What Does Freedom Look Like?

By Dan Baker

4-16-2022

In order to liberate all beings from suffering we must be able to imagine the goal, in detail, and make adjustments as we work towards freedom. Perhaps this is an eternal process. Maybe the Buddhist philosophy is correct in saying that “everything is the mind.” Each social structure we experiment with is an idea, constantly being guided by compassion and wisdom towards a balance which takes into consideration the herstory of women’s struggle for freedom from housewivisation, and animal’s struggle for liberation from the slaughter of husbandry, both of which started with the domination of plant life in the form of agriculture. The enclosure of formerly free and common land to form private farms, protected with force by armed killers, was the grounds for all of the conflicts and slavery that followed.

In order to create a world in which all beings are free we must picture that world, starting with a single day in the life of a liberated being. What oppresses you today? What would a perfect day look like for you? How does it feel? What do you do? How do you live? Does that lifestyle support freedom for all beings? Does that life coexist peacefully with your neighbors from different cultures? What if “they” practice a diet that offends “your” idea of freedom and peace? What if “your” habits offend “their” ideas of wholesome, family friendly community? How do you live together? Let’s examine my narration of my attempt to imagine a perfect world, free of oppression domination and needless suffering. Then we will put it into practice. We have to fight to get there.

“I wake up slowly, having slept long enough to recover from the previous days activities, as long as it takes. The bedroom is private and my lover is already up. Other rooms are communal – there are options. I enjoy a hot shower then eat leftovers from the group breakfast. There are fruits and cereals, soymilk, almond milk, tea, coffee and sweet breads, fruit juices and coconut milk. Because I tend to sleep in, I help wash the dishes and store uneaten food.

After helping with daily duties, such as cleaning the bathrooms, bedrooms, common areas and classrooms, we discuss plans for the gardens and maintenance projects. Then I go out and help pull weeds, relocate pests and water the companion plantings. After this I work on repairing and building whatever needs done – tools for the garden, housing, transportation, hydro, solar and wind energy harvesting, and moisture farming. Then I go to the medical center, my favorite kind of work.

Transportation is electric or manual, either private bikes, rechargeable scooters and cars and trucks, or public transportation shuttles – whatever is necessary and available. Sometimes we fly, sometimes we roll. Today I feel tired from manual labor in the edible forest so I ride the public shuttle and enjoy the excitement of flying over the lush, green landscape.

On the way to the hospital I drink a sports stimulant soda. It’s very strong, and I am addicted to them, but that’s my choice. I need the energy for work because I’m an afternoon shift emergency medical rescue volunteer, and I can feel the years creeping up on me. I’m my fifties but it’s hard to tell thanks to an otherwise healthy diet, modern medical science, yoga, exercise and martial arts. I always feel conflicted when I reflect on self defense. In a truly ideal world it wouldn’t be necessary, but herstory has shown us that what will not defend itself will not last.

On arriving at work I eat a quick lunch with my team, my appetite being curbed by the stimulants. Together we share bananas, sports drinks, breads, and veggie plates – soups, fried veggie balls in marinara sauce called kafta and stir fried rice with onions, peppers, cauliflower (Hassan, our pilot, says they look like my ears) and mini corn cobs. I pick anxiously at the small portions on my plate. Experience tells me that I’ll be wrist and ankle deep in some poor friend’s body parts within the hour. I hate when I’m right.

As the alarm sounds I think about my lover and feel regret. Is it regret for the separation and danger, or do I secretly love this adventure more than my partner? There’s no time for interpersonal philosophy right now. Someone is bleeding or broken and we are on the way to rescue them.

Everyone on the team drops their utensils on plates and runs to the door, placing food scraps in the compost bin and plates in the next container in smooth, quick motions. We sprint outside, trying to simultaneously tune out and appreciate the cheers of the kids and families who survived previous emergency rescue operations. They line the halls and garden walkways leading to the rescue shuttles. The patients tending the gardens for physical therapy have been intentionally placed on the path to the shuttle pads. Sometimes it cheers me up; sometimes I see the ghosts of people we couldn’t save.

Our datapads are screeching details of the emergency rescue mission on their speakers. The location first, but the map is already showing us routes and details of the site. It’s the victim details that concern us. We exchange startled looks as we load in and clasp the straps, except our team leader, Comrad Diana. She barks orders and we move, prepping stretchers, I.V. bags, blood bags, oxygen masks and burn kits. Everything else we already have staged in our personal vests and go-bags – both draped over the shoulders of our one piece outfits.

We draw strength and courage from her confidence and skill. She preps her own area in the shuttle closest to the drop ramp. She leads by example and we know her first priority is our safety and saving lives. I love her fiercely in a pure way that transcends labels like gender, mother, teacher or leader. Our relationship is professional, functional and inspirational. Diana is my mentor and my friend.

Hassan had the shuttle floating before we arrived on the pad with his datapad’s personal remote controls. Now we are sitting against the walls, facing in, holding our stretchers, contemplating the details of the scene we are approaching. The datapads describe a grim scene – it’s a mass casualty event. Unknown number of victims. Explosions, gunfire and possibly chemical and biological weapons.

“A supplemental community food forest has been attacked by unknown militants, a number and resources unknown, during a field trip, which has placed children on the battlefield. The kids were targeted intentionally by these terrorists. The other belligerents are the anarchist battlefield commune, The People’s Protection Militia and the International Communist Kommandos. Utopia International has been targeted by the fascist Azov Foreign Legion, the French Foreign Legion and the so-called United Islamic Emirates Brotherhood. Any of these could be the enemies today – all of the legions and brotherhoods are professionally trained and well armed forces. Today the anarchists, communists and socialists are aligned with Utopia’s rescue party and the Democratic Confederacy of International Autonomous Zones. Volunteers, proceed with caution.”

The voice pauses and the maps on our datapads zoomed in on the rural area just outside of town. The voice had a sleight slur to it and al isp. We were almost to the drop zone. The shuttle began to rattle and swerve from side to side as Hassan dropped us low. Next to me “Comrad” Ronin laughed. I hate that guy.

“Maybe if we didn’t have retards in dispatch logistics our enemies wouldn’t be so bold to attack our kids!” Ronin shouted over the roaring air as the drop ramp lowered. I snapped.

“Shut the fuck up Ronin! I’ll platform you if you keep insulting disabled comrades! You’re just nervous about this mission so I’ll let it slide! That autistic kid in logistics is twice as smart as you are!”

Ronin laughed again. This is how he deals with stress. It pisses me off but I understand.

Across from me Comrade Avesta threw up on the floor between her feet. Vomit splashed on to her mekap style running shoes, the free shoes Utopia provides to all its community members. She began to shake her head and cry. Ronin shut his mouth and looked down, chastened.

“I can’t do this again!” Avesta cried. “It’s too much!” She jumped in her harness as the distant sounds of explosions became louder, physical sensations of shocking vibrations. Avesta screamed.

“Not again! It’s too soon!”

Below her gloves and above her long sleeves I can see the ripped flesh of scar tissue. Above her collar and below her face mask the scars continued. Tears streamed down her face. She was just coming back to the rescue party after six months of physical and psychological therapy. The enemy, Azov at the time, had targeted us after drawing us into an ambush, using wounded civilians as bait. We all knew she was brave to return at all. It wasn’t my place to tell her what to do – as a woman she fell into Diana’s unit. I was a team leader for men, and all women outrank all men. Diana spoke up.

“Look at me Avesta! Look at me!”

Avesta looked up to her left where Diana sat by the dor. Beyond her the forest burned. The shuttle began to slow.

“It’s too late to go back!” Diana yelled.

Avesta moaned and put her face in her hands.

“Look at me! Now! Listen, you’ve done great work every time we do this! You have to face this! Don’t let them win! You owe it to those kids! You’re luckier than Tim and Rosa were! You owe it to them!”

The shuttle bounced as Hassan brought us to a stop. The red light above Diana turned green. Diana unbuckled and stood up. Outside shouts and screams drifted.

“Let’s go! Follow me!”

Diana and Ronin grabbed their stretcher and dragged it out, the large multi-terrain wheels rolling in the mud and ashes. Large farm houses and clumps of hundred year old oak trees shielded our shuttle. This is the staging area for the wounded. Deeper in the food forest the conflict raged. Rifles, rockets, smoke and gas. Clumps of companion plants had been shaped by the trees before this attack. We were in a plain just behind two mountains. The food forest rested in the valley between the mountains-terraced slopes. One mountain was occupied by the enemies, the valley and the left mountain were occupied by the anarchists and socialists. The communist militia was trying to take the right mountain. Rockets flashed back and forth, tracers snapped back and forth like lasers between every three or four bullets. Rifles and machine guns chattered and thumped like a disjointed beat of a dubstep song.

Avesta and I followed the first team with our stretcher. Behind us Nguyen and Athena compelted our squad. Ahead of us was a circle of pickup trucks covered in home-made plates of armor. Utopia’s strength is in our medical technology and horticultural science, so we don’t have armored war machines. Inside the circle of trucks was a few classes of screaming kids and teens, a handful of wounded soldiers and a row of silent bodies. A few more trucks rotated to the front and returned with more wounded. One came back smoking and exploded just before it reached the staging area. It was terrible. Diana took charge.

“Triage the wounded, kids and worst cases that can survive go back to the shuttle for medevac. Otherwise try to stabilize the rest.” She was already walking past a kid with a bullet hole in his jaw and an exit wound in his throat. She ignored him as he reached out for her and focused on a teen with few gunshot wounds in their limbs and another on their left breast. She slapped a chest seal to the front and back of their torso, over the entry and exit wounds. The chest seals were like big clear stickers. The other lung was already inflating, a conditions called tension pneumothorax, so Ronin stabbed a needle into their chest and now they could relieve air pressure and breathe through the needle. Then Ronin and Diana tied CAT tourniquets to each limb and packed the wounds, then wrapped them in pressure bandages.

Each team went to work like this. The boy with the wounded throat died before we loaded the first round into the shuttle. Diana and Ronin stayed behind with Nguyen and Athena. Once the stretchers were full we carried kids with leg wounds to the open floor spaces. Walking wounded were brought to shuttle seats. We made several trips and Avesta held it together the whole time. Twelve children died.

The anarchists were the first to arrive and fought recklessly, preventing the enemy from taking the food forest. They suffered the most casualties, losing fifteen friends. The People’s Protection Militia arrived second and pinned the fascists to the mountain. After watching to see who would likely win, the communists finally jumped in, dramatically charging up the occupied mountain as the enemy was already retreating. The PPM lost ten friends and the communists lost twelve. Twenty one enemies were killed.

They turned out to be fascists from the Azov Foreign Legion. They are zealous Christian mercenaries. A few were captured. They were ashamed they had killed children but claimed they were “just following orders.”

Back home a communal funeral was held. Coffins were carried through the streets. Tens of thousands lined the roads to the grave yards, openly weeping for the children and cheering for the martyrs and their living comrades. We mourned together. The community made time and space for us to heal and talk about what we saw and did and couldn’t do. We offered each other criticisms, accepted criticisms and offered self-criticisms. Then we made changes to improve.

We ate dinner together in the International Commune and invited the families of the martyrs. I drank homemade wine and smoked hash from our cannabis gardens. One day I might be a parent and I will continue to defend and rescue this Utopia so they can have a place to grow up where our values are truth, beauty, freedom, and goodness.

No idea is worth losing the moral high ground. Dogmatic mysticism, nationalism and tyranny are the enemies of Utopia. Our vision is based on love, with a place for all people regardless of ability, gender, or race. Tonight I sleep with a clean conscience, surrounded by friends.

April 2^nd, 2022

Modern media portrays anarchists as insane mass murderers. We cannot allow profit driven capitalists to define us – we must engage with the public and define ourselves through direct acts which benefit our communities. Every guerilla insurgency that has failed was isolated and alienated from the very same community they relied on. Spies and undercover cops infiltrated, and continue to sabotage, revolutionary movements. They continue to do so by providing bomb making materials and encouraging passionate activists to go too far. Any direct action worth doing in secret is too dangerous to discuss with even one other person. Everyone has beloved friends, family and even pets and careers, many allies have addictions and health problems, and all these can be used as leverage to turn lovers into informants. Every government in existence regularly abducts and tortures people. The future of kinetic resistance is lonely, but this is only one facet of effective activism.

We should not discourage the brave and passionate. At the same time, we should encourage the cowards and the compassionate. Put suspected informants and spies to work distributing food and planting crops. Never speak of illegal projects with them. The stakes are so high – if we fail to stop racist genocide, profit driven wars, and enslavement of prisoners, and the subjugation of women, foreigners, queer and trans friends, animals and plant life, the climate will change in a dramatic way that we cannot survive. This is an appeal to your self interest, and your concern for your loved ones and neighbors. The so-called “Post Apocalyptic Wasteland” portrayed in media already exists in the Ukraine, in Syria, in Iraq, Palestine and for the poor worldwide – even and especially in the slums and ghettos of the U.$.A.: there are sprawling homeless camps, squatters, refugees, roaming convoys of rubber tramps and more, all escaping large wildfires and posses of violent cops.

So how do we change the world?

There are so many ways to change the world that fill me with hope for the future, humanity and nature. These are listed here and will then be discussed in detail, except where self censorship is practiced to protect friends and avoid further oppression and enslavement at the hands of the state. They go both ways.

Throughout history the demonic power of words have been abused to sow confusion, and hijacked to demand freedom. Religion has also been used to enslave, and to resist colonization. “Magic” rituals have persisted despite inquisitions. The idea of a soul has been colonized to tax believers – and to inspire slaves to demand equality. Ethics and morality have domesticated passionate people. Enslavement and exploitation have followed in the footsteps of animal husbandry and housewivisation to selectively breed physical and psychological traits of obedience to domination in men, women and so-called livestock. The concept of acquiring skills has been totally denigrated by the image of mastery, the submission to authority, the division of labor and hyper specialization of skills. We have psychological separated ourselves from reality by calling humans “people” and all other life “nature.” Cities corral a work force but also provide sanctuaries of social development and rebellion. Vices destroy health and fund revolutions. Drugs are used as leverage, but can heal, and enhance the performance of athletes. Prostitution can be criminalized, be degrading under pimps, or it can be liberating for self-employed sex workers while dismantling illusions of hetero-normative village structures that are perpetuated by zealots of the mythological god of Abraham. Renunciation has both put people in workhouses and provided another way for oppressed women, asexual people and the poor to reject capitalism. Begging also humiliates the poor – and highlights a peaceful way to refuse the accumulation of material possessions.  For the proud robbery, especially of the rich, has long been an equalizing force that strikes fear into the hearts of the greedy, but the rich also rob the poor. The creation of oases in the midst of dystopian police states give hope to children, adults and the elderly while providing protected sanctuary for animals and sick, injured and homeless people. Guerilla gardens, cultivated in urban areas, provide food in nutrition deserts, without asking the state for permission. We can study the successes and failures of personalities like Ghandi, Che Guevara, Mother Theresa, Mao Zedong, Abdullah Ocalan, Nesrin Abdullah, Emma Goldman, Lucy Parsons, Voltarine deClayre, John Brown, Malcolm X, Huey Newton, Martin Luther King Jr. and Angela Davis – and then imitate and modernize their strategies.

We have seen missionaries operate as the vanguard of colonial expansion – and as medics. Hare Krishnas and Catholics collect information for various nation states but have also supported alternative options for people stuck in poverty, and workers’ rights organizations have sprung up from these misguided religions. The nihilist perspective can encourage people to resist even in the face of seeming hopelessness. Indigenous peoples have spearheaded resistance in northern and southern hemispheres worldwide while modernizing their struggle and preserving their culture. Musicians and artists preserve the spirit of ages of activism, providing beautiful and emotional expressions of the triumphs and traumas we witness and experience. People share their homes with modern underground railroads, providing safe houses, transportation, disguises and a stable supply of nutrients for abused women, refugees, freedom fighters and falsely accused people and political prisoners on the run from fascist slave catchers and death squads. Groups like the Animal and Earth Liberation Fronts (ALF & ELF) actively sabotage and destroy property that is used to destroy ecosystems and kill plants and animals.

So-called vagrants renounce mainstream society without selling out to religious power structure, living a full time life of protest, in groups like the Rainbow Gathering. Smugglers and drug dealers undermine capitalism by creating their own economies – ironically by imitating the dirty cops who criminalize them. The cultivation of so-called illegal plants, specifically psychedelics like cannabis, DMT, peyote and mushrooms, help people overcome addiction, trauma, fear of death and mental illness, especially the lies of profit driven economies, religions and hierarchical power structures. Party culture has a similar effect, to a lesser extent.

The use of birth control and contraceptives allows women to have bodily autonomy and helps the poor and working class to influence the population of workers available to the manipulative ruling class, which allows us to demand higher wages and better living conditions, along with reimbursement for transportation to and form work, medical care, housing and education. Conversely the Irish Catholics have weaponized their ban on birth control to increase their numbers to better combat Protestants who are sympathetic to oppressive, racist British colonizers. Rioting and the destruction of property has been a leveling practice employed by the poor and marginalized to redistribute direly needed resources back to the communities who produced them.

Armed patrols of areas, communities, nature preserves and territories empower people to protect themselves, endangered species and their homes and gardens. By crossing borders, traveling and connecting with so-called foreigners worldwide in person and online we live as one family, without borders and imaginary divisions which are used to divide and dominate us. Destroying all barriers, walls, fences, enclosures and hedges is not only a powerful mindset and life’s task, it is our moral obligation to humanity, and it can be done digitally and physically.

Protests and strikes, at work and at home, regarding women’s unpaid housework and emotional and sexual labor, are devastatingly effective, and force the ruling class and their enforcers to come to the negotiation table or face the loss of their precision profits and luxuries, which rightfully belong to the workers. Sex is both an intimate pledge between lovers, partners and parents, and a perfectly normal and healthy past time for consenting single adults, which dispels stress, myths and prejudices by awakening natural and primal urges that contradict bigotry and racism.

Disregarding gender norms loosens the grip and influence of the patriarchy and helps people to explore aspects of themselves that they previously rejected due to gender identity, like flexibility and emotional intelligence in men and strength and aggression in women, as well as people who experience, or don’t experience, gender in unique ways.

Heresy can be practiced to disprove the wrath of mythological deities and to expose the tyranny of so-called religious leaders, who are the only real source of “divine” retribution.

Humor and satire are very effective weapons for activists, because any tyrant who cannot be mocked has become far too powerful to remain, and all leaders must be thoroughly and daily criticized in order to prevent them from accumulating more power than the weakest member of their community.

Rudeness must also be welded against those who have come to power by counting on the polite nature of communities who fail to mock their ridiculous and irrational claims, such as the authority and divinity of any scripture.

As debt is again criminalized we see students and other weaponizing debt by refusing to pay for student loans and then demanding loan debt forgiveness, effectively attacking loan sharks and socializing higher education.

Occupying spaces, like squatting, is a crime of necessity, which allows the displaced to politicize their poverty and transform suffering into a form of protest that forces the wage slaves, drones and enforcers of class division to be aware of, and interact with, the homeless they try to ignore.

Physical fitness, exercise, yoga, martial arts and a healthy diet and lifestyle help to strengthen, empower, unite and make people happy, while opening peoples minds and lowering resistance to new ideas and ways of thinking – racists and fascists regularly occupy and recruit at gyms so we should do the same.

Social medias are another crucial aspect to modern activism and must be utilized and occupied to reach hearts and minds.

Learning multiple languages to fluency is a fundamental part of building international communities and movements. Communication is the most important step when moving towards any ideal in practical ways.

Offering self criticism to a core group of close friends, every day, is one of the most effective forms of self development and personal growth, as much as offering and receiving criticisms, without arguments, is a necessary process for team building.

Finally, the making of self fulfilling prophecies, vows and predictions has been shown to be a way of planting seeds than can bear fruit long after we are gone.

This work will be dynamic, changing over time and in response to input, questions and criticisms. Please send letters to discuss these topics with me, and practice and bring up these subjects in your community, except for any which are illegal. Any activism too dangerous to discuss with others should be kept to oneself.

Understand that this work is being closely monitored by fascist enforcers of class division and oppression. We live in a time and place where ideas and words have been criminalized by hypocrites who claim they occupy the moral high ground. Even reading this could be a “crime.”

I write this from prison, sitting in ac ell, having been falsely charged and then convicted of a crime I did not commit. What more can they do to me? They can take my life, but a life of slavery, based on myths and lies, in subjugation, where my existence is criminalized and I am ritualistically humiliated by strip searches, this is not a life worth living. Any one of you can also be targeted at any time, for standing up for civil rights, for the hungry, the poor and the homeless. Based on the fact of real tyranny, right here, right now, we truly have nothing to lose.

Please know that I am not suicidal or planning to disappear when I get out of prison. If I die or come up missing know that it was the work of the state or their lap dogs. I plan to live a long, happy life, in my community, free. Together we will build a better world where all are happy and free!

^^^ read/print here!

Aztlan esta de luto! Free the occupied territories of Aztlan! The war is here, to break the chains of US imperalism, not in Ukraine! Reyes, Neva, Una, Francisco, Huriberto, Florencio – Presente!

Revolucionariamente,

Xinachtli

Alvaro Luna Hernandez 255735

McConnell Unit

3001 South Emily Drive

Beeville, TX 78102

Shoutout to No Name Books from the bottom of my heart. Yo Monsour, where you at? Yo Coffin, where you at? Yo Hestand, where you at? Much love, comrades.

I need Comrade Devil at Michael Unit to be advise you are needing to advice all inmates that ACA Toney Parker, Denise Robinson, Gar C. Mohr, Bryan Collier are on my class action lawsuit, as well as every single TBCJ member. You in there, begin the submission of all oppressive policy and fuckery.

I’ve got 2 class actions on ACA/TBCJ/TDCJ and all are valid and active. Here is my request, as part of the TEAMONE network, to create the best kind of trouble that Texas needs:

We need comrades on every unit in Texas to do the same. Report “intentional oppression”: 1^st, 8^th and 14^th Amendment Rights violations. Our is goal is to bring our oppressors into the courts to answer for all the violence on anarchist prisoners, and for the policy that pushes people to suicide. No matter what you use as your grounds, it will not miss. Now is the time to bring all our complaints into the courts so that Congress can see our unity. Go forth, don’t look back.

My outside supporters – please email your support to USDC-Southern District judge Jeff V. Brown. Let ’em know. Emails will go to his case-manager:

george_cardenas@txs.uscourts.gov

Solidarity and Sabotage,

Z

Julio A. Zuniga 1961551

Memorial Unit

59 Darrington Road

Rosharon, TX 77583

print/read here ^^^

Write to Steven at:

Steven McCain 2096064

Wainwright Unit

2665 Prison Road 1

Lovelady, TX 75851

What is anarchism anyways?

“I am an Anarchist! Wherefore I will Not rule, and also ruled I will not be!”

John Henry Mackay

Anarchism is the absence of authority, by consequence a lack of hierarchy. You will not lead me, nor I you. None shall subjugate another, for the autonomy of the individual is of utmost importance. There is no person of more value than any other, we are all uniquely worthy of commanding ourselves. To rule over another is a cruel robbery of their whole world. Anarchism is the realization of the self, of the innumerable powers acting unto it. With no need to obey, you may finally foster free thought and possess total control of your will.

Anarchists tend to reject most schools of traditional thought. As we are entrenched in a hierarchical existence, a majority of norms and customs are reflective. Law, government, family, religion, and gender might encompass some of the ideas an anarchist chooses to negate. You will seldom find agreement from anarchist-to-anarchist. We all wield our own lens with which to analyze the world. Government is largely seen as unnecessary and a farce; Law as a cold and indifferent detachment; Money an arbitrary valuing of our time and reality; Religion a deception to control. Many anarchists hold that these concepts form hierarchy by virtue, that these are merely the present tools of authority we are told to be needed.

I am an individualist anarchist, an egoist, and an illegalist. My anarchy is that of self-realization, of the liberation of my Ego from all that would seek to control it. I see these forces primarily as Capital, the Church, and the State. My senses form the basis for my interpretation of reality; the world turns around me. Who else to know of myself when no one else can experience my wake? Law is the State’s justification for violence, ergo illegal acts are an important component of my defiance. My story is immoral! I place significance in Propaganda by the Deed, that through individual acts of terror Anarchy can be realized and that said act may invite all to follow. Go rob a store; be gay, do crime.

Thus, Anarchy could be my serial robbery of stores, Czolgosz’s murder of President McKinley, bombing a politician, burning down your local grocer, or tending your local garden – and so much more! An anarchist will not be ruled, nor shall they rule! A new order is born; an order without rulers.

“I am an anarchist and I am not afraid to die for its cause. Arise Anarchy! Long shall it live!”

Johann Most

An Order Without Rulers

“Todo gobierno es tirania”

-graffiti seen in Mexico City

With no one to be above you or I, a new order is birthed where none shall rule; No more authority, we may all autonomously act and not merely obey. I will be the only entity to form my will, with it no longer beholden to submission nor coercion. You will not rule me!

What is necessary of authority? Hierarchy? Why would it be a given, that another human must command me? I will not believe the lies of its necessity. We can hardly speak of some natural state, of some sort of human nature, when we lay captive to the coldest of all monsters; capitalism and the State remain unneeded. I would much rather you command yourself, entirely and wholly. And you?

Why must you trade your time and resources for a State-sanctioned paper? Rather, why should I need currency for my basic needs to be satisfied, for my acquisition of those needs to not be theft? Money, like authority, has the value and worth a society decides to give it. Do we ever expect our rulers to admit the falsehood they have erected when they stand to gain so much power otherwise? You will sell your being for the dollar, kill another for the right feather in your hat, and I am to listen of your insistence there would be no order, no peace, without rulers? There is no order so long as one may command another!

No peace is to be had when any may be locked in a box, denied the right to self-determine. As long as the powerful shall rule, we will be told this state of subjugation is a peace contrary to our supposed savagery. All individuals are uniquely worthy of their own life, of leading it. You are no more savage than your fellow individual, lest you be led to that belief.

To be freed from rule is to finally know of freedom; we are not free with the powerful demanding subservience. I demand to finally control my own life, that I not merely make choices in some cruel game designed to oppress me at every moment of my wake. I refuse to be distracted from our time’s greatest injustice! No matter how deified the tradition opposing, let it be known – Anarchy is order; rulerless peace.

“I love men too — not merely individuals, but every one. But I love them with the consciousness of egoism; I love them because love makes me happy, I love because loving is natural to me, because it pleases me. I know no “commandment of love.” I have a fellow-feeling with every feeling being, and their torment torments, their refreshment refreshes me too; I can kill them, not torture them.”

Max Stirner

The Death of God

“God is dead: of his pity for man hath God died.”

Friedrich Nietzsche

What does it mean to realize the Self? All that is would ask you to not know of your Ego, to place anything but yourself above it. Your Ego is yours alone. Of all the forces that would dictate your behavior and worth, from religion to traditions or customs, why would you relinquish what is uniquely yours? I stand to defy what is, to claim ownership of the only sensuality I will ever possess. I will be myself. And you?

You possess the same capacities as I. You are as much an individual as anyone else. With nothing of the old, of what was, to define your person, you are given the gift of your own individuality. You get to actually lead your life, to form your personhood from the nothingness of a new way of existence.

What could you truly call your own, when all manners of coercion act unto your will? Even your Ego was not yours, not when it is controlled. Society is predicated on the individual to exist, and not vice versa, so for what reason would I have myself be convinced of the death of individualism? I will see the death of God, for my humanity is something to be surpassed. Not something to limit me, to be my next God or ruler. I am my own.

I alone command my will, so of what need have I of your coercion? Are you to rule me through deception? Not if I can avoid it.

“The creator wished to look away from [themself],—thereupon [they] created the world.”

Friedrich Nietzsche

Lawless Prosperity

“The State calls its own violence Law, but that of the individual Crime.”

Max Stirner

Law is cold and indifferent arbitration, its enforcement naught more than the removal of individual’s liberty. Must I be faced with the deprivation of my humanity and freedom for refusing to obey? Lawlessness will be our liberator. Law does not a thing to change our existence, except for the worse. Through respect and admiration for the State’s violence, individuals are made agents of injustice.

In our new anarchistic existence, our individuality is not to be liberated by Law. Arbiters whom would seek to impose Law unto you or I have the desire of controlling us. With no Law to rule us, we may explore our individuality to its limits; no rulers encompasses all of them, yes.

“The moral man is necessarily narrow in that he knows no other enemy than the immoral man.”

Max Stirner

Voluntary Association

“What matters the party to me? I shall find enough anyhow who unite with me without swearing allegiance.”

Max Stirner

With no rulers or coercion to control us, all individuals may therefore associate with one-another entirely voluntarily. Individuals can mutually utilize each other, creating unions whereupon the Ego of all individuals are recognized and respected. These “Union of Egoists” would form the basis for human interaction, preventing the creation of a new hierarchy above any individual. The ideal human is to be realized, one conscious of their own Ego and of all that would act unto it. You are your own.

Through voluntarily formed bonds, humans could solve the many problems presented to them. Needed medical care, food, shelter, clothing, and so on would no longer be a matter of possessing enough capital; why should the poor go without? Altruism becomes far more appealing with no opportunity cost to it. With education no longer to be gatekept, the persons able to offer services increases accordingly with the demand. Capitalism is naught but a blood tax on our world, the voluntary nature of Anarchy brings forth a greater care for our fellow individuals.

If all aspects of our existence become voluntary, I need not be around individuals who show disdain for others. I am not suddenly tied down by rent, borders, travel costs or contracts. I may surround myself with a community able to benefit me, as I to them. Or, I may live in solitude. Regardless, I suddenly have real control over my life rather than a mere facade of choice. I can associate with whom I choose, my life becomes mines to lead.

“I have based my affair on nothing”

Max Stirner

Why Anarchy

From whence our liberty will arise

The freedom an individual had hardly known

As an understanding of Anarchy is grown

Its benefit to us is left as no surprise

Brought forth through our ruler’s demise

By one’s own bright Ego allowed to be shown

Wherefore once only subjugation was sown

Now true individualism all can realize

To liberate myself from all rulers and rule

Necessitates you also be free

Our rulers must surely think you a fool

Anarchism brings forth only glee

I will pull back this capitalist wool

Finally – Anarchy our eyes will see!

Write Comrade Candle at:

Sofia Johnson 23976151

Coffee Creek Correctional Facility

24499 SW Grahams Ferry Road

Wilsonville, OR 97070

4/20/22

Before we begin we should sweep and clean the area, all genders working equally. Then we should make sure our neighbors have their needs met, and offer food and housing to the poor and full time activists. Then, sit on equal terms and take a moment of silence to focus on the breath while we remember the names and faces of the martyrs. Remembering their sacrifices and inevitable death, we resolve to liberate all beings in this life, cultivating altruism. Think of a quote to repeat for a few minutes. For example, Abdullah Ocalan says, “Truth is love, love is free life!” Now visualize a few inspiring people in detail, great humans such as Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed, Patanjali, Ghandi, Apo, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mother Theresa, Emma Goldman, Voltairine DeClayre, Angela Davis, Maya Angelou, Harriet Tubman, John Brown, Malcolm X, and so on, whoever inspires you. Think how you use your body, speech and mind to advance equality, truth, freedom and beauty. Imagine what you can offer to revolutionary movements in your community.

Offer self criticisms, accept criticisms, make efforts to grow as a person, and then offer criticisms to help others grow. Give praise and credit to hardworking activists and cultivate joy for comrades’ success. Ask them to keep working hard for everyone’s freedom and to contribute to the dialectic. Dedicate all of your own successes to the liberation of all beings. Reach out to mentors and ask for guidance and inspiration. Show gratitude to them and to comrades who support your community. Help them, take their advice and practice their teachings. Believe in the power of friendship and cooperation! Your mind is the source of happiness and pain, so see attachment to the oppressive systems of hierarchy, profit driven greed and domination as thieves of happiness and resolve to live in balance with nature and neighbors, enjoying life without clinging.

The nature of the mind is clarity and awareness, being, consciousness and bliss. We have a moral obligation to future generations to create the conditions for happiness and equal freedom. Hiding behind inaction and refusing to take direct action is not the moral high ground – it is cowardice. Cultivate the bravery to defend others or die trying. Suffering exists, it’s caused by attachment and it can end. The way to utopia is to build meaningful centers of resistance and justice against exploitation and power by embracing and building our utopia of freedom. This is how we escape the vicious cycle of pain. Abandon false happiness based on the lies of religion and illusions, live by a code of ethics, cultivate concentration, wisdom, love and compassion. Without morals we will go extinct.

Insincere life is transient, unsatisfactory and selfless. There is no egotistical soul behind your eyelids. All life is precious, so be enthusiastic! The God-Kings are naked and unmasked. When we die they die with us! So instead of living for profit, cultivate the causes for happiness in future generations. Plant seeds, trees, and thoughts. Attachment and aversion to possessions, praise and criticism, reputation and infamy, pleasure and pain – these cause enormous disasters and conflict.

Don’t despair, think of ways to take action. Death is inevitable. What can you do before you die? What makes life meaningful? Visualize being killed by cops in the street, being executed by the State, dying in a war for profit, being blown away by a nuclear bomb and dying of a disease in a pandemic. Then take refuge in a revolutionary movement like the YPG, Zapatistas, Palestine Liberation Organization or the Irish Republican Army by studying their teachings, founders and joining them. Another world is possible.

Choose to engage in constructive actions: Rescue lives from danger, protect others and yourself, practice responsible and consensual sex between adults, speak truth to injustice, practice harmonious speech and kind words, discuss ideology and philosophy, be generous and apply loving kindness. Cultivate attitudes of generosity, ethical discipline, patience, joyful effort, concentration and wisdom. Now, again, visualize your mentors, offer self criticisms, then repair relationships with determination and remedial behavior. Build communities based on intuitive emotional intelligence. The love of truth guarantees free life!

Dan Baker 25765-509

FCI Memphis

PO Box 34550

Memphis, TN 38184

Hello, I’m Harlequin, a person who’s been incarcerated inside the gulags of Pennsylvania Department of Corruptions more or less since 2009. I’ve seen and have experienced atrocity and oppression on a daily basis. It’s expected to experience oppression and abuse by prison officials, as that’s what they are paid to do. What really bothers me though is the oppression and abuse so prevalent between fellow prisoners.

As I write from the hole (RHU) on a petty, largely exaggerated charge, I am experiencing indirect oppression at the hands of my neighbor next door to me. He is at war with a handicapped prisoner directly underneath him for no reason other than the handicapped prisoner’s here on a rape conviction. My next door neighbor bangs on his stainless steel sink loudly throughout the day and night to induce sleep deprivation in the man downstairs. It doesn’t matter to my next door neighbor that his senseless actions are effecting others, and oppressing everyone on the unit.

If a C.O. Or other staff members would do that, banging on each door to wake us all up day and night, we would be raising hell. But we take it in stride when another prisoner oppresses each other, and think it to be normal. Brothers and sisters, this is far from normal! When we oppress each other, prison staff meet their objectives.

The prison industrial complex is designed to keep us at each others throats, so to speak, to divide and conquer so as to squelch any form of unity. The P.I.C. Encourages divisions and animosity between these divisions and fuels the divisions, so as to prevent collective unity among prisoners. We forget the fact that at the end of the day, we are ALL human beings, capable of contributing to the good and betterment of our society. We are all worthy of dignity and respect, regardless of convicted crimes, lifestyle, religion, gender identity, sexual preference, race, creed, etc. Is the person convicted of murder better than the person convicted of rape or another sex crime? Not at all. Are the LGBTQ prisoners less of persons than hetero and cisgender prisoners? No! Why you ask? Because we are all human beings.

I hear the cries of those around me throughout my sentence, against the oppression and injustice we all feel on a daily and continual basis. Complaints are made all the time and people moan about nothing being done. The reason for this is a total lack of unity. Too many are focused on the choices of everyone else. The divisions created keep us from achieving the unity necessary to take a stand against oppression we all face. We often wonder why things occur and why no one stand up about it. It’s going to take more than a few people to unite and make a significant impact. It’s going to take us all as a whole to make it happen! No more every-man-for-himself mentality. We need to adopt the attitude that when one is down and out, all are down and out. We must do this collectively. And no, this is not going to happen overnight, but small steps can be taken. Reaching out to someone who has nothing, helping them with their needs, getting to know someone you wouldn’t ordinarily speak to – small steps! Will this be difficult? Hell yes! Can it be done? I believe it can abundantly as a collective effort.

So, I resound the call – Prisoners and oppressed of the nation – UNITE! Rise up against oppression!

In Solidarity and In Struggle,

Comrade Harlequin

Reach Harlequin at:

Thomas Flick LJ9467

SCI Mahanoy

PO Box 33028

St. Petersburg, FL 33733