At around 10:30am on Wednesday 8/27/08, 5-6 Officers made there way into the Longhaul Infoshop and broke down every door and stole every single computer on the property (including those used by the Slingshot collective and East Bay Prisoner Support). They also raided cabinets, cut locks and mis-sorted our mail.

People arrived after being informed of the situation, and demanded that the police show a warrant. The police said they would show one once they were done, and they did. Both copwatch and the Daily Planet were there to cover the incident. The departments involved were 4 UC Berkeley cops, 1 Alameda County Sheriff, and 1 Federal agent. The police never explained there reason for the raid other than that the computer equipment "may have been used to commit a felony". This is the first time the infoshop has been raided.

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/08/27/18530354.php

http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/08/27/18530389.php

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First off we’d like to state that the following text is the work of a few individuals who take part in the occupation of the squat space and does not represent anyone but the authors of the text. We would like to make it clear that there are many of us involved in this space and that no media liaison will ever represent everyone from the squat. Also, it should be pointed out that we don’t believe in mediating our communication and we don’t like reporters. We’d like to illustrate the limitations of using the media and the misconceptions they create, and to give another perception of what happened on the notified eviction date of Monday, August 25th.

The night before the eviction we spent time with our friends and lovers, singing and laughing around a bonfire. We went to collect water from the river and spring, beneath constellations of stars not yet erased by the haze of light pollution. As we went to sleep, the incandescent glow of the moon’s light embraced us as we slept in the places filled with memories of the experiences we shared there, together.

The morning came early with people setting up for the show that was planned to gather all our friends from the city and other towns. Some of us slept in while the media showed up looking for some catchy scoop that would reduce our struggle and lives to a front-page article in the local rag.

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From Anarkismo - By Michael Schmidt (ZACF, South Africa) with the assistance of veteran Bulgarian anarchist Jack Grancharoff 1 Kindly proof-read by Will Firth.

Bulgarian Anarchism Armed

In the early 20th Century, anarchism entrenched itself as a mass organisational movement in Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Poland - anarchists having already been active in the 1873 uprisings in Bosnia and Herzegovina against Austro-Hungarian control. But it was primarily in Bulgaria and its neighbour Macedonia that a remarkable case of anarchist organising arose, in the midst of the power-play between the great powers. This poorly-studied movement not only blooded itself in national liberation struggles and armed opposition to both fascism and Stalinism, but developed a notably diverse and resilient mass movement, the first to adopt the controversial 1926 Platform of the Ukrainian Makhnovist exiles in Paris 2 as its lodestone. For these reasons it is vital that the revived anarchist-communist movement in the new millennium re-examine the legacy of the Balkans. This article, which begins mid-stream in 1919, is a version of an extract from the two-volume work on anarchism & syndicalism, Counter-Power, co-written by Lucien van der Walt, a global history and theory of the movement, which is due to be published in book form by AK Press in the USA in 2008.

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We're pleased to announce the launch of the AK Press Blog, REVOLUTION BY THE BOOK!

Visit such exciting posts as interviews with AK authors, reviews of and excerpts from AK books, and reports on the events at AK. We will also post news about other anarchist publishers and booksellers, translations, interviews with activists behind other projects, and lists of relevant conferences. Be sure to look out for video and audio clips as well!

Initially, we will post new material three times per week, although we hope to publish with greater frequency in the near future. We encourage anyone interested to subscribe to our RSS feed and stop by as often as possible.

We would be honored if one day our friends and comrades count this blog among the many others in which important and helpful discussions occur.

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From The Nation - By Michael Gould-Wartofsky

At some point during the upcoming Republican National Convention, delegates will look out the windows of the Xcel Energy Center, or down from swank hotels and grand old after-parties, and there, past the security fences and the legions of taser-toting police and private security guards, they will see the other America spilling into the streets of St. Paul, Minnesota.

That is, if the Republicans even make it that far. From September 1-4, the RNC will be besieged by a panoply of protesters--including antiwar activists, Iraq War veterans, Hurricane Katrina survivors, immigrant workers, labor unionists, anarchists, environmentalists, feminists and queers. At the frontlines will be America's young dissidents who will walk out of class, lock down intersections and dance in the streets to "Funk the War."

The view from Denver at the Democratic National Convention at the end of August will look a little different. That's because in the age of Obama many of these same movements, so united against the RNC, are deeply conflicted over the Democrats and the party system itself--perhaps none more so than the youth movement.

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Regarding The Manifold Ways In Which ICE Can Be Fought

Countless nights have been spent gazing into the Seeing Stones. Many things have been seen inside those murky depths. Everything in there is Black. The future holds much darkness for everyone. We see it spreading already, outside our very doors; the barbed wire fences stretching for miles, the animals in the desert prowling at night for someone to kill, the camps nestled in our backyards, the camps where people hold tightly onto their friends as they slowly die, the camps holding mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers away from each other.

The largest branch of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). ICE agents have walked through malls, guns in their hands, and searched for people who looked “illegal”. ICE agents have pulled mothers away from their crying children. ICE agents truly believe that the people they detain have no human rights. Because of this someone just died in a detention facility. They died because they did not get their medication. They died in a cage, surrounded by a powerful apparatus that did not view them as human.

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From SFGate - Justin Berton

After Josh Wolf took a job as a general assignment reporter at the Palo Alto Daily Post last month, he had some choice words for critics who've questioned his claim of being a journalist.

"If the haters who said I wasn't a real journalist, are still lurking," Wolf wrote on his blog, "I hope you don't have too much indigestion after eating your words.' "

Wolf, 26, is the San Francisco video blogger who in 2006 began a 226-day stint in federal prison for contempt after refusing to testify before a grand jury and hand over a videotape of a protest against a G-8 summit he filmed in the Mission District in which a police officer was injured.

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From Philadelphia Weekly - by John Steele

Is the world ready for composted human feces?

Anarchy is a tricky proposition. The little teenage slammers in Che Guevara t–shirts who used to scrawl red A’s and circles on their binders in school have led to a misrepresentation of what anarchy is supposed to be about. It is a much more peaceful ideology than those sinister symbols denote. And as people become more fed up with government, it seems to apply itself to a new cause everyday.

So with all the hubbub over going green nowadays, it was only a matter of time before the anarchists had their say. Enter Radical Sustainability, a lecture by anarchist writer and bona fide sustainability expert Scott Kellogg. Kellogg is the co–author of Toolbox for Sustainable City Living: A Do–It–Ourselves Guide . Hosted Aug. 14 at Wooden Shoe Books, the anarchist bookstore at 508 S. Fifth St., Radical Sustainability gives voice to a new breed of anarchist: less ideological, more practical, and scared shitless.

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From Oped News - by Cyril Mychalejko

Five years ago this November, the Miami Police Department, with the assistance of Homeland Security, the FBI and other federal government agencies, unleashed a violent para-military occupation of the city in order to quash protests against the now defunct proposal to create a Free Trade Area of the Americas.

Police officers, some of whom had no visible identification, fired rubber bullets, tear gas, concussion grenades, and stun guns indiscriminately at the estimated 25,000 protesters, which included 20 busloads of senior citizens retired from the AFL-CIO.

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by spoonboy

definitions:

ALIENATION [(al'ye-nay'shen)] n.
1. A separation of individuals from control and direction of their social life.
2. The state of being withdrawn or isolated from the objective world, as through indifference or disaffection.

ELECTORALISM [(i-lek-tor-uh-liz-uhm)] n.
1. The election of representatives who create a priest-class of political administrators while disempowering and alienating the general public, for whom voting is a highly mediated form of political engagement that diverts energy away from more effective means of political and social reform (or, for some anarchists, revolution).

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From The Onion

First-grader Connor Bolduc does not have the capacity to imagine the scope of the hell he is in for.

CARPENTERSVILLE, IL—Local first-grader Connor Bolduc, 6, experienced the first inkling of a coming lifetime of existential dread Monday upon recognizing his cruel destiny to participate in compulsory education for the better part of the next two decades, sources reported.

"I don't want to go to school," Bolduc told his parents, the crushing reality of his situation having yet to fully dawn on his naïve consciousness. "I want to play outside with my friends."

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From SFGate - By Demian Bulwa

Matthew Wilson's family considered him to be a missing person. But after the 21-year-old former computer science student at Rice University in Houston turned up in a tiny UC Berkeley classroom this week, he told investigators he had "wanted to come West and disappear," police officials said.

He was fairly successful - at least until he sought the use of an overhead projector Wednesday night.

Wilson's mother had made trips to Berkeley, where Wilson's car had been found with anarchist literature inside, to look for him. She made public appeals for his return and hired a Bay Area private investigator who combed the streets and the Internet.

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From The Guardian - By George Monbiot

In seeking to put politics ahead of action, Ewa Jasiewicz is engaging in magical thinking of the most desperate kind

If you want a glimpse of how the movement against climate change could crumble faster than a summer snowflake, read Ewa Jasiewicz's article, published yesterday on Comment is free. It is a fine example of the identity politics that plagued direct action movements during the 1990s, and from which the new generation of activists has so far been mercifully free.

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We'd like to welcome all military personnel, veterans, and their families who frequently visit this website, or have just found it via this webpage. This is the place where you can find out more about military people resisting war, both historically and today.

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Infoshop.org and the Alternative Media Project is considering the development of a social networking service for our users. We are currently setting up a group of developers and volunteers to help us develop this service. If you want to get involved, please contact us.

2008 DNC / RNC Protests and Events

In August and September 2008, thousands of people will converge in Denver, Colorado and St. Paul, Minnesota to have their say about the American political process.

Breaking News from Infoshop News

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Basics of Anarchism

What is anarchism? Who are anarchists and what do they do? Who are some notable anarchists? Isn't anarchy about violence? Is anarchism a viable alternative to the current political system? Are anarchists really against the government?

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