For a Community that Can Overcome Trauma and Defeat Repression

The emotional toll of state repression is very difficult to understand without a direct experience with it. When I say state repression, I mean an individual’s direct or passive encounter with governing institutions or agents that deal with investigating, charging, or punishing an individual for their political, subversive, or controversial interests, associates, or actions.

This repression can vary from simple visits to your home or believed work place by agents of law enforcement spouting threats. It can mean police raids and a lingering helicopter at your home right before the sun rises. It can mean empty threats that leave us gasping for air. It can mean arriving to your flight and being met by opportunistic agents at the ticket counter or security clearance. It can mean missing your flight all together due to extra-screening and questioning. It can mean being banned from flying altogether, with no explanation as to why, who to consult, or how to fix it. It can mean years of court and legal battles draining any sense of financial or emotional stability. It can mean years of anxiety, substance abuse, and psychological torment. It can mean the dividing of communities through calculated betrayal and coercion. And other then pure murder, it can mean a concrete cell (or in America’s prison-industrial complex; an over packed gymnasium) for years and years of dead time.

The State is a beast.

Not a beautiful beast we may discover in the wilderness, it is a imaginary lifeless barrier standing between humanity and freedom. It exists with the sole intention of preserving itself and dividing humanity. It exists to protect those who benefit from it, and warn everyone else to never question this arrangement, otherwise prepare to be helpless before it’s wrath. Unless it is benefiting you, living within this now global homogeneous state is an everyday tragedy most of us know nothing different of. Our suffering varies by the calculated privileges that come with it’s mandated class, race, or ethnic lottery. While comfort and suffering varies, the absolute vast majority of humanity is forced to suffer the systems and pogroms of rule enforced by global state-capitalism, in serving the comforts and excesses of a precious few (and as governments tighten their rule, and populations continues to soar at the expense of natural resources, we will see the extreme tightening of these systems and pogroms).

If you choose to challenge this lottery you will face the alternative: prison. This can mean selling drugs to make ends meet when there are no means or ends. It can also mean fighting the police in the streets when they kill an unarmed black man, or deviate from their normal level of vile scumbaggery. For any and all struggle against the society the state exists to preserve; prison, or the threat of it, is the all encompassing solution to perpetuating a permanent fear amidst any human contemplation that could lead an individual or community to act on their frustrations or revolutionary desires. It is the real security guard at the bank stopping us from robbing it, that most of us are reminded of from the moment we gain consciousness.

Once we make the choice to claim a revolutionary position such as being an anarchist or radical opponent of the State, we have to assume to take on a particular attention from the State. If one is actively writing words of hatred for the State, or fighting it in the streets, you will most likely become a target regardless of it actually having evidence of you committing a crime.

I myself have both done time and been surveilled, harassed, and detained in many ways over many years. I want to say that my experiences do not compare to the extreme repression experienced in cases such as long term prisoners like Eric King, Jeremy Hammond, Marius Mason, the NATO 3 (Brent Betterly, Brian Church, and Jared Chase), the Cleveland 4 (Brandon Baxter, Connor Stevens, Doug Wright, and Joshua Stafford), the Black Liberation Army (such as Ashanti Alston, Kuwasi Balagoon, and Ojore N. Lutalo), Herman Bell, David Gilbert, Walter Bond, and many more currently and in the past.

I say that to assert my humility, because for whatever reason I feel it is important to mention this, if for no other reason then to remind the reader of my respect for such individuals, and my awareness that I am not an all encompassing voice for experiences in repression and guidance on support. However, I believe that my feelings are important to share in a contribution to a discussion about repression generally, and our community’s reaction to it. I believe that unless you have really been a target by the state and experienced it’s wrath in some form directly, you can not fully empathize appropriately. I hope sharing some of own perspectives on overcoming repression can help highlight and strengthen bonds of revolutionary solidarity that I hold dear to my heart. I also hope to push for a dialogue that will specifically consider community programs in dealing with the psychology and emotional well being of individuals facing government perpetration. I hope this will motivate a dialogue with a strong consideration for preemptively acting against snitching and betrayal beyond typical support campaigns, and bring our struggle more victories against repression.

I myself am an anarchist, I have been for over half my life. I advocate for a free society without institutionalized domination and exploitation. Regardless of hope, I feel it is my responsibility to claim and assert this position in my everyday life, analysis, and when possible: in the streets.

One of the most proud decisions I have ever made in my life was choosing outright that if I had to choose between my community or prison, I would go to prison. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself. There would no point to life, as I already recognize the void around me. I have given myself everyday purpose mostly in the form of passions and desires that define me as an anarchist revolutionary, and the beautiful people I build relationships with in this putrid society due to intimate affinities and deep bonds. Almost my whole life would be a lie if I suddenly was willing to betray my own heart and the people I love for the threat of prison. These words sound very militant, and maybe hyperbolic to the cynical, but I follow them by saying that this decision didn’t come without an internal struggle, and knowing for sure that I mean them.

Other than having a few critical years of my life taken away due to my choices as a self-proclaimed anarchist, I have dealt with about ten years of direct posturing and confusing threats by the State. The confusion I refer to is that for so many years they have not known who I really am, just visited people and places they associated with projects they thought I was doing like a ratchet ghost haunting me (this anonymity was actually a benefit of being taught to take seriously security culture). Throughout the years of this poking and fishing, and to the second I write this, I don’t fear punishment for a crime I have committed. When my mind races, I am stressed to live with the reality that at any moment I risk punishment for simply the expression of my desires in writing, and my commitment to demonstrating no will towards their requested cooperation. I am referring to the possibility of a grand jury.

While all of the western world governments despise anarchists, the grand jury has made it possible for the American government specifically to assault us without ever committing a crime. Like not being able to fly, grand juries are a simple gesture made by the state that can seriously deter the rest of your life, offering only extreme confusion in light of its complete lack of transparency in both cases. A grand jury is simple; if you choose to remain silent, this is a potential plan B for the state.

A grand jury, and your reaction to it can play out in a handful of ways. First with a grand jury, you are only required to attend once you’ve been subpoenaed in person. However, you never know if you will be. So while you may not know if there is a subpoena for you, but suspect there might possibly be one based on harassment and a heated climate of repression, you have the option to go underground for a year and a half hoping whatever grand jury subpoena is out there for you has ran out of time. Underground meaning cut all ties, and live basically a couple of steps away from a fugitive lifestyle (because in this instance you have not technically committed a crime).

Yet with a grand jury, the bastards can easily reopen and force you underground again, and unless they approached your lawyer first and your lawyer told them you have fired them and secretly mentioned to you they have been approached, most likely you really don’t know if it’s dead or active, or if they will renew it, or if they are actively looking for you to serve it. In this case of preemptively going underground,you are not committing a crime until someone has handed you the subpoena and you have missed the requested grand jury time. On the other hand if you are subpoenaed in person or your lawyer accepts it on your behalf and you miss the grand jury, you technically become a wanted criminal. Also if you accept the subpoena or your lawyer does on your behalf and go to the grand jury, you do not have the right to a lawyer being present.

Additionally you can not actually say you do or do not know about the crime being investigated because that implies some willingness to cooperate, and down the line can be grounds for keeping you in prison. Also you can not pick and choose which questions you want to answer. So even if you don’t know anything about the crime, and you simply do not want to betray the precious trust that must define our communities in revolutionary struggle by answering personal questions about friends, loved ones, spaces, or events, you are committing a crime by making this choice. And then in this case, you can be found in contempt, and held in a federal maximum prison for up to 18 months. And after the 18 months, they can create a new grand jury and repeat the process again (this is not so easy, but it’s certainly a consideration of state agents).

It’s quite obvious this has been a tool of the state to punish when it can’t legally punish based on it’s own standard of evidence. Yet the whole situation can drive you completely fucking insane.

In this case you are possibly facing jail time for a crime that you maybe know nothing about, and for sure have not committed. And this insanity is in reality due to some eagle scout scumbag deciding he wants overtime, and has an opportunity to punish someone they for sure consider to be enemy combatants. I will humbly state that the state is brutal. I haven’t experienced the depths of it’s wrath. I haven’t had my home or car bombed (Like with the MOVE organization in Philadelphia in 1985, or the attempted assassination of eco-activist Judi Bari in her car in 1990), or been locked in solitary for over half of my life (Such as Albert Woodfox of the Angola 3 who spent 43 years in solitary confinement). Recognizing this, I have however felt helpless and dealt with debilitating anxiety, and do believe that I have trauma inside of me.

Specifically in the case of grand juries the state can leave you feeling paranoid and insane. It’s goal is to do this. It is a special insane type of paranoia in the sense that it’s not necessarily about the 18 months, it’s more so not knowing how to deal with it. Not knowing if you should turn your life upside down hoping to avoid the theoretical subpoena, or go public. Trying to find pride in yourself about choosing to not cooperate even if you do not know anything about an investigation because it is your responsibility as a revolutionary to do so. Or not allowing yourself to feel alone, because many other people will have a hard time empathizing with you until you are inside a cell, and this can be really debilitating, and something I hope people will consider challenging. Individuals such as Jerry Koch have demonstrated a revolutionary strength in overcoming these challenges that I consider to be a victory for our movement.

To this day I still don’t know if I am a person or even ever was a person of interest in this obscure quest for easy punishment by the state, and this lack of transparency is where my insanity flares. Maybe I have wasted my time and driven myself insane absorbing paranoia, or maybe I’ve made the right decisions these last ten years, my point is that this confusion has left it’s mark on my mind, body, and heart. It’s also left a mark on my job, my family, my friends, my comrades, my projects, and general life stability.

This insanity is a potion of pressure on the mind and heart that engulfs your entirety. In choosing to never consider any route then evasion or prison I am demonstrating a revolutionary strength that my community can see as a victory. But anyone who hasn’t been forced to choose so and so card of destiny I do not think fully understands the horrors met when going through the process. In this process, even I myself have encountered vile questionable thoughts about weighing my options. I came out on top, and will continue to do so, but for those targeted who are new to struggle, they may have a different experience. You come to call into question your sincerity, and find a series of choices and obstacles in enduring your own revolutionary introspection.

For those in the states for example where struggle is new or a hobby, it is easy for me to imagine someone giving in to the state’s demands through their inability to overcome the helplessness inflicted by its posturing. This leads to snitching and cooperation, which may both be in some cases demonstrations of character, I suggest we also recognize that these heinous actions can come from an individual feeling isolated due to the neglect of attention or inspiration given to them by their revolutionary community which needs to demonstrate a mutual ungovernable solidarity as an alternative to cooperation.

Solidarity is our unconditional and ungovernable victory. It is something the state does not understand due to it’s lifeless techno-bureaucratic apparatus. It is something that is truly deeper and stronger than their prisons. When an individual forfeits their revolutionary integrity, this gives the state an obscure victory that it may even overlook in leading such a pathetic individual (cause regardless of my sympathies, they become one in this choice) to betray the only victory they can not take away from us, one that lives in our hearts, and preserves a conflict with its society. Individuals choosing the convenience of rejoining society as a traitor over prison for not cooperating humiliates our struggle, implying that it is possible to live a life in this world as we know it after choosing to understand it for the vile authoritarian nightmare it is, and due to convenience; betraying such a position and those who share it.

But while some snitches really just do deserve stitches, or a six foot hole, it’s important to understand that it is maybe not just a character flaw. Direct victims of political repression by the state can be victimized and we can also be responsible for not setting the appropriate emotional tone for our communities where our bonds and methods of support are strong enough to overpower the strains of state intimidation, and worse, incarceration.

With the emboldenment of our enemies in the states with Trump, now more then ever we must overcome degenerate awkwardness and shatter self-inflicted alienation in our communities. We must find alternatives to rumor mills and cliques. While never turning to a hero logic, we must put special attention and emotional consideration for people overcoming various types of repression, or recovering from the emotional trauma of a trial, state harassment, a house raid, and most of all: incarceration. We must celebrate our victories and weigh our battles within our communities. We are choosing a controversial position, and petty scene dynamics and a third person approach to struggle will not serve any revolutionary interest. While we must challenge our conditioning and be accountable for our mistakes, we must sway from a perverse vanguard of politically correct perfectionism that exists solely within an exclusive scene and could not be generalized in revolt.

At the moment we can see this overwhelming wrath happening to defendants arrested resisting Trump’s inauguration. The state is flaunting 80 plus years for what most countries consider to be standard relatively non-violent unrest. We will see little to no coverage of this terrifying situation for 200 courageous individuals (now about 130 individuals considering recent decisions by some to cooperate, which most likely is due to some journalists being arrested by coincidence or by people being overwhelmed by fear and choosing betrayal) because anarchists find no haven of safety by any state or it’s media.

We must realize we only have each other, and a solidarity of common affinities with frustrated people we encounter or befriend in our everyday lives. We can not request asylum like Edward Snowden or Julian Assange, we are anarchists; friend of no state or border. We are not acting or pursuing a revolutionary path that looks to participate in the theatrical cage of politics society claims is our only hope to achieve freedom. We are the enemy of all authority, and every facet of institutional exploitation. We must begin to challenge our conditioning by this alienated society, and truly look to build stronger relationships of affinity.

I believe we need to consider creating support groups focused specifically on emotional sharing and support for people going through repression. If you have never experienced long term incarceration, the possibility of prison, or consistent state intimidation it’s important to humble yourself and question your judgments of people who are maybe experiencing trauma or choosing to take drugs or alcohol to deal with the emotional backlash of repression. We need to start being nicer to each other, and recognizing the double standards we allow to exist in our insular scenes, when we should be challenging each other to be better revolutionaries by assuring one another that our bonds are worth protecting regardless of state efforts.

These words are very nice, but I myself am a cynical person in recovery, and realize that it may sound preachy to some. Speaking personally, in light of seeing case after case over the years, and personally overcoming multiple instances of authoritarian harassment and punishment that lead to substance abuse, distress, social dysfunction, and trauma, pushing ourselves and our comrades to set new standards of emotional support and understanding, will help us to re-discover new victories that have always been there, and prevent cooperation and snitching to the state when times feel bleak. Our efforts in this must match our efforts of pushing for a truly revolutionary struggle in the streets against the state and capitalism. We must have a balance of our love and hate, and must begin to eliminate scene dynamics, competitive relations, or moralistic judgments of one another that demean revolutionary communities.

We must set a new bar for implementing anti-repression support that creates safe spaces for individuals to find attention for their trauma and fears resulting from repression; reassuring each other that even when you are put into the corner by the state you are not alone.

I don’t think I am providing a concrete trajectory for a way to achieve these things, but I feel that for the audience I am writing for, you can understand what I am saying by my social references and personal revelations. I am not a happy go lucky person, and I understand that most of us in the states come to this political position from a potentially traumatic childhood or teenage experience, and this in many cases affects our social dynamics. But with the critical state of the natural world, the never-ending insanity when we look at the news, and the resilience of our enemies, its really now the time to check our sectarian urges to the curb, and embrace a stronger love and insurgent intimacy for our communities, with the intention of engaging with a stronger contempt for our enemies. It’s time we all realize the significance and controversy of choosing a subversive life, and while some are stronger then others in dealing with the consequences of this position, we must communalize the strength, push our infrastructures further, and create a culture that is unbreakable to the perpetration of the state and it’s bastard agents.

For more information on supporting prisoners, and updates in repression please visit NYC Anarchist Black Cross. And the new episode of ‘Trouble’ regarding repression.