Some friends of ours in Lancaster, PA are starting a primal life way 'school' and we fully back them.
These are some down folks are extremely knowledgeable in regards to primitive skills, wild plants, primal living, and the gatherer-hunter mentality. A lot of primitive skills end up being taught by survivalists; people who come out of a 'worst case scenario' perspective rather than understanding that the gatherer-hunter life is how we were meant to live. These folks understand that there's more to life than survival and these methods of subsistence are a gateway to a much greater incorporation into wildness and a freer, liberating integration into wildness.
No bullshit notions of rewilding here, just the straight up love of wildness and will to engage it.
These folks know their shit, they're excellent teachers and great people. I know paying for these kinds of workshops might seem daunting, but they're really working towards something great here and the experiences you'll gain with them are much greater than any straight forward 'skills by the books' class, program or gathering you might attend.
If you have any interest, definitely check them out and keep an eye out for what they have going on.

http://therewildingschool.blogspot.com/

For wildness and anarchy,
KT

crap zine, crap ideas. whatever.
last i checked my comment wouldn't post, so here it is:
http://www.tangledwilderness.org/?p=102comment-9674


This zine and 'idea' are garbage. They don't reflect the weaknesses of the anarcho-primitivist critique, but just the weaknesses of the author to do any deep digging. Sorry, but grazing the shelves at Barnes and Noble isn't going to cut it and picking up douche bags like Keeley is only more pathetic.
Your zine doesn't cite ONE anarcho-primitivist writer or ONE anarcho-primitivist source. The closest you get is Jensen who is NOT an anarchist, anarcho-primitivist, or a primitivist. In fact, he's claimed to the contrary and has more recently been somewhat more eager to distance himself from anarchists in general.
But come on, even Zerzan has books at Barnes and Noble. Your crappy random picks could've easily picked up one of his books or you could've easily gone a little further on the web than the crap pit of wikipedia (the AP entry isn't even worth fixing on there).
Anyways, a bit of digging would've shoved your pompous 'toppling' up your ass where it belongs with the copious amounts of other anarchist hang overs you have lingering.
I can't even begin to justify taking the time to respond to most of what you've said in this thing, but I'll just start by 'toppling' your 'anarcho-primtivist assertions'.
This is something I take seriously as I've spent nearly the last decade exposing the 'shades of gray' between nomadic gatherer-hunters and civilization. Obviously it's worked enough for you to give lip service to the terms, but for whatever reason you've glossed over any real depth.
Anyways, onto the circus;

1. That a hunter-gatherer lifestyle is better and more sustainable than an agricultural one, and that most or all primitive peoples were/are nomadic hunter-gatherers. Therefore, we should seek to be nomadic hunter-gatherers.

Anarcho-primitivism is a critique, not a program. It's a look at how the egalitarianism and lived, rather than idealized, sustainability have eroded under the rise of power and the roots of civilization. And that is based off of anthropological, ecological and historical knowledge.
That's standard understanding now, even Diamond knows it while he's hiding his back bone to put out top sellers that skirt the ramifications of his own statement that "agriculture was the worst mistake in human history". The only ones 'in the know' denying it (religious fucks aside), are dumb fuck sociobiologists who have everything to gain (alongside those in power) by 'proving' that humans are innately domineering, blood lusting, socio-paths.
Even Kroptkin could smell that fart in the union meeting. Yet you espouse mutual aid when it suits your needs. Can you pick and choose? Kroptkin came up with that philosophy as a rejection of the blood and bones, survival of the fittest strand of thought that Darwin fueled the fire of and fucks like Keeley continue to fan.
I guess that's what happens when you have a chain store grab bag of crap at your disposal instead of anything legit.
That said, AP is based on a WIDESPREAD UNDERSTANDING that the life of our ancestors (some more distant than others) was INFINITELY better than civilized life. The only real difference is the conclusions.

2. That oppression is inherently caused by and is a symptom of civilization, and that most or all tribal cultures are inherently egalitarian and non-oppressive. Therefore, we can and should seek to end oppression by reverting to a primitive state.

This is a dumb mistake. Primitivists are using 'tribal' as some blanket term. Zerzan didn't take a tribes or civilization approach, and only peripheral folks like Jensen have tried this sweeping generalization. Zerzan targeted the differences between hunter-gatherers and agriculturalists. He touched on the shades between, but myself and others have since brought in the anthropology enough that you toy with the terms out of one side of your mouth while farting the others out your ass as you done here.
But there are clear differences between 'tribal' societies and 'band' societies'. As much between them as between each and civilized societies. You blurring them together is just a crappy way of covering your own failures to do any real digging on the subject.
Given that, oppression is UNQUESTIONABLY a symptom of some kind of organized power. That is to say social organization, which denotes a certain kind of society that is capable of holding some kind of sway and varying status between members. That is a stratified state.
Now, tribal societies can be stratified, but band societies are not. Tribes are a form of social organization that is more clearly defined and relates to subsistence. Bands generally hunt and gather, tribes are surplus oriented and either semi-sedentary or reliant upon crops or domestic animals. Bands lack the cohesiveness to form castes based on the necessity of day to day life as immediate return societies. They live day to day, and are self sufficient enough that they come together based PURELY on the principles of mutual aid/companionship rather than the contrived needs of a horticultural or agrarian society.
Therefore, OPPRESSION, by DEFINITION, is a product of political societies. That includes SOME 'tribal' societies, but absolutely NO BAND SOCIETIES.
Primitivists aren't claiming oppression is exclusive to civilization, but that civilization is BUILT UPON oppression. Not only does it foster the circumstances, but demands their implicit and looming presence.
Had you looked further, you'd see that Mumford smashed that one decades ago.

3. That hierarchy, warfare, subjugation of women, and patriarchy all arose with the advent of civilization. Therefore, to eradicate these evils we must return to a primitive society.

Again with the sloppy wording. Ironic in that you generally write off primitivists as lacking strong definitions. Pardon me for going with convention, most of these things are in the dictionary and I assume readers are smart enough to put things together in context and with simpler definitions used in the texts rather than some crappy personal take on it.
"Primitive societies" are a sweeping generalization that does no good. Just re-read everything I wrote above.
Outside of that, hierarchy, as I just brought up, is political power, hand in glove with social stratification.
Patriarchy and the suppression of women rides in stride with hierarchy. Most hierarchy is men over women rather than anything else, considering that band and tribal level societies, MOST OFTEN are dealing solely with themselves.
Lee, Sahlins, Woodburn, Harris, Vayda, Rappaport, the list could go on. The founders of anthropology reset the basic understandings of the relationship between egalitarianism decades ago and it's common place now. That anarchists don't pick up on that is the most ironic. Even from a common sense point of view, how would a species evolve based on sheer domination within themselves. You can split hairs about proscribed titles put upon animals, but it's a mirror of our own power dynamics and values, not function. This is all a given for anyone not trying to prove some crap point they read in some shitty book (Keeley) that there is no ecological or social benefit of evolving based on coercion. How would any species flourish under that dynamic? And considering that any gatherer-hunter has the same access to knowledge, tools, and the land as any other, how can two people who are equally adept to living and getting by possibly hold weight over one another? They can't and, as history shows, they DON'T.
The correlation between sedentary life and surplus orientation, whereby you become reliant upon a delayed return on your labor for subsistence and a socio-political structure (no matter how minute it may be), is concrete.
And the same applies to warfare. Ferguson, Vayda, Harris, Kelly, and a ton of other anthropologists (rather than apologists like Keeley) have already beat this to a pulp. Warfare requires a level of political organization, which requires a level of subsistence dependency, a definable tribal group (as both self and other), a definable sense of land that is being fought over, and enough stress to cause two separated societies from feeling the need to fight. That is very specific. And again, the correlation is concrete.
But if you're reading douche bags like Keeley, then you don't mind causation arguments, I found this here with this, so it MUST be warfare. NOTHING claims an origin to VIOLENCE. That has and always will exist, BUT nomadic gatherer-hunters have methods of dealing with it to MINIMIZE it (Turnbull smashed this). Yet it happens. Keeley wipes it all together to claim that violence indicates warfare or, worse, that 'ritualistic' burials indicate death by warfare. Just one counterpoint is that some bands had central burial locations, it was not uncommon to let vultures tear the flesh from bones or for a body to be fleshed, so that the bones could be taken back to that site. All things which COULD lead someone to conclude the death was violent, even though these things were post-mortem.
There's not shortage of counter-points to Keeley's hunk of crap.
But the same goes for Jensen. He's painted an unrealistic portrait of "tribal warfare" that is the flip side to Keeley. Talking about the almost ritualistic aspects of battlefield warfare, he makes it seem like a jolly day at the park. To some degrees it is, compared to the brutality of civilized war, but it's a false impression, partially because it's plain wrong, but primarily because it over looks the CULTURE of warfare CREATED by sedentism.
The cycle of warfare, most notably held by horticulturalists is a response to carrying capacity. Something that nomadic gatherer-hunters deal with by the virtue of being nomadic (for example, the nomadic active life results in a later menses for girls, 16-18 is common, and a slower reproductive system. Two simple ways that the births are kept down that sedentary life eliminates alongside the introduction of gruels and other 'weaning' foods for infants and toddlers.)
But, taking modern warfare as his diving board, Jensen misses the point. The  primary sources of death aren't on the battlefield, but the culture of warriors where boys are valued over girls, hence a rise in female infanticide, and fewer women means fewer babies. Or the partner of battlefield warfare: the raid. Where by massive losses can entail.
It's a cycle, and by tossing out this spotty 'throw down' you're only making yourself look like an ass.

4 That primitive warfare, when it does occur, is less intense, more ritualistic, less lethal, less brutal, less frequent, and less socially devastating than civilized warfare. Thus, primitive societies are more desirable for those who prefer peace.

See above.

5 That tools and technology (terms which primitivists often poorly define, if at all) are inherently oppressive and should therefore be done away with.

Poorly define? Please, Zerzan's been smashing this definition long before you were born. Mumford was there before him. The problem is your reading, not our definitions. There's been issue and article upon magazine of AP critiques of technology and a definition is the one thing that primarily ties the together.
A tool is a tool. It's something you can make based on knowledge passed down or discovered on your own. There's NOTHING in the AP critique against TOOLS.
But a tool is a bow, a basket or a knapped tool, NOT A HAMMER OR SICKLE.
The division between a tool and a technology, as Jacques Ellul and Mumford pointed out is that technology is a social system, a larger network of social and technological components that contributes to this larger than life plague of the machine. As Mumford put it, the first components of the mega-machine were comprised of flesh. The massive reorganization of human society to build some vestige of production and power is the issue.
The products of technology, what we generally refer to as 'tools' are the by-products. Intertwined with the day to day realities of a system that oppresses and entertains our feeling of pride as being part of something larger.
I can find flint, I can knap a point, I can scrape hides and tan them with it, I can hunt with it, or I can chop wood with it. But I can't mine ore, smelt metal, chop and processes forests to create an axe on my own.
Systems not products. That's the definition that you missed and everything following is a folly on par with any previously mentioned blurs of logic/reading.

6 That science is a religion with no foundation in reality ("scientism"), and that we should therefore reject science and its principles.

Science is a religious belief. That is, something treated as infallible. That's not to say no truths come from it, but that the essence comes from its form.
Marshal McLuhan blasted the printed word, but never stopped writing. He understood that the 'medium is the message' just as AP critiques of writing understand their limits.
This is about understanding the underlying assumptions and implicit ideologies in our day to day reality. It's not to toss everything aside, but to take a step back and realize that the scientific method isn't some divine process, but the idiots guide to the universe and based on absolutes where they need not exist.
Check out Elizabeth Marshal Thomas's 'The Old Way' to see what I'm just touching on here. The Kung never had to ask Westerners to explain the flow of blood, that an eclipse is not the moon disappearing, how the universe turns or what lies beyond our planet. These are things they knew from experience, but also things that took the bulk of science history to understand. Scientists sitting in isolation understand the world as a dissected specimen. That's how we can pour pesticides into the soil, but can't understand why frogs, fish, and insects keep dying off.
It's about a disconnect and that arranges our entire understanding and relationship to the world.
Part of the AP critique is trying to understand that to understand our own assumptions and how we view the world. In the realm of rewilding, I call it radical humility: understanding that the very basic things we think we know, we don't understand at all. All things are connected and our ties are far more simpler than we think.
I got that feeling watching the interplay between mushrooms, trees and squirrels. I can't explain it because it's so simple. And I feel the same way having to explain these basic, innate human experiences on a fucking blog over the internet.
Civilization is stupidity rewarded.

7 That symbolic thought—in the forms of language, writing, art, numbers, time, and so on—is inherently oppressive, and should thus be abandoned.

Again, this is the difference between critique and ideology. There's a difference between symbolic thought and symbolic culture. Frankly I don't even feel like getting into it here, but it's about perception. Think about how your memory is formed by photos and movies: captured moments and how that structures your memories and thoughts. Something as simple as that is the product of things that we've been placed into. And it's all garbage.
It's simply an indication of how much we need to undo to get to where we are as beings. Wild beings domesticated continually to spew the bullshit we've been spoon fed.
Next time, pick up some Paul Shepard, or, better yet, go to the woods.

And know that some very non-primitivist folks have long since smashed the Bering Strait theory. That thing is garbage and science embodied. "Does this number fit my theory? No, well it MUST."
The megafauna die off crap is only being spouted by people who WANT to believe that killing animals is something new to humanity and something that, after millions of years of existence, we just got all RAMBO about.
Try again.

Okay, so here is what is going on currently with Black and Green. I'm working hard on getting a new template up and running for the Black and Green site.
I'm putting up all the old information (it's a huge site) in that template while I work on rewriting it and, hopefully, within the next few months, have an anarcho-primitivist primer finished.
The new site is http://www.blackandgreenpress.org
I'm going to be posting a distro sale soon. I want to clear out some of the stock while I refigure the way the distro works. I'm thinking more stock of less things. Doing bigger runs of less shirts, possibly redoing a few older designs and making one or two new ones.
It's going to take me a few more days to figure everything out, but that should be happening soon.
Work is coming together slowly for Species Traitor five. I'd like to have that out by the end of the year, but I'm trying not to run myself dry for deadlines as much.

But I'm also asking for some help. For the past eight years Black and Green has been running me dry. It takes a ridiculous amount of time trying to keep everything up to date and having all the info on what was the website going. On top of that, it's drained me financially. I'm looking for any contributions to help keep it a float. I've lost about five urls in the past because I just can't keep paying for it. But I want to know that when I get this website going that I know it'll be there for more than a year or two. Switching everything over sucks almost as bad as collecting it in the first place.
Any contributions can be made via paypal: blackandgreenpress [at] gmail [dot] com
For wildness and anarchy,
KT

So, I know a good deal of people are aware already that some douche bags pushed for the banning and destroying of the zine Go Light at the "Bash Back" conference for being "racist" for ridiculous reasons WITHOUT EVEN READING THE ZINE. It's horrible and hilarious at the same time.
I bashed it immediately. You can see my response on the Black and Green myspace or on infoshop or the 'media dissent' blog. Anyways, the response from Harjit/Media Dissent was that I'm a fucking 'white supremacist' which is FUCKING LUDICROUS. No points what so ever, just trying to tag me as a racist so they don't have to prove any of their pathetic points.

So Harjit has a blog where this is spreading from. I've avoided it till today because it's just fucking sad and then it was EXPOSED that he never even read the thing. I broke down and finally responded. But, to no surprise, they won't post my goddamn response.

DON'T SAY SHIT UNLESS YOU'RE WILLING TO BACK IT UP!!!

So fuck them, here's their blog: http://mediadissent.com/blog/?p=390more-390

Here's my unposted response:

Kevin Tucker
Apr 24th, 2008 at 5:20 pm

I just want to give a shout out here to Harjit for stirring stupid shit up that he didn't even have the decency to read in the first place. Excellent job.
I trust you might not want to believe me when I say this, but there's nothing racist in me telling you that you're a fucking moron. READ FIRST, THEN CRITIQUE. That's how it works. If you want to play picture book critiques, then maybe you should keep in the kindergarten book section.
Otherwise, just keep on calling out the big bad anarchists for things you're assuming while you listen to darkthrone ('true ARYAN black metal') and protect yourself from the real world.

Secondly, thanks to people who honestly thought there was something to debate here. Why did I respond with anger? Because this is flat out stupid. Is there a single point here that Harjit has responded to? NO.
But thinking this could've been "handled" in any other way is the really romanticized ideal of thinking a name calling piss fest is something different when 'anarchy' is involved.

Thirdly, the ZAPATISTAS? You could try harder Harjit, I mean really. Unless you think AP's are as infatuated with a neo-Marxist, NON-MAYAN PROFESSOR coming in and hijacking Mayan resistance in the name of post-modern modernization that has nothing to do with Mayan culture or history as other 'culture baiting' anarchists/leftists/marxists have a vested interest in USING THEM to show we all want to be SAVED from SAVAGERY. Try again, better yet, try READING.
It's the same old, savage is as savage does thinking that you're hilariously accusing me and the EDITOR of Go Light of doing. Except, when you look closely, you'll see we have CONTENT. But you didn't, and you won't, so enjoy your insular world.

Fourth, I'd really like to thank the Marxist for stepping in and tossing all anarchists into a salad mixer and showing that a "ROCK AND SHOCK" image in a shitty crimethinc zine damns all anarchists? What about workerist infatuation? Most Marxists are professors and students, NOT COAL MINERS OR STEEL WORKERS. If using images of indigenous people is racist, what is it to use those images? Classist?
The point is PICTURE BOOK CRITIQUES ARE PETTY BULLSHIT. If you have beef, lay it out legitimately instead of HOPING that tossing a RACIST label on AP will just sideline it enough that you won't have to prove one of your shitty points.

But honestly, I do appreciate the Marxist view, because, some where during grad school, those who haven't lost their 'radicalism' at the Bash Back conference already will have sat FIRMLY in cahoots with Marx, Mao, and, for the more honest, Stalin.
Enjoy the ride.

You've done a good service here though COMRADE. You've really shown the TRUE LIGHT OF MARXISM. Free of RHETORIC, COMRADE. Free of ANY FORM of OPPRESSION. And always SIDING WITH THE OPPRESSED instead of USING THEIR IMAGE FOR YOUR OWN NAMESAKE.
And for also NEVER STANDING BEHIND THE MASS SLAUGHTER OF RELUCTANT FARMERS OR WORKERS. And for also NEVER USING INDIGENOUS SOCIETIES as SLAVES so you could GROW DRUGS FOR GUN MONEY. And for also NOT FORCING INDIGENOUS SOCIETIES INTO MILITIAS. And for also NEVER THINKING THAT THE GOSPEL OF MARX PROVES THAT INDIGENOUS PEOPLE NEED TO MODERNIZE (NEVER by FORCE, 'when necessary'). And for NEVER SPEEDING UP THE DESTRUCTIVE PATH OF PROGRESS.
God bless MARX: the elite ideal of perfection that all this name calling really spouts off from and only leads back to.
Don't you have magazines to sell, COMRADE?

Anarchists might be worth a shit when they start READING and THINKING instead of try to just push buttons. Have fun waiting for REVOLUTION while CIVILIZATION COLLAPSES.

Fuck this "DEBATE" HAHA….DONE.

Okay, so this is the deal. The last two years have only increasingly gotten shitty for me. I've been backed up beyond belief and I've been negative in the bank for way too long.


Most of the orders I take now are through paypal. Putting that money in my bank account takes ludicrously long thanks to southern slow times and the distro has only added to my problems. I try to get orders out on time, but when the money isn't in there, I'm either taking it out of tiny bit to negative amount of money or I'm just screwed. So I end up bouncing sending out orders and the distro costs me. At the same time, people send money for orders, but when it has to be filtered through my bank account, you paid, but since my shit is negative, there's no money there.


After a TON of bank issues, I'm finally getting to a better place financially (hardly), but I FINALLY got a paypal debit card, which means money for orders is in there immediately and can be accessed. So despite all my financial woes, I can finally keep on top of the distro without it dragging me down more.


What happens is that any time my account goes negative or close enough to it, I put the distro on hold. So that's why people are writing me and getting no response.


ALL THAT IS CHANGING. I'm able to keep this shit separate, but before anyone goes nuts ordering or writing about orders, I NEED A BREAK FROM THE DISTRO STRESS.


I owe A LOT of orders right now. I'm sincerely sorry to everyone who's placed orders over the last 3 or 4 months and hasn't gotten anything. I'm not scamming anyone and I'm definitely not making SHIT off of this distro, but, what can I say, when I'm in a bind like that, I'm just fucked and the wear of knowing how much I need to get done and having to tell people it's getting sent when I have no idea how I can cover it is overwhelming.


So, I'm getting orders together as I write this and will be over the next few days. I still have everything, but a lot of shit is buried beneath hate mail from people wondering why I'm not responding to their orders.



Priority one: GETTING ORDERS OUT THIS WEEK. For real this time.


Priority two: mega distro stock count. Once I get figured out what's left, then I'll update the lists.


Priority three: BACK TO TAKING ORDERS.


Priority four: MEGA restocks (when possible)

So, if you want to order something, come back in about two weeks. BUT, please be patient with me. I'm doing my best to keep up on everything, but unlike in PA, where I could get to the post office daily and easily, the post offices here FUCKING SUCK. Huge lines, super shitty hours and all three branches are out of my way. I'm looking to get back in the habit of once a week, but when I'm trying to go before work and there's an hour wait, I have to turn around. So, consider that. I'll do my best to stay on top of shit, but know that I am trying.


Lastly, if I owe you an order, I'm getting it together, but it doesn't hurt to shoot me a reminder. I actually encourage it, you'll save me a bit of time.



Apologies where they go and hopefully a little sympathy back.


For wildness and anarchy,
KT

So, I got this message saying that a "People of Color Caucus" insisted that all distros cease to reprint and distribute the zine, Go Light. A zine that I've personally pushed hundreds of copies of, gladly consider one of the best zines out there, and that I've seen the mock up for the upcoming issue and I'll continue to push.
I didn't need to see the message to know what it said, but it was just forwarded to me and I can't help but repost this and blast it's ridiculousness.
Here's the message in full and my response below it:

---------------------------------------------

The People of Color Caucus found the imagery in the zine to be racist,
because it romanticized stereotypes, especially those of the "primitive"
or "savage". They felt it misrepresented the conditions of those in third
world Asian/African families, to portray the "foreign, non-industrialized
family unit" as utopian.

The title "Go Light" was also found offensive, because it arrogantly
assumes that "going light" is a choice made by the people of rural Sri
Lanka or Botswana, when it is more often due to the deprivation of
resources or an exploitation of existing resources by the commercialized
West.

Lastly, the term "wild child" was deemed offensive --intentionally or
not-- because it presupposes that Western values are "normal", and implies
that all other cultural norms are "wild", "deviant", or "exotic".

PS: If you're interested in a non-romanticized account of traditional
African family life I'd recommend "Things Fall Apart" by Achebe. You'll
find that traditional African family life isn't any less repressive than
European/American family life.

-------------------------------------

So that a caucus got together to discuss Go Light is hilarious to me, ALMOST as much as their conclusions. But the things said here are stupid ass comments made generally to green anarchists and anarcho-primitivists in general.
I'm short on time, but let me blast a few of these moronic 'arguments'.

1) Images are 'racist' or support stereotypes:
This is just ludicrous. If images of 'primitives' are racist, then it's whites against the world, unless of course you're talking about pro-paganists which are sometimes upheld as primitivists and by most post WWI estimates, considered white. Most anarcho-primitivists wouldn't go that far as to say that Celts or other Euro-Pagans as 'primal', myself included, but it's not a stretch.
Having savagely used images of 'savages' before and continue to do, I can assert that the idea of a race of 'savages' is ridiculous. I personally have used images of tribe and band level societies from nearly every part of Africa, all of Oceania, throughout Indo-China, the Americas from the northern most to the southern most tips...well pretty much EVERY CONTINENT. That's a lot of people, but in case you're missing the obvious point here, the issue is not with race or that someone with given skin tone is necessarily primitive (context people!), but that certain skin tones MIGHT be represented in those pictures. If someone looks at a picture of a hunter gatherer, regardless of skin color, and only sees skin color, and, hence, a validation of whatever racism they adhere to, is that our fault?
The essence of primitivism is that it inverts social theory/standards, and it has done so since the inception of social stratification at the dawn of sedentism. Those who feel they are (becoming) civilized can only validate their exchange of freedoms by damning those "stuck" in the older, more egalitarian, freer ways. So they make divisions.
In this sense, the historical divisions are SAVAGE for hunter gatherers and small scale horticulturalists, BARBARIAN for "a member of a primitive civilization" (aka large scale horticulturalists, pastoralists, and a chunk of agricultural societies) and CIVIILIZED for stratified agriculturalists and later colonialists/industrialists/technocrats.
The divisions were originally descriptive more than straight faced insults. And they're not wrong in representing levels of stratified societies. But, naturally, values were placed and it's no question to where and by whom. And primitivists, in turn, have not rejected the divisions, but flipped the values.
You can take whatever issues you want with that, but it's something I stand by personally. It is NOT an issue of race, but an issue of societies and levels of societies. Is it wrong to use images of band level societies in anarchist magazines? NO. The articles in Go Light, Species Traitor, Green Anarchist or any other anarcho-primitivist magazine are about these people, the images put a face to it, and, if you'll notice, they're not your miserable, depressed images that cover so much more of anarchist/radical papers.
But I'm not judging, I use both. But I have interests in not just showing peoples living in these ways, but in showing that these are peoples and that the things happening to them, the things CIVILIZED people are doing to them are affecting them.
This gets pushed around a lot and I'm tired of hearing it. Pictures are pictures. I have so few correlations, but that would be like saying that images of animals in factory farms or steel traps only adds to their exploitation. Or, dare I say, iconic images of turn of the century striking industrial steel workers only pushes together a notion of white comradery. You can draw anything when you REMOVE THE CONTEXT. But that's not what we're doing, we're using the images IN CONTEXT and we have a purpose.
Perhaps some "people of color" or, since we weren't all born 'CIVILIZED', "peoples of non-color", have guilt about the fact their ancestors too were "SAVAGES", but why do I care. Drawing that out is EXACTLY MY POINT.
This transcends race, but I'm sorry if a picture of gatherer-hunters can only be seen as a picture of Africans, Asians, South Americans, Arctic dwellers, or, what have you.
This point is knee jerk reactionism from pro-civilized, pro-Progress assholes too ashamed that anyone else in the world may not have their interests in sucking up to the very civilization/s responsible for damning and repressing their ancestors and the people they pretend to care about.
Radical missionaries are still missionaries, and I hope there is a hell just for them.

To the particular morons behind this. Please catch up on the past half centuries worth of social theory. Ever heard of 'fourth world'? That is peoples who have rejected or live beyond the trifecta of capitalist social stratum and, if they could, would live that way forever.
And, I'll have to point this out again later, I believe the really bullshit "-ists" thinking lies in the kind of standardization that can only think in binary "industrial" vs. "non-industrial" family structures.
You're doing yourself a disservice by not reading the works your damning, you only look like a bigger moron and not giving credit to seeing that things are far more complex than a dualist option.
And do I think nomadic gatherer hunter family structures are utopia? No, I don't believe in utopia, but I believe in WILDNESS, our inherent state of PRIMAL ANARCHY, and our innate functioning ANIMALITY that we evolved into as nomadic gatherer hunters. To put it another way, I believe in practicality, and I know what works. I can back that up with the fact that humans still exist after millions of years?
What does your "alternative" (assuming one might exist) offer?

2) The title 'Go Light':
HA FUCKING HA HA. 'Going light' is an ecological term, not an anthropological one. It's meant in a pro-active sense for those who don't have the cultural intelligence to realize that if you piss in your bed, you have to sleep in it too. It's meant for civilized people who don't know any better.
And that's how it's applied, the metaphor carries on into concepts like 'ecological footprints'. And you know what the standard is? Nomadic gatherer hunters: the people who didn't have technology that would give their grand children cancer for 700 generations or the lack of intelligence to think that some possible immediate gratification of something as fun as mining for iron ore was worth it.
Just as every nomadic gatherer hunter wouldn't make off hand remarks on the failures of Bakunin's thinking, it doesn't mean they aren't living in an anarchistic society in the true sense. These terms are DESCRIPTIVE, not self ascribed. Do the !kung tell their children to 'go light' when going to the bathroom? No. Do Inuit elders have to tell each other to 'go light' when making a fire? No. Do Hadza tell each other to 'go light' when foraging? No.
Why? Because "going light" is a practicality and a matter of life. You fuck up now, you fuck yourself. That's it.
But you know what? They live in a way where there isn't really a chance to do this, it's not like going to 7-11 buying a Pepsi bottled in Burma, a Twinkie made of toxic and GMO ingredients from across the world, some electronic crap made in a number of sweat shops, a microwaveable burger from a factory farm with soy planted in the deforested Amazon, or buying gas coming from any number of regional warzones. THINK ABOUT IT. It really isn't that difficult of a concept and even less why it makes an APPROPRIATE zine title.

But the idea that "people of Sri Lanka or Botswana" (bullshit nationalist standardization if I ever heard it) aren't "getting theirs" cause of lack of access to resources? Amazing. Simply amazing.
Botswana: various San peoples are mentioned in Go Light, but they are living in some semblance (limited by those coming for their "resources") of how they've lived for tens, if not, hundreds of thousands of years. It's not like they're hunting and gathering because they knew at some later time some asshole from DeBeers was going to steal their land for DIAMOND mines or that if all of the sudden the government of Botswana realized that national reserves were places meant to go wild instead of being used as theme parks for first world tourists the San peoples would reject "the oppressive family unit" and industrialize and stop EMBARRASSING first world douche bags by doing something so "deprived" as living within their own means.
Try reading a fucking book dip shits. Get over your Marxist/Modernizing CRAPOLA.

3) "Wild Child" as upholding "normalization of western values":
I'm embarrassed for this caucus. This is the best they could do?
Why is "Wild" a cultural norm? What does that have to do with anything? This is just plain silly.
Wild is a definable term. It has a pretty widely defined context, so much so that even a genre of films and books surrounds it. It's not like the subtitle using "Wild Child" solidifies anything that a hundred authors, poets, and local story tellers, and, dare I say, HISTORIANS have already well established. There is a meaning here.
Wild Child refers to a child that has gone "wild". That is living in an 'animalistic' sense (by the civilizers views), or over coming civilized norms. In so far as the term has to do with cultural norms, it is CONFRONTING them, rather than simply playing with them. Again, PRO-ACTIVE TERM, PRO-ACTIVE CONCEPT.
Here's another concept: have an issue, THEN a caucus. Maybe then you'll have something WORTH critiquing. Of all the racist shit in this world, of all the slavery, daily bullshit, ecological destruction, warfare, EVERYTHING, this is what you discuss?
PASS.

4) "AFRICAN"
And always end with a bang.
How many books does 'Go Light' reference? How many books and cultures have primitivists talked about? How many cultures have I personally spoke about to highlight the fact that anarcho-primitivism isn't just some theory, but pointing towards so much more? And this is what you have? One book, on one culture to prove one point about the oppressiveness of the AFRICAN/AMERICAN FAMILY UNIT?
If I had a grapple on what racism is: a blanket grouping of peoples based on skin tone, I'd realize that blanketing any group based on COLONIAL lines and maps is BULLSHIT. What the fuck does this have to do with how nomadic gatherer hunters lived? Or horticulturalists? Or anyone else!
All continents are huge. And who culturally or genetically comes from one doesn't mean SHIT outside of some racist lens/classification. I have so little in common with my dad, less yet my neighbors. It hasn't always been that way, but cultures are not regions or skin tones. If we're rejecting racism, why are you upholding it like this?
Anarcho-primitivists, like any other social theorists or historians or just as people look at societies: either as a whole or individuals or whether or not either term might apply. But most societies do have particular family structures, and if that means half of them reject the structure, well, that's part of it too. But it's about social critique and social action. That's the point of reading and learning and living. Look around you, see what's fucked up, see where the fucked up shit comes from, and act on it. What we do as anarcho-primitivists is to lay all that out, band by band, society by society, AS A PART OF OUR CRITIQUE.
And that means UNDERSTANDING. It means understanding that two societies on different sides of Africa might have as little in common as two societies that live SIDE BY SIDE. Does your ONE BOOK help shed light on why Mbuti gatherer hunters are being KILLED and EATEN by their sedentary, agricultural neighbors? Both are African societies. Does it answer that?
FUCK NO.

Take your recommendations, your condemnations, and your civilized bullshit values and SHOVE THEM UP YOUR FUCKING ASSES.
Next time read what you damn and you might not look like such fucking morons.

Always and forever for the PRIMITIVE.
Fuck racism, nationalism and Modernizing douche bags with nothing better to do than play ball on the racist's court.
When civilization crashes, you won't be safe riding the fence.

For wildness and anarchy,
Kevin Tucker,
editor of Species Traitor and Black and Green, NOT 'GO LIGHT'.

Black and Green is moving southwards!!
Here's the new contact for Black and Green, Primal War, Species Traitor, and Kevin Tucker:
PO Box 81303
Athens, GA 30608

And email addresses:
Black and Green - blackandgreenpress [at] gmail.com
Primal War/Species Traitor - primalwar [at] gmail.com
Kevin Tucker - feraledge [at] gmail.com

Are you in the southern regions and into rewilding? Hit me up.

SPECIES TRAITOR 5

I'm soliciting for some essays and other things for Species Traitor 5. I'm hoping to have this out by early spring 2007 and am working hard on it now and am still open to getting whatever you have. I thought I'd push things a bit more and send out a list of things that I would like to have contributions towards for this next issue. If you have serious interest in any of them, please get a hold of me as soon as possible to let me know what you have in mind.

 What I'd like to get:

 -LETTERS!!! Be sure to write that they are FOR PUBLICATION. I don't print anything unless you tell me to.

-ART AND PHOTOS: must be high resolution, but send me a letter about what you're going to send, then lo res versions and hi res if I'm going to use them.

-contributions for new section: SAVORY SCAVENGER: send your best roadkill, foraged and wild food recipes

-any DOCUMENTED dirt on ANIMAL RIGHTS and GREEN TECHNOLOGY: Just bash the fuck out of them, but I'm looking for serious DOCUMENTATION HERE!! In terms of AR, I always want to push the animal liberation vs. animal rights divide for all of our benefit. This is  for anyone with any bit of skepticism left (if they read ST), but things like AR groups arguing for sterilization of wild animals, gassing feral animals, shaking goose eggs, euthanasing turkeys or other wild animals, you get the point (and YES these are all things that PETA and other animal rights groups have and do argue for). And 'green tech': just anything about how completely ridiculous it is. This isn't too much of a challenge, but just look for that lunatic fringe that liberals squeeze onto.

-articles/rants about the implications of ANIMAL LIBERATION vs. ANIMAL RIGHTS: destroy civilization or buy soy and pleather.

-PERSONAL EXPERIENCES ABOUT REWILDING: Humility is the greatest teacher. If the article is self serving, it gets tossed, just looking for good, honest stories, articles, etc. Preferably those that come back a bit to the need to destroy civ.

-TECHNICAL ARTICLES ABOUT TAKING OUT CIVILIZATION: Any angle, any details, but it MUST BE WRITTEN as INFORMATIONAL, HISTORICAL OR JUST FACTUAL!!! Don't send me some sketchy ass shit; it's a waste of all our time. AND IT MUST BE ACCURATE!!!  This is for those of us who are concerned about how to deal with things like power plants gone awry after a horrible terrorist attack cripples our sacred infrastructure and some outstanding citizen must shut plants down to save our precious resources for a later period.

-REFLECTIVE ARTICLES ON PRIMAL SKILLS/KNOWLEDGE: Both instructional and/or personal in nature. Personal with instructional is best, but not necessary.

-RAD THINGS ABOUT WILDNESS. The shit that makes you want to cry in amazement and rage because every bit of it is absolutely beautiful and amazing and our fucked up civilization is destroying it. Love and rage.

-ARTICLES/ESSAYS ON CLIMATE CHANGE. Straight up: what is going on and what that means in terms of attack.

-ARTICLES/ESSAYS BASHING REVOLUTION: It's failed us and it won't destroy civilization, what will and why.

-GREEN SCARE ROUND UP: Break it down, plain and simple and be willing to bring it up to date as close to print as possible.

-And there's other stuff that I'm not thinking of right now, but this is a fair amount of suggestions to work from. Hit me up with any ideas, suggestions, etc. It's still fairly fair game at this point.

For wildness and anarchy,

KT

feraledge@gmail.com

primalwar@gmail.com

(please repost where it seems fit)

Interested in bringing green anarchist/anarcho-primitivist speakers to your campus, hometown, or event? Look no further.
Send me a message if you're interested in booking anarcho-primitivist writer/thinkers Kevin Tucker and/or John Zerzan. We've done a number of gigs together and separate to mixed sized and well receiving audiences, nationally and internationally.
Looking at doing another tour in the spring of 2007 in the mid-west and possibly again in the northeast. Let me know if you have interest, resources, and willingness to get involved. Other gigs are always a possibility and topics can range from introductions to green anarchy/anarcho-primitivism, the rise and collapse of civilization, the socio-psychological failures of civilization, the tragedy of domestication, and so on.