The Santa Cruz Sentinel inaccurately reported yesterday that the government District Attorney’s office had mounted a smash-and-grab raid on SubRosa Cafe, the Anarchist space in Santa Cruz that has been black-baited and scapegoated over the past month for a riot they had nothing in particular to do with. The situation in Santa Cruz got pretty scary, with SubRosa collective members receiving frequent harassment and death threats from Respectable Citizens. What actually did happen sounds here sounds worrying, but the SubRosa collective has made clear that the newspaper story is wildly inaccurate. There has been no raid so far — although there were four armed deputies dispatched to nose around on a pretty flimsy pretext:

Four armed deputies visited SubRosa Wednesday May 19th. SubRosa was closed at the time. They told a neighbor they wanted to talk to SubRosa staff about worker’s comp issues. One of the deputies was an inspector from the Santa Cruz District Attorney’s Office.

Beyond this unsuccessful visit, SubRosa has not had any contact with law enforcement. SubRosa was not raided, and our door was not broken. We did not, and do not call the police.

SubRosa is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, and has no paid workers and is an all-volunteer space. SubRosa has a business license to operate in the City Of Santa Cruz. SubRosa is in compliance with all city and county fire codes, zoning requirements, entertainment permits, health codes, workers compensation, and sales tax requirements. No workers comp claims have been filed, nor have we been contacted by the Division of Workers Compensation.

— SubRosa (2010-05-21): A Word About the Reported Raid

It sounds to me like the District Attorney’s office and the po-po would like to take the opportunity to go fishing for connections between SubRosa and the riot. Which is worrisome. Not the same thing as the raid the Sentinel spread sensationalistic rumors about — but still a reason to worry, and to offer your support and solidarity to SubRosa if you believe that they should not be threatened, attacked or harassed by the state’s armed goons solely on the basis of their political beliefs. If you’d like to support the SubRosa project, I’m sure they could use it these days;

Donations

SubRosa is fiscally sponsored by a 501(c)(3) non-profit and your donation is tax-deductible to the extent allowed by law. We will happily provide you with a tax-deductible receipt.

We can accept donations by check, money order, or credit/debit card.

If you can’t make it down to SubRosa, one-time donations can be sent to:

SubRosa
703 Pacific Ave
Santa Cruz, CA 95060

— SubRosa: Support

From Vandals Strike Downtown Santa Cruz, City on a Hill Press (2010-05-06):

Emily Bernard, a manager at Dell Williams Jewelers, was shocked by the event.

. . . While the police department has not publicly verified individuals or groups that are involved except the two transients arrested . . ., it is investigating the group of vandals as a possible anarchist organization.

Business owners and Santa Cruz community members alike ^[1] are focusing their blame on SubRosa, an anarchist café, partly because one of the men arrested admitted picking up fliers for the event there.

We can't let [an] anarchist café exist now that we know the potential of what they can do and publicize, Bernard said.

— Jenny Cain & Julia Reis, City on a Hill Press (2010-05-06): Vandals Strike Downtown Santa Cruz

I don’t know why Emily Bernard thinks that the existence of an anarchist café should be subject to her personal sufferance. She manages a business, but she doesn’t own downtown Santa Cruz. SubRosa pays their rent to a landowner who is willing to have them, and they have as much of a right to be there as anybody else. But in any case, the SubRosa community space is being scapegoated, harassed, and targeted by other business owners for eradication, for no other reason than the fact that they are Anarchists.

See also:

• GT 2010-05-06: Rad Geek answers your questions (Cont’d)

1. ^[1]Sic — The article is operating on a rather selective notion of who counts as a Santa Cruz community member (apparently Johanna Isaacson, Simone Chandler, and other Santa Cruz residents who support, or are part of, the SubRosa collective, don’t count).↩

Received in my e-mail inbox this past Monday, from someone who has not yet learned that half of all human decency in political thinking is just learning to keep your personal pronouns straight.

From: fuck you
To: AnarchistCafe.org working group
Subject: Message for AnarchistCafe.org working group
Date: 05/03/2010 09:47 AM

You fuckers started a riot in Santa Cruz!!! Why would you have a site like this???? You cased tens of thousands of dollars in damage!

In order:

1. No, I didn’t.

2. Because some people evidently don’t understand the ideas of Anarchism or what Anarchism stands for as a social movement. So, I think it’s cool for Anarchists, and people curious about Anarchism, to have places where they can meet each other in an informal environment and talk about what anarchy might mean.

   That, or I’m trying to make it easier for people to organize riots in Santa Cruz, California. You decide.

3. No, I’m pretty sure I didn’t.

I’m sorry to hear that rioters smashed up some stores in downtown Santa Cruz and spray-painted some circle-As around the place. But I, fucker that I may be, had nothing in particular to do with that. Neither, incidentally, did most Anarchists in and around Santa Cruz. Some Anarchists believe in street riots as a worthwhile tactic for social transformation; others don’t. In any case, those who want to holler about property damage ought to holler at the individual people who went out and committed it, not at any random stranger who happens to wear the same symbols or read the same books.

Anyway, Comrade You did not provide an e-mail address with the message, so I can’t reply directly. However, they seem to have written me because they had me confused with the SubRosa Cafe in Santa Cruz — which is currently being bearing the brunt of an increasingly nasty campaign of black-baiting, scapegoating, harassment, and direct threats from local Chamber of Commerce types, based solely on their political beliefs, on the assumption that, since they are part of the International Trotskyist-Anarchist Conspiracy, the riot is obviously their fault, even though they had nothing to do with it. In light of which I can only say that I regret that I have no affiliation with the fine folks behind such a wonderful community space. However, the message did inspire me to add a new Spaces section to the AnarchistCafe.org website, where I’m happy to include a listing for the SubRosa project. If you’re in the Bay Area, I encourage you to drop in and show your support. The SubRosa organizers also have a list of Ideas for creating a supportive atmosphere in Santa Cruz.

Upcoming

• Anarchy Summer Camp. 17-19 July 2009. Northern Virginia. Anonymous, Infoshop News (2009-06-12): Virginia: Anarchy Summer Camp 17th-19th, Nova. As we prepare for the upcoming G20 summit in Pittsburgh, the Spring World Bank and IMF meetings, the ebbs and flows of our respective local campaigns, and anything else under the sun, we’ll be congregating in the woods of Northern Virginia for an action-packed Anarchy Summer Camp.

• Belfast, Ulster. 18 July 2009. Organizing for Anarchism. Belfast: Organising for Anarchism. A day of workshops and discussions organised by the Belfast branch of the Workers Solidarity Movement and the Anarchist Communist Discussion Group. (High Church Platformism, in case you’re curious.)

• Sao Paulo, Brazil. 18-19 July 2009. 2nd Encounter towards a Sao Paulo Anarchist Federation. The Pr?@c3;b3;-Federaç?@c3;a3;o Anarquista de S?@c3;a3;o Paulo collective invites everyone to participate in the 2nd Encounter towards a Sao Paulo Anarchist Federation on 18-19 July 2009 in the city of Sao Paulo, Brazil. … It was from that Encounter che this collective was formed, with the aim of carrying on the debate. The purpose of this second Encounter, then, is to present and discuss the collective’s experiences and the work done so far, and also to invite new comrades to join us. Over this first year, the participants have engaged in many activities with the aim of joining the popular struggles and contributing social and practical ideas such as direct action, autonomy, combativity, solidarity, horizontality and independence from parties. (Especifismo, if you’re curious.)

• 2009 Northeast Anarchist People of Color Conference. 6-9 August 2009. Philadelphia, Pennslvania. The conference announcement, mission sttaement, and Principles of Unity are all available from http://illvox.org/.

• Providence, Rhode Island. 15 August 2009. Providence Anarchist Bookfair and street festival. Anonymous @ Infoshop News (2009-06-28): Providence Anarchist Bookfair and street festival The annual Providence Anarchist Bookfair is back again this year and we want you to come on by and enjoy the events , get some books and participate. … In the past there have been workshops and interactive presentations on radical and revolutionary topics , please feel free to submit workshop proposals or hit us up to get a table.

Openings, anniversaries, report-backs, etc.

• Toledo, Ohio. Summer 2009. The Black Cherry community space. A new coffee-and-info-shop opening this summer in Toledo under the auspices of the October 15 Anarchist Collective. 1420 Cherry St., Toledo, Ohio.

• Santa Cruz, California. June 2009. SubRosa community space. SubRosa celebrates six months! SubRosa is a non-profit space in downtown Santa Cruz for art and radical projects run by a collective of volunteers from the local anarchist community. It offers radical books and literature, gourmet coffee and tea, performance and a weekly open mic, gallery art by emerging local artists, and a garden courtyard social space. Free wi-fi and public computers are also available for use. A variety of radical community events are held at SubRosa, including monthly art shows, Free Skool classes and a weekly Open Mic on Thursdays at 8pm.

• United Kingdom. Free Activist Records. Anonymous, Infoshop News (2009-07-16): New donation based UK anarchist record label launched. A new free to download donation based record label Free Activist Records has just been launched. Our first release will be a 20 track compilation to raise awareness of Sean Kirtley anarchist AR prisoner. We are a small collective of music lovers, artists, punks, workers and activists. We are veganarchist, anti-consumerist, anti-fascist, anti-millitary, pro union, feminist, pro-choice, anti-globalization, anti-authority and we support direct action to smash oppression it all of its forms, whether it come from the state or corporations. We also love music. … We rely on help from, bands, illustrators, artists, promoters, activists groups and YOU to keep FAR running. Please do contact us to find our what help we need.

• East London, England. Anarchist Movement Conference 09. Another, very detailed reportback: Infoshop News (2009-06-13): Britain: More on the Anarchist Conference 09. (See GT 2009-06-10: Wednesday Lazy Linking for previous report-backs and No Pretence’s anarcha-feminist intervention.)

• Tampere, Finland. 10-12 July 2009. Musta Pispala: Anarchist counter-cultural festival. via Anonymous @ Infoshop News For us anarchism means for example the critique of all forms of domination and hierarchy and on the other hand creating non-oppressive, egalitarian culture. We see domination not only in large structures of society, but also in oppressive customs among ourselves. Our analysis is not limited only to human relations. It also includes our relationships with non-human beings. Our aim is to strengthen critical views and empowerment in the form of taking control of our lives. Kill the police within! Through the workshops in the festival you can get familiar with topics such as basics of anarchism and anarcha-feminism. There will be a couple of workshops on anarchist parenting and unschooling. Anti-psychiatry criticizes mainstream views on mental problems, and offers alternatives for mental care. Environmental themes are approached practically and theoretically through worm-composting, edible wild plants, climate change and the environment and technology thinking of anarchists. We also have workshops about specifically local struggles such as anti-gentrification/yuppification and a counter campaign against the city council’s efforts to clean the streets of Tampere from street art and posters of small scale events.

• Antioch, California. 20 June 2009. Antioch Arrow Block Party Antioch Block Party Report Back

• Quote for the Day: After the end of the Civil War, many former slavers tried to contact the black men and women they had once enslaved — even those who had escaped during the war and headed north — to try to convince them to return to the plantation and work the land as hands or tenant farmers. One of those freedmen, Jourdon Anderson, wrote a letter back to his former captor, explaining the terms on which would return. This may be my favorite thing that I read all week. Emphasis is added.

  Dayton, Ohio, August 7, 1865

  To My Old Master, Colonel P.H. Anderson
  Big Spring, Tennessee

  Sir: I got your letter and was glad to find you had not forgotten Jourdon, and that you wanted me to come back and live with you again, promising to do better for me than anybody else can. I have often felt uneasy about you. I thought the Yankees would have hung you long before this for harboring Rebs they found at your house. I suppose they never heard about your going to Col. Martin’s to kill the Union soldier that was left by his company in their stable. Although you shot at me twice before I left you, I did not want to hear of your being hurt, and am glad you are still living. It would do me good to go back to the dear old home again and see Miss Mary and Miss Martha and Allen, Esther, Green, and Lee. Give my love to them all, and tell them I hope we will meet in the better world, if not in this. I would have gone back to see you all when I was working in the Nashville hospital, but one of the neighbors told me Henry intended to shoot me if he ever got a chance.

  I want to know particularly what the good chance is you propose to give me. I am doing tolerably well here; I get $25 a month, with victuals and clothing; have a comfortable home for Mandy (the folks here call her Mrs. Anderson), and the children, Milly, Jane and Grundy, go to school and are learning well; the teacher says Grundy has a head for a preacher. They go to Sunday School, and Mandy and me attend church regularly. We are kindly treated; sometimes we overhear others saying, Them colored people were slaves down in Tennessee. The children feel hurt when they hear such remarks, but I tell them it was no disgrace in Tennessee to belong to Col. Anderson. Many darkies would have been proud, as I used to was, to call you master. Now, if you will write and say what wages you will give me, I will be better able to decide whether it would be to my advantage to move back again.

  As to my freedom, which you say I can have, there is nothing to be gained on that score, as I got my free papers in 1864 from the Provost Marshal General of the Department of Nashville. Mandy says she would be afraid to go back without some proof that you are sincerely disposed to treat us justly and kindly–and we have concluded to test your sincerity by asking you to send us our wages for the time we served you. This will make us forget and forgive old scores, and rely on your justice and friendship in the future.

  I served you faithfully for thirty-two years and Mandy twenty years. At $25 a month for me, and $2 a week for Mandy, our earnings would amount to $11,680. Add to this the interest for the time our wages has been kept back and deduct what you paid for our clothing and three doctor’s visits to me, and pulling a tooth for Mandy, and the balance will show what we are in justice entitled to. Please send the money by Adams Express, in care of V. Winters, esq, Dayton, Ohio. If you fail to pay us for faithful labors in the past we can have little faith in your promises in the future. We trust the good Maker has opened your eyes to the wrongs which you and your fathers have done to me and my fathers, in making us toil for you for generations without recompense. Here I draw my wages every Saturday night, but in Tennessee there was never any pay day for the Negroes any more than for the horses and cows. Surely there will be a day of reckoning for those who defraud the laborer of his hire.

  In answering this letter please state if there would be any safety for my Milly and Jane, who are now grown up and both good-looking girls. You know how it was with Matilda and Catherine. I would rather stay here and starve–and die if it comes to that–than have my girls brought to shame by the violence and wickedness of their young masters. You will also please state if there has been any schools opened for the colored children in your neighborhood. The great desire of my life now is to give my children an education, and have them form virtuous habits.

  Say howdy to George Carter, and thank him for taking the pistol from you when you were shooting at me.

  From your old servant,

  Jourdon Anderson

  The letter was reprinted by Lydia Maria Child in her anthology, The Freedmen’s Book. Jourdon Anderson’s body now rests in the Woodland Cemetary, in Dayton, Ohio, so it seems that his old captor never accepted his offer. For reference, the back wages he demanded — $11,680 in 1865, before adding interest — would be worth about $162,452 in 2008 dollars.

  Discovered thanks to stuff white people do (2009-04-28)

• The invasion begins tomorrow: SubRosa community space (2009-05-02): First Ever Santa Cruz Anarchist Convergence! May 7-11. The Santa Cruz Anarchist Convergence is coming to town! Yes, here, between the forest and the ocean, among the students and the yuppies, where Santa Cruz anarchists have fostered a close-knit community dedicated to destruction of this world and the creation of another. Santa Cruz is a hub of anarchist culture and resistance, with a long history of radical struggle and active anarchist projects spanning decades. Santa Cruz is proud to host the Santa Cruz Anarchist Convergence, a four-day anarchist event for building community and resistance and sharing radical ideas.

• More one-way mirror transparency (+): Jesse Walker, Hit & Run (2009-04-23): In Bailouts End Responsibilities.

• On crony-statism, state capitalism, and living in a bubble: Sheldon Richman, The Goal Is Freedom (2009-05-01): Of, by, and for the elite

• Libertarianism or Barrbarism? Roderick Long, Austro-Athenian Empire (2009-05-04): More Crap from the Libertarian Party (with a hat tip to Soviet Onion in the comments back here). In which the Libertarian Party sends out a press release urging the United States government to control the border, escalate the use of police-state checkpoints against immigrants, and consider all would-be immigrants diseased until proven healthy.

  I’d be pissed if I weren’t beyond caring about anything the LP says or does. Individual party members are often perfectly good people, and well worth talking to, and well worth inviting to something new and better; but the party, as an organization, is worth taking notice of only as an enemy, to be shoved out of the way along with the rest of the belligerent busybody Know-Nothing creeps.

• He’s wasn’t using it, anyway: Mike Gogulski (2009-05-03): Steal this number: 595-12-5274

• More on decentalism and localism: A couple of comments from Darian Worden following up on the recent monster thread here: DarianWorden.com (2009-04-27): Individualist International and DarianWorden.com (2009-04-30): Stick It To Your Kind. Whether or not I agree with Darian about multiculturalism depends on what the word’s being used to mean (there’s a lot of different things called multiculturalism, some of them descriptive theories about American history; some of them normative theories; some of them overtly relativistic; others universalistic; etc.). Otherwise, twinkles.

• On the production of knowledge in a peer-to-peer society: Michel Bauwens, P2P Foundation (2009-04-27): Ryan Lanham: dissolving universities?. I think that the discussion underestimates the importance of architecture and physical space in creating scholarly community; I think it also underestimates what I think would be the most noticeable effect of less businesslike, more mutualistic universities, without the distorting effects of state funding and state-imposed accreditation systems — that they would be smaller, more numerous, and less oriented towards churning out professional degrees in subjects that would be better taught completely outside of the university setting, if not for the political-economic distortions that shove them into institutional structures where they don’t belong. I also protest the notion that there’s something wrong with esoteric subject-matters or that best-selling authors, just as such, somehow have a better grip on what’s relevant than scholars working intensely on a tightly-focused subject. (Surely they have a better grip on what’s relevant to people outside the University. But that’s not necessarily the kind of relevance that a University ought to be concerned with.) But I agree that Universities are set for a radical change, in an increasingly peer-to-peer world, and that the change will involve less institutional aping of business, a more mutualistic orientation, and hopefully less credentialism. It’s an important discussion and this is a good start.

• I’ll never finish the Internet: Dare Obasanjo, (2009-05-05): RSS readers modeled after email clients are fundamentally broken. Actually, I’m inclined to say that presently-existing e-mail clients are also fundamentally broken, although they call for a different sort of fix.

• Shameless Self-Promotion opportunities: Jeremy Trombley is now running a regular What Are You Up To? Wednesday feature.