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Anarchy: a journal of desire armed. #38, Fall 1993
LETTERS part four
TAZ IS DANGEROUS
Comrades,
Was glad to see the re-print of "Traveling Autonomous Zone" from
Imminent Strike, very much in the spirit of my attempts at a
"thought experiment" about how to "get some freedom" (as E. Mann
puts it). I'd like to comment on "prisoner Phil Smith's" objections
to my "flippant attitude toward permanence." The TAZ concept has
met with similar criticisms from Latin America (because some of the
book appeared in Spanish in Underground Forest). They criticized
the idea of "temporariness" and they also questioned the idea that
the "monolithic state" might in fact have "cracks in its structure"
wherein TAZ might take place. In other words, they seemed to
believe that U.S. power & hegemony was so total and perfect that no
such cracks exist; and that the only solution to this would be a
total revolution. I was astounded that the USA apparently appears=FE
outside America=FEas truly monolithic in its power & control. I was
surprised that the situation in Latin America was apparently
experienced as completely hopeless, with no opportunity for "free-
dom" at all, outside continual struggle against US hegemony. How
can people know what it is they're struggling for, if they've never
never tasted it, even once, say at a great party or in a wonderful
love affair? For such people, wouldn't "freedom" have to be seen as
an unknown and almost unknowable mystery? Sort of like "god"? or
"heaven"? In this case, what would make political struggle any
different from religious asceticism? In fact I believe that for
many people, the "Revolution" is just such a "religious" idea,
something that one must believe in despite the absence of any
convincing "proof" or even foreshadowing of a taste of an
experience of what things might be like "after the Revolution" (in
"heaven"). In other words, the Revolution becomes, in such a
perspective, an absolute or categorical imperative. Well I must say
that such thinking sounds rather leninist to me. It goes without
saying, I would have thought, that I would of course prefer to live
in Utopia, not in this imperfect world, which, like Smith, I "am
interested in changing...to the extent possible." In fact, I doubt
that Smith could have read the entire book (& of course the Latin
American comrades did not read the whole book because only a few
bits were translated)=FEotherwise he would have understood that I am
not "satisfied" only with the "flickering in and out of existence"
of evanescent vague TAZ-like situations. I too would like "more
than that." But to say "Fuck that!" to all other forms of "freedom"
except the Revolution (or the permanent defeat of Capitalism, etc.,
etc.) sounds quite absurd to me=FEsort of like a starving person who
refuses a bit of bread because it isn't caviar & champagne. (I
mention this because I really like caviar & champagne.) Or perhaps
a more accurate analogy would be someone who refuses a night of
love because it isn't a "permanent" marriage! Finally, I have to
admit I'm suspicious of the "Revolution" because so far it has such
a poor record in connection with personal freedoms=FEpot smokers shot
in Algeria, queers tortured, exiled & even murdered in Cuba (well,
I needn't go on; this is, after all, an anarchist newspaper!).
Personally, I'd love to see Too-Late Capitalism strung up from a
lamppost with the guts of Organized Religion, etc., but I have to
admit I see no prospect of this happening in my lifetime (except
possibly in the context of, say, a major ecological disaster=FEwhich
would almost certainly fail to benefit the anarchist cause or any
other cause except Survivalism)=FEand so my attempt to think of ways
to enjoy some "freedom" here and now. As "P.M." points out in
bolo'bolo, every act of seizing freedom needs to be balanced by an
act of dismantling unfreedom=FEotherwise it is merely piggish
selfishness ("I'm all right Jack"-ism); but "revolution" without
some experience of freedom here & now is no better=FEas far as I can
see=FEthan mental slavery to a Spook. Tad Kepley amusingly called the
TAZ an "anarchist Club Med"; it is certainly a real danger. But the
real TAZ invariably involves risk & illegality, for 2 reasons=FEone,
because everything truly pleasurable is probably illegal; and two,
because risk is necessary for the intensity of experience that
marks a real TAZ. The TAZ therefore is dangerous, or else it is
merely an anarchist Club Med. Organizing a rave & calling it a
"TAZ" represents the commodification of something that cannot exist
in a commodified state. I'd almost rather stay home & watch TV. I'm
not the prophet or the guru of TAZ; I don't even really advocate
the TAZ; I simply perceive that the TAZ is happening & will contin-
ue to happen; and I want some.
wa salaam,
Hakim Bey, New York, NY.
ALTERNATIVE BOOKSTORE EXCLUSION
Dear Anarchy:
On March 24, at a meeting with four senior members, I was excluded
from the collective of Alternative Bookstore. This exclusion was a
direct result of my letter to Anarchy, which appeared in issue no.
36 [on page 78]. The clique that excluded me pretends that it did
so because I did not inform them about my letter to Anarchy before
it was printed. In reality I was excluded because I dared to
publicly criticize their actions without their permission. I put
ten years of my life and two thirds of my life savings into
Alternatives. The people who run it now are power-hungry and
vicious. They enjoy using expedient methods against anarchists.
I have nothing against the new bookstore members, who are not to
blame for the bookstore's flaws, or for having joined it in good
faith. The bookstore "collective" is an informal hierarchy
dominated by a clique of senior members who monopolize control over
the essential functions of the store: book-keeping (carried out by
the same member for more than five years now), bank account
(stranglehold), book and periodical ordering (also a stranglehold,
which has resulted in a gutted anarchist section) and choosing new
members (only the clique's friends get in), thereby making a
mockery of the bookstore's official statement of principles which
explicitly states that all important tasks must be rotated
regularly, precisely in order to prevent a concentration of power
in the hands of a few. The collective is supposed to reach a
consensus at meetings because this process is supposed to allow
people to create a gentle unity that respects dissenting viewpoints
and results from a creative dialogue among all members. In
Alternatives, the consensus process has been retained in name only.
The real practice of consensus decision-making has been discarded
long since and the clique responds to principled, honest dissent
with repression. What these people did to me they can do to others.
Only the four senior members were present at my exclusion; a new
member who asked to be present was required to leave, by them. They
didn't want any witnesses. The next hour and a half was a drearily
predictable farce set up in advance by people who hated me for
having defended Anarchy and who had obviously decided to exclude me
as soon as they saw my letter. These people took a sadistic
pleasure in kicking me out, and my repeated suggestions that they
enter into a dialogue with the other two letter-writers and other
libertarians in Montr=82al met with sneers. One of the four expected
me to agree with him in front of the others that he had come to the
meeting with an open mind, but that what he had heard there had led
him to regretfully agree that I be excluded; when I said that I
found his reasonableness unconvincing (I knew he would never break
with his friends to defend me) he repeatedly yelled "Fuck you!" at
me.
This clique has an obvious double standard; they see themselves
as above criticism but feel free to threaten, harass and punish
people within the collective and refuse to pay, censor and defame
a radical project, Anarchy, which is a thousand miles away and
better run than theirs, but have excluded me for expressing my
opinion.
The bookstore's letter was approved for mailing at a collective
meeting that I missed, after it had been stapled into copies of
Anarchy no. 33 and put on sale at Alternatives. When I saw it there
for the first time I immediately assumed that it had already been
mailed. Given its content and my knowledge of the collective I
decided to say nothing about it. I knew in advance that a reason-
able dialogue about the letter was impossible there and that any
concerted attempt on my part to oppose the letter or block
consensus at a meeting would result in my exclusion. For me this
was nothing new. On January 15, 1992, without any warning, six mem-
bers of the collective met in secret (I was not informed or
invited) and discussed my membership in the collective. This
happened six months after a major split in the collective, in which
three friends of mine left. In this secret trial, all the legal
guarantees that obtain in a bourgeois court were denied me. I had
no right to be informed, to attend, to defend myself or know the
charges. It was like something out of a Kafka novel. The following
week I was informed out of the blue that I would be excluded from
the collective if I didn't accept its criticisms of me and agree to
change my behaviour along lines laid down by it. The "criticism"
was a diatribe vented in a hostile and vindictive manner. It was
intended to be threatening and humiliating. If you've ever seen a
pecking order enforced in a schoolyard, you know what I'm talking
about. I was accused of drinking too much of the store's coffee (I
would have gladly paid for it), arriving late for my shifts (every-
one did), missing one or two extra shifts I agreed to do during the
holiday season (everyone there misses shifts) and not doing enough
manual labour (an absurd accusation). I was also berated for daring
to mark good books to order in a distributor's catalog.... These
accusations say more about my accusers than they do about me. I
think they were a calculated provocation intended to make me quit,
and faced with abuse like this most people would have quit. I chose
to stay. As a result I spent a year and three months in the
collective under a permanent threat of exclusion. I was made to
understand that I could be excluded any time it pleased these smug,
self-righteous assholes to punish me. I was singled out for this
treatment (made a scapegoat) because I was the sole remaining
member who was fighting the statist leftism and nationalism in
Alternatives. By the way, this is the only time in almost twenty
years that any collective member has been threatened with exclusion
or actually excluded. This practice marks an unprecedented low in
the bookstore's internal process. That I stayed in the collective
as long as I did is a measure of my love for the bookstore project
and what it represents. All this explains why I said nothing to the
collective about their letter before it was sent, and nothing to
them about mine until it was printed.
In the spring of 1989, a few months after he informed me he had
become a marxist-leninist (he was a member of Alternatives at the
time), I worked briefly at a telephone polling company with Karl
Levesque, who is the author of the bookstore's letter attacking An-
archy. At work one day he told me bluntly that he supported the
terrorist practice of lacing Chilean grapes on sale in California
with cyanide (it was a news item at the time), in order to
strengthen the anti-Pinochet grape boycott. He said that a few dead
Americans were an acceptable price to pay for the success of a
boycott that might topple the Pinochet dictatorship and thereby
save several hundred Chilean lives. I am not falsifying or
exaggerating his comments, and he was not joking. In effect Karl
was defending the random mass murder of innocent civilians. Since
then Karl has found an anti-fascist vocation for himself.
Alternative's "more-anti-fascist-than-thou" posturing is a joke.
The clique that runs Alternatives couldn't revolt their way out of
a wet paper bag, and outside of their little leftist sandbox they
are no threat to anyone but honest radicals. They have never harmed
any fascist or fascist organization, period. They hope to reach
positions of modest power in public life by treading on other
people, starting in Alternatives. They happily distribute stalinist
literature when it suits them (SS bad, NKVD good) but won't hear
themselves criticized for the contradiction between this and any
consistent anti-statist practice, something that is obvious to
everyone in the anarchist milieu here but them.
About anti-fascism: it is natural for everyday people targeted by
fascist movements to defend themselves. Yet social movements can
only have a revolutionary effect when they attack the foundations
of capitalist society. Only a social revolution can do away with
totalitarian movements, by dissolving the social relations that
give rise to them. Our central goal should be to achieve a
stateless, classless, moneyless world through revolution, and when
necessary to counter fascist movements with anti-repressive
solidarity and armed self-defence.
The separation between what Alternative Bookstore says it is and
what it really is in practice has become obvious to well-informed
observers. No matter. The number of libertarians in Montr=82al
remains the same and real subversion is everywhere, in the streets.
Doug Imrie
Montr=82al, Qu=82bec
OPENING DIALOG
Dear friends,
Thanks for sending me your excellent magazine! It was recommended
to me by a fellow NAMBLA member. But what is really amazing is that
the very strict mail-room supervisor here let it through to me with
no hassle. Just a few weeks ago, I was denied an info mailing from
the Radical Faeries, as "obscene." I'm appealing that decision, but
I doubt I'll win. But I oppose it anyway as a matter of principle.
Lately, I've been writing for more & more radical stuff including
anarchist zines. Yours is the best all-around I've seen so far,
even though I liked all of what I've seen. By the way, I especially
appreciate all the reviews of other publications, some of which
I've heard of, many more which I'd like to get. What a great list=FE
even tons of foreign magazines & papers!! When I get out of this
gulag, I will write to some of the foreign ones! I like a wide
variety of reading material, from Rock & Rap Confidential to
American Atheist, from Prison Ministries newsletters to Live Wild
or Die. I sure do appreciate all those who, like you, send things
free to prisoners.
I have been locked up for a year & a half now, convicted on false
charges of molesting boys=FEI was accused out of anger & revenge, &
charges were augmented in an effort to set up a civil suit, since
I was a Sunday School teacher (no, really!). It was pretty fucked
up. By the time my trial came around I was facing 10 counts from 4
boys. Each count was a mandatory life sentence. It was pretty
scary. the prosecutor's office chose my case for high publicity as
well. Right before trial was to begin, they offered a deal=FEif I'd
plead guilty, I'd get 5 yrs. flat time! A very tempting deal, &
even my lawyer advised me to take it. I thought it over for about
15 mins. & told them to go fuck themselves. I really couldn't force
myself to plead guilty to raping boys I loved. This pissed
everybody off=FEespecially the judge. The trial was a joke. The
prosecutor made a big deal of the fact that I possessed NAMBLA
Bulletin & other completely legal literature. The police were very
disappointed that they found no child-pornography in their 3-hr.
search! So they took legal stuff which they thought would fit their
profile. During the trial, we changed some of the language of the
indictments, reducing the charges to "regular" 1st degree
aggravated felonies. Trial was 9 days, the jury deliberated 2 days,
came back hung, but the judge gave further instructions & they came
back & convicted me on 7 of the 10 counts. Go figure. The judge=FE
still angry=FEsentenced me to 10-25 yrs.X7=3D70-175 yrs! This, of
course, was for the media. Such a sentence in OH. is reduced
automatically to 15 yrs. 10 to the parole board. Since then, I've
learned that 91% of felony convictions are obtained by plea
bargain. I think it's shocking that so many people give up their
right to a jury trial. In spite of the consequences of my decision
to refuse to deal, I am more & more certain I did the right thing.
Still, keep in mind that this was in Cincinnati (Hamilton Co.), OH.
where there are no adult bookstores, you can't buy a Hustler maga-
zine, & they prosecute an art gallery for showing Mapplethorpe
photographs (based on homophobia and racism). So, I took my
chances. My appeal is in progress & I have no intention of staying
here for 10 yrs! I faced a similar case in '81 and was acquitted &
I intend to get a new trial & be acquitted this time as well. I'm
leaving out a lot of details, but lets just say I've got plenty to
go on & my appeal will be strong. Of course, that's no guarantee of
success, the appeals court is "unpredictable."
With all that in mind, I write to thank you for writing & opening
a dialog on pedophilia and kids rights in general. It seems like
NAMBLA was the only publication in the U.S. which dared to discuss
it in any positive way. As you probably know, NAMBLA originated out
of a rash of false accusations. In all the articles/books I've read
on the subject since '81, I very seldom see any discussion on false
accusations other than the rare mention of messy child custody
battles in divorce cases. And in the past decade, a huge industry
has grown up of suing people for sexual misbehavior, which benefits
no one more than the lawyers. In a case related to mine, a guy
settled out of court. He was sued for $15 million (I know for a
fact he was innocent, he was my lover for 15 years!). The
settlement wound up $1,000 for each of 3 mothers, $1,500 for each
of 3 boys, and $17,500 for their lawyer! This is just one example
which I know of first hand. Don't get me wrong, I love all kids.
I've done lots to help kids out. I've gotten kids out of abusive
households & into a foster home. I've gotten boys to quit hustling.
I've bought countless pairs of Nikes! And I sure as hell never
raped anyone in my life. I was just an easy target. Still, there
has to be some challenge to these kinds of scams, just to get
money, in my case, from the Episcopal Diocese.
Anyway, I've done a lot of thinking on this issue & I'd like to
offer a few thoughts. It seems like every article you read these
days claims that child sexual abuse is on the increase. Is that
true? Has something happened that suddenly more & more people are
molesting kids? I really don't think so. I can see three main
reasons for the increase in statistics, besides just plain lies.
First, in recent years society has changed the definition of what
child abuse/sexual abuse is. Things which in the past were
acceptable are no longer. The most recent example I saw of this is
Michael Jackson saying his father beat him when he was a kid. Mr.
Jackson was then interviewed, & said "When I was a boy, we used to
call that a whuppin'." I'm not advocating physical punishment for
kids, I'm against it. But this points out the shift in attitudes.
Another example is the trouble Woody Allen got into for "fondling"
his young daughter. Now, I wasn't there, but it just seems to me
that if you're going to let your child run naked on the beach, a
responsible adult would put sun screen/block on his/her genitals!
That is not a sexual act. I know there's more to it than that, but
it seems to have been blown out of proportion. There are all kinds
of examples of this kind of thing=FEI read of a couple whose daughter
was taken away from them while they were being investigated on
porno charges when the photo-lab called the police on them for
sending in pix of their girl in the bath tub. Artists are busted
for nude photographs. Nudity is not obscenity.
Another way that statistics are inflated is by adding in a new
class of sex offenders=FEthe juvenile offender. Now, teens who are
sexually active with each other, & their younger friends can be
busted & charged with anything from rape to assault & be declared
delinquent or unruly. Yet these same teens (depending on local age
of consent laws) if caught in a sexual relationship with an older
friend, are suddenly helpless innocent "victims" of the older
partner, who is then charged with a felony. Let me repeat that I'm
speaking of mutual consensual relationships here=FEas admittedly
slippery as the issue of consent is=FEand I re-state my opposition to
any kind of coercive relationships of any age group or sex.
The most disturbing thing, however, is the article I read in the
Oct. (or Nov.) '92 issue of Vanity Fair, about a husband & wife
team of therapists/counselors working out of the Masters & Johnson
Inst. They take clients who come to them for a variety of problems
& hypnotize them. They come to believe that they were abused
sexually as children (usually by their own parents!)! Now, I know
that there are people who abuse kids and I'm sure that causes the
kids some problems in later life...but you don't have to have a
degree in psychology to see the scapegoating that's going on here
It's a very convenient excuse. I've heard this over & over from
guys in prison. "Well I was abused/molested as a kid." As an excuse
for everything from rape to B&E to drug use, you name it. Again,
I'm not trying to downplay the trauma that I'm sure some people
have experienced. But I think that this kind of thing is overused
& abused by the psychiatric establishment & "law enforcement," to
their own profit=FEhigher numbers mean more grant money for studies
& more money for police programs. It's all just a little too
"convenient"=FEthis hypnotherapy has caused a new group to be formed=FE
the False Memory Syndrome Foundation, made up of those who are
falsely accused by the victims of this technique (Roseanne Barr
Arnold's parents are members).
So=FEI'm very suspicious and cynical when I read that "more children
have been sexually abused than ever before thought possible" (from
the VF article). This kind of twisted view in the media is what
causes the hysterical attitudes & atmosphere which makes it so
difficult to discuss the reality of kids' sexuality rationally. The
prosecutors inflammatory mis-characterization of my NAMBLA
Bulletins & other legal reading material was unfair &
unconstitutional & is one of the bases of my appeal. I will insist
on reading whatever I want to without being molested =FEor hauled
into court & having it used as "proof" of sexual activity!! Child
pornography is not protected by the First Amendment, but everything
else is! I am grateful for bold publications=FENAMBLA Bulletin (POB
174 Midtown Station, NYC, NY. 10018), Anarchy, & a very few others
which remain open minded & publish views on both sides of this
issue.
[...] I look forward to feedback on what I've written and would
especially like to hear from others in similar situations, whether
falsely accused or not, on their views & opinions. Again, thanks
for a great magazine. I hope the mailroom allows me to continue to
receive it [...]
Huey T. McClellan #250997
POB 45699
Lucasville, OH. 45699-0001
COMMON ENEMY
Dear Jason,
[...] I much prefer the new format of Anarchy magazine. It makes
it easier to display, and the slick cover also attracts attention.
Also, I am glad Anarchy is now publishing "On Gogol Boulevard"
with its broad coverage of the new anarchists in East Europe. The
overthrow of the Stalinist regimes has opened up a space for
anarchists, libertarians, and other progressive tendencies. In
southern California, I meet a lot of people from various ex-
socialist countries, and not one has anything good to say about
Communism.
From reading reports in Anarchy, International Viewpoint and other
periodicals, it is clear that there is greater cooperation among
left-anarchists and anarcho-capitalists in East Europe than is the
case here. Maybe we can learn from them that our common enemy is
statism, in our case bureaucratic state capitalism.
Separately, I have sent two recent issues of a local cultural
magazine which includes a two-part article on "The New World
Order." Read it when you get a chance. I would like to see more
articles in Anarchy about imperialism and the new world order, and
related topics.
Also, I would like to see more about how the War On Drugs is being
used to destroy our civil and economic liberties.
FIOT,
G.B., Riverside, CA.
``SCHIZ-FLUX'' CORRECTIONS
Howdy Anarchy,
Due to the success of the anti-tech movement in Hawaii, my
handwriting was apparently illegible to y'all. So here's a correc-
tion or two of some import from my article, "The Movement of Schiz-
Flux" [see Anarchy #36, p.52]: "Schiz-Flux is materialist
psychiatry, anti-matter pilots careening out of control,
(mis)behavioral autistic [not "artistic," ugh!] derelicts unlocking
accustomed patterns...," and "Paedo-[not "pseudo"]filing away at
the adult world (nature destruction)...." Lastly, the quote in the
1st paragraph was from Debbie Moore, a staunch anti-plagiarist.
Thanx=FE& oh yeah=FEwrite me for Hawaii winter plans, y'all
schizoversive permaculturists. I got con-neck-shuns fer work
exchange (little labor) &/or free livin'.
Free & open,
Drake Scott
Rt.1, Box 136
La Farge, WI. 54639