💾 Archived View for library.inu.red › file › anonymous-green-anarchists-gather-in-pennsylvania.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 07:03:54. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Title: Green Anarchists Gather in Pennsylvania
Author: Anonymous
Date: 2003
Language: en
Topics: green, organization
Source: Retrieved on January 1, 2005 from http://www.greenanarchist.org
Notes: from Green Anarchist #70, Autumn 2003

Anonymous

Green Anarchists Gather in Pennsylvania

The 1^(st) Green Anarchist Gathering took place July 10–13, despite the

FBI. The first site was a private campground at the intersection of the

Appalachians and Alleghenies. The Feds thought it too close to one of

the largest underground natural gas storage facilities in the US, a

facility on the Homeland Security watch list, so we got a call from the

campground owner: “Your event is being canceled. We’ve had several

visits from the FBI and other law enforcement. You lied to us. You

didn’t tell us you were terrorists.”

The FBI under Mike Hudak of the Scranton / Wilkes-Barre office had not

only visited the campground but sent Pennsylvania state troopers to the

township meeting to inform citizens of this redneck idyll of the vipers

poised to descend on their community. “Just look at their web site,”

they urged, giving them the URL to the Black and Green pages.

Helicopters and black sedans then showed up. With help from a State Park

official, we were back on track within a week at a new location only 60

miles away.

The Gathering

There were 100+ pre-registered via the web site and we were hoping for

even more, so I opted for communal catering, like the Anarchist Teapot

at EF!UK Gatherings. It was a younger crowd; out of the 80 there, only

10 of us were over 30. Most were from eastern and southern states. The

downside of larger workshops was that organizers spoke too much and

newbies too little.

A real highlight of the gathering was the two full days of primitive

skill share with Tim, a ‘professional’ from the Teaching Drum School,

who instructed the future primitives in tracking, shelter building, wild

plant identification skills, and answered lots of questions in an

informative and good-natured way.

There was a conflict resolution workshop where many of us found we faced

the same issues with regards to finding alternative ways of dealing with

conflict without making appeals to authorities. Many had been involved

in conflicts with individuals who could be clinically categorised as

‘mentally disturbed’. We discussed how we all are misfits, but those

who’d really lost all grasp of reality are drawn to activist communities

whose tolerance and openness to society’s oppressed may be well known.

Those with truly anti-social, if not violent, tendencies can cause real

problems in terms of the emotional health of those around them.

Ted Kaczynski’s ‘Hit ‘Em Where It Hurts’ article (Green Anarchy #8) led

to lively and most interesting discussion, especially to Fed

infiltrators. Some of us tried clarifying arguments for economic and

infra-structural sabotage.

There was a civ and patriarchy session that I found boring, with men in

attendance professing their genuine open-mindedness and unconditional

support of women in general and the women bringing up anecdotal evidence

to the contrary.

I find this inevitably veers into the issue of rape, and then tends to

be discussed in the same hypersensitive terms liberals use. As a woman

and anarchist I find this discouraging. I can’t help but feel that

elevating that particular violation to the status of most heinous just

an ideology of women’s victimization beyond remedy. Too bad that the

state has the monopoly on violence, our communities could sort out that

issue amongst ourselves with much more success.

One goal of the Gathering was to exchange info, facilitated by the

presence of the ‘A-Hole’, the Coalition Against Civilization’s tent full

of Anarcho-primitivist scholarship and agit prop. The only security

issue was potential confrontation with ‘Young Marines’ in the adjacent

camping area, whose cries of “Yes Sir!” we had to endure each day, all

day long, but nothing happened except their complaint that they saw

someone from our group naked next to a car, changing clothes. Hope to

see you there next year!