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Tag: By Comrade Black

0 Rod Coronado Wolf Sab tour report back: Still Defending the Wild

February 7, 2014
by Comrade Black
· Columns · On Tour · PE Web Zine

by Comrade Black

The Anishinaabe of what is now called Michigan state in the colonial tongue are opposed to the killing of any wolves on their territories, and wish to make their territories a wolf sanctuary.

This was the message that Rod Coronado (Pascuae Yaqui Nation) just toured speaking about. He is working with others to form a grassrroots campaign to stop the killing of wolves, and has begun working with the Anishinaabe to assist them in their efforts to protect the wolves within their territories.

From what Rod said, The Anishinaabe come from a deep spiritual connection to the wolf, and the wolf is sacred to them. Rod is hoping to help them raise funds to put up signs designed by the youth of the Anishinaabe community; declaring their territories a sanctuary and forbidding hunting. As well as hoping to help in many other legal ways. He, and the NW Hunt Saboteurs are doing talks and workshops around the country to protect wolves everywhere, and to build diverse strategies to save the wolves from both sport hunting, and from being “destroyed” by government departments which are funded primarily by hunters and ranchers.

I just followed 3 days of the Rod Coronado/Hunt Sab tour, and it was an amazing experience. I hope I can find ways to assist in their work, as well as ways to bring back what I learned from them to help in campaign in my own community.

The first time I met Rod, his brother was with him, and his brother asked me “so what do you hope to get out of these talks.” I had no answer – but I am glad he asked as I think it made me more conscious and receptive, and has helped me to remember this is not about what I can get, but what I can do with that to give back.

Watch for the upcoming exclusive interview with Rod on Profane Existence

Upcoming Tour Dates:

Tuesday February 25th Buffalo NY TBA
Wednesday February 26th Buffalo NY TBA
Thursday February 27th Boston MA TBA
Friday February 28th Brooklyn NY TBA
Saturday March 1st Philadelphia PA, at Wooden Shoe Book store. 704 S. st 7:pm
Sunday March 2nd Philadelphia PA, TBA
Monday March 3rd Saratoga Springs NY, TBA
Saturday March 22nd Animal Liberation Forum (Long Beach CA)
Sunday March 23rd Animal Advocacy Museum in Pasadena CA.
Tuesday March 27th Humbolt State University

More dates and locations coming….

1 Controled Entry — Imaginary Lines

February 1, 2014
by Comrade Black
· Columns · PE Web Zine · Uncategorized

by Comrade Black

Yesterday I crossed the colonial imaginary line which divides the stolen territory claimed by one colonial nation state from the territory of another. My experiences crossing the border haven’t been too extreme, but they are interesting in the context of class,and how it intersects with race and gender.

A few months ago while on tour with Layla AbdelRahim, as I went through customs the guard asked how long I would be in the country, then proceeded to ask “what kind of job do you have that lets you take an entire work week off?” I replied that I am on disability, at which point he looked away, gesturing dismissively with his hand to move along. A bit surprised I asked unsure “were you still going to search my bag?” (which was open beside me). Again, continuing to not even look at me he waved his hand in a manner suggesting to “get away from me.” I didn’t argue and proceeded to Seattle. Layla later joked that he must have been afraid he would catch my disability if he continued to interact with me.

Last night as I crossed through from Victoria again on way to Seattle to see Rod Coronado speak. This time I had a bit more trouble at immigration than the time before. I was one of the first

still dates in: Saturday Feb 1st Portland OR at PSU Student Union Room 238 7pm Sunday Feb 2nd Eugene OR at UO, room McKenzie 221 7pm Saturday March 1st Philly at Wooden Shoe Books and Records 7pm

in line in case there was any issues since I had heard horror stories from friends who had been interrogated for 6-9 hours when they tried to cross, so I wanted to be there early just in case.

The immigration officer this time was a woman of colour. She began with generic questions, and went to scan my passport, when her computer began having problems – so her supervisor – a white male- came to help. He was actually the same Immigration cop who processed me when I went through in October. As he was trying to help her with the computer, he asked why I was crossing; and as I said I was going to see Iron Lung and Despise You, he began talking to me about how much he liked metal, and the documentary Metal: A Headbangers Journey by Sam Dunn (a Victoria based metal head and film maker). He asked a bit about the bands I said I was going to see, and told me he once processed Lemmy crossing through on a flight at a San Diego border crossing. “He was an interesting guy” the cop told me enthusiastically.

Everything was going ok until the woman who was the original border guard asked what I did for work. I replied I was on disability. Suddenly she seemed to become hostile, and began asking how much money I had, if I had been asked for proof of Ties and Equities last time I went through, and so on. “So you don’t have much money for hotels, are you just planning to stay on the streets?” I told her 2 or 3 more times I had a friend putting me up. She continued asking if I had been arrested ever, to which I replied I hadn’t (even though I was a bit unsure if a few things would come up or not from when the Integrated Security Unit for the 2010 Olympics game was harassing me and following me, or when I was volunteering with SHAC Canada in 2006). to my relief nothing did and I continued to act as casual as possible. At this point she asked if I was ever arrested for drugs, to which I replied “no, I am actually what is called straightedge, I haven’t even smoked in 10 years.” Surprisingly to me, she didn’t drop the subject and persisted “have you ever received any treatment for your addictions?” and so on the questions continued.

The supervise was still near by, and came back over towards her, she told him she was concerned I didn’t have much money with me. “I don’t think there is any reason to deny him entry” he told her. So instead she gave me a controlled entry, which involved finger printing me, photographing, and telling me I had to return by the 4rth or else (what else I am not sure exactly).

How much did class, gender and race play into the outcome of this experience? I have to wonder if I hadn’t been a white male, if the supervise wasn’t also a white male, would I have been denied entry? On the other hand, if I hadn’t looked poor with my black patched cloths, tattoos and locked hair, and more so if told her I was on disability; would I have had so much trouble? Borders are an inherently racist construct; if I had told the guards I was coming over to see a Indigenous man speak about defending wildlife rather than to see some bands in a scene where one could safely assume they are likely white males – would I have been allowed to enter?

A year ago I was on welfare waiting for my disability application to be approved (and hoping it wouldn’t be denied). Until then, traveling wasn’t even a possibility I considered real. On $610 a month, I couldn’t even afford to put in the passport application, never mind ferry costs, bus, or food. The only travel I oculd afford was my thumb. The interplay of class, race, and gender – of privilege and oppression under capitalism; within a colonial civilization is complex and anything but just. My experiences were mild in comparison to what many racialized people and those who present in a way that is visually queer often experience, yet they served me as an interesting examination of power and privilege.

In the end I am reminded of a line by Crass ”
Are we really so dumb, so cowered into submission
That not only are we prepared to eat shit
We’re also prepared to say thanks for the privilege?”

1 R.I.P. David Finkelman

January 28, 2014
by Comrade Black
· Columns · News · PE Web Zine

When I was a lot younger and getting really into anarchp-punk, one of the biggest influences on me at the time was a little known band from Edmonton (where I lived) called Self Rule.

I still think they have one of the best names of all time. They were an explicitly anarchist band, most were straightedge (except one member who was still trying to quit smoking, and later did), I think all were vegan too. They were awesome live – with incredible energy, jumping 3 feet in the air during songs with multiple vocalists; but the recordings never translated as well. Anyways I loved them. They were one of my favorite bands.

When I first moved to Victoria, about the second day I was here I saw a poster for a show with Self Rule and Iskra, and a band I had never heard of called Mechanichal Separation. I Had just seen Self Rule a week before in Edmonton, so they were quite surprised when they saw me at the Victoria show at the Hillside house. It was a blast, and I met a lot of people at that show who have stayed my friends ever since.

Self Rule had a number of members come and go over the years, but really they were comprised of 3 people from the beginning, and the rest just came and went. One of those 3 was an Edmonton punk named Dave. a good guy all around, even if we didn’t always see eye to eye, I learned a hell of a lot from Dave.

Today I just heard Dave passed away. I don’t know how. I do know it is a loss to the Alberta punk community. I wasn’t really friends with Dave, we occasionally went for coffee years back at which time we would argue over bands, he would introduce me to new bands (many of which I still listen to), and I was a fan of his band (still am) even if every time I told him they played a rad show he would be like “really, I thought we sucked.”
So this is me sending my condolences out to his friends. I know he meant a lot to a lot of people. Dave was a good guy who contributed a lot to his community.

0 Killing God: Reviewed by Max Wolf Valerio

December 12, 2013
by Comrade Black
· PE Web Zine · Reviews

Poet and author Max Wolf Valerio recently reviewed one of my poems; I had asked for feedback from a few people I knew who were themselves poets who I respected. Max’s review was so thorough and interesting I asked him if I could share it. So with his consent, here is the review of my newest poem Killing God. The poem being reviewed will follow at the end of this post.

This is a skilled rendering of your beliefs and perception of the world, and of the divine, and our present situation. I mean, you lay it out coherently and with precision – with craft. The line breaks are skillful, leading the eye from one place to another carefully. I like how you use parking lots, and museums to illustrate your ideas, and even bring in the number of years that civilization has been in existence and — Christianity (2,000 years). The idea that civilization is “killing God” is an intriguing one, and it is also interesting that you use the term “culture of death”. Seeing the term used here in this way is intriguing to me as the other place that one sees “culture of death” is in the writing of social conservatives, often Catholic social conservatives, who see the far left as a “culture of death” (abortion, euthanasia, movement toward less reproduction or no reproduction, the breakup of the family into smaller units — single mothers and the subsequent marriage of women to the state and not a man). BTW, I am not, of course, a social conservative, though I share some of their concerns and grapple with all these issues, as do you– obviously from this poem and what I know of you. I mean, you grapple with reproduction, death, technological interventions… etc. Your use of this term “culture of death” is not ironic, but is your take on a world that is increasingly artificial and alien. Now, I think you’ve done a good job here of rendering your beliefs, and carefully making them manifest in the use of actual objects and places: museums, parking lots, shopping malls, desecration of burial grounds. I think there is another step however, and I challenge you to go farther. I can see this poem as a statement to either preface a book of essays, even “poetic” essays or better — a kind of manifesto to a book of poems that take each one of these ideas, separates them, and really brings the experience alive to the reader in an actualized, concrete way. Or you don’t need to separate each idea, but show how they work together. Well, you can get creative as you write… Poems that make these ideas really come alive — that’s what I mean. Poems that leave less room for disagreement since they feel less like opinions. Possibly, they feel more like dreams or visions? You can experiment.

Now, one problem with political or ideological poetry is that it is the poet’s opinion. Often, political poems are turgid and each thing they say is entirely expected so the poems are not as “alive”. However, they can be instructive… But there is that issue… I mean, I can read a poem like this, and agree or not. There is space created for my agreement or disagreement that is easy to enter. There are poets who excel in this type of poem, and while he is not a leftist radical, to say the least — Rudyard Kipling comes to mind. He has that poem “The Gods of the Copybook Headings” which is ideological or a poem of ideas. It uses metaphors liberally, and is attempting to convey ideas the poet believes are important. This is a poem that conservatives love, and for good reason since it makes their cardinal points quite vividly. I mean, it makes them plain and is persuasive. While you are in a whole other place ideologically, look to this poem for clues as to how to proceed. I’ll link to it. Also your ideas, while very different, are also talking about a returning, a refusal of present values. In your case, it is not principles that are eternally true, but a return to some kind of elemental and pristine wildness that you believe is more essential and good and holy (you identify it with “God” in the poem) than the present morass. If you want, you can use the poem you presented to me as the first, and build a whole book from these ideas. Take each one, take the poem apart, and find ways to animate these ideas. My own approach to ideological poetry is that I try and make it less about my “opinion” and more about SHOWING the reader why my perspective is persuasive. You know, that old adage, show don’t tell. That can be applied to poetry as well. Even in Kipling’s poem, he shows the consequences of each set of wrong ideas and links them to his refrain of the “copybook headings” and finally to the copybook headings themselves like “the wages of sin is death”. The examples he posits, bring those crusty adages to life. This can be done with your ideas as well. ..Possibly really take us into each idea, show me the ceremonial burial sites, and what desecration is — don’t tell me, but show in image, metaphor, or — detail. I like detail, and a concrete detail can be imaginary, but must be entirely feasible. Because it is feasible, when the detail can be heard, felt, seen — it is persuasive.

Also the idea that “God is dead’ is not a progressive anthem, but a rallying cry for actual death, is interesting as it takes a conservative theme I’ve seen, that we have killed God, and either takes it further or – to another place entirely. I mean, in some ways, you are very, very conservative since you want humanity, I think, to return to something very ancient and before language. In that way of thinking all human revolutions or “evolution” that appears to have created “progress” are not progressive at all. In this worldview we need to go back, very far back — and things have to be brought back to extreme basics. Of course, that makes you more of a revolutionary, but in an interesting way. Anyway, show more, tell less. Try different voices or ways of showing, and maybe when you do tell, try something playful also. Anyway… thanks for showing me this poem! Very interesting. Here’s that Kipling poem, ironic I would think of him — but there you go. Poetry is a place of strange coincidences and odd conflations. Any way, take care — have a great day – Max V.

http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_copybook.htm

Killing God

by Comrade Black

Every day we kill God

Vivisect, dissect, and sterilize

Colonize

Our culture has been killing God since before humans nailed a living man

to a dead tree

for saying we should all get along

And claiming to be one of God’s children

Born of love

And daring to live outside their authority
So they tortured him

2000 years of mistakes

12000 years of domestication

Civilization

The domination

and attempted control of the wild

And what is the world we have created?

Every day we get up and go to work collectively killing God

Killing every vestige of divinity

Destroying every sacred place

Chopping down every living forest

Habitat to an entire community

Of life

Poisoning our own bodies

Our own water

Air

Food

And spirits

So that all we have is pavement

Drugs

And tailings ponds

It seems the very idea of life

is a threat

To our culture of death

A world of parking lots

And graveyards

Full of toxic embalmed corpses

While we dig up ceremonial burial sites

Of someone else’s ancestors

To create another exhibit for our museums

And replace their resting places

with shopping malls

Come see the cultures of old

On display, today!

From back when they still believed in something

Or at least come see their death

Now under our control

And behind glass

What does it mean in this culture of death

For man to stand up

Like the sermon on the mountain

And arrogantly declare “I have killed God”

Like a proclamation

Or triumph

If God is just a word

A synonym for life, love, and creative energy

For all things wild

What we label “nature”

Then what kind of a world is left

When we’ve killed God?

0 ReWild

December 7, 2013
by Comrade Black
· Columns · PE Web Zine · Radness

by Comrade Black

I hate cement
A concrete statement of the hatred of life
that your world is built on
Paved over earth
worms
life
Yet you cannot kill the wild
that grows
even under the pavement
habitual wildness
as civilization
cracks
A plant reaches for the sun again
Anarchy!
Uncontrollable
Feral
Wild
Life!

2 Never Been So Lucky?

November 9, 2013
by Comrade Black
· Columns · PE Web Zine

by Comrade Black

All my life people have been telling me how lucky I am.

There was a time in my life where I was jumped by 3 men, who held my head to the ground while one jumped up and brought his foot down; all over a hundred or so dollars. I tell people, and they tell me I am lucky. Oh so lucky to have survived. Or the time I was hit to the head with an aluminum baseball bat. So lucky.

If this is what luck is I wish I would quit getting it.

Recently I was approved for PWD (Persons With Disabilities) after years of struggling through the hoops of bureaucracy. Sometimes when I tell people this they reply “wow you are so lucky.” “I wish I didn’t have to work for money, and could get a BC wide bus pass, free camping, and ½ off at the ferries”

Yeah, lucky…

I wake up in pain, nearly every day. When I awake my feet ache from sleep, and my back is often sore too. I deal with crippling spells of fatigue that shut me right down. If I walk too long, or go up too many stairs my knees remind me of when that drunk driver said to the cops “no, I didn’t hit him, I just drove up and he was laying here.” At the hospital as I came back to consciousness the nurse said to me “You are pretty lucky… It was pretty stupid to be riding at night without any lights.”
Dumb luck.

I deal with 4 different conditions that each manifest as different forms of chronic pain, AS, fibramialgia, soft tissue damage to my knees, and migraines. At least one of them I was assured will only get worse throughout my life, and likely will cripple me permanently. Eventually. All products of poverty, and living in the disaster we call civilization.
but hey, its ok cause I get a free bus pass… Well, actually it is $45, but still, so lucky.

When I was a kid, I was bullied in school. Although bullied doesn’t even begin to describe it accurately. Terrorized would be more honest. Daily I would get my ass smacked, or my crotch grabbed, while I was called fag, tripped, spit on and they would destroy my locker so I had to carry my binders with me all day in my book bag. They even once tore my pants off my body, in half. Tore them right off of me, and laughed. I was suicidal until I was in my mid 20s, and still struggle with depression and anxiety. When I tell people these stories they often tell me “man, you are lucky you got out of there alive.”
Apparently choosing to hitchhike across the country and live on the streets to get away from there had nothing to do with it…
It was just luck.

I find the word luck dis-empowering.
Luck implies that fate or random chance of the universe just fell in my direction.
It takes away all agency, and neutralizes participation,
As if nothing I did had anything to do with why I survived, and even thrived despite it.
I don’t think I have been lucky, I have been unlucky. But I persevered, in spite of it.

My life has been a struggle, it hasn’t been easy. Sure, I wasn’t a child soldier, or sold into sex slavery, so many others have definitely had it worse – but that doesn’t undermine my own struggles and hardships.

I survived because I fought, and had the support of friends, allies, and community.
“You’re so lucky to have such a great community.”
No, sorry, I have to disagree.
I have community because we have put in the work to make it a reality.
To build and maintain those relationships which are important.
Community, relationships, they don’t just happen accidentally.

I once read a article about sexual assault, where the author meditated about how almost every woman she knew had bad it done to them
and she kept saying “I am the lucky one, lucky it never happened to me.”
Like the drunk driver who ran over me, or the people who assaulted me, the perpetrators in her story didn’t do anything, the women were just “unlucky.” Where the fuck is agency?

We live in a world, where species go extinct every day, where forest get paved, where women are prey, where most of the world (human) population lives in poverty. Yet we are constantly told we are lucky.

Fuck luck. We need action, compassion, and empathy.
We need to quit giving up our agency, and most importantly, to take responsibility.
And never be so lucky

1 Poisoning My Candy: Consumerism, Alcoholism, Patriarchy, and why I have grown to hate Halloween

October 31, 2013
by Comrade Black
· Columns

by Comrade Black

I use to love Haloween.
Now I despise it.

When I was a kid Halloween was by far my favorite day of the year. I have a distinct memory of the year I got chicken pox, I was 4 years old living in Ardrossen Alberta, and oh boy was I upset that I couldn’t go trick or treating with my older sister. She shared the candy with me, but it just wasn’t the same. Every year my mother would take me to the thrift store to find a cheap ski-suit, then come Halloween I would get on 2 pairs of long johns, don the ski-suit, and my mother would get out rolls of masking tape to cover me head to toe – I went as a mummy, with the help of mommy. And since I couldn’t bend my knees or elbows, I walked like one too!

As I got older, the costumes became more complex. My mother hand sewed me a Beetlejuice costume when I was about 12, and I spiked my hair for the first time (using green Halloween hairspray). I remember one year working for weeks with liquid latex to hand make a Halloween mask for my Lich costume (a Lich is like a zombie mage from D&D, what happens when evil wizards take a potion to extend their life at the cost of dying while staying alive so they can continue to gain more power). One year I went as the Devil, and even spent hours dying my skin red with watered down food coloring which stained for weeks, but looked awesome! Or there was the year I dressed up as a mafia guy, including a Tommy gun I spent week making, with a copper pipe barrel, coffee can magazine, and oak, hand cut and stained rifle butt. The cops pulled me over to confirm it wasn’t real – and of course to run my name for warrants – cause you know, they are assholes. That incident lead to its own humorous story, but I will tell that one another day.

Eventually I began setting up Halloween parties as a community event. This was really the first DIY organizing I ever did, years before I ever organized DIY all ages punk shows or anarchist bookfairs. I would rent a hall, get my (former) friend Pat to DJ, and my friend Yvonne to run the bar (this was years before I went Straightedge). People donated to get in, and the bar would usually break even, even after the costs of a liquor license and me setting the prices far below normal. The majority of attendees were people I played Vampire or D&D with.

The reason I loved Halloween so much as a kid, and even until I was a young adult, was that it was the one holiday where you could be dark, dress up scary, as something evil. Where you could embrace all the things normally frowned upon in this fake Christian and legalistic culture. It was the day the freaks, geeks, artists and picked on kids could shine. It was DIY, and encouraged youth to be creative, and use their imaginations. And it was the only holiday where you went out into the community, often with friends to meet your neighbors, and knocked on the doors of other people (who you would threaten with pranks if they didn’t give you candy). Every other holiday meant staying home with family to celebrate some weird depiction of a dead deity and gorged on dead animal carcasses. On Halloween, instead of consuming a carcass, you would try to create a costume that made you look like one! Halloween for me was the collective accumulation of everything missing from every other day of the year all wrapped up into one dark night. I was always drawn to darkness, just as I was always drawn to be creative.

But Halloween has been recuperated by the consumer capitalist mainstream and drunken party culture. Now it exists as nothing more than another excuse to buy more junk (made by children in a sweatshop in China), consume, and get drunk. Whereas the costumes of my childhood were mostly homemade, even if people occasionally bought a mask or the fake blood, or whatnot, there was always a DIY element to it; now the norm is to purchase your costume at the mall, 100% plastic shit, shipped from overseas, and throw it out the next day. Mom’s and dad’s no longer take their kids door to door in many cities, as the fear of poisoned candy and sexual predators has become so pervasive (even though no one has ever actually poisoned candy to hand out, and the vast majority of child molesters are family, close friends, or people given authority over the kids; not a stranger in the bush) that the new tradition for many parents is to drive their kids (in their gas guzzling SUV) to the mall where they go store to store instead of door to door, and managers or employees of corporations hand out candy along with promotional materials. Because as we all know, Corporations are far more trustworthy than the people who live down the street from you.

For young adults and teenagers, the new trend is a mix of sexist shit costumes such as “Slutty Nurse,” or “Breast Inspector” and the always popular cultural appropriation and other racist ‘costumes’ such as white people wearing blackface. And have you noticed the disturbingly sexualizing Halloween costumes being marketed for young girls these days? Costumes become more and more sexualized by the year, for both adults and children. From “Slut Shaming” to sexualizing children, the corporations who make and sell this shit have no problem profiting off of rape culture. Just as the bars have no issue with profiting of addiction, and binge drinking.

Then of course there is the Halloween candy, made of shit and chemicals that are toxic, glued together with processed sugar, and often containing the milk of abused cows or other products stolen from the bodies of animals which our species domesticated who live tortured lives in industrial farms and feedlots before being shipped to the slaughter house. This poison cocktail then gets wrapped in a couple sheets of plastic “to make sure it safe from contamination” before being shipped halfway across the world so you can give it to kids to ensure they become addicted to sugar. TRICK OR TREAT!

Even the horror movies have gotten worse, turning into movies that fetishize and sexualize torture for 2 hours straight.

Over the last few years I have pondered various strategies to try and re-appropriate what is left of the once very DIY and community oriented former Pagan holiday. As much as I am disheartened by what it has become, I still do see some hope in the darkness. The continuing popularity of the Halloween screenings of the cult classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show give me some hope, and honestly dressing up in drag and throwing toast in the air can be quite a blast! The overt queerness of Rocky Horror may be what has saved it from being appropriated and recuperated entirely by this consumerist and homophobic culture.

I use to see some possibility as well in November 5 – Guy Fawkes Day, before the iconic V mask became mass produced and adopted by the right wing Libertarians and conspiracy theorists who never bothered to read Allan Moore’s anarcho-antihero epic, nor taken the time to learn the real history of the Gunpowder Plot to blow up Parliament. But alas, I have given up on Guy Fawks day after burning only 1 effigy of Steven Harper.

And of course there is the Pagan revival, people going back the roots of Samhain. There is definitely something encouraging about people, especially settlers on stolen land, wanting to go back to their roots. The potential for decolonization is there. Yet I am not entirely sold on this either, as those pagan roots are often from cultures that have already engaged in the domestication of animals and plants, and worship warlike patriarchal gods, or gods who offer the control of nature for faithful servitude. Spirituality has also been largely recuperated by civilization and turned into an escapist retreat from taking action and creating change. Then there is the questions of cultural appropriation whether it is neo-pagan Wicca and reinvention of Samhain, or the appropriation of Día de Muertos.

Another thing I have attempted with limited success is to organize sober spaces that are alternatives to the drunken Halloween party culture. There is many people that can’t be in spaces where alcohol is, whether it is cause they are struggling with addiction, a youth who legally is not allowed into a space that sells booze, or someone who just doesn’t like being around drunks or doesn’t feel safe around them do to past experiences.

A new idea I had this year was to make posters which read in large text something along the lines of:
“GET TO KNOW YOUR NEIGHBORS
Halloween is suppose to be about building community
DON’T TAKE YOUR KIDS TO THE MALL
trick or treat & meet the people you live next to.”

Another idea I have played with is to make vegan treats, which may not be healthier but are a lot better than the toxic corporate crap candy most folks are handing out to trick or treaters. I have a simple recipe for Vegan rice crispy squares for example, and I thought if I was to make them with a note attached explaining who made them, why, and all the ingredients including a phone number and address to accompany my name; perhaps, just maybe, parents would let their kids actually eat them??? A connected idea to make this one work better, was to make a batch of Vegan Chocolate Chip Cookies, using Sarah Kramer’s awesome recipe, in about august/September, and make a note with the ingredients that reads “hand made for you by your neighbor,” then take these door to door and hand them out for a few blocks, as a good opportunity to get to know the people who you share geographical locality with. This way not only do you meet them which can help build community, but also make them more open to homemade candy come Halloween.

The other type of strategies would be to find ways to use the current consumer culture and appropriate it’s energy for anarchist purposes. Thousands of people in the streets wearing generic disguises can offer a perfect smoke and mirrors type of potential for low level warfare against capital. Although with the enormous police presence and normalization of snitch culture amongst yuppies, there are some real risks to this. Alternatively one could try to use the trendy hipsters as a funding base for anarchist projects. Put on an event or sell something targeted towards pop culture (Zombie paraphernalia?) and use the money from it to pay the rent on your infoshop, to restock your punk distro, buy media or AV equipment, send to prisoners, or to cover travel to conferences, summits, or elsewhere for people who should be there but can’t afford it. There are many projects that are in constant need of funds in the anarchist movement. However, this strategy also runs into some risks of recuperation or wasting our energy on projects that don’t help further our own.

Halloween has been reduced from the night to creatively celebrate horror and the dead to a dead holiday where zombies dressed as in costume celebrate the death of creativity and consume the horrors of capitalist civilized reality. Is it time to bury this tradition? Or can transform into wild beasts and enact a séance to resurrect it from the death that is this modern reality called of civilization and destroy the monster called Leviathan?

0 Thinking Outside The Bars

October 28, 2013
by Comrade Black
· PE Web Zine · Video

poem by Comrade Black

by Comrade Black

The grass IS always greener
When you’re standing in a desert
That use to be a forest
Like the Fertile Crescent
Or the great Scottish rain forests
You know, where now what we call the Moor is
Or parking lots and paved roads where the meadow use to live
But you see the trick isn’t to get over to the other side of the fence
But instead to tear it down altogether
A world free of false man made borders
Walls and fences
Cages are for captives
And we are meant to be free
As all life is meant to be
I hate walls and all the people who love them.[i]
I hate bars and prisons
And bars built to keep people drunk in
Captives to their own inebriation
Wasn’t that drink suppose to give you escape?
But there is no escape when the whole world is our prison
Just another bottle do drown in
Not until the people have risen
To tear the oppression down
Bring the bastards down
No crowns
Royal or otherwise

[i] This line is a play off a line from anarcho-pop band Chumbawamba “I hate wars, and all the people who love them” from the song Here’s The Rest Of Your Life from their second album Never Mind the Ballots

1 How To Make Quinoa Taste Good: Punk rock kitchen 101

October 3, 2013
by Comrade Black
· PE Web Zine · Radness · Recipes Section

by Comrade Black

I only began eating quinoa about a year ago, but since I started I have quickly learned to love it and been constantly surprised that many others don’t! “I tried liking it” or “it’s rather bland” are common replies I hear from people when I ask if they like quinoa, some are even more crass making statements like “you actually like that stuff???” Yet whenever I make quinoa for one of these folks the response I get is quite different “wow, that’s good, how you make it taste like that?”

Truth is, cooking quinoa and making it taste awesome is really fucking easy. Quinoa (pronounced keen-wah for those who are new to it) is super quick to cook, and super healthy, a super food loaded with great nutrients and a complete protein. So making it part of your diet can help make being healthier a hell of a lot less work. And don’t worry, for the poor folks out there quinoa doesn’t have to cost a lot if you follow the advice Emma Goldman once offered to a group of poor workers “Ask for work. If they don’t give you work, ask for bread. If they do not give you work or bread, then take bread.” In other words what I am suggesting is that if you can’t afford good food, don’t eat shit, just take what you need. Big corporations steal from the workers on all levels, then fuck over the consumer (also generally a worker) by overpricing, so don’t feel bad about taking what you need. The simplest way is to buy from the bulk section and mark it down as something similar looking like bulgur wheat or couscous or whatever. Look for the teller in training, or if they have those electronic self serve tellers use those. Even if the teller notices, most will not say anything as they are not paid enough to care.

So here is how I cook it to make it taste awesome.

The most basic method is to cook it kinda like past or rice. I start by pouring some quinoa into a mesh tea strainer, then rinse it under the tap until the water runs through easy. I then throw it in the pot on medium heat and let it fry for a few seconds before adding water. I just add water like I would to pasta, and I am not the type to measure.

At this point I ad bouillon, I use about half a cube. Many of the basic soup bouillons happen to be vegan, even the ones that are chicken or beef flavored, just check the ingredients.

Next I add some black pepper, and if I have any ground garlic, I toss it in too. That is really all there is to it… Sometimes I also like to throw in some dried stinging nettles, which you can either get from a tea shop or you can just go outside and pick some and dry them. Fresh nettles work fine as well as long as you cook them for at least 8 minutes. The nettles are optional, I tend to like how the grassy flavor of the nettles compliments the grainy taste of quinoa and pepper. Cook it until the water is out, and I tend to turn down the heat to ¼ when it begins to get close. When the water is gone, fluff it with a fork.

This is the most basic way I cook it, it only takes about 15 minutes, and this type of quinoa is perfect for putting on a wrap with other veggies, or to eat alone.

I also like to sometimes add canned beans in tomato sauce to the quinoa right when it is just about cooked. Another similar addition is to mix in frozen mixed veggies (like the mixed peas, carrots and corn bag they always seem to give you at the food bank) when the quinoa is nearly cooked.

One of my personal favorite dishes to make witch is very easy and tastes great using quinoa uses quinoa with wild rice and lentils.

I begin by pouring wild rice into a pot, add lots of water (more than you would for other rice). Heat should be on medium. I add the soup bouillon cube at this point, then take off and do something else for a while, wild rice takes a while to cook so it is good to go do laundry or check email or plan an arson (JUST KIDDING 😉 ) while it cooks. After about 20 minutes, I add quinoa, I like using red quinoa with this variation if I have it, but any kind is great. I also add lentils at this point. It will take about another 15 minutes after this, so I add some pepper, or garlic, then go off to play video games or write a letter to a prisoner, or whatever. Again I cook it until the water is gone, then it is done. Simple.

I generally like it as is, but if you want you can always add a bit of soya sauce or other stuff to your taste.

1 Caged Dreams

October 1, 2013
by Comrade Black
· PE Web Zine · Radness

by Comrade Black

Are you in prison, or locked out?

A cage is a cage
Is a cage
Is a cage
Is a cage
Whether barbed wire
Steal bars
Or build of addiction and fear
It’s the same
Freedom knows no boundaries
Walls
Borders
Or
Shame

A cage is a cage
Is a cage
Is a cage
It’s the same
Human are animals
We all deserve to be free
Not one set of limits for you
And another for me
No prisons, or mink farms
Jails or zoos
No Pet stores
or backyard chicken coops
no psych wards where inmates are held without consent
No ant farms
Or cattle barns
Or pens to breed animals in
Liquor stores or beauty norms
or other forms of boxes to keep people IN.

There is no justification you can give to me that is good enough to continue with this
No matter how many walls, cameras, or cages
We will always resist

Keeping any living being captive without its consent
whether it is to punish them
to eat them
to pet them
or to use their labor or bodies for our needs

A cage is a cage
Is a cage
Is a cage
It’s the same

There’s no walls in a forest, desert, or stream
No bars in the oceans, the sky or in my dreams

Page 3 of 5

The legendary crust classic is now available once again!

We are happy to announce our next new release

WILT – “Self Titled”

Here is a track from the upcoming LP

“Sermon for the Bootlickers”

Tag: By Comrade Black

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