!A for Anarchy
 --- 
agk's phlog 
6 Apr 2021 @ 1559
 --- 
started on paper scrap at work 
finished on X61 at kitchen table 
while roommate plays The Binding of Isaac
 --- 

In my mid-teens I didn't know anybody into 
anarchy. Sometimes the word was used in files 
on the Temple of the Screaming Electron bulletin 
board about making lineman handsets, stealing 
long-distance calls, and exploring the phone 
network. It was probably in RE/Search and Feral 
House books I stole from Borders.

When I was 17, Quakers came to the place in my 
small town where homeless kids hung out. They 
invited us to watch a movie about sweatshops. At
the showing an anarchist woman invited me to the 
next meeting of a regional antiglobalization
network.

I didn't know she was anarchist til a low-key 
party of anarchists from the network at her 
little house in the woods. Her and another 
anarchist woman reported back from the women's
caucus of a Zapatista encuentro they attended in 
Mexico. The men did dishes and gabbed in the 
kitchen. I'd never before seen the gendered 
division of labor reversed. I loved it.

She taught me to facilitate meetings. I learned 
how to read highly technical whitepapers and 
trade agreements. I helped do popular education 
in local schools. Before I turned 18, we were 
gassed and beaten with 200 thousand other people, 
and helped stop a bad trade agreement.

After 11 Sep 2001, I took a medic class, learned
to ride freight trains, and met more anarchists 
at the North American Anarchist Gathering in 
Kansas and through anti-mountaintop removal, 
anti-prison, indigenous sovereignty, and anti-
war campaigns. I helped do injury and illness 
care under the watchful eye of nurses and 
clinical herbalists.

I loved the anarchists I met in my early 20s. 
They had practical skills and practiced 
hospitality. They were internationalists who 
cared about working conditions and everyday 
life. Mostly non-dogmatic, very earnest, they 
practiced joyous, generous living in grim 
places. What I didn't like was I thought they 
spent too much time with only each other.

In my late 20s, I called a conservative AM radio 
talk show early one morning in the lead-up to a 
protest at a G20 summit. Some protesters were 
veterans and active-duty military mad about the 
wars. Others were victims of the foreclosure 
crisis. The talk-show host trash-talked 
anarchists. He said they were probably all 
asleep, that they're from out of town and none 
of them work.

Many called from their jobs. When I called, I 
said, "You believe in small government. They 
believe in no government. They want to associate 
voluntarily and freely, decide together about 
things that matter in their lives, and meet 
their needs by giving freely within meaningful 
relationships."

"Voluntary association, direct action, and 
mutual aid are normal in families, churches, 
AA meetings, and volunteer fire departments. 
Libertarians want to smash the state to hoard 
power. Anarchists want to smash the state and 
all concentrated power. No one should have too 
little because someone greedy has too much."

The host played a clip of me at commercial 
breaks for the rest of the show. The National 
Guard deployed with police from five states. 
Helicopters hovered. Combat veterans were 
arrested for returning their medals and spit on 
in jail. The SWAT team tried to raid our 
protest medic clinic.

Popular opinion in the city briefly turned 
against the state's capricious repression. The 
summit ended. Everyday life continued with a 
few more friendships and shared memories.

I still don't know if I'm an anarchist, but I 
hold dear the ethics I learned from them.