A-Infos (en) US, Actions + Conversations + Intersections 2010: Second Annual Los Ángeles Anarchist Bookfair

HOLLYWOOD - For the second consecutive year, Los Angeles anarchists organized a bookfair, 
which, in addition to facilitating exchanges between vendors and literature-hungry 
readers, also provided an array of panel discussions, workshops, and most importantly, 
quality interactions with fellow activists in the liberation movement. ---- Preparations 
began months ago, when members of the collective that organized last year's bookfair at 
the Southern California Library began holding meetings and seeking the input of other 
members of the community. The collective grew, and arrangements were made to hold this 
year's fair at the Barnsdall Art Park, a hilltop park with such amenities as a theater, an 
art gallery, and a grassy area with a sculpture garden. Potential speakers were discussed 
and contacted.

A call was issued for workshop proposals, and applications came flooding in. Community 
events, such as film screenings and concerts were held to raise funds and awareness about 
the bookfair and about anarchism in general. At long last, the day arrived.

Rainy weather throughout the week alleviated worries about longstanding water scarcity 
issues drought to some extent, but raised concerns about the realization of the bookfair. 
Fortunately, however, Sunday morning saw crystalline sunlight and azure skies, a positive 
sign for a productive day.

Vendors and organizers started arriving at about nine, setting up tables, posting signs, 
plugging in extension cords, and tying up logistical loose ends. The dancers of Danza 
Azteca Cuauhtémoc began donning their headdresses and anklets in preparation for the 
opening ceremony. And the people started arriving: community activists, punk rockers, 
vegans, students, artists, parents, media activists, attorneys, indigenous people, 
travelers, and anarchists of all stripes.

The scent of copal filled the air as Danza Cuauhtémoc formally initiated the day's events 
with a ceremony traditionally associated with the planting of seeds, in hopes that the 
seeds of revolutionary consciousness would take root in the community. Thanks was given 
for the rain, and homage was paid to the indigenous caretakers of the land upon which we 
stood. Forgiveness was asked from the plants and animals for the human violations of their 
lives and homes. Finally, we were asked to share in the pain of the migrants who suffer 
and die as they brave borders, violence, and the elements in their quest for the dignity 
that should be guaranteed to us all. "These people are just like the hummingbirds, or the 
deer. They move also for economic reasons," intoned Judith, a leader among the dancers. 
"So we're no different."

Upon the conclusion of the ceremony, the crowd of spectators began milling about, some 
eager to attend the first workshops, others looking for food, while others began browsing 
the merchandise.

The first round of workshops included a talk on dual power and modern anarchism by Harjit 
and Adam W., a discussion on the German Autonomen movement, a pre-cursor of the black 
bloc, led by Raoul, and a presentation on anarchism and urban planning by Olympia, an 
urban planner. In the video room, the Revolutionary Autonomous Communities film We're 
Still Here, We Never Left, a documentary on the police attack on May Day protesters in 
MacArthur Park, was screened.

At the talk on dual power, to which other attendees contributed greatly, Harjit began by 
positing that, while anarchists ask the general population to abandon capitalism, we lack 
the infrastructure that would allow people to make that leap. Tom Wetzel of the Workers 
Solidarity Alliance went on to debunk some of the myths surrounding anarchist positions on 
power. "One of the weaknesses of anarchism historically was there was a lot of confusion 
about power. People say we're against power, but actually, the mass of people, the working 
class people, can't liberate itself without actually creating new structures of power to 
run things. To run the society, that's power. And I think the idea of popular power, power 
that's based on 'we're all equals,' self-managed kind of power, I mean, that's how I think 
of the replacement for the state and the corporations, and so on. But in terms of 
developping power now, it might be useful to distinguish between, like, social power that 
people build through movements that are engaged in confrontations, like shutting down 
workplaces. That means ordinary people are actually exercising power, some power. But it's 
power that comes about through struggle, through confrontation with the people that have 
power in this system. But if you're just running a collective, like of food distribution, 
that's not really power, that's collectively managing a resource. But I think that's 
different from social power. And the point you said about transition to the new society, 
we have to have things there that can make that transition, historically, that was part of 
the whole reason for syndicalism--you develop a working-class movement where we have in 
all the various workplaces, we have workers organized in revolutionary, self-managed 
workplace organizations or unions, so that in a transitional situation, they can take over 
the running of those workplaces and guarantee that we still have food and transportation 
and public utilities and so on."

During the next hour, the first of the panel discussions was held. Authors of anarchist 
texts, including Andrej Grubac(ic', the author of Wobblies and Zapatistas, Cindy Milstein, 
who penned the forthcoming Anarchist Aspirations, Mitchell Cowen Verter, editor of the 
Ricardo Flores-Magón reader Dreams of Freedom, and Gary Phillips, who produced The Jook, 
who shared insights about their works.

Meanwhile, a discussion was held about anti-fascist organizing in the Southern California 
area, which touched on the topics of recent Nazi activiy in the Inland Empire and current 
efforts to oppose the American Third Position Party, as well as issues of race within the 
antifascist movement and the historic anarchist opposition to fascism.

In the video room, a slide show of anarchist-themed posters from the holdings of the 
Center for the Study of Political Graphics was presented.

The next hour featured a panel presentation about political prisoners. Ojore Lutalo and 
Sherman Austin, both former political prisoners, shared the stage with Mapache, the 
moderator, Matt, an organizer with the Los Angeles chapter of the Anarchist Black Cross 
Federation, and Ben, who was discussing political prisoners in Latin America.

Before beginning the discussion, Mapache asked the audience to entertain a few questions 
as they listened. "Specifically for the white audience, do you view yourself as 
oppressed?" He based his definition of oppression on that of Julis Lester in the text 
Revolutionary Notes, copies of which were circulated amongst the audience. "Second 
question is for the entire audience, do you consider yourself a revolutionary or 
progressive?" Another pamphlet was distributed on this topic. "Third question, do you view 
drugs as revolutionary or counterrevolutionary?"

Ojore began: "I became politically active in the early 1970s after living a life of drugs 
and street crime. I went to prison, and I met the late New Afrikan anarchist Kuwasi 
Balagoon and other POW political prisoners. It was at least seven years later, then I 
joined the armed struggle, underground. I was captured in 1975 for an armed bank 
expropriation, engaging the police in a gun battle. Then I served 28 years in Trenton 
State Prison for my political activity, and I was released August 26th, 2009 by way of 
court order."

He continued with an update on the BLA: "Currently, the BLA is dormant, due to activities 
of COINTELPRO--currently Homeland Security. But you still have BLA prisoners in the 
prisons who aren't being supported who are in dire need of your support. For instance, 
Sekou Odinga just served 28 years in the federal system. He was transferred to New York 
State prison system several months ago. He is currently serving 20 years to life. His last 
hope for release is based on a pending action he has in court. He's in the process of 
trying to raise $5,000 to retain an attorney to assist him in his legal battle." He also 
discussed Sundiata Acoli, who will face the parole board next month, Herman Bell, and 
their need for support.

Sherman Austin, jailed for two years for being the webmaster of the revolutionary website 
raisethefist.com spoke next, discussing the tactics that were used against him. "It's 
kinda funny that it's the anniversary [of the FBI raid on his house] and it's the 
anarchist bookfair. I don't know if that was intentional, or just kind of happened to be. 
The type of tactics that were used were wiretaps, they monitored instant messenger 
conversations, e-mails, I had cars parked in front of my house, I was followed." He went 
on to clarify some of the common misconceptions about his case and the USA PATRIOT Act. 
"After all this went down, there was a lot of talk about how our civil liberties were 
being eroded because of the USA PATRIOT Act, but the fact of the matter is that all this 
stuff had been going on a lot longer before my case even started. The PATRIOT Act just put 
it out there and said, the government said, and the FBI said, 'We're just gonna do it, but 
we're not gonna do it under the cover anymore, we're not gonna do it under the rug, we're 
gonna do it out in front of everyone's face and there's nothing anyone can do about it.'"

Matt then spoke on the difference between oppressions faced by working-class whites and 
communities of color, quoting Stokely Carmichael: "Whites are exploited, but other 
communities are colonized." In this sense, it is incumbent upon whites in the movement to 
realize, as he put it, "this is our movement as well." Nonetheless, he pointed out, it is 
important to recognize how easy it is for whites to make use of their white skin privilege 
in order to avoid the consequences of their involvement in revolutionary politics, whereas 
people of color have no such recourse.

Sherman elaborated on the situation, explaining that the FBI's interest in him was the 
result of a young white man who failed to take responsibility for placing bomb-making 
instructions on a website that was hosted on Sherman's server. In addition, people 
involved in the movement that had bruited about the need for revolution were the first to 
become informants once state pressure was brought to bear upon them. "When we turn our 
backs on each other, that destroys our movement," he summarized.

Ojore shared that faced a similar situation in 1982, when a former Black Panther with a 
drug problem became an informant, which led to Ojore's apprehension by the FBI and his 
subsequent incarceration. He continued with an analysis of drug use, concluding that it is 
a counterrevolutionary form of self-oppression and that revolutionaries should not use 
drugs, and those that do, should seek the help of revolutionary substance abuse programs.

Mapache then challenged the audience, who had been pondering the question of the 
distinction between progressivism and revolution, to support political prisoners, since 
they are the ones who have taken steps that others were unwilling or unable to take and 
are now suffering for it. Matt shared the story of Thomas Warner, an incarcerated Black 
Panther who committed suicide in prison. "Part of the reason why he committed suicide was 
because of the fact that he didn't have support. He felt alone. This is somebody that was 
a political prisoner, that every single political prisoner support organization had on 
their list, but not a single one of them knew who this guy was. We found this out two 
years later after he died. Two years later. And it makes me think that if there were more 
people out there doing political prisoner work, maybe one more letter would've gotten to 
him, and it might've changed his mindset just a little bit."

Ben then shared some highlights from a report on political prisoners in Latin America 
provided by Rodolfo Montes de Oca, a Venezuelan comrade of the LA bookfair collective and 
a member of the editorial collective of El Libertario. For one, Latin America is the 
region of the world with the greatest number of anarchists assassinated by both state and 
para-state actors. There has also been an upsurge in anarchist activity--primarily to 
denounce the pseudo-socialism espoused by the left-wing governments currently dominating 
the continent, which has faced severe repression and resulted in numerous political 
prisoners. Among them are Diego Sebastián Petrissans, Leandro Sebastián Morel, Cristián 
Cancino, Marcelo Villarroel, Freddy Fuentevilla, Axel Osorio, Asel Luzárraga, Matías 
Castro, Pablo Carvajal, Víctor Hernández Govea, Emmanuel Hernández Hernández, Abraham 
López Martínez, Fermín Gómez Trejo, and Sabino Romero, all of whom are in need of 
solidarity and support.

While the political prisoners panel was being conducted, Kaley, a member of the 
Anarcha-feminist collective Anarcha-LA and the coordinator of childcare at the bookfair, 
gave a workshop on radical parenting, and elsewhere, a film on abuses of immigrant workers 
in the sheep industry was screened. On the balcony, Tom Wetzel and other members of the 
Workers Solidarity Alliance introduced curious attendees to their organization. Outside 
Barnsdall's Junior Arts Center, a talk on veganism and health was attended by more than 
thirty people. "I got to talk to an anarchist vegan dietician who let me know the perks of 
the diet, and making sure that I'm eating correctly and I'm not gonna end up doing harm to 
my body, and that was really cool because he answered a lot of my questions," said 
Francisco, a student from Santiago, Chile who recently unenrolled due to the high cost of 
tuition.

The next hour saw a packed theater for the panel on indigenous resistance. Simultaneously, 
Cindy Milstein shared space with Andrew, a member of the Institute for Anarchist Studies 
and anarchist archives, a film on the criminalization of the participants in the Oakland 
rebellion was screened, and there was a chat about anarchists and radicals in the health 
professions.

The panel was made up of Professor Andrea Smith from the Cherokee Nation, Alex Soto from 
the Tohono O'odham Nation, Mark and Jamie, traditionalists from the Diné Nation, and Klee 
Benally, also of the Diné Nation. Topics included the centrality of indigenous rights to 
any struggle for liberation, the border wall, cultural genocide, the Táala Hooghan infoshop.

Outside, Andrew spoke on the importance of anarchist archives, showing examples of 
materials from the Anarchy Archives in Claremont. He emphasized the need to preserve our 
own history and to support the work of archivists the world over who conserve the evidence 
of our struggle. His talk dovetailed neatly into Cindy on the Institute for Anarchist 
Studies. She encouraged those present to apply for the grants that the Institute issues to 
writers and translators.

The film concerned the rebellion that took place in response to the New Year's Eve police 
murder of 22-year-old Oscar Grant. The trial of Grant's murderer, Johannes Mehserle, has 
been moved to Los Angeles and local media activists are closely following the trial in 
order to facilitate the achievement of justice for Grant and his family.

The final panel, which was on worker and student occupations, took place during the next 
hour. Sirena spoke about workers' occupations in Argentina, while Chris, Eowyn, Gifford, 
and Paul took part in the discussion, most of which centered around recent efforts to 
oppose budget cuts in the California public education systems and to reclaim student spaces.

Outside, Ned led a talk on radical queer politics, which deconstructed the "-isms" 
experienced by queer and trans people, while Toi and Rebecca led a workshop on autonomous 
birthing.

The last set of workshops included the Earth First! roadshow, a screening of a film on 
strikes and occupations, a workshop on prison abolition led by the Los Angeles chapter of 
Critical Resistance, and a look at radical feminist anatomy by Pati, a doula.

Throughout the day, spontaneous conversations and impromptu workshops were held. At a 
makeshift bicycle garage, lessons on repair and maintenance were given. Illogic, a 
Canadian hip-hop artist from the raised fist collective and partner in rhyme of Testament, 
gave a self-defense workshop. The Long Beach chapter of Food not Bombs served food 
provided by the Los Angeles chapter, and when that ran out, the guerrilla chapter showed 
up to feed those of us who were still hungry or had not gotten any of the vegan sopes 
being sold by Mariana and her family. An intrepid environmentalist, not to be let down by 
the absence of tree-climbing promoted on the flyer, decided to simply take matters into 
his own hands. A graf artist set up a canvas and did live painting. At some point, goods 
donated by vendors and comrades were raffled off, elating the prizewinners. Rebel folk 
musicians inspired children and their parents to dance. And everywhere, people chatted, 
got to know one another, traded contact info, and of course, shopped.

As the events began dying down, a microphone was set up. The Outspoken Wordsmiths, another 
Canadian hip-hop group who is touring with Testament and Illogic to promote resistance to 
the 2010 Olympic Games, which are to be held on the occupied Salishan territories known 
today as British Columbia, performed, and then beatboxed under the freestylings of various 
members of the audience. After the performance, members of the bookfair collective gave 
thanks to the attendees, vendors, and guests, particularly those who came great distances, 
and opened the microphone up for announcements. These included messages regarding RAC's 
programs, the upcoming March for Zapata in East Los Angeles, and an after party/concert 
held at the Tribal Café. Finally, a request was made for clean-up support. Everyone did 
their share, lent a hand, and packed up the tables in no time at all.

If we can reorganize the society in the same way we organized the bookfair, then we can 
surely build a new world from the ashes of the old.

Related Link: http://la.indymedia.org/news/2010/01/234459.php

http://www.anarkismo.net
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