Editor's Note: The following is only a transcribed copy of handwritten texts that appeared in the third issue of the RAAN journal Emotional Poverty. Though these are the most well-known essays, they do not represent the full contents of that issue, nor can this means of representation be expected to accurately preserve the original layout and artwork that accompanied them.

Summer 2006

"The Crewcial Journal of Red & Anarchist Street Culture"

CULTURE OF THE RED & ANARCHIST ACTION NETWORK

First and foremost, you must rid yourself of the misconception that RAAN is or seeks to become a "revolutionary organization". Without notable exception, such organizations have without fail betrayed the working class again and again, and sought to impose their own means of control over autonomous movements against capitalism. In addition, the task of creating revolutions has never fallen to organized radical groups, regardless of how penetrating their analysis. We can create the tools and consciousness for revolution, but never the revolution itself.

Every organizational format, from federations to affinity groups to raw, unaffiliated individualism has proven itself incapable of doing anything other than strengthening an ineffective dynamic in which small and easily-repressed groups of the committed embark over and over again on their quest to change the world. But relatively small - yet vocal - minorities of those who actually identify as communists or anarchists never change the world; it is changed by the mass action and violence of the proletariat as a class, independent of all political institutions.

Because of this, there is no practical use in creating another "revolutionary organization" just for the sake of having it. We're not throwing another acronym into the alphabet soup just to watch it float. RAAN exists as a way of identifying compatible strains of revolutionary activity, and is not a fixed organization by any definition. The RAANista tendency exists beyond ideological labels, though it may have originally used them for the sake of easily identifying its points of departure. RAAN can only be seen or analyzed as the totality of autonomous activity done in its name. As these actions grow in number and set precedents, an identifiable tendency of "RAANismo" makes itself apparent and can be analyzed as what it is, not what it claims to be.

To the extent that RAAN is thus an immense dialogue in direct action, it is also its own culture, spawning its unique symbols, praxis, vocabulary, and collective image outside of the predetermined definitions of "anarchism" or "communism".

RAAN represents a "back to basics" approach that re-examines the creation of social movements and refocuses the attention of the radical back on herself and the surrounding community. Only action, action, and more action can create the credibility we need in order to become a fully self-perpetuating autonomous tendency. Only concrete projects of dual power and horizontal infrastructure within the community - beginning with the network itself - can create the space and resources for this tendency to become sustainable.

We know that gangs and other groups that begin at the street level have achieved the most effective and resilient means of organization. We gain comrades not through ideological conversion but by connection and mutual aid on a personal basis. Groups that overlook this will be doomed to the obscurity of the alphabet soup.

We begin with the social alienation of the individual and seek to provide tools with which to dismantle it and build an autonomist praxis that is not merely the combined actions of its affiliates, but also their self-driven contributions to RAANismo on a cultural level.

Because the network upholds mutual aid as its most important principle, it creates within itself a culture of trust and respect thought commitment to fundamentally revolutionary praxis; autonomy and the total exclusion of authoritarians and reformists. RAAN is therefore an immensely diverse project that since 2002 has created a real "alliance" of revolutionary tendencies on the ground and on its own terms: meritocracy of action, collective empowerment, and a "No Bullshit" Policy springing directly from our culture of collective discussion and designed specifically to combat the lethargy of "activism".

We are not "activists". We are a street-level tendency of anti-political radicals who have chosen to fight for their lives and construct an offensive engine for the creation of community power and infrastructure through our daily recreation of what has come to be called "RAANismo".

The practical benefits of this methodology are self-evident. We need committed street crews who are ready to throw bodies behind projects and make them work. Never must our ideas be separate from their practical application and the functional unity that it breeds.

Above all, the culture of RAANismo means that we reject the artificial imposition of strict procedures and guidelines for our coordinated revolutionary association; the forms we adopt should rise directly from material conditions in each region, and only a self-identified and sustainable autonomous culture can achieve this.

ARE WE THERE YET?
"Reflection of the Physics of RAAN"
06.30.06

"People have known for a long time that epidemics don't spread be growing in a steady linear manner, with a handful of new infections each day until you eventually have an epidemic on your hands. What happens is that a small group of people get infected, and if they aren't quickly isolated, they soon infect a slightly larger group. If this group then mixes with the general population, the infection suddenly "tips", exploding virtually overnight into a full-scale epidemic." - Malcolm Gladwell, The Tipping Point

A few years ago, an affiliate of the Red & Anarchist Action Network described his participation in the project as being like pushing a huge boulder up a hill, with an emphasis on the sense that the more people pushing, the easier it became, and the less people pushing, the more of a burden it became, and with more psychological weight given to the actions of a small group of people.

To be sure, there is no identifiable "membership" in the network, but one can draw conclusions about the level of involvement at any time by observing RAAN actions. And while the network as a concept and even method of attack can be preserved merely through the actions of one person, the goal has always been to make that boulder easier to push.

We want to get to the top of the hill. We want that fucker to start rolling by its self. When everyone is worried about recreating RAAN and developing its culture, no one has to worry about those things.

At this point it might be useful to compare the idea of RAAN to the fax machine when it first became widely available. At first, widespread skepticism keeps away potential buyers, and since the utility of a fax machine is based on whom you can reach with it (how many others already have them), its appeal is at first limited due to a lack of participation.

Slowly but surely, greater numbers of people begin to purchase fax machines as a growing user base is able to make it attractive or even necessary to the average consumer. Eventually the product reaches a "tipping point" where its use by a critical mass of pioneers turns it into a desirable commodity.

RAAN works in this way as well, because more people will get involved with a project they see to have already gained success and widespread acceptance than with one that seems understaffed, even if the latter is working harder and making groundbreaking proposals.

In the network, we refer to this phenomenon in terms of credibility. When and if we can reach that "tipping point" of credibility where there is enough street presence and activity in RAAN that it becomes widely recognized as a "good idea", self-activity by geographically-isolated cells will become the rule rather than the exception, and the boulder will be rolling too fast to ever stop.

But to get to that point takes more than just pushing harder.

We must remain conscious of how we articulate RAAN, how we are seen, what images we embrace, and what are the evolving internal mechanisms of the network and the relationships that comprise it. Even as we seek the transformation of RAAN into a "spectacle" - that is, a self-perpetuating accumulation of images that can only be seen as a whole, a gestalt - we know that such an explosion in the visibility and apparent credibility of this "spectacle" is firmly based in a supportive culture that provides the depth behind the marketing.

So we have to build slowly, crew-by-crew and city-by-city, to lock in the RAANista base of support needed for the project to take hold. All the while however, we should remember the broader "tipping point" strategy and keep in mind the specific tactics that could lead to a "spectacularization" of the network. We're gonna have to keep pushing this boulder, and look sexy while doing it.

PARKOUR
"The Future of the Movement"

Parkour (or simply "PK") is the art of applying military obstacle-coursing techniques to the urban environment and is a holistic method for high-impact physical training, confidence building, and discipline. Since late 2005, the Red & Anarchist Action Network has been using Parkour as a training and recruitment tool, with great success in several cities in both the United States and Venezuela. Although Parkour as an independent practice has existed since the 80's, RAAN's projects appear to be the first attempt worldwide to blend the art's rigorous training with direct action and anti-politics.

In the United States, recent repression against comrades and the continuing ineptitude of the current "left-wing" organizations has led to many people calling for a shift in tactics, presumably towards direct action and political violence. The near-celebrity status of eco saboteurs such as Jeffery "Free" Luers has resulted in a rash of copycat attacks, with an accompanying rise in the number of those arrested for such actions (often due to careless mistakes).

Too often, we're seeing young comrades get locked up for engaging in direct actions they weren't ready for. Meanwhile, the laughable "security culture" of the movement tends to isolate these radicals from the kind of experience and training they need. Everybody talks about stepping up pressure against government and multinational corporations, but behind the rhetoric there is rarely any type of plan or strategy to put into place, and would-be monkeywrenchers are essentially told that it's every man for herself.

RAAN seeks to use Parkour not in preparation for imminent action, but as part of building a sustainable culture of physical/psychological training for our movement in the long term. The teamwork and confidence building one gets from training PK is truly unique. Most importantly, Parkour is an open project that is accessible to all groups regardless of prior experience, and should at the very least be seen as a way of embedding physical conditioning and discipline in our tendency, towards the future development of an effective direct action culture that - unlike the current one - is based out of some type of widespread and decentralized training.

At both the strategic and tactical levels, Parkour is another way that RAAN is changing the game.

LENIN - STILL SUCKING AFTER ALL THESE YEARS!

In case you didn't know, Lenin was the asshole who led the 1917 Bolshevik coup in Russia, drowning in blood one of the greatest revolutions in modern history, and in the process nearly destroying the viability of communist ideas by using that label to describe the authoritarian regime and Leninist ideology that it left behind.

RAAN has, from the very beginning, maintained firm principles of exclusion against Leninists and other statist leftists, and in North America has probably done more to denounce Leninism and organize against it than any other group.

Despite being by far the most organized and visible face of "Marxism", Leninists have succeeded only in derailing countless revolutions and killing millions of innocents across the globe. For there to be any pretense of tolerance for their ideology, especially from anti-state Marxists, is simply ridiculous. Lenin was a deadly enemy of the working class. Leninism is nothing more than the left wing of capital.

Luckily, you can only fuck up repeatedly so many times before history takes notice. Thanks in small part to groups like RAAN but mostly just its evidently authoritarian nature, Leninism is being widely discarded by new generations of radicals, for whom it is now no longer the "default" school of Marxism.

But how have Leninists been reacting to this? What we've seen most commonly is authoritarian groups recasting themselves so as to appeal to and indoctrinate a younger, more "anarchist" crowd. But there is also another disturbing trend: Leninists who are letting go of that label and calling themselves simply "Marxist" or "communist". Though there are always ways to spot authoritarians, these neo-Lennies stick out because they are usually found in "revolutionary" organizations based on cross-ideological unity or even non-ideological unity. Groups that do not take the time to identify and confront Leninism and its historical legacy might as well be Leninists themselves.

The Lennies have a psychological attachment to their idol, and will seek to preserve his imagery and status, even at the cost of Leninist praxis. To be "soft" on this would be no less than historical amnesia and destroy all of one's credibility. Remember, kids: A Red Fascist is Still a Fascist!

CALLING ALL ANARCHO-NIHILIST SUICIDE BOMBERS!

I ♥ anti-organizationalist anarchism. Like the autonomist Marxists, insurrectionary anarchists place an emphasis not on the imposition of antiquated representational models such as the Federation, but rather the organic outbursts of anti-political power and violence from within the working class itself.

Alongside the growth of insurrectionary anarchism, we have seen seen the development of "anarcho-nihilism". Nihilist anarchy is based on the premise that relationships dictated by the present system, both societal and interpersonal, are not as they appear. In particular it is the strategies most commonly assumed to be "revolutionary" that are most likely to be co-opted by the enemy (strikes, theory, even insurrection itself).

The anarcho-nihilist seeks to start from scratch, often using the individual as the only possible building block for revolutionary praxis. The anarcho-nihilist questions everything - after all, how can we, who have never seen or been socialized in a "free" society, expect to create one? The only thing we can trust is destruction. Allowing for the possibility that there is no future leads one to focus on the present. Rejecting the concept of morality allows one to spend less time twiddling one's thumbs. Yet this is precisely what most anarcho-nihilist theorists have been doing.

Because of its preoccupation with the rejection of formalized struggle, anarcho-nihilists tend to associate with individualist direct actions unconnected to a wider campaign, often identifying them as the only valid negations of the present system. What ends up happening because of this is that the sum total of anarcho-nihilist practice is reduced to the idea of a suicide bomber. Not necessarily in the literal sense, but in terms of exhorting young adherents to "toss themselves on the churning gears of civilization". Anarcho-nihilism thus finally overcomes new age anarchism's preoccupation with "avoiding personal sacrifice", but remains stuck in its conception of the individual as the only frame of reference.

The obvious problem is that these anarcho-nihilists are never the ones who are actually planning on throwing themselves on those gears, but there is a more important issue: across the globe and throughout history, "suicide bombers" have always been part of a larger movement. Those that weren't were quickly forgotten. Even those who were delusional enough to believe their actions would land them in eternal paradise can see that the action itself means nothing unless it strengthens a wider body that can build credibility off of it.

Humans will die for an "anti-cause", but not no cause at all.