Love & Rage Archive

“True justice requires more than a stay of execution-it requires a complete dismissal of this clearly political persecution! It requires more: it requires the committed mobilization of our communities to resist a system that is more repressive than South Africa’s—to abolish this racist death penalty! It requires freedom—for all MOVE political prisoners, and all political prisoners of whatever persuasion! Now! It requires a continuing revolution—to beat back the forces of the neo-apartheid state. Organize! Mobilize!”

—-Mumia Abu-Jamal, July 12, 1995

by the Love and Rage Prison Abolition Working Group

By Christopher Day

Twice a day, every day, about 25 US-made Humvees carry about 175 nervous Mexican soldiers toting US-made M-16 automatic rifles and heavier weapons through the Zapatista village of La Realidad. La Realidad is the headquarters of the military leadership of the Zapatista National Liberation Army (EZLN). The troop convoys have become a fact of life for the residents of La Realidad, including the many refugees from the village of Guadalupe Tepayac who were driven from their homes by the Mexican Federal Army in February 1995. In early October the Federal Army soldiers built a new military encampment on the banks of the Rio Euseba on the other side of La Realidad. This new encampment is the latest stage in the military encirclement of the Zapatistas and in the increasing militarization of Mexico. The rapid growth in the Mexican police state has depended on large quantities of US military aid.

By Jessica Parsons and Christopher Day

The paramilitaries are still armed in our communities. We left because we are afraid that they will kill us like they did the others,” said Manuel Perez, a 28-year-old refugee who fled his village on December 28 with his family. As he spoke, five days after the brutal massacre of 45 indigenous refugees living in the village of Acteal by the paramilitary group “Mascaras Rojas,” the violence had not stopped. Over 3,500 campesinos had left their villages seeking refuge in the Zapatista autonomous muncicipality of Polhó.

In the weeks since the bloody masacre the Mexican state has responded to this crime, not by punishing those responsible, but by attacking the Zapatista communities. The massacre on December 22 is only the most brutal act of violence in an ongoing “dirty war” being waged against the indigenous peoples of Chiapas. Clashes between Zapatista supporters and sympathizers, like those in Acteal who are members of the civil organization “Las Abejas,” and government-sponsored paramilitary organizations have been raging for seven months, leaving at least 30 dead and over 2,000 homeless in the region of Chenalhó alone. The victims of the masacre in Acteal were a part of this refugee population who had already been burned out of their homes in nearby villages by paramilitaries.

By Meg Starr and Matt Meyer

The government and mainstream media have used their formidable powers to prevent the circulation of any real information about political prisoners; Marilyn Buck, David Gilbert, Laura Whitehorn and others.

Small wonder. Like John Brown, these white activista took up arms against the US government in solidarity with oppressed peoples. Invisible in the social democratic or liberal histories of the 1960s is the logic of their progression from public to clandestine activism. In the following interview these three help us to understand an important part of radical history so often distorted. They are all now serving prison terms for such “unthinkable crimes” as infiltrating the Klan, robbing money from banks and giving it to Black self-defense patrols, helping to liberate Black Liberation Army (BLA) leader Assata Shakur, and bombing the Capitol in response to the US invasion of Grenada.

By Matthew Quest

by brad

On May 6-7, there was a conference organized by three ABC collectives—Claustrophobia ABC from DC, Nightcrawlers ABC from NY, and New Jersey ABC. The conference was hosted by Claustrophobia ABC in DC, and was also attended by members of Baltimore ABC, 4th World ABC from New Jersey, and other anarchist prison activists from Pennsylvania and New York.

The purpose of the conference was to solidify a new regional ABC federation that had informally begun with the three sponsoring collectives in Dec. 1994. We left the conference with unforeseen results, well beyond what we had initially set out to achieve.

This is reprinted from anarkismo.net from a post there dated 17 Apr 2007. It was originally published in Northeastern Anarchist #3 Fall 2001.

A history of North American anarchist group Love & Rage by Wayne Price - NEFAC

A new wave of radicalization is spreading around the world. Federations of anarchists are being organized in the U.S and Canada, and in other countries. The ‘platformist’? current within international anarchism, with its emphasis on the need for anarchists to organize themselves, is having worldwide effects. In these conditions, it is not surprising that there should be an interest in the last major attempt to build an anarchist federation in North America: the Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation (L&R). Founded in 1989, it lasted to 1998, almost ten years, with branches in Mexico (Amor y Rabia) and in English-speaking Canada.

This is reprinted from a posting on the A-infos website. It is from the Northeastern Anarchist #6.

The Demise of Love & Rage: What Happened?

by WEB, Open City Collective (NEFAC-NYC)

The following article is a revised version of an unpublished paper originally written in November 1998. Although two of the three groups mentioned are now defunct, the issues raised in the Love and Rage factional struggle are still quite relevant to the anarchist movement today.

This afterword to After Winter Must Come Spring: A Self-Critical Evaluation of the Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation by the Fire by Night Organizing Committee was unfortunately not included in one of the two versions of the document that have appeared in print. It appears here in it's original version.

Afterword

How the internal documents of a defunct anarchist group can change your revolutionary life

by Suzy Subways

In the 1990s, the Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation helped build strong, radical groups like Anti-Racist Action and SLAM, movements for queer liberation, reproductive freedom and more. Yet when activists disrupted the WTO in Seattle, LnR had been dead for a year and a half, leaving our mistakes to be repeated, our lessons forgotten. That's what spurred my old comrade Roy San Filippo to put together a book of LnR's writings, A New World in Our Hearts (AK Press, 2003). Although 19 of the 20 pieces are by men-meaning vital insights from women are missing-the book revives valuable debates cut short by LnR's split in 1998.