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When most people hear the words ‘anarchy’ or ‘anarchism’ they think of just chaos, violence, or nihilism. But many would be surprised to learn that Anarchism is actually a rich body of ideas and practices that favor the abolition of all oppressive relations of domination and hierarchy in order to maximize the potential for liberatory human relationships.

Join the Student Solidarity Network for our “Intro to Anarchism” reading series at The Base, where we’ll be navigating through the deep river of anarchy, beginning from the anarchistic elements of the past, to the very beginnings of the anarchist movement during the late 19th century covering its development up until the present day. Through our discussions, we hope to demonstrate the relevancy of anarchist ideas to our contemporary society while developing our own ideas in order to combat the present crisis society faces.

The readings will be slightly chronological but people can come whenever they can as all of the readings stand on their own. It’s also not necessary to read the texts to attend but still encouraged of course.This week we’ll be learning about the anarchic social movements that occured during The Middle Ages and the politcal crisis at the time that provided the context for the development of capitalism. We’ll be reading:

Demanding The Impossible: A History of Anarchism – Peter Marshall (Chapters 7 & 8) https://libcom.org/library/demanding-impossible-history-anarchism

Caliban and The Witch: Women, The Body, and Primitive Accumulation – Silvia Federici (Pages 21 – 50) http://libcom.org/library/caliban-witch-silvia-federici

Wednesday, January 20th
7:00 pm

As the campaign to parole Herman Bell is nearing its climax in February, now is as good a time as ever to send some love and well wishes Herman’s way before he goes to the board. If you are new to our website and letter writing events and may not know much about Herman, he is a mentor, a father, a scholar, a coach, and a former Black Panther who was very active in the movement for Black Liberation. He has been in prison for 42 years for the murder of a NYC cop. He has been denied parole 6 times despite his productive time behind bars that has resulted in him receiving two Bachelors of Science degrees and even a Masters degree, becoming known throughout the NY state prison system as a mentor, a football coach, and an educator.

In addition to writing Herman on Tuesday in the company of comrades and a home cooked vegan meal, we also urge folks to see what else they can do to support Herman during his parole push on this website: http://www.freehermanbell.org/ParoleEfforts.html

If for some reason you can’t make it on Tuesday, you can write to Herman at:

Herman Bell #79-C-0262
Great Meadow Correctional Facility
11739 State Route 22
Post Office Box 51
Comstock, New York 12821-0051

The deal, as always, is that you come bringing only yourself (and your friends and comrades), and we provide you with a delicious vegan meal, information about the prisoners as well as all of the letter-writing materials and prisoner-letter-writing info you could ever want to use in one evening. In return, you write a thoughtful letter to a political prisoner or prisoner of war of your choosing or, better yet, keep up a long-term correspondence. We’ll also provide some brief updates and pass around birthday cards for the PP/POWs whose birthdays fall in the next two weeks thanks to the PP/POW Birthday Calendar.

Tuesday, January 19th
7:00 pm

An opportunity to come together in solidarity and dance!
We will be providing a dance party of epic proportions.
Expect tons of bangers and no judgment for enjoying them!

Celebrate an opportunity for a shit show dance party on a Saturday night in Brooklyn, that will actually benefit a community social center.*

Dance Vibez:

-FXWRK
(https://soundcloud.com/fxwrk)

-Danik (DYDH)
Celebrating his !HALF! Birthday
(https://www.facebook.com/DanikjYopp)

-FAKE DJ
Bangers Galore!

Photos:

– TSWZ
(http://www.thestreetwalkerz.tumblr.com/)

For Your Calenders:

January 16th, 2016
Doors at 10pm

Where:

Silent Barn
603 Bushwick Ave.
Brooklyn

Also:

This is an ALL ages event.
Please come prepared to respect the space and each other.
Please refer to Silent Barn’s safer space policy below:
http://silentbarn.org/about/saferspaces
There is a full beer, wine, soju/sake cocktails, and cider bar
(No BYOB).

Door:

5-20$ Suggested Donation

*All money from the door will be split between The Base community social center in Bushwick. It is a completely free social center that has been acting as a space for organizing efforts against gentrification. fascism, and police violence.
thebasebk.org

The other half of the funds will go to political prisoner Eric King. Eric is a 28 year old anarchist who is being charged with attacking a federal building. Since his arrest last September, he has been extremely isolated from his loved ones and has repeatedly been targeted by the guards. He needs all the support he can get. Learn more about his case here:
https://supportericking.wordpress.com/

With giant, portable murals, Beehive graphics aim to draw out the connections between colonial history and present day struggles against corporate globalization, violence, and racism

Polinizaciones is a grassroots process that collaborates with communities impacted by resource extraction in the use of arts, culture, and communications as strategies for land defense in Colombia, Ecuador, and Venezuela.

The Rios Vivos Movement Colombia is the social movement of dam affected communities in Colombia that struggle in defense of their territories and river for a energy model by and for the peoples.

Sunday, January 17th
7:00 pm

The 2016 election campaign has brought a surge in the visibility of proto-fascist political figures such as Donald Trump. The uptick in race-baiting occurs in the wake of militant African-American youth revolts in Ferguson, Oakland and Baltimore, and the establishment of the Black Lives Matter movement. It also occurs in conjunction with terroristic attacks against black religious centers in Charleston and elsewhere.

Fifty-two years ago, in 1964, the presidential campaign also brought a spike in racist rhetoric, as segregationist George Wallace and ultra-conservative Barry Goldwater both made credible runs for the White House. And like today, it took place in reaction to a new wave of black liberation uprisings, known at that time as the civil rights movement, and in concert with an active white nationalist movement, at that time led by the Ku Klux Klan.

While these names from the past are familiar, the context and dynamic of the events is quite different from what we’ve been taught by popular history. In this talk, independent historian Lorenzo Raymond will review some new research and academic scholarship that illustrates both the similarities and differences between the racial struggles of 2016 and 1964. We will examine how the early 1960s civil rights movement–usually associated with Martin Luther King’s pacifism–was in fact more militant than the Black Lives Matter resistance of the past two years, and the white backlash–often portrayed as a decisive factor in America’s turn towards conservatism–was an inevitable side effect of a successful political revolution in the realm of race.

Picture: Cambridge, Maryland – May 1964

Friday, January 15th
7:00 pm

The 10 block, ultra expensive Rheingold development has been described by developers as a ‘game-changer’. We recognize that once this development hits Bushwick, the process of gentrification will reach unprecedented heights, forcing more people out and making basic goods expensive.

We have begun a historic campaign to stop this development and help put control of the community into the hands of people who live here.

We invite friends we have been working with, as well as people who have recently learned about it, to this meeting. This will be an opportunity to review the excellent research that’s already been done and plan the next actions.

Friday,January
7:00 pm

This night, sharing from their experience around how autonomy is lived, built and/or defeated in Mexico, members from the Cooperative El Rebozo will share their perspectives on what Zapatista autonomy looks like on a family, community and regional level and take a brief look at how the pueblos and the people, just like any one of us, are fighting to organize themselves with auto-determination, with only each other, in their communities, cooperatives and families, in order to resist against the death machine that surrounds us, the capitalist world.

The Zapatista movement, and our own experiences, demonstrate that the best weapon with which to fight is organization: an organization which encompasses all the elements necessary in order to live a dignified life, in community, from below, always in resistance and solidarity together with those that know something in the world must be changed.

Learning and knowing the people’s history, creating one’s own education, when healing becomes integral, guided by ancestral wisdom and mother nature, where women are at the forefront of the struggle and children can laugh and play freely as they deserve to, living without fear, ready to defend our lives, when governing is a practice of obeying: these are the elements upon which autonomy is built.

Thursday, January 7th
7:30 pm

When most people hear the words ‘anarchy’ or ‘anarchism’ they think of just chaos, violence, or nihilism. But many would be surprised to learn that Anarchism is actually a rich body of ideas and practices that favor the abolition of all oppressive relations of domination and hierarchy in order to maximize the potential for liberatory human relationships.

Join the Student Solidarity Network for our “Intro to Anarchism” reading series at The Base, where we’ll be navigating through the deep river of anarchy, beginning from the anarchistic elements of the past, to the very beginnings of the anarchist movement during the late 19th century covering its development up until the present day. Through our discussions, we hope to demonstrate the relevancy of anarchist ideas to our contemporary society while developing our own ideas in order to combat the present crisis society faces.

The readings will be slightly chronological but people can come whenever they can as all of the readings stand on their own. It’s also not necessary to read the texts to attend but still encouraged of course.This week we’ll be covering the anarchistic philosphies of Ancient Greece and China and some of the anarchic revolts which occured at the time. We’ll be reading:

Demanding The Impossible: A History of Anarchism – Peter Marshall (Chapters 4 & 5) https://libcom.org/library/demanding-impossible-history-anarchism

The Orgasms of History: 3000 Years of Spontaneous Insurrection – Yves Fremion (Pages 8 -14) https://books.google.com/books/about/The_Orgasms_of_History.html?id=VsnB0WA9zwEC

Ancient Utopia and Peasant Revolts in China – Ngo Van Xuyet http://libcom.org/library/ancient-utopia-peasant-revolts-china-ngo-van-xuyet

Origins of the One Percent: the Bronze Age – John Zezran theanarchistlibrary.org/library/john-zerzan-origins-of-the-one-percent-the-bronze-age

Wednesday, January 6th
7:00 pm

Joshua Williams, photographed in Berkeley, Mo. on Sept. 10, 2014.

Hosted by NYC Anarchist Black Cross

While it comes at no surprise, the fact is that in modern times Black people are not only being regularly gunned down by the State, but are also being kidnapped and caged for standing up for and defending their communities. 19 year old Joshua Williams is a victim of the latter. Joshua became a vocal regular participant in the anti-police demonstrations following the murder of 18 year old Mike Brown in 2014. Later that year, Joshua was arrested for the arson of a convenience store that was located across the street from the fatal police shooting of Antonio Martin just days before. In December 2015 Joshua pleaded guilty to arson and burglary and has been sentenced to 8 years in state prison.

While we believe that all political prisoners are in desperate need of support from our communities, Josh is in particular need right now. His age and high profile status as a Ferguson protester has made him an easy target for right wing media and blogging blowhards. They have been giggling to their empty selves at the idea of a young man who has been outspoken for peace being locked up for arson. They lack the understanding that peace sometimes comes at a cost. They lack the context that we are in a world where a young Black person is living in the reality that any violence to him by the State and other white supremacists would go virtually unchecked and probably publicly applauded. The damage to a building that was empty of all others at the time is not even close to equivalent.

We expect to see you on Tuesday. If you can’t make it, please take the time to write a letter to Joshua:

Joshua Williams #1292002
Eastern Reception, Diagnostic and Correctional Center
2727 Highway K
Bonne Terre, Missouri 63628

The deal, as always, is that you come bringing only yourself (and your friends and comrades), and we provide you with a delicious vegan meal, information about the prisoners as well as all of the letter-writing materials and prisoner-letter-writing info you could ever want to use in one evening. In return, you write a thoughtful letter to a political prisoner or prisoner of war of your choosing or, better yet, keep up a long-term correspondence. We’ll also provide some brief updates and pass around birthday cards for the PP/POWs whose birthdays fall in the next two weeks thanks to the PP/POW Birthday Calendar.

Tuesday, January 5
7:00 pk

WHAT: Political Prisoner Letter-Writing Dinner
WHEN: 7pm sharp, Tuesday, December 22nd, 2015
WHERE: The Base – 1302 Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn, New York 11221 (directions below)
NOTE: The Base is on the ground floor, is wheelchair accessible, and has a gender neutral toilet.
COST: Free

Presumably you’ve been able to sidestep the hoverboards and consumer-ready drones that are meant to keep you distracted while racist goons in blue uniforms murder every person of color they can. Whatever the fad, disguised as this year’s must-have shiny object, NYC ABC stays focused on what we know– supporting U.S. held political prisoners and prisoners of war. To that end, we are hosting our every-other-week political prisoner letter-writing dinner. And how better to end the year than by focusing on Mumia Abu-Jamal?

Mumia Abu-Jamal is an African-American writer and journalist, author of six books and hundreds of columns and articles, who has spent the last 30 years on Pennsylvania’s death row and now general population. Mumia was wrongfully convicted and sentenced for the murder of a Philadelphia cop. The demand for a new trial and freedom is supported by heads of state, Nobel laureates, distinguished human rights organizations, scholars, religious leaders, artists, scientists and, as important, millions of folks like you and us. For more information, be sure to visit bringmumiahome.com.

We expect to see you on Tuesday. If you can’t make it, please take the time to write a letter to Mumia:
Mumia Abu-Jamal #AM 8335
SCI Mahanoy
301 Morea Road
Frackville, Pennsylvania 17932

The deal, as always, is that you come bringing only yourself (and your friends and comrades), and we provide you with a delicious vegan meal, information about the prisoners as well as all of the letter-writing materials and prisoner-letter-writing info you could ever want to use in one evening. In return, you write a thoughtful letter to a political prisoner or prisoner of war of your choosing or, better yet, keep up a long-term correspondence. We’ll also provide some brief updates and pass around birthday cards for the PP/POWs whose birthdays fall in the next two weeks thanks to the PP/POW Birthday Calendar.

This talk examines the close affinities among four important historical radicals, half of them renowned anarchists from Russia and Mexico—Mikhail Bakunin and Ricardo Flores Magón, respectively—and the other half German Jewish critical theorists: Herbert Marcuse and Walter Benjamin. The similarities between Marcuse and Bakunin on the one hand and Magón and Benjamin on the other are striking, in terms of philosophy, revolutionary commitment, and personal lives. Marcuse and Bakunin share a common passion for Hegelian dialectics, the radical negation of the status quo, and the critique of Karl Marx, while Magón and Benjamin enthusiastically committed themselves to journalism and the written word as a means of subverting bourgeois society—beyond both of these latter having been martyred in U.S. federal prison and at the hands of Fascists, respectively, due to their revolutionary militancy. Indeed, all four thinkers have numerous affinities among themselves that transcend this convenient dyadic coupling suggested in the title. With this presentation, the speaker seeks to review the mutual affinities among these radicals and to open space for reflection on the meaning of their thoughts and lives for anarchist and anti-systemic struggle today.

Saturday, December 19th
7:00 pm

This week we’re going to work on some of the previous ideas from the last meeting and go door-to-door with out latest information. Please come to learn more and get involved in this fast moving, city changing project!

Friday, December 18th
7:00 pm

Frank Wilderson’s classic 2003 article on the anti-politics of the slave relation and its implications for the war against prisons, the economy, and humanist ethics. In our opinion, the best introductory text to Wilderson’s thought and afropessimism more broadly, and a much more accessible entry point than the more often circulated article, “Gramsci’s Black Marx”.

“From the coherence of civil society, the Black subject beckons with the incoherence of civil war, a war that reclaims Blackness not as a positive value, but as a politically enabling site, to quote Fanon, of ‘absolute dereliction.’ It is a ‘scandal’ that rends civil society asunder. Civil war, then, becomes the unthought, but never forgotten, understudy of hegemony. It is a Black specter waiting in the wings, an endless antagonism that cannot be satisfied (via reform or reparation), but must nonetheless be pursued to the death.”

http://illwilleditions.noblogs.org/files/2015/09/Wilderson-Prison-slave-READ.pdf

Thursday, December 17th
7:00 pm

Civil war broke out in Spain in 1936 as the military and right-wing forces attempted to crush rising militancy on the part of the working classes. In the chaos, organized anarchists were able to play a preponderant role in a revolutionary movement that gained control of Barcelona and surrounding areas. From the beginning, the Spanish Revolution was hindered not only by fascists, but by the “collaboration” of other counter-revolutionary forces, including liberals, communists, Catalan nationalists, and committees of the syndicalist CNT. This reading group investigates what the Revolution achieved and where it failed. Open to all! Meetings take place every other Wednesday.

For this session we read a few reviews of Ken Loach’s film “Land and Freedom”:

https://libcom.org/files/Gilles%20Dauvé-%20The%20dubious%20virtues%20of%20propaganda;%20Ken%20Loach’s%20‘Land%20and%20Freedom’.pdf

https://libcom.org/library/land-and-freedom-review

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/1998/08/land-a13.html

There will be snacks.

Wednesday, December 16th
7:00 pm

“The master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house.” – Audre Lorde

Objective empiricism posits a dominance of the physical senses for what can be known about our world, but many indigenous knowledges maintain animistic worldviews that hold our world as an enchanted one. An enchanted world can possibly shift our lives from one of separation to one of restoration. Amongst the folk magic, witchcraft, and indigenous traditions of Brujeria, Hoodoo, Lucumi / Santeria, Haitian Vodou, etc., we find tools and practices for battling everyday oppressions as well as the strain of systemic inequity.

In this talk, we’ll look at:

*the historical role of the witch / ritualist as revolutionary leader;

*animism as an antidote to capitalism, from Harriet Tubman to Dutty Boukman;

*folk magic remedies for battling gentrification, economic inequality, and legal inequity;

*plant spirits as long-term allies toward cultivating well-being for healthier selves and communities.

We welcome all to bring their own histories and questions!

Monday, December 14th
7:30pm

We’re meeting this evening to start a research group for the development at the Rheingold brewery. If you have a background in doing research like this, or have information about the development itself please come by. If you have a desire to stop this construction and want to take part in the campaign come by also and learn about the campaign.

Hosted by the Brooklyn Solidarity Network.

Fri, December 11th
7:00 pm

The 1967 Detroit riot, also known as the 12th Street riot, was a violent public disorder that turned into a civil disturbance in Detroit, Michigan. It began on a Saturday night in the early morning hours of July 23, 1967. The precipitating event was a police raid of an unlicensed, after-hours bar then known as a blind pig, on the corner of 12th (today Rosa Parks Boulevard) and Clairmount streets on the city’s Near West Side. Police confrontations with patrons and observers on the street evolved into one of the deadliest and most destructive riots in the history of the United States, lasting five days and surpassing the violence and property destruction of Detroit’s 1943 race riot.

Thursday, December 10th
7:00 pm

This week we will be writing to two folks who are serving time for fighting against the strongest and most obvious example of the State’s power, the military.

Chelsea Manning is a whistleblower who played an integral role in a massive WikiLeaks release of military documents and files in 2010. This release included video of journalists being murdered, documentation of abuses and torture, and files exposing some of the spying done by the US. She was sentenced to 35 years in prison.

Norman Lowry is a chaplain and an antiwar activist who is serving up to 7 years for blocking the entrance to an army recruitment center while attempting to dissuade the potential soldiers from signing up to carry out the murder by State in 2012. This is on the heels of him being released after doing 18 months for blocking the door at the recruitment center, which came right after he did 7 months time for smashing the windows of the recruiters cars. The judge laid out one condition for parole: that Norman promises not to disrupt the recruitment center again. Perhaps the judge will try to hold their breath until that happens…

If for some insane reason you can’t make it out, but still want to support the prisoners, you can write to Chelsea and Norman at:

Chelsea E. Manning 89289
1300 North Warehouse Road
Fort Leavenworth, Kansas 66027-2304

Norman Edgar Lowry Jr. KN9758
SCI Dallas
1000 Follies Road
Dallas, Pennsylvania 18612

The deal, as always, is that you come bringing only yourself (and your friends and comrades), and we provide you with a delicious vegan meal, information about the prisoners as well as all of the letter-writing materials and prisoner-letter-writing info you could ever want to use in one evening. In return, you write a thoughtful letter to a political prisoner or prisoner of war of your choosing or, better yet, keep up a long-term correspondence. We’ll also provide some brief updates and pass around birthday cards for the PP/POWs whose birthdays fall in the next two weeks thanks to the PP/POW Birthday Calendar.

Tuesday, December 8th
7:00 pm

Joining Copwatch is easy! All it takes is a camera (or phone with video camera), a short training session, and the conviction to stand up to the police. Join 1302 Myrtle @ Stockholm Ave. in Bushwick, in which we will hold a discussion, do a short training session, then hit the streets.

Our aim is to patrol heavily policed areas and film the cops to discourage them from abusing their powers. As we watch the police, we connect with the residents around us in hopes of building a cohesive network of people who are tired of the police, and want to do something about it.

Saturday, December 5th
7:00 pm

The Brooklyn Solidarity Network would like to invite you to an extraordinarily important meeting. At the old Rheingold Brewery in Bushwick developers intend to construct one of the most heinous buildings yet. They are proposing a 977 unit monstrosity that will permanently alter the city landscape and accelerate the displacement of local residents.

We know many people have already struggled against this project and others have been following its developments. We would like to continue the discussion we started in October about creating a new campaign against this project.

Friday, December 4th
7:00 pm

Civil war broke out in Spain in 1936 as the military and right-wing forces attempted to crush rising militancy on the part of the working classes. In the chaos, organized anarchists were able to play a preponderant role in a revolutionary movement that gained control of Barcelona and surrounding areas. From the beginning, the Spanish Revolution was hindered not only by fascists, but by the “collaboration” of other counter-revolutionary forces, including liberals, communists, Catalan nationalists, and committees of the syndicalist CNT. This reading group investigates what the Revolution achieved and where it failed. Open to all! Meetings take place every other Wednesday.

For this session we watch “Land and Freedom,” a 1995 film directed by Ken Loach, dramatizing the story of an English militant who joins a POUM militia during the Spanish Revolution.

There will be snacks.

Wednesday, December 2nd
7:00 pm

When most people hear the words ‘anarchy’ or ‘anarchism’ they think of just chaos, violence, or nihilism. But many would be surprised to learn that Anarchism is actually a rich body of ideas that advocates the abolition of all oppressive relations of domination and hierarchy in order to maximize the potential for liberatory human relationships.

Join Students for an Anarchist Society for our “Intro to Anarchism” reading series at The Base, where we’ll be navigating through the deep river of anarchy, beginning from the anarchistic elements of the past, to the very beginnings of the anarchist movement during the late 19th century and its development up until the present day.

Through our discussions we hope to demonstrate the relevancy of anarchist ideas to our contemporary society while developing our own ideas in order to combat the present crisis society faces. The readings will be slightly chronological but people can come whenever they can as all of the readings stand on their own.

This week we’ll be reading two anarchist classics:

Alexander Berkman’s “What Is Anarchism” pgs. 1-37 http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/alexander-berkman-what-is-communist-anarchism and

Emma Goldman’s, “The Individual, Society and the State”. http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/emma-goldman-the-individual-society-and-the-state

Wednesday, November 25
7:00 pm

WHAT: Political Prisoner Letter-Writing Dinner
WHEN: 7pm sharp, Tuesday, November 24th, 2015
WHERE: The Base – 1302 Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn, New York 11221 (directions below)
COST: Free

It’s supper time again, and we’re back at The Base for our every-other-week Political Prisoner Letter Writing Dinner. As anarchists, it should come as no surprise that we don’t celebrate Thanksgiving– we’ll take your damned day off from work, but not in exchange for commemorating the historic and ongoing genocide of indigenous folks and the 250 million turkeys who are killed each year. While we might be eating the fruits of the fall harvest, don’t confuse that with an acceptance of the Thanksgiving myth.

This Tuesday’s dinner will focus on indigenous political prisoner Leonard Peltier and we are fortunate to have a guest speaker from NYC Free Peltier.

Leonard Peltier is an American Indian Movement (AIM) warrior. In the 1970s, the United States government continued its legacy of decimating indigenous communities, focusing on those organized and prepared to challenge its authority. Peltier is imprisoned for the 1975 shoot-out between the FBI and AIM in which two federal agents and an indigenous man were killed. Four years after his imprisonment, a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request released documents which prove Leonard Peltier’s innocence and the FBI’s targeting him. And still, Peltier remains imprisoned. For more information and ways to help, visit whoisleonardpeltier.info

We would also like to share that there is a call to raise money for the legal fund of indigenous Political Prisoner Oso Blanco. More info: http://freeosoblanco.blogspot.com/p/oso-blanco-fundraiser.html

If for some insane reason you can’t make it out, but still want to support the prisoners, you can write to Leonard at:

Leonard Peltier #89637-132
USP Coleman I
Post Office Box 1033
Coleman, Florida 33521

The deal, as always, is that you come bringing only yourself (and your friends and comrades), and we provide you with a delicious vegan meal, information about the prisoners as well as all of the letter-writing materials and prisoner-letter-writing info you could ever want to use in one evening. In return, you write a thoughtful letter to a political prisoner or prisoner of war of your choosing or, better yet, keep up a long-term correspondence. We’ll also provide some brief updates and pass around birthday cards for the PP/POWs whose birthdays fall in the next two weeks thanks to thePP/POW Birthday Calendar.

All experience levels necessary, amateurs encouraged to drop by & get their hands dirty.

Recently, we received a generous donation of 200 GMO free Organic seed packets for our 2016 gardens! Help us organize the Base’s public seed library. If you have recycled jars for creative seed storage please bring them. Come through to check on our recently sowed cool season vegetables.

Free transplants & seeds available. Our workshop will continue to have formal & spontaneous meetings as we tend to & defend our gardens in public space.

If you would like to host a workshop or get more involved email radgardening@gmail.com

Saturday, November 21st
2:00 pm

(With english subtitles) A French documentary on how groups of youth in Paris generated a backlash against the NeoNazi skinhead subculture, and by doing so earned themselves the nickname Chasseurs de Skins or ‘Skinhead Hunters’.

Watch Trailer Here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4yLebwoK4Y

Saturday, November 14th
7:00 pm

Zapatista is the definitive look at the Zapatista uprising, its historical roots and its lessons for thepresent and the future.

January 1, 1994. the day the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) comesinto effect. A few minutes after midnight in Southeastern Mexico, several thousand Mayan soldiers take over half the state of Chiapas, declaring a war against the global corporate power they say rulesMexico. They call themselves the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN).

Zapatista is the definitive look at the uprising in Chiapas. It is the story of a Mayan peasant rebellion armed with sticks and their word against a first world military. It is the story of a global movement that has fought 175,000 federal troops to a stand still and transformed Mexican and international political culture forever.

Featuring interviews with: Subcomandante Marcos, Noam Chomsky, Comandante Tacho, David and Zebedeo, Mayor Insurgente Ana Maria, Javier Elorriaga, Zachde la Rocha.

55 minutes

Friday, November 13th
7:00 pm

WHAT: Political Prisoner Letter-Writing Dinner
WHEN: 7pm sharp, Tuesday, November 10th, 2015
WHERE: The Base – 1302 Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn, New York 11221 (directions below)
NOTE: The Base is on the ground floor, is wheelchair accessible, and has a gender neutral toilet.
COST: Free

This week we are writing to fellow anarchist Eric King. Eric is currently being charged in federal court with an attempted firebombing of a government official’s office in Kansas City, MO. in 2014. Since his arrest, Eric has been repeatedly fucked with by guards and other prison officials. He has been held in solitary confinement since January 2015 and will likely remain there for the duration of his trial. For much of his time behind bars, Eric was denied vegan food. Thanks to a campaign of support from both inside and outside the walls, Eric was finally given access to the food that matched his ethics and politics. In addition to his initial denial of a vegan diet, Eric has also been denied medical care which he has repeatedly requested. Eric’s most recent battle from inside prison has been with mail confiscation. Apparently, the “people” who handle the mail in the prison thought that Eric’s incoming mail was actually addressed to the trash can as that is where it ended up. Once again, thanks to support outside, the mail situation seems to have recently gotten better. Now is the best time for us to send love and support to Eric by way of flooding the mailroom.

Despite all of this treatment, Eric has been able to keep up good spirits when he can and is fully invested in resolving his legal situation. He has been writing a lot during his time, including a lot of poetry. There is a fundraiser and support T-shirt sale that is ongoing and can be found here: https://fundrazr.com/campaigns/0yoZc

If for whatever reason you will not be joining us this Tuesday, you can write to Eric at:

Eric King
27090045
CCA Leavenworth
100 Highway Terrace
Leavenworth, KS 66048

The deal, as always, is that you come bringing only yourself (and your friends and comrades), and we provide you with a delicious vegan meal, information about the prisoners as well as all of the letter-writing materials and prisoner-letter-writing info you could ever want to use in one evening. In return, you write a thoughtful letter to a political prisoner or prisoner of war of your choosing or, better yet, keep up a long-term correspondence. We’ll also provide some brief updates and pass around birthday cards for the PP/POWs whose birthdays fall in the next two weeks thanks to the PP/POW Birthday Calendar.

An opportunity to come together in solidarity and dance! We will be providing a dance party of epic proportions. Expect tons of bangers and no judgment for enjoying them!

Spread the word.

Donate some cash at the door.
$5-$20 (More would be great)

Celebrate an opportunity for a shit show dance party on a Saturday night in Brooklyn, that will actually benefit individuals resisting police murder!

For Your Calenders:

November 7th, 2015
Doors at 10pm

Where:

Silent Barn
603 Bushwick Ave.
Brooklyn

Also:

This is an ALL ages event.
Please come prepared to respect the space and each other.
Please refer to Silent Barn’s safer space policy below:
http://silentbarn.org/about/saferspaces

There is a full beer, wine, soju/sake cocktails, and cider bar
(No BYOB).

Dancing:

Night Doll

Jx Cannon

Danik of DYDH
(dj set)
Montreal/NYC stylist with a lifetime of passionate partying spreads the love by making you move.

FAKE DJ
NYC party coordinator turned DJ to save money on expenses.

++++++!special guests will be added soon!++++

The More You Know:

All door money after expenses will be donated to individuals arrested during protests against the murder of Eric Garner by NYPD last year.

Last December New York City stood up against the police murder of Eric Garner; it stood up against the police murder of Michael Brown; it stood up against all the thousands of people murdered by police each year. In these tumultuous, emotional demonstrations, ranging across boroughs, blocking bridges and highways, an uncontrollable opposition to the police said: we won’t take this any more. Authority reacted the way authority does best: beat the protesters, arrest them and shut them up with long prison sentences. Order, the order maintained through threat of police execution, was again restored.

But our defiance cannot be managed. It takes another form. We will not stop with a simple demonstration. We continue to support those who stood against this brutal system, who are facing the threats levied by the courts. This fundraiser goes to support the Brooklyn Bridge Arrestees, who are about to enter the prison system for standing up. What is most tragic is that these individuals will face more punishment than any of the police officers across the country responsible for the murders they were protesting.

Instead of mourning this loss to our movement, we celebrate their conviction, their defiance and their ongoing commitments to the Black Lives Matter movement in whatever form they take.

#blm
#solidarity

On Nov. 2nd, Zachary Campbell, began serving a brief sentence for charges related to an incident on the Brooklyn Bridge after the Millions March against police brutality last December.

Since his sentence is rather brief we are going to send letters and postcards to him ASAP to keep his spirits up. Please join us!

For more info check here:
https://canttouchthisnyc.wordpress.com/2015/11/03/brooklyn-bridge-defendants-face-jail-time/

You can write him here if you can’t make it!

Zachary Campbell
#3101500931
Eric M. Taylor Center (EMTC)
10-10 Hazen Street
East Elmhurst, NY 11370

Thursday, November 5th
7:00 pm

When most people hear the words ‘anarchy’ or ‘anarchism’ they think of just chaos, violence, or nihilism. But many would be surprised to learn that Anarchism is actually a rich body of ideas that advocates the abolition of all oppressive relations of domination and hierarchy in order to maximize the potential for liberatory human relationships.

Join Students for an Anarchist Society for our “Intro to Anarchism” reading series at The Base, where we’ll be navigating through the deep river of anarchy, beginning from the anarchistic elements of the past, to the very beginnings of the anarchist movement during the late 19th century and its development up until the present day.

Through our discussions we hope to demonstrate the relevancy of anarchist ideas to our contemporary society while developing our own ideas in order to combat the present crisis society faces. The readings will be slightly chronological but people can come whenever they can as all of the readings stand on their own.

We’ll be reading:
Peter Marshall’s “A History of Anarchism” the 2nd and 3rd chapters
https://libcom.org/library/demanding-impossible-history-anarchism
or
171637751-Peter-Marshall-Demanding-the-Impossible-A-History-of-Anarchism.pdf

Wednesday, October 28th
7:00 pm

WHAT: Political Prisoner Letter-Writing Dinner
WHEN: 7pm sharp, Tuesday, October 27th, 2015
WHERE: The Base – 1302 Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn, New York 11221 (directions below)
NOTE: The Base is on the ground floor, is wheelchair accessible, and has a gender neutral toilet.
COST: Free

It is 2015 and the US government’s war on environmental activists and animal liberationists is still being waged. With the sentencing hearings for Tyler Lang and Kevin Olliff nearing, we are reminded of the backwards and arbitrary logic the State uses to deem who are “terrorists.” The truth is, those in power will always villainize those who seek to liberate and valorize those who seek to carry out the real destruction.

In light of the coming holiday, we are sending Halloween cards to targets of the Green Scare. Since the early 1980s, public relations hacks have been working to reify the term “eco-terrorism.” By 2004, they became successful and a phrase that a decade earlier had no real meaning was now defined by the United States government and used to introduce legislation. In the face of global ecologic destruction and animal torture, those who try to end the suffering are the one’s labeled terrorists. Join us in letting the ones who have ultimately been captured by the feds know that they have not been forgotten.

The deal, as always, is that you come bringing only yourself (and your friends and comrades), and we provide you with a delicious vegan meal, information about the prisoners as well as all of the letter-writing materials and prisoner-letter-writing info you could ever want to use in one evening. In return, you write a thoughtful letter to a political prisoner or prisoner of war of your choosing or, better yet, keep up a long-term correspondence. We’ll also provide some brief updates and pass around birthday cards for the PP/POWs whose birthdays fall in the next two weeks thanks to thePP/POW Birthday Calendar.

This past year we have witnessed an explosion of activity in response to the ceaseless violence against Black and Brown people by the hands of the police, white vigilantes, and the prison system. We are living the legacy of hundreds of years of colonialism and slavery, but also are part of an inspiring counter-history of revolt against these forces. Cities have always taken the shape of social containers threatening to explode, but when it inevitably goes down who determines how those stories are represented and transmitted?  Authors Neal Shirley and Saralee Stafford will be reading from their new book Dixie Be Damned: 300 Years of Insurrection in the American South, with a specific focus on issues of legitimacy, identity, and control in urban rebellions from Atlanta and Tampa in the 1960s to Ferguson and Baltimore today.

Rojava’s stateless revolution and its dire fight against the reactionary forces of ISIS captured the attention of revolutionaries worldwide.

In the last few months, the YPG and YPJ have pushed ISIS further back, connecting two of the Cantons, Kobane and Cizire, while the people of Rojava have been building councils and cooperatives, been training in self-defense, and begun to reconstruct their war-ravaged cities.

We welcome Dilar Dirik, who has been traveling in Rojava, meeting people and documenting the revolution as it plays out in day-to-day life. Her articles and posts have provided an unparalleled view into the mechanics behind life in Rojava and her outspoken support for the social experiment has been pivotal for garnering the attention for many of us in the revolutionary left. This evening she will be with us to discuss the ideological underpinnings of the Rojava Revolution and the mechanics pf implementing the revolutionary process.

Friday, October 23rd
7:00 pm

After several sessions, this open house is meant to introduce both what we have been doing in the past and where the MAST project might go in the future. We aim to improve MAST as a tool for our mental/psychological struggles; both in terms of effective support and maintaining a critical inventiveness within the model itself. Although it has borrowed from the cognitive therapies mentioned below, we are excited to develop new possibilities as well as to re-tool MAST with a more inclusive variety of psychological perspectives. In light of this, we want to invite past participants and those who are newly curious about the project into such a conversation.

If you are generally curious about what MAST has been doing, the section below is a concise yet abbreviated description of the model and its goals.

***

MAST is an open-source and evolving set of cognitive techniques aimed at promoting better emotional health for individuals in a non-hierarchical or medical model.

MAST draws heavily upon the techniques found in Rational Emotive Therapy, Existential Psychology, Cognitive Behavioral Techniques, Dialectical behavioral Therapy and related systems. Its focus is to teach techniques of thinking that can allow individuals to make positive changes in their emotional lives. Though MAST is at its core self-therapy it relies on the power of small groups (triads) of peers to support the individual as they gain self-mastery of the MAST tools. Participants in MAST alternate between counselor and consoled so that they gain a better understanding of the aspects of MAST. This constant fluidity between roles through the triad ultimately not only creates healthier participants but creates people who can support others in the community. MAST rejects the traditional hierarchical roles in the mental health system creating a more immersive and deeper understanding of the techniques and allowing participants to add to MAST theory and practice.

MAST is not traditional psychotherapy nor is it group therapy. MAST uses the principle of mutual aid and a growing open source collection of techniques to help overcome emotional difficulties in their lives. MAST is not a substitute, nor does it seek to undermine, traditional psychotherapy and psychiatry but to provide a rational and effective self-therapy based on our radical principles. MAST was started by professional mental health professionals but seeks to create an effective and supportive practice to improve one’s mental wellness together with other people sharing their desire for a radical change in society.

Sunday, October 18th
2:00 pm to 4:00 pm

Mitch Abidor will discuss his new book Voices of the Paris Commune.

The Paris Commune of 1871, the first instance of a working-class seizure of power, has been subject to countless interpretations; reviled by its enemies as a murderous bacchanalia of the unwashed while praised by supporters as an exemplar of proletarian anarchism in action. As both a successful model to be imitated and as a devastating failure to be avoided. All of the interpretations are tendentious. Historians view the working class’s three-month rule through their own prism, distant in time and space. Voices of the Paris Commune takes a different tack. In this book only those who were present in the spring of 1871, who lived through and participated in the Commune, are heard.

The Paris Commune had a vibrant press, and it is represented here by its most important newspaper, Le Cri du Peuple, edited by Jules Vallès, member of the First International. Like any legitimate government, the Paris Commune held parliamentary sessions and issued daily printed reports of the heated, contentious deliberations that belie any accusation of dictatorship. Included in this collection is the transcript of the debate in the Commune, just days before its final defeat, on the establishing of a Committee of Public Safety and on the fate of the hostages held by the Commune, hostages who would ultimately be killed.

Finally, Voices of the Paris Commune contains a selection from the inquiry carried out twenty years after the event by the intellectual review La Revue Blanche, asking participants to judge the successes and failures of the Paris Commune. This section provides a fascinating range of opinions of this epochal event.

Saturday, October 17th
7:00 pm

Free movie screening!

About the movie:
The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 is a 2011 documentary film, directed by Göran Olsson, that examines the evolution of the Black Power Movement in American society from 1967 to 1975. It features the found footage shot by a group of Swedish journalists overlaid with commentaries and interviews from leading contemporary African-American artists, activists, musicians and scholars. The footage includes appearances by Stokely Carmichael, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Eldridge Cleaver, Bobby Seale, Huey P. Newton, Emile de Antonio, Angela Davis and commentaries by Erykah Badu, Talib Kweli, Harry Belafonte, Kathleen Cleaver, Angela Davis, Robin Kelley and Abiodun Oyewole, amongst others.

Friday, October 16
7:00 pm

When most people hear the words ‘anarchy’ or ‘anarchism’ they think of just chaos, violence, or nihilism. But many would be surprised to learn that Anarchism is actually a rich body of ideas that advocates the abolition of all oppressive relations of domination and hierarchy in order to maximize the potential for liberatory human relationships.

Join Students for an Anarchist Society for our “Intro to Anarchism” reading series at The Base, where we’ll be navigating through the deep river of anarchy, beginning from the anarchistic elements of the past, to the very beginnings of the anarchist movement during the late 19th century and its development up until the present day.

Through our discussions we hope to demonstrate the relevancy of anarchist ideas to our contemporary society while developing our own ideas in order to combat the present crisis society faces. The readings will be slightly chronological but people can come whenever they can as all of the readings stand on their own. A rough outline of the topics that will be covered is listed below.

We’ll be reading:
Peter Marshall’s “A History of Anarchism” Intro and the 1st chapter
https://libcom.org/library/demanding-impossible-history-anarchism

David Graebers “Are You an Anarchist?” http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/david-graeber-are-you-an-anarchist-the-answer-may-surprise-you

Intro to Basic Concepts
– “What is Anarchism”?
– Society, State, Freedom, and Equality
Anarchy from the Age of Dinosaurs till the Renaissance
-Hunter Gatherer Societies
– Anarchic Ideas in Ancient Times
– The Anarchy of the Middle Ages and the Enlightenment
Anarchism in Bloom
– Forerunners of Anarchism: Godwin, Stirner, Proudhon
– Bakunin vs Marx
– The First International and the Rise of the Global Anarchist Movement
– The Paris Commune
Anarchism in the 20th Century (Pt 1)
– Propaganda by the Deed and Anarcho-Syndicalism
– The Labor Movement, Red Scare, and WWI
– The Russian Revolution
– The Spanish Revolution
Anarchism in the 20th Century (Pt 2)
– The ‘ New Left’ and the resurgence of Anarchism
– Bookchin, Goodman, and Ward
– The Situationists and the revolts of 68′
– The Anti-Globalization and Environmental Movements
– Post-Left Anarchy and Insurrectionism
Anarchism and Contemporary Society
– Modern Anarchist Theory
– Race, Gender, and Class
– Contemporary Movements
– The Financial and Ecological Crisis
– The Rojava Revolution

Wednesday, October 14
7:00 pm

WHAT: Political Prisoner Letter-Writing Dinner
WHEN: 7pm sharp, Tuesday, October 13th, 2015
WHERE: The Base – 1302 Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn, New York 11221 (directions below)
NOTE: The Base is on the ground floor, is wheelchair accessible, and has a gender neutral toilet.
COST: Free

This week we are writing to Jeremy Hammond and Barrett Brown, both of whom are imprisoned in relation to the hacking of the private intelligence firm Statfor.

Jeremy Hammond is an anarchist computer hacker from Chicago. In November 2013, he was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison for leaking the personal information of 860,000 customers of private intelligence firm Strategic Forecasting (Stratfor) through the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks. This information revealed that Stratfor spies on activists, among others, at the behest of corporations and the U.S. government.

In October 2012, Barrett Brown was indicted on three counts related to postings on websites such as Twitter and YouTube. Later in December of that year, Barrett was indicted by a federal grand jury on twelve additional counts related to data from the Stratfor information leak carried out by hackers from Anonymous. Despite his lack of direct involvement in the operation and stated opposition to it, he faced these charges for allegedly pasting a hyperlink online. On January 23, 2013 he was indicted a third time on two more counts, relating to the March 2012 FBI raid(s) on his apartment and his mother’s house. In April, Brown pleaded guilty to three reduced counts. In January 2015, he was sentenced to 63 months in federal prison.

In 2011, there were occupations of squares happening all across the globe. People were rising up in response to the global financial crisis and for real democracy. It was a moment of upheaval when anything seemed possible.

In this context, on September 17th, 2011, a two-month encampment of Zuccotti Park, renamed Liberty Plaza, began in the financial district of NYC. Occupy Wall Street (OWS) was an autonomous zone of activity with general assemblies engaging in directly democratic processes and working groups self-organizing to meet basic needs. It was a liberated space.

The non-fiction feature film, All Day All Week: An Occupy Wall Street Story, tells the story of OWS from the perspective of those who lived it. Filmed by and in conversation with participants, the film offers a glimpse inside the daily life of occupation as well as reflections on the experience.

Saturday, 10/10
7:00 pm

This week we’re reading Frank Wilderson’s text “The Black Liberation Army and the Paradox of Political Engagement.”

http://illwilleditions.noblogs.org/files/2015/09/Wilderson-Black-Liberation-Army-the-Paradox-of-Political-Engagement-2013-READ-.pdf

Description:
“The Black Liberation Army & the Paradox of Political Engagement”, is a recent essay by US Afropessimist theorist Frank B. Wilderson, III. It juxtaposes three armed guerrilla groups – the Black Liberation Army, the Red Army Faction, and the Irish Republican Army, in order to determine the anthropological and socio-affective conditions enabling political violence to be communicable and comprehensible.

“Blackness cannot be disimbricated from slavery, in the way that Irishness can be disimbricated from colonial rule or in the way that labor can be delinked from capital. The violence which subsumes the Irish has temporal limits (the time of the Troubles, from the late 1960s to the “Good Friday” Agreement of 1998) as well as spatial limits (the urban North). Not only is there no punctuation in the temporality of the violence that subsumes [Black Liberation Army soldier] Assata [Shakur], but furthermore, no cartography of violence can be mapped, for that would imply the prospect for a map of non- violent space. To the contrary, Assata Shakur’s political communiqué demonstrates that she and other Black people are in the throes of what historian David Eltis calls “violence beyond the limit”, by which he means (a) in the libidinal economy there are no forms of violence so excessive that they would be considered too cruel to inflict upon Blacks; and (b) in political economy there are no rational explanations for this limitless theatre of cruelty, no explanations which would make political or economic sense of the violence she describes (as, for example, Ulrike Meinhof does). Whereas the Human’s relationship to violence is always contingent, triggered by her transgressions against the regulatory prohibitions of the Symbolic Order or by macro-economic shifts in her social context, the Slave’s relationship to violence is open ended, gratuitous, without reason or constraint, triggered by prelogical catalysts which are unmoored from her transgressions and unaccountable to historical shifts.”

Friday, 10/9
7:00 pm

The Lucasville Uprising was a rebellion against oppressive and racist policies at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility (SOCF) in Lucasville, OH. Nine inmates and one guard died during the uprising in April of 1993. Today, many people are serving time or condemned to death by the state of Ohio in relation to the uprising. Keith LaMar is a death row inmate falsely accused of the murder of fellow prisoners during the uprising.

On Tuesday, October 8, groups of people all over the country will screen the film Condemned: Keith Lamar, about Keith’s case and the state’s persecution of him. This will be the first step in a campaign to spread awareness and prepare to take action in his defense. 

Come watch this film about his case to learn more about the uprising and where he stands now.

In his own words: 
“For myself, I intend to keep building on the base that I’ve established, working with any and every body who is opposed to this monstrous system. Let’s come together, work together, and stop looking for the same people who profit from our pain to save us.”

Thursday, 10/8
8:00pm

(Workshop/Bring your laptop). Freedom of information and counter Surveillance awareness and strategies for activists.

Paul Feigelfeld (visiting from Berlin) is a crypto and hacking scholar and pioneer of the Refugee Phrasebook collective: “a multilingual tool aiming to empower refugees who just arrived in Europe”. This will be a two-part event: talk and workshop. Paul, Will give a workshop on counter surveillance awareness and strategies for activists. He will also take this opportunity to talk about work that is being developed during today’s refugee crisis in Europe, particularly the Refugee Phrasebook project.

There will be a workshop on cryptology, surveillance intelligence in the digital era that will provide tools for activists’ safe communication strategies. Each person should bring their laptop. We will look at the role of cryptology or the concept of code and explain key historical concepts offering a focus on its use today, protection from surveillance, digital identity and hacking are subjects that will be covered.

There will also be a look “directed towards questions and perspectives of authenticity and the individual in an outlook on the near future, in political, social, and artistic spheres, where things like genetic fingerprints and Bitcoin block chains will very likely become new means of identification and authentication—from passports and bank accounts, online identities, digital labour and communication—as well as the right to be forgotten, freedom of information, and anonymity.”

Sunday, October 4th
6:00 pm

At this workshop are going to make posters, banners, flyers, and stencils for political projects going on throughout the city. If you are taking part in the black struggle, the anti-gentrification battle, the anti-police struggle, or other revolutionary projects then come and take part in making materials for your projects. This workshop will be hands on and self-motivated, so please come with an idea.

Saturday, October 3rd
7:00 pm

The Brooklyn Solidarity Network would like to invite you to an extraordinarily important meeting. At the old Rheingold Brewery in Bushwick developers intend to construct one of the most heinous buildings yet. They are proposing a 977 unit monstrosity that will permanently alter the city landscape and accelerate the displacement of local residents.

We know many people have already struggled against this project and others have been following its developments. We would like to start a discussion about creating a new campaign against this project.

Friday, October 2nd
7:00 pm

WHAT: Political Prisoner Letter-Writing Dinner
WHEN: 7pm sharp, Tuesday, September 29th, 2015
WHERE: The Base – 1302 Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn, New York 11221 (directions below)
NOTE: The Base is on the ground floor, is wheelchair accessible, and has a gender neutral toilet.
COST: Free

It’s no secret that winter is the baby-making season and that leaves October as the month with the most birthdays. As we know, our imprisoned comrades are folks coming from the same movements as us, not some rare breed of super-human. As a result a disproportionate number of them also share October births. In fact, there are so many upcoming political prisoner birthdays that NYC ABC is focusing our entire upcoming political prisoner letter-writing dinner on sending cards to them. So come join us for some good food and sign a whole grip of cards. We’ll see you for supper.

The deal, as always, is that you come bringing only yourself (and your friends and comrades), and we provide you with a delicious vegan meal, information about the prisoners as well as all of the letter-writing materials and prisoner-letter-writing info you could ever want to use in one evening. In return, you write a thoughtful letter to a political prisoner or prisoner of war of your choosing or, better yet, keep up a long-term correspondence. We’ll also provide some brief updates and pass around birthday cards for the PP/POWs whose birthdays fall in the next two weeks thanks to thePP/POW Birthday Calendar.

For this week’s meet up we’re reading the first part, “The Anti-Social Turn,” in “Baedan I: A Journal of Queer Nihilism.” We intend to read the entirety of this invaluable text.

http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/baedan-baedan

From the Journal:

“If we can determine anything from our project of queer negativity, it is that capitalism has an unlimited capacity to tolerate and recuperate any alternative politics or artistic expression we could imagine. It is not a political negativity that we must locate in our queerness, but rather a vicious anti-politics which opposes any utopian dreams of a better future residing on the far side of a lifetime of sacrifice. Our queer negativity has nothing to do with art, but it has a great deal to do with urban insurrection, piracy, slave revolt: all those bodily struggles that refuse the future and pursue the irrationality of jouissance, enjoyment, rage, chaos. Ours is not the struggle for an alternative, because there is no alternative which can escape the ever-expanding horizons of capital. Instead we fight, hopeless, to tear our lives away from that expanding horizon and to erupt with wild enjoyment now. Anything less is our continued domestication to the rule of civilization.”

Friday, September 25th
7:00 pm

As we enter the fall season, there is still plenty to do in the garden! It’s time to build a permanent seed library at the Base. Bring seeds to share, we can venture out into the neighborhood to collect seeds as well.

There will be an opportunity to tag & stencil our two raised garden boxes, night water & aid our vegetables & herbs. We can soak seeds & plant some cool season greens for a late fall crop.

All experience levels necessary, amateurs encouraged to drop by & get their hands dirty.

Harvested mint tea served. Free transplants & seed bombs available. Our workshop will continue to have formal & spontaneous meetings as we tend to & defend our gardens in public space.

If you would like to host a workshop or get more involved email radgardening@gmail.com

Thursday, September 24th
7:30 pm to 9:30 pm

WHAT: To Change Everything
WHEN: 7:00pm, Wednesday, September 16th
WHERE: The Base – 1302 Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn, New York 11221 (directions below)
NOTE: The Base is on the ground floor, is wheelchair accessible, and has a gender neutral toilet.
COST: Free
Climate change, economic crisis, unrest from Baltimore to Brazil: the prevailing order is unsustainable in every way. Today even the most entrenched authorities admit that it is necessary to change everything. But all the solutions they offer rely on the same structures that produced this mess in the first place. How do we change everything?

This panel brings together organizers from Latin America, Eastern Europe, and the US to discuss what anarchist ideas and strategies have to offer in the 21st century. Comparing experiences in the social movements and uprisings of the past decade, they will explore questions about reform, democracy, and self-determination.

WHAT: Political Prisoner Letter-Writing Dinner
WHEN: 7pm sharp, Tuesday, September 15th, 2015
WHERE: The Base – 1302 Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn, New York 11221 (directions below)
NOTE: The Base is on the ground floor, is wheelchair accessible, and has a gender neutral toilet.
COST: Free

It has been great to be apart of and to attend so many inspiring events this September, and we are just barely through half of it.  From the amazing turnout and response to this yearsRunning Down the Walls, to the wonderful vibes at the Dead Prez, Rah Digga, Rebel Diaz and Tef Poe show, to the discussion and call to action with the No New Animal Lab campaign, to the Party Against Prisons, and the upcoming The Promise Of Anarchism: An International Panel Discussion.  We have certainly kept ourselves busy, but could not feel better doing so.  We want to keep this momentum going in this week’s letter writing night for activist, author, and soldier Russell Maroon Shoatz.

Russell is a dedicated community activist and founding member of the Philadelphia based organization Black Unity Council, which eventually merged with the Black Panther Party (1969). In 1970, along with 5 others, Maroon was accused of attacking a police station, which resulted in an officer being killed. This attack was said to have been carried out in response to the rampant police brutality in the Black community. For 18 months Maroon functioned underground as a soldier in the Black Liberation Army. In 1972 he was captured. Twice he escaped—once in 1977 and again 1980, but both times he was recaptured and today he is held in Pennsylvania where he is serving multiple life sentences.

We expect to see you on Tuesday. If you can’t make it, please take the time to write a letter to Russell at:

Russell Maroon Shoatz #AF3855
SCI Graterford
Post Office Box 244
Graterford, Pennsylvania 19426-0244

The deal, as always, is that you come bringing only yourself (and your friends and comrades), and we provide you with a delicious vegan meal, information about the prisoners as well as all of the letter-writing materials and prisoner-letter-writing info you could ever want to use in one evening. In return, you write a thoughtful letter to a political prisoner or prisoner of war of your choosing or, better yet, keep up a long-term correspondence. We’ll also provide some brief updates and pass around birthday cards for the PP/POWs whose birthdays fall in the next two weeks thanks to thePP/POW Birthday Calendar.

O Great North

Spit
Nova The Wra!th
(A)TRUTH

Support a brand new community bail fund:

$5-$10
sliding scale
Silent Barn
603 Bushwick Ave

This June, at 22 years, Kalief Browder died. He did not die due to illness or tragedy. After three years of suffering in Rikers Island prison, two of them in solitary confinement, he took his own life to ease the mental anguish he had garnered from the prison system. Browders’ agony, humiliation, and suffering is standard fare for black people across New York City. Last winter, the Black Lives Matter movement, with their demands for dignity and an end to police abuse, propelled this issue into popular consciousness and it cannot be hidden again.

That discussion must address the prison system. Kalief Browder, like many others at Rikers Island, had not been sentenced to jail time or convicted of any crime. He was simply being held at Riker’s awaiting trial because he could not afford bail. This is standard in New York City. Bails that appear relatively low are impossibly high for many people. For Kalief Browder, 3 years of delayed trials ultimately ended with his case being dismissed. Requiring bail is a tactic used by the state: plead guilty to minor charge and avoid jail time or plead not guilty and be held indefinitely awaiting trial. Kalief was forced to endure not only the psychological trauma of being held in jail but also the physical beatings from both inmates and correctional officers.

A brief stay in prison typically ruins people’s lives due to work absence, non-payment of rent, eviction from shelters, and physical/emotional abuse while incarcerated. Unfortunately this is one of the only public cases; there are hundreds of others.

We propose to establish a community bail fund to release those sitting in prison while awaiting trial. In honor of Kalief Browder, and to avoid another tragedy like this, we will begin this project by bailing out people who have been in Riker’s the longest.

Community bail funds have already had enormous success. For example, the Bronx Freedom Fund bailed out 200 people in a year and half, 50% of which had their charges dismissed. 96% of the people they bailed out returned for their court dates, which means that the money they used to bail out one person could eventually come back to the fund and be used to bail out someone else.

This fundraiser will provide the base amount of funds we need to begin this project. Once we have accumulated this relatively small amount of money, we will bail out the first person. As we raise more funds through shows like this, and as public knowledge about this fund grows, and as that same money returns to the fund, we will be able to bail out more and more people. This small seed will provide the means for many people over to maintain a reasonable amount of stability in their lives as they face petty charges.

We cannot allow one more person to meet the fate of Kalief Browder. This bail fund brings us a step closer to this reality.

Saturday, September 12th
10:00 pm

Join the No New Animal Lab Tour for a presentation and discussion in New York City! 

No New Animal Lab is a grassroots pressure campaign to stop international construction corporation Skanska from building a new underground animal lab at the University of Washington. If the new lab is built, thousands of animals will be tortured inside of it. People around the world are saying, “We Will Stop This Lab” — and fighting to do so. 

Join organizers of the campaign for a presentation and discussion in NYC — home to Skanska’s U.S. headquarters — about the campaign and building the grassroots movement for animal liberation. 

Co-Sponsored by the NYC Animal Defense League.

Saturday, September 12th
8:00 pm

This week we’re reading a text from Anti-State STL about the bankruptcy of the “white ally” concept. The text is a much needed and timely critique of current activist culture in the US.

https://itsgoingdown.org/another-word-for-white-ally-is-coward/

Friday, September 11th
7:00 pm

Presented by a comrade from Athens.

From 2010-2015 Greece has been in a state of economic crisis as a result of punishing austerity measures imposed by leaders of the European Union. This discussion will present both the victories and losses of different revolutionary struggles resisting this precarious time in Greece. We will explore both popular reactions to this situation by the Greek people, as well as the resurgence of power for the far-right in Greece, and the many faces of anarchist intervention among all of Greek society.

Friday, September 4th
7:30 pm

WHAT: Political Prisoner Letter-Writing Dinner
WHEN: 7pm sharp, Tuesday, September 1st, 2015
WHERE: The Base – 1302 Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn, New York 11221 (directions below)
NOTE: The Base is on the ground floor, is wheelchair accessible, and has a gender neutral toilet.
COST: Free

With the seemingly never-ending rise of police murdering and brutalizing people of color with unrepentant disregard, it should be a shock to none that some will defend themselves and their communities with whatever means they see fit.  This week we will be writing Christopher Monfort.

In 2009, Christopher Monfort waged a one man war against the Seattle Police Department.

On October 22, 2009, police vehicles parked in a vehicle maintenance yard in Seattle were firebombed. Several vehicles were destroyed and many damaged in the action. A communique was issued days later tying the incident to the beating of a young girl held in custody by Seattle Police.

Less that two weeks later, on October 31, 2009, Seattle police officer Timothy Brenton was killed and his partner, Britt Sweeney, was wounded. According to the Seattle police, Brenton was sitting in the passenger seat of a patrol car with Sweeney discussing a just completed traffic stop when a vehicle pulled alongside the patrol car and an occupant opened fire. Officer Brenton was instantly killed . Sweeney was grazed in the back by one shot, but able to get out of the patrol car, return fire at the fleeing vehicle, and call for additional units.

During the investigation, detectives and officers linked Monfort’s car to the crime, and attempted to arrest him at his apartment. When officers arrived, Monfort is said to have pulled a gun and opened fire. Monfort was shot by police and is now paralyzed as a result of the confrontation.

Since the start of court proceedings, Monfort has been doggedly outspoken about the role of police in society, specific instances of police violence, and has consistently called on other people in the United States to confront police terror in their communities and use armed tactics to do so if necessary.

Monfort was convicted of murder, two counts of attempted murder, and one count of arson.  The state asked the jury to sentence him to be murdered by the state, but they instead sentenced him to life in prison.

We expect to see you on Tuesday. If you can’t make it, please take the time to write a letter to Christopher at:

Christopher John Monfort #209040021
500 Fifth Avenue
Seattle , Washington 98104

The deal, as always, is that you come bringing only yourself (and your friends and comrades), and we provide you with a delicious vegan meal, information about the prisoners as well as all of the letter-writing materials and prisoner-letter-writing info you could ever want to use in one evening. In return, you write a thoughtful letter to a political prisoner or prisoner of war of your choosing or, better yet, keep up a long-term correspondence. We’ll also provide some brief updates and pass around birthday cards for the PP/POWs whose birthdays fall in the next two weeks thanks to thePP/POW Birthday Calendar.

These last few years have been important for the anarchist struggle. In the US, the reaction to police executions have manifested in riotous uprisings and the Black Lives Matter movement, both of which have exposed a new generation of people who defiantly reject subjugation and reformist solutions. A hunger for new social proposals is visibly spreading city to city, hood to hood. The time has never been more pressing for a complete shift in how revolutionary struggle is manifested.

Simultaneously, one of the most massive anarchist-inspired societies has come to fruition: the decentralized region of Rojava. While Rojavans engage in bottom-up, liberatory social practices, their fighters have successfully defended the Cantons against the brutal, reactionary IS. For anarchists around the world, the councils and communes they have instituted have become pragmatic examples for our own communities.

Anarchist resistance in New York has been growing at a steady pace. Through the infrastructure of the Base, new anarchists have gotten involved and together we’ve been able to generate wider public knowledge about radical left politics, while laying the foundations for new social organizations.

We are eager to expand the range of these projects.

The crisis in housing is not only about the fact of 40,000 homeless people
in NYC, the increasing rents, displacement and gentrification of
neighborhoods, and the generalized insecurity of tenure faced by the 99%.
It’s also about the fact that there are presently enough vacant properties
throughout NYC to meet the needs of the homeless three times over (!) and
alleviate the housing shortage which allows for the absurdly high rents.

Squatting, or the un-permitted occupation, renovation and defense of
vacant spaces for the purposes of crating housing and social centers is
about realizing our human right to a home through direct action. This
workshop will offer the techniques, tactics and procedures for squatting
in NYC.

Join Us!

La crisis en la vivienda no es sólo sobre el hecho de 40.000 personas sin
hogar en Nueva York, aumento alquileres, desplazamiento y desalojo de los
barrios, y ante la generalizada inseguridad de la tenencia por el 99%. Es
también sobre el hecho de que existen propiedades actualmente bastante
vacías a lo largo de NYC para satisfacer las necesidades de las personas
sin hogar tres veces más (!) y aliviar la escasez de vivienda que permite
las absurdamente altas rentas.

En rescatando, o la ocupación no permitido, renovación y defensa de
espacios vacantes para los propósitos de encajonamiento centros sociales y
viviendas trata de darse cuenta de nuestro derecho humano a una vivienda a
través de la acción directa. Este taller ofrecerá las técnicas, tácticas y
procedimientos para ocupar edificios abandonados en Nueva York.

¡Acompáñenos!

Friday, August 21st
7:00 pm

Seven years after his triumph in Cuba, Che (Benicio Del Toro) winds up in Bolivia, where he tries to ignite the same revolutionary fires as before. But, with the Bolivian army bolstered by CIA support, Che faces one defeat after another, finally meeting his end in the village of La Higuera.

Thursday, August 20th
7:00 pm

WHAT: Political Prisoner Letter-Writing Dinner
WHEN: 7pm sharp, Tuesday, August 18th, 2015
WHERE: The Base – 1302 Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn, New York 11221 (directions below)
NOTE: The Base is on the ground floor, is wheelchair accessible, and has a gender neutral toilet.
COST: Free

Hopefully you’ve been training in preparation for Running Down the Walls 2015. The competition will be fierce, the food at the after party will be delicious, and the solidarity with our imprisoned comrades will be infinite. Please take this opportunity to get more folks to sponsor you as a participant and help build the ABCF warchest and help the Family and Friends of Maliki Shakur Latine. As a lead in to this year’s run, we are hosting another of our every other week Political Prisoner Letter-Writing Dinners. This week, NYC ABC will be hosting a Black August card signing.

As Black August began in remembrance of fallen Black liberation prisoner, George Jackson, and the San Quentin prison uprising of 1971– a prison uprising that included recently murdered San Quentin Six member Hugo “Yogi Bear” Pinell, we honor Yogi with this dinner.

The deal, as always, is that you come bringing only yourself (and your friends and comrades), and we provide you with a delicious vegan meal, information about the prisoners as well as all of the letter-writing materials andprisoner-letter-writing info you could ever want to use in one evening. In return, you write a thoughtful letter to a political prisoner or prisoner of war of your choosing or, better yet, keep up a long-term correspondence. We’ll also provide some brief updates and pass around birthday cards for the PP/POWs whose birthdays fall in the next two weeks thanks to the PP/POW Birthday Calendar.

This August marks the 15-year anniversary of direct action against the prison-industrial complex and arrest of hundreds of activists during the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia. In response, dissidents confronted new forms of political repression by pushing legal boundaries and establishing new models of collective resistance.

Join activist and author Kris Hermes for a discussion on his new book, Crashing the Party: Legacies and Lessons from the RNC 2000, an engrossing combination of social history and courtroom drama that explains the origins of contemporary protest policing and the creative political resistance used to overcome it. Hermes and a former RNC 2000 arrestee and Student Liberation Action Movement (SLAM) member will discuss their experiences on the ground in Philadelphia and how they relate to the movement today. Books will be available for purchase and signing following the discussion!

Kris Hermes is a Bay Area–based activist who has worked for nearly 30 years on social justice issues. Organizing with ACT UP Philadelphia in the late 1990s spurred his interest in legal support work and led to his years-long involvement with R2K Legal. Since 2000, Hermes has been an active, award-winning legal worker-member of the National Lawyers Guild and part of numerous law collectives and legal support efforts. Hermes has written extensively in his professional career as a media worker and as a legal activist.

Saturday, August 15
7:00 pm

Dolgoff’s analysis of the Cuban Revolution, its development and significance, presents an historical perspective on Cuba that arrives at new insights into social and political change. The text offers an anarchist critique of the revolution.

pp. 44-54

pp. 122- 210

https://libcom.org/files/Dolgoff,%20Sam%20-%20The%20Cuban%20revolution,%20A%20critical%20perspective.pdf

Friday, August 14
7:00 pm

Ernesto “Che” Guevara (Benicio Del Toro) transforms from intellectual, asthmatic doctor to one of Latin America’s legendary revolutionaries. In the years before his famous 1964 visit to the United Nations, Che joins forces with Cuban exile Fidel Castro (Demián Bichir) and ignites a revolution that eventually brings an end to the Batista regime in Cuba.

Thursday, August 13
8:00 pm

WHAT: Political Prisoner Letter-Writing Dinner
WHEN: 7pm sharp, Tuesday, August 4th, 2015
WHERE: The Base – 1302 Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn, New York 11221 (directions below)
NOTE: The Base is on the ground floor, is wheelchair accessible, and has a gender neutral toilet.
COST: Free

If you missed our event last week on the International Day of Solidarity with Antifascist Prisoners, you missed out on a a great deal of inspiring videos of antifa action and inspiring speakers discussing the way the state punishes those who take action against fascism across the world.

It is with fighting fascism in mind that we focus our next political prisoner letter-writing dinner onLuke O’Donovan. On New Year’s Eve of 2013, Luke was seen dancing with and kissing other men at a house party. Later in the night he was insulted with homophobic slurs, and attacked by several people. Luke unsuccessfully attempted to escape, at which point several witnesses reported watching between 5 and 12 men ganging-up on Luke and stomping on his head and body, evidently with the intent to kill him. Luke was called a faggot before and during the attack. Throughout the course of the attack, Luke and five others were stabbed. Luke was subsequently imprisoned and charged with five counts of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon as well as one count of attempted murder while none of the other individuals involved in the altercation were charged.

Luke’s trial concluded on August 12, 2014, when he accepted a plea deal. While initially facing over 100 years in prison, the deal Luke accepted includes two years in prison and eight years on probation. At the time of sentencing, the judge added to the negotiated plea that Luke will be banished from the state of Georgia, except for one small county away from his home, family, and friends, for the eight years of his probation.

While we expect to see you on Tuesday, if you can’t make it, please take the time to write aletter to Luke:
Luke Patrick O’Donovan #1001372271
Washington State Prison
Post Office Box 206
Davisboro, Georgia 31018

The deal, as always, is that you come bringing only yourself (and your friends and comrades), and we provide you with a delicious vegan meal, information about the prisoners as well as all of the letter-writing materials and prisoner-letter-writing info you could ever want to use in one evening. In return, you write a thoughtful letter to a political prisoner or prisoner of war of your choosing or, better yet, keep up a long-term correspondence. We’ll also provide some brief updates and pass around birthday cards for the PP/POWs whose birthdays fall in the next two weeks thanks to thePP/POW Birthday Calendar.

This week we’re continuing our discussion on prison, abolition, and prison society. This week we are reading an essay from Fire to the Prisons #10 titled “Take Your Mark, Get Ready, Ablate: Three Positions Against Prison.”

https://antiprisonvancouver.wordpress.com/2011/01/29/take-your-mark-get-ready-ablate-3-positions-against-prisons-august-oclairre/

Friday, July 31
7:00 pm

All five boroughs of New York City are situated within 50-mile radius of Indian Point, an aging nuclear power plant with increasing frequency of accidents. Come learn about nuclear energy and radiation – where it comes from and how it affects life. This workshop consists of presentation about radiation monitoring, short films, stories from Fukushima, and vegan sushi (while supplies last). Come learn how to protect yourself and your your community from potential nuclear crisis. Presented by Sloths Against Nuclear State.

Sunday, 7/26
5:30 pm

WHAT:
Cinema
(Watch fascists get what’s coming to them!)

Snacks
(Delicious & Vegan!)

Speakers
(Learn about anti-fascist movements from around the world and the comrades in jail for fighting the good fight!)

Solidarity
(Sign cards that we will send to all antifa prisoners!)

COST:
Free, but donations are appreciated.

More information on the July 25th International Day of Solidarity with Antifascist Prisoners:

Antifascists fight against those who—in the government or in the streets—dream of imposing their fascist and other Far Right nationalist nightmares on the rest of us. Throughout the world, Islamophobic, anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant, and racist bigotries are on the rise. Antifas are on the frontline in confronting these reactionary politics, and we will not forget our comrades imprisoned in the course of this struggle.

The July 25 International Day of Solidarity with Antifascist Prisoners originated in 2014 as a Day of Solidarity with Jock Palfreeman, an Australian who is imprisoned in Bulgaria for defending two Romani men from an attack by fascist football hooligans. Groups around the world took action: holding demonstrations, benefits supporting the Bulgarian Prisoners Association, writing to Jock, and talking about the plight of the Romani and Sinti people in general.

In 2015 we would like to expand this day of solidarity to all antifascist prisoners around the world. We encourage groups to take the day to plan an event of their choice—whether it is a letter writing, demonstration, benefit, or other action—and to focus on the prisoners and related issues that are of most importance to them locally.

No Pasaran!
Until All Are Free!

Saturday, July 25th
7:00 pm to 11:00 pm

For a list of prisoners, endorsing groups, and updates, please check:https://nycantifa.wordpress.com/

We are pleased to announce the opening of the “Marius Mason Wing” at the Lucy Parsons Library, a radical lending library located at The Base, an anarchist social center in Brooklyn, NY.

Marius read these books in prison and wanted to share them with other activists. Thanks to the fine folks at The Base, these books are available to everyone for free—all you need is a Lucy Parsons Library card! We encourage everyone to check out these books and to write Marius afterward with your thoughts!

Here is a list of what is currently available:

Decolonizing Anarchism by Maia Ramnath

Black Flame: Counter-Power Volume 1 by Michael Schmidt and Lucien van der Walt

Against Civilization: Readings and Reflections edited by John Zerzan

Arrested Justice: Black Women, Violence, and America’s Prison Nation by Beth E. Richie

From the Redwood Forest: Ancient Trees and the Bottom Line: A Headwaters Journey by Joan Dunning

Future Primitive Revisited by John Zerzan

Excluded: Making Feminist and Queer Movements More Inclusive by Julia Serano

Whipping Girl: A Transsexual Women on Sexism and the Scapegoating of Femininity by Julia Serano

Borderlands/ La Frontera: The New Mestiza by Gloria Anzaldúa

Sewing Freedom: Philip Joseph’s Transnationalism and Early New Zealand Anarchism by Jared Davidson

¡Presente! Edited by Cristina Tzintzún, Carlos Perez de Alejo, Arnulfo Manríquez

The Russian Anarchists by Paul Avrich

Dispersing Power: Social Movements are Anti-State Forces by Raúl Zibechi

The Industrial Workers of the World: The First 100 Years by Fred W. Thompson and Jon Bekken

Ben Fletcher: The Life and Times of a Black Wobbly by Peter Cole

Still We Rise: A Resource Packet for Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming People in Prison by Transgender, Gender-Variant and Intersex Justice Project

Replenishing the Earth by Wangari Maathai

Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation by Eli Clare

On Gandhi’s Path by Stephanie Mills

Anarchists Against the Wall edited by Yuri Gordon and Ohal Grietzer

Cartography of Revolutionary Anarchism by Michael Schmidt

http://supportmariusmason.org/2015/07/21/announcing-the-marius-mason-wing-of-the-lucy-parsons-library-at-the-base-in-brooklyn/

Food Scrap Drop Off with the Base Compost Crew
Saturday
7/25
12-2pm
In front of the Base
basecompost@gmail.com

We are collecting food scraps from the Base’s programs, visitors and the community.These scraps will be taken to a local community garden and used for gardening and for street trees.

**Store and transport your food scraps with reusable containers or paper bags. To eliminate odors, store in the freezer or refrigerator.

What we accept:

YES
v Fruit & Vegetable Scraps
v Coffee Grounds
v Filters, & Paper Tea bags
v Bread & Grains
v Eggshells & Nutshells
v Stale Beans, Flour, & Spices
v Cut or Dried Flowers

NO
X Meat or Fish Scraps
X Dairy Products
X Fats, Grease, or Greasy Food
X Pet Feces or Litter
X Coal or Charcoal Ashes
X Metal, Glass, or Plastic (Recycle it!)
X Diseased or Infested Plants

We will be bringing the food scraps you drop off to a nearby community garden in order to turn it into COMPOST. We want to reduce the amount of garbage thrown out and produce soil for local
community gardens and trees. Please join us!

When is urban gardening a revolutionary act?

Recently, we built two 10ft x 5ft raised beds for vegetables, herbs, indigenous wildflowers & edibles. We will gather to discuss our ongoing experiences with guerrilla & traditional gardening, what we’re growing and how this group can evolve.

For this night workshop, we will discuss moon cycle planting, the benefits of night watering & over night seed soaks. Taking a recent spray paint cue, there will be an opportunity to tag & stencil our new garden boxes. We may make seed bombs, we may venture out. 

All experience levels necessary, amateurs encouraged to drop by. Harvested mint tea served.

Our workshop will continue to have formal & spontaneous meetings as we tend to & defend our gardens in public space. If you would like to host a workshop or get more involved email: radgardening@gmail.com

Wednesday, 7/22
8:00 pm

WHAT: Political Prisoner Letter-Writing Dinner
WHEN: 7pm sharp, Tuesday, July 21st, 2015
WHERE: The Base – 1302 Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn, New York 11221 (directions below)
NOTE: The Base is on the ground floor, is wheelchair accessible, and has a gender neutral toilet.
COST: Free
 

This week we are writing to Albert Woodfox, who is one of what is known as the Angola 3.  If you’ve heard Albert’s name lately, you may be confused about why we are writing him because in June he was ordered to be released without the possibility of retrial.  This order was over four decades late as Albert has been in solitary for 43 years for allegedly stabbing a prison guard.  In actuality Albert, along with Herman Wallace and Robert King Wilkerson, were targeted with these charges in response to them organizing prisoners to build a movement within the walls to desegregate the prison, to end systematic rape and violence, for better living conditions, and worked as jailhouse lawyers helping prisoners file legal papers.  This targeting continued the day following the release order when the Louisiana Attorney General filed for a stay of his release while he appeals the ruling.  Albert Woodfox is still in prison.

If, for whatever reason, you can’t make it to dinner, please take the time to write Albert:

Albert Woodfox #72148
West Feliciana Parish Detention Center
PO Box 2727
St. Francisville, LA 70775

The deal, as always, is that you come bringing only yourself (and your friends and comrades), and we provide you with a delicious vegan meal, information about the prisoners as well as all of the letter-writing materials and prisoner-letter-writing info you could ever want to use in one evening. In return, you write a thoughtful letter to a political prisoner or prisoner of war of your choosing or, better yet, keep up a long-term correspondence. We’ll also provide some brief updates and pass around birthday cards for the PP/POWs whose birthdays fall in the next two weeks thanks to the PP/POW Birthday Calendar.

This Sunday July 19th, Rojava Solidary NYC will be presenting on the current state of the Rojava Revolution- perhaps the most exciting radical event of our generation. They will discuss the latest developments and screen a video of an anonymous recounting by a foreign fighter who traveled from the West to join the Rojava Revolution.

We will be giving updates on how to support imprisoned British activist Shilan Ozcelik, who is currently facing a lengthy prison sentence for allegedly attempting to support the forces of Rojava against the fascist and femicidal ISIS cabal. Unfortunately, we have also just received word that some Spanish comrades have recently been imprisoned for supporting Rojava, and so we will be discussing their situation as well. We will close our evening’s event with a call to write letters to folks who are currently incarcerated for supporting the Rojava Revolution.

We hope to see you there!

Sunday, July 19th
7:00 pm to 10:00 pm

This week we’ll be discussing prison, its effects on the revolutionary movement and its function in society. The primary text for this week is “Hunger Strike,” by Greek anarchist prisoner Nikos Romanos.

Secondarily, we’ll be reading Alfredo Bonanno’s text, “Locked Up,” and Peter Gelderloos’s text “The Function of Prison.”

Nikos Romanos:
http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/nikos-romanos-hunger-strike

Bonanno:
http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/alfredo-m-bonanno-locked-up

Gelderloos:
http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/peter-gelderloos-the-function-of-prison

Friday, July 17th
7:00 pm

Food Scrap Drop Off with the Base Compost Crew
Saturday
12-2pm
In front of the Base
https://www.facebook.com/groups/thebasecompostcrew/
basecompost@gmail.com

We are collecting food scraps from the Base’s programs, visitors and the community.These scraps will be taken to a local community garden and used for gardening and for street trees.

**Store and transport your food scraps with reusable containers or paper bags. To eliminate odors, store in the freezer or refrigerator.

What we accept:

YES
v Fruit & Vegetable Scraps
v Coffee Grounds
v Filters, & Paper Tea bags
v Bread & Grains
v Eggshells & Nutshells
v Stale Beans, Flour, & Spices
v Cut or Dried Flowers

NO
X Meat or Fish Scraps
X Dairy Products
X Fats, Grease, or Greasy Food
X Pet Feces or Litter
X Coal or Charcoal Ashes
X Metal, Glass, or Plastic (Recycle it!)
X Diseased or Infested Plants

We will be bringing the food scraps you drop off to a nearby community garden in order to turn it into COMPOST. We want to reduce the amount of garbage thrown out and produce soil for local
community gardens and trees. Please join us!

Recommended link on regrowing plants from food scraps (Save & regenerate in our garden) http://www.reclaimgrowsustain.com/content/foods-you-can-grow-kitchen-scraps

The Brooklyn Solidarity Network organizes around housing and workplace issues. We are not a charity or a service. We are a group of committed dissidents who are building a culture of resistance against the landlords and bosses in Brooklyn. A core function of the solidarity network is that as we help people, they join the network to help others. Through this method we can grow our strength exponentially. BSolid is an open network with many levels of involvement that anyone can plug into: from participating in pickets, to flyering, to educating.

Tuesday, June 30th
7:30 pm

Food Scrap Drop Off with the Base Compost Crew
Saturday, June 27th
12-2pm
In front of the Base
basecompost@gmail.com

We are collecting food scraps from the Base’s programs, visitors and the community.These scraps will be taken to a local community garden and used for gardening and for street trees.

**Store and transport your food scraps with reusable containers or paper bags. To eliminate odors, store in the freezer or refrigerator.

What we accept:

YES
v Fruit & Vegetable Scraps
v Coffee Grounds
v Filters, & Paper Tea bags
v Bread & Grains
v Eggshells & Nutshells
v Stale Beans, Flour, & Spices
v Cut or Dried Flowers

NO
X Meat or Fish Scraps
X Dairy Products
X Fats, Grease, or Greasy Food
X Pet Feces or Litter
X Coal or Charcoal Ashes
X Metal, Glass, or Plastic (Recycle it!)
X Diseased or Infested Plants

We will be bringing the food scraps you drop off to a nearby community garden in order to turn it into COMPOST. We want to reduce the amount of garbage thrown out and produce soil for local
community gardens and trees. Please join us!

WHAT: Political Prisoner Letter-Writing Dinner
WHEN: 7pm sharp, Tuesday, June 23rd, 2015
WHERE: The Base – 1302 Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn, New York 11221 (directions below)
NOTE: The Base is on the ground floor, is wheelchair accessible, and has a gender neutral toilet.
COST: Free

This week we are writing to the Mondo We Langa and Ed Poindexter, also know as the Nebraska 2– former Black Panthers framed for the bombing death of a cop in 1970.The Two were charged and convicted of the murder of an Omaha cop who died when a suitcase containing dynamite exploded in a North Omaha home on August 17, 1970. A second cop was also injured in the explosion.

Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa (formerly David Rice) were members of the Black Panther Party, and their case was, and continues to be, controversial. The Omaha Police withheld exculpatory evidence at trial. The two men had been targeted by the FBI’s COINTELPRO (Counter Intelligence Program), that operated against and infiltrated anti-war and Civil Rights groups, including the Omaha Black Panthers. The US section of Amnesty International recognizes we Langa and Poindexter as political prisoners. The state’s parole board have recommended the men for release, but political leaders have not acted on these recommendations. For more information, visitn2pp.info

If, for whatever reason, you can’t make it to dinner, please take the time to write the Two a letter:
David Rice* #27768 
Nebraska State Penitentiary 
Post Office Box 2500 
Lincoln, Nebraska 68542-2500 
*Address card to Mondo Eyen we Langa

Ed Poindexter #27767
Nebraska State Penitentiary
Post Office Box 2500
Lincoln, Nebraska 68542

The deal, as always, is that you come bringing only yourself (and your friends and comrades), and we provide you with a delicious vegan meal, information about the prisoners as well as all of the letter-writing materials and prisoner-letter-writing info you could ever want to use in one evening. In return, you write a thoughtful letter to a political prisoner or prisoner of war of your choosing or, better yet, keep up a long-term correspondence. We’ll also provide some brief updates and pass around birthday cards for the PP/POWs whose birthdays fall in the next two weeks thanks to the PP/POW Birthday Calendar.

We are reading the Zapatista text “I Shit on all the Revolutionary Vanguards of this Planet.” In this text Subcomandante Marcos has a dialogue with the Basque guerrilla group ETA.

Secondly we’re reading Alfredo Bonanno’s text “Why a Vanguard?”

Zapatista text:
http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/mexico/ezln/2003/marcos/etaJAN.html

Bonanno text:
http://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/alfredo-m-bonanno-why-a-vanguard

Friday, June 19th
7:00 pm

In our quest for a struggle against private property, landlords, and capitalism in general, we’d like to invite everyone to an open meeting. We’ll meet for about an hour to two and and introduce you to the project. Come join us!

Tuesday, 6/16
7:30 pm

WHAT: Political Prisoner Letter-Writing Dinner
WHEN: 7pm sharp, Tuesday, June 9th, 2015
WHERE: The Base – 1302 Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn, New York 11221 (directions below)
NOTE: The Base is on the ground floor, is wheelchair accessible, and has a gender neutral toilet.
COST: Free

What’s less surprising, that a cop stole a dead man’s credit card to buy a diamond ring or that chimpanzees can cook? You’re right, it’s a draw. Also not surprising is that it’s again time for NYC ABC’s every-other-week political prisoner letter-writing dinner (the acronym,PPLWD, just rolls off the tongue). This week, in honor of the call for a June 11th International Day of Solidaritywith Marius Mason, Eric McDavid, and long-term eco and anarchist prisoners, we will be sending letters to several imprisoned comrades. Thankfully this year, we won’t be sending a letter to Eric, who has been released.

Three days later, join us, with members of Marius Mason’s local support crew, for a rousing night of Punk Rock Karaoke.

We’ll be joined by a member of Marius’ local support crew and will have information about the other prisoners. If you don’t already know about the folks to whom we are writing, make sure to check out our Illustrated Guide To Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War.

The deal, as always, is that you come bringing only yourself (and your friends and comrades), and we provide you with a delicious vegan meal, information about the prisoners as well as all of the letter-writing materials and prisoner-letter-writing info you could ever want to use in one evening. In return, you write a thoughtful letter to a political prisoner or prisoner of war of your choosing or, better yet, keep up a long-term correspondence. We’ll also provide some brief updates and pass around birthday cards for the PP/POWs whose birthdays fall in the next two weeks thanks to thePP/POW Birthday Calendar.

Food Scrap Drop Off with the Base Compost Crew
Saturday
12-2pm
In front of the Base
basecompost@gmail.com

We are collecting food scraps from the Base’s programs, visitors and the community.These scraps will be taken to a local community garden and used for gardening and for street trees.

**Store and transport your food scraps with reusable containers or paper bags. To eliminate odors, store in the freezer or refrigerator.

What we accept:

YES
v Fruit & Vegetable Scraps
v Coffee Grounds
v Filters, & Paper Tea bags
v Bread & Grains
v Eggshells & Nutshells
v Stale Beans, Flour, & Spices
v Cut or Dried Flowers

NO
X Meat or Fish Scraps
X Dairy Products
X Fats, Grease, or Greasy Food
X Pet Feces or Litter
X Coal or Charcoal Ashes
X Metal, Glass, or Plastic (Recycle it!)
X Diseased or Infested Plants

We will be bringing the food scraps you drop off to a nearby community garden in order to turn it into COMPOST. We want to reduce the amount of garbage thrown out and produce soil for local
community gardens and trees. Please join us!

Jean Jaurès was the celebrated French Socialist Party leader, assassinated in 1914 for trying to use the international socialist movement and industrial action to prevent the outbreak of war. Published just a few years before his death, his magisterial A Socialist History of the French Revolution, has endured for over a century as one of the most influential accounts of the French Revolution ever to be published.

Mitchell Abidor’s long-overdue translation and abridgment of Jaurès’s original 6-volumes brings this exceptional work to an Anglophone audience for the first time.

Written in the midst of his activities as leader of the Socialist Party and editor of its newspaper, L’Humanité, Jaurès intended the book to serve as both a guide and an inspiration to political activity; even now it can serve to do just that. Abidor’s accomplished translation, and Jaurès’s verve, originality and willingness to criticise all players in this great drama make this a truly moving addition to the shelf of great books on the French Revolution.

About The Author
Jean Jaurès (3 September 1859 – 31 July 1914) was a French Socialist who became the leader, in 1902, of the French Socialist Party, which opposed Jules Guesde’s revolutionary Socialist Party of France. The two parties merged in 1905 in the French Section of the Workers’ International (SFIO). An antimilitarist, Jaurès was assassinated at the outbreak of World War I, and remains one of the great historical figures of the French Left.

Mitchell Abidor (Translator) books include an anthology of Victor Serge’s writings on anarchism, Anarchists Never Surrender and the correspondence of Louis-Ferdinand Celine, as well as the forthcoming Voices of the Paris Commune; Death to Bourgeois Society, a collection of writings by the propagandists of the deed in France and Argentina; and the novella A Raskolnikoff by Emmanuel Bove. He lives in Brooklyn.

Saturday, June 6th

7:00 pm to 10:00 pm

For this anarchism reading series, we’re reading one chapter from Ward Churchill’s book “Agents of Repression.”

Agents of Repression: The FBI’s Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement is a book by Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall, first published in 1988. It describes government campaigns to disrupt the legal political activities of the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement, especially through actions of the FBI.

This study gives a chilling account of the government attack against the American Indian Movement and the Black Panther Party, placed in the context of the traditional use of the FBI for domestic political repression. It is a powerful indictment, with far–reaching implications concerning the treatment of political activists, especially those that are Black or Native American, and the functioning of our political institutions generally.

—Noam Chomsky

http://propagandhi.com/wp-content/empires/Ward_Churchill.pdf

Friday, June 5th

7:00 pm

WHAT: Political Prisoner Letter-Writing Dinner
WHEN: 7pm sharp, Tuesday, May 26th, 2015
WHERE: The Base – 1302 Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn, New York 11221 (directions below)
NOTE: The Base is on the ground floor, is wheelchair accessible, and has a gender neutral toilet.
COST: Free

In 2014, at our last letter writing dinner for the Puerto Rican political prisoners, we wrote letters to Norberto González Claudio and Oscar López Rivera. Since then, Norberto was released from prison and returned to Puerto Rico leaving Oscar as the last remaining Puerto Rican political prisoner.

On May 30th to mark the anniversary of Oscar’s 34th year in prison, and to demand his immediate release, a broad and vocal contingent of community organizations, churches, labor groups and more are organizing a huge rally and march. So, in a lead up to this event, NYC ABC is focusing on Oscar for our upcoming political prisoner letter-writing dinner.

Oscar López Rivera, regarded as a member of the FALN and a champion in the fight for Puerto Rican independence, was convicted and sentenced to 55 years in federal prison for seditious conspiracy, use of force to commit robbery, interstate transportation of firearms, and conspiracy to transport explosives. In 1988 he was sentenced to an additional 15 years in prison for allegedly conspiring to escape from prison. In 1999, clemency was offered to Oscar and 13 others but he refused, citing that it was not offered to his two co-defendants (Carlos and Haydee Beltran Torres). Oscar has been denied parole but continues to speak out and write on salient topics.

We will be joined by Benjamin Ramos, of ProLibertad who will provide information about Oscar, recent events in Puerto Rico, and the struggle for a free and independent Puerto Rico.

We expect to see you on Tuesday. If you can’t make it, please take the time to write letters to Oscar:
Oscar López Rivera #87651-024
FCI Terre Haute
Post Office Box 33
Terre Haute, Indiana 47808

The deal, as always, is that you come bringing only yourself (and your friends and comrades), and we provide you with a delicious vegan meal, information about the prisoners as well as all of the letter-writing materials and prisoner-letter-writing info you could ever want to use in one evening. In return, you write a thoughtful letter to a political prisoner or prisoner of war of your choosing or, better yet, keep up a long-term correspondence. We’ll also provide some brief updates and pass around birthday cards for the PP/POWs whose birthdays fall in the next two weeks thanks to thePP/POW Birthday Calendar.

Repression is the rule of the day in this film that skewers Greek governance of the 1960s. Z (Yves Montand), a leftist rabble rouser, is killed in what appears to be a traffic accident. But given the political climate, the death of such a prominent activist raises troubling questions. Though it’s too late to save Z’s life, a postmortem examination suggests that the ruling party was behind his death. As the facts leak out, those who tell the truth pay the price for their honesty.

Thursday, May 28th
7:30 pm – 9:30 pm

This evening is the final training session in the series. 
We will be helping groups organize to begin their own street forays. We will help create neighborhood-specific Copwatch teams that will monitor police encounters.

Come through to find collaborators and do a final training session in the field!

With the help of local communities and Copwatch groups, Disarm the NYPD seeks to monitor and pressure police until they retreat from over-policed neighborhoods and then maintain these cop-free zones with alternative, community-based forms of conflict resolution. Copwatches are an intergral part of this campaign and an integral part of changing the social fabric of New York.

Saturday, May 23rd
6:00 pm to 8:00 pm

All Power to the People! examines problems of race, poverty, dissent, and the universal conflict of the haves versus the have nots. U.S. government documents, rare news clips, and interviews with both ex-activists and former FBI/CIA officers, provide deep insight into the bloody conflict between political dissent and governmental authority in the U.S. of the 60s and 70s.

Friday, May 22nd
7:00 pm to 10:00 pm

Hot off the presses from Combustion Books, this is the first book about the stateless, revolutionary social experiment in Rojava, an autonomous region to the North of Syria.

Rojava Solidarity NYC has seen how eager people here are for information on the new social structures. This reading group is starting to help spread information about what exactly is happening in Rojava and to pose the question of whether this type of social organization could become the new model for stateless revolutions.

Here is a description of the book:
“Between language barriers, cultural barriers, and an international trade embargo, it can be hard to understand what is happening in Rojava and how to support the people there in their revolution. But in this short book, scholars and militia fighters alike explore and explain the situation in plain language. They discuss the Rojava principles that bind the region together and what it means to be in solidarity with those fighting in Rojava.”

The Base library will have a few copies of the book on hand, but if it’s financially possible, you can purchase the book here:

http://www.combustionbooks.org/products-page/non-fiction/a-small-key-can-open-a-large-door-the-rojava-revolution/

All profits from the sale of the book will be used to send donated books on anarchism and anti-authoritarian politics to The Mesopotamian Academy: Pirtûkek bo Akademiya Mezopotamyayê – Donate a book to Mesopotamia Academy and The People’s Library in Kobane.

Thursday, May 21st
7:30 pm to 9:30 pm

Young Venezuelan Marxist Ilich Ramirez Sanchez (Edgar Ramirez) is recruited by the leader of a Palestinian terrorist organization (Ahmad Kaabour) to perform several jobs in Europe in the early 1970s, culminating in the audacious kidnapping of several OPEC oil ministers. From that small-scale beginning, he becomes an infamous international terrorist for hire, known in the media as Carlos the Jackal, who performs violent acts across the globe for a wide variety of nations and organizations.

Saturday, May 16th
7:00 pm

In coordination with the Tev-Dem, the people of Rojava insist on horizontality, self-sufficiency, and autonomy. Even in this transitional phase, it seems that this has become the most widespread example of anarchism in practice. 

For this talk, we’ll describe in vivid detail how councils and collectives function in both the autonomous Cantons of Rojava and the area known as Northern Kurdistan. We’ll chart the development of cooperatives and we’ll look at the complex social relationships that have resulted in pluralism. 

For the discussion, we would like to consider Rojava as a model for liberatory socioeconomic practices, and discuss if and how these bodies could be recreated in New York.

Friday, May 15th
7:30 pm

WHAT: Political Prisoner Letter-Writing Dinner
WHEN: 7pm sharp, Tuesday, May 12th, 2015
WHERE: The Base – 1302 Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn, New York 11221 (directions below)
NOTE: The Base is on the ground floor, is wheelchair accessible, and has a gender neutral toilet.
COST: Free
We’ve been told that last week a historic fight took place, but those who keep talking about it seem confused. The real fights have been taking place in Baltimore, in Seattle, in Ferguson. And these fights still rage. We in NYC ABC are fighters, too. We fight for those comrades who are imprisoned and this week we are focusing our every-other-week political prisonerletter-writing dinner on two such folks. This week we are writing to anarchist prisoners Casey Brezik and Bill Dunne.

In 2010, anarchist Casey Brezik tried to assassinate the governor of Missouri. In June of 2013, he was convicted and sentenced to a dozen years on each of three counts – assault and two armed criminal action charges – and seven years on a second count of assault. All sentences will run concurrently.

Bill Dunne is an anti-authoritarian sentenced to 90 years for the attempted liberation of comrades from Seattle’s King County Jail in 1979 and for attempting to break himself out of Leavenworth Penitentiary in 1983. Dunne was charged with possession of an automatic weapon, auto theft, and with aiding & abetting the escape. Charges further alleged the operation was financed by bank expropriations and facilitated by illegal acquisition of weapons and explosives. Bill went before the parole board in the winter of 2014, was rejected and given a 15 year “hit” (meaning he cannot go back to the board for that time period).

We expect to see you on Tuesday. If you can’t make it, please take the time to write letters (andsend books) to Casey and Bill:
Casey Brezik #1154765
Jefferson City Correctional Center
8200 No More Victims Road
Jefferson City, Missouri 65101

Bill Dunne #10916-086
FCI Herlong
Post Office Box 800
Herlong, California 96113

The deal, as always, is that you come bringing only yourself (and your friends and comrades), and we provide you with a delicious vegan meal, information about the prisoners as well as all of the letter-writing materials and prisoner-letter-writing info you could ever want to use in one evening. In return, you write a thoughtful letter to a political prisoner or prisoner of war of your choosing or, better yet, keep up a long-term correspondence. We’ll also provide some brief updates and pass around birthday cards for the PP/POWs whose birthdays fall in the next two weeks thanks to thePP/POW Birthday Calendar.

For this anarchism reading series, we’ll continue reading about insurgency and counterinsurgency.

We’ll read chapter two in The Syria/ISIL report from the Institute for the Study of Insurgent Warfare: “The Seemingly Quixotic, but Remarkably Effective, Journey of a Small Band of Extreme Islamists And Why It Seems As If They Are Winning, When They May Not Be.”

http://isiw.noblogs.org/files/2014/11/ReleaseEdition.pdf

Friday, April 8th
7:00 pm

Hot off the presses from Combustion Books, this is the first book about the stateless, revolutionary social experiment in Rojava, an autonomous region to the North of Syria.

Rojava Solidarity NYC has seen how eager people here are for information on the new social structures. This reading group is starting to help spread information about what exactly is happening in Rojava and to pose the question of whether this type of social organization could become the new model for stateless revolutions.

Here is a description of the book:
“Between language barriers, cultural barriers, and an international trade embargo, it can be hard to understand what is happening in Rojava and how to support the people there in their revolution. But in this short book, scholars and militia fighters alike explore and explain the situation in plain language. They discuss the Rojava principles that bind the region together and what it means to be in solidarity with those fighting in Rojava.”

Meet ups will be every other Tuesday to discuss a chapter or two from the book. We’ll be reading the book straight through, but don’t worry if you miss a meeting, we’ll catch you up!

The Base library will have a few copies of the book on hand, but if it’s financially possible, you can purchase the book here:
http://www.combustionbooks.org/products-page/non-fiction/a-small-key-can-open-a-large-door-the-rojava-revolution/

All profits from the sale of the book will be used to send donated books on anarchism and anti-authoritarian politics to The Mesopotamian Academy: Pirtûkek bo Akademiya Mezopotamyayê – Donate a book to Mesopotamia Academy and The People’s Library in Kobane.

Thursday, May 7th
7:00 pm

WHAT: Political Prisoner Letter-Writing Dinner
WHEN: 7pm sharp, Tuesday, April 28th, 2015
WHERE: The Base – 1302 Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn, New York 11221 (directions below)
NOTE: The Base is on the ground floor, is wheelchair accessible, and has a gender neutral toilet.
COST: Free
NYC ABC has been busier than usual. For some, that might seem hard to imagine. However, between hosting a packed-house event with CrimethInc at The Base and the NYC Anarchist Book Fair the following day, it’s been a assiduous couple of weeks. And as we look forward, May Day is just around the corner. So, in honor of the Haymarket Martyrs, and anarchists imprisoned for their beliefs and actions, we focus this week’s letter-writing dinner on them. Instead of writing letters, this week we will be asking folks to come sign cards for the thirteen anarchist political prisoners we currently support. There will be plenty of time for eating food, socializing, and scheming to bring about a world in which we want to live.

If there’s absolutely no way you can come eat a ton of food and sign a lot of May Day cards, but still want to support political prisoners, please consider sending some books from their wish lists.

The deal, as always, is that you come bringing only yourself (and your friends and comrades), and we provide you with a delicious vegan meal, information about the prisoners as well as all of the letter-writing materials and prisoner-letter-writing info you could ever want to use in one evening. In return, you write a thoughtful letter to a political prisoner or prisoner of war of your choosing or, better yet, keep up a long-term correspondence. We’ll also provide some brief updates and pass around birthday cards for the PP/POWs whose birthdays fall in the next two weeks thanks to the PP/POW Birthday Calendar.

Directions:
Getting to The Base is simple:
From the M Train:
Central Avenue Stop: Walk east on Myrtle Avenue (away from Hart Street, toward Cedar Street). We’re about two blocks down on the south side of the street.

Knickerbocker Avenue Stop: Walk west on Myrtle Avenue (away from Harman Street, toward Himrod Street). We’re about three blocks down on the south side of the street.

From the L Train:
DeKalb Avenue Stop: Walk south on Stockholm Street (away from Wyckoff Avenue, toward Irving Avenue). We’re about four blocks down, at the intersection of Stockholm Street and Myrtle Avenue.

From the J Train:
Myrtle Avenue Stop: Transfer to the M train and follow the above directions.

Disarm the NYPD has two immediate organizational goals. We will disarm the police of their guns and we will disarm them as a viable political/military entity in the neighborhoods they occupy. Disarm the NYPD seeks to monitor and pressure police, with the help of local communities and Copwatch groups, until they retreat from over-policed neighborhoods and then maintain these cop-free zones with alternative, community-based forms of conflict resolution.

Copwatches are an integral part of this campaign. This evening please join us to get training on making a copwatch in your neighborhood.

The training will be given by Jose LaSalle of CPU. Here’s what they do:

CPU seek to end police repression through directly monitoring police while they are engaging the public through questioning, detainment, or arrest. CPU spend their time walking the streets, observing police, witnessing and recording police interactions with citizens on camera, video-record, audio-record, and/or paper. CPU concentrate in areas where known trouble making cops are assigned or areas of high police activity (Impact Zones).

Saturday, April 25th
6:00 pm

With the appearance of a contemporary anti-state region in Rojava, the vehemence of recent anti-police movement across the US, and global disengagement with/mistrust in hierarchical governance, the time seems ripe for anarchist systems of organization. We would like to call this convergence so that geographically separated anarchists can meet face-to-face and discuss their projects and ideas for driving the movement forward. We want to welcome groups and spaces from out of town and look forward to learning from you and sharing the strategies behind NYC-based projects.

We’ll have a very brief spokes council where people can talk about the projects they are working on, and then we’ll break out and have an opportunity to talk casually and make connections with other people working in tandem.

Sunday, April 19
11:00 am

https://nycabc.wordpress.com/2015/03/30/bkny-friday-april-17-to-change-everything-an-anarchist-appeal

WHAT: Discussion On Anarchy, International and Local
WHEN: 8pm sharp, Friday, April 17th, 2015
WHERE: The Base – 1302 Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn, New York 11221 (directions below)
NOTE: The Base is on the ground floor, is wheelchair accessible, and has a gender neutral toilet.
COST: FREE

Just one night before the 2015 NYC Anarchist Book Fair , NYC Anarchist Black Cross is hosting an event to encourage anarchy in our city. It’s happening at Brooklyn’s only anarchist social center– The Base.

Today, even the entrenched representatives of the status quo admit that it is necessary to change everything. But the best they can come up with is to appeal to the same authorities and values that caused these problems in the first place. What will it take to make a clean break?

In this discussion, a participant in the CrimethInc. Collective will explore the most provocative themes in their international multimedia outreach project To Change Everything, tying them into struggles taking place around the world and in New York City today. Please join us for a lively conversation!

More information at:
http://www.tochangeeverything.com/
http://www.crimethinc.com/

WHAT: Political Prisoner Letter-Writing Dinner
WHEN: 7pm sharp, Tuesday, April 14th, 2015
WHERE: The Base – 1302 Myrtle Avenue Brooklyn, New York 11221 (directions below)
NOTE: The Base is on the ground floor, is wheelchair accessible, and has a gender neutral toilet.
COST: Free
In the announcements for our every-other-week political prisoner letter-writing dinners, NYC ABC typically tries to draw attention to something not directly tied to our work in supportingpolitical prisoners. Maybe it’s a commentary on something trending in corporate media or the ridiculousness of pop culture. However, with the consistent attack on Black folks by cops, direct or indirect, we are unable to focus on much else. Whether it is a murder and attempted cover up by cops in South Carolina or the attempted murder by medical negligence of our comrade Mumia Abu-Jamal, the system and institutions of white supremacy are as strong now as they were seven years ago, seventy years ago, and since the inception of this country. With that in mind, we are writing to prisoners who resisted white supremacy as it bore down upon them– Robert “Seth” Hayes andAbdul Majid.

In 1973, following a shootout with police, Seth Hayes was arrested and convicted of the murder of a New York City police officer, and, while maintaining his innocence to this day, sentenced to 25 years to life in prison. Imprisoned for nearly forty years, Seth has long since served his sentence. Seth has ongoing health issues, including diabetes, that continue to be poorly managed by the Department of Corrections.

On April 16th, 1981 a van was pulled over by NYPD. Two occupants exited the van and fired upon the cops—one was killed, the other injured. Despite claims by the police that the van was pulled over for connections to burglaries, the folder of “suspects” circulated by the cops exclusively consisted of former Panthers, not burglary suspects. Abdul Majid and his co-defendant, Bashir Hameed were arrested and tried three times. The first trial ended in a hung jury. The second trial was declared a mistrial by the judge immediately after the jury rendered a decision that acquitted Bashir on the murder charge. At a third trial, the state finally got its way—Abdul was convicted of murder and sentenced to 33 years to life. Abdul is expected to go before the parole board for the first time later this month.

We expect to see you on Tuesday. If you can’t make it, please take the time to write letters (andsend books) to the prisoners:
Robert Seth Hayes #74-A-2280
Sullivan Correctional Facility
Post Office Box 116
Fallsburg, New York 12733-0116

Abdul Majid #83-A-0483
Five Points Correctional Facility
6600 State Route 96
Caller Box 119
Romulus, New York 14541

The deal, as always, is that you come bringing only yourself (and your friends and comrades), and we provide you with a delicious vegan meal, information about the prisoners as well as all of the letter-writing materials and prisoner-letter-writing info you could ever want to use in one evening. In return, you write a thoughtful letter to a political prisoner or prisoner of war of your choosing or, better yet, keep up a long-term correspondence. We’ll also provide some brief updates and pass around birthday cards for the PP/POWs whose birthdays fall in the next two weeks thanks to the PP/POW Birthday Calendar.

NYC ABC is happy to co-sponsor this event with the National Lawyers Guild’s NLG-NYC Animal Rights Activism Committee, who, among other things, provide legal support and resources to animal rights activists.

Jake Conroy is a long-time activist, designer, and writer based in San Francisco, California. As a co-founder of Ocean Defense International, he helped lead the first ever disruption of a whale hunt in US coastal waters, putting himself between the hunter and the hunted. He also helped build the foundation of Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty USA (SHAC USA), one of the most successful grassroots animal rights campaigns in history. Due to his involvement with SHAC USA, he was a co-defendant in the SHAC7 case and was sentenced to 48 months in federal prison. Jake is currently working at an international environmental non-profit campaigning against corporate polluters. He can also be found speaking around the US, and working on the projects he helped co-found— Bite Back Magazine, theAnimal Defense League San Francisco, and the blog Plant Based on a Budget.

Jake will speak about his involvement in SHAC USA and the repression they experienced from the US government and corporate investigators, as well by the Bureau of Prisons while incarcerated. He will discuss being the target of a multi-agency terrorism investigation, learning he was on a high-profile prisoners list, and navigating living a life branded as a terrorist in post-9/11 society.

Sunday, April 11th
7:00 pm to 10:00 pm

The first book on the Rojava Revolution is out!

“Two-and-a-half million people are trying to live without a nation-state, using direct democracy to build a society ruled from the bottom up. As the Syrian civil war rages, the Kurds and other ethnic groups of Rojava fight for autonomy, feminism, ecological stewardship, cooperative economics, and ethnic, linguistic, and religious pluralism.”

Please join us for an evening of discussion about the stateless social experiment going on right now in Rojava.

Friday, April 10th
7:00 pm to 10:00 pm