Past Tense

It feels crazy to talk about Fed Up Queers so completely in the past tense, like those were the glory days, and they're so over. But the facts are that I now live in the burbs and am surrounded by mostly heterosexual people, rarely get to do any street activism, and don't have a go-to group of people to make noise with.

I get riled up when people talk about how all of FUQ's drama was because all of us dykes were sleeping together. Sure, there was some of that, but a lot of the drama was an entirely different kind of passion. We cared about our message. We cared about what was right. We cared about making a difference, rattling people's comfort with the horrible things happening in NYC. And it felt fantastic. Exhausting too, but exhilarating to be part of a group that spent every week fighting for what mattered. Not all of our decisions were on target, and we spent a lot of time just spraypainting messages, which also meant a lot of time running from the police. But we also were in the thick of it. We got 10,000 people to show up for a demo in just four days, we got the Diallo protests rolling, we drew attention to every tranny murdered in NYC, Giuliani and his people knew who we were and knew they could expect us to cause him trouble wherever he went. I remember how it felt hearing "Fed Up Queers" on the radio, and on the tv news. The group drove me insane, and I loved them dearly. I remember how it felt when the whole thing fell apart because one person wanted to promote "inter-generational sex" as some radical cause, and all the dykes who'd suffered sexual abuse couldn't stop crying, and we couldn't get him to leave, and so we folded. I remember how angry I felt, and powerless. FUQ had been my power, and it was being taken away by a sexual predator. The whole thing made me mute. How typical.

I wasn't vegan then. I mean, I had been vegan for years and years, but then, when I moved East, it eventually fell away because I didn't know anyone who did animal rights. I was broke and depressed and dealing with massive police brutality in my little town. My head was elsewhere. When I moved to Brooklyn and met other queer activists and eventually became this powerful little gang called Fed Up Queers, I felt like my brain finally un-numbed, and I started to remember things that mattered to me. I remembered them in detail.

When FUQ was infiltrated and our actions started to fail, when we would get arrested before our actions had gone down, we decided to go to a skillshare in the swamp to learn some new tactics. We sold a bunch of "Brooklyn Out of Palestine" t-shirts to fund the trip, and it was there I went vegan again. The whole gathering was vegetarian, and really mostly vegan. My girlfriend and I had decided to spend the three weeks there eating vegan, dabbling with making the commitment while someone else was preparing the food.

Learning to climb was hard for me. Some of our gang took to it like monkeys, understood the physics, learned the knots easily, just excelled. It was slower for me: I had more weight to haul up that rope, was insanely scared of heights, terrible at math. I made it to the top of the scaffolding, but had a breakdown up there before I could come down. I was grateful to meditate with a group at the camp, felt it helped even though it felt funny, self-indulgent.

Then the fights started. Two guys who were too good to camp with us and were staying in hotels decided that the camp being vegetarian was racist. The whole production shut down, hundreds of people in multiple workshops, everyone stopped everything to discuss meat eating and race. No matter that indigenous Brazilians talked about cattle production destroying their land, no matter that indigenous Canadians talked about how, although they weren't vegetarian, that factory farms were against everything they believed in. No matter that people of every color, veg and not, talked about how the camp's basis in environmental activism required that it be vegetarian. Everything stopped to let two guys (whose favorite word was maricon) talk about how they'd lose their culture if they didn't eat meat. And they did eat meat, brought in styrofoam containers from a deli every day.

For fear of being called racist, the camp ceased being vegetarian, the (Iranian) director quit, the kitchen staff quit, and everyone went home having learned half of what they intended to learn. But my girlfriend and I were vehemently vegan from then on, having so many people to make up for.

The camp fell apart, and, despite our best efforts, FUQ fell apart too. I stayed friends with those queers, and sometimes did activism with some of them. All but the sexual predator, and the one woman who supported him and who I ceased to trust. None of them ever trusted our care for animals, either, always thinking "there are more important things" and forgetting that there are many things all at once.

I read a friend's writing about FUQ and about seeing Le Tigre in the 90's in a tiny space in Brooklyn and how we were all freezing and about an action in Central Park in the Ramble when gay men where getting arrested there. And I can tell that she hasn't felt that exhilaration since, that momentum, that belief that anything can happen. And that makes me sad. We've given power over to that child molester, to that infiltrator, to those silly men who think they'd lose themselves by not eating meat. We've gone silent.

water bottles for good

Here's a disheartening example of rational pro-people, pro-earth arguments being co-opted by conservatives. An Arizona immigration activist with the group No More Deaths has been charged with littering and banned from a wildlife refuge for leaving water jugs for migrants in the desert. Read the whole story here.

zapatista agave syrup

Well, it's not agave, it's honey, but oh how I wish it were.

Some of my friends are very different from me. I saw this honey reviewed on a friend's blog. She's fabulous: brilliant, hilarious, wears full-on party dresses in the daytime, and left corporate land to go to chef school years back. I don't follow her blog because the things I find there upset me. (Her profile lists "butchering" as one of her specialties.) But I got all happy over this, even though I know those bees were blow-torched. I know. I know! The idea of supporting rebel cooperatives by buying their [fair trade] products is alluring, plus the masked activist on the label has a whole 'nother kind of allure. Fer real...their logo is a balaclava. Yes, product marketing has an impact on me.

Alas, I'll settle for the [vegan] Palestinian olive oil from Rebel Imports. (When I can't support lesbo Palestinians Aswat by buying their oil, this is good backup.)

P.S. Many food type postlets have moved over to wintergreens. This stayed because, although interesting, is sooo not local. The multiple locations are making me a bit schizophrenic, but that's just the way.

scruples

(and a merit badge for community building)

I'd intended a while back to give Lagusta an abovegroundpool merit badge for being a sharp, funny, kickass, feminist, vegan, local chef extraordinaire, and sharing that experience with the rest of us. But hadn't gotten around to it.

I've been distracted from writing the entry by the fact that my friend is being beaten up, and from figuring out steps to take to prevent things from escalating. I don't want her to be murdered, I don't want her to continue suffering through beatings, and I don't want this guy to hurt anyone else. What I've learned talking to the lovely people at domestic hotlines is that I can't be the one to end it.

Years ago I had a horrible weekend with friends in CT. The whole setting was confusing to me. I was both attracted to and repulsed by the plush lifestyle I was experiencing, where it was okay (and even encouraged) for a pack of adult friends to raid the house, eat and drink and use everything in it, do nothing more important than play badminton and swim in the private lake, and run the well dry. I was meeting one of my friends' little sister for the first time. This fourteen year old girl (again rich, not underprivileged) lived on a diet of morning-after pills, wore pants that were so tight and low that her pubic hair always showed (the tiny bit that hadn't been shaved), and had no interest at all in engaging with any of the [queer] women or gay boys assembled. She only wanted to talk to [straight] boys that were attracted to her and she kept inviting over, but didn't even seem interested in them. I didn't learn much about why she was dour and self-destructive, but it really set a vibe for the weekend. I remember this was the first time I ever saw an episode of Sex in the City, and in this setting, sitting next to this poor girl, who, by the way, I didn't like, but did empathize with, was completely unable to find any humor in the show. I'm sooo not anti-sex, nor anti clothing that someone thinks they might look sexy in. I don't pretend kids aren't sexual. But it messed me up to see this kid so bitter about [clearly unsatisfying] sex already, so defined by it. She isn't alone, of course, but meeting her set the stage for the rest of the weekend.

Toward the end, we played the game Scruples. Round after round, I learned things I wished I'd never had about these people I thought were smart, I thought I liked. The guy I knew best of this crowd ended the game by admitting he hadn't intervened, or called anyone else to intervene, when he once overheard a woman being brutally attacked. After a futile argument that bewildered me, (It wouldn't change anything. I didn't even know her.) I had to leave. It's very possible that screaming woman was raped, beaten, or killed. I've never hung out with any of these people ever again.

Intervening, calling the cops, getting help quick, somehow, is the right thing to do in an emergency like the one my "friend" didn't respond to. From a domestic violence hotline I learned that when physical or sexual abuse is happening (to an adult), and it is not an immediate emergency, it is dangerous to call for intervention unless the victim is on board. If the victim is still seeing the perp, letting the perp into her* space, and he's* angered about being reported, he'll often hurt her worse than usual, or kill her. They recommend that, until she's ready to end the situation, to 1) Set up a code for emergencies; and 2) Keep a journal of incidents with times, dates, and details of the attacks, ideally with pictures of the visible injuries. Because of course the bulk of the injuries aren't visible.

I also recently read about pets in domestic violence situations. Like the people who stayed in their homes with their animals to try and weather Hurricane Katrina, people who are being abused often don't want to leave their animals behind, delaying getting help, most for months. Indeed, those animals often suffer at the hands of the same perps. There are some experimental domestic violence shelters that offer animals shelter as well. The animals have proven to be of great comfort to the women in the shelter where interviews took place. We all know the statistics showing that animal abusers often turn out to be abusive toward other people, too. Now we see that fear of animal abuse (like child abuse) often stops people from getting themselves out of dangerous situations.

And what does this have to do with a New Paltz blogger?

Well, I recently read her writing about the murder of a friend of hers, and that is part of what galvanized me to seek out professional help in dealing with my friend who is suffering. It's important, and also not the first time that Lagusta's writing has been inspiring to me. From discussions of how and why to make your own tempeh to making a bicycle-driven clothes washer, and this morning's reflection on the middle class environmentalist's failings when it comes to development discussions. It is really nice to know there's someone sane and passionate and articulate in the hood, sharing her experiences and thoughts in hopes of making her community/ies stronger.

I'm grateful for her generosity, her anger, her irreverence, and all the times I've cracked up reading her blog. Cuz we all really need that. (Oh yeah, she runs a vegan home meal delivery service and a vegan truffle business. But it's her writing I'm into at the moment.) So the repurposed "My Community" merit badge goes to Lagusta and her blog, Resistance is Fertile. Thanks for bringing your vegan eco feminist chef fury to the Hudson Valley and to the web!

*Obviously, these pronouns are interchangeable. Men hurt men and boys and girls, women hurt other women and girls and boys and men, trannies get hurt by men and women, etc., etc.

self defense

I noticed yesterday at my gym that they're offering new self defense courses. My mind wandered back to the awesomeness that is self-defense training. I took classes about 15 years ago, before some solo traveling, at Brooklyn Women's Martial Arts (now the Center for Anti-Violence Education). Empowered is an overused word, but it was amazing to understand the power of your body and connect with it in a practical way. Parts of the training were terrifying, like learning to break out of a choke-hold, but the instructors and students were gentle with women who had strong reactions to some of the simulated attacks. For "graduation" we broke planks of wood with a karate chop. It made me feel very strong, and safer, and proud to have made an effort to learn how to protect myself.

But of course, self defense can be criminalized, as with the seven New Jersey lesbians charged with "gang assault" and attempted murder for fighting back when attacked. There's a demo this Monday in NYC demanding that the D.A. drop all remaining charges (some indictments been overturned by the appeals court).

Stop persecuting Renata, Patreese and Venice. They fought back to defend each other. Had they not fought back successfully, one or more of them might have been killed or raped. Are rape, death, or prison the only three options open to lesbians who are attacked on the street?

Protest Monday, March 2
noon - 1 p.m.
1 Hogan Place
Manhattan, NY
(corner Leonard and Centre Streets) (A, C, E & 6 trains to Canal St.)

For more info, e-mail: freenj4@yahoo.com

Related "defense" is that abovegroundpool friend and merit badge winner Susan Tipograph is Renata Hill's attorney.

Support this group of women on Monday; support women's safety every day!

the value of archives

I sat shiva for a friend's father this week, and was once again reminded of the importance of activist archives. The man who died had been part of the armed resistance against the Nazis in World War II, but many people there mourning hadn't heard of partisans, or at least not until James Bond played a role remarkably similar to the life of Simon Trakinski in a little movie called Defiance. I remember visiting Polish ghetto sites and concentration camps and being shocked to learn of the many rebellions, escapes, and armed uprisings. My education about Nazis and concentration camps had always only represented defeated, bewildered victims.

Fortunately, an archivist has been hard at work documenting the Jewish Partisans (blowing up railway lines!), and recording the stories of those still living.

Other valuable archives include:

• Active Stills documents Palestine and Israel on a daily basis;
  
• Direct Action Wiki provides information on (what else?) the tactics of direct action;
  
• The Lesbian Herstory Archives have anything and everything you need to know about dyke activism;
  
• ahem! ahem! abovegroundpool activist archive, to which you should submit photos, videos, and information regarding your saboteur activities, fighting back, or creating new possibilities.

free the new jersey 4

Butch gals, trannies, nelly boys, and everyone who believes queers should not be bashed and imprisoned when they fight for their lives:
Solidarity neckties are on sale now! All proceeds will go the NJ4 legal support fund. Wear yours proudly.

Read all about the case here.

queers bash back

I had a long blog entry written about self-defense, about armed resistance, about organized armed resistance, the IRA, the PLO, the Shining Path. And others who aren't considered "terrorists" anymore, who are now called "freedom fighters" and recognized as relevant in liberation struggles, like armed resistors of apartheid. It depends on who you ask, and their distance or investment. I initially intended to post the piece with some IRA prisoner art from the seventies.

I've lost that piece of writing, but wish I had it to post today. Today I read about the two men (one disabled) murdered in their home in Indianapolis after suffering months of harassment for daring to be gay men. And I also read about the forming of new groups of trannies and other queers called Bash Back around the U.S. (Not an armed group, for the record, but invoking the right of fighting back.)

Self defense is not considered an option in queer bashing cases (see the New Jersey 4). Some people who actually hear about the cases (even with the lack of reportage) are sickened by it. Many others are more sickened by us, inferring that we deserve to be hurt, to be murdered. It is why I think I understand the need for armed resistance. Why I can't judge. Why I won't call people terrorists who appropriate some of the government's (or other attacker's) tactics when fighting back.

renata hill back on trial

Free the New Jersey 4

funny money

Back in the day when Park Slope, Brooklyn was the neighborhood with the highest concentration of dykes in the U.S., I lived in an adjacent 'hood, and belonged to a group of gals who bartered our skills: haircutting, tax preparation, legal advice, painting and construction, cat/dog/bird/rat sitting, and most often, help moving. The Barter Bank was formalized enough that you had to put in time in order to get help, and you were able to draw on the skills of people you didn't yet know. Barter is a fabulous thing, as is just plain giving each other a hand. But it's hard to live in our world without money. Getting something you need without paying for it seems as queer as a 3 dollar bill.

The banks are mighty shaky these days and a U.S. dollar not worth a whole lot, so investing in your own town, in it's food producers and craftspeople seems even more important.

The Berkshire region of Massachusetts has produced its own local currency so that people and businesses can use money in a straightforward way, and still commit to supporting each other. The local bank accepts and distributes BerkShares, and all the local businesses accept them. However, the Dunkin Donuts and and Rite Aid that have popped up in town don't. It seems to be working. Local businesses are thriving, and millions of dollars have been kept local. If you weren't able to keep chains and box stores out of your town through zoning laws, you may want to look into local currency!

Thirteen dollar bill is by Jason Polan. Berkshare artists are Bart Elsbach, Morgan Bulkeley, Janet Rickus, Joan Griswold, Warner Friedman, and Michael McCurdy.

fear and anger, anger and fear

Since when is anger a bad thing? It's a response all animals have to disturbing situations and it helps us, the same way that pain stops us from causing ourselves greater harm.

People who are afraid to face their discontents like to write off activists as not being in charge of their anger. Bush made reference to the "angry left" at the RNC this week (though of course calling centrist Obama "left" is laughable). What sane person wouldn't want to riot?

I think anger is an incredibly valuable response to all kinds of things, and it's one of the ways I know I'm alive, and conscious. I don't only feel anger: I (and all those other "angry activists") are driven by love and hunger and other passions.

I get weary of being asked why I insist on acknowledging my anger. Silence = Death may be an old school slogan, but Act Up knew what they were talking about. Silence and the lack of truth telling keep us in our place, keep us numb, keep us isolated and questioning our own sanity. Not speaking makes sexual abuse able to go on, allows all manner of violation to occur.

Speaking up and fighting for improvements is about being alive. I fear the outcome of numbness and complacency far more than I fear anger.

Without anger, I am as dead as one of Annette Messager's sparrows. The ritual of clothing and protecting them and treating them gently doesn't make them any less dead.

merit badge - model citizens

abovegroundpool's very first badge of merit, what the scouts call the "model citizen," goes to....

[[drumroll]]

lefty lawyers Susan Tipograph and Lynne Stewart.

Susan and Lynn are both radical activists, both having worked their lawerly magic in the same building in lower Manhattan for many years. They are both criminal defense lawyers who have always represented the poor and political prisoners, Lynne Stewart having been disbarred in the hysteria over "aiding terrorists." Susan, of course, worked on Lynne's defense team.

Some notable clients have been Black Liberation Army prisoners; Puerto Rican nationalists; former members of the Weather Underground; Renata Hill, one of the black New Jersey lesbians imprisoned for defending themselves against a homophobic attack; Tabitha Walrond, accused of murder when her breast-fed infant died of malnutrition; Sherman Austin, anarchist webmaster; and yours truly.

Susan and Lynne, we can't even express how grateful we all are to have had you on our side. We know it hasn't been easy. To you we give our greatest respect.

guerillas

Guerilla Gardening means all kinds of things, from beautifying neglected public spaces, to growing food in those spaces, to harvesting unused food on public land, to making political statements with shrubbery.

Years ago some friends and I had fantasized about delivering a public message to a homophobic religious group who happened to have a large, freeway-facing lawn. We planned to write our message in vinegar, letting the grass die over a number of sunny days. (It's just a less toxic version of leaving a message in glass etch on a shop window.) This project never happened, alas, I still look at horticultural messaging with longing. A teen friend showed me up by mowing "fuck you" into her parent's lawn when pressed to do chores. They thought their lovely daughter was so brilliant they had a hard time being angry.

Sometimes, the plants speak for themselves. Other times you need to deliver a botani-gram. Here are one|two|three! methods for moss graffiti that are very enticing. I'd stick with beer or soy yogurt instead of buttermilk to keep it vegan.

critical mass

granville_bridge_3298, originally uploaded by doviende.

Critical Mass is not an organized group, rather "happenings" that happen to occur in many cities around the world on a regular basis. Critical Mass bike rides bring awareness to the availability of non-polluting alternatives to cars. They also make pretty obvious the lack of consideration city planners give to any form of getting around that doesn't involve cars. In the 'burbs it's worse yet (see pedestrian).

Tousles with cops are standard fare at these rides, since some traffic snarling tends to happen when large groups of cyclists ride together. (Especially when they're in costume or naked.) There's been lots of attention in NY to the cop who tackled a rider last week. But anyone who has ever attended a ride knows arrests, permanent confiscation of bicycles, and cops roughing up riders are all too common. Hopefully this media moment will get more bicycle activists involved.

All that, and the rides are still joyous events.

altered & improved

For the lowdown on billboard and sign improvements (and gorgeous photos!), see

• California Dept. of Corrections
  
• Billboard Liberation Front
  
• Wooster Collective
  
• Streetsy
  
• Culture Jammers Encyclopedia
  
• I Hate Billboards
  
• that photo site

pedestrian

Yesterday, in Newburgh, NY, I saw a man get stopped by the police for walking down the street. Sirens, lights, the works. He was walking on the shoulder of a road at an intersection where 5 years ago there was farmland, and now there are strip malls: "essential" things like B&Ns, Lowe's, Mobil stations, Chili's. It was illegal for him to be walking down this road because there is no sidewalk (like most roads these days), and, I'm guessing here, because it is considered a highway by the town of Newburgh. On an already hot and sweaty afternoon, in a landscape covered with black asphalt, this man wasn't allowed to walk home from work. (The Talking Heads song Nothing But Flowers comes to mind here.)

I was flabbergasted, and feel that, for me, this felt like the beginning of the end. I saw all this happen from a car, no surprise, but was so horrified, it makes me want to want to walk and ride my bike exclusively. I'm so repulsed by a culture that makes it illegal to walk in this place that has so recently been taken away from people, and handed to corporations. Sickened by this class crap, that tries to require people to have cars by not funding public transportation.

I'm inspired to give my friend John Francis, of the organization Planetwalk and the book Planetwalker, another read. John didn't ride in cars for twenty-two years to protest oil industry abuses, and has many an interesting story to tell from his journeys. And, bonus, he's another banjo player!

bloc

blockades, originally uploaded by abovegroundpool.

Sometimes there's an emergency, and your only choice is to form a blockade. This can be done using trees, boats, tubes, barrels, locks, sticks, wheelchairs, tripods, and bodies bodies bodies.

free the new jersey 4

If the recent flurry of gay weddings has you thinking that queers have it all cushy and nice, familiarize yourself with the case of the New Jersey 4, and do some support work for these young women.

• Article from Workers World
  
• Free NJ4 events & artwork
  
• Interview with Terrain Dandridge
  
• Excellent coverage on Women's Space (with photos)
  
• More Stabbings, Please
  
• My initial reaction: bash back

spotted in harlem

miltary equals slavery, originally uploaded by abovegroundpool.

appo

There's a new film about the popular rebellion in Oaxaca, Mexico in 2006, and the filmmaker is hoping to have the film screened for groups of activists. They are not looking for money, but to share the the information widely. See trailers of Desde el Filo de la Navaja.