Using an activist interpretation of the corporate self-help book “Getting Things Done”, this workshop will give you practical tools you can start using now, to help you plan & take action. Reading materials will be provided at each workshop. Come prepared to get yourself organized!

http://silentcitydistro.wordpress.com

Once again, here’s our organizer! This is another collaboration between Justseeds and Eberhardt Press. It’s a clean, simple, uncluttered organizer and datebook, featuring art by 13 Justseeds artists and elegant design by Charles of Eberhardt, with curatorial help from Roger of Justseeds. Each week fits on two pages. It also features a lunar phase calendar, two pages of months-at-a-glance, and several blank pages at the back. A strong wire binding allows it to open flat, and thick cardstock covers will withstand the inevitable abuse.

Offset printed, spiral bound organizer

begins with a reappraisal of the anarchist project in today’s context of crisis and technological transformation. From there, we chart the global trajectory of momentum from 2010 to 2012: the student movements in the US and UK—the insurrections in Tunisia, Egypt, and beyond—the occupation movements in Spain, Greece, and finally the USA, from its awkward beginnings in Wisconsin to its aftereffects in Oakland. For case studies, we focus in on the anti-police struggles that catalyzed the rise of confrontational anarchism in Seattle, and scrutinize how US immigration policy is applied on the ground at the border to explain how its actual objectives differ from its ostensible purpose. The issue concludes with a historical review of Canadian anarchism, following it from its origins through the 2010 Olympics and G20 riots and up to the present day. All this, plus a graphic history from Argentine anarchism, 24 pages in full color, and all the other bells and whistles you’ve come to expect from us times two. Download T.O.C. PDF [140 k]. (114 pages)

Lughnasadh 2012 – Volume 32, Issue 3

For The Long Haul

Editorial by Britni

Before my “ah-ha” moment—the point when I became a lifer in the eco-resistance—I hadn’t considered myself an environmentalist as much as an animal and social justice activist. Even my actions with Everglades Earth First! against Scripps Biotech were for the animals in the labs more than those dwelling in the Briger forest across from the university where I am finishing the final year of my degree in Feminism, Gender, Sexuality and Visual Studies. The intersections are clearer to me now—all human and nonhuman forms of oppression are integral—but in the Summer of 2011, I had my doubts.

Last year at the Night Heron Activist Center in Lake Worth, I recall asking Russ (a Journal editor and Everglades Earth First! organizer) how the anti-Scripps campaign was going. I’d participated in several demonstrations and court hearings, some of which were my introduction to activism at age 17. I dryly noted my frustrations with the last hearing I’d been to about Scripps’ expansion onto the Briger.

We engaged with the law and the law shrugged. Without the support of the courts—and having little to no experience with the process of resistance after authoritative law made verdict—I assumed it was time for quits. I set the stage for my moment: “So, what’s the next campaign?”

Russ, rightfully annoyed, told me it sounded as though I’d given up the fight. “Ah-ha!” I sat in silence for a while. I was embarrassed that I hadn’t imagined the longer, more bitter struggle that loomed ahead. After much mulling, I recognized that the fight goes on with or without me. I chose to come along.

This moment of clarity helped me navigate how my background in social justice made sense in a biocentric movement. And it became even clearer while I co-facilitated a workshop on consent during my first EF! Rendezvous in the beautiful Pennsylvanian Allegheny forest this Summer. Members of the hydraulic fracturing resistance movement taught me how, in our culture of non-consent, fracking industries steal and destroy land for gas extraction, ruining communities and livelihoods. This same structure of domination and subordination translates in our personal and intimate relationships.

Learning consent and unlearning behaviors that marginalize people means learning to voice our needs and desires and unlearning lifetimes of silence. For others of us it means being an ally by allowing space and respecting boundaries to foster this growth. Learning our right to a culture of consent is a vital process amongst ourselves and against environmental devastation. Before my “Ah-ha” moment, I envisioned what it looked like to endlessly defend the rights of humans. Now I am humbled to defend biodiversity in tandem. Struggling for the wild means also resisting what suppresses the wild within us all, and therefore confronting both environmental and social oppressions. Only when we have sovereignty over our own bodies, communities, land and resources of the land can we consider ourselves truly liberated. It’s a long road ahead, and on it we must unify biocentrism and anti-oppression work as vital and complementary movements. I thank everyone I worked with on the Earth First! Journal as a short-term collective member and everyone I met this Summer in the Allegheny at the EF! Rendezvous for learning and loving with me.
Cheers to the Wild Revolution!

NOVEMBER 13th 7:00 PM

Beginning Saturday October 12th at noon with a picnic lunch,  Finger Lakes Earth First! is hosting a weekend camp out against fracking. The purpose is to build regional capacity for Direct Action* while celebrating our connection with this land and the beautiful Fall season. There will be delicious food and fire circles, tree-climbing and workshops, sleeping under stars and in tents, skill shares & trainings (bring a workshop or discussion topic), and swimming for the daring!

Everybody is welcome! RSVP for site directions and schedule:   FingerlakesEF@riseup.net

This is a family friendly event – Our camp has nearby parking and a reasonably accessible trail. Please do not hesitate to contact us with questions or requests.

*We believe we have a responsibility and the ability to take Direct Action against fracking without relying exclusively on “representatives” be it politicians, activist leaders, or big time environmentalist organizations. Direct Action is really just that–direct action. Check out the camp to get involved and learn more.

Saturday, Oct 13

12:00 – 1:00pm – Picnic Lunch & Sign-in
1:00-2:00pm – Opening Circle
2:00-4:00pm – Workshop I
4:00-6:00pm – Workshop II (and/or Earth First! arts & crafts time?)
6:00pm – Dinner, followed by nighttime festivities

Sunday, Oct. 14:

9:00am – Breakfast
10:00am – Morning Circle
11:00am-1:00pm – Workshop I
1:00-2:00pm: Lunch
2:00-4:00pm – Workshop II
4:00-6:00pm – Workshop III
6:00pm – Dinner

Monday, Oct. 15:

Rally to be Announced. Stay tuned!

Come to the SGWG workshop to learn your rights.

SUNDAY, SEPT 9, 2012, 5PM
A.M.E. ZION CHURCH
116 CLEVELAND AVE, ITHACA NY

The Shawn Greenwood Working Group aims to create spaces that address these concerns in our community. We believe the issues in our communities will not be solved by increasing police presence, but rather through larger transformation.

Contact the SGWG: TEL: 607‐301‐0370 or EMAIL: SGWGIthaca@gmail.com

Keith Shumway was 20 at the time of his shooting.

- The Shawn Greenwood Working Group -
SGWGIthaca@gmail.com

Following their annual week-long Round River Rendezvous, occurring this year in Pennsylvania’s Allegheny National Forest, Earth First! activists from across the United States successfully shut down a hydraulic fracturing site in the nearby Moshannon State Forest. The action on Sunday, July 8, marked the first time protesters have managed to shut down a hydrofracking site in the U.S. The blockade is part of an escalating direct action campaign in Pennsylvania, led by groups like Marcellus Earth First! and Occupy Well Street, who are targeting the so-called “fracking” industry. The campaign most recently included the 12-day blockade from June 1 to June 13 of the Riverdale Mobile Home Park in Jersey Shore, Pa., by residents and activists.

Roughly 100 people disrupted work on the fracking site by blocking the only access road to the location with tree-sitters, who stopped all traffic on the road by stringing anchor ropes across the length of it; any vehicle coming through the anchor lines would have put the lives of the tree-sitters at risk. They were defended on the north and south by piles of logs and debris, forming barricades that stretched for a mile and a half. About an hour into the blockade, workers on the site were approached by 20 or so activists, who informed them that the site was closed to vehicular traffic indefinitely. They offered to safely escort workers across the barricades on foot, or on rented ATVs, and assured them that their target was the fracking industry, not the workers. After confirming that the site and its 70-foot tall drill rig were indeed shut down for the day, the Earth First!ers headed back to the road to reinforce their blockades.

Most of the blockades were fortified to be about four feet tall and stretch across the entire road. Shifts were set up to watch them, and individuals or affinity groups took on roles like worker and police liaisons, media, communications, medics, water and food runners, and legal observers. Locals stopped by throughout day, expressing their support for the action against the fracking industry and walking around the barricaded roadway, mingling with activists.

As nightfall approached, police began to move in. Bulldozers cleared out the barricades leading from the road’s entrance to the locations where the tree sitters were camped out. One activist, who had U-locked their neck to an anchor line strung across the road to protect a tree-sitter, was sliced out with bolt cutters and arrested. After carelessly slashing safety lines away from the person in a hammock 50 feet up between the trees, putting their life in imminent danger, the police snatched them with a fire department hook-and-ladder truck. After determining that the truck could not reach the second tree-sitter, they sliced all the safety lines, leaving the sitter hostage 70 feet up in the sky, and then left the location. The second tree-sitter, however, had hidden an extra rope inside a bucket in the tree, and was able to climb down and escape without arrest once the officers had left. By the end of the day, Earth First! had contributed its direct-action muscle to the growing momentum of a local campaign and showed the fracking industry what to expect in the future if it keeps tearing Pennsylvania communities apart.

Hydraulic fracturing is a process in which pressurized fluid is blasted into a shale, forcing it to release natural gas. The process results in forest fragmentation, contamination of groundwater and risks to air quality. While fracking is a relativity new process, people living near extraction sites or compressor stations have reported various neurological and respiratory effects such as asthma, arsenic poisoning, cancer and more. Some report being able to light their drinking water on fire due to contamination. Gas companies, however, have thus far not been forced to release information detailing the exact nature of the mixture of toxic chemicals used in the process.

Earth First! is a radical environmental direct action movement founded in 1980. It currently operates under anarchist principles, making decisions by consensus and organizing non-hierarchically. Autonomous EF! groups can be formed anywhere in the world by activists who identify with these principles, and with Earth First!’s slogan “No Compromise in Defense of Mother Earth!” Earth First! members have employed such tactics as tree sits, road blockades, tripods, and locking themselves to or otherwise disrupting heavy machinery. These tactics have often won them major victories, most recently by Humboldt Earth First! in California, where 2,000 acres of forest in the McKay Tract were saved after a four-year tree-sitting campaign.

Earth First!’s annual meet-up is a weeklong series of workshops, skillshares, performances and relationship-building that occurs in a different part of the country every year, designed to contribute to a local direct action campaign. This year’s rendezvous attracted a harmonious mixture of urban and rural activists. The potential for growth, sharing and solidarity between urban and rural activism was palpable throughout the week.

Experienced rural activists set up a training center open all week to help teach tactics like climbing and tree-sits. There were courses on constructing and implementing tripods and bipods, which are temporary structures that leave activists towering above the ground and prevent vehicular passage underneath them, and hard locks, in which activists use equipment to attach their bodies to things like heavy machinery, road intersections or entrances to corporate buildings. A course on “Diesel Mechanics in Case of Zombie Apocalypse” was particularly well-attended. Imagine a person or two in an 80-foot tall tripod blocking vehicular traffic on Broadway in New York City, and it becomes clear how these tactics could be well-applied to urban settings as well as rural ones.

The urban activists, in turn, shared their experience with anti-oppression work. Unlearning internalized oppressions like racism, sexism, transphobia, homophobia, ageism and the like has long been a focus of the urban anarchist movement. This year’s Earth First! rendezvous placed a clear priority on the work of challenging patriarchy. There were two “Female-Identified, Queer and Trans Listening Circles,” designed to create a safe space for systemically-marginalized folks to discuss their experiences. There were two “Fighting Male Supremacy” workshops attended by about 50 people who identified as males, and who discussed the role patriarchy plays in their lives, and how to challenge male supremacy in all its forms. Additionally, one of the best-attended workshops of the weekend was called “Challenging Racism in our Movements.” The next issue of the Earth First! Journal will be focused on anti-oppression work in the movement and society at large.

Bringing the Earth First! Rendezvous to Pennsylvania will give a boost to the campaigns of local direct action groups working to end hydrofracking in the Marcellus Shale region. It put the fracking industry on notice with the first successful fracking site shutdown in the United States, with many more to come. Also, many urban activists are now trained in advanced civil disobedience tactics that their rural counterparts have developed, and which can now spread and be applied in new contexts. The growing strength and momentum of the anti-fracking movement, coupled with remarkable solidarity and synergy between urban and rural activism, provide further evidence that a wave of resistance is sweeping the United States and the world.

Want to help out? Contact us to find out about a workparty. info@silentcitydistro.org

Want to come to the Rondy?Got a Ride? Need a Ride?

MEF! Regional Rideshare

F.L.A.M.E. (Finger Lakes Action Medics & Educators) are doing First Aid/ Wellness Center, a comprehensive clinic which reflects the kind of care we need in our social movements (massage, first aid, tea & coffee, workshop space, fire circle, health zine/book library). Get involved with FLAME – contact flame@riseup.net

The following items are needed. Please donate or help us find these things!

• Sturdy Clinic Tent
• Food Donations from local farms/growers/preservers
• good quality walkie talkies
• Pop-up Tent (with walls even better)
• Folding Chairs
• Water cooler with dispenser
• Cooler
• Tupperware bins
• Case bottled water
• flash light/ headlamps
• extra batteries (all types)
• blankets
• cots
• Strong Trash Bags
• Lanterns
• Treats for active medics (sweet / salty / nourishing)

Item Drop Off is (Tuck inside space)

Silent City Distro (Above Autumn Leaves Books)
115 E. MLK St. (The Commons)
Ithaca, NY 14850

at STUDIO WEST http://studiowestithaca.com/ 516 W. MLK (state) St. Ithaca NY

The exhibition includes over 50 unique posters celebrating a range of topics including Act Up, Womens Resistance in Oaxaca, Judi Bari, Crass, Malcolm X, The Occupation of Alcatraz, and the EZLN. Posters will be for sale to support the Alternatives Library’s mission.

Since in 1974, the Durland Alternatives Library has been providing free materials which are not commonly found through mainstream media channels. With our vast collection of books, zines, documentaries, feature films, music, books on tape/cd, and periodicals, we create a space that nurtures dialogue and promotes a radical, “connect the dots” approach to social change. www.alternativeslibrary.org