring to criticize the transnational
|
||
corporation. (This has included the British newspaper the Guardian,
|
||
Britain's Channel 4, Scottish Trade Unions Council, vegetarian and
|
||
green groups, labor research institutes and many more.) Despite
|
||
these attempts to intimidate activists, grassroots opposition
|
||
continued to grow, and so in September 1990 McDirtball filed a
|
||
libel suit against two individuals connected with London
|
||
Greenpeace.
|
||
|
||
Rather than halting protests, this threat to free speech has served
|
||
to further damage McDonalds reputation and to strengthen the
|
||
resolve of its critics. The defendants, Helen Steel and Dave
|
||
Morris, backed by London Greenpeace and the McLibel Support
|
||
Campaign, have resolved to fight this major libel case to show that
|
||
intimidation must never be allowed to succeed.
|
||
|
||
McDonalds has tried to drag out the proceedings to drain the
|
||
resources of the defense, but it looks like they are going to try
|
||
and rush through the second phase of the proceedings -- the
|
||
interrogatories -- where the real details and evidence will be
|
||
aired. Among the evidence they have so far successfully repressed
|
||
are details of Helen and Dave's involvement: All they were doing
|
||
was handing out the leaflets! They aren't even charged with writing
|
||
the anti-McD material. This evidence would expose McDonalds' spying
|
||
on activists, including using an infiltrator.
|
||
|
||
Funds are desperately needed. Support for Helen and Dave is being
|
||
organized by:
|
||
|
||
London Greenpeace
|
||
5 Caledonia Road
|
||
London N1, England
|
||
Tel (01) (081) 837 7557
|
||
|
||
Copies of the allegedly libelous leaflet are available from:
|
||
Veggies
|
||
180 Mansfield Road
|
||
Nottingham, England
|
||
-30-
|
||
|
||
|
||
Short Takes:
|
||
|
||
ANOTHER RACIST POLICE MURDER
|
||
|
||
HAYWARD, Calif. -- JERROLD HALL, A 19-YEAR-OLD African-American male,
|
||
was shot in the head and killed by Bay Area Rapid Transit
|
||
(B.A.R.T.) Police Officer Fred Crabtree on Nov 15, 1992. Crabtree
|
||
was responding to a third-hand description of an "armed robbery" on
|
||
the train, based on an anonymous complaint by an alleged victim.
|
||
The complaining party claimed his Walkman radio had been stolen by
|
||
two African-American men with a gun. No gun was ever found. Hall is
|
||
dead: a racist police murder. John Owens, his suspected
|
||
"accomplice," is in jail on felony robbery charges. Officer
|
||
Crabtree is armed again on active duty. The community is outraged.
|
||
COPWATCH and Roots Against War have organized several demos. Send
|
||
funds and letters of support to:
|
||
|
||
John Henry Owens Fund
|
||
c/o COPWATCH
|
||
2022 Blake Street
|
||
Berkeley, CA 94704
|
||
|
||
-30-
|
||
|
||
KICKING THE KLAN'S KABOODLE
|
||
|
||
FOUR HUNDRED ANTI-RACIST DEMONSTRATORS CONfronted 30 nazis on
|
||
University Ave. on Jan 25, 1993. The demonstrators were attacked
|
||
and arrested by Metro Police Officers on horseback with clubs. The
|
||
Metro Police then cleared a corridor to allow the 30 nazis access
|
||
to the courthouse. The nazis turned out in support of the Heritage
|
||
Front, a white supremacist group, for the Canadian Human Rights
|
||
Commission Hearing. Heritage Front leader, Wolfgang Droege,
|
||
commented: "I wish the police were not there so we could take care
|
||
of this once and for all." Yeah, right! The police attacked the
|
||
mildly-behaved crowd for no apparant reason, except to create a
|
||
deliberate diversion to allow nazis into the courthouse. This is
|
||
the second time this has happened at a Heritage Front hearing.
|
||
|
||
Klanbusters joins with Anti-Racist Action in calling for all
|
||
charges to be dropped against anti-racists!
|
||
|
||
Klanbusters, P.O. Box 146, Station P, Toronto, ONT
|
||
M5S 2S6, Canada, Tel (416) 968-2127, Fax (416) 964-2111
|
||
|
||
-30-
|
||
|
||
THREE THOUSAND ANTI-FASCIST DEMONSTRATORS took to the streets in
|
||
protest of a visit by Tom Metzger, leader of the White Aryan
|
||
Resistance, on Jan 22, 1993. Four hundred action-oriented
|
||
protesters discovered Metzger's real location, a nearby hotel, and
|
||
gained entrance. The speech was disrupted shortly after it began,
|
||
and police escorted the nazis safely out the back. A few protesters
|
||
were arrested. Gord H., who puts out OH-Toh-Kin, is facing serious
|
||
felonies, including concealed weapons, explosives, masked and
|
||
mischief charges. To express support, contact:
|
||
|
||
Arm The Spirit
|
||
P.O. Box 57584, Jackson Station
|
||
Hamilton, ONT L8P 4X3, Canada
|
||
|
||
-30-
|
||
|
||
THE MINNESOTA EIGHT
|
||
|
||
MINNEAPOLIS -- THE MINNESOTA EIGHT NEED YOUR SUPPORT. A COP WAS shot
|
||
in Sept 1992, amid a tense gang-phobic atmosphere. In the weeks
|
||
following the shooting, the police terrorized Black youth in south
|
||
Minneapolis. Eight African-American men will stand trial: four
|
||
charged with killing a police officer, three with killing an
|
||
African-American man (whom the mainstream press suggested was a
|
||
police informer), and one youth charged with both shootings.
|
||
Together these young men are popularly called the Minnesota Eight.
|
||
Pre-trial hearings did not go well, and the Committee Seeking Equal
|
||
Justice for the Minnesota Eight desperately needs funds. Write to
|
||
them to offer support at:
|
||
|
||
P.O. Box 40355
|
||
St. Paul, MN 55104
|
||
|
||
-30-
|
||
|
||
TIMMMBER!
|
||
|
||
BURLINGTON, Vt. -- SEVERAL electrical utility poles in five Vermont
|
||
locations have been sabotaged since April 1992. The utility poles
|
||
have been notched, cut or drilled in a way that makes them fall
|
||
down in strong winds or heavy snowfall. The Central Vermont Public
|
||
Service Corporation has received a letter saying that three utility
|
||
poles needed to be replaced and that there could be other
|
||
consequences unless they dropped their contract with Hydro-Quebec.
|
||
This contract, which is between Hydro-Quebec and 17 Vermont
|
||
utilities, has been the subject of controversy for several years
|
||
because Hydro-Quebec is planning to expand to provide extra,
|
||
unneeded power to these companies. These plans threaten the
|
||
indigenous lifestyles of the Cree, Innuit and Innu peoples of
|
||
Northern Quebec. The plans threaten fragile habitats and the future
|
||
of several species that live in them.
|
||
|
||
-30-
|
||
|
||
Scene News
|
||
|
||
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- THE LAB IS a collective house that sponsors shows
|
||
every weekend in their basement. Visit them at 144 Hill. Zip is
|
||
48104.
|
||
|
||
AUSTIN, Texas -- FOR ALL OF y'all unfamiliar with the anarchist
|
||
milieu in Slackerland, the Atatl Collective sends a report. Last
|
||
year the Students for a Classless University Movement (S.C.U.M.)
|
||
was created to give the U. of Texas community a kick in the ass.
|
||
|
||
Anarchist activity here has been riding a real rollercoaster. Highs
|
||
have included protest around the Republikkkan Convention in
|
||
Houston, a very fun anti-Labor-Day march, and anti-Columbus-Day
|
||
actions which featured a Columbus pi<70>ata bash complete with
|
||
gratuitous scramble for bloody-eyeball-shaped candy! The new year
|
||
has seen anti-Klan actions (see Page 11) and the second Circle A
|
||
Roundup/Gathering.
|
||
Contact us at:
|
||
504 West 24th Street, Box 81, Austin, Tx 78705
|
||
|
||
BOSTON -- THE TOOLS COLLECtive holds weekly meetings and forums,
|
||
distributes literature and organizes shows. Stop by their space at
|
||
107 Brighton Ave., or contact them at the same address, 02134.
|
||
|
||
DETROIT -- CHECK OUT 404 WILLIS, an @ space that offers a community
|
||
meal every Sunday and hosts workshops, meetings, shows, a
|
||
coffeehouse, poetry readings, films and Pandora's Box " a wimmins
|
||
art display/performance. Men often provide childcare and meet in an
|
||
anti-sexist group and produce the zine, Out Male, as a reflection
|
||
of gained awareness. Zip is 48201.
|
||
|
||
KINGSTON, Ontario -- MEMBERS of the Class War Mountain Bike Club
|
||
protested the Ottawa/Hull Auto Show, passing out leaflets on the
|
||
true costs of our oil-based society and displaying a banner that
|
||
read "Destroy the Auto-Culture." @utonomous Green Action helped to
|
||
organize anarchists from Montreal, Ottawa, Kingston and Toronto to
|
||
protest the ARMX Armaments Trade Show March 17 in Ottawa.
|
||
Contact @utonomous Green Action, P.O. Box 4721, Station E, Ottawa,
|
||
Ontario K15 5H9, Canada
|
||
|
||
SAN DIEGO, Calif. -- THERE IS A new @ community center in San Diego
|
||
that's open 3:00-8:00 p.m., seven days a week, with free food every
|
||
Thursday at 7:30p.m. Food Not Bombs! (F.N.B!) meets on Sundays and
|
||
Love and Rage Conference Organizing Meetings are Sundays 6:00 p.m.
|
||
915 E Street, San Diego, CA 8722 Tel.(619) 239-8722
|
||
|
||
ST. LOUIS, Mo. -- LAST FALL A local F.N.B! started. We are now
|
||
serving two days a week. Although not all members are anarchists,
|
||
F.N.B! has offered us space to work together sharing anarchist
|
||
ideals. Initially centered around the food issue, the group is now
|
||
developing plans for a collective, affinity actions and squats. We
|
||
also support local protests, strikes and political events. An
|
||
Anarchist Youth Federation (A.Y.F.) chapter has also recently been
|
||
born.
|
||
Contact F.N.B! c/o 520 Kingsland Ave. Apt. 1N, St. Louis, MO 63130
|
||
Contact A.Y.F. c/o P.O. Box 5202, St. Louis, MO 63139
|
||
|
||
VICTORIA, British Columbia -- Greetings from the Hairy Ass Commune!
|
||
In the past two years Victoria has become a bevy of anarchist
|
||
activity! Womyn here are producing an anarcha-feminist zine, H.A.G.
|
||
Also active: a new A.B.C. chapter, Terra Prima! (the local Earth
|
||
First! group), an anti-authoritarian theatre group, Anti-Nazi
|
||
Alliance, F.N.B! Victoria and Earth Liberation Front, a new Love
|
||
and Rage supporting group who works in solidarity with sovereign
|
||
First Nations. Committed activists are invited up for the summer to
|
||
protest logging on First Nation lands. Bring your hemmorhoids.
|
||
Contact us c/o A-5 1720, Douglas Street, Victoria, B.C. V8W 2G7,
|
||
Canada
|
||
|
||
-30-
|
||
|
||
OOPS!
|
||
|
||
The name of the Lakota band resisting nuclear waste storage was
|
||
misspelled on Page 15 of Vol. 3, No. 7. The correct spelling is
|
||
Mdewakanton. Our apologies.
|
||
|
||
In the last issue (Vol. 4, No. 1) we reported that the police drove
|
||
the attacking fascists away from Casa la Paz (Page 5). After going
|
||
to print, we received a report from the squatters that they drove
|
||
the nazis away themselves.
|
||
|
||
Also in the last issue, on the ABC page readers were asked to
|
||
contact Amor y Rabia support groups for information on the
|
||
Campaign in Spain. Readers should contact the other addresses
|
||
listed instead.
|
||
|
||
-30-
|
||
|
||
Special Queer Newspread:
|
||
|
||
QUEER KILLINGS EXPOSE LEFT HYPOCRISY
|
||
|
||
by K. Small
|
||
|
||
MONTREAL -- ON THE NIGHT OF Sunday Nov 29, 1992 Yves Lalonde was
|
||
beaten to death in Angrignon Park, Montreal. The next day police
|
||
received an anonymous tip which led to the arrest of six neo-nazi
|
||
skinheads, all of them minors. Although at first they did not seem
|
||
to have been associated with any formal organization, later a
|
||
membership card to the N.S.D.A.P./A.O. was found amongst their
|
||
belongings.
|
||
|
||
The N.S.D.A.P./A.O. claims to be the heir to Hitler's N.S.D.A.P.
|
||
(Nazi Party). It is based in Nebraska, having been outlawed in
|
||
Germany.
|
||
|
||
Because the aggressors were neo-nazis and skinheads, the murder
|
||
received a lot more attention than is usual for a homophobic
|
||
killing. The next Sunday about thirty people held a vigil in the
|
||
park. During the ceremony a statue of two clasped hands was
|
||
unveiled, supposedly symbolizing tolerance. (So much for overt
|
||
queer content.) The vigil was organized by the World Anti-Fascist
|
||
League and featured speakers from the Canadian Jewish Congress, the
|
||
Black Community Coalition and one representative of the Lesbian and
|
||
Gay community.
|
||
|
||
Responding to Lalonde's murder also became a priority for the Table
|
||
de concertation des lesbiennes et gaies du Grand Montreal,
|
||
Montreal's new lesbian and gay network, which sent a letter to the
|
||
Quebec Human Rights Commission on Dec 9, 1992 demanding a public
|
||
inquiry into homophobic violence. The letter stated that "this last
|
||
murder is too much. We hope that it will be the last one caused by
|
||
this senseless and hateful violence."
|
||
|
||
Unfortunately, although the murder of Lalonde was indeed "too much"
|
||
(as was every such murder which preceded it), it was not to be the
|
||
last resulting from homophobic violence. On Saturday, Dec 12, 1992,
|
||
Daniel Lacombe, an allegedly heterosexual man, was murdered by a
|
||
group of young men by a roadstop near Joliette because they thought
|
||
he was gay.
|
||
|
||
This murder did not receive nearly as much attention from the left
|
||
as had the death of Lalonde, probably because none of the murderers
|
||
turned out to be skinheads. Nevertheless, it seems that these
|
||
"apolitical" killers were much more dangerous and effective than
|
||
the nazis who had killed Lalonde. During their career as almost
|
||
professional fagbashers, the group managed to beat up about sixty
|
||
men.
|
||
|
||
Four of the accused are free. Three of them did not even have to
|
||
post bail, supposedly because they're minors. Only Patrick Paquette
|
||
(18-years-old) has not been released: he is charged with
|
||
manslaughter.
|
||
|
||
The left has, of course, paid much more attention to Lalonde's
|
||
demise than it has to Lacombe's, and the reason is most probably a
|
||
case of pure homophobia. The former is also a neo-nazi hate crime,
|
||
and thus gives us all an occasion to discuss the extreme right,
|
||
skinheads and the like. This is an example of homophobia on the
|
||
left.
|
||
|
||
The homophobia of the right serves to strengthen its ranks, and the
|
||
homophobia of the mainstream often attracts these "normal
|
||
apoliticals" to the right. Homophobia on the left does nothing but
|
||
weaken the overall fight for liberation and turn good activists
|
||
into monsters closely resembling the "enemy." A case in point: the
|
||
latest issue of No KKK, No Fascist USA!, an American anti-fascist
|
||
newspaper, has a letter describing a fagbashing in which a member
|
||
of Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice and a nazi skin, along with
|
||
many "non-politicals," cooperated in terrorizing some queer high
|
||
school students.
|
||
|
||
The social cleansing (my term, not theirs) carried out by Sendero
|
||
Luminoso in Peru certainly resembles what in recent European
|
||
history is associated with the extreme right (executions of
|
||
homosexuals, prostitutes and all others who are deemed to be under
|
||
the influence of "alien ideology," in this case European cultural
|
||
imperialism).
|
||
|
||
The Sept 19 attack on a gay club in Belfast last year is another
|
||
example. Someone is reported to have shouted, "We have a bomb for
|
||
this queer pub," as a fuel canister and explosive device were
|
||
hurled into the bar. the Irish People's Liberation Organization
|
||
(I.P.L.O. " a splinter off of the Irish National Liberation Army)
|
||
later claimed responsibility for the firebombing.
|
||
|
||
Homophobia is not the only hate ideology to infect the Left, and
|
||
national liberation movements are not the only movements which
|
||
succumb to hate mongering. Last spring l'Androgyne (Montreal's best
|
||
gay, lesbian and feminist bookstore) decided to start selling Gaie
|
||
France Magazine, a gay male magazine put out by a bunch of
|
||
gay...nazis! With the exception of a small squeak of protest from
|
||
certain anti-fascist and progressive elements of the feminist and
|
||
queer communities in Montreal, most members of those communities
|
||
supported the decision to stock the magazine, some even taking pen
|
||
to paper in what at times resembled a smear campaign against the
|
||
anti-fascists.
|
||
|
||
Although unpleasant to mention, any discussion of right wing
|
||
violence without acknowledgment of this kind of rot within our own
|
||
movements can lead to nothing but hollow victories and bitter
|
||
defeat.
|
||
|
||
(This article was not printed in a local Montreal anti-imperialist
|
||
anti-authoritarian newsletter due to its heavy criticism of the
|
||
left).
|
||
|
||
-30-
|
||
|
||
|
||
MY OWN PRIVATE ISLAM
|
||
|
||
by Yusuf Al-Hallaj
|
||
|
||
AS I WRITE THIS ARTICLE, THE majority of my one billion fellow
|
||
Muslims are fasting from dawn to dusk in this, the holy month of
|
||
Ramadan. In the past, I have fasted myself and have felt an
|
||
extraordinary sense of self-purification as well as a strangely
|
||
transcendent identification with Muslims all over the world. But as
|
||
I began to question certain precepts of orthodox Islam, my
|
||
commitment to fasting dwindled. Today, the fourth day of the ninth
|
||
month of the 1413th year of Islam, I will indulge in three square
|
||
meals, and I will not feel guilty for a very simple reason: I am
|
||
gay, and my religion, or more particularly, my co-religionists, say
|
||
that I have sinned. And not only will I be punished in the
|
||
afterlife, but I should be punished in this world too: lashing,
|
||
imprisonment or death, depending on the discretion of the state
|
||
ruler, in accordance with Islamic law.
|
||
|
||
I feel no compulsion to identify, transcendently or otherwise, with
|
||
my fellow Muslims, my brothers and sisters who would condemn me for
|
||
loving a man. Islam's condemnation of homosexuality has not
|
||
precluded homosexuality in Islamic societies, past or present. Iran
|
||
in particular has had a long history of male-male sex and love
|
||
(less is known about lesbianism in Muslim nations). Nineteenth
|
||
century Egypt saw European travellers visiting not just to see the
|
||
Pyramids and the Nile, but to look for pretty Egyptian boys too.
|
||
Sufism, a mystical branch of Islam, has a history of toleration of
|
||
homosexuality, and in Pakistan there is a province where they say
|
||
all men are fags, a stereotype not entirely devoid of factual
|
||
basis. Needless to say, gays and lesbians "out of the closet" are
|
||
unheard of in Muslim countries. In places like these, closets are
|
||
for clothes, and then some.
|
||
|
||
To be a Muslim in the U.S., irrespective of sexuality, is to
|
||
confront a daily assault of ignorance with respect to Islam. In the
|
||
media, in the classroom and in people's minds persist some of the
|
||
most inaccurate and utterly stupid notions of Islam. I often feel
|
||
like Islam's most ardent defender, a religious vanguard writing to
|
||
newspapers with tallies of the number of times they have used
|
||
"Muslim" and "fundamentalist" and "extremist" and "terrorist"
|
||
interchangeably in a given week; correcting professors on the
|
||
meaning of the word <MI>jihad<D>; explaining why <MI>Aladdin<D> is
|
||
grossly offensive. I sometimes forget that the majority of the
|
||
people I am so often defending would think me an abomination if
|
||
they knew about my orientation and would even want me killed. As
|
||
harsh as the West is to Islam, Muslims are by and large ten times
|
||
so toward gays and lesbians. These are my people.
|
||
|
||
Of course I am among Islam's strongest critics as well, or more
|
||
precisely, I am among the strongest critics of Muslims,
|
||
particularly those who start every other sentence with "The Quaran
|
||
says ..." or "The prophet said ... ." In general, I know better
|
||
than they what the Quaran says or what the prophet did. The
|
||
dissident always knows the history of his or her people better than
|
||
do others, if only by necessity. And yet, these are dangerous
|
||
times. Too harsh a criticism of a Muslim is often taken as an
|
||
attack on Islam, and one need only recall the furor provoked by
|
||
Salman Rushdie to realize the peril in this.
|
||
|
||
For most, coming out of the closet is difficult enough without the
|
||
threat of religiously sanctioned bodily harm. I greet my fellow
|
||
Muslims with the same hand with which I stroke my lover's penis,
|
||
but they will never know it. Nor will they ever know the joy I feel
|
||
or the love that I share with my man. For my part, I will never
|
||
know what it is to be accepted by the only community I have ever
|
||
really known. There is a profound cowardice inherent to my closeted
|
||
way of life, but ultimately I am more comfortable defending Islam
|
||
than myself. Rushdie is not the only one driven into hiding by
|
||
Islam.
|
||
|
||
-30-
|
||
|
||
QUESTIONING (QUEER) AUTHORITY
|
||
|
||
by Paul Dalton
|
||
|
||
|
||
NINETEEN NINETY THREE HAS BEEN called the "Year of the Queer."
|
||
Many, both inside and outside of the queer community are talking
|
||
about the great victories of the past year. (By queer I mean
|
||
lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender.) They cite the defeat of
|
||
the viciously anti-queer initiative in Oregon, the election of a
|
||
president who says, however quietly, that we deserve human rights,
|
||
and the imminent end to the ban on queers in the military as
|
||
pointing toward a new, stronger, more visible role for us in every
|
||
level of society. The 1993 March on Washington is looked to by many
|
||
as our collective "coming out" to America, where we show our
|
||
numbers, our strength and our power.
|
||
|
||
There is no doubt that we are more visible, and potentially more
|
||
powerful than ever. This new found visibility has sharpened the
|
||
attacks from our enemies. On the same day the Oregon measure was
|
||
defeated, Colorado voters amended the state's constitution to
|
||
prevent civil rights protection for queers. Throughout North
|
||
America queer bashing has increased.
|
||
|
||
But our struggles are not confined to the "straight" world. Racism,
|
||
sexism and classism are very pervasive within queer culture and
|
||
institutions. An increasingly powerful and reactionary queer " if
|
||
you will excuse the term " bourgeoisie has sprung up in San
|
||
Francisco, New York and other large cities. This class of
|
||
capitalists, politicians and cops are the same as any bourgeoisie;
|
||
they live parasitically off our work, our culture, and of course
|
||
our bodies. Not surprisingly they are mostly male and mostly white.
|
||
We also struggle amongst ourselves over our most basic unifying
|
||
issue: sexuality. Slow to learn from our collective experience,
|
||
large sections of the queer community actively fight to further
|
||
marginalize bisexuals and transgendered people. The fact that the
|
||
March on Washington refused to include any reference to
|
||
transgendered people, and almost did the same with bisexuals, is
|
||
outrageous. If we are truly struggling for a world free of
|
||
predjudice and oppression based on sexuality, then we must be
|
||
inclusive of all queer people.
|
||
|
||
These struggles represent larger debates within the queer
|
||
communities over both politics and tactics, a debate that reveals
|
||
much about our strengths and weaknesses. On one hand we created
|
||
some of the most effective and vital direct-action oriented groups
|
||
in recent memory. Many young queers have grown up in a sort of
|
||
culture of resistance " learning early on to directly confront
|
||
their enemies and, importantly, knowing that they can win.
|
||
|
||
On the other hand, the links between our struggle and the struggles
|
||
of oppressed people everywhere have not been made effectively. We
|
||
have allowed ourselves to fall into the trap of ghettoizing our
|
||
struggles. We can only succeed if we make those links and we
|
||
struggle together.
|
||
|
||
Clinton's election poses a new set of problems for radicals within
|
||
the queer community. Clinton's willingness to include some of our
|
||
issues in the public debate has led many to see him as an ally.
|
||
This is a dangerous misconception that has the potential of setting
|
||
queer activism back: out of the streets and into the Capitol, the
|
||
boardrooms, and, gulp, the military.
|
||
|
||
If our goals are to assimilate into the mainstream of American
|
||
economic, social and political life, then it makes sense to seize
|
||
this opportunity and work to get our leaders accepted within the
|
||
centers of power. If we are successful we can expect some
|
||
legislative protection and the emergence of a strong queer power
|
||
structure at every level within the government and economy.
|
||
|
||
Where would that leave us? It would mean the rich, educated, white
|
||
and male among us would all have the power of their straight
|
||
counterparts. It would mean that we would become another microcosm
|
||
of American society, complete with its racism, sexism, classism and
|
||
so on.
|
||
|
||
We already have the embryonic structures of such a world. We have
|
||
union-busting businesses owned by queers. We have misogynist
|
||
harassment of women in the Castro and on Christopher Street. We
|
||
have an economy run by white men. We even have openly right wing
|
||
queers supporting police crackdowns on our demonstrations and
|
||
rallying behind "our troops" throughout the world. If this is the
|
||
world you are struggling for, get out the vote, support queer owned
|
||
businesses, and join the Log Cabin Club.
|
||
|
||
If, however, we are struggling to end the oppression of all queers,
|
||
women, people of color, youth, P.W.A.s..., then we must take a
|
||
different approach. We need to take the direct action and militancy
|
||
from ACT UP and Queer Nation and add it to a broader political
|
||
perspective that sees the many layers of oppression that confront
|
||
us and works to link our struggles together.
|
||
|
||
We need to confront the inequalities and power games in our own
|
||
communities. We need to respect picket lines at queer businesses.
|
||
We need to recognize and support the battles that queer women and
|
||
people of color are fighting within our own movements. We have to
|
||
fight against the bi- and trans-phobia. We must realize that
|
||
liberation is born out of struggle, not legislation or negotiation.
|
||
|
||
We have revolutionary potential, but we are not inherently
|
||
revolutionary. Yes, our very existence challenges the norms of
|
||
patriarchy, but the power structures that run this country have
|
||
shown a remarkable ability to assimilate sectors they had formerly
|
||
shut out, when faced with the possibility of radical change. Was it
|
||
really a victory for us to have Pete Williams, a gay man, as the
|
||
Pentagon spokesman for the Gulf slaughter?
|
||
|
||
As anarchists we struggle against all forms of domination. As
|
||
queers we live the daily reality of that domination. Together we
|
||
offer a radical, street-based, direct-action approach to political
|
||
struggle. We fight to defend our communities from attack and to
|
||
confront those who seek to destroy or control us. We struggle
|
||
against the emerging queer bourgeoisie with the same vigor we fight
|
||
the straight bourgeoisie. We will attempt to be part of making the
|
||
connections between heterosexism and other forms of domination. Our
|
||
goal is nothing short of revolution based not in a vanguard party,
|
||
but in the communities, in the streets and in our bedrooms.
|
||
|
||
-30-
|
||
|
||
|
||
THE RIGHT TO LOVE, THE RIGHT TO KILL
|
||
|
||
by Liz A. Highleyman
|
||
|
||
THE GAY, LESBIAN AND BISEXUAL MOVEment has shifted from a
|
||
broad liberation focus to a conservative, assimilationist course.
|
||
Nowhere is this more evident than the focus on gay inclusion in the
|
||
military.
|
||
|
||
In this article I often use "gay" as shorthand for "gay,
|
||
lesbian and bisexual." I usually prefer "queer" as an inclusive
|
||
term, but since the essence of the military is obedience and
|
||
conformity, I think that association with the military is the very
|
||
antithesis of "queer."
|
||
|
||
Some claim that the focus is not on the military itself, but
|
||
on the "larger issue" of discrimination. This argument rings
|
||
hollow. Same-sex erotic expression is illegal in most states and
|
||
age of consent laws are considerably higher for same-sex
|
||
relationships. The criminalization of sexual relationships affects
|
||
far more gay, lesbian and bisexual people than exclusion from the
|
||
military. Why then is the movement focusing on military exclusion
|
||
instead of, say, repealing sodomy laws? It seems the movement
|
||
wants to appeal to the "general public," and since the mainstream
|
||
thinks that patriotism is good and sex is evil, the movement is
|
||
emphasizing the patriotism of gays and keeping their sex lives in
|
||
the closet.
|
||
|
||
The military ban on non-heterosexuals is wrong, and it's
|
||
absurd that the government spends time and resources hounding gay
|
||
people out of the service. But it's a mistake to focus the energies
|
||
of the gay movement on this issue, especially since many gay,
|
||
lesbian and bisexual people think the military is a reprehensible
|
||
institution.
|
||
|
||
All gays, lesbians and bisexuals do not share the same
|
||
political leanings " our opinions range from radical left to
|
||
reactionary right. Yes, there are nationalistic and war mongering
|
||
gay, lesbian and bisexual people. There are also those who cheat,
|
||
rape and kill; these actions do not become acceptable when done by
|
||
non-heterosexuals. Just because some heterosexuals are sanctioned
|
||
to kill in the name of the state does not make it right. No one
|
||
should be pressured to support actions they believe are wrong
|
||
simply because they share a sexual orientation. The gay movement's
|
||
current party line is that we are "obligated" to put aside our
|
||
moral qualms and political convictions and rally around the
|
||
"larger issue" of discrimination. Yet for some of us, opposing
|
||
militarism and its associated values is as important as struggling
|
||
for equality.
|
||
|
||
One expects gung-ho rhetoric from conservative gays, but it's
|
||
surprising to hear it from self-identified progressives, who claim
|
||
they do not support the military itself, but do support those gays
|
||
who choose to be in the military. ("Love the sinner, hate the
|
||
sin?") Yet the current rhetoric does in fact support militarism.
|
||
We've been hearing a great deal about the "right to serve one's
|
||
country," but no examination of the fact that in the U.S. today
|
||
"serving one's country" means carrying out the whims of the
|
||
politicians in power. We hear about how "bravely" and "honorably"
|
||
gay soldiers served in the Persian Gulf. How "brave" and
|
||
"honorable" is it to drop high-tech bombs on helpless civilians in
|
||
an attempt to prop up a president's macho image and his cronie's
|
||
bank accounts? I acknowledge the need for self-defense, but the
|
||
U.S. military's engagements have not been anything like defense of
|
||
the country since World War II. By parroting the conservative line
|
||
about the glories of war and military service, the "gay leadership"
|
||
is endorsing militarism, whether it wants to or not.
|
||
|
||
The platform of the March on Washington expresses an
|
||
opposition to all forms of oppression. How can this be reconciled
|
||
with the oppression that the U.S. State, using its military tool,
|
||
perpetrates against less powerful people around the globe? The U.S.
|
||
has propped up numerous genocidal regimes and supports governments
|
||
that brutally oppress gay people, women and indigenous people. It
|
||
is more than ironic that a movement that claims to struggle for
|
||
human rights can at the same time embrace the "right" to
|
||
participate in an institution that denies the human rights of
|
||
others. One would hope that gay, lesbian and bisexual people,
|
||
having experienced oppression themselves, would be less willing to
|
||
act as a finger of the iron fist of the U.S. power elite. Sadly,
|
||
this does not seem to be the case.
|
||
|
||
It is true that low-level military personnel do not make
|
||
policies, but they are trained to obey and conform, to kill and die
|
||
without question. They are trained to ignore their conscience and
|
||
not think about what is right or wrong (or to believe that the U.S.
|
||
and its allies are always right), thus behaving more like robots
|
||
than thinking human beings. I can only laugh at Orwellian names
|
||
like the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's "Military Freedom
|
||
Project;" the only "freedom" associated with the military is the
|
||
freedom to consign oneself to slavery.
|
||
|
||
The military helps to promote the dominant ideologies of our
|
||
culture, ideologies that are homophobic, sexist, racist and
|
||
capitalistic. Discipline is maintained by playing on men's
|
||
insecurities about their masculinity. Militarism and masculinity
|
||
are closely associated in U.S. culture. Anti-war demonstrators are
|
||
regularly referred to as "pussies" and "faggots." A man who prefers
|
||
negotiation to violence is being "soft" (impotent?). Military
|
||
officials are probably correct that acceptance of homosexuals would
|
||
disrupt military discipline " they would have to find other means
|
||
of control besides exploiting men's terror of being seen as less
|
||
than "real men." This same terror is at the root of gay bashing and
|
||
misogyny. Macho aggression is so strongly reinforced by the
|
||
institution of militarism that it is hard to imagine one without
|
||
the other. Militarism and homohatred/misogyny are two sides of the
|
||
same coin.
|
||
|
||
Some have asserted that the inclusion of gay, lesbian and
|
||
bisexual people will change the character of the military for the
|
||
better. Is the military (or society) no longer sexist because women
|
||
are allowed to participate? The Tailhook scandal shows that this is
|
||
clearly not the case. It is much more likely that participation in
|
||
the military will change the character of the participants. Will
|
||
gay soldiers strive to be especially obedient and brutal in an
|
||
effort to prove that they are "real men?" How will gay soldiers
|
||
react when they are called upon to prop up repressively homophobic
|
||
regimes (as women soldiers were forced to do in support of the
|
||
misogynist regime in Saudi Arabia)? What about the future
|
||
generations of gay, lesbian and bisexual youth who will be forced
|
||
into the oppressive military system if a draft is reinstated?
|
||
|
||
Many argue that the fight for military inclusion is about
|
||
equal economic opportunity. There is no denying that many people
|
||
enter the military because they have few options for education or
|
||
employment. But if this is our concern, we should focus on changing
|
||
society so that people's choices are not so limited. Despite its
|
||
recruiting advertisements, the military is not an employment agency
|
||
or a job training service. Its purpose is to enforce the will of
|
||
the U.S. Government domestically and abroad, using violence or the
|
||
threat of violence.
|
||
|
||
The gay movement is mistaken to focus more energy on the
|
||
"right" of gay, lesbian and bisexual people to kill and die than on
|
||
our right to love. Is the "right" of a small segment of gay people
|
||
to participate in the military more important than the right of all
|
||
gay, lesbian and bisexual people to teach, to parent children, to
|
||
be secure in our homes and on the streets, and to have our
|
||
relationships recognized? In the quest for gay equal rights, we
|
||
cannot sacrifice the important human values that are at odds with
|
||
a militaristic society.
|
||
|
||
-30-
|
||
|
||
|
||
@ _Love & Rage_ is a Revolutionary Anarchist newspaper produced
|
||
@ by the Love and Rage Network. The Love and Rage Network is a
|
||
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|
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|
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@
|
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|
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-end Part 1 of 5-
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