Bring your signs. Bring your flags (all of ‘em, from anywhere). Most important, bring yourself and bring your friends! Stand up and march on with your fellow workers and your fellow immigrants, against international apartheid; against the bordercrats and their walls, their checkpoints, their paramilitary raids, and their police state; and for the human rights of each and every person to be left alone, to live and work in peace, without needing to get a permission slip from the State for their existence.

Justice for Immigrants; Human Rights for All!

May 1st 2009

Meet at 3:30 PM at the Commercial Center (between Commercial Center Dr and E. Sahara Ave).

March will begin at 5 PM, ending at the Federal Courthouse

• Support family reunification!
• Support Comprehensive Immigration Reform!
• Support Workers’ Rights to Organize!
• Support the DREAM Act!

Sponsored By:

LiUNA, PLAN, MEChA, Young Democrats of UNLV, LUZ community development coalition, Hermandad Mexicana, Stone Wall Democrats, Si Se Puede, Latino Democrats, NV NOW, Así Se Habla and UCIR.

For More Information Contact Us at info@ucir.org

Justicia Para Inmigrantes; Derechos Humanos Para Todos!

May 1, 2009

Reunión a las 3:30 PM en el Commercial Center (entre Commercial Center Dr y E Sahara Ave).

La Marcha comenzará a las 5PM y Terminará en la Corte Federal.

Apoyen La Reunificación de Las Familias!

Apoyen Una Reforma Migratoria!

Apoyen Los Derechos del Trabajador Para Organizarce!

Apoyen el Dream Act!

Patrocinado Por:

LiUNA, PLAN, MEChA, Young Democrats of UNLV, LUZ community development coalition, Hermandad Mexicana, Stone Wall Democrats, Si Se Puede, Latino Democrats, NV NOW, Así Se Habla and UCIR.

Para Más Información Por Favor Contacte a UCIR en info@ucir.org

Here’s the latest on Southern Nevada ALL and anarchist organizing in Las Vegas.

We’re starting a Las Vegas A-Cafe. (By we, I mean both Southern Nevada ALL and some other local anarchists I’ve contacted. Look out, we’re conspiring.) The Anarchist Cafe is intended as an informal gathering for anarchists (of all stripes, sects, and creeds) to meet and talk with each other—which is free-form enough to allow people just to meet up and hang out if they want to hang out, but y also where they can talk some shop, spread some news, and float some ideas for action. The idea comes from events in Califas (SoCal, NoCal). For the time being, we’re being rather literal by holding the event in an actual coffee house, because they have good meeting space, comfy chairs, and don’t expect us to do anything more for it than buy some of their drinks. Hopefully the first meeting will bring together some new faces and old. The first meeting is:

Wednesday, August 27th, 2008
6:30pm – 8:00pm
@ The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, Running Rebel Plaza
4550 S. Maryland Parkway, Las Vegas, NV 89119

Bring yourself. Bring a friend. And bring anything — ideas you’ve had, projects you’re working on, literature, zines, flyers, art, whatever — that you’d like to share with some like-minded people. For myself, I’m going to try to encourage everyone to sign on for some networking projects, bring a lot of ALL literature to set out on a table, and chat people up about possible local actions and projects.

For more details, see the Vegas A-Cafe website.

In order to announce the upcoming A-Cafe, to raise awareness about the domestic and foreign and perpetrated by the State, and to reach out to incoming and returning students at UNLV, Southern Nevada ALL took its second flyering action today — the first day of classes for the upcoming semester at UNLV. We’re calling this outreach action Radical Re-Orientation. Right now, we’re limited mainly to posting flyers and distributing handbills. In the future, if we gain more of a foothold on campus, I hope that we can really trick the event out, through some strategic use of tabling, more extensive first-week events, and hopefully coordination with other groups on campus. But, in any case, for now, there is the A-Cafe, and there are the flyers and handbills. The numerical majority of the paper that we’ve been pushing has been a pair of new flyers on police brutality, a handbill on anarchy, and a flyer announcing the A-Cafe event. In addition, we also have some fresh copies of existing flyers on how we are forced to pay for war and torture through government taxation.

Cops are here to protect you. (#1)	Cops are here to protect you. (#2)
Taxes Pay For Torture (#1)	Taxes Pay For Torture (#2)
Taxes Pay For War (#1)	Taxes Pay For War (#2)
A-Cafe invitation	Vegas Anarchy / What Is Anarchy?

The handbills are designed to be printed out as a double-sided 4x4 sheet, with the logo on one side and the What Is Anarchy? text, with a link back to the A-Cafe website, on the back. We’ve dropped a few in public places, and spread the rest around under car windshield-wipers and on doorknobs; the idea is for the front to catch your eye with the logo, and the back to give some idea of what we’re all about. I hope to re-use the design with a bunch of different texts on the back; for the first one, I tried a capsule summary of what anarchism is about. Thus:

What is Anarchy?

Anarchy means lawlesness. It does not mean riot or chaos. The government schools and the corporate media have taught you to believe that Anarchy means disorder because they need you to believe that order and peace can only exist where they are imposed by government laws and enforced by government police. The elite few who pull the strings in the government and in the corporate media need you to believe that social order requires social control. After all, they intend to do the controlling. They expect you to surrender your freedom to their authority. In exchange they promise you peace, protection, security, and order. But what they deliver is fear, war, police brutality, and humiliating “security” checkpoints. Their “order” means taking orders. Their “protection” is a prison.

In Anarchy there is another way. Instead of a coercive order imposed by government, we believe in consensual order. Instead of “protection” from brutal government cops, we look to individual and neighborhood self-defense. Instead of “relief” from indifferent government welfare bureaucracies, we look to fighting unions, worker solidarity and cooperative community-based mutual aid. Instead of “order” imposed by obedience to government laws, we look to voluntary contracts and agreements between free people negotiating as equals.

We oppose all government prohibitions, government taxes, government borders, government police, and government wars, because we are for peace, freedom, and social harmony. These can only exist between people who come to agreements as equals, not between people who are forced to obey out of fear. It is government law that produces violence, riot, and disorder. Only in Anarchy can there be true order, real peace, individual freedom and social harmony.

If you are interested in learning more about these ideas, or meeting other people in Las Vegas who are working to make them a reality, check out the Vegas Anarchist Cafe at: http://vegas.anarchistcafe.org

We put up about about 150 flyers and passed out about 200 handbills today. We’ll be spreading more anarchist love in upcoming days. I’ll let y’all know how it goes in terms of attention, new contacts, and the A-Cafe. As usual, if you find any of the pictures pretty or the text useful, they’re all freely available for you to reuse and recycle as you see fit.

If you are in the Las Vegas area (or you know someone who is) and are interested in the A-Cafe or in Southern Nevada ALL, I’ll be at the A-Cafe on Wednesday, and I hope that several other ALLies will be there too. If you can’t make it to the face-to-face, by all means drop us a line. If you want to put up flyers, feel free to contact me — I can hand you off a stack of flyers to put up and give you some idea of the areas that have already been hit — or feel free to print them up yourself from the PDF and put them wherever seems best.

Onward.

The Southern Nevada chapter of ALL has been busy over the past few months doing some outreach, literature drops, and making contacts with the local networks of anti-statist and social justice activists. In addition to our April 15 Tax Day flyering action, and some informal get-togethers, Southern Nevada ALLies have also:

1. Done literature drops around town, using William Gillis’s excellent Market Anarchy zine series, and a couple of Vegas Anarchy pamphlets of our own (more on that, soon, I promise) using a version of his template adapted to our local situation;

2. Put on a small networking and outreach event for the Libertarian Party of Clark County’s last monthly meeting, to get our name out and pass out some literature;

3. Participated in Las Vegas’s May Day rally against the criminalization of peaceful immigrants; and

4. Worked together with the Las Vegas United Coalition for Im/migrant Rights to help them organize and promote the 23 May March for the DREAM.

As a result of our outreach event last month, I have been invited the give a talk about Southern Nevada ALL, and left-libertarianism more broadly, at the next meeting of the Libertarian Party of Clark County, TOMORROW, Tuesday 3 June 2008. The meeting will last from 7:30 PM to about 9:00 PM; the LP hosts an informal coffee-klatsch (or bier-klatsch, or whatever) sort of meet-and-greet after the meeting from 9:00 PM onward. I plan to pass out some literature, give a prepared talk — about 1/3 about Southern Nevada ALL itself and what we do, about 1/3 about anarchist and left-libertarian goals broadly, and about 1/3 about direct action, counter-economics, and other means of effecting social change outside of electoral politics — and then to field some Q&A. Mild-mannered and uncontroversial as I may be, I hope for some lively discussion.

Here are the details on the event:

• WHAT: Talk by Charles Johnson on Southern Nevada ALL, left-libertarianism, and non-electoral activism
• WHEN: Tuesday, 3 June 2008, 7:30 PM
• WHERE: Boomerang’s, 6650 Vegas Drive, Las Vegas, Nevada; located on the corner of Vegas Drive and Rainbow Blvd.

One logistical note for those in the area: Boomerang’s is way out on the edge of town; it takes me about half an hour to get their by car. If anyone wants to go but needs help with transportation or wants to carpool, get in touch with me either privately or in comments, and let’s see what we can work out.

For the record, Southern Nevada ALL does not work through electoral politics and is not affiliated with any political party or candidate. But the talk should provide a good opportunity to do some outreach, get our name out, pass out some literature about ALL and left-libertarianism, and maybe find a few new ALLies or fellow travelers. It’s also a good chance to practice some good old soapboxing, and if it goes tolerably well, I hope that we can use it, or something like it, as a model for outreach and talking with other groups — voting libertarians, organized Pauliticos, non-libertarian lefty social justice groups, social anarchists, etc. — with whom we have significant differences but also substantially overlapping interests, and amongst whom might be possibly find a few new ALLies or at least fellow travelers.

It will also be a good opportunity for anyone in the area who’s interested in learning more about ALL to do so, independently of how much or how little interest they may have in the Libertarian Party specifically. So if you know anybody in Las Vegas, or in the area of southern California, southern Nevada, or northwestern Arizona, more broadly, who might be interested — whether or not the Libertarian Party is particularly their thing (after all, it’s not particularly my thing, either, but I’m happy to talk with and work with them on many issues of common concern) — then please do forward the announcement on to them.

More to come soon; watch this space.

This is happening in three days. We’re counting on the community to spread the word as far and wide as possible. If you’re in the Las Vegas area or know people who are, please pass along the word to anyone you know who might be interested.

The United Coalition for Im/migrant Rights in Las Vegas is organizing a street demonstration THIS FRIDAY, 23 May 2008, at 3:00 PM, beginning with a march through the streets from Valley High School to the UNLV campus, followed by a rally at the UNLV amphitheater. UCIR has called this march as a continuation of the May 1 movement for immigrant rights and against government harassment of peaceful workers and students.

The demonstration this Friday is specifically intended to raise awareness of the predicament of undocumented immigrant students, to speak out against the as a demonstration to raise awareness of the predicament of undocumented immigrant students, to speak out against the criminalization of immigrant youth, and in support of the DREAM Act, which provides a process for undocumented immigrant children to gain permanent residency, avoid the threat of deportation, and eventually gain citizenship while pursuing a college education.

Marching for the Dream: 3 PM May 23, 2008

We will meet at S. Eastern Ave. in between Karen and Vegas Valley Drive (in front of Valley HS) and conclude with a rally at the UNLV amphitheatre.

Children and youth should not lose their capacity to dream; on the contrary, they should cultivate the necessary rebellion to not conform to the unjust and degraded world that we have inherited them. —Rigoberta Menchú Tum

Education, not Deportation!

For more information visit www.ucir.org, email us at info@ucir.org, or call (702) 287-9316.

Marchando por el Sueño / 3 PM, 23 de mayo 2008

Nos reuniremos en S. Eastern Ave. entre Karen y Vegas Valley Drive (frente a Valley HS) y concluiremos con una protesta en al anfiteatro de UNLV.

La niñez y la juventud no deben perder su capacidad de soñar; por el contrario, deben cultivar la rebeldia que es necesaria para no conformarse con el mundo injusto y degradado que les hemos heredado. —Rigoberta Menchú Tum

Si a la Educación, No a la Deportación!

Para más información visita www.ucir.org, mándanos un email a info@ucir.org, o llama al (702) 287-9316.

You can support the struggle against international apartheid and anti-immigrant segregation by joining the march, bringing a sign or placard with a strong anti-criminalization message (some of the signs already prepared include: Education, not deportation; Keep your borders off my education; End International Apartheid, Immigrant students are not criminals, and This is our home. We are not going anywhere, and Papeles para tod@s). Most importantly, bring yourself and as many friends as you can (non-coercively!) get your hands on. We are taking to the streets, and I hope to see you there.

See also:

• UCIR website
• GT 2007-12-17: International Apartheid in Roswell

Dear LazyWeb,

I am interested in establishing an Alliance of the Libertarian Left chapter in Las Vegas.

My idea is largely to meet a small working group which would be partly about meeting and hanging out with like-minded anarchist types in the neighborhood (potlucks, movie nights, blah blah blah), partly about distributing left libertarian agitprop (for example, William Gillis’s excellent Market Anarchy zine series), and partly a source of contacts and a springboard for affinity groups and new local projects. At least, that’s how I see it; of course I’m just one dude, and I’m also interested to hear more about what other people in the area might be interested in getting set up.

If you’re in the area and you’re interested, feel free to get in touch and I’d be glad to talk some shop via e-mail or over coffee. I live near the UNLV campus, so there are lots of convenient meeting places.

My immediate question, though, is a bit off to one side. One of the things that I hope to do to help make contacts is print up some sheets of business cards that can be clipped in to dropped literature, tacked on bulletin boards, slipped into books, etc. The idea would be to have a card that gives a quick overview of what the Vegas ALL is about, which would be attractive to left-libertarian and black flag types, and then to provide a link they can use to get more information and get in touch with the group. What I’m picturing is a two-sided card, with a logo, Vegas Alliance of the Libertarian Left (or whatever less-boring name we might adopt), and contact information on one side, with a short tagline or paragraph on the other side of the card. My question to you, gentle reader, is what that tagline or paragraph should be.

The ALL website offers the following self-description:

The Alliance of the Libertarian Left is a multi-tendency coalition of mutualists, agorists, voluntaryists, geolibertarians, left-Rothbardians, green libertarians, dialectical anarchists, radical minarchists, and others on the libertarian left, united by an opposition to statism and militarism, to cultural intolerance (including sexism, racism, and homophobia), and to the prevailing corporatist capitalism falsely called a free market; as well as by an emphasis on education, direct action, and building alternative institutions, rather than on electoral politics, as our chief strategy for achieving liberation.

Which is true enough, as far as it goes, but ridiculously long to put on a business card and not much of a hook for getting an interested new contact involved.

After thinking about it for a while, I shortened and spiced it up a bit into something that I’d be glad to use on the local working group’s website, or on a printed flyer, but which is still too long for the back of a business card. (I can, at least, physically fit this on one side, but only with a hard-to-read font and at the cost of making that side of the card look very busy.)

We are individualists, agorists, market anarchists, mutualists, voluntary socialists, and others on the libertarian left. We oppose statism, militarism, sexism, racism, and the prevailing state capitalism fraudulently labeled the free market. We are for peace, individual freedom, truly freed markets, solidarity, voluntary cooperation, and mutual aid. We fight for liberation in Las Vegas through education, nonviolent direct action, and cooperative counter-institutions—not petitions, symbolic protests or electoral politics. We are working to build a new society within the shell of the old.

Given a group that could be accurately described using long descriptions like these, what do you think would make a good fractional, one, two, or (possibly) three sentence slogan, tagline, or introduction for Vegas ALL, to be printed on the back of a business card, with the aim of directing interested sympathizers (who are likely to be heretofore isolated anarchists, or possibly anti-statists currently embedded in other local activist groups) to our website and/or local contact person?