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