1985 San Francisco sectarian violence from Anarcho-Primitivist Bob Black

form ‘Liste Anarchist!’ by Chaz Bufe
http://www.seesharppress.com/listen.html

As unethical as the Fifth Estate’s actions have been, however, the Fifth Estate staff have not physically assaulted those with whom they disagree. Others have. Over the last two years a relentless campaign of verbal abuse, physical harassment and violent attacks has been carried out against Processed World (PW).

Two years ago, Robert C. Black, Jr., attorney at law (also known as Bob Black and “The Last International”) began to attack Processed World in various publications, among them Bluff, the SRAF Bulletin, and San Francisco’s Appeal to Reason. Shortly after these printed attacks began, flyers were posted in the San Francisco financial district revealing the names of writers using pseudonyms in Processed World; this appears to have been an attempt to cause them to lose employment. (Most of the people who work on the magazine are office workers.) Flyers were also posted in staffers’ neighborhoods vilifying them and listing their home addresses and telephone numbers. When staff members removed these violations of their privacy, there were immediate cries of “censorship” from Black’s cronies. (There was, of course, no indication on the leaflets as to who produced or posted them.)

In 1984 the attacks were stepped up. Processed World’s office lock was epoxied and in September a worker on the magazine received a middle-of-the-night death threat against her and her baby. In October, Robert C. Black, Jr., attorney at law, filed a complaint with the San Francisco Planning Commission over alleged zoning violations in Processed World’s office. The following month, PW was forced to move after the Planning Commission discovered that the roof in its office was only seven feet high rather than the required eight. PW then moved to its present location in a warehouse shared with several other people. That same month an ax was placed through the magazine’s office door in the middle of the night.

In 1985 things really got nasty. During the spring someone began slashing copies of the magazine with razor blades in bookstores in San Francisco and the East Bay. In April, flyers (again bearing no indication of their origin) urging that PW’s new office be “torched,” and which listed the new address, were posted in the financial district. In the same month Robert C. Black produced a xeroxed tract noteworthy primarily for his vicious personal attacks and disgusting vulgarity (calling one person whom he doesn’t even know a “butt fuckee,” for example). The next step was physical assault. On April 19, Black was arrested for physically assaulting a Processed World staff member hawking copies of the magazine on the sidewalks of the financial district. His arrest came about in a curious way. After the incident occurred, Black went running to the cops in an attempt to get the PW staffer arrested for assault. But fortunately, several passersby had witnessed the incident and identified Black as the assailant. So Black was arrested, hauled off and booked. In May he failed to show up for his arraignment on the battery charge and a warrant was issued for his arrest.Finally, in June, one of the residents of the warehouse in which Processed World has its office was returning home from a show at 3:00 a.m., and when he got home he found a person pouring gasoline all over the front of the building.

All of this is very disturbing. The reaction (more accurately, non-reaction) of many San Francisco anarchists, is perhaps even more disturbing. While all of these extremely vicious, FBI provocateur-type actions were being perpetrated, one continually heard comments among anarchists, such as: “Why should we worry about it? They’re (the PW staff) not really anarchists”; “Fuck both sides. I’ve heard [a PW staffer] badmouthing us. Why should we help them?” And, perhaps most revealingly: “Sure, Bob Black is a destructive nut. But he hasn’t attacked us.” So, many anarchists just sat on their hands. After all, it wasn’t their problem. Instead of sticking to the principle, “An injury to one is an injury to all,” they adopted the more convenient “Every man for himself!”

Even worse, a few marginalist anarcho-sectarians, because of personal feuds with Processed World staff members, actually sided against them. One individual took a cue from the “right to life” honchos’ comments about abortion clinic bombings, and wrote in the journal of the Bound Together Bookstore that he wouldn’t do such things himself, but that he could “understand” the motivations of those who make anonymous death threats. It speaks volumes of the destructive effects of sectarianism that it can lead any anarchist to condone such cowardly, provocateur-like acts.