"When you have to call in additional police forces from out of town and send in the National Guard, you're basically saying 'anarchists won.'" -The May of Washington summing up the aftermath of the anti-WTO riots in Seattle.

My first visit to Portland, Oregon and the Pacific Northwest revealed to me a cosmopolitan urban lifestyle that was laid back, open and a welcomed change from the redneck attitudes prevalent in Texas, my homeland. Yet underneath the placid veneer of the bookstores and coffeehouses, Portland already had a reputation for being a place hostile to higher authority. During a trip there, then-president George H.W. Bush's motorcade was pelted with broccoli by placard-carrying demonstrators. He remarked, "That felt a little like Beirut back there."

The reason for my visit to Portland was to attend an anarchist gathering there in the summer of 93. After enduring days of police intimidation of anarchist households, squats and events the grand finale of the weekend's events was an all day punk show at the legendary X-Ray Café on Burnside St., downtown. The police went way too far in going after the anarchists. Seventy cops in riot gear gathered down the street - on the major thoroughfares through downtown Portland - while other cops shut down and diverted traffic. Between sets, the crowd inside the X-Ray gathered outsides the venue to smoke, chat, hang out and await the next band. The show was almost over when the police ordered the crowd outside to disperse. Utterly intimidated, the anarchists, punks and assorted crusties suddenly improvised masks and shouted out their defiance of the dispersal order, to the cheering of the crowds gathering outside the police barricades. So, the cops attacked. Rather than stand still and be trapped between the advancing police lines, the crowd surged through downtown in a haze of tear gas, with the police in pursuit. The street battle that followed ended with three dozen arrests, thousands of dollars of damage to businesses and scores of minor injuries to various police personnel. One local anarchist activists, Douglas Squirrel (yes, that's his real name) was arrested and charged with conspiracy and inciting a riot, despite the fact that he had only briefly been to the X-Ray and left hours before the police showed up en masse.

Want to test the legitimacy of a government to continue its existence? Hold a protest assembly. When the cops come to disperse you - riot! A truly legitimate government (not that there's such a thing as one) would not attack a group of its citizens/subjects gathered to voice their grievances with their rulers. People who are generally in agreement with your cause and those fed up with the government will not only support your right to voice your discontent, but may actually join you in the streets to combat the forces of the rulers. Before there was such a thing as voting, rioting was the only way for common people to effectively challenge the action of - or the existence of - their rulers. Oh, sure, there were peaceful means of massing against the rulers, who were generally very appreciative of having the malcontents all gathered in one place as to save the hassle and expense of a long campaign to round them up. Instead, the ruler could massacre them all at once, then grieve the loss of so many citizens later and make a large donation to the local church. Then everyone's happy.

Be that as it may, I do not want to claim that rioting is always an act of democracy. American history is full of examples of riots organized and paid for by various business communities to crush people's movements, particularly abolitionists, unions and other workers' organizations and women suffragists. As with any strategy or tool, the use of rioting to achieve one's goals is only as democratic or inclusive as the participants and organizers.

Genuine revolutionary rioting is seldom actually planned. Usually, riots are the result of the authority's overreaction to a situation beyond their control. The scary thing to the rulers isn't the possible damage to the local businesses, jails or other centers of official power. What makes the authorities shit bricks is that there are people who openly refuse to follower orders. That's why tyrants insist on assaulting anyone gathered in opposition of even the most trivial matter. Any system of government that can only impose its rule by the use of military force against its own citizens is a system whose continued existence is in doubt. As soon as the people see an opportunity, they'll topple the existing order through society-wide non-cooperation with the rulers, massive and continued rioting or outright armed uprisings.

The day after the X-Ray Café riot, the city of Portland exploded with indignation. Newspapers, TV news, radio talk shows and downtown merchants all lined up to denounce those responsible for the riot: the Portland Police Department. Later, almost all the charges against the punks and anarchists arrested were dropped. The only person left with serious charges was Douglas Squirrel (yes, it's his real, legal, birth name. Really). When his trial was over, the presiding judge ruled that - when faced with unreasonable hostility from police forces - citizens of this country have a right to fight back in self-defense. Among the findings by the court was that the concert-goers had not blocked traffic as alleged by police; the police had. Likewise, TV video news reports showed clearly that several businesses' windows were broken out by police batons. The city was thus stuck with the bill for repairing damages to downtown merchants.

John Zerzan has lived down I-5 from Portland in the college town of Eugene for over 25 years. Few people in Eugene had heard of John - perhaps the most influential living anarchist writer - before last year. Finally, the years of local activism and writing brought together a group of like-minded anarchists who were ready to stand up to the forces of authority: the corporations, banks and their lapdogs the government and their police forces.

Fed up with over-exploitation of nearby forests, extinction of local animal and plant species, pollution by industry and the subjugation of workers, locally and in the third world countries, by local corporations, the anarchists held a demonstration in the streets of Eugene. When the police attacked, the anarchists scattered and attacked appropriate targets, including Niketown.

Only a few months had passé when the worldwide 6/18/99 Reclaim the Streets festival sprang up in Eugene. The police came ready to fight. The result? Twenty arrests, eight cops injured and thousands of dollars in damage to Eugene banks and businesses. Despite the media hysteria about anarchist "violence," as many people clearly sided with the anarchists as cried out for their suppression, for doing something that so badly needs to be done: taking a stand against the social and economic forces that are destroying this planet.

The police had previously staged a commando-type raid on a Eugene family - ransacked their house while keeping guns pointed at the two parents - to persecute one anarchist youth for the Niketown riot. After 6/18, the authorities lusted for vengeance. The DA, courts and police scapegoated two arrestees who were not from Eugene, rightly assuming that the local liberals would leave them twisting in the wind, rather than stoop so low as to publicly defend people who dared to expose the liberals' cowardice by fighting for their rights. The long term after-effect has been a tremendous upsurge in interest in anarchist ideas and activities in Eugene, so much that the city was quickly gaining the reputation as an anarchist hot spot.

Then came the World Trade Organization's meeting, and the subsequent "Battle for Seattle."

I'm not going to recount the WTO events here. I just want to deal with the aftermath. Like Portland in 93, people in Seattle are savvy enough to know who is to blame for the turmoil in downtown Seattle: the organizers of the WTO conference and the police.

Oddly enough, the Eugene newspaper - because of their familiarity with the subject - had some of the better early coverage of the anti-WTO rioting. As the week and the street resistance continued (despite massive arrests), the media finally had to begin to focus on what all the fuss was about. They had no choice but to use the "A" word, and tot talk about what people like John Zerzan and the now famous Eugene anarchist community think about the current state of civilization. The only people still denouncing anarchist "violence" in Seattle are liberals and professional activists, whose careers and reputations are now in serious jeopardy since its plain to see whose side they took in the street fighting: the side of the wealthy and the police. The spectacle of white middle class activists standing in the way of young black men who were trying to assault Niketown will live forever in many people's minds. By defending Nike, the activoids demonstrated once and for all time their irrelevance to true struggle for expansive liberty and drastic, real social change.

I'm currently serving seven years in the Oregon Department of Corrections for my part in the 6/18 uprising in Eugene. Much has been said about whether or not the events of the day were worth the price I'm having to pay for my revolting behavior.

Yes, a thousand times, yes, it's worth it! Anarchist voices so long ignored are at long last being discussed in the international media. Now maybe kids fed up with the stupid shit they have to put up with in school will stop massacring one another in blind rage. Maybe people who might otherwise have turned to despair and drugs will turn to gardening and insurrection instead and take their frustration out on their sources rather than themselves. Maybe workers will turn to living their lives for themselves rather than ever increasing corporate profits. Maybe when I get out in June of 2006, I'll step into the middle of a revolution that I helped create.

Just remember out there in minimum custody land: rioting is not the first or last step in the insurrectionary movement. It's the release of passions too long held back. Don't be afraid to let go! We have little control over our lives as it is, we have nothing to lose nad a world to (re)gain!