Anarchy: a journal of desire armed. #37, Summer 1993
LETTERS part 3

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Prison labor camps

  Hi, please excuse the form letter. I've been transferred to (yet)
another one of the federal government's prisons - this time to
Leavenworth Penitentiary, of all places. For those keeping count,
this makes my 4th transfer in 3 years, a right tour of the Gulag
Archipelago! With all this moving around, courtesy of our nation's
most exclusive airline, "Con Air," whose motto seems to be "You
have to be indicted, to be invited"!! I hope to obtain a little
breathing room with this so you can get my new address as soon as
possible and I can spend more time in writing personal letters. I'm
way behind, having spent most of my summer in the Hole with nothing
but a stubby pencil and a few scraps of legal paper. Expect a
letter from me soon. I have "mail forwarding" until Oct 12, so
unless it's been returned, I should receive anything you've sent -
eventually....

  A little on why I was sent to Leavenworth - home, some say, to
1,400 of the nation's most dangerous criminals; it's a long story.
I was sent to Englewood to await transfer to the latest Federal
Prison Complex opening in Florence, Colorado - the infamous "Robo
Prison" - the latest in High Tech security, the "Prototype Prison
of the future." Florence promised a de-humanizing experience
designed to break anyone unfortunate enough to be incarcerated
there. I was being shipped there when it opened because of my long
history of instigating Food Strikes and Work Stoppages at those
other institutions I was thrown out of. Also included was allega-
tions I sabotaged war production at the Federal Prison Industries
(Unicor) during the Gulf War - never proven...All this made the
Feds lose patience with me and Florence was supposed to straighten
me out.

  I didn't really want to go to `Roboprison' to experience first
hand all the lovely Orwellian security apparatuses the feds were so
excited about, especially when I learned the feds built their
prison near an area that has been on the Environmental Protection
Agency's Superfund priority list since 1984 for toxic cleanup!
Neither, I found out, did any of my fellow inmates at Englewood. So
we banded together and organized in the most chaotic way possible
some sort of resistance to going to Florence. Several projects were
planned, including a letter writing campaign; a petition to the
local chapter of the A.C.L.U. seeking some kind of injunction
halting further prison construction until an independent Environ-
mental Impact Statement could be compiled outlining the possible
biological health hazards associated with the almost unbelievable
allegations of criminal negligence of the nearby Cottler Corpora-
tion-uranium waste in the ground water, radioactive dust particles
in the air. It wasn't long before the prison administrator caught
wind to what we were doing and the whole lot of us was tossed in
the Hole. I'm afraid we weren't very effective. I was looked upon
as the `ringleader' and `instigator' and sent here to Leavenworth
to `chill'. More on this later. I'm looking forward to hearing form
you, Thanks for everything!

  You asked me in your last letter if I could write something on my
experiences in federal Prison, so I'm sending you a 15 page
photocopy on one aspect of my incarceration - Work. This piece of
Government propaganda, written no doubt by some wannabe Goebbels,
speaks for itself as far as showing how completely out of control
our Government has become.

  As you can see, our Federal Prison system has a close and very
unhealthy relationship with the Military/Industrial Complex in this
country. What does this mean? Unicor/F.P.I. is a private government
corporation that uses cheap inmate labor for profit and provides
the Military with needed supplies and components for its imperial-
istic goals. This Government propaganda tells you the "F.P.I. is
the number one inmate management tool for overcrowded Prisons," but
it doesn't explain why Federal Prisons are overcrowded in the first
place! When you consider the evidence linking the C.I.A. -
Iran/Contra - Bush/Noriega connection with the increase in drug
smuggling over the past ten years, and the thousands of individuals
incarcerated as a result of the "War On Drugs," maybe instead of
"F.P.I. is the number one inmate management tool for overcrowded
Prisons," it should read "Overcrowded Prisons are the number one
tool for management of F.P.I.!" With over 80 factories across the
vast chain of the Gulag Archipelago and untold billions in profit,
Unicor is a very lucrative business to be in!

  In using this simple formula: More inmates =3D More factories =3D More
Profits, it's not hard to see why the U.S. leads the world in the
rate of incarceration and how we were able to mobilize for Desert
Storm so quickly. Unicor has a slogan (believe it or not) that says
"Factories Within Fences," which is their statement as well as
their goal. It has also been the goal for every fascist and
totalitarian government of the past 60 years  - from Nazi Germany's
"concentration camps" to Russia's "Gulags" to China's "forced labor
camps." Are we really surprised to see the same thing in this
capitalistic country too. Where social control and profit margins
run hand in hand?

  With the awareness of the recent bill - H.R. 4079, the "Emergency
Drug and Crime Bill" that Newt Gingrich and Phil Gramm tried to
introduce into legislation last year, it's important to understand
that the Gulags do exist in this country and that Unicor/F.P.I. is
the model.
                                                                       Jame=
s
Daniel Armstrong
                                                                           =
  =20

   #04617-051
                                                                          =
=20
U.S. Penitentiary
                                                                           =
  =20

P.O. Box 1000
                                                                 =20
Leavenworth, KS 66048-1000

  (For a copy of the above-mentioned article [entitled "The Persian
Gulf War - Federal Prison Industries"] write Wind Chill Factor and
please send postage: P.O. Box 81961, Chicago, IL. 60681.)

``Either/or'' frenzy

Anarchie,
  i feel i need to respond to the directive being leveled on "men
who fight first, foremost, and only for lowering the age of
consent" which appeared in the mostly wow - enlightenment article
"A Young Dyke's Feminist Perspective." i would expect this to be
directed at members of NAMBLA since this organization is more
widely known (and subject to widespread destructive misinformation
- whether tactfully or ignorantly) in the usa.

  From what i know of NAMBLA (and i state here that i am currently
dissenting from it constructively) it is an organization that only
began for defensive purposes of men and dudes who were being
arrested/harassed more often as hysteria was lit against them. As
a defensive organization it, granted, revolved around the facet of
the thing that was affecting its people's (men and dudes) -
sexuality. Nowadays, NAMBLA's interests still center around
sexuality, in defense of such relationships. But further, they have
developed a position paper which names various wider NAMBLA posi-
tions on young people's rights; then again, i personally have not
noted any real activisms for kids' wider rights - but i can also
empathize with the possible self-imposed restriction. In 1982, the
f.b.i. made illegal attacks on NAMBLA around the Etan Patz
disappearance (see "A Witchhunt Foiled" put out by NAMBLA); and
plus the real tendency of the hysteria-press to condemn anything in
which NAMBLA's appears in a positive light. For NAMBLA and its
`out' leaders to openly work with kids is probably to bring worse
hardship to those kids....

  Secondly, these men (which have included myself) who fight
seemingly only for the lowering of the age of consent (but actually
as in NAMBLA, the abolition of it) may have no real possibility in
their lifetimes of seeing this happen as a permanent effect. Why
then, are they doing so, and does this stand automatically make
them targets for other kids liberationists to scorn?

  Are these men really only clamoring for the lowering or abolition
of age of consent laws, or is this a bait conveniently shaped by
our shadowy allies? i mean, people are complicated - we are all
individuals. Those who stand and speak about things most heatedly
unpopular, risking it all (quite seriously) in their fragile
minority should be looked into by genuine constructive critics i
think, instead of struck in the "either/or" frenzy. None of us are
perfect, and are any of us never growing or progressing our
horizons thru educational tools like this magazine?

  Thirdly, sexuality in its entirety is not really spoken about in
this society - underground or mainstream. Sex seems to be the
heaviest issue; it may be intriguing to wonder why opponents want
us to stop speaking `just' about it. i wonder if, because sex is
such a powerful topic in this society, maybe it's a good idea to
stand and speak up our opinions - otherwise who would get through
this obstacle we all face?

  Sex has been a rallying point for a hell of a lot of really divid-
ed emotions. If NAMBLA or other kid-power groups spoke centrally
for anti-skool issues, they would probably more easily be silenced
by the mainstream, since i think people aren't as familiar with the
changing education system as they are with sexuality. i think from
this rallying point it is much more powerful to spread out other
ideas.

  Okay, now that bicycle thing. okay, people with opinions, if bikes
are so bad, i bet printing presses are pretty bad too...and all the
methods of distribution, and postal mechanization...which use lots
of quite parallel industrialization...ha ha! Jason did an okay job
of replying to those who would feel guilty to ride a bike, but i
would like to add to it: It may not be a constructive reaction to
choose extremes based on someone else's opinions, but instead such
critiques can be used to enlighten and get us thinking
significantly. Here again, is an example of a subject in which
emotion is attached and uncovers layers that are near our hearts -
an article used to encourage people to contribute.
                                                                         C.=
D.,
Kalamazoo, MI.

Racism and sexism


Dear Editor,
  First off, congratulations on producing a nice looking issue
(Anarchy, No. 35); your new format continues to pay off handsomely.
Thanks also for the superb layout on my contribution, "The Stone
Age Revisited." With that said, however, I must enter the strongest
possible objection - as I would have before the fact, had anyone
there bothered to inform me of what you were planning - to your
having insinuated the silly little sidebar by John Zerzan into my
text at page 41. I find it patronizing and insulting that you felt
it somehow appropriate my work be published only if it were
`balanced', on the spot, by a differing (dare I say "more cor-
rect"?) view penned by one of your contributing editors.

  The presumption of a student (me)/teacher (him) relationship
embodied in your placement of his margin notes alongside my
material is unmistakable and deeply offensive on grounds of both
racism and sexism. Before you start to wax overly eloquent with
denials, ask yourself this: May I expect that, in the future, you
will allow me, whenever I choose, to inject my sentiments into
sidebars accompanying the essays of other writers? Of course not.
I will be told, appropriately enough - as Zerzan should have been,
and would have been by any publication pursuing a principled
editorial policy - that while my commentary is certainly welcomed,
it will be published, not in direct juxtaposition to someone else's
material, but in the `letters' section of a subsequent issue. Dou-
ble standards, such as you've displayed here - he gets to do this,
but I don't - always carry the most negative sorts of connotations.

  I readily admit that exceptional circumstances do arise, very
infrequently, when an individual who has been privileged to read a
manuscript before it is published offers commentary possessed of
such rare insight, usually involving some new element or elements
of information related to the topic under discussion, that it
simply must appear alongside a major text. In such cases,
publishing ethics - not to mention common courtesy - demand that
the author of the original material be informed, so that s/he has
opportunity to rejoin the commentator right then and there. Such
procedures not only serve to nullify the appearance of double
standards mentioned above, they provide for a dialogue which
enhances the utility of whatever is being said. Suffice it to point
out that your own comportment has been rather wide of the mark
here.

  This, of course, leaves open the question of whether Zerzan's
remarks fall with a "rare insight /new information" classification,
thus warranting your publishing them as a sidebar rather than a
letter regardless of your `oversight' in failing to inform me that
you were doing so. Well, what were these weighty points, the
publication of which you seem to have found so urgent?

  First, there is a thinly-veiled reference to that mainstay of
Eurocentric mythology, the Bering Strait hypothesis, holding that
the Americas were peopled "extremely recently" by folks moving in
from Siberia. Now there's a real cutting edge concept! The notion
of American Indian `immigration' from Beringia has been integral to
every introductory anthropology course in the United States for the
past hundred years. If you thought this was going to be new stuff
to your readers, then you have a very peculiar view of their col-
lective level of awareness.

  Second, there is Zerzan's monumental discovery that "domestication
breeds hierarchy and domination," a banality he seems destined to
repeat endlessly in your pages, including even a second iteration
in the same issue at hand (at page 53, in a sidebar adjoining
Kingsley Widmer's "Anarchist Aesthetics"). Do you have any limit on
how often you'll allow one of your insiders to take up space saying
exactly the same thing? Let's say that everybody could've waited
until your next issue to see this particular `revelation' appear
again for the umpteenth time.

  So much for informational imperatives. Plainly, there were none
involved in your decision to set this up the way you did. I am
therefore left to conclude that your intent was more along the line
of `packaging' what I had to say in a certain manner -  this is
called "spin control" in some circles - rather than providing
anything of substance to readers. I expect such behavior from
establishment outfits (which is one reason I never publish in them,
even when solicited); for a self-proclaimedly oppositional journal
like Anarchy to engage in the same practice is troubling to say the
least.

  In any event, since I was denied the opportunity of responding to
Zerzan's observations when they were made, I will avail myself of
the opportunity of doing so now. Taking first things first, the
standard Bering Strait migration theory - which my critic blandly
presents as hard fact - has never been supported by a shred of
evidence. None. To the contrary, the archaeological and
anthropological evidence in the Arctic strongly suggests that the
main flow of migration in that region went the other direction,
from North America into eastern Siberia (and into western Europe,
for that matter). Moreover, the further south one goes in this
hemisphere, the older the evidence of human occupancy becomes:
confirmed dating runs, contrary to Zerzan's remarkably uninformed
assertion, well into the deep Paleolithic period (45,000-50,000
years); dating of a recently discovered site in Mexico has also
been tentatively extended much further back in time, into the
200,000 year range.

  For these reasons, among others, the idea of an influx of
population into America across the Beringian Land Bridge - either
at the dawn of the Neolithic, or at some earlier point - has long
since lost currency among most serious anthropologists outside
North America (and not a few within it). In the U.S., on the other
hand, the Bering Strait hoax continues to be advanced as
established doctrine by an "academic mainstream" devoted to
sustaining it as a cornerstone of American apartheid ideology.
Those interested in obtaining a more detailed examination of
information in this connection  - as Zerzan should be before
offering any further Olympian pronouncements on the matter -  might
want to pick up a copy of Jeffrey Goodman's exploratory American
Genesis: The American Indian and the Origins of Modern Man (New
York: Summit Books, 1981) or, better yet, the late Werner M=81ller's
America: Old World or New? (New York: Peter Lang Publisher, 1989).

  As concerns the second of my critic's points, that regarding the
supposedly intrinsic evils of domestication, domination and
hierarchy, he wanders away from mere ignorance into a never-never
land of the truly absurd. How, exactly, does he propose to eat
without `dominating' whatever it is - whether animal, vegetable, or
both - he consumes? What in heavens name does he think a food chain
is if not a `hierarchy'? In what fashion does he - a being not
blessed with fur, fang or claw - propose to survive absent the very
forms of `domestication' (by which he seems to mean "alteration
through application of mind?") he condemns? His apparent
preoccupation with the premise that humans might exist, or might
ever have existed, as some figurative equivalent to Bambi bounding
through the bushes is laughably bizarre, at best.

  The purpose of analysis is, in every tradition I've encountered
other than that of the Western intellectualism Zerzan decries (but
in which he is hopelessly mired), to understand the natural order
rather than to abstract into something it isn't (but which we wish
we were, or think we can make it). The trick in applying this
knowledge is to figure out how to function within this order
without physically destabilizing or `philosophically' supplanting
it with something `new' and `better'. In other words, the point is
not to deny the validity of hierarchy, which is natural, but to
learn how to keep our misapprehensions of it from strangling us and
everything around us; not to pretend that domination is `anti-
natural', but to find out how to keep it balanced in such a way
that no given entity comes to predominate over all others, not to
arbitrarily denounce the `domestication' upon which life itself de-
pends (our critic's, not least of all), but to determine how it can
be sustained in equilibrium with the rest of nature.

  What my essay was designed to illustrate, no doubt imperfectly,
was that these were matters indigenous peoples here and elsewhere
divined rather thoroughly through their natural systems of
knowledge while the synthetic world view devised by Europe's
`superior' culture could not, did not, still has not, and never
will. This, not domestication, is the "dividing line" Zerzan
insists upon missing while prancing off in the abstractions of a
purist prattle intended to accomplish nothing so much as the
securing of his own imagined position - customary among Euromales -
 at the vanguard' of cerebral endeavor.

  Every contention requires a proof, so here's mine: If John Zerzan
is in any way sincere in his oft-stated belief that a non-
domesticating, non-dominating, non-hierarchical "Mr. Natural" might
actually exist in the real world, I hereby offer him immediate
admission into an environment in which he, personally, unlike the
native people he'll find there, can try and put his vision into
practice (even for a little while). When he declines, as I know he
will, maybe he can be induced to involve himself in something a
little less trivial and counterproductive than what he's been doing
up till now.

  For starters, he might attempt to mesh some part of his rhetoric
to the reality of the world he actually inhabits. I'd recommend,
while he's railing on and on against the hierarchy he finds
everywhere but in himself - dominating discourse in the process -
he try renouncing some of that hierarchy-based editorial privilege
which allowed him to attach his sidebar to my piece in the first
place. Along the way, he might just find that doing something in a
`respectful' way requires rather more than simply saying the word.
Who knows what breakthrough insights could follow from there?

  In struggle and hopes of solidarity at some point,
M.Annette Jaimes
Boulder, CO.

Jason comments:

We are responsible

  Excuse me if I missed it, but I failed to see any solidarity - or
even any great hope for any - in your diatribe. We don't ever ex-
pect everyone to agree with our editorial decisions, but in this
case it appears that you wouldn't have been happy short of having
been appointed editor yourself. You haven't invited us to edit any
articles we might submit for your publication, New Studies on the
Left, and I don't expect authors we print to demand such powers
from us. That would be confusing the functions of editor and
author.

  Your vehement and abusive anger directed at contributing editor
John Zerzan is completely misplaced. It was the decision of the
editorial board as a whole here in Columbia to accept your gener-
ous, unsolicited offer for us to reprint "The Stone Age Revisited."
And it was the decision of the same editorial board to ask John
Zerzan to comment on your perspective in the hopes of furthering
the ongoing discussion of the origins of alienation in this jour-
nal. Needless to say, he never demanded to exercise any sort of
"editorial privilege." Rather, we exercised our power as an
editorial group to juxtapose your lengthy, well-developed and ex-
tremely interesting essay with a few short comments from his
equally thoughtful perspective in order to clarify the differences.
No disrespect toward you was intended. And there was certainly no
paternalistic, nor racist, nor sexist intent on anyone's part. You
obviously have a different perspective on editorial `principles'
than we do. But you submitted your essay to be published in Anarchy
magazine, where our editorial principles and practices apply.

  If you want to do so, you can attach editorial conditions to the
publication of your submissions. If we had known of your wishes
ahead of time, we would have either published your essay while re-
specting those conditions, or we would declined to publish it. How-
ever, since we didn't know about your assumed conditions ahead of
time, we couldn't act on them.

  Otherwise, we will continue to edit this magazine as we think
best. When it seems appropriate to us, we will solicit complementa-
ry or contrary perspectives to run with submissions in order to
further comparison and discussion. Rather than a "double standard,"
this constitutes a standard operating procedure for many publica-
tions. There is nothing intrinsically right or wrong with such an
editorial practice. It is merely different from the practice you
idealize. There is no law demanding that every publication be
edited according to some arbitrary set of principles, and if there
was we would break that law anyway.

  For those who haven't already figured out some of our major
editorial `principles', here is a short list:

  We try to publish all submissions accepted as feature essays with
as little editing as possible -  in other words we will correct
spelling and grammar when it seems that errors weren't intentional.
Otherwise, we will not make any substantial changes without asking
the author, nor do we expect any substantial changes or added
conditions to be demanded by the author without our agreement.

  We try to send proofs of feature articles to their authors so that
they can check for any errors on our part. This is not always
possible, especially when we receive submissions too close to our
deadlines, or when we are not able to typeset submissions until it
is too late to send proofs.

  We will lay out submissions however we deem most appropriate. We
will juxtapose articles and sidebars, or include introductions and
responses to essays as we see fit.

  Submissions which we decide to run in any of our departments
("Openers," "The Sad Truth," "Alternative Media Review,"
"International Anarchist News," etc.) may be edited for length and
style.

  We will continue to publish unedited all letters we receive which
are not unintelligible, overly redundant or completely boring (and
which don't contain threats) - as long as they are no longer than
4-pages, double-spaced in length.

  Anarchy editors and contributing editors reserve the power to
immediately respond to any letters received. All others may respond
in the following issues.

  Writers of letters and articles should remember that we don't
publish this magazine purely in order to please their egos.
Instead, we publish in order to stimulate, inform and entertain our
readers. We don't claim to be perfect, but we do try to publish a
fair and interesting magazine.

  In regard to the criticisms of John Zerzan's comments, I think it
also needs to be pointed out that the interpretation of his use of
the words `hierarchy' and `domination' is quite mistaken.
Historically, this has been a repeated point of contention between
authoritarian leftists and anarchists. Anarchists so frequently use
these terms to designate social and institutional hierarchy and
domination, that they generally don't bother to explicitly indicate
their conditional use in this way. This can cause unnecessary
confusion when it is unthinkingly done in discussions which take
place in authoritarian venues where people are not overly concerned
with questions of freedom, in which cases the criticisms might have
some import. However, in anti-authoritarian circles, the social and
institutional context of these concepts is generally understood and
becomes no more necessary to reiterate than it is to explicitly
note that "class war" in Marxist circles refers to the war of
social-economic classes and not of other types of classes.


Toni responds:
More understanding

      Anarchy, #35, reported an alliance between the Abenaki and
some Earth First! people. I would like to see more understanding
and active cooperation between indigenists and all those who also
refuse the role of wage slave, or what John Trudell calls the
"industrial slave." There will be mistakes and agonizing times as
we create such networks/alliances, but it takes time for a tree
to grow.

      You have charged us with sexism, racism, and paternalism be-
cause we ran a very short sidebar by John Zerzan (to potentially
stimulate discussion) next to your lengthy feature article. As I
consider your words carefully, please also consider: 1) that you
and Zerzan are possibly more in agreement than disagreement on a
number of points. I suggest we thoroughly discuss your differenc-
es with Zerzan, or Anarchy, before we reach quick conclusions.
This interchange may occur in Anarchy and/or more privately
between interested persons; 2) that where Zerzan most perceived a
difference with you he prefaced his comment "in respectful
disagreement." You do not find this phrase adequate, but Zerzan's
intent seems clear to me, and conciliatory; 3) in Anarchy, #35,
we also ran a Zerzan sidebar next to a much longer article by
Kingsley Widmer, a white male; 4) I most appreciate your letter
for its frank discussion of the issues at hand, and least
appreciate your speculative psychoanalysis. I suggest you go to a
clear lake on a sunny day and spend some time gazing at your own
reflection. I'll do the same.

      The subjects of `domestication' and `colonization' are
simple in some ways, and complex in others. I hope you, Zerzan,
and others will further discuss these topics. I invite you to
critique Zerzan's viewpoints, and his book Elements of Refusal,
and to critique anything you wish about Anarchy. I welcome your
continued critical contributions to this journal, and very much
appreciated your article "The Stone Age Revisited." If you ever
visit Missouri, you are welcome here. I look forward to meeting
you. Perhaps Zerzan would too? Who knows what breakthrough
insights might occur if people sat down together, or walked the
woods together, and actually talked to each other, face to face.

      Once we received M. Annette Jaimes' article, we sent it to
John Zerzan to see if he had any comment. We had decided at a
meeting to run Zerzan's response, if any, along with Jaimes'
article. When we had received Zerzan's short response, Jason Mc-
Quinn felt we should run it next to Jaimes' article as decided at
the meeting. I ultimately disagreed with McQuinn. I felt we
should run any exchange between Jaimes and Zerzan in a subsequent
issue of Anarchy. I was not assertive enough at this point to
call a meeting to overthrow the original decision, so the
previous decision to run Zerzan's response held.

      Again, My thanks to both Jaimes and Zerzan for their contri-
butions. I would like to see further discussion involving Jaimes,
Zerzan and all others interested. I trust that amidst our
difficulty understanding one another, we will find some way of
working together. There's a lot at stake.



More on ``anti-tech/civ.''
perspectives

Hi Jason,
  Thanks for the issues of Anarchy #35. It looks great. I want to
add a little bit to your excellent response to J.D. of Jersey
City,N.J. [pp. 64-5]:

  J.D., there is no single anti-tech/civ. perspective, or
position.
So formation of a cult is no more possible than it is desired by
anyone I know (other than one occultist primitivist I know of who
was living in Philly for awhile). As to the variety of anti-
tech/civ. positions: Fifth Estate's position, at present, is a
spiritual/moral primitivist position, uncritical of shamanism or
tribalism and minimally critical of primitive culture in general.
John Zerzan's position stems from an attempt to trace the origins
of alienation which has pushed him beyond an uncritical
primitivism though he still seems to want to find models from the past to
define possibilities. Michael William's perspective seems to have
many similarities to John's and is definitely, but critically,
primitivism. Peter Wilson doesn't really fit in here at all since
when he imagines a utopia, it is a high-tech, post-industrial,
post-agricultural world in which "psychic paleolithism" becomes
possible as technology eradicates work - not by any means, an
anti-tech/civ. position. Interrogations (whom you somehow missed
though they have frequently had pieces in FE and Anarchy) are anti-
tech/civ. and anti-primitivist - rejecting some people's attempts
to use primitive societies as models for their post-civilization
utopia. My own anti-tech/civ. perspective is based on an
examination of the present from the perspective of how I want to
live. Like Interrogations I refuse the primitivist model, though
I recognize there are things to be learned by studying primitive
people...I find much of John's and Michael's explorations useful.
For the most part Fifth Estate's moralistic, spiritual
primitivism pisses me off, but they still sometimes hit the mark. My
perspective is also heavily influenced by Stirner, Nietzsche and
the Situationists (none of whom were anti-tech/civ.) and is an
utterly amoral perspective. So though my writings may be
nonsense, the moralism is all in your head, J.D.

  You also totally pass over EF! which is frequently moralistic.
And I can only assume you've had little contact with many younger
anarchists - I find a large amount of these folx express an anti-
tech/civ. perspective which isn't all that thought out - not
because they're followers of FE, Zerzan, Williams, or any of the
rest of the anti-tech/civ. theorists - whom they perceive as
aging armchair intellectuals and so refuse to read, but because they
can see the results of civilization and the technological system all
around them & they don't like it.

  I could say more, but I'll shut up.
                                                                 =20
 Feral Faun, Portland, OR.

Ps. A small but important typo in my (decidedly over-long)
column, page 59, third column at the bottom should read:

  "The purpose of therapy is to reintegrate social deviants into
the social machine as well-oiled cogs." [end paragraph]

  "The science of ecology is the application of systems analysis
to biology. It creates a conception of the wilds as integrated
systems to be used in an integrated manner by society."

Not a thorn

Dear Anarchy,
  Rcv'd. yr. request for updating of `prisoner' status to receive
Anarchy.[...]

  I've got to laugh every time I read a letter from the warden
here wherein he stalwartly states that he has again held the ramparts
against the onslaught of the latest Anarchy. Mine has never been
stopped; I get so much unusual, eclectic and otherwise cutting
edge material the mail room personnel barely raise an eyebrow anymore
at anything I get. I'm also not a thorn in their side with various
legal harassments and that kind of superfluous bullshit (that
gets you nothing but `tsuris' and little else).

  I knew one of the other guys here (now in Carrville, LA.) who
got his issues stopped all the time. He never did learn, but then he
did his time his way, thriving on adversity. I ask myself, before
embarking on a course such as his, "Is the fucking you're getting
worth the fucking you're getting?"

  Best regards for the new year. I like the new glossy cover with
the collages.
                                                                 =20
          Dr. Sachel Pomme
                                                               =20
[address deleted by request]

Honor the boys and girls

Dear Jason,
  I've been a reader for some years now, often intending to drop
a line but never quite getting to it.

  First and foremost, Anarchy means a lot to me because of the
courage you've displayed in exploring the issues surrounding
"child-adult sex." The comments by one reader in issue #35 urging
violence against pedophiles are hardly atypical in this society.
The ingrained violent reaction toward minority sexual
orientations is evidenced in the prevalence of gay-bashing, the State
repressions against PIE in Britain, the jail cells filled with
adults involved in non-coercive sex with minors, the `hospitals'
containing minors involved in such activities who refuse to see
themselves as victims (while my brother was locked away in such a
manner as a teen in the '70s the only benefit he accrued was from
the secret sexual trysts he and his horny female co-conspirators
enjoyed beneath beds, in closets and so forth) - such repressive
violence is a pervasive, invasive character of this culture. As
the experience of the Schiz-Flux folks exhibits, much of the
`counterculture' is in fact a mirror image of the primary culture. When
the Smut issue suggested that children should have a voice in the
pursuit of pleasurable experiences, including sex with people on
the other side of the arbitrary age line, they were violently
condemned by the Bookchin group and nearly assaulted by the mono-
tone Rainbow Nation goons they encountered.

  As G.V. wrote, there are complexities to this issue,
complexities that are being addressed in Anarchy and that have been address=
ed
from the earliest days by pedophiles. Concerns about the weaker
position of children in society and the effects this might have
on `cross-generational' sex play, for example, are genuine. And
pedophiles have sought to come to terms with this in forums such
as Magpie and Tom O'Carroll's Pedophilia: The Radical Case. These
are concerns that must continue to be explored.

  By the same token I cannot believe that a consistent
libertarian position can exist in opposition to the core idea - that people
own themselves, regardless of whether they are 6, 16, or 66. An
overwhelming amount of evidence exists that children find sex
play pleasurable. Certainly its form will differ depending on physical
development, but in some form folks of all ages enjoy such play.
If therefore a person decides this or that might be fun, any
repressive coercion by the State, parents, sexophobes or anyone
else would be a violation of that person's control of her- or
himself. Given the climate in this country I realize that it is
necessary to add that coercion to have sex is at least as much a
violation and I also need to point out that this is true
regardless of the ages of those involved.

  In short here let me say that I agree with those who, in
opposition to sexual freedom, say "let's hear from the kids!" Yes,
let's - it's the repression that has taken their public voice from
them. In fact, pedophiles aren't saying anything more than that - let
the kids decide and respect the decision of each individual, whether
"no way" or "yeah!"

  As for those who've made much of the fact that only pedophiles
seem to be in the forefront of this issue (which isn't a
completely accurate impression) and that we have an obvious vested interest=
,
as if this somehow taints the issue, let me ask  - who else will
brave the social storm? The children have been silenced by
lawmakers and parents. Pedophiles have spent their whole lives
feeling under attack for the sort of heart-swelling enthralled
love-desire that is celebrated when directed toward people on the
socially accepted side of 18. We look with starry-eyed affection
at a beautiful child laughing and know we could share a mutually
rewarding and pleasurable relationship involving play, concern,
love and yes, sweet caresses and lingering kisses. It outrages us
that our love isn't accepted by your society of guns and
violence, that those with so little value for life and joy self-righteously
condemn us. That when we find love it must be secret and if
discovered our small lovers are tormented and we go to prisons
where the authorities urge killers and rapists (who often spend
less time behind bars) to brutalize us because our crime of love
makes us their inferiors.

  Why do we speak out? Mostly we don't. Our relatives rage
against `child-molesters', describing what mutilations should take place
in vivid detail. I hesitated to write this for fear that somehow it
would be traced back to me and lead to a return to the poverty I
grew up with by way of a lost job and all prospects for making a
living. Or I wondered, who would protest a frame-up of a self-
confessed pervert? Even an obvious frame-up could be sold to you,
John Q., as prevention, as LaRouche's proposals to lock away gays
was sold to millions of Californians as a way to save everyone
else from AIDS.

  I have repressed my pedo-sexuality. I am fortunate in that I
find adults sexually attractive and I've been in a deep and loving
relationship with an adult partner for 11 years. I think that in the
cultural and `counter-cultural' climate, I can live a happier and
more open life by not becoming sexually involved with little
girls, though I've loved a few in socially accepted ways, just more
deeply in my heart. It's also best for the kids. Secrets are fun
sometimes, but it's hard for anyone to hide love for long. That
puts pressure on them, and especially keeping it from parents
that they love as well. Plus police, gynecologists and social workers
are often so intent on eradicating the evil that they are
(generally inadvertently) callous to the child, causing great
pain in all respects. Think of the boy in Louisville who was grilled
for hours by the police in a way that Amnesty International should
have condemned when he refused in 1981 to confirm tales that he had an
adult lover. Think of the girl sent to jail because she wouldn't
testify against her father. No, that portion of my love which is
directed in part by my sexuality toward children will never be
expressed sexually, unless this social Wall falls as quickly and
unexpectedly as the one in Berlin. Not for me the mad dash to
freedom through the guns of your guards. Rather, here's my little
Samisdat contribution.

  I started this letter addressing you, Jason, then started
talking to America as it embodies itself in those who oppose even the
free discussion of this. Hopefully there was no resulting confusion.
It seems natural to use this forum to turn outward and address at
least those who claim to honor liberty. For that, Jason, thanks.

  To those who love kids to the fullest measure, never lose sight
of the childish beauty within you. Honor the boys and girls. Keep
within you that special sensory awareness with a sense of beauty
so evident in the smile of a child. To the Tom O'Carrolls, the n.s.
aristoffs, the Joel Featherstones, all my brave brothers and
sisters, thank you for showing the way to courage and joy. Most
of all, though, to the children I love, thanks for bringing out what
is best in me.
  I am, as always...
                                                                 =20
               Naked Child
                                                                 =20
         No address listed

School lies

Dear Anarchy,
  Greetings anarchists & free thinkers. I received my first copy
of your zine the other day. Thanx. I really enjoyed readin' it. You
have a good selection of various topics related to @. I
especially liked the article "The Stone Age Revisited." That is probably th=
e
best single article on Native Americans I have read! It was also
something that should be taught in elementary schools. I remember
10, 11 years ago (I'm 19 now) in school we were taught that the
pilgrims came and taught the Native Americans how to grow crops.
That all Native American tribes fought each other. And other
sorts of lies. I have a question generated towards all those in the
education dept. "Why are these lies against the Native American
people still being forced into our children's heads!!??!" It, I
feel, is different trying to teach it to a high school student.
At that age I was able to think for myself and find out what was not
as it seemed. But the children have no other sources than their
school books and teachers. Indigenous people are still depicted
as uneducated waste. I was never taught by any `history' (that word
is false, it's Americanized lies) teacher who Leonard Peltier is or
any of the current Native American leaders. The school books make
it seem like it was the indigenous peoples' fault for daring to
be on this continent! The teachers or books never describe what
living on a reservation is like. The school curriculum needs to be
changed! I am currently in a Wisconsin prison. Since I have come
to prison a lot of my thoughts & beliefs have changed. I am seeing
what this govt., state, police and the legal system are like.
It's hard to know what it's like until it runs you over. This is the
first time that I have really talked to Native Americans. (That
was the shedding of any racist beliefs I had been taught.) I am able
to understand their anger better. In the media the Native American
peoples are depicted as non-working bums, and all they do is
destroy nature =3D aka spear fishing. When the big spear fishing
controversy was going on in Wisconsin the white news media made
it seem like the Native Americans were doing it just to spite the
white middle class sport fishermen. The news didn't go into how
spear-fishing supplies them with food, and a product to sell.
They have been doing this for a long time. How can a sport fisherman,
who just wants the "Big One," try and stop that!?! I would like
to learn more about the Native American people of the Mid-west.
Their religion, beliefs, living arrangements, the reservations, etc.
and anything else. I don't want to make it sound like I am some
patronizing white college kid. I just want to learn the truth. If
anyone or group out there has pamphlets, zines, books, etc., etc.
or personal stories could they please send them to me? I don't
have much for funds being where I am, but I can help pay for postage.
Thank you Anarchy for printing the true history! Your other
articles were interesting also. I am always eager to learn what
goes on in the world and different peoples beliefs or theories.
Your "Alternative Media Review" is very informative. Overall it's
a great zine! [....]
                                                                 =20
          Still resisting,
                                                                 =20
            Alex Rasmussen
                                                                 =20
            #237396 R.C.I.
                                                                 =20
               POB 900 - I
                                                                 =20
     Sturtevant, WI. 53177