from liberaciontotal, translation from anews:
These days will mark 10 years since the Sacco and Vanzetti Social Center opened its doors for the first time.
We continued with the space, articulating ideas and projects against all authority, we kept on because that has always been our attitude, even in the worst periods of repression and misery, but that August 14th we were raided for the second time in the name of operacion salamandra, [Operation Salamander] and the bombs case. That same day we were evicted, the house closed off and our things seized and later stolen.
The house was closed and guarded by members of the investigatory police, thus ending eight and a half years of occupation.
Strike after strike, we always recovered, time and again, but this last round, that of the reclamation of the house, we lost, in the confusion of the moment, taking simultaneous blows and remaining scattered over diverse settings of struggle. We were separated. Power and its plays put us in different realities, separating our worlds by force. Some were arrested, others kept on the sidewalk, watching the destruction and I flew away, to avoid the hunters for as long as possible.
Maybe this difference in setting was a factor that tended to aggravate the already difficult situation. We need to take giant steps towards moving forward and keep fighting- without being able to be together physically, since we are separated by the bars, the walls, the modes of surveillances, and the distances.
At least, prisoners and comrades outside were able to keep communicating, be it through visits, letters, or other creative means. If those actions were not taken, it should cultivate a profound critique of those with freedom of movement who did not do enough, and what was necessary, to overcome a hostile present. One cannot lie and rest, with the expectation that these comrades will leave the prisons and take the streets, to be resigned to this is to allow the state to put our comrades in cages and freezes relationships, something like a parenthesis that can last as long as the chains. This act of disloyalty, of lack of commitment and motivation is what slowly kills the prisoners out of loneliness.
The first steps
From the Casa Libertaria to the Centro Social Okupado y Biblioteca Sacco y Vanzetti
The history of la Sacco fills my heart and raises my spirits and it does not surprise me for a second that repression has attacked us with such virulence. It is obvious revenge, the hate slowly simmering over so many years of trying to frighten us and seeing that their intentions only convinced us of the need to struggle with more strength, with more intelligence. There are people who were repressed with more force, others vanish and are trapped behind imaginary bars.
La Sacco shifted its positions over the years, born of contradictions and discussions that were radicalized over time, taking on errors and setbacks, living through betrayal and deep deceptions. But this path was and is beautiful, it is the best image of the personal processes of engagement, taking risks and seeking coherence between word and action.
Each fighter’s own path is defined by the different experiences that nurture and strengthen their own convictions and opening new paths. Thus we fortifying ourselves and leaving behind the tepidity of some of the earlier approaches.
In over eight years, many things changed, people left, stabbing us in the back, without an ounce of loyalty or honor, others simply dedicated themselves to different work, equally necessary, equally fruitful. A collective of free association developed, with desires to collectivize/share ideas that rejected the development of any authority in permanent practice. Thus our practices sought radicalism and the point of no return toward the world of capital.
We built an occupied space different from what was familiar in those years, in which “rebellious” acts are drinking tonic, where the libraries were more a type of game, for show, than a work of dedication, real and serious, taken with responsibility. We were nurturing our library, doing activities to buy a lot of books and maintaining a commitment to having an open space against all odds.
Thus we were building one of the most complete libraries of anarchist texts and of experiences of struggle incredibly diverse in their tools and approaches. We felt the contradiction of having what we called “garbage textbooks” which embody the spectrum of books required in compulsory educational institutions. We decided to keep them with the sole aim of being in solidarity with kids and youth who didn’t have the money to buy them. These people were disappearing from the space, certainly, but this was largely the fruit of the press’ labor, which month after month portrayed us as representatives of the devil.
In our assemblies, we decided to close the door to the sale and consumption of alcohol, drugs, and the products of animal exploitation. Thus we earned the hate and antipathy of those who did not understand struggle without the decadent spectacle of drunk zombies raising their fists and spilling their pint glasses, drunk in public no different from those cramming into the hottest nightclubs.
Today, autonomous spaces always maintain a clear inclination toward animal liberation, as it is a logical path if you are really against authority, but for some years we had to deal with a range of aficionados of roasts and meat markets to profit for/from an activity. We engaged in long discussions to avoid these decadent practices and we were making already tense relations even tenser still.
That’s how, like about us, there were woven a series of discredits, insults, and defamations about the space. The worst is not what they say or don’t say, what’s more pathetic is that there are people who hear defamation and distance themselves from a space and reproduce that commentary without ever having set foot in the space they so revile. In this way our personal traits became reason to hate the space and reject any initiative that emerged from it, stupidity persists, always.
Over the years we saw a procession of people, people who were passing through, experiencing something like the juvenile madness of being against the state and later settle into the positions of work they could get thanks to their university degrees, never again did they remember to resist, never again. We saw people diluting their strength at parties, the revelry and merriment, changing positions like a chameleon. We saw many people pass, meanwhile we kept striving to be a contribution and not step one foot back.
We were overflowing with the illusion that affinity and free association was a concrete concept and had the understanding that what unified us was a physical space and not a larger project. Assuming the latter, was a blow to the head and it rattled us, then we began to purify our relationships and our environment. For some this is an authoritarian process, for myself and the other comrades, it is a natural struggle to grow, live and develop in an environment of affinity, commitment and real comradeship.
I stop writing about the latter and instead shift my focus on the process that comrades are living under in the FLA in Argentina and give or take a few differences, it is a story similar to that of la Sacco in its first years. So my thoughts and my energy for these comrades are enormous.
I know what it means to fight for a space, to fight to reclaim it not only from speculation, profit and repression, that above all, what it means to reclaim and defend it from the apathy of those who desire nothing, and feel that the enemy is too great, too ingrained or don’t understand the sense of taking risks. The spaces are recovered, as well as internal apathy.
Time in la Sacco was passing and new comrades were arriving, people who were becoming family, and whose memory invokes both sweet and angry moments, affinity is not a tranquil pond, quite the opposite, because it is a tempestuous sea which in its waves strengthens or destroys relationships.
It was the year 2006 and after the molotov at la Moneda and the raid/eviction of la Mansión Siniestra, the legal owners of the house, the Institute of Public Health, started legal proceedings to remove us. We decided to fight to keep the space and impede the process for as long as possible. And our decision to continue and not to pack our suitcases in spite of the threats, made those who always had one foot out the door leave once and for all. Repression is always the best filter to test comradeship, loyalty and the spirit of struggle.
Some will say that to defend a house is no big deal; surely it also seems ridiculous to them that Mapuche communities vindicate themselves by reclaiming and defending the land.
This seed of resignation to me is a sickness, that extends to all aspects of life, to fight for a house is ridiculous, then to fight for the land, for the freedom of a comrade, for the reclamation of one’s own life, to struggle with risks is always ridiculous, it’s better to “struggle” in purely discursive terms, through texts that do not agitate tension, which are only the language of the state beneath the pantomime of being against it.
For me the squats are defended, with everything, because they are homes that we have built and where we have grown and because they are spaces where we build the projects that articulate and materialize the values and desires of a life with the air of freedom in the here and now.
The refusal of the state brings repression with it, and one must be ready to assume this cost, so long as we embark the process of reclaiming and making our lives with our own hands.
It was the year 2006 and the more repression, the more we were radicalized. But we were at one moment only two people living in the space (even though there was more support behind it) and things became stressful, night after night with the feeling that they would burst through the doors, I was familiarizing myself with the feeling and changing it’s meaning to the idea of being alert, but without suffering.
As the trial went on, new comrades were arriving with their strength, their laughter, their anger, building a greater spirit, we were few, but with all the strength of our history, so went the phrase we repeated again and again.
I remember that we said it constantly, every time we had to go to look for water and carry the barrels, because we didn’t have water, a millionaire debt left us without the vital element and we were at the tap three times a week, exposed to the utmost…can you be more vulnerable?.
In the most repressive times, we were always subject to arrest in an instant, and it makes me laugh to remember our passages trying to avoid the police cars that patrolled the neighborhood, I remember once when we were caught between two patrols and the officer got out, who holding his weapon ceremoniously proceeded to open one of the barrels and sniff its contents, what a laugh, what could he have believed? that we were carrying 200 liters of gasoline?, who knows…
We were accustomed to this repressive presence and we learned to live with the mercenaries, without ever lowering our guard and assuming year after year that they would come for us, trying to lock us up and silence our indomitable voice. But our common strength raised us up, it made us search for the best way to keep contributing to the struggle, without decaying, giving ourselves away or putting out our fire.
So to move forward, we decided to change the name of the space, conserving the memory of two Italian anarchists who were implicated in a murder and assassinated to serve as an example to the rest, in an attempt to scare off the struggle. We kept their names but changed from the “Casa Libertaria” to the Centro Social Okupado y Biblioteca Sacco y Vanzetti.
We changed the name basically because Casa Libertaria didn’t say anything about our positions in life and it was necessary to reclaim the occupation, as this was the tool that we were using. Besides, the word “house” makes no reference to anything other than a dwelling and indeed it was our home, but it was much more than a roof under which to sleep, it was a space that we shared with other people, that we collectivized with others, whether they were organizations and collectives, or the people who came to the library or other activities on a daily basis.
We were broadening our work and creating a series of periodical work, like forums, debates, films, and memorable activities with food and exquisite dishes, whose gamut of pastries and sweets were a milestone in vegan culinary arts, always donated by comrades.
Then we were not only a house, we were a social center, overcoming that dichotomy which is so en vogue, of the social, versus the antisocial. I remember the hours-long discussion to include that phrase in the name, today it makes me laugh to think that those who wanted to include it the most and fumed for so long, later they become antisociales a muerte, would they bite their tongues at the literal-ness?, it doesn’t matter, it’s part of the contradictions that must be overcome, for me it’s fine (even when I disagree in principle), what’s certain is that it was a space where diverse social realities converged, clashing with each other or with their environment and it was a space in the very heart of the society of Santiago.
We were building great projects, editing material and always taking notes regarding the expansion of antiauthoritarian ideas and practices. Standing in solidarity arm and arm with comrades in prison, putting on activities that reinvigorated our memories and always raising money toward goals of solidarity. It made us strong, the constant exercise. The house teemed with people and it was a pleasure to see the fruit of so much effort.
Black night of black omens
May 22nd, 2009, was a morning like any other, a little cold, but absolutely normal. Nothing made us sense what was happening. Mauri left, he went far away and we could not see him off, or talk to him, or embrace him and put him in a good mood. We could not hold him in our arms and tell him how much we loved him. We couldn’t, caught up in the dizzy rhythm of life, sometimes one forgets to cultivate relationships, affection and care, I knew then that it was a mistake.
Mauri’s death was because of the detonation of an explosive device he was carrying, his destination was the Gendarmería school, but he didn’t get there, he was half a block away. And everything became a hurricane. The repression worsened, the pain pierced like a knife in the heart and many people pulled away as though we carried some deathly illness. Others, however, drew closer, refusing to be deterred, pledging to strengthen antiauthoritarian bonds.
The morning reporters were reciting the facts, but without delving too much into what had happened. We knew that a 27-year-old man had died and to hear that was a terrible blow, I remember my ears ringing and I felt like a rollercoaster , I was enveloped in the pain of understanding that we had lost a comrade, at that point we didn’t know that it was Mauri, the press still didn’t have his identity. I went floor by floor waking up the other comrades, telling them what had happened and seeing how their faces reacted. This, repeated in everyone, is the graphic demonstration that here there is no cronyism, it’s a matter of revolutionary solidarity, you can’t remain indifferent toward the departure of a comrade in circumstances like these, even whether or not you agree with the tactic of direct action. To remain indifferent in the face of death like that is to not have blood in your veins.
We gathered around the TV to try to gather more background information, some went to the internet and there circulated the first photos, terrible photos that tore at our souls. A wrecked bicycle, sleeves of a jacket caught on top of a tree, photos that suggested what had occurred, that there had been damage, but that could not compare with the gravity of the impact of what was to follow. The mercenaries are unlimited in their morbidness, in the indignity of their being.
Our heart was pounding, the facts gave some indication of who the dead comrade was. I have no words to describe that moment, and I get overwhelmed writing about it and stop to relive everything that was that long day. Tears of blood rip through me, and it’s the evidence that pain like that, it is not overcome, not suppressed, doesn’t go anywhere, it lives and resides inside us, it’s the warrior strength that lets you keep fighting, understanding that to break down is victory for the enemy.
My eyes overflow and they think that makes me undignified?, they believe that pain diminishes a comrade?, Well they are mistaken, I will be able to shed tears, but not for one second do I lower my guard, drop my arms and retreat to crumble in a corner. I feel pain because it is a great loss, I feel pain because I have an enormous heart, but I don’t lose sight of the horizon of struggle, pain and desertion are not synonyms.
There are those who claim to be against the state but only reproduce its logic of conduct and hurriedly look to be the macho alpha of the herd, insensitive and stone-faced, if they want an army the state provides them one, I claim the position of warrior through every aspect of life, who knows to move forward with her feelings, joy and pain, but knows the depth of her being and does not hide behind the mask of the stereotypical champion.
I remember we turned on the radio to take it all in and the announcer described the tattoo on the chest. Ni Dios Ni amo. [en: no gods, no masters]
It could have been an unfortunate coincidence, but ultimately we knew that our tiger wasn’t there. It was an arrow, that entered without permission, without piety, whose venom changed our faces in an instant. Nobody said anything, the moment was suspended between the noise of the radio and the TV. We didn’t move, we searched each others’ eyes and we watched for a long time in silence, there was fire in those eyes. We can shed tears now, but not in that minute, we didn’t cry until the funeral, some much later, we didn’t cry because we couldn’t, because we had so much to do, because everything was a whirlwind, because our mind searched for an answer to the question of how to stand in solidarity, what to do, how to help, how to respond. We couldn’t without clenching our fists.
Then they said his name and released his photo. The hunt was on and we had to rise to the occasion, when one understands it as such, the path opens up and the struggle becomes the verb that illuminates the night.
Some comrades were arriving at the house, I remember that one on a bike slipped in just as we closed the door. He embraced us, crying, and their fire warm our insides from the immense cold that we felt, as though the house was suddenly made of ice. I hope you read these words, brother, I hope you know how important your presence was that day and how sorry I am that we are separated now.
I took the comrade and asked them to get him out of the house, since I didn’t want him to experience the raid (that we knew would happen), so they drove him many districts away, but Philip and his indomitable spirit escaped as soon as he arrived at the shelter and we lost him.
It took him two months to return home, skinny, wounded, hungry for affection. How did he find his way back? only he knows, what is certain is that he also didn’t want to leave his home without a fight. They couldn’t save him after the eviction of 2010 and there he was found dead, he didn’t want to go and some psycho poisoned him in the shuttered house, they hated us equally, human and non-human animals. My love, I honor you and remember you.
On May 22, our streets were filling with people, and we had already made up our minds to fight, so we waited from the roof and the third floor. We watched the flow of people and comrades, I have said before and I say it again, this act of defense that our comrades performed was a missile of strength for us, it was the combustion necessary to revive the call within each of us who was inside, who had decided to die fighting, without ever falling to our knees.
This beautiful gesture was the collective force that refused to be silent before the death of a comrade. I’ve already said that silence is not what should happen in response to the death of a brother. And that day there was not silence, there were screams, scratches, barricades, attacks on the press and positions of offense.
But that night the police did not enter, they cordoned off the area, gassed, hosed, but in the end they left and the next morning the campfire kept burning… Whether or not there was an search order, whether we were wrong to claim Mauri as our own that day, for me is a moot point, some will say that we alone slid the rope around his neck, that we should have stayed quiet, even that we should have abandoned the house…and I still insist, that is the zeal to save one’s ass at any cost and relegate always, always, always, always every clash with security/police forces.
The whole world could have stayed silent, under supposed security measures and Mauri could have remained diluted and fragmented in the “analysis” the press had of him, in the disgraces they spread about him. This could have happened and it would have been a betrayal. The logistics behind security culture are tools for life in struggle, there is no safety in being shut in the house in front of the TV, far away from persecuted comrades or surveilled spaces, this is not the way of certainty, it is the way of cowardice, in which the only thing sought is personal protection in order to continue a placid existence. Certainty is for revolutionary action, not complicit silence.
It is/was certain, anyone who raised their voice to speak of Mauri would be noticed and watched, but it is/was also certain that our judgment was already signed, that the investigations against us had been going on for years, after all power was and is determined to group as as guilty of the explosive attacks against us with the intent to cover the embarrassment of not having the slightest idea of who perpetrated those attacks.
Since we were an open space, with permanent activities and markedly antiauthoritarian discourse, after all, we had to be true to ourselves,, the police investigation was of much frenzy and very little intelligence. They attacked us, because we were the accessible and visible, it was that pathetic.
We decided not to fade away and to keep fighting Mauri’s name, helping and standing in solidarity with those who needed it most, not as a charitable and merciful act, but more as an act of struggle, in which comrades are not abandoned, however great the adversity. And we were taking out posters and editing material, with a firm conviction to combat forgetting and to share Mauri’s ideas, granting those who weren’t familiar, the opportunity to understand those ideas that this comrade wielded from his own lips. But out of that eternal arrogance, some said that we were trying to keep Mauri with us, can you be so stupid and then claim him on top of that?
We could have hoarded his memory and kept our experience and knowledge to ourselves, and with the change in generations, his voice would be extinguished and his ideas would be a mystery, like what sadly happens with so many dead comrades, whose thoughts and ideas are lost with the passing of time or even never known.
In the end, it’s almost blackmail, in which you stay quiet or you’ll be accused of trying to monopolize memory…how ridiculous, we never silenced anyone, to the contrary, we helped make it so that many comrades could express their opinions, if anyone stayed silent it’s their own responsibility, you can’t blame that on everyone else. We only did what we could in good conscience and I think it was always too little, that more could have been done. They keep surrounding me the same questions from the start and the same desire to be able to tell you all that I never said, but it’s already late and that is a life lesson.
After your death, everything accelerated and they raided us in December 2009, later came the eviction in August and I stayed in this complex situation, so plagued by contradictions and rage, underground for over a year.
My brothers and sisters were captured and had to share facilities with shameless beings who decided to slander for the benefit of power, the same who today are vindicated as comrades and who only deserve rejection and general disgust.
After months in prison they were able to return to the streets and today sit and hear tedious audiences which only demonstrate that this is revenge and nothing more.
Some were able to resurface and can walk the streets with more ease. But this will not stop, they know, I know. The border between shadows and silence.
And today I look back and analyze, mistakes, successes, projects and activities, the sweet and the bitter and each of those moments only confirms what has been stated so many times, the necessity of the proliferation of spaces that refuse authority. Spaces positioned against power, against domination and exploitation, spaces which are autonomous, horizontal, and determined not to compromise, or bow their head before anyone.
These spaces serve, nurture, and strengthen comrades, making it possible to advance convictions and values, quantitatively and qualitatively growing antiauthoritarian stances in the social war. Autonomous spaces contribute in that they break with cronyism and decide to actively participate in the heightening of conflict.
This way, anyone, familiar or not, can have access to books, experiences, and discussions without depending on someone specific to decide to share their own experiences or -he sadly common- personal libraries.
Antiauthoritarian spaces, for me, are not spaces for “los afines”, but rather spaces for building affinities, and to close the door to someone simply because they are unfamiliar seems stupid to me, something like elitism in accessing certain literature, films or discussions.
But just as the proliferation of occupations and autonomous spaces is important, their defense in moments of repression is equally necessary, it’s not possible that the labor only belongs to those who live in the place, for me it’s a task that includes those who have fostered these spaces and have seen it take its own life. It’s a matter of loyalty.
And I’m not only talking about defense in material terms, for example to resist and eviction or stand and fight outside the spaces, but I also speak of a defense which is offensive in terms of positions and the vindication of memory. This is something I feel did not happen in the first months, in fact now I feel that its been happening recently, when I read texts, reflections and I feel the wink of knowledge, that is power and it is felt, amidst the silent sheep as some there have said. They are concrete gestures that dissipate the shadows that power casts over us, they are the concrete gestures that comfort the spirit and give continuity to the struggle.
We need spaces of encounter and exchange of experiences, of tension and discussion, we need spaces that do real work and don’t simply hoist slogans that are diluted when power comes down hard, if arms fall when conditions become more strained is the worst message, then the ideas spread are timid and not rebellious.
In this sense, one hopes and desires that the projects brought to fruition by other comrades continue their course when repression falls upon us, as the greatest gesture of solidarity, it is the idea that is nested in our hearts, that if one person falls, still more rise up, the same when projects fall apart, moments of struggle die and spaces close, beyond the respect of autonomous decision, there remains an undeniable bitterness.
Maybe some comrades question the necessity to vindicate the history of the struggle at la Sacco, maybe they don’t understand the reasons, they don’t get it, blinded by the lights of the eternal present. My call, the cry in the silence is not due to cheap sentimentality or an anguished nostalgia for better times past. Make no mistake, that’s not what this is.
In times when an absence of values is rewarded, I still raise the sword of pride, honor, rebellion, loyalty, solidarity, courage and this ensemble of values pushes me to analyze history, our history of struggle.
And la Sacco is part of that, it’s a piece of the history of struggle in times of repression, death, jails and escapes, amidst this hurricane, we dared to exist, to raise our fists and keep fighting, stubborn and in solidarity. In times of silence we dared to scream with force, all of our ideas and the names of our dead, our prisoners and our comrades who are fugitives or persecuted in social war, we dared to exist, we dared to struggle and above all, we dared to overcome…
To straighten out, to remember, to critique strongly but fraternally is a form of defending the hand of power and the amnesia it imposes on us. It’s the best way to say, they evicted us, but they did not uproot this piece of history, of potent experiences and true vigor.
Memory as a weapon is applicable not only to individuals, but to collective processes that contribute to positions of attack. Memory as a weapon, is to refuse the resignation so that they don’t rob spaces and comrades while we watch as mute spectators.
The decadent circus of infamy.
There is a world of details that I’m unaware due to the imposition of distance, the prevailing silence and the scarcity of information with respect to those first months, only cloud my thoughts, but I get ahead of myself trying to understand how silence became this thick dense fog that involves the eviction of la Sacco and the closure of other spaces that take an offensive position. And in the midst of the silence, they only hear the lies of the prosecutors and the press. I believe/feel that silence is decisive, it is oppressive in an era where they should be listening vigorously to our opinions/reflections about everything that’s happened. This silence makes me think and my face hardens.
Because forces of repression rushed to hunt us down, because they attacked us, scrutinized us and investigated us, because some of us were arrested, because they finally kicked us out of a physical space…because of this, they talk about the defeat of la Sacco?…. when those attacks come like a snowstorm, it is never without the miserable spirits who raise a finger to accuse those who had stayed in the streets, struggling for total liberation. This trait is typical of those who seek to cleanse their image, with the hope that the wave of repression will never touch the little houses where they sleep in peace.
To face repression, the exemplary punishment is not synonymous with defeat. That our faces circulate in the press does not make us failures and losers, to understand the conflict like this is to take the spectator’s seat, it is to delusionally pretend that there will ever be a state who grants you permission to question it and confront its power. It is to speak of social war and fill one’s mouth with dead slogans, and later come the attacks and the embrace of silence as the best defense. It is to speak of war but only in times of peace.
If victory is conditional on the organisms of control never detecting or capturing us, then social war is and will always be a dead project, void before it is born.
To me, victory is the refusal to repent, living ideas fortified in permanent action, constant, relentless, unyielding, indomitable and committed. Being strengthened through the attacks instead of running away to be camouflaged in silence and the indignity of being willing to do anything to stay clean…
And it is always like this, there will always be those who look to save their dirty asses at any cost, even dirtying the honor of other comrades, there will always be those who don judges’ robes and hurry to say that the struggle has been lost, failed simply because repression has fallen upon them…..there will always be cowards and disgraces, but there will also always be those who do not easily conform, who do not fall silent, who do not resign themselves, those who take risks…and within this indomitable group one finds the most beautiful and honorable people in the world.
El Centro Social Okupado y Biblioteca Sacco y Vanzetti – a failed project?….I hope that those who insist upon this disgrace don’t miss their tongue when it’s gone …the moment will come when they have to face me, don’t doubt that for an instant.
Eight and a half years of projects against the state and its logic of domination, eight and a half years of collectivizing materials, experiences, laughter and pain. Eight and a half years raising large sums of money with the only goal being solidarity with prisoners and their families.
Eight and a half years editing and developing our own material, books written tinted in blood. Eight and a half years creating propaganda to shake up the peace of cemeteries that has been imposed as reality… Eight and a half years of constant victory, the victory and pride of perseverance, pushing forward through the storms that authority casts over those who dare to question it and live autonomously.
Eight and a half proud years of materializing what we built with words, eight and a half years of rising above the contradictions and continuing to struggle even when the times rushed against us.
That my words embrace Pepa, Ratón, Mónica, Abuelo, Garza and Vini and bring strength to the other imprisoned comrades, Mono, Tortuga, Juan, Zerman, Rusio, among many more.
That the common strength and familial gestures are the most beautiful call to set fire to prison society, its jailers and its false critics.
“Proud of our loyalty, we do not accept the defeats that they wish to smear us with”
Gaviota
Proud Member of the Sacco and Vanzetti Library and Social Center
