Even More on Zerzan and the Eugene anarcho-primitivists

[Tom Trouble]

>Eugene man speaks up for Northwest anarchists
>http://www.oregonlive.com/news/99/12/st121101.html
>
>Eugene man speaks up for Northwest anarchists 
>
>Author John Zerzan, 56, provides philosophical fuel for anarchy groups
>such as those seen at the WTO conference 
>Saturday, December 11, 1999
>
>By Bryan Denson of The Oregonian staff 
>
> EUGENE -- Trash fires lit downtown Seattle and World Trade Organization
>protesters still choked the streets 11 nights ago when John Zerzan
>boarded the Amtrak train for Eugene. 
>
>        His work was over. He was headed home.
>
>        Behind him was a downtown full of broken windows, uprooted
>newspaper boxes, flaming Dumpsters. As peaceful protesters squared off
>with police, delaying the opening of the WTO's trade meetings, about 50
>anarchists, half from Eugene, had raged through the city. Some
>spray-painted anarchy symbols and hit spots such as Nike Town,
>McDonald's, Bank of America -- corporate emblems of the technology they
>say is stealing society's passion and freedom. 
>
>         "I was extremely heartened," said Zerzan, a leading
>philosophical influence among Northwest anarchists. The 56-year-old
>author admits joining his comrades in Seattle but won't say what actions
>he took. "At my age, the decades of nothingness, the decades of
>consumerism and the rising levels of deterioration and emptiness -- when
>people stand up to it and speak out against it and move against it, it's
>just thrilling." 
>
>        After a lifetime of relative peace, one crazy week in Seattle
>turned Zerzan into the public face of anarchy. The fame is the
>sleepy-eyed scholar's reward for writing two books and countless essays
>on technology's disastrous implications for society.
>
>        These are intoxicating times for John Edward Zerzan. He has
>moved through past lives as a Woodburn altar boy, Berkeley peacenik and
>San Francisco cab driver to accept his role as a keeper of Eugene's
>counterculture flame. His younger comrades -- some impressed with his
>writing, others fascinated that he knows serial bomber Theodore
>Kaczynski -- have anointed him a somewhat reluctant spokesman.
>
>Early passion for politics 
>
>Nothing radical bubbled in the Zerzan family font.
>
>        Zerzan's parents were devout Catholics from Nebraska who moved
>west seeking deliverance from the hardships of the Great Depression.
>They operated a Western Auto store in Woodburn. Dad was a conservative,
>Mom a Roosevelt Democrat. And John, the second of three children,
>developed an early passion for politics. 
>
>         "He was always very serious," said Zerzan's big sister,
>68-year-old Jackie Vincent, a retired artist for the Salem-Keizer school
>district. "I used to tell him to lighten up and not be so serious, he
>was just a kid. . . . He was just so concerned with the state of the
>world." 
>
>        But in most ways, Zerzan was a typical '50s kid. He joined the
>Cub Scouts, camped with his family at the Oregon coast, went to Catholic
>school and played a little high school football at Mount Angel Prep. He
>graduated among 33 seniors in 1961 and headed off that fall to Stanford
>University.
>
>        Four and a half years later, Zerzan graduated with a degree in
>political science. As a "weekend runaway" to the University of
>California at Berkeley, he protested the Vietnam War. 
>
>        Zerzan's only arrest came in 1966, when he and others took turns
>standing in front of trucks carrying napalm. "I felt very
>self-righteous," he said. 
>
>        The young radical spent his years in the Bay Area working as a
>cab driver, carpenter's assistant and union organizer. He married,
>fathered a daughter and earned a master's degree in history from San
>Francisco State University. The marriage failed, and Zerzan moved to Los
>Angeles, where he entered a doctoral program at the University of
>Southern California. 
>
>        On his own, he studied anthropology and the roots of
>technological society. In time, he grew convinced that technology is a
>tool to dominate the masses.
>
>
>A modern primitive 
>
>Zerzan moved to Eugene in 1981 and several years later began to advocate
>a form of anarchy called "primitivism." By Zerzan's reckoning, mankind
>took a wrong turn 10,000 to 12,000 years ago when humans went from
>hunting and gathering their food to farming. He thinks that led to the
>technological world, which turned humans down a dangerous path.
>
>        Zerzan's reading convinced him that primitive humans weren't
>brutes but were smart, free of infectious and degenerative diseases,
>shared food, enjoyed leisure time and didn't get hung up on gender. 
>
>        He lays the blame for many of today's problems -- escalating
>teen suicide, gunfire violence in schools, wide-scale use of
>antidepressant drugs -- on technological civilization and capitalism.
>
>        Zerzan lives alone in a one-bedroom home that's part of a
>housing co-operative. He owns no car, no credit cards, no computer. He
>writes longhand on a pad. His color television set rolled off production
>lines when Gerald Ford was president. 
>
>         "He lives like a monk; he's just got nothing," his sister said.
>"He's got a futon on the floor and (until recently had) an old door on
>sawhorses for a desk, and I think he's got two pans to cook with. And
>that's the way he likes it." 
>
>        Zerzan's primary transportation is a beat-up Schwinn three-speed
>bike. His books sell little, and he earns money baby-sitting. "I decided
>a long time ago I'd rather have time than money," he said. 
>
>        Zerzan kept a low profile until January 1998, when he gave a
>lecture about technology -- with a nod to the Unabomber trial -- and 500
>people showed up.
>
>        The Eugene scholar had read Kaczynski's 35,000-word manifesto
>and agreed with him that a technological society kills any chance for
>humans to live free or fulfilled. "Our correspondence uncovered our
>affinities . . . and he wanted to talk," Zerzan recalled. They first met
>in April 1997 at the Sacramento County Jail, then at least twice again. 
>
>        Kaczynski has become a cult hero to a few anarchists. But some
>are frustrated that news reports keep connecting him to their mostly
>peaceful movement. 
>
>        For a time, Eugene's anarchists seemed content to talk about
>revolution, to pass out leaflets on the streets and staff tables of
>literature in front of the public library.
>
>        Then one day, almost out of the blue, they cut loose. 
>
>Anarchy in Eugene 
>
>Zerzan was sitting at Allann Bros. coffee shop on June 18 when he
>smelled tear gas.
>
>        An estimated 300 people had marched through Eugene as part of a
>global anti-capitalist crusade. Some had broken windows of downtown
>businesses and stopped traffic. 
>
>        Zerzan hadn't attended, but when he smelled tear gas, he bolted
>like an old fire horse. He pedaled his bike directly into a stand-off
>between protesters and Eugene police in riot gear. 
>
>        The protest had raged for hours, and Zerzan declared it a
>victory. Fifteen anarchists went to jail. 
>
>        Eugene's anarchists are perhaps 35 to 50 hard-core activists and
>many more sympathizers. Zerzan estimated their median age at 26. They
>tend to wear the black-hooded sweatshirts and bandannas fashionable
>among America's urban rebels.
>
>        Buoyed by the June 18 riot, some made plans to join their
>kindred in Seattle for an even bigger demonstration. 
>
>        The World Trade Organization, the 135-nation body that sets
>international trade regulations, is hated by many environmentalists,
>human rights activists and labor organizers because they feel the
>organization puts profits ahead of the planet and its people. Months
>before the summit in Seattle, those groups planned to fill the streets
>with so many protesters it would literally prevent WTO delegates from
>reaching their meeting site. 
>
>        Eugene's anarchists had no plans to play by the rules. They
>joined their anarchist comrades in Seattle on the morning of Nov. 30,
>blending in with tens of thousands of protesters.
>
>        When police shot the first cans of tear gas about 10 a.m., some
>of the anarchists dashed behind the lines and began vandalizing stores.
>They hit mostly large corporations, spraying graffiti on buildings and
>smashing windows. 
>
>         "I saw these roving bands of anarchists all dressed in black
>before they started breaking windows, and I knew it was trouble," said
>Portland resident Xander Patterson, co-chair of the Pacific Green Party.
>"I think that they came with the intent to smash a few windows, but the
>police action just created the environment where they were given the
>unintended license to kind of go nuts." 
>
>        The Downtown Seattle Association reported that damages cost
>merchants more than $2 million.
>
>        Peaceful protesters deserve sole credit for shutting down early
>meetings of the WTO, not the roving anarchists whose damage became the
>leading image for many news broadcasts, Patterson said.
>
>        However, Zerzan said broadcast images of the vandalism -- along
>with tear-gas clashes between police and protesters -- drew attention to
>the WTO.
>
>        It's the passion behind that militancy that stirs Zerzan's
>heart.
>
>         "I'm kind of incurably optimistic," he said. "I think we're
>gonna win. I'm convinced the system is gonna crumble and fall. The
>people are just going to rise up and put it away." 
>
>You can reach Bryan Denson at 503-294-7614 or by e-mail at
>bryandenson at news.oregonian.com. 
>
>-- 
>Chuck0
>http://flag.blackened.net/chuck0/home/
>
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