Organizing Below The Radar
author: Reposted from Anti Racist Action website
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We need to build a legal/self defense component into all our work, anticipating busts, frame-ups and harassment. There needs to be thought about safe houses, cultivation of supporters who never do anything public to identify themselves with the anti-racist movement, secure means of covert communication, transportation and release and dissemination of information.In other words, we need to adopt some methods of organization better suited to conditions of occupation or fascism, and to the extent we can get at all ahead of the curve on this, it will be a lot easier to do, and a lot likelier to survive the repression.
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Organizing Below the Radar
We need to build a legal/self defense component into all our work, anticipating busts, frame-ups and harassment. We need to build stronger outside networks of support for people locked down, materially and otherwise. There needs to be thought about safe houses, cultivation of supporters who never do anything public to identify themselves with the anti-racist movement, secure means of covert communication, transportation and release and dissemination of information. In other words, we need to adopt some methods of organization better suited to conditions of occupation or fascism, and to the extent we can get at all ahead of the curve on this, it will be a lot easier to do, and a lot likelier to survive the repression. We need to think about building redundancy in all that.
Organizing and outreach into the prisons and the military are vital. These spheres, along with workplace organizing, have always had some of the characteristics of occupation or fascism that impede open organizing. They are vital areas in which to work (the degree of state and bourgeois repression applied in these arenas under "normal democracy" being a measure of their strategic importance). They are an important proving ground of our ability to organize under such conditions as well as our capacity to craft a message and practice that engages the people we want to reach. This is also true for work with high school students, for many of the same reasons (especially as the military increasingly penetrates the schools).
One key to understanding fascism is to grasp, and counter, the appeal fascism makes to women. The male-dominated left tends to discount the revolutionary potential of women, the need for a strategy to deal with the role of violence in the lives of women and children, and the efforts of fascists to present themselves as the answer to women's problems. A fuller discussion and an attempt to develop practice based on a deeper understanding of those issues must take place in a sustained way. They definitely relate to this whole period. The state has moved into this arena in various ways. Bush's use of Afghan women as justification for launching his war on Al Qaeda, the Taliban and Afghanistan is one clear example. Another notable one is creation by the Pentagon of a network of organizers out of "army wives," whose job it is to maintain morale and support for the war efforts among the families of the troops.
Faith-based groups some of whom are hard-core pacifists, must be addressed in an anti-fascist strategy, just as "White Rose" Catholics formed one base of anti-fascist resistance in Hitler's Germany. Such groups also have a long history of civil resistance, sanctuary-type activities regarding unjust immigration policies, and otherwise breaking the law or doing secret work for reasons of conscience. I think we might be able to learn a great deal from them.
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homepage: http://www.aranet.org/pn/
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I am cynical enough to believe that THEY already know who I am, were I live, what cars I drive, my bank account numbers, family members, ... THEY are building their work camps as we speak, training their armies, ... My guess is that Pakistani or Turkish troops will be used in Cascadia. My guess is that the troops will believe that they are here to liberate us from our oppressors, expecting us to greet them with open arms.
The resistance to THEM will be an armed struggle. THEY deliberately went into Iraq under staffed so that THEY could get the experience of fighting undermanned against an armed opponent. That is why THEY have left the boarders open, to get experience with a pissed off, well-supplied opponent.
So you really want to survive this thing? Bury gold, equipment, water purification, radio, batteries, dehydrated food (and oh I am a liberal pacifist - weapons). Learn outdoor, minimum impact camping. Plant fruit trees, nut trees, berries. Eat insects. Commit yourself to a group of peace seeking people and be aware that THEY have already infiltrated your group. Do you have your safe locations located? Have seven different safe locations picked out, and create a signal library. Have seven different ways away from your home. The homeless have survival skills, try being homeless. If you are already homeless, try getting a job and pretending to be normal.
Observe what THEY are doing in Iraq and how the resistance is fighting back. See that THEY can only control key areas, leaving the countryside uncontrolled. If you live near a key area, think about living somewhere else. You need food, water, shelter; you don't need anything else.
Learn to preach. When it gets really scary, people want the comfort of God. Learn to pray/meditate, when things get really scary you will want the comfort of God.
Get involved with organ food producers, they have land and distrust the government. Buy local, sell local, get a usable skill that does not require gasoline.
Get involved with hunters and fishermen. They can get food in the wild, have big trucks and guns and will gladly suck down your whiskey and smoke your dube.