Cleveland Anarchist Black Cross in Dire Straits

north america / mexico | crime prison and punishment | other libertarian press Monday December 01, 2008 19:33 by Cleveland ABC - Cleveland Anarchist Black Cross clevelandabc at riseup dot net PO Box 602440 / Cleveland, OH / 44102

The Cleveland ABC is in dire straits! We are short on members and time, and growing shorter by the minute. We need to find the bright minds and hard workers of this region, north-east Ohio, and work together to amplify our message, to impact the community, to build a strong network of resistance in our area. These are bad fucking times. Look at Marie Mason and the Cincinnati anarchist community. Look at the Green Scare. Look at the RNC 8, the SHAC 7, Anna the infiltrator. Shit – look at those still behind bars after twenty or more years – Leonard Peltier, Alberto Torres, Oscar Lopez, Mumia Abu-Jamal – look at Assata. Look at Guantanamo and Gaza. And look at Barack Obama and John McCain. Not to be a-historical — for what other sorts of times has this society seen — but these are definitely bad times. So what are we going to do?

12/1/2008
Dear Prison Abolitionists, Political Activists, Revolutionaries, &c,

This letter is addressed to all those who wish to see this misogynistic, homophobic, white settler colonial society of the rich destroyed; to all those who have no intention to compromise or reconcile with the system of violence and oppression which has dominated more and more of the planet these past ten thousand years or so; to those who view prisons and incarceration as an embodiment of the nature of this civilization – of capitalism, rooted in slavery, and of civilization itself, based on subduing and domesticating all living things; to all those who stake your very survival on the outcome of the struggle against this empire. I am Josh from the Cleveland Anarchist Black Cross, and I address this letter to myself as much as to anyone else who comes into possession of it. We want to find you, to work together, and to mutually support and inspire each other. We need more participation and more partnerships!

The Anarchist Black Cross is a group dedicated to supporting anarchist and other revolutionary political prisoners, to abolishing prisons, and to destroying the state and civilization, the banes of peace, freedom, and life. The organization has a long history throughout many revolutionary movements over the past century, and currently consists of numerous independent groups around the world, in Europe, South and North America. We are against all forms of oppression, going at it by attacking the root of things, and in our daily praxis in our group and our lives. We are unflinchingly LGBTQUU*-friendly, feminist, anti-racist, and in solidarity with the struggles against oppression worldwide. We work with political prisoners, and we are a machine for political education and propaganda in the anarchist community and in “the Left.”

The Cleveland ABC is in dire straits! We are short on members and time, and growing shorter by the minute. We need to find the bright minds and hard workers of this region, north-east Ohio, and work together to amplify our message, to impact the community, to build a strong network of resistance in our area. These are bad fucking times. Look at Marie Mason and the Cincinnati anarchist community. Look at the Green Scare. Look at the RNC 8, the SHAC 7, Anna the infiltrator. Shit – look at those still behind bars after twenty or more years – Leonard Peltier, Alberto Torres, Oscar Lopez, Mumia Abu-Jamal – look at Assata. Look at Guantanamo and Gaza. And look at Barack Obama and John McCain. Not to be a-historical — for what other sorts of times has this society seen — but these are definitely bad times. So what are we going to do?

So here’s what we want to do: we want to organize radical events in the area to put out a message of non-negotiable revolutionary struggle to draw together the community. We want to spread literature throughout the area, to further political learning and discussion. We want to get quality political propaganda – video and audio – on the airwaves and on the internet, to connect with more people and reach out to new folks. And we want to build strong partnerships and alliances with groups in the area that share our vision, goals, and passions; groups that we can support and learn from, so that we can mutually benefit.

Yours in love, & till civilization crumbles,
Robert Smith, Uma, Joshua Soybottom
Cleveland ABC
clevelandabc@riseup.net
http://myspace.com/clevelandabc
PO Box 602440
Cleveland, OH 44102