In which I write a letter to elected officials.

So by now you may be familiar with South Carolina Code Title 23 Chapter 29, the state law that requires all organizations who directly or indirectly advocate, advise, teach or practice the duty or necessity of controlling, seizing, or overthrowing the government of the United States, the state of South Carolina, or any political division thereof, to register their activities with the South Carolina Secretary of State. Now that I’ve been informed of the law, here are the contents of the letter that I wrote and dropped in the U.S. postal service today, addressed to Mark Hammond, arbitrary Secretary of State over South Carolina.

Secretary of State Mark Hammond
P.O. Box 11350
Columbia, SC 29211

Dear Sir:

I am writing to you today as a member of the Alliance of the Libertarian Left, a subversive organization advocating the duty, the necessity, and the propriety of overthrowing the governments of the United States and of the state of South Carolina by unlawful means – as we advocate the duty, the necessity, and the propriety of overthrowing all forms of government at every level throughout the world. As advocates of the doctrine of Anarchism and the strategy of counter-economics, we specifically reject legalized methods of changing government policy, such as government elections and legislative lobbying, and we advocate the deliberate use of illegal tactics such as civil disobedience, and nonviolent direct action in defiance of unjust laws, as our preferred means of bringing about the dissolution of all government into the economic organism.

Members of the A.L.L., both anonymous and open, operate in many states, including in South Carolina. We are actively engaged in attempts to influence political action in the state of South Carolina – specifically, by aiming to stop any political action at all from being inflicted upon the people of South Carolina. We reside and transact business within the territorial boundaries claimed by the state of South Carolina; we are in your neighborhoods and we are in your business districts. We may even be in your homes; have you checked under the beds and in the closets?

I believe that our doctrines and activities qualify us as an officially recognized subversive organization, as described in South Carolina Code Title 23 Chapter 29.

Please consider this our notice of subversive activities; I would be honored if you would add our organization to your registry of organizations working for the overthrow of government in South Carolina. All government is, after all, nothing more than an absurdity, a usurpation, and a crime, inflicted on the vast majority of peaceful people, without their consent, by the dictation of a select few men who have neither the wisdom, nor the virtue, nor the right to presume to rule over anyone other than themselves. It has always been the most deadly tool of oppressors and exploiters, as the past victims of South Carolina’s government, from the Stono rebels to Denmark Vesey to the 35 victims of the Orangeburg Massacre have known all to well. When belligerence and inhumanity prevail, the peaceful and the humane must find honor in being categorized as the enemies of the prevailing order. Please keep me updated as to the status of our registration. I look forward to hearing back from you as to our official recognition as enemies of your state and its government.

Sincerely,
Charles Johnson

PS. I am told that there is a processing fee in the amount of $5.00 for the registration of a subversive organization. Our organization is in fact so dastardly that we have refused to remit the fee.

All the great governments of the world – those now existing, as well as those that have passed away – have been of this character. They have been mere bands of robbers, who have associated for purposes of plunder, conquest, and the enslavement of their fellow men. And their laws, as they have called them, have been only such agreements as they have found it necessary to enter into, in order to maintain their organizations, and act together in plundering and enslaving others, and in securing to each his agreed share of the spoils. All these laws have had no more real obligation than have the agreements which brigands, bandits, and pirates find it necessary to enter into with each other, for the more successful accomplishment of their crimes, and the more peaceable division of their spoils. – Mr. Lysander Spooner, Natural Law, or the Science of Justice.

I’ll keep you advised as to how the process goes.

The Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair is going to be held the weekend of March 13-14 in San Francisco at Golden Gate Park. It’s a great time; it’s also one of the largest annual Anarchist community events in North America. And I’m in the process of organizing a table for A.L.L. at the bookfair.

In addition to a great lineup of speakers, panels and workshops, the main event (this is a bookfair, after all) will be the space in main hall with dozens of vendors with tables to show off their Anarchist books and materials from 10:00am–6:00pm on Saturday, March 13 and 11:00am–5:00pm on Sunday, March 14. Among them will be us — members of the Alliance of the Libertarian Left from Vegas, California, and around the Western U.S. I’ll be there, along with fellow Anarchists from Southern Nevada ALL. We’ll have books, journals, buttons, and more from the Southern Nevada ALL Distro available for sale as fundraisers, along with a lot of free pamphlets, smaller pieces to give away, and information about ALL as an organization and what we do back in our hometowns.

This will be Southern Nevada A.L.L.’s third appearance at an Anarchist bookfair (after appearances at last year’s Bay Area bookfair, and this year’s Los Angeles bookfair). These bookfairs are a real blast to work: partly because the bookfair a great opportunity to make connections with fellow Anarchists and to get the good word out about individualist anarchism, market anarchism, mutualism, counter-economics, to an audience of engaged radicals and movement anarchists. And also because, for a dispersed, Internet-coordinated network like the A.L.L., working the bookfair table is great opportunity to posse up with ALLies from many different towns, meet folks you’ve only known online, have some great conversations, and work together on some practical counter-economic outreach. (It’s also a good opportunity for local organizing on the ground — since we can put out a sign-up sheet and get contacts for people who are interested in ALLiance in the Bay Area.)

Anyway. If all this sounds like something you’re down with, interested in, excited by, here’s three things you can do:

1. If you’re in the Bay Area, or will be around March 13-14, drop on by the table and say hi and see what we’re doing.

2. If you’ll be there and you’re interested in selling books or merchandise for your hometown Alliance of the Libertarian Left local — or if you’re interested in hanging out with ALLies from other towns and helping with the table — then get in touch with me to coordinate. We’ll definitely have space for you, and it’d be great to posse up.

3. If you want to help support the A.L.L. presence at the Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair (and other bookfairs in the future), you can help us out by covering the costs of the table and the transport. Bound Together Books just recently boosted the cost of reserving a table (last year it was $100 for both days; now it’s $150). We’re doing this on as thin a shoestring as possible. With support from y’ALL, we can make the most of these opportunities to do local organizing, make connections between our locals, and put the word out and about among our fellow Anarchists.

   Here’s the shoestring, for reference.

   ALL @ Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair 2010 shoestring budget

   Cost	Description
   $150	Table reservation (Saturday and Sunday)
   $87	Car rental for transport from Vegas (driving up Friday; returning car Monday).
   $86	Cheap hotel in Bay Area (Friday and Saturday night)
   ~$0~	Gas costs will be covered by carpooling ALLies and our allies from Vegas up to the Bookfair and to the Empowering Women of Color conference, which is being held at UC Berkeley the same weekend. Food costs will be covered through Food Not Bombs.
   $333	Total costs

Hope to see y’ALL there!

We’ll be here. Will you?

From ALLy Chris Lempa (2009-01-11):

ALLiance a journal of theory and strategy [beta] is done. I’m very happy with the content. I used Scribus to do the page layout and that was a mistake. It kept crashing my system and was overall not a very friendly program. Hopefully it will be replaced before the next issue. Please take a look at this issue and provide constructive criticism. My goal is to create a journal that promotes libertarian (broadly defined) theory. Please contact me if you are interested in a hard copy.

It is currently being hosted at www.issuu.com but will soon have it’s own space on the web. Issuu makes two versions available – a downloadable pdf as well as a version that is easier to read online.

Thanks for your interest and please remember that this is a test release! I need your comments. Please send them to chris (at) chrislempa dot info

Read ALLiance [beta] – http://issuu.com/alliancejournal/docs/alliance0

Here’s the introduction from the Beta issue:

A Note from Z’s

Libertarianism is political philosophy with a rich history. A countless number of people have dedicated their lives to the freedom movement. The goal of ALLiance a journal of theory and strategy is not to explain libertarianism — that has been done. The Molinari Institute, the Libertarian Labyrinth, and Anarchy Archives, amongst others, have a great collection of foundational texts. ALLiance aims to disseminate theory and strategy. Both new and recently published articles will be included. So many great articles have been published on blogs and articles. Some of these reach a large audience, unfortunately many do not. Many end up preaching to the so called choir or converted. Hopefully ALLiance will spread the ideas of our loose knit movement.

Future issues will, hopefully, focus largely on strategy. Most people reading this will agree that change is necessary, but how do we realize that change? Let’s move our theory to action. Articles on theory will be accepted and published, but we prefer to move those ideas forward. A lot of other venues focus on theorizing a more free society. An example of such a publication was Z Papers. This magazine continued up where Z Magazine stopped. That is, Z Papers went beyond analyzing what was wrong. In fact, that’s where the journal began. Unfortunately, from what I can gather, it failed due to lack of submissions.

Eventually I would like to turn ALLiance into a Z Papers for the libertarian left. Strategies will be diverse and differ in reach and risk. Anything from encrypting email to tax avoidance will be included. Electoral strategies will also be considered, but we really don’t have much interest in relying on the parasitic class. However since the state is so overarching, there will undoubtedly be people who work within the system. My personal view is that this is okay so long as it’s done as a non-reformist reform (i.e. working towards structural change).

Housekeeping Notes

ALLiance will be published quarterly. Submissions will be accepted up to one month before the next issue is published (February 1, May 1, August 1, and November 1). Please submit articles in publishble form. While I will attempt to edit them, I can’t guarantee that I will catch every error (or that we have the same writing style). Please email submissions to me no later than two weeks prior to the deadline if you are in need of proofreader. That will provide enough time to edit and/or suggest revisions if necessary. There is no specific length requirement. Every submission will be read and considered.

I would love to have a large print run, but that isn’t possible at this time. Until it is possible, I encourage interested parties to print and distribute copies. While it’s not necessary, I ask that you contact me if you plan to do this. The pdf will be distributed freely and hopefully widely.

Also note that this is a Beta Issue. The submissions are top notch, but the format is a work in progress. Graphics posed a problem for this issue. At the end I kept them even though the quality for many were poor. Fault lies with the editor (me) nd not the authors. I used Scribus, an open source desktop publishing program to layout this issue. I will be exploring other options for the next issue. Please contact me if you have any suggestions.

Letters/feedback are encouraged. In fact, response articles are encouraged. Symposium styled issues will be published in the future.

Donations/trades are accepted. There is also limited ad space available. Contact me to work something out.

Thanks for reading.
Chris Lempa
chris@chrislempa.info

Here’s the information about the next issue:

Next Issue

The next issue will take a closer look at action. How can we move towards a stateless society. What are some alternatives to the welfare state. I touched briefly on Mutual Aid Organizations, but what else is there? Have you written (or thought about writing) a Do It Yourself guide or primer tht will help peopl live life a little more freely? If so, please consider submitting it to ALLiance. Submissions deadline is February 14.

Submissions can be sent to chris@chrislempa.info.

Read, as they say, the whole thing.