Disappearing can be important for people on the run from political persecution or immigration officials, from abusive relationships and stalkers, and for people involved in highly illegal political activity. This short excerpt comes from the book “Soldier of Fortune: Guide to How to Disappear and Never Be Found.“
There are two ways of looking at your disappearance plan:
You make preparations to become someone else.
You remain your original self and simply disappear one day without reason.
There are good and bad points to both. Should you wish to change your name and obtain a new passport, remove as much information about yourself from the Internet as possible and make sure you leave no clues that you planned to disappear. If, on the other hand, you do nothing—continuing your life as normal until the appointed day and then simply disappearing—you will leave no clues as to why you went missing. In either case, you will need to do some research and plan how to best succeed with your disappearance.
Planning your disappearance so that you will never be found is a difficult task; time is needed to get everything in place: finance, cover story, and your new beginning. How and when you decide to go will very much depend on your own personal circumstances. For example, if you are in a really bad relationship where physical abuse is a constant occurrence, you may need to disappear sooner rather than later. If your life is simply going nowhere and you seek a fresh start, then you have time to plan in more detail.
Change Your Identity
Just before disappearing, it would be beneficial to create a new identity and name. If you do this discreetly, it will make it even harder for anyone to track you down, especially if you decide to stay in your country of origin. Remember, there are many factors that will aid anyone trying to locate you: your Social Security number, credit cards, driver’s license, passport, marriage certificate, and the fact that you had an official name change can all be found, as they will be on record. With or without a name change, if you decide to remain in your country of origin, the chances of you being discovered are much greater.
There are many ways to change your identity or create a new one: You can change your name, your appearance, remain in isolation, or go somewhere where no one will ever know your true identity. To start a new or second identity, it is possible in most countries to change your name, but all the rules that govern this vary dramatically. For example, in the United Kingdom, it is possible to change your name or any part of your name by deed poll, while in America, the laws on changing your name vary from state to state and require some kind of public announcement.
Financial Resources
Financial resources will also play a big part in your plan to disappear. Not having enough money will limit your options, while having too much will bring you to prominence. If you are poor or of moderate means and have few assets that can be converted into cash, then your options to disappear are fairly limited. On the upside, very few people will miss your departure when compared to someone famous or extremely wealthy. Likewise, if you’re poor and have not committed any major crime, there will be fewer resources spent on trying to locate you or to find the reason for your disappearance.
This does not mean that you can’t disappear; you could always go on the road and become a hobo or drifter, as this costs nothing. If the police want you for a crime in your country or you are indicted on a crime and out on bail, the chances are that you will have surrendered your passport and your bank accounts will be frozen to stop you from disappearing. It makes no matter if you’re innocent or guilty, the courts order these things done even in some divorce cases. So unless you saw this coming and made alternative arrangements, i.e. moved the bulk of you money into accessible cash and usefully applied for a second passport, your only option is to disappear as a hobo.
How to Disappear and Never Be Found By Barry Davies
This piece, republished from Counterpunch, explores the current uprising against police brutality in the context of the struggle against capitalism and asks: what are the most effective forms of struggle going forward? Join the conversation in the comments section.
“We fought a military war; our opponents fought a political one. We sought physical attrition; our opponents aimed for our psychological exhaustion. In the process we lost sight of one of the cardinal maxims of guerrilla war: the guerrilla wins if he does not lose. The conventional army loses if it does not win.”
— Henry Kissinger
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
— Sun Tzu
Over the past several weeks, hundreds of thousands of Americans have taken to the streets in the wake of George Floyd’s hideous murder. Police stations have been commandeered and torched, corporate stores destroyed and set ablaze. In Seattle, people have constructed the ‘Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone,’ otherwise known as CHAZ, which encompasses several city blocks, a police station, apartments, and storefronts. Protests and actions ranging from nonviolent marches to small-scale rebellions and uprisings have taken place in over 2,000 cities across the United States.
Before the uprisings, the U.S. was crumbling under the weight of its bloated empire, vicious economic system, and ossified political institutions. Not only has Trump’s response to the pandemic been criminal, to say the least, the political system at every level has failed to respond to the crisis.
The U.S. has been exposed as a failed state.
GOP Senators wheel and deal stocks, including ‘Human Capital Stock,’ as White House adviser Kevin Hassett put it. Meanwhile, Democrats respond to the current crisis with half-measures and symbolic (and absurd) acts of solidarity. So far, the pandemic, which has killed over 115,000 Americans, accounting for 25% of the world’s total deaths due to COVID-19 (the U.S. has only 5% of the world’s total population), continues to spread like wildfire, yet most of the country has gone back to business as usual. Prior to the pandemic, over 140 million Americans lived in poverty.
Now, with 40 million additional Americans out of work, with no end to the pandemic or job prospects in sight, those numbers have and will continue to increase dramatically. Millions of Americans are incapable of paying their bills; tens of millions endure mounting student loan, credit card, and personal debt; and hundreds of thousands face evictions in the coming weeks. At the same time, Wall Street loots trillions from the Treasury and Federal Reserve.
From the very beginning of the pandemic and economic crisis, the state has refused to enact even small-scale economic measures or social programs that would benefit poor and working class people. As a result, tens of millions remain jobless, with no hope in sight. On July 31st, the CARES Act provision that provides an extra $600 a week to Americans receiving unemployment benefits will expire.
People are tired, angry, and rightly so.
Unsurprisingly, many corporate media commentators suggest that systemic racism and policing are the driving factors of the current wave of protests and rebellions. Without doubt, those are the issues that sparked our current ‘Movement Moment,’ but they’re not the only factors playing a role in the uprisings. Class is front and center, though ignored in mainstream political discourse, which seeks to frame everything through a racialized lens. If the corporate media spent some time in the streets, they’d understand that the uprisings have as much to do with class as they do about race.
Corporate Media Lags Behind
During the initial days of the Minneapolis Uprisings, the independent media outfit Unicorn Riot (UR), which describes itself as a “decentralized, educational non-profit media organization of artists and journalists,” was my preferred outlet for on the ground reporting. Journalists at UR don’t necessarily provide commentary as much as they document events in real-time. Outlets such as UR report directly from the streets, with the people, long before or after the corporate media outlets arrive or leave. Young people appreciate and trust UR (UR started during the Standing Rock protests), so they’re given access to moments and events that cable news journalists cover from miles away, if at all. While protesters were smashing up CNN’s headquarters in Atlanta, UR was documenting those actions on the ground, talking to people in the street (CNN commentators were hiding in their studio bunkers high above the streets, shocked that non-Trump supporters also hate their guts).
It’s hard to downplay what Unicorn Riot does: namely, report from streets and document what’s happening from Ground Zero without commercial breaks or talking heads to provide out of touch commentary. Corporate media outlets lack legitimacy. When they do show up to a protest or uprisings, they misinterpret or outright lie about what’s happening. UR, on the other hand, shows up, starts their livestream, and allows anyone and everyone to grab the mic and speak to those watching at home.
Their work is phenomenal and necessary.
At one point during their live broadcast, hundreds of thousands of people were watching the uprisings in real time, along with hundreds of thousands watching live on mediums such as TikTok, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat. In Minneapolis, hundreds of protesters got on camera and spoke at length about the horrors of capitalism, why they’re angry (issues ranging from poverty to housing, gentrification, climate change, corruption, and wars), and why they were in the streets with such fervor (because they see no hope in existing political institutions). I haven’t seen any such interviews on corporate news outlets.
The uprisings do make one thing very clear: Americans under 35 years old are not getting their information or commentary from traditional news sources such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, or even cable channels such as CNN or MSNBC. The Old Guard was caught flat-footed. Professional class liberals, major NGOs, prominent progressive and leftwing thinkers and writers admit they were shocked at the scale of the uprisings. This isn’t surprising. Professional class commentators live in a different world, socially, culturally, and economically, than the younger generation. And that gap only widens with time.
Poor and working class teenagers and Americans in their 20s, regardless of race, ethnicity, or gender, receive most of their news and information, for better or worse, via social media and various other digital platforms/modes (podcasts, videos, memes) — those are the entities shaping young peoples’ consciousness and ideologies. Young Americans are much more sophisticated than many older people assume. The recent wave of protests and uprisings show that to be the case. Likewise, poor and working class Americans are much angrier than the professional class could possibly understand. There’s an entire underbelly of seething anger and resentment just beneath the surface of our society: the 50% of Americans who don’t vote
Their voices are now heard loud and clear. Bernie’s campaign asked, “Where are the young people?” They’re in the streets, Bernie. And they’re more radical than you. And their voices will only grow angrier with time, as they realize the current government is incapable of responding to their needs and that Wall Street would rather see them die than enjoy healthcare or UBI. The younger generation, as always, is way ahead of the eight ball with their demand to ‘defund the police.’
Defund the Police
Right now, activists and organizers throughout the U.S. are debating what it means to ‘defund the police.’ This demand is very strategic, and for many reasons. Not only does it allow for a conversation about the redistribution of material resources, it also responds to the demands of those on the ground. For better or worse, this is the demand that organically arose within the context of our current struggle. In other words, leftists can choose to ignore or ridicule this demand (I’ve seen both), or they can respond to popular demands and find strategic ways to connect those demands to broader class issues and larger institutional change. If leftwing organizers and intellectuals are interested in meeting people where they’re at, but not leaving them there, it would be wise to take the latter approach.
Since others have written at length about the details about what it would mean to ‘defund the police,’ there’s no need to rehash those points, though the details are interesting and important. Leftists who shrug off this demand for not going far enough, or not encompassing enough class politics, are missing the boat in terms of how powerful this demand could potentially prove to be.
Capitalism has three primary weapons: 1) capital itself, which can engage in capital strikes, divestment, capital flight, and broader forms of economic warfare, 2) the police, who break strikes, arrest protesters, and protect private property, and 3) the military, who also protect property and break strikes, but whose primary function is to express power on an international scale, securing and opening new markets, protecting business interests abroad, and so on.
Defunding the police not only saves black, Latinx, and poor white lives, it also takes away one of capitalism’s primary weapons.
Without overfunded and highly militarized police forces, it becomes much more difficult for the state to protect fossil fuel infrastructure, banks, government buildings, corporate headquarters, and a host of other potential targets. Nonviolent protesters would no longer face the wrath of racist and militarized police departments. Communities would no longer live in fear of being pulled over, harassed, arrested, tortured, or killed by the cops.
Defunding the police also provides an opportunity to dismantle one of America’s favorite sacred cows. The fact that the majority of Americans side with the protesters is a profound ideological, political, and cultural shift. The police, much like the military, regularly rank in the top five in terms of the jobs and institutions most respected in U.S. society. Dismantling the police is a significant step toward eventually dismantling the U.S. Empire. Redistributing funds from police departments to social programs could serve as an example and model for how to proceed with defunding the military, the logical next step. Since the police have limited funds (the NYPD’s operating budget for 2020 is $5.6 billion), the only way to actually meet the needs of poor and working class people will be through a radical defunding of the military, coupled with the nationalization of critical industries, and a broader redistribution of wealth from corporations and the rich to social programs and the poor.
Defund the Military
The U.S. Empire operates 800-1,000 military bases stretched across the globe. The U.S. ‘Defense Budget’ for 2020 is $721 billion, but if we tally the cost of maintaining its nuclear stockpile, intelligence/spy agencies, Veterans Affairs budget, homeland security budget, international-affairs budget, and its share of the national debt, the total cost of maintaining the U.S. Empire in 2019, according to William D. Hartung and Mandy Smithberger, was $1.25 trillion. Without question, a tremendous amount of resources could be redistributed by defunding and dismantling the military. According to the National Priorities Project, the $712 billion the U.S. spent in 2018 to maintain its empire could have provided 49 million Americans monthly relief payments of $1,200 for one year, or 20 billion COVID-19 tests for one year, or 209 billion N-95 respirator masks for one year, or 9 million elementary school teacher salaries for one year, or 20 million Head Start slots for four years, or 300 million children receiving low-income healthcare for one year.
Overall, the total cost of Uncle Sam’s post-9/11 ‘War on Terror’ comes to $6.4 trillion, money that could’ve been used to pay off the $4 trillion in outstanding consumer debt Americans suffer. Aside from the potential social and economic benefits, it’s equally important to note the massive amount of death, pain, and suffering that would be prevented by dismantling the U.S. Empire, “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today,” as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. noted over 50 years ago. Since King’s assassination, millions have died as a result of U.S. militarism, with tens of millions forced from their homes and turned into refugees.
Yes, there’s much to gain from dismantling the empire, not the least of which being America’s soul.
Seeing as more and more Americans are beginning to understand that the primary task of police forces within the U.S. is to protect property and repress popular rebellion, it’s a great time to connect the same critique to the U.S. Empire, which performs the same function on the international stage. The U.S. Empire crushes international revolts and anyone who dares to dream of alternatives to global capitalism and so-called ‘American values.’ Doing so, however, would require activists to fundamentally challenge U.S. nationalism, an inherent component of the imperial project, both at home and abroad. Even amongst poor Americans, there remains a sense that Uncle Sam is a force for good in the world, and that the U.S. military ‘protects our freedoms.’ Of course, nothing could be further from the truth.
The concept of American Exceptionalism must be challenged head-on if we hope to transition to defunding the U.S. Empire. It’s not surprising that the U.S. government has deliberately hidden not only the financial cost of war, but the images, pictures, and stories of its post-9/11 wars. After all, most Americans would be quite upset if they saw the death and carnage unleashed in their name, with their tax dollars. Important distinctions exist between the military and police, as my friend and former Army Ranger, Graham Clumpner put it:
“The U.S. military doesn’t have the same relationship with Americans as police departments do. Americans interact with cops all the time, and usually those interactions are bad. Cops also sign up for careers. Military personnel sign up for 2-6 year contracts, with the overwhelming majority leaving after their first enlistment ends. The contradiction is that the military is much more powerful and destructive than domestic police forces, yet it’s much easier to organize dissent within the military than it is to organize dissent within police departments. U.S. history shows this to be true. GIs have mutinied throughout the history of this country, from the Revolutionary War and Civil War to the wars in Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. We should build on this tradition.”
If activists in the U.S. seek any level of partnership and solidarity with individuals inside existing repressive state institutions, they should look to the military before they look to the police.
Additionally, it remains unclear how the military would respond to a call for genuine Martial Law, whatever that may entail. Certainly, many active-duty troops and veterans are not motivated by the idea of patrolling the streets of America. In fact, “a majority of U.S. veterans believe the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were a mistake,” as recent polls show. An even larger majority of U.S. veterans are opposed to a potential war with Iran. Indeed, more and more U.S. troops understand they’re being asked to fight unwinnable, illegal, and immoral wars, and they’re sick and tired of it. That’s a good thing. Troop morale is low after 19 years of war and civil unrest at home. Antiwar activists should build on this momentum, which will require a new antiwar movement, one led by U.S. veterans, the families of U.S. veterans, and the primary victims of Uncle Sam’s wars: Afghans, Iraqis, Syrians, Libyans, and so on.
Defund the Empire
Without the military and police at its disposal, the repressive arms of the state, American capitalism would be amputated, if not crippled. Political movements in the U.S. would greatly benefit, as would revolutionary political movements abroad. The cause of Internationalism would benefit. The planet would benefit, as would human beings in general. In short, there are countless upsides to dismantling the police and military.
Hell, why not extend the same treatment to the FBI, CIA, DEA, NSA, ICE, and a host of other repressive, violent, and inherently undemocratic agencies? Defund them all. After the police, military, and national security state is defunded, and their resources redistributed, why not defund the fossil fuel industry, Israel, Wall Street, the prison-industrial complex, and every other subsidy and corporate handout the state provides to entities?
Violence, Nonviolence, and Resistance to Capital
Discussions concerning violence and nonviolence always pop up during ‘Movement Moments.’ Usually, conversations about violence are overplayed, unhelpful, and totally detached from reality. This time, however, such conversations have entered mainstream political discourse for perfectly good reasons: Americans are engaging in more militant actions than at any point in recent memory. Police stations have been occupied, ransacked, and burnt to the ground. Government buildings have been stormed by leftwing activists and occupied by armed rightwing militias. Gun stores are empty. And Americans are stocking up on ammo. The situation in the U.S. is ripe for political violence.
Some on the left are actively promoting armed struggle, but the left in the U.S. isn’t prepared to engage in guerilla warfare against the military or the police, nor is the left prepared to face off against rightwing non-state actors. The left is disorganized, small, undisciplined, and fragmented. Even if the left generally agreed, which it doesn’t, that armed struggle is strategic, reasonable, or ideal, it wouldn’t matter because the left in the U.S. is simply incapable of waging an armed campaign against the military, police, or rightwing militias.
That said, coordinated, sustained, and dynamic nonviolent actions, including massive acts of civil disobedience, strikes, walkouts, and direct actions such as blockades, occupations, and various forms of sabotage could create a series of crises significant enough to bring the current regime to its knees, if not topple it. At this stage in the game, an overemphasis on weapons, self defense, and militant posturing could prove detrimental.
The U.S. military is far more fragile, unorganized, and ideologically incoherent than many Americans realize.
Even leftists have a view of the U.S. military as an omnipotent force capable of locking down the entire country, maintaining the empire abroad, and imposing martial law throughout the fifty states. Nothing could be further from the truth. According to the Department of Defense Manpower Data Center, “There were a total of 1.3 million active duty military and more than 800,000 reserve forces as of September 2017 . . . Total active duty personnel for the five armed services were approximately 472,000 for the Army, 319,000 for the Navy, 319,000 for the Air Force, 184,000 for the Marine Corps and 41,000 for the Coast Guard.” About 1.1 million Americans are in military reserve units, which only train periodically and lack the combat skills or experience to effectively engage in serious counterinsurgency efforts.
Remember, only a tiny fraction of soldiers (15%) and marines (12%) perform infantry functions — most active duty troops are ‘Personnel Other than Grunts,’ otherwise known as POGs. They drive trucks, fix vehicles, run supply warehouses, conduct logistical operations, set up communications networks, work on computers, answer phones, file paperwork, conduct ceremonies, and a host of other non-combat related tasks.
The U.S. military doesn’t actually have the manpower to keep the country locked down.
Sure, one could argue that the U.S. military has the capacity to carpet bomb the entire country and turn the landscape into rubble, true, but it’s not clear whether or not the military would actually respond to such orders, or initiate such actions, especially if massive numbers of Americans were engaged in nonviolent acts as opposed to offensive guerilla assaults. Again, if the left can effectively organize within the ranks of the military, the odds of such calamity decrease significantly. That’s why the work of groups such as About Face: Veterans Against War and Veterans For Peace is so important. Their efforts should be supported.
Right now, members of Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) and United Electrical workers’ union (UE) are organizing non-unionized workers in a wide-range of industries. Their efforts should also be bolstered and supported. Defunding the police and military, at best, allow us to amputate capitalism, but the ultimate goal is to decapitate capitalism, and the only way to do that is through highly coordinated actions that include massive numbers of people, particularly workers who have the ability to shut down business and bring society to a halt. It also requires a vision of what we want after capitalism (a topic for another day).
Students, mothers, nurses, teachers, the disabled, and unemployed have a role to play. Bus drivers, healthcare workers, retail, and restaurant workers as well. Workers in the most critical industries: railroads, trucking, warehouses, shipping, and factories, will play a vital role in determining how things play out over the coming months and years.
If the current wave of rebellions can result in long-lasting revolutionary organizations and institutions that operate coherently and cohesively with national and international movements, while building up bases of support at the local level through deep organizing efforts, there’s a serious opportunity for radical political change in the U.S. If not, it’s easy to see this entire wave of protests dying out, being stomped out, or morphing into a spectacle of violence utterly void of substance and detached from reasonable political ends. Now is not the time for posturing. Now is the time for deep organizing.
Vincent Emanuele is a writer and organizer born and raised in America’s Rust-Belt. A former US marine and Iraq War veteran, Vince refused orders for a third deployment in 2005 and immediately began working with the anti-war movement during the Bush years.
What has changed in the last 400 years? Slavery is no more, segregation is illegal, and the Voting Rights Act is law. And yet poverty is everywhere in the Black community, white supremacy is ascendant, policing is murderous, and yet people call for peace. In this piece, Assata Shakur looks for peace in the status quo, and finds none.
Black brothers, Black sisters, i want you to know that i love you and i hope that somewhere in your hearts you have love for me. My name is Assata Shakur (slave name joanne chesimard), and i am a revolutionary. A Black revolutionary. By that i mean that i have declared war on all forces that have raped our women, castrated our men, and kept our babies empty-bellied.
I have declared war on the rich who prosper on our poverty, the politicians who lie to us with smiling faces, and all the mindless, heart-less robots who protect them and their property.
I am a Black revolutionary, and, as such, i am a victim of all the wrath, hatred, and slander that amerika is capable of. Like all other Black revolutionaries, amerika is trying to lynch me.
I am a Black revolutionary woman, and because of this i have been charged with and accused of every alleged crime in which a woman was believed to have participated. The alleged crimes in which only men were supposedly involved, i have been accused of planning. They have plastered pictures alleged to be me in post offices, airports, hotels, police cars, subways, banks, television, and newspapers. They have offered over fifty thousand dollars in rewards for my capture and they have issued orders to shoot on sight and shoot to kill.
The Black Liberation Army
I am a Black revolutionary, and, by definition, that makes me a part of the Black Liberation Army. The pigs have used their newspapers and TVs to paint the Black Liberation Army as vicious, brutal, mad-dog criminals. They have called us gangsters and gun molls and have compared us to such characters as john dillinger and ma barker. It should be clear, it must be clear to anyone who can think, see, or hear, that we are the victims. The victims and not the criminals.
It should also be clear to us by now who the real criminals are. Nixon and his crime partners have murdered hundreds of Third World brothers and sisters in Vietnam, Cambodia, Mozambique, Angola, and South Africa. As was proved by Watergate, the top law enforcement officials in this country are a lying bunch of criminals. The president, two attorney generals, the head of the fbi, the head of the cia, and half the white house staff have been implicated in the Watergate crimes.
Who Are the Real Murderers?
They call us murderers, but we did not murder over two hundred fifty unarmed Black men, women, and children, or wound thousands of others in the riots they provoked during the sixties. The rulers of this country have always considered their property more important than our lives. They call us murderers, but we were not responsible for the twenty-eight brother inmates and nine hostages murdered at attica. They call us murderers, but we did not murder and wound over thirty unarmed Black students at Jackson State—or Southern State, either.
They call us murderers, but we did not murder Martin Luther King, Jr., Emmett Till, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, George Jackson, Nat Turner, James Chaney, and countless others. We did not murder, by shooting in the back, sixteen-year-old Rita Lloyd, eleven-year-old Rickie Bodden, or ten-year-old Clifford Glover. They call us murderers, but we do not control or enforce a system of racism and oppression that systematically murders Black and Third World people. Although Black people supposedly comprise about fifteen percent of the total amerikkkan population, at least sixty percent of murder victims are Black. For every pig that is killed in the so-called line of duty, there are at least fifty Black people murdered by the police.
Black life expectancy is much lower than white and they do their best to kill us before we are even born. We are burned alive in fire-trap tenements. Our brothers and sisters OD daily from heroin and methadone. Our babies die from lead poisoning. Millions of Black people have died as a result of indecent medical care. This is murder. But they have got the gall to call us murderers.
Who Are the Real Kidnappers?
They call us kidnappers, yet Brother Clark Squires (who is accused, along with me, of murdering a new jersey state trooper) was kidnapped on April z, 1969, from our Black community and held on one million dollars’ ransom in the New York Panther 21 conspiracy case. He was acquitted on May 13, 1971, along with all the others, of 156 counts of conspiracy by a jury that took less than two hours to deliberate. Brother Squires was innocent. Yet he was kidnapped from his community and family. Over two years of his life was stolen, but they call us kidnappers. We did not kidnap the thousands of Brothers and Sisters held captive in amerika’s concentration camps. Ninety percent of the prison population in this country are Black and Third World people who can afford neither bail nor lawyers.
Who Are the Real Looters?
They call us thieves and bandits. They say we steal. But it was not we who stole millions of Black people from the continent of Africa. We were robbed of our language, of our Gods, of our culture, of our human dignity, of our labor, and of our lives. They call us thieves, yet it is not we who rip off billions of dollars every year through tax evasions, illegal price fixing, embezzlement, consumer fraud, bribes, kickbacks, and swindles. They call us bandits, yet every time most Black people pick up our paychecks we are being robbed. Every time we walk into a store in our neighborhood we are being held up. And every time we pay our rent the landlord sticks a gun into our ribs.
They call us thieves, but we did not rob and murder millions of Indians by ripping off their homeland, then call ourselves pioneers. They call us bandits, but it is not we who are robbing Africa, Asia, and Latin America of their natural resources and freedom while the people who live there are sick and starving. The rulers of this country and their flunkies have committed some of the most brutal, vicious crimes in history. They are the bandits. They are the murderers. And they should be treated as such. These maniacs are not fit to judge me, Clark, or any other Black person on trial in amerika. Black people should and, inevitably, must determine our destinies.
The Revolutionary Struggle for Freedom
Every revolution in history has been accomplished by actions, although words are necessary. We must create shields that protect us and spears that penetrate our enemies. Black people must learn how to struggle by struggling. We must learn by our mistakes.
I want to apologize to you, my Black brothers and sisters, for being on the new jersey turnpike. I should have known better. The turnpike is a checkpoint where Black people are stopped, searched, harassed, and assaulted. Revolutionaries must never be in too much of a hurry or make careless decisions. He who runs when the sun is sleeping will stumble many times.
Every time a Black Freedom Fighter is murdered or captured, the pigs try to create the impression that they have quashed the movement, destroyed our forces, and put down the Black Revolution. The pigs also try to give the impression that five or ten guerrillas are responsible for every revolutionary action carried out in amerika. That is nonsense. That is absurd. Black revolutionaries do not drop from the moon. We are created by our conditions. Shaped by our oppression. We are being manufactured in droves in the ghetto streets, places like attica, san quentin, bedford hills, leavenworth, and sing sing. They are turning out thousands of us. Many jobless Black veterans and welfare mothers are joining our ranks. Brothers and sisters from all walks of life, who are tired of suffering passively, make up the BLA.
There is, and always will be, until every Black man, woman, and child is free, a Black Liberation Army. The main function of the Black Liberation Army at this time is to create good examples, to struggle for Black freedom, and to prepare for the future. We must defend ourselves and let no one disrespect us. We must gain our liberation by any means necessary.
It is our duty to fight for our freedom.
It is our duty to win.
We must love each other and support each other.
We have nothing to lose but our chains.
Assata Shakur was a member of the Black Panther Party (an aboveground organization) and the Black Liberation Army (an underground organization), thus violating the principle of the firewall. She was active in the early 1970s and was eventually arrested. She escaped prison in 1979 and went on the run, eventually reaching Cuba, where she lives in exile. In 1987 she published her book Assata: An Autobiography.
Rage and violence are exploding in the streets of the United States. Eleven people have been killed, hundreds injured, and thousands arrested over the last week.
Police are running wild, attacking and injuring non-violent protesters, journalists, and bystanders in their rush to protect private property. A revolt on this scale has not seen since the Holy Week Uprising of 1968 after the murder of Martin Luther King, Jr.
What recourse do people have when they are locked out of the mainstream political process, victimized economically, and abused and murdered on the streets?
In this article we offer a clear outline of the equipment needed to sustain direct action of different types and highlight the importance of training, discipline, preparation, and good quality gear.
Equipment for Scouting and Action
The effectiveness of any organized direct action is dependent on leadership, planning, skills, and coordination. Equipment can also play an important role.
Many activists, organizers, and everyday people who show up to conflict zones don’t pay attention to equipment or skills. Most people dress in cotton t-shirts, jeans, impractical shoes, and so on. They are not prepared to take serious action, or to be confronted with serious police and vigilante violence, and instead treat protesting and resistance as a social activity.
In some circumstances, this is ok. Many protests and actions are most effective as family-friendly activities that do not involve direct confrontation. But even activities like this increasingly need protection from violent police and vigilantes. And increasingly, more serious action is required to dismantle the power base of the ruling class.
Serious resisters and revolutionaries cannot afford to be lax.
Police, military, and private security forces tend to be highly prepared compared to resistance movements. They wear specialized boots and equipment belts with radios, handcuffs, pepper spray, flashlights, and handguns. They wear gloves, high-performance clothing, and body armor. Most have face protection or at least sunglasses, and sometimes they may have shields as well. They are coordinated and ready to move and react in any direction.
When an individual member of the resistance, or better yet, a trained and organized team, has skills and the equipment, a whole range of new possibilities opens up. We gain freedom of action.
Don’t underestimate the importance of good quality gear. It can allow you to function effectively in a range of situations. We recommend that individuals purchase and maintain their own equipment for a variety of different scenarios. Here are a number of considerations while considering gear.
General Gear
Any mission will require a general set of basic equipment, such as appropriate footwear, clothing, backpack, food and water for the day, etc. You will also need to ensure effective communication with your fellow activists.
Mission Specific Equipment
Specific missions will require specific gear. For example, you may need materials to build a blockade such as a shovel, saw, drill and screws, etc.. To drop a banner, you may need rope, carabiners and a harness; to breach a barrier—bolt cutters, hacksaw; observe or record from afar, binoculars, camera, etc. To protect an individual or a location you may need self-defense weapons. When facing police violence, you may need helmet, goggles, etc. You need to select your gear based on the situation.
How to Select Gear
Cost: Select gear based on a priority list of critical and mission essential gear first.
Availability: You may want it but it isn’t available, for whatever reason. Determine good substitutions.
Quality: Much of the gear should be excellent quality because your life or liberty may depend on it. Some gear isn’t as crucial. It depends on the specific situation. Set standards for what you need in your gear before buying.
Durability: The gear will be used under the worst conditions so don’t expect cheap dollar store gear to hold up under field conditions.
Multi-purpose: Finding gear that can be used for more than one task increases its value.
Size and Weight Consideration (SAWC): Sometimes good gear is large, bulky, and heavy and impedes mobility. Look for gear that is as compact, light but still functional for the tasks.
Camouflage pattern: Bright shiny items attract the eye and can give you away. Determine the best camouflage pattern for the area of operation. For urban operations choose dull colors instead of camo.
Waterproof: It will rain in the field so gear needs ideally to be water proof.
Shockproof: It will be dropped, kicked, sat on, thrown across the room in frustration or at a threat. It still needs to function after its abuse.
Simplicity: High-tech gear and moving parts will break. Select gear that is simple and robust.
Best achieves the mission: The main purpose of the gear is to assist in successful completion of missions (actions).
Ergonomic: the gear should be both efficient and comfortable. This extends the time frame for use in work. An uncomfortable or inefficient piece of gear will wear down the activist earlier making work harder.
It is important to note that the best gear isn’t always the most expensive, coolest looking, widest advertised or what some other person or group is using. Do buy/access equipment that suits you. So, for instance if you are susceptible to cold or dislike being too warm, figure that in. Do seek the advice of an experienced freedom fighter/activist that has a good level of experience and knowledge in the use and procurement of gear for specific kinds of operations and missions.
The Importance of Training
Once a training plan is developed and the gear is obtained the activist needs to train to standard on the skills and with the gear obtained in order to properly fit, modify, personalize and familiarize with that gear.
When all the gear procurement and initial training is complete a series of exercises, based on all the different operations and likely missions for each, should be conducted. This provides an opportunity for testing to ‘standard’ and evaluating all the common and mission essential tasks to determine if the activists are operationally ready.
Basic Gear List
This is a rough outline of the supplies you can consider carrying for a direct action. This list should be tailored to your specific location, mission, skills, team and environment.
Backpack: comfortable, includes a waist belt for distributing loads, carries weight well, allows you to stay balanced. It should be waterproof, or include a plastic bag to hold things that need to stay dry. Different packs will be needed for different missions. Some missions are best executed with no pack at all. Others will require a day pack with capacity for 20-40L of equipment. Longer missions may require larger packs.
Footwear: sturdy, comfortable shoes suitable for off-trail walking and jogging. Waterproof depending on season. You want sturdy shoes, but the heavier your shoes the faster you will fatigue.
More skill = less gear. This is a case where the stronger your ankles are, the lighter-weight shoes you can wear. However, the rougher the terrain, the more sturdy shoe will be required.
Clothing: must be durable, enable range of movement and be suitable for the climate/weather. Recommend long pants and long sleeves.
Consider everyone at an action wearing the same color of clothing to make it difficult for police to ID individuals.
Consider wearing waterproof layers, insulation layers and whether the clothing sufficient for the evening? What if you get wet? What if it gets windy? What if a storm blows in? Always pack extra socks.
Sunglasses: for eye protection, and to prevent ID via video or pictures. Full headmask/facemask to prevent ID via video or pictures.
A watch.
Bandana: good for multiple uses.
Pocketknife / Multitool / self-defense weapon / Cutting/digging tools: depending on the situation.
Food and water: bring extra, you never know how long an action will last. Will you be ok overnight if you have to miss dinner?
Notebook, pens, map and compass: small button compass for urban.
Binoculars, still and video camera.
Cell phone: leave your personal cell phone at home when scouting, or turn it off and remove battery or place inside a faraday bag before moving to the vicinity of your target location.
Small first aid kit: match to your training.
Flashlight or headlamp: take extra batteries
Cash: don’t use credit/debit cards or mobile payments when scouting or at an action.
Lighter: always good for cold emergencies to be able to start a fire.
Sleeping bag/pad/tent/tarp/bivy for wet weather and a survival kit.
A final word:
Sleep: daily training and specific actions will feel easier with a rested mind and body. Do not underestimate the importance of good quality sleep. Lack of or poor quality sleep impacts on your physical well being. Good quality sleep helps balance your emotional well being, sharpens your reactions and enables your problem solving skills to be at their best.
“Revolution is the sound of your heart still beating. And as long as it is, you have work to do. Do it. Without apology. Do it. Bravely and nobly. Do it. Exist, insist and by all means, resist.”
— Dominique Christina
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ZrAYxWPN6c
Featured image: The Day Miami Burned, by Mike Shaheen. Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic.
The United States is built on a foundation of slavery and indigenous land theft. Racism is deep in the bones of this country. Where there is oppression, there is resistance: the ongoing Minneapolis rebellion against the white supremacist state and police murder has spilled out across the U.S. Deep Green Resistance stands in solidarity with principled resistance by any means necessary.
George Floyd’s Murder: An Act Of White Supremacy
By Jocelyn Crawley
One of the first things that came to my mind when I learned of George Floyd’s ruthless murder was a social theory, typically used to analyze the ideology that undergirds patriarchy: the thought of domination.
According to radical feminists such as Monique Wittig, the thought of domination involves the idea that the ruling class produces the ruling ideas.
These ideas come to support the ruling class’s dominance over all of the other members of society. Within this schema, the thought of domination entails assent to the ruling class (men) imposing limiting ideas on the servant class (women). One of these ideas is the notion that there are two categorically different sexes and that these distinctions entail sociological consequences.
One of the sociological consequences is the naturalization of the division of labor in the family, with this belief functioning as a catalyst for the cult of domesticity and male dominance of the public sphere.
As made plain by this brief summary, the thought of domination ensures that those in power (men) keep those who lack it (women) in a position of subservience and slavishness. Within this type of societal schema, women are vulnerable to and subjected to diverse forms of dehumanization, some of which include rape, domestic violence, pornography, and prostitution.
Dominance and dehumanization:
In addition to functioning as an accurate analysis of how patriarchy works, I believe the thought of domination is directly pertinent to the white supremacist act we witnessed when white police officer Derek Chauvin knelt on George Floyd’s neck for seven minutes while he was lying face down on the road. The video footage of the incident shows Floyd groaning and repeatedly saying “I can’t breathe.” After moaning while lying motionless near the foot of the squad car and being transported into an ambulatory vehicle, Floyd died. The only sense that I can make of this inhumane behavior is that the perpetrators have adopted the dominant society’s values of venerating domination as a desirable way to exist in the world because it enables one to become the abuser rather than the victim of abuse. Within a world predicated on a thought of domination in which whites are the ruling class and can therefore impose their rules on all other racial groups, the abuse they subject black people to frequently goes unquestioned and unpunished.
Lack of consequences:
In recognition of the fact that being a member of a ruling class oftentimes precludes one from experiencing repercussions under the law, the outcomes of George Floyd’s murder should be carefully considered if we are to truly understand how white supremacy works. All four officers involved in the event were terminated. Yet the question that persists in the minds of many protestors is: “Why wasn’t Chauvin arrested?” This was the same question that I came to ask myself after I learned that Gregory McMichael, his son Travis McMichael, and William Bryan pursued Ahmaud Arbery in a truck while he was running through the neighborhood. Many are familiar with the footage displaying Ahmaud Arbery stumbling to the ground after being shot while Travis McMichael stood by with a shotgun.
Many are familiar with the horror and fear this murder generated in the black community as we realized, once again, men of color are subject to being shot by the police and arrogant white men within local communities. Many are familiar with the stories of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, and Tamir Rice. What many of us are not necessarily familiar with is the logic that makes this heinous, inhumane behavior acceptable. This is why I propose that members of radical communities engage the thought of domination as the ideology that undergirds white supremacy.
It is clear that the primary system of thought that fuels and justifies the type of incomprehensible violence, we see as a product of white supremacy, is the thought of domination.
Domination is defined as the exercise of control or influence over someone or something, or the state of being so controlled. In a contemporary world whose zeitgeist is guided by white supremacist, capitalist, patriarchy, domination is and must be an integral component of the cultures in which people are immersed.
Principles of mutuality, reciprocity, and cooperation may periodically flourish or temporarily gain traction in people’s minds and actions. However, making the regimes of white supremacy, capitalism, and patriarchy work requires that individuals recognize and respond to the realities created by those regimes. The reality that the regimes require is that an elite few exert extreme power over the masses, and that the masses respond to their own oppression by amassing as much agency and authority to themselves as possible while they grapple with the dehumanization and self-alienation engendered by the systems of oppression as distinct entities and a composite whole.
As one distinct component of the contemporary regime, white supremacy is predicated on the belief that white people are superior to those of all other races, especially blacks.
Based on this false notion of superiority, whites come to believe (whether consciously or unconsciously) that they have a right to dominate society. When I read about horrific stories such as those of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd, I am convinced that the thought of domination is operative. I have no other explanation that would help me understand why a man would place his knee on another living, breathing human until he was no longer living and breathing. I have no other explanation that would help me understand why one individual would continue holding his knee on another living, breathing human as he begs for his life. When I learn that one white man holds his knee on a black man’s neck and continues doing so despite the latter repeatedly saying “I can’t breathe,” I am convinced the former has unequivocally embraced the logic of domination. In a world marked by this perverse logic, the murder of a black man is acceptable because whites are superior and any threat to their own safety-whether real or imagined-is more important than black life.
In recognizing the reality of white supremacy and the logic of domination that suffuses and energizes it, individuals who find injustice intolerable must begin to revisit whether the strategies of resistance that have been conceptualized and implemented at this point are working.
If they aren’t, we need to refocus our energies. At this point, I am seeing a wide range of social media campaigns as a strategy of resistance. I have also seen footage of a street protest. Recently, I became aware that several demonstrators gained access to a police precinct in Minneapolis and set some sections of it on fire. There are also now reports of vandalism, arson, and looting. While I do not doubt the importance and efficacy of the levels and extent of resistance seen thus far, I also see that white supremacy-manifested through police brutality-remains resilient in the face of resistance. For these reasons, I have two suggestions for the resistance movements that are unfolding strategically or organically.
First, the agitation against the state must increase. I noted that a tent has been placed outside the home of the attorney handling George Floyd’s case (Mike Freeman) and several protestors claim that they aren’t going anywhere until Freeman prosecutes and charges the officers involved. I think more space needs to be occupied so that state representatives become aware that protestors are not retreating into their private worlds while the public realm remains a sphere dominated by white supremacist ideologies and praxis.
Second, individuals across the country and world who oppose this state violence should join forces and make the resistance movement a more tight-knit process. I am aware that NYC-based Black lives Matter activists are heading to Minneapolis to protest the murder. This is the type of solidarity that we need to see in order to ensure that the authority and agency that results from mass resistance engenders a profound shift in cultural consciousness and state activity.
As always, we who believe in freedom cannot rest until it comes.
Jocelyn Crawley is a radical feminist who resides in Atlanta, Georgia. Her intense antagonism towards all forms of social injustice-including white supremacy-grows with each passing day. Her primary goal for 2020 is to connect with other radicals for the purpose of building community and organizing against oppression.
Afeni Shakur is best known as the mother of the hip-hop artist Tupac Shakur. What is less well known is that she was a member of the Harlem chapter of the Black Panther Party, a dedicated revolutionary who served time in jail for her political activities. Freedom Archives says her work “shaped the political discourse of Black Liberation movements in the 70s.” Visit their article on Afeni to hear excepts of her speaking.
In 1968, 21 members of the Harlem Chapter of the panthers were arrested on alleged bomb conspiracy charges, with bail set at $100,000. The following is part of a letter that Shakur wrote from prison in January 1970, decrying the colonial jail system and the entire U.S. state apparatus that has oppressed people of color since colonization arrived on this continent, and brought the first enslaved Africans shortly thereafter.
Featured image: Afeni Shakur speaks at a Black Panther Party Rally. Image via Freedom Archives.
By Afeni Shakur
We know that you are trying to break us up because we are the truth and because you can’t control us. We know that you always try to destroy what you can’t control. We know that you are afraid of us because we represent a truth of the universe. We are not being tried for any overt act nor for [the] attempt to commit any overt act–we are being tried for bringing within our minds the focusing of the ideas of centuries and trying to bring this knowledge into a workable plan to liberate our people from oppression. We are being tried only because we know you and because we are not afraid of you. We know of your history of lies, deceit and slavery. We know that you now have 80% of the world in slavery. We know how you turn nation against nation, tribe against tribe, brother against brother. We know that you are blood-thirsty, pitiless and inhuman. We have seen you justify the most inhuman crimes–the worst of which was the destruction of men’s hearts and minds. We know of your greed. We know that 10,000 army bases does not make this a “free world” except free for your exploitation and imperialism. How many civilizations have you destroyed?
In this country we know that we are not 2nd class citizens–we know that we are not citizens at all. We know that the 13th, 14th and 15th amendments did not liberate us–that they only legalized slavery and expanded the Dred Scott decision to include the Indians, Spanish speaking and poor whites. We know that things have not gotten any better–but only progressively worse. We know that this is the rich man’s courts, laws, and justice. It is his skies, and air–we can only look at it and breathe it if he says so. We know that wealth is not the fruit of labor but the result of organized protected robbery. But you teach the poor workers to be honest. We know that the Almighty dollar which everyone is taught to revere is only guaranteed by slavery and exploitation. We know that we live in a world inhuman in its poverty. We know that we are a colony, living under community imperialism. The U.S. that we see is not one of freedom, beauty, and wisdom, but of fear, terror, and hate. This is a nation of your laws, run by your police, and based on protecting your economic strength. The poor are politically, economically and legally non-existent that is why in jail, 80% of the inmates are non-white and all are poor. Yet even your sociologists and criminologists admit that 80% of these are innocent.
We see that inhuman treatment but are told that we do not. We see men beaten to death in jail but are told that they died of “natural causes” but we are liars. Just as we are always presumed guilty. We heard the judge tell us that “The law didn’t apply to us,” but it isn’t in the record–and of course we lie. We are born criminals and liars. We know we are innocent but we are liars. The people know we are innocent but they don’t count. The prisoners know we are innocent but they too are liars. The guards and even the captains of the guards know we are innocent but they can’t testify. They will lose their jobs. We can prove we are innocent. But we wonder does it really matter. We can prove it in detail and we will, but just in general the charges against us in this indictment are ridiculous and are contradictory to our basic beliefs. We have never been asked as a people whether we wanted to be governed by your God, your laws, your justice, your customs, your speech, dress, and ethics. We do not. We have no respect for them. We have no respect for your laws, taxes, your gratitude, sincerity, honor and dignity–you have no respect for them yourself. You don’t respect us–thus we don’t respect YOU…
