# Give me some meaningful mail



## dirty andy (Jul 28, 2015)

Short story:

My buddy's been in state prison for over two years, bopping around from camp hill to sci Pittsburgh and back because of numerous charges that started when he was eighteen and stole a bike. We went to high school together and I helped him graduate, classes and writing were never his strong suit. He was already on the street before I dropped out and he was my most loyal road dog ever. We always talked politics etc but our adventures and travels were a mess of Drug fueled goals and junkie aspirations. We were both whacked out of our minds for about two years straight. Then he got popped and in the interim my crew and I got clean focused etc and have been working etc. we've been supporting him all the while. We send him cash and write him frequently. He has no other help most of his family is dead or in prison themselves.

His lengthy stay in the joint has given him time to perfect his writing. He takes great care in writing all of us letters I can see the focus in how neat and thought out his printing is. He's now asking me to send him some political stuff. I always talk politics in our letters, how he went in not hanging with nazis and how he's gotta stay careful and stay away from that shit, why the state and capital are working against him, trying to not be super abstract and put shit in the most honest way I can, BUT: 

Can you guys give me some essays or articles that talk about some relevant introductory theory, but aren't going to confuse the hell out of him? Haha I just want it to be digestible for him and I was gonna start mailing him some good, to the point shit every time I write him. I have some things in mind, but am always curious to see what you guys can contribute, y'all ARE awesome like that, !! Any thoughts appreciated. 
Solidarity


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## Matt Derrick (Jul 28, 2015)

the first thing that comes to mind is "anarchy in an age of dinosaurs" by crimethinc. it's a really good layman's guide to anarchism.


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## Parker Free (Jul 28, 2015)

Anything political written by Noam Chomsky is...remarkable. Here's a link to his website: http://www.chomsky.info/


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## RovingAnarchist (Jul 29, 2015)

Debt: the first 5000 Years by David Graeber. He's accessible, funny, and really knows his stuff. He's written a bunch of books from an anarchist perspective that are quite well-balanced because he's not just an anarchist, he's also an anthropologist. He's a hands-on activist as well. His book Direct Action: An Ethnography has a wonderful chapter dedicated to the psychology of giant puppets at protests and why cops hate them so much. You can read that essay here. https://libcom.org/files/puppets.pdf


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## Mankini (Jul 29, 2015)

These are books you can draw ideas or excerpts from...

1. War is a Racket-Smedley Butler
2. The Prince-Niccolo Machiavelli
3. Brave New World-Aldous Huxley
4. 1984-George Orwell
5. Steal This Book-Abbie Hoffman
6. Endgame vols 1 & 2,-Derrick Jensen
7. Civil Disobedience-HD Thoreau
8. Blood Meridian-Cormac McCarthy
9. Grapes of Wrath-John Steinbeck

Pamphlets: Anything from the IWW, Oxfam, or Amnesty Intl.


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## Andrea Van Scoyoc (Jul 30, 2015)

voodoochile76 said:


> These are books you can draw ideas or excerpts from...
> 
> 1. War is a Racket-Smedley Butler
> 2. The Prince-Niccolo Machiavelli
> ...




Thanks for the list.


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## RovingAnarchist (Jul 30, 2015)

I do love the Endgame books. Too bad Deep Green Resistance turned out to be such a morally vile organization.


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## Mankini (Jul 30, 2015)

Why? What happened? I've been out of the loop for awhile.


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## RovingAnarchist (Jul 30, 2015)

They're transphobic...
They're racist- see the same video. The section where she talks about "what if I decided to be Native American?" is chock full of offensive stereotypes.
http://deepgreenresistance.uk/faqs/ The last question about 'Why did Derrick Jensen and Lierre Keith call the FBI on separate occasions?' A vegan pied you in the face so you called the FBI? Lady, that's barely worth the attention of regular cops!


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## Mankini (Jul 30, 2015)

Eeeww That's horrible. I never knew about this.


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## RovingAnarchist (Jul 30, 2015)

“It's no wonder we don't defend the land where we live. We don't live here. We live in television programs and movies and books and with celebrities and in heaven and by rules and laws and abstractions created by people far away and we live anywhere and everywhere except in our particular bodies on this particular land at this particular moment in these particular circumstances.” -Endgame, Vol 2: Resistance

“I had broken the most basic commandment of our culture: Thou shalt pretend there is nothing wrong.” -A Language Older Than Words

“[A] man who lives alone...one day hears a knock on his door. When he answers, he sees The Tyrant outside, who asks, ‘Will you submit?’ The man says nothing. He steps aside. The Tyrant enters his home. The man serves him for years, until The Tyrant becomes sick from food poisoning and dies. The man wraps the body, takes it outside, returns to his home, closes the door behind him, and firmly answers, 'No.' (Loc. 5874)” -Endgame, Vol 1: The Problem of Civilization

Quotes like these make me want to love him still; I can't get over DGR's ridiculous, not-relevant-to-the-work-at- hand sexism. You simply can't argue that gender is a social construct and then insist on having separate spaces for people based on their chromosomal make up.


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## Mankini (Jul 31, 2015)

The whole problem with the EndCiv movement is that they don't have an enemy, besides a bloated security bureaucracy that antagonizes young idealists. I would prefer they set their sights on the TLC, Bilderberg, Bohemian Grove, and so on. If they monitored the Aspen Institute's various chairs and board of directors, too, they could find suitable targets. The problem with OWS is similar. How can you have a movement with no sharply defined goals? One cannot just posit that one is ''against'' or ''in support of'' some agenda or philosophy. If any idealism is more than hot air it has to be organized and effective in the real world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspen_Strategy_Group


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## RovingAnarchist (Aug 4, 2015)

There's also a rather large problem with EndCiv in that the vast majority of people won't get behind a movement that's fundamentally against basic things like modern medicine and housing. That's all well and good if you're 20 and have never been sick or had a sick family member; no one else will endorse it. Same goes for the idea of primitivism in terms of shelter- clearly these ideas come from people in places that don't have winter!

People want to support a movement that has a chance of succeeding- I figure selecting a few targets from either your suggestions or even just a few of the stellar folks on the Forbes Richest People list would work. It gives people a concrete goal to work towards, ie. "Forcing Jim Walton to pay Wal-Mart workers a comfortable wage." (You'll notice I didn't say a living wage, that's not at all the same thing!) Jim's net worth is $40.6 billion US- the average salary of a full-time Walmart employee is *$15,576*, based upon Walmart's full-time status of 34 hours per week. This is significantly below the 2010 Federal Poverty Level of $22,050 for a family of four. (info from Wikipedia and makingchangeatwalmart.org)

Seeing facts like that together tend to stick in people's minds- which is why the media hardly ever puts them in the same story. Folks have an inherent sense of fairness unless they're sociopaths- everyone knows that sort of shit ain't right. Give them a way to do something about it, and they will.


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## Mankini (Aug 4, 2015)

Yes. As a nomad its easy for me to say, "Don't live in Shitsville, Alabama where the only options are a meatpacking plant and a Walmart; Move somewhere decent with a variety of employment options."...However many people are stuck in communities with less than stellar politics and they have roots and/or ties that prevent them from ''voting with their feet''. I don't particularly understand the notion of staying anywhere that's depressing economically and otherwise. For many people the fear of the unknown is a paralyzing factor. I assume that's why, while some people emigrate for better jobs, others just stay and make do.

It irritates me too that there are sectors here with 3rd world conditions. Its as if the corporations see the people as nothing more than a cheap source of labor. People gotta eat; they gotta pay their bills, so theyre forced to succumb to limited economic opportunities...What I would advise, realistic or not, is a mass emigration...an occupation of the Bourgeois zones...And a flood of people requesting asylum in decent foreign countries. Not only would this embarrass the powers that be to no end, it would call international attention to the plight of the lumpenproletariat here: in a country that denies it has underclasses.


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## RovingAnarchist (Aug 4, 2015)

Mass emigration wouldn't help a lick. We're talking about multi-national corporations here- they'll just cut wages in those "decent foreign countries." Which they can/will do because of all those fancy international trade agreements like NAFTA and the upcoming TPP. There's nothing to do except fight where you are, and _everyone _has to be in on it. No more of this crap about my country versus your country- countries are made up shit designed to enslave people and make us believe we can't leave a particular geographical region without permission. Most countries don't have a fence- there's nothing to stop anyone from leaving if they feel like it except an imaginary line. Mostly those lines are there to keep money, another imaginary thing, under their control. 

A world-wide strike is obviously fantastical. Wouldn't it be fun though? Even just transportation workers would be enough to bring capitalism to a grinding halt. No trucks, planes, or ships for even one day would royally screw up the whole system. 

Personally, I think ignoring the system is an idea that's gaining ground. Why buy a car when you can share? Why take the risk of making 10,000 widgets you might not sell when you can manufacture on demand? Disruption from within..


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## Mankini (Aug 4, 2015)

Most countries, if you arrive and say you're requesting asylum, have to let you in for a while so they can process your app. If a determined crew of people were to do this, with an affidavit expressing exactly why they cant tolerate the US, who knows what might happen? Press conferences can be a powerful weapon.
I would include all the stuff the usg has been doing lately that make it unsafe for people to be here in the affidavit. For instance, awhile ago, someone FOIA'ed the FBI about their OWS surveillance, and discovered that the FBI had approached a sniper to take out an OWS activist in Houston. If you're an activist of any sort-even just a Sierra Club or ASPCA member, you could claim that the feds might try to imprison or kill you.
There are any number of glaring red flags that one might use to prove persecution on a classwide basis.

Some great countries to seek asylum are Belgium, Norway, Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, and Austria.

Ignoring is a good tool; I agree with that.  But also I believe in such chicanery as can reasonably sabotage the enemy...You can jam TV and radio broadcasts easily with cheap Radio Shack components. You can use credit cards liberally, then claim bankruptcy; put the hurt to insurance companies; sabotage minimum wage franchises, etc.


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## RovingAnarchist (Aug 5, 2015)

I have to admit, I would have great admiration for anyone who could manage to jam a major radio station and run their own broadcast on that channel. Especially in America, where you could reach a ton of what we might think of as our "target market" by choosing the right station- I'd say classic rock or country. (Sounds stupid, yes. But let's consider what gets played on factory floors. Classic rock and country, yes?) America has managed to brainwash blue collar workers into thinking they don't deserve anything better than what they've got. A credible voice telling them different wouldn't take long to sink in. (Just one of those pop-country singers with all the songs about blue collar pride singing about viable alternatives... damn. That would do so much good!)

Back on the OT, Recipes For Disaster by the Crimethinc Collective is another book that gives some pretty accessible anarchist thought. It's pretty darn inspiring too!


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## Mankini (Aug 5, 2015)

Better yet, edit pop songs with a program like acid; discreetly subvert the lyrics so that country singers question militarism and patriotism, and pop singers embrace Priuses and freeganism. But I would be happy with just a jammer. TV and radio are definitely the opiate of the masses.



http://www.thinkgeek.com/product/ed42/


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## RovingAnarchist (Aug 5, 2015)

I figure if you did that right, the vast majority of people might not even notice the change!


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## Mankini (Aug 5, 2015)

"Hotdarnit! Toby Keith just said ''compassion''! I coulda sworn he did! WTF! Honey Bear, what in hell is 'Foucault'?" ''Sounds dirty.''

And of course the news....If someone were to hijack AP or Reuters and substitute made-up news that merely seemed like what people are used to, no one would ever know. Just create 80% stories about tragedies, crime, celebrities, and violence; 20% weather and traffic.


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## RovingAnarchist (Aug 5, 2015)

Lol.. In one of your earlier posts, you used the term lumpenproletariat. The first thing I thought was that I would never in a million years use that term anywhere near anyone without a heavy duty liberal arts education. "Lumpen? Who you callin' fat?!"


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## Mankini (Aug 5, 2015)

The Mission District Anti-Bourgeois Project!


http://www.infoshop.org/myep/myep_criticism.html


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## RovingAnarchist (Aug 6, 2015)

Awesome! A good friend of mine was born and raised in SF. Last year she was forced to move away from the city she loves because she flat out couldn't afford to live there any more. That shit ain't right.


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## Mankini (Aug 6, 2015)

I love that city more than any other in this hemisphere. ...I think anybody who sees it falls in love with it. I haven't been up to Quebec City yet; though....Heard good things about it.


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## RovingAnarchist (Aug 6, 2015)

QC?I used to live there. Pretty to visit, nasty if you live there and aren't French...


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## Mankini (Aug 6, 2015)

Why is it nasty? What's it like there?


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## RovingAnarchist (Aug 6, 2015)

Everyone's super nice when they think you're a tourist. Once they figure out you live there, they're absolutely mean. I was working really hard to improve my French, and they wouldn't even speak to me except to condescend in broken English. Yuck.


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## Mankini (Aug 6, 2015)

Its weird how uptight people seem to congregate in certain communities. Or maybe when you first get there youre not uptight, but the community changes you into a jerk. ??? I went from Colorado to WV a year ago to work: people in that part of WV were antisocial and suspicious....However a couple hundred miles away at Harpers Ferry, everybody was fun and cool. ???


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## RovingAnarchist (Aug 6, 2015)

Same deal in Quebec. QC are hardline French separatist types, and down the road in Montreal, the people are super accepting and laid back.


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## Mankini (Aug 6, 2015)

I have a bad habit of exploring old basements and attics. QC, I guess, is upwards of 300 yrs old....Imagine the possibilities. > .....I'm a huge museum buff/history nerd. I love poking through the detritus of the centuries; finding old books; photos; stuff. I heard the Irish were quarantined at an island camp in Montreal when they all emigrated during the Potato Famine...


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