EASTWEST #1: An Anarchist Newspaper

In this I see a big plug for 'Advance the Struggle.' 'Advance the Struggle' are SF Bay Area college-boy fans of Lenin and of Maoist forces in places like India and the Philipines. Don't take my word here; check out their web site.

EASTWEST #1 also plugs a public policy doc from an social-worker-sounding outfit called 'Causa Justa,' which ends with this statement:

"...Though both our past and future efforts include working to change the minds and actions of politicians and city administrators..."

Another article issues the usual vague clarion call for join action among mass transit system employees and riders -- without any specifics as to what this might entail, and with no indication of anything the authors themselves intend to do in this context. In this scene, its always up to someone else to actually do something...

Then the publication hosts an article applauding an incident of armed robbery of car pool commuters at the Rockridge BART station -- and essentially applauds muggings and street assaults of people who 'look' like gentrifiers. Armed lumpen street crime as 'class war' -- social decomposition combined with vicarious living rules O.K!

This muggers-as-unconscious-revolutionaries article is appropriately accompanied from a quote by the self-avowed Stalinist, homophobe and wife-beater Amiri Baraka. Whenever anarcho-scenesters put on their streety posturing costume this garb proves to be a cheerleader's uniform for Third World Stalinism, and usually at that some brand of 1960's-1970's psycho-fringe-Stalinism. They simply cannot do anything other than this.

At this point, the publication reproduces the weaknesses of 'Fireworks.' But at least unlike 'Fireworks' they don't have a horoscope column -- perhaps this can be regarded as a sign of growth.

Agree with the poster above, this is not a paper calling for any kind of meaningful change, it merely extolls the worst kinds of lumpen violence. Disgusting and embarrassing that indybay would publish such a screed. If these Occupy brats who moved to Oakland from Santa Cruz ever got a gun shoved in their faces, they'd pee their pants and probably join the GOP the very next day. Also, takes a lot of chutzpah for someone who used Adobe products on a computer to make this flier to call out people simply for having a smartphone.

FireWorks never had a horoscope column. Someone wrote a few and had it on the website. Being that 90% of the news sources that most working class people go to have horoscopes (and people actually read them), I fail to see how this is a bad thing, (and being that they were only posted two times) even worth mentioning.

As far the links to Advance the Struggle (who identify as Bordagists largely) and Just Cause, they've both produced two pieces of analysis that are worth looking at. Sorry that they're Left Leninists and non-profits. Get off your ass and write it yourself.

The article about crime in north Oakland is about how private security patrols and the general poverty endemic within capitalism tie into gentrification. As the article states:

"We find the level of violence exhibited on this
woman to be unacceptable, but far worse levels of lethal
violence are inflicted on people of color in East and West
Oakland every other week without the media becoming
equally scandalized."

"Inequality is inherent
to capitalism, and until it is destroyed, we can only expect the crime wave to continue. While robberies and theft
provide temporary relief to economic problems, these acts
alone will never bring about an end to capitalism. They are
merely its symptoms."

Seems extremely clear to me. But then again you'd both have to read that far to actually get read.

You've made your claim by post up posters telling people to mug, harass, and vandalize yuppies cars - DO I REALLY NEED TO EXPLAIN THIS?

-A Bus Driver who wrote the article on transit.

just dont engage with these people
;)

"We find the level of violence exhibited on this
woman to be unacceptable."

How generous of you. Presumably some other level of violence would have been acceptable?

"...While robberies and theft
provide temporary relief to economic problems, these acts
alone will never bring about an end to capitalism."

Robberies and muggings alone won't bring about an end to capitalism. Wow. What a staggering insight -- literally; like a blow upside the head on Ashby and Adeline! Do you need more time to think over this profound and original theoretical observation?

The sociopathic activity you excuse out of what smells strongly like white liberal bourgeois guilt is a function of social decay, not in any way an expression of social struggle and of healthy, intelligible antagonism to this society. Robberies and theft certainly don't bring relief, temporary or otherwise, to the people victimized by them, the vast majority of whom are working class and low-income. Man, I can't believe I am in a dialog as disgusting as this one.

Th stuff on display in 'EASTWEST #1' is the tough-guy posturing of people who aren't tough guys -- and aren't mature enough to realize that they don't have to be tough guys, and shouldn't bother to aspire to such a pathetic schoolyard level of distinction. Sometimes they sound ultra-left -- other times like Maoists; these guys are indiscriminately attracted to anything that sounds extreme. This "muggers are an intelligible, legitimate response to life in this society" stuff is a country club Republican's notion of "anarchy." It also smells like the complete junk that profoundly sheltered individuals who listen to way too much of that form of 100% capitalist propaganda called hip-hop will come up with. And this exists in the larger context of a scene which for a number of years now has generated absolutely no sustained, credible expressions of what its scenesters claim to be about, in the larger world outside of their echo chamber/safety zone.

sounds like you're afraid of getting jumped, or maybe participating in something you don''t want to admit. and it does bring temporary financial relief to the muggers, because it does, why else would people do it? the article is clearly doing something right. maybe its triggering some white liberal bourgeois reaction, because that article never praised anything, except to say the Google guy was a good choice.

do you think its right that dajon ford is being tried as an adult? are you happy he is going to be in prison for a long time? how does that make you feel? if you got mugged once, that sucks, but how much weight do you want to give your experience. is it all about you?

Boulder, CO...think Boulder...think axe-handle, Molotov cocktail...think..think...think Boulder...think worse than Nor Cal...think about the Conscious People and the Copacetic...think the Grateful Dead...think watermelons...think Gallagher. Don't stop thinking until Aurora, CO meets the Dancing Wu Li Masters.

Enough! Never mind. Stop this phony police agent ruse!