No state has the right to control movement of free people.

As news comes again today that Democrats are committed to "securing the border" as a prerequisite for immigration reform, I think it's quite fortunate timing that our comrades over at O'odham Solidarity Across Borders Collective have posted up their compelling piece, "Movement Demands Autonomy: An O'odham Perspective on Border Controls and Immigration". Previously appearing as a pamphlet, this article does a fine job as a primer on understanding the point of view of the O'odham on questions of movement and the border -- a perspective that is sadly marginalized to say the least.

Indeed, we as anarchists, along with the indigenous peoples of this region, are well-placed to call out this bogus pairing of one so-called "reform" with another for what it really is -- a sell out. First off, if anyone has the right to say who can come and go, it is the original people of this land. And, second, the "securing" of the border that Democrats demand is not only a concession to the right wing but it is a betrayal of the various peoples whose traditional lands cross and are crossed by the border, including but not limited to Tohono O'odham territory in the south of Arizona and north of Mexico. Truth is, the people of Arizona should be turning to the indigenous to answer the question of who shall pass through these lands, not the racist settler state government.

In fact, when we hear "secure" what we ought to really understand is "militarization". Already T.O. is an armed camp of almost Warsaw Ghetto like quality, with border patrol and local cops (beefed up with Federal money) running wherever they please, harassing locals and denying traditional rights of crossing, not to mention maintaining checkpoints at the points of entry and exit from the rez (not just at border crossing points, which would be awful enough). The same controls and demands that will soon be made on migrants and everyone else the state deems worthy of suspicion are already in full effect on T.O. The surveillance we see here on our freeways originates on those border fences, checkpoints and spy towers. And the demand for their proliferation to the south will only increase them up here in the end. The dreadful situation in T.O. will soon manifest everywhere if we do nothing.

Of course, one can appreciate the bind that many indigenous people are in these days. "Reform" sells them out and the attack of SB1070 subjects them to the same profiling and abuse that it does the Mexican and other migrants who cross their lands, a great many of whom are in fact indigenous themselves. And the status quo is hardly acceptable either. These and other facts naturally dictate that there is no option on the table in the mainstream now which is satisfactory to solving this problem.

The fact is, as we and our comrades in OSABC have been saying for quite a long time now, there is no solution to the question of the movement of people without starting from the position of the indigenous. Not only are they more than deserving of justice given their history and ties to this land, but it is precisely their situation that reveals the bogus deal that is "immigration reform".

Knowing that, no one can in good conscience ignore or put their struggles on the back burner, or treat them as an after thought. If there is no justice for the indigenous of this region, then there is no justice at all. No borders, no State, no papers!

Read OSABC's article here:
Movement Demands Autonomy: An O'odham Perspective on Border Controls and Immigration

There is no free way out of this mess (I can't drive 55).

Our comrades over at O'odham Solidarity Across Borders Collective have posted a really good analysis of the recent resistance to the proposed Loop 202 freeway extension on or near tribal land. PCWC was there, along with other locals and concerned and affected folks. Head over to their website to read what has been going on and to check out some pictures.

I think the most interesting part of the action is the call out to other affected and oppositional communities, including the white folks in Ahwatukee, who will now face an interesting conundrum: will they organize in solidarity with native folks or will they assert their reactionary white privilege? The dare that OSABC puts to them is exactly the kind of thing that we at PCWC think more anarchists ought to be doing. Their fanatical, yet open-handed, call out has the potential to polarize, and in so doing, to force white folks to choose a side on the issue.

At the same time, OSABC has put a clear demand out there: no to the freeway, anywhere. This serves to bookend the call for solidarity and in no uncertain terms offers a way out for all opposing it that doesn't involve shifting it onto other people's neighborhoods and land. If we stop it entirely, then no one gets fucked over.

In the end, if white folks in particular hope to protect themselves from the noise and other environmental and health problems that will arise from the new road (not to mention the dislocations that would follow in its wake), they would do well to seek allies where they can, and to join those who have already staked out a position. They can look to others who, perhaps until now, they saw as facing different conditions or struggles, and now begin to see common ground. If this happens, then the cross class alliance of white supremacy will have been, at least temporarily, undermined, and this advances the class war.

Focusing on the freeway also has the potential to highlight the general misery of suburban living under capitalism. After all, what does a further extension of the freeway really mean? More suburbs? More time in cars? A commute to an empty job? A lifeline to the decaying exoburbs? Families held together by nothing more than little Jimmy's baseball schedule? Or Janie's dance lessons?

In a real way, the expansion of the freeway system is a symptom of the miserableness of life in late capitalism and stopping it would necessarily send a message that we reject a life where everything is disconnected. Where no one lives where they work. Where our work is a factory for the reproduction of and commodification of boredom and ritualized humiliation. Where among life's most distinctive features are depression, isolation and cheap facsimile. Where social mobility is dead but freeway mobility lives, securing our yawning shuffling from home to work or the grocery store and back again. Where gloom and heartache are every day's weather report.

The age of oil is coming to an end. While it reigned, it facilitated capitalism's insatiable desire to remake and isolate us. To tear apart our families and affinities, leaving us naked to its predations, and in the process spewing us across continents to land into cookie cutter tan stucco houses. Meanwhile our grandparents die in institutions far away and our high school friends do whatever they do (not that we would know), since we couldn't possibly keep in touch with them in any meaningful way from here. Our social networks record our social collapse. Our friends lists are populated by work "mates" and bosses. So many of us have nothing real.

The car is a noose and the freeway is the scaffold. Together, we can smash this miserable road we're on and make good our escape. Not one more mile.