New Anarchist Publication! 'Cause McAnarchyism Wasn't Embarrasing Enough.

The Warrior Wind
Against a Society of Confinement: “Blow, wild wind, blow!”
Issue Number One. February, 2006. Free.

On the Recent Wave of Repression On December 7th, 2005, one of the largest roundups of environmental and animal liberation activists in American history began. That day the FBI arrested six people in four different states and issued Grand Jury subpoenas to others not then taken into custody. While details became clearer about federal law enforcement’s “Operation Backfire” against the environmental movement, the Bush administration was busy dealing with scandals regarding its newly revealed, and widespread, domestic spying programs through the National Security Agency and other entities. In this context, the revelation that “antiterrorist” spying is conducted against environmental and animal activists ought to surprise no one. Furthermore, the latest attacks on our movements should be described as what they really are, counter-insurgency operations, not “neutral” policing-as-usual.

The State has always used surveillance and repression against those it considers threats or competition. For the past decade, earth and animal liberationists have faced an escalation of such surveillance and repression. When Jeff “Free” Luers was sentenced in 2001 to over 22 years for vandalizing SUVs, many felt his sentence was an exception or anomaly. Now almost all eco-prisoners are facing similar sentences (Earth Liberation Front prisoner Chris McIntosh was facing a 30 year minimum before taking a plea deal for eight years), and the sentences prisoners face are only climbing higher. To give one example: activists with Arizona Earth First!, recently convicted merely of charges relating to interference with a mountain-lion hunt, are being threatened with sentences of over seven years at their March hearing!

Continued...