Filler Distro || Pittsburgh Anarchist News, Analysis, DIY Publishing & Distribution

Some work needs very little introduction. Please enjoy this banger from Simoun Magsalin, whose writing on anarchy in the Philippines we’ve had the pleasure to publish previously.

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On the Erasure of Anarchists in the so-called “Third World” by the Western Left
Simoun Magsalin

Again and again, white and Western leftists have erased anarchists in Asia by saying anarchism in the so-called “Third World” does not exist. If they deign to acknowledge our existence, they deride us by saying we are small or marginal in the context of large hegemonic left blocs led by various communist parties. We anarchists in imperialized nations know we are a minority. We are not like Marxists who seek to proclaim gospels and anoint converts. We are not here to proclaim anarchism but anarchy, for people to freely act under their own power. Freedom is a constant struggle.

On and on, these white and Western leftists talk of the “correctness” of Marxist movements, implying marginalization denotes incorrectness. However, to argue that anarchists do not exist in imperialized countries because our milieus are small or marginal is to think that population size determines correctness. Comments spewed from frothing mouths suggest that, because the Communist Parties of China/Vietnam/N.Korea/Cuba boasts several millions of members combined, therefore they are doing something correct. This is obviously ludicrous; population size has never denoted correctness. If that was so, then capitalism is correct and so is liberal democracy, for the hegemonic forces of liberal democratic capitalism still indoctrinate its tenets to the proletarianized the world over.

Elsewhere, these white and Western leftists talk of correctness in the context of “successful” revolutions in Russia or China. But to argue Marxism is correct because of the USSR, PRC, etc. is to fallaciously appeal to past victories. Past victories do not determine the conditions of our struggle today. Nor do we wish to build states and cadre bureaucracies. We struggle for more than that.

Besides, to claim that Marxism is “correct” because of the 1917 Russian Revolution seems to suggest that an absence of “victories” implies incorrectness. If this is indeed so, then ironically Marxism was incorrect on the eve of the Russian Revolution, before which Marxism had only failed. That anarchism has not “succeeded” according to the criteria of authoritarians (whatever that is), therefore does not discount the possibility that anarchy can still win the day in the future.

We know our victories in the imperialized world are limited. We are anarchists not because of our victories, but because we know what currently exists does not have to exist in the way it does. If you “Marxists” want to be victorious, join the United States Military which dominates the entire world, for they are a victorious power. Anarchy is never easy.

In the context of the archipelago so-called as the Philippines, white and Western leftists would uphold the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and their armed wing the New Peoples Army (NPA) as righteous “proletarian” actors against the “petty-bourgeois” anarchists. White and western leftists would claim that the “liberated barrios” and extensive guerrilla infrastructure are ultimate proof of the validity of Marxism. So what if the CPP-NPA “works”? If you are a Marxist because Marxism “works,” you must interrogate what exactly constitutes as “working.” What works is not necessarily what is desirable. Imperialism works and reigns victorious over the world; shall you be an imperialist because it “works”? We anarchists already know the answer: yes, Marxists shall become imperialists because it works. This is proven by the social imperialist policies of the former Soviet Union and the current People’s Republic of China and endlessly defended by many Marxists today.

Yet so what if cadres “work” to build guerrilla fronts? We are not in the business of building guerrilla fronts; we are in no business at all! Party work disgusts us; I ain’t nobody’s political officer!

When we organize, we must ask whom we intend to empower and who is centered in the struggles. Are we empowering an army or workers? A cadre or the proletariat? A party or a people? These are not equivalent. Yet the devotees of Saint Marx such as those in the CPP-NPA see themselves as “proletarian” by virtue of having taken up arms against the bourgeois State, forgetting that to be proletarianized is a negative consequence of this capitalist world that marks us as proles, not a virtue that can be emulated, because it is not a virtue at all.

A social revolution is not determined by past victories nor by a “correct” line but by the generalization of an insurrectionary break with the world that proletarinizes, a break from which there can be no return to the status quo ante. Such a generalized insurrectionary break cannot be directed by any cadre or party, nor even by a party of anarchists. Such a break can only be self-directed by proletarians-in-abolition, those that strike at the world that marks them as proles. By directing militancy towards consolidating guerrilla fronts instead of striking at proletarianization, Marxists such as the CPP-NPA actually suppress revolutionary agency. Yet it is exactly the self-direction of proles striking at their proletarianization that keeps alive the prospects of anarchy in the imperialized world!

More than merely an anarchy, multiple anarchies sprout across the world like mushrooms after a rain. The spontaneity of mushrooms is not accidental but rather the product of large spanning mycelia with long interconnected threads which then sprout mushrooms when the opportunity arises. Just so are the prospects of sprouting anarchies the products of long and patient organizing, of interlinked sites of struggle. Thus the organization of the anarchists is not the party-form, but in our struggles interlinked.

So let us now retire the talk of anarchist erasures in the imperialized world. Let us retire this talk of “correct” lines and party curricula of “victories.” It matters not if we are a minority for anarchies everywhere are forming, and we shall be here when they sprout!

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[submission from DJ Cunnilingus received on 01.04.21]

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Greetings, 

I’m writing today from occupied Cherokee territory to describe a failed action undertaken by myself, inspired by media seen on the Filler Distro social channels.

I received a misdemeanor citation for shoplifting a few hundred dollars worth of merchandise at a big box corporate store, one whose profits have soared since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and whose workers have risked their lives for the same meager hourly wage. I was there for supplies for houseless survival kits: items such as backpacks, gloves, a sleeping bag, warm hats, several pairs of pants in various sizes, packages of socks and shirts, deodorant, tampons, toothbrushes and other toiletries in travel sized containers, first aid kits, covid masks, etc. I intended to assemble the supplies into kits and distribute them amongst the local houseless population, which has of course seen a boom recently.

I wore plain nondescript clothes, a common medical mask, and a plain black beanie pulled down to my eyebrows. I walked in confidently, armed with a plastic bag full of bags, and a long receipt from another store in my pocket. I grabbed a buggy, and proceeded to confidently shop around the store, with my plastic bag of bags resting in the seat of the cart. I gathered my items and moved to a part of the store with no camera coverage and packed my items up in the plastic bags I had brought with me. I made my way to the front of the store and walked out when the receipt checker walked away, and as I was leaving the store a plainclothes “Asset Protection Manager” and another person ran up behind me, surprised me and apprehended me and redirected me towards the store and into an office.

I waited there for a while before 3 police officers showed up, all wearing bulletproof vests and holding their hands on their pistols as they entered. None of them wore masks, including the “asset manager.” They took a copy of my ID, social security #, phone #, and my picture. They wrote me a citation, and I’ll appear in court and likely receive a fine and probation/community service. It’s a cruel reminder of the banality of evil.

As a younger comrade, this was my first attempt at revolutionary expropriation. I had grown accustomed to occasional five finger discounts, but never larger scale swipes such as this. After discussing an action like it for a while with a comrade, I grew impatient and decided one day to undertake the action solo, guided by the mantra, “If not now, then when; If not me, then who?” Regardless, there is nothing noble in failure. Receiving a criminal charge will suck time and resources away from me which could have instead been funneled back into my community. The state will then leverage that charge against me whenever it can going forward. This is not to dissuade comrades from undertaking expropriative action. On the contrary, expropriation must spread. I wish to share the lessons I learned from this failure and discuss possibilities going forward.

First, I didn’t even know to be alert for “asset protection managers.” I hadn’t thought of that problem whatsoever, and I paid a price for that ignorance. Had I been less surprised at my apprehension, or quicker on my feet in the moment, I could have sprinted away when the asset protection manager and his cohorts descended on me. My car was parked in a far corner of the lot to avoid cameras, backed in to make for a quicker drive away, and better hide the license plate. A patch of woods and a residential neighborhood adjacent to the store could’ve served as a location to recoup and remove clothing layers before making my way back to my car via a different route.

In retrospect, I think my solo and all at once approach was stupid. A team of four comrades could’ve hit the same store much more quickly. If a list of items to loot were to be divided, perhaps by category, with crew member knowing exactly which items they are looting, and the approximate location of those items in the store, teams could go in and out, splitting up and acting as total strangers. Comrades can stagger their entrances into the store, agreeing beforehand on time inside and approximate exit times.

Comrade A would enter the store approximately two minutes before Comrade B enters. They’d both spend the same amount of time gathering items, and leave in the same 2 minute stagger. Comrades C and D would continue the cycle, with C entering 2 minutes after B. A “cover” item of some sort, such as a chocolate bar, to scan and actually pay for at self checkout, makes for added protection. Baggy nondescript clothing, masks, and hats are a must: two layers of grey bloc are ideal. If one comrade is descended upon by an asset protection manager or someone else of his kind, they can sprint away, perhaps into woods as in my case. Identifying clothing can be shed. The comrade who left the store with their own looted goods exactly two minutes prior to the compromised comrade, and the comrade expected to leave the store with other looted goods some two minutes later, will be able to rendezvous with and pick up the compromised comrade in a vehicle, losing only 25% of the loot, and staying safe and anonymous the entire time.

Members forced to act alone should understand the value in gathering goods from multiple locations. Survival items can be found in almost any store these days.

Try to hit stores away from where you live. Don’t hit the same big box stores in which you’ve already shown your face a dozen times or more. Be aware of surveillance cameras in parking lots and on intersections which can gather footage of cars and license plate numbers. Be aware of surveillance cameras within stores. Distribute goods in your community to those who need it most. In this case, the houseless sleeping outside in winter, who didn’t even receive the paltry $600 the ruling class decided to throw at us.

This is my first attempt at communication with other folks fighting directly against capital and empire. Transmissions from outlets such as yours serve as a beacon of hope and a place for learning. I humbly wish to join the conversation on entry points into action for younger folks like myself, and continue seeing actions spread which have real and immediate material impact. Filler Distro has been an important source for me, and analysis from such folks as the Anarchy in the Burbs crew really hits home as we struggle against logistics capital. Thanks for the work y’all do.

With love,
DJ Cunnilingus

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_{[anonymous submission received on 12.15.20]}

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The following report comes from an anonymous Pittsburgh anti-fascist who participated in the D12 community defense against the Proud Boys in Washington DC.

This report includes the author’s experience of the day’s action, several accounts from others on the ground, and concludes with some critical reflections and lessons learned.

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We arrived in DC in the morning on Saturday. After dropping our bags at lodging we walked most of the way to the plaza to scout an approach that would let us bloc up close by. There were already small groups of MAGAs and PBs on the sidewalks although their behavior was relatively subdued.

Once we reached the plaza and were able to get into bloc, we started waiting. SURJ, a DC group, was holding the space. One of their people thanked us for coming out in bloc. People without masks were denied entry to the segment of the plaza antiracists controlled by a bike line backed up by people on foot.

One instance upset the relative calm of the morning. An unmasked man attempted to force his way through the bike line into the plaza. This was opposed by bikes as well as a large group of people. The police seized this as a tactic to throw their weight around and helped the man smash through the bike line and backing crowd of antiracists. No one was arrested though.

The plaza continued to fill with groups of people as noon came and went. The police eventually blocked off I street at 15th and 17th and pulled their northern line out to K Street. This created a much larger space for antifascists to operate in.

Some time after noon, a large crowd of MAGAs/PBs marched by on 15th. The plaza began boiling like an ant hive and what seemed like the whole group went down to confront the fascists from across the police line. This rush of people led to the macing of at least one antiracist by the MPD as they struggled to separate the two groups.

For several hours this continued. A group of fascists would make an appearance a block away, separated from the plaza by a line of police, and antiracists would move to oppose them from across the police line. To editorialize – it seemed like a lot of concern and effort went into these one block mobilizations. While holding the space was a priority, there was never a time when fascists had unhindered access to the plaza, even in the absence of an antifascist response. Regardless, it was fortunate for us that only a few of us were maced during these instances.

At around 4pm, a group no larger than 40 antifascists including many carrying shields, departed BLM plaza with the intended destination of McPherson Square. McPherson was the planned site of a 530pm vigil for Casey Goodson Jr. and Brandon Bernard. As the sun began to set, this group established itself in the square.

It was then learned from people with comrades still in the plaza that after the advance group had left, MPD had rushed the plaza, arresting around five antiracists. After the police backed off, a group of the people remaining in the plaza managed to make it to McPherson Square as well.

The advance team in the square, which included a shield wall, was busy almost immediately upon arrival. A small detachment was tasked with holding the southeast entrance of the park. As that group arrived, they saw a number of kids riding bikes north past the McPherson building. There were MAGAs chasing them. I saw a woman pull a taser out of her pocket and discharge it at the back of a fleeing teen, only to miss. We quickly motioned the kids behind our shield line into the park. At that point a large crowd, a mix of MAGAs and Proud Boys began to come up the street from south near the Sofitel. A runner went to alert the rest of the people in the park. Our numbers could not have been more than 60 all told.

Despite their overwelming numbers and verbal provocations, no Proud Boys attempted to cross 15th St. to the park where our group held the sidewalk. Instead, PBs/MAGAs waited for MPD to put bike lines on both sides of the street, separating the groups. The police dispersed the crowd of MAGAs towards the east on I and south on 15th. Antifascists returned to a more neutral position in the park, waiting for the arrival of the vigil group.

The presence at McPherson slowly swelled as people trickled in for the 530pm vigil. However, reports that a friendly church nearby was under siege by MAGAs pushed more than half of the group there to head north. Others stayed, waiting on the delayed vigil organizers.

When they did arrive, the remaining group began to march as well. Initial fears that the first contingent had been kettled were allayed. According to people in that group, while police did surround them, the appearance of a crowd of fascists pulled away one of the police lines and they were able to leave the area.

This march moved around town for some time, unhindered by police. After a break some ways to the north, the march moved back south in an attempt to return to the plaza. A confrontation with a group of fascists occurred, although the formidable shield wall combined with general numerical superiority [in the immediate area] prevented any real fights. A photo of the confrontation:

As we moved further south, a more serious confrontation arose. At K Street, MAGAs/PBs first presented themselves in small numbers in our direction of travel. However, as police moved to wall them off, more approached from the east. It became hectic as the shield unit attempted to cover multiple directions at once, leading to pockets of shields intermingled in lines with those sans shields. Minor clashes broke out but were separated quickly. Police began to push our group west, requiring a determined withdrawal, towards yet another waiting police line. Instead antifascists made a fast turn north. As the main body of the march streamed up the street ahead of a police line now pushing north, a group of 8-10 fascists moved down the sidewalk to engage.

The following is an account from a person who confronted the fascists:

Police were behind us, shoving us north. A group of approximately 10 PBs came down the street we were going up. I noticed and quickly rallied 5 people to confront them and protect the flank of the march. We assembled a line in the street, facing the sidewalk. The PBs attempted to fight us almost immediately. One ran in and was rebuffed by the center of the line. A second tried to mace the person on the very end of the line. He got his shield up in front of most of it and then smacked the mace-carrier. A second rush at the line was rebuffed with determined shield shoves. At that point, the fight was cut short as the police line pushing from the south reached our detachment, shoving us hard with baton crosschecks to the north.

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MPD had now trapped the antifascists in one block. Their southern line was solid, but their northern line was being pressured by a massive crowd of MAGAs/PBs, at least the size of the one that had confronted us to the south. Antifascists waited tensely – we were completely boxed in. But MPD had their hands full. Slowly, their reinforcements arrived and pushed the PBs out of the intersection to the north and east, creating a buffer zone of an intersection.

The following is an account from a participant in the antifascist demonstration:

There was a kid in the “kettle” with us. I say “kettle” because the cops weren’t continuing to squeeze us in nor were they attempting to arrest antifascists at this time. This kid was dressed in street clothes, had a bike, and no other gear. He expressed to me that “he didn’t want to die” and that “he wasn’t supposed to be here”. I did what I could – I pointed out a recessed corner created by a pillar of the building we were next to on the sidewalk. If anything happens, I said, I’ll put my shield on the pillar and cover you. He agreed, but was clearly still in distress.

I decided to exercise all my options. I approached the bike line holding us from the north (and behind whom the west side of the intersection was clear). I communicated that there was a kid with us, who was alone and scared and not even supposed to be here. The police officer indicated that he would not let him leave. However, a few minutes later, a different officer who had overheard, said that the west exit was now considered safe, and after seeing him, allowed him through the line to go home.

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At this point, the unruly fascist crowds had been pushed away from the intersection by more MPD. MPD officers then extended an offer to the crowd – passage back through the city to the plaza – although it’s unclear what the alternative was. We slowly made our way back down to the plaza, surrounded by lines of cops. This clearly allowed the PBs/MAGAs to remain free to prey on people and roam more freely. However, it also meant that our march contingent made it back to the plaza. Once there, people relaxed. Someone ordered a stack of pizzas and the grubhub driver somehow got through the police line unmaligned with the food.

There was a small incident where a lone MAGA entered the plaza and was pushed back by protesters. Police who came forward were then forced back the antifascist shield wall. Once they were forced back to the edge of the plaza at J St, there was a brief respite before police charged in, arresting one person and pushing the shield wall back. At this point, a lively debate among protesters took place as to whether the shields should hold the space at a reasonable standoff distance from the police line at J or whether it was better to pull back to the center at I. Eventually the crowd backed off. 

Dispersal at this point was a dilemma. Any large group marching out would attract both state and PB attention, but small groups trying to be stealthy could be jumped by roving PBs. Eventually though, the waiting game seemed to win out. An attempt was made to get people going in similar directions to group up for as long as they could for safety, which was reasonably successful. Our group successfully left the plaza and navigated without incident back to our lodging, encountering PBs only at a distance across a traffic circle.

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Observations, Critiques, and Lessons Learned

1. Between 12 and 3, most of the plaza’s occupants repeatedly flowed to the edge of the plaza when MAGAs would pass by. In one instance, multiple people were maced as cops failed to form a proper line and deployed mace to cover their mistakes. It’s unclear what this accomplished. 
2. Flocking behavior to individual MAGAs at many points during the day was excessive. Distracting 20 people for 1 MAGA while in a supremely hostile environment was wasteful and potentially dangerous.
3. Shields leaving when they did for McPherson may have opened the plaza to attack. Should have been communicated better that they were marching out or coordinated a more complete emptying of the plaza to go to the vigil/march.
4. Decision to take more than half of the McPherson contingent north without the shields, who were waiting on the group that had called for the vigil at McPherson was very nearly disastrous. Splitting the party with that many fash around is risky.
5. Proud Boys really don’t want to fight you if you’re looking ready and in a group that’s even half the size as theirs. At multiple points, the PBs could have engaged in a general melee with a large but still heavily outnumbered group of antifascists and they chose not to. 
6. There still weren’t enough counterprotesters out. There were loads of bloc but without more liberal support the fash will continue to have a heavy numbers advantage. This puts us in the awkward position of being bailed out by the police separating the two groups.
7. It was absolutely galling to accept what essentially was a police escort back to BLM plaza. Necessary, but frustrating.

In Solidarity,
– A Pittsburgh Anti-fascist

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This zine was anonymously submitted to Filler for distribution in 2020.

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PDF for online reading

PDF Zine, imposed printing format (short-edge binding)

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An excerpt from the introduction:

Smartphones are really fucking snitchy and nasty. From the exploitation needed to extract lithium, to the suicide-net factories where the phones are assembled, to the social othering of those who cannot afford them, to the anxious phantom-buzz in your pocket that teaches us to dread solitude… the world of the smartphone is tragically just beginning to gain momentum.

As crises erupt globally, nation-states will be racing to deploy the latest digital carceral infrastructure needed to predict and preemptively respond to “crime”, manage populations, and regulate the movements of individuals. Meanwhile, many of us often find ourselves reliant on our phones to keep close with those far away, or to find the gigs that we need to work to gather resources – for a lot of us, phones are unfortunately a near- essential tool we rely on to move through the world.

I have no interest in arguing for some pure withdrawal from communications technology. Instead, I want to explore the ways that phone apps are produced in order to map out the exploits that can be found within them.

While we look for ways to mitigate the way technology mediates our lives, we also ought to find ways to hijack tech to get free shit and carry out new experiments in autonomy.

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Anonymous submission received on 08.16.20

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On Unmarked Vans

As Pittsburgh joins the ranks of cities disappearing protesters into unmarked vans, we implore our fellow residents of Pittsburgh to resist the urge to fixate on procedural details. What happened yesterday was fucked up, and it would have been no less fucked up had the officers been uniformed and the van been clearly marked and all the proper paperwork been filled out. What happened yesterday was fucked up in all the same ways that it’s always fucked up when the PPD, or the DHS, or ICE or whoever, kidnaps a member of our community, regardless of what they’re wearing and what they’re driving when they do it.

Police abductions in unmarked vans scare us because they lay bare the absurdity at the heart of the institution of policing, an absurdity that we are conditioned not to see when the cops are wearing the right clothes and driving the right car. When the van isn’t marked, the spell is broken, and we see the police for what they are, a segment of society arbitrarily allowed to kidnap and kill with impunity.

You are right to be unsettled by what happened yesterday, but please see it for what it is, not an aberration or even a significant escalation, but an exposition into the expected behavior of an inherently violent and oppressive institution that we have tolerated for entirely too long.

– Some Pittsburgh Anarchists

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Anonymous submission received on 07.28.20

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Annotated Response to “Equity Action In Pittsburgh” [an official press release from Pittsburgh Mayor Bill Peduto’s government].

Under Mayor William Peduto the City of Pittsburgh has taken a number of actions to drive real change and reform. He established an Office of Equity — only the fifth such office in the country, run by Chief Equity Officer Majestic Lane — and implemented many other efforts that included:

First of all, this was a renaming of the Bureau of Neighborhood Empowerment. Secondly, Ricky Burgess had this idea in 2012. Third, the office’s annual “equity indicators” report (ironically the 2019 report is late) doesn’t suggest immediately implementable policy changes, it’s only a measure of our inequity.

* Joining the Government Alliance on Race and Equity (GARE), leading to citywide training in racial equity and establishing racial equity toolkits for every City department to use when budgeting

There’s no evidence showing such training programs work. If they are to succeed, they must be accompanied by comprehensive change throughout the organization, and this is something we haven’t seen in the City’s hiring. Additionally, this contract was for a whole $26,235.

* Reforming the City’s Disadvantaged Business Enterprise program, leading to a 37% increase in contracts to minority and women-owned businesses

Avoiding the real numbers here is certainly an interesting choice. Only a portion of City contracting is subject to review from the EORC, but even that has declined in recent years, after Peduto received significant criticism. In 2019, the amount reviewed was $37.5 million, whereas in 2010 it was $272 million, and $205 million in 2017. What’s changed? Are more sole-source (exempt) contracts being procured? The budget isn’t transparent if it can’t answer these basic questions.

MWBE only refers to ownership, it’s not a panacea for a lack of equity in hiring, not to mention that a greater share of last year’s percentage are WBE, who are most often White, which is not what we mean when we say we’re demanding equity and justice for historical wrongs.

* Established the Housing Opportunity Fund within the URA, using $10 million in city funds annually to establish the Rental Gap, Homeowner Assistance, Down Payment and Closing Cost Assistance, Housing Stabilization, and For-Sale Development programs; overseeing rental and mortgage assistance programs for those impacted by COVID-19; and the citywide Roof-a-Thon which will provide a total of 24 homes in Pittsburgh between $30,000-$35,000 worth of home repairs and a new roof

In 2016, when the enabling legislation for the HOF was passed, Peduto let Council deal with bickering of how to fund it. This can be seen as completely normal in a Mayor-Council government, but what it’s definitely not is a real, “driven,” change led by Peduto. The best he did was offer his typical empty promise of directing what would otherwise be PILOTs to his proposed privately-run ONEPGH.

More recently, his Chief of Staff pushed for an increase to the AMI eligible for down payment costs (from 80% to 115%), because they’re concerned not enough young white homeowners with college debt can take advantage of it. (Original bill here, and a look at the URA website will come up short for any references to the former PHOP, which is what the exception was made for.)

When you see a housing crisis and are more concerned about helping people with above average incomes participate in the private mortgage market (aka, the status quo) than you are about building publicly-owned social housing, you’re not “driving change.”

* Established the Office of Gender Equity, released the Gender Equity Commission’s groundbreaking “Pittsburgh’s Inequality Across Gender and Race” report in 2019, and became the 6th U.S. city to approve a CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women) ordinance

“Groundbreaking,” is an interesting word choice to describe what Black women have been telling the City for decades. No action has been taken on the report, as evidenced by the lack of even a cursory reference to anything remotely related on this list; this is no win for equity.

* Established the online Housing Assistance Resource Portal (HARP) to connect residents to organizations and resources that will help them buy a home.

This is brand new, but even if it weren’t, it’d likely show no equity improvements. Surely we’re all aware now that the problem isn’t the lack of financial ownership in housing (aka: debt), it’s the lack of agency, control, and safety. An elected Housing Authority board, a free eviction defense program, and a code enforcement system not driven by complaints that can easily be traced back to tenants, would all go much further in terms of people feeling invested and secure in their homes.

* Proposed and signed the City’s first Inclusionary Zoning Overlay District ordinance, which requires that all new developments in rapidly growing Lawrenceville include at least 10% affordable units

Peduto has spoken out against this as part of a City-wide housing solution, and only supported this specific change because the “community” demanded it, which is the exact system of Pittsburgh parochial NIMBYism (ensconced as policy under Pete Flaherty’s Planning department, intended to produce a veneer of objectivity relative to the contemporaneous Democratic Ward Chair problems while neither he, nor any administration since, actually sought meaningful change) that has allowed our historical divides to dig in and hold on, for generations.

* Established free Financial Empowerment Centers to assist low-income residents with their personal finances, which has helped 557 people save a combined $319,777 and reduce their debts by $223,417 total

Lower income people don’t have a greater problem with financial literacy than middle income people, what they have is a lack of livable wages that allows them to make the same mistakes that middle income people do. Refundable tax credits at the City-level would do more to alleviate poverty. Paying part-time City staff $15/hr would also be a good step.

* Implemented expansion of “ban the box” on criminal convictions when applying for City jobs.

I can’t find anything to support this claim.

* Implemented a ban on salary history on job applications

This is nearly meaningless as a government employer, where most jobs are unionized or otherwise subject to pay scales, which are available for the public to see. Claims of hiring discrimination at the City have never been an issue of previous salary for exactly these reasons.

* Created the Rec2Tech program, which transforms our recreation centers into after-school learning hubs

Okay. The Northside has a total of 1 rec center. Not only are there not nearly as many tech jobs as Peduto believes in, but perhaps this isn’t a path to equity when we’re not even providing children with basic rec centers, tech programs or not.

* Joined the My Brother’s Keeper initiative, which coordinates with partners throughout the city and region to build opportunities and a brighter future for young Black men

This concept has been criticized by many people as being based in respectability politics, but all I want to say is: the impact of any project for the benefit of young Black men would be multitudes greater if you hired them to work for the city, instead of the (mostly) young white men who are hired (Police, Fire, EMS) or contracted (DOMI, DPW, Planning, Law).

Just last year, the administration pushed two bills, which Council passed (here and here), that simplify the contracting process with numerous entities, reducing transparency around contracting, and all but assuring that the City won’t hire diverse candidates, be able to hold onto institutional knowledge, or leave room for apprenticeships or training that leads to career advancement; many City staffers could be better at their jobs if they weren’t stuck managing contractors.

The City “encourages” contractors to hire 25% minority and 10% women, but to what extent the contractors actually hit those goals doesn’t appear to be publicly available, and contractor status as a MWBE doesn’t tell us anything about whether they engage in discriminatory hiring practices, nor what they do to bridge equity gaps in their respective fields. Again, the City could be the real changemaker here, offering apprenticeships to abate the systemic racism of Pittsburgh trade unions, reserve City internships for City residents, and find other ways to break down equity barriers caused by racism.

* Created the Summer Learn & Earn program, which connects nearly 2,000 underserved residents in the region between the ages of 14 and 21 with six-week summer jobs

The city has had numerous summer jobs programs in the past, this is just a straight-up weird claim. The program has also never been evaluated for having an effect on equity disparities.

* Supported the URA’s Catapult program, the business incubation program for minority and women entrepreneurs who want to start a business, or existing businesses looking to grow

This was a URA-funded program; so “support” means you thought it was a good idea? More importantly, there’s no evidence that entrepreneurship has any effect on wealth or economic mobility, nor has it ever proven to increase equity.

* Joined 12 select cities nationwide in the Mayors for Guaranteed Income pilot, to help those with low and moderate incomes

Again, another brand new thing. Without any details whatsoever, it’s hard to take this any more seriously than the failed ONEPGH privatization project. But we agree, now would be a great time to implement a local EITC and a rent rebate for the majority of residents who are subsidizing the minority who own their own homes and have homestead exemptions.

* Distributed thousands of free books to children through the Dolly Parton Imagination Library

Dolly is doing this, not the City. Why even list this? Stop it.

* Established the Welcoming Pittsburgh office protecting and supporting the city’s immigrant community

This was a national program, not an internal, “driven,” change. Ultimately, it’s a report that produced no equity driven changes, though there sure has been a lot of talking about things. Let’s never forget how Peduto conflated refugees with FBI entrapment of a vulnerable young adult.

* Improved infrastructure such as sidewalks and countdown pedestrian signals in minority communities like Homewood that were long underinvested

Homewood is being gentrified, this is nothing new. Take responsibility for sidewalks city-wide, and you’d have an equity win. The current process benefits only private contractors while being incredibly confusing for property owners to deal with, while also consuming valuable staff time from DPW and the Law Department. It would literally be cheaper to implement a 5- or 10-year program for making sidewalks accessible to all, as ADA requires, instead of waiting for every neighborhood to be gentrified.

* Won federal support of the community-driven Larimer Choice project, which includes hundreds of mixed-income housing units and a new neighborhood park space

This was awarded in 2014, just after he took office, it’s clearly not a Peduto administration-derived equity win.

* Approved important gun safety ordinances following the Tree of Life massacre

This is actually a wasteful lawsuit that, if won, would only serve to further criminalize the same communities harmed by our existing gun policies. It’s important to note that these bills were demanded by White people, and there’s little similar concern for the gun violence that affects Black residents, or what ordinances they want to see.

* Established the civil affairs unit within the Pittsburgh Bureau of Police, increased staffing in the PBP’s Neighborhood Resource Officer and Community Resource Officer beats, and invested further in the Group Violence Intervention (GVI) program

An increase of staffing does nothing to remove officers from patrols, to prevent them from harming people. Additionally, the PBP has a relatively low ratio of non-sworn staff to sworn officers, which increases the size of the FOP, whose members require higher pension payments than other City staff.

* Required implicit bias training for police and all City departments

There’s no proof such training works; systemic change is necessary.

* Supported use-of-force legislation introduced by state Representatives Summer Lee and Ed Gainey, and called on state leaders to take action to amend Act 111 and allow municipalities to release police body camera footage

This is not a win for equity, the bill went nowhere.

* Agreed with American Civil Liberties Union to change police interview process for applicants in effort to boost minority hiring.

Several things are happening in this sentence. The case was ultimately about subjectivity and nepotism in hiring, which, in a white supremacist system, harms Black applicants more than White applicants; it was in no way about “boosting” minority hiring, this is an obfuscation, and it’s easy to “agree” in hindsight with something you roundly lost on. Peduto has done worse at “diverse” hiring than any of his recent predecessors, even as he expanded the force to levels not seen since the 1980s and 1990s, when the wars on drugs, crime, and poverty hit their stride and ruined entire communities.

We’re also supposed to walk away from this one with the inference that minority police behave in a less harmful or racist way, or may be less likely to kill, but none of these implications are proven. “We can’t get trapped into thinking that individual police officers can change systems.”

Further, the year that lawsuit was settled (2015), the ACLU filed another for First Amendment violations, for residents cited for attempting to record officers. The main officer in that case was promoted to sergeant, in 2019, by Peduto.

* Signed President Obama’s My Brother’s Keeper Alliance Pledge, which charges the City with reforming our Police Bureau with community input

A signature doesn’t improve equity. Listing MBK twice makes this list seem extra desperate.

* Oversaw five years of declining crime rates, including the lowest number of homicides in 20 years

This is a statement of fact, not an equity accomplishment. There’s no proof that any action taken by the City has contributed to this, it’s a national phenomenon.

* Launched the Office of Community Health and Safety, which will utilize social and public health services rather than policing to respond to certain situations in the community.

This is new, it’s not an equity improvement until proven so by its work. Shifting funding from the PBP budget would be a good first step. It’s not hard.

* Collaborated with Allegheny County and CONNECT to implement a pre-arrest diversion program for people who commit low-level crimes stemming from behavioral health issues, including those whose crimes are related mental health and poverty as well problematic substance use

This is new, too. Further, it is funded by a grant from the County, and therefore requires little in terms of substantive change and commitment from the City.

In conclusion, I yield my time, fuck you.

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You can send your report-backs, zine submissions, critiques, graffiti/action photos, demo tapes, hate mail, & memes to…

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Send reports in email form, as an attachment, or better yet, on an easy to use (and free) Riseup Pad or CryptPad.

Anonymous submission received on 07.14.20

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Fred Hampton said that we fight racism with solidarity, and it is in the spirit of solidarity that I write this message. I write this as a person who has been doing organizing and activism for racial and economic justice for nearly 20 years. I write this as someone who will continue to do that work, to fight for marginalized communities against the forces trying to keep us marginalized. I write this as someone who wants to see our movements continue to grow, for struggle to spread, for the racist systems controlling us to fall. I hope that, in this spirit of solidarity and struggle, this message will be taken constructively, as that is how it is meant.

At the various protests happening in Pittsburgh over the past months, I have seen powerful testaments to the anger felt by many in the Black community. This anger is clearly justified, and I am glad there is finally a consistent, public outlet for it. Audre Lorde said, in her brilliant piece The Uses of Anger, “anger between peers births change.” “Between peers,” I will repeat.

In my past years of organizing, one thing that has become clear to me is that, if we want a movement to grow, it can only do so by empowering its participants. It does this by making space for autonomy and solidarity, solidarity between peers, as it is only between peers that solidarity can truly be built.

But too often I have seen a relationship between organizers and participants of these actions that is not one of peerhood. I have seen, rather than the spreading of empowerment, the spreading of shame, of guilt, of people talking down to each other, not as peers at all. I have seen fellow people in the streets talked to as though they are incompetent and ill-meaning, from being corrected on the proper way to raise their fist in solidarity, to a white person being told they are racist simply for wanting to speak, to show their solidarity.

White supremacy is a system which ultimately benefits the powerful by maintaining divides among the powerless, divides based on false narratives and superstitions. Some of us are manipulated with the carrot of privilege, and others with the stick of the police baton. If we do not overcome these manipulations, we will only ever be fighting for table scraps. It is for this reason that when the powerless organize we need to walk the tightrope of neither pretending that differential treatment doesn’t exist (through some “colorblind” approach), or by reproducing those same divisions within our own movements. If we want this to be about more than changing the way corporate PR campaigns are run for a few years, we need to empower people by overcoming the very divisions that keep all of us too weak to be a threat. Being made to feel guilty simply for existing is not a recipe for solidarity. Audre Lorde said in that same essay “All too often, guilt is just another name for impotence, for defensiveness, destructive of communication.” Only empowered people are willing and able to stand up to the police, to take the actions necessary to combat racism, to go on the offensive and to communicate with each other constructively.

People who are ashamed of themselves, who feel guilt and condescension, will not be willing to continue this struggle for the long term, and it is a long struggle we face, and have been facing. Despite my years of doing this, I am well aware that there are people who have been fighting this fight for far longer. I have continued in this fight for this long only because of the empowerment it makes me feel, and the empowerment that has been spread to the communities I care about.

But guilt-tripping participants is anything but empowering. “I have no creative use for guilt, yours or my own,” Lorde continued, “Guilt is only another way of avoiding informed action, of buying time out of the pressing need to make clear choices, out of the approaching storm that can feed the earth as well as bend the trees.”

Clear choices do indeed need to be made, and I choose to feed the earth and bend the trees together with all of you. My hope is that I will find many other empowered people in the streets with us. Not people cowed by shame and guilt, but ready and willing to lift each other up, as peers, to continue this struggle for as long as necessary.

In solidarity,
a friend

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You can send your report-backs, zine submissions, critiques, graffiti/action photos, demo tapes, hate mail, & memes to…

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Submitted to Filler by –ave
Cover image from Chris Burden’s Through the Night Softly

Against All Odds (imposed) – print-ready format

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“No act of rebellion is useless; no act of rebellion is harmful.”
Luigi Galleani

The poets themselves misplace poetry. We insist on assimilation into a literary society that flatly discards and disregards our work. Why? Because we believe that the best way to remain relevant is to persist through a tokenizing and domesticated milieu of writers. Lord knows, I do not wish for relevancy…so much anxiety in the poetic world is the anxiety of being the unknown. The outcast, the disaffected and the naysayer. Why is this so terrible? I am interested in poetic autonomy…I am interested in being lazy and ending this gross professional poetic development. Wing tips be damned! Burn your cardigans! FUCK Ezra Pound.

The removal of our work from the institutions of poetry is the way to complete poetic autonomy. We must not build our own institutions but decimate institution altogether. Institution locks us in that attic and keeps the beautiful garden outside all to itself. Enough…

Because of our misplaced desire to find ourselves within societies society, poets become absurdly competitive. Invoking abstract concepts of authenticity to either validate or invalidate writing. There is no valid or authentic poetics because the individual levies themselves against the poem every time a new poem is written or read. Everything is relational…stemming from the individual as the original point of relation. It is through individuality that poetry must be practiced, not through institution. But we also must recognize that our understanding of ourselves is produced within the context of a complicated network of power relations. To properly read we should reject self and poetry as simply “too relational.” My queerness does not make queer poems or queer readers. My identity does not create poems. I create poems. Quite plainly put, the attempt to compartmentalize the author into a palatable and packable product which the institutions of poetry can sell, does a disservice to the understanding of self and of poetry. Self in relation to poetry. Self about poetry.

For decades—at least since the early 20^th century—poets have been questioning what material tools they use to produce poems. What medium do we work with? We work with no mediums. Poets should stand against the physical to flourish in the emotional and spiritual. What is tactile is facile. To write poetry is to actively practice and participate in futility, why not recognize that poetry ought to die? Recognize that poetry is dead. Good. Goodbye. We had fun while you were still around…why are we so interested in assimilating into the greater literary world? Our key distinction—from other writers—is our inability to produce, as it should be. Millions of pages of writing will always fail to sell as a novel does, because novels and poems are not the same. The poem is not a novel. It is not a vignette or a short story. It is a poem. But who cares what it is? We must be resolute in our productions, while also rejecting them as commodity. The only thing that holds poetry together is a shoddily amassed group of relational writings—poetry is this, poetry isn’t that. No. poetry is not. Poetry should not. We are incomplete and hard to commodify. Good. Our work as poets already stands at odds with capital. We must force the issue further. Abolish writerlyness to begin writing.

All too often I see poets falling into terrible lines of questioning about their work and how it fits into civilization. Questioning what poetry can do in such political and social turmoil. It can do nothing. Poetry should not be leveraged to win recognition in this neo-liberal hellscape. 

Poetry should stand at odds with the fail(ed)ing project of civilization. In today’s world it is fashionable to question how writing works within our society. How do poets write in political turmoil? What can poets do to change society? Plainly, we can reject. We must not write but reject. Our issue is within our desire to fit in. Our issue is within our willingness to settle for less when there is no more to be had. True sadness is discussing professional development with a group of poets. We are at the fringe of the literary world and should work within our reality, not within our wishes. I don’t want a world to operate within. As our queerness should not be questioned so too should our poetry be. Every year there is a new aesthetic obsession…every year, a new commodity to be celebrated as unique. I am sick of the cycles. They’re exhausting. The sheen of a new book of poems, exhausting. The lectures about rejecting punctuation, exhausting. It is overwhelming; honesty is our best policy, I honestly don’t want to wear eyeliner to be seen as queer. I want my relation to queerness to change every second and I want poetry to change with it.

Makeup is expensive, anyway. 

Shockingly, recognizing the change of the everyday is less isolating than existing in academia.

Doubtful and Dauntless

In the skin of society we will find no warm welcome. Poets bend over backward to perform for the literary world. Why? Capitalism compels us to lodge ourselves in a niche which works against our interests. The interest of authenticity. I’ll start by rejecting: there is no authentic writing—I don’t care to even question what that is. We should talk about why everyone wants that authenticity, though. The larger literary world will always try to authenticate a poet based on their poems rather than their presentations. Authenticity is in the individual not the poem. The poems which appear in most poetry journals make up a modicum of the works produced. Remove the edifice of amelioration presented by academy and their journals. In this edifice we find our enemy: validation. This is where doubt flourishes and poems die. The literary world does not celebrate us; poets celebrate poetry as an act of survival. All too often do I find myself needing a space in which to express poems, not because I care about my poetry, but because I need the space to flourish; simply as human. Simply as queer. The literary seeks to domesticate us and package queerness, to make a spectacle of identity within a poem. Around a poem. Identity does not exist within poems but within people, and so we cannot be contained within our art but within ourselves. Bound, not by the capacity of the page, but by the representation of voice.

Doubt is built into poets by the bourgeoisie notion of correct writing; there are no correct ways to write, to society, but to the individual there are a myriad of tactics for approaching the page. THERE AREN’T CORRECT WAYS TO WRITE BUT THERE ARE CORRECT WAYS. FUCK. Doubt is built into us by continual assertions from perceived authority figures. Our professors and community leaders have no bearing on our writing, only if you choose to allow their words in relation to your aesthetic…how many people influence your writing? What are their names? Why are they there…the assertion of the individual poet is the most powerful tool for navigating the world of poetry as it is a construction of voice, voice is where we will distinguish ourselves from society. Voice should be unconstrained and unafraid. Voice is the implication of the individual on the page. Silence too.

Unrepentant and directionless, the poems of insurrection will be ridiculous and beyond prediction. Not because of their form but because of the way in which they were produced: earnestly and without consideration for the abolition of social structures hanging about somewhere on the page…the reader is within this social structure. The reader should not dictate what is written before it is written. The reader has constructed the idea of the Poet. The Poet allows society to compartmentalize writing and take our collective work and place the onus on the celebrity…the popular become poetics…an awful representation…the uncelebrated celebrity of the writing world. The Poet will always be on the margin because poetry, at its core, represents a collective of radical ideas and writings. These radical works are largely ignored. Because we cannot SEE them. The Poet is celebrated because they often represent a more tame version of an intense identity expressed in the underbelly of poetry. A palatable packaged version of the radical union of individuals. Instead we should express and overwhelm. Thousands of us exist and so thousands should stand against production. All too often poets believe their greatest potential lies with producing poetry, no. Our greatest ability, time and time again, is our ability to organize community through and around art.

Poetic forms are rarely insurrectionary. People are insurrectionary.

Against the Current State

“…poetry is dead. Let it be dead; let us write as if we are already dead. If poetry is dying, then let’s write a poetry pronounced D.O.A.”
—From Deadism by Kevin Young

Poets do not question why they write poetry. What I mean to say is that our genre selection is the only key distinction between poets and, well, other writers. All too often I see, or hear, poets distancing themselves from the hard work of poetry by not discussing their decision to produce poems. How to we reintroduce ourselves to the world of writing?

Quite simply, by recognizing that that world is silly and that we really don’t want to have much to do with it. Genre selection is important because it is where we build our garden. Poets lodge themselves, shoddily, in a confusing amalgamation of doubt and anti-poetics. No convictions! Why? A centrist poetics is one that is smooth and makes no determinations about what it is. What do your poems do? Why do they do that?

A friend has an obsession with “dead hot queer boys” I think poets should too. Bring back the bolo tie and primitivism. Maybe our own absurd world will make us better writers and abolitionists. I like our world, except when I don’t. I don’t like our world when it is based on assumptions. Whose assumptions? Mine, usually.

Another friend says making poems is like making kids—we obsess over our own deaths so we produce little bits and pieces to leave behind. I like my bits and pieces. My bits and pieces are not children. They are poems. Being afraid of dying is something I haven’t noticed in the queer community; we are all afraid of living. Living simply, as queer. I am afraid to do so…

Has anyone ever questioned why there are so many queer poets? Maybe because poetry is fantastically anti-social. As is being queer. Being queer is an affront to society, so too is being pithy and loving yourself. Poets love themselves. Poets should love themselves, grotesquely.

IT IS INTERESTING THAT THE SOCIAL GROUPS THAT RECEED FROM SOCIAL OPERATIONS ARE ALWAYS PERCEIVED AS A THREAT—MAYBE IT’S BECAUSE WE ARE A THREAT—MAYBE THAT’S A GOOD THING. Be threatening. Have threatening poems.

Let’s make a decision to be realistic; the only way for us to be marketable again is to sell poems in gas stations and go on Fox and Friends to talk about our books. I hate the smell of gas stations and I hate Fox News. Let’s build anti-books. Let’s make them angry and strictly against civilization. LET’S RECOGNIZE THAT CAPITALISM DOES NOT HELP QUEER PEOPLE IT ACTIVELY PERSECUTES THEM™. Poets are so obsessed with building portfolios that we forgot to be the disaffected along the way. I don’t feel welcome in the world of poetics because of the same mechanizations that exclude and bind queer folk from existing both in queer spaces and in society at large. These mechanisms operate in the poetry world as well…it is the MFA program that “welcomes” queer folk but expressions of queerness are frowned upon (WHERE ARE ALL THE POEMS ABOUT LATEX??). It is the university that has an LGBTQ center but doesn’t fill it with, well, much of anything. It is gatekeeping and gatekeeping the gatekeeping. Want not for isolationism but for inexpensive books, or the abolition of currency altogether. Why not.

If poets are to succeed at poetry, at producing poems, we must recognize our unsuccessful succession. We have failed to carry the principles of radical literature into radical poetics, we have caved to a bland, liberal poetics; which allows for a vertical success of literature instead of the horizontal success of poets. BUT SUCCESS IS ALSO PART OF THE PROBLEM. Or maybe, what is around successful. Maybe when we are within a safe and inoffensive poetics we are playing a little too close to the center…

Abolishing the dual body of the individual to propel the poem is my chief concern. I do not want a public presentation, a professional presentation, a personal presentation, a queer presentation, a poetic presentation…our modern obsession with the author as the object of literature ignores the reality of how poems are produced; they are translations of the world. The world is beautiful only because we translate it so. SOMETIMES IT ISN’T ALL THAT BEAUTIFUL. This projection of the mundane is lost is the superficial nuances of civilization. Our search of a queer poetics must chiefly recognize that the project of poetry, just as the project of civilization, is failing. The project of poetics is failing because its emphasis is on (P)poetry, not poems.

Language is a system of categorization. It wraps around everything and allows us to apply ourselves to the world—poets often believe they are interacting with language. No. Language interacts with us. A friend once wrote “power does not care how you interact with it…” yes. Yes. It is a never ending system of relation…great poems exploit the failure of this relational existence. The break down and make concise…poets are guilty of trying to compartmentalize individuality and consume culture as a kind of intellectual delicacy. In poetry we find categorization into its most distilled form. This is what makes poetry amazing. It is the concision of beauty. It is the concision of the individual. Do not mistake the poem for the individual. The poem is a poem. Not much else. Poetry being labeled as inaccessible to the uninitiated is a product of the colonization of the art form. The death of poetry began with the decline of the art form as an oral tradition…it became a commodity, a product…not a state of being. Very few people do poetry nowadays. Poetry is the common tongue, it is the peoples voice. This is why academia rejects “spoken word” so vehemently but loves their gross caricatures of queer people. They are easy to consume and barbless. The poets I know are vicious and loud spoken. The poets I know are animalistic and untamed in their pursuit of the art. They are queer. They are angry. Against the current state of things means to reject both our ideas of being untamed and our ideas of tameness. Create a poetics that is pure insurrection and strictly against novelty. MANY TIMES POETS WILL WRITE THAT IDENTITY IS CRUCIAL TO BEING KNOWN TO THE WORLD. I do not wish to be known to the world or for the world to know me. Queer without qualifications. Queer without adjectives. Gender and genre nihilism now…I do not wish to be a queer poet but simply to write poetry that is around queerness.

Genre and Gender

Genre is our enemy. It is our enemy because it exists to further compartmentalize writing; genre exists to compress writing into something much more tame. Genre rips writing from ideology and allows it to become a relational point among and against other pieces of writing.

“This is a poem because it acts like other poems.”

“This is a queer person because they act like other queer people.”

Within genre we find another system of categorization and simplification, it is a way of recognizing and taming. Poets have an unfortunate habit of not recognizing and deescalating our initiation into academics. I’d argue for a more fluid understanding of poetry not as a relational pursuit of writing but as an interpersonal conversation about place and witness. About convention and contention. All poems are about poetry. All queer people are about queerness.

Recently, I’ve been worried about relation. I’ve been thinking so much about how I relate to this world. How does my writing relate to other writing? Talk to a poet for long enough and you’ll realize that we don’t say much of anything at all; we are experts at relating this to that. X = Y. Stein is to Pound as a fresh orange is to a literal piece of shit.

I’m uncomfortable in this literary tradition of relational aesthetics. I’m uncomfortable on this trash fire of bourgeoisie writing and H&M sweaters. I’m trying to distance myself from what is local but also from the poets who distance themselves from distancing. The distanceers. They make me anxious. They like to question and recognize…I don’t want to do much of anything. If we are being honest…poetry is my greatest excuse to violate my sacred secrets…to out-queer myself with each piece. I don’t want Kenyon breathing down my neck when I’m writing a manifesto about latex and air conditioners. Why is Kenyon there? Who invited Kenyon?

I believe that to be boundless…we should be mindful of what we think is binding…we must be violent with ourselves to dig out whatever latent piece of civilization is in there…kicking at the end of our lines. Blunting them. Pride™ / Poetics™.

Until suddenly, serenity, in our own—beautiful—selfishness.

Originally published by Torchlight: Anarchist News from Pittsburgh

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The Tilted Scales Collective is coming to The Big Idea Bookstore on July 19 at 7pm for community discussions based on their new book, A Tilted Guide to Being a Defendant.

With increasing confrontations with the far right, cops, FBI, ICE, capitalism, the Trump administration, and the systems of oppression that seek to keep us down, the importance of resistance is crystal clear.

And so too are the costs and risks of our resistance. Since the inauguration, there have been hundreds of new felony charges filed against us across Turtle Island. Our book aspires to be a resource for radical left struggle to help us all figure out ways to deal with serious criminal charges so we can strengthen our organizing and fight for liberation more strategically.

The defendant’s guide presents a goal-setting framework to help us be clear on our needs, priorities, and vulnerabilities as we figure out how to combat state repression and come out stronger as a result. This framework is based on two guiding principles: criminal charges are part of revolutionary struggle and we need to treat them as such; and we can handle our charges in ways that don’t help the State lock people in cages.

In these discussions, we’ll talk about how setting legal, personal, and political goals for criminal charges can help us deal with them in ways that benefit our movements; offer case studies about defendants from years and decades past who handled their cases in beneficial ways; and foster security-conscious conversations about being in solidarity with targets of state repression locally and nationally.

Tilted Scales Collective is a small collective of legal support organizers who have spent years supporting and fighting for defendants and prisoners across Turtle Island. The defendant‘s guide draws on the wisdom of dozens of people who have weathered the challenges of trials and incarceration, including many former and current political prisoners/prisoners of war.

In the spirit of solidarity and mutual aid, a portion of proceeds from our book will benefit Prison Activist Resource Center (PARC), a prison abolitionist collective that produces a free resource directory that is mailed to prisoners nationwide upon request.

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DONATE HERE to support and welcome back our friends Maxx and Shea.
Click HERE or HERE to read the report-backs from the action and subsequent arrests.

DONATE HERE to support the ACJ 10.

DONATE HERE to support Pittsburghers arrested on J20 at the intersection of L&12th streets. 

DONATE HERE to support Victoria and Phil, two comrades arrested during an action at the University of Pittsburgh.