---Kris

 On Saturday evening there was a dinner made for everyone. This event was another example of poor planning, and the blame must be placed on the Chicago organizers; for the reason that they don't like vegetarians. The catered food supposedly consisted of macaroni salad, potato salad, green salad (made with scab iceberg lettuce), cheese lasagna and lots of meat. I say "supposedly" because the only food I could have eaten was gone by the time I (and about 20 other vegetarians) arrived at the serving table. Besides, there was altogether too much starch and almost no protein. The easiest way around this would have been to have the dinner entirely vegetarian; if the meat-eaters had really wanted to have some beef or chicken they could have gone out for a burger. I resented having to help pay for the meat by donating money to defer the cost of the dinner. Also, the vegans wouldn't have had an excuse to pass out their stupid moralist leaflet which included such memorable quotes as: "If you are a carnivore, you are an oppressor. You are no better than the state and its executioners" and "the blood is on your hands where there is none on ours." (Special thanks must be extended to Gary and Karen from Harrisburg, and those who helped them make all their delicious food.)

 ---Lawrence

 For the Spooners, the central event of Saturday (the day following the march) was the 7:00 p.m. banquet in the Wellington Avenue Church basement. It was heartening to see so many anarchists celebrating, eating, talking and dancing together under one roof. This culminating event impressed us with the realization of the months of hard work on the parts of the Chicago organizers and many others. Our spirits were further buoyed by news of the release of most of the arrested marchers. During the festivities, a group of vegetarian anarchists spontaneously performed a skit criticizing the meat-eaters among us. As a vegan, I did not object to their theater--but many of us did strongly object to the hostile, accusatory literature they circulated, as well as to their loudly expressed holier-than-thou attitude. (It's hard to convert people to your cause when you are alienating them with rudeness and immaturity.)

 ---Lysander Spooner Collective

 The Haymarket Gathering got back to as normal as could be expected on Saturday night. All those arrested had been released or were expected to be let go. The banquet was great with a lot of drinking, eating, arguing and general insanity. It was a delight to be called a fascist for eating meat. I'm sure that all of the Haymarket martyrs were strict vegetarians and refused to associate with any workers who were depraved enough to eat meat.

 ---Wild Wayne

 conversation between two black-clad, dictionary-toting, college-bred anarchists in chicago: "these gosh-darned punks sure like to stir up trouble, don't they, buffy?" "they sure do, skip--and just look at all the foul language they use." "i suppose they're nihilists or something--i mean, they don't even know how to spell." "oh well, no use dwelling on it--please pass me the steak sauce."
HOWEVER THE FUCK WE SPELL IT--YOU'RE STILL A HYPOCRITE!
during my first few days in chicago i was greatly looking forward to the banquet--a time, i thought, at which we'd all be able to put "politics" aside (as much as they can possibly be put aside with a group of anarchists) and just meet each other on a more "social" level, as people rather than just their ideas.
unfortunately, when the news came that meat was to be served, it because obvious that the night of the banquet would be no exception from all the others--it too would be filled with much heated debate as well as flared tempers.
when i first heard that meat was to be served at the banquet, it shocked me. i didn't feel much anger at the time, only a great sense of disappointment.
i had begun to assume that anyone committed enough to travel (in some cases, all the way across the country) to chicago, for the haymarket centennial (to yet again make the voice be heard that cries out for freedom and liberty and sings loud of the beauty of life) would have if still not having rid themselves from the ugly habit of eating that which once was a living creature, at least been considerate enough, for one night, to refrain from doing so, out of the simple realization that it would greatly offend a good number of people (who for some odd reason don't like watching their animal friends being torn up and chewed on).
but of course, it was naive to believe such a thing--for there's no reason to expect that just cos someone's an "anarchist" that they're gonna be more respectful of others, let alone for the lives of animals. quite the contrary, it's probably more likely to find such inconsiderate behavior among "anarchists," who often times, like most people concerned with "politics" more than anything else, tend to be quite selfish (involved in the "struggle" only because they don't want anyone ruling their life, not because they give a fuck about the millions of other lives being ruled, used and destroyed).
a few hours before the banquet was to start, when the details began to come in as to what was actually being served, how much money was being spent, etc. my feeling of disappointment became a feeling of anger as i found out that somewhere around a thousand dollars was spent (and please correct me if i'm wrong. i hope i'm wrong, but from what i've been told, that is how much was spent) on catering the roast beef and chicken, while hardly anything was spent on vegetarian meals and even less was done for the vegans (at the banquet at least we vegetarians got some lasagna--which i should add ran out right away, leaving many unfed--while the vegans got nothing at all, except for some lettuce and that's about it. only later, when someone went and bought some vegetables and rice, with their own money, did the vegans get anything of substance).
a good vegetarian meal could have been served for everyone attending for a quarter of the cost, if even that, of what the meat cost alone. yet, a thousand dollars was being spent for the meals of only a portion of those attending (again, please correct me if i'm wrong about the money spent. it makes me sick to think of that much money wasted.) this, along with the fact that it was such a fuckin' hypocrisy in the first place (meat being served at a banquet by people supposedly against oppression and enslavement) propelled us to print up the "anarcho-beef people" flyer (from our magazine NO MASTER'S VOICE) which was initially written for the "anarcho-punks" in our area, for whom this type of behavior has become commonplace.
realizing that the flyer alone would not quite have the desired effect (that being to force the "anarcho-beef people" into facing the fact that eating meat amounts to much more than their "right to decide," that it causes thousands of needless deaths every day, and that they're to blame), we sought out a group of people who had been doing street theater at the demos, and asked them if they could think of anything to do through theater that would shove the reality that "meat is murder" that much closer into the faces of the "anarcho-beef people."
after talking it over with them awhile, we all decided on something which we felt would best get across the point we were trying to make. for those of you who didn't get to see it, here's what happened:
the tables at the banquet were set up in four different rows, put together making a square with a large space in the middle of them all, which for our purposes acted as a stage--the tables surrounding it creating a sort of amphitheater (i'm sorry, but this is the only way i can describe it, short of a drawing. if you can't picture it you're just out of luck). during the middle of dinner, the signal went out and a group of people (or should i say "cows," as that is what they represented) crawled to the space between the tables, mooing and chewing on lettuce along the way. once they got to the center, another group of people (this time the "butchers") walked to where the "cows" were and proceeded to "slaughter" them and "gnaw" away at their arms and legs. while all this was happening, we walked about and gave everyone eating meat a copy of our flyer.
this event lasted no more than a few minutes, and it should be said that even a good number of "anarcho-beef people" enjoyed the theater, as it was rather humorous, and wasn't so much of a personal attack--something which certainly cannot be said about our flyer, which drew forth a response both at the banquet as well as months later, that could hardly be considered "good-natured" (and, of course, we never expected it to be. we attacked the "anarcho-beef people," it's only right that they should attack us back. i have to admit, though, that i'm a bit pissed off that none of the "counter-attacks" were to our faces).
after people had time to read the flyer and digest the whole of its meaning, quite a lot of faces began to redden. i tried to talk to a few of them about it, but all i got was "i don't want to talk to you, don't preach to me" from people who looked like they were about to cry (for fuck sake, i wish someone would have at least punched me, rather than holding all their anger in, for that's surely what they wanted to do). towards the end of the night when a good number of people had gone outside, we were helping to clean up when we found a few of our flyers wrapped around pieces of chicken as well as roast beef (or some kind of beef--i'm no expert!). that was such a cowardly, spineless thing to do, it makes me sick! people are so afraid of a confrontation, they end up pulling this petty symbolic bullshit of wrapping a flyer around a dead animal. big fucking deal! i hope the cowards all choke and die (how's that for reactionary?)!
of course the attacks months later in magazine reviews as well as in letters (to other magazines, of course--no one having the guts to write us about it, all preferring to backstab instead), were really great. it's funny how people who have nothing to say to you at the time suddenly have quite a lot to say when you're not around to defend yourself.
actually, though, these reviews and letters didn't anger us in the slightest. if anything, they were a great inspiration to keep writing more articles that are inclined to piss everybody off.
so say what you will about us--that we're reactionaries, fanatics, etc. we love this world and those living upon it, so if in order to protect this world and it's inhabitants we have to offend a few crybaby anarchists, then that is what we shall do. "enjoy your burger--and may it be your last."

 ---love kilgour
king of "the bombflict bozos"

 May 3, 9:35 p.m.
It is now several days into the conference and much has happened since that first joyous meeting three nights ago. Many differences have developed, many possible friends have been lost. I have actually been overtaken by a deep depression, something that I never expected would have occurred. I am sure many of the problems that I have had here relating to certain people are my fault, my ingrained attitudes and my personal being. But these are universal problems that I believe all people have and so I can't expect myself to take all the blame.
I am sitting here watching a dance right now, a scheduled event of the conference. Well, actually it was the banquet which developed into this dance. First the banquet saddened me, all this dead flesh everywhere and people so close-minded about the alternatives that it made me sick. Then I get alienated once again for defending Joffre's right to have his controversial opinion. There were people who wanted him expelled from the conference for distributing what they believed to be anti-semitic material. I actually agreed with Joffre in the sense that I feel that zionism is wrong and this is what he repeatedly stated his literature dealt with. it just did not appear to be anti-semitic to me and even if that was his intention, he should be allowed to distribute it freely with all the critical analysis and questioning that people felt was necessary. He should not be conveniently eliminated simply because he holds an unpopular view. So that is why I left and felt compelled to come out here and write.
A friend of mine just told me that he was also condemned for supporting Joffre. He said that one of the same womyn that he got down on me the day before yesterday had just told him, infuriated, that if he didn't get the fuck out of there, she would kick him in the balls. A real liberated person she must be. I can't imagine what would have occurred if a man at the conference had bade a similar statement to a womyn here. Such a fucking double standard. Something is eating me away here, slowly but surely.

 ---Tim

 Conference plans enunciated at the Wednesday night meeting included a projected gathering of the whole (at least one)at conference term, whereby to collect reports from workshops, but such good intentions seem to have fallen into chaos and I never experienced such much-desired wholeness.
The nearest thing to a plenum was the banquet scene in the church basement Saturday night. The peak experience of the conference was around these tables, after the meal.
Someone denounced as anti-Semitic a graphic engaged on one of my anti-apartheid leaflets which attacked the Zionist connection to a range of imperialist evils we don't like. The drawing, from a Brazilian artist, showed a rabbi holding a religious object which threw the shadow of a swastika: an obvious comment on Israel's role since 1948. The denouncer got firm applause. I answered that I was confident in the faith that there was no anti-Jewish literature circulating in our conference but there was a lot of Jewish Chauvinist Bias which converted attacks on Zionism into anti-Semitism. Light, uncertain applause...Another graphic showed the symbol of the Zionist state, the Star of David, blocked, cancelled out by the diagonal bar which in traffic signs, means "wrong way," prohibited. Thus, my negation of a mini-Superpower--or, if you like, a super-Superpower, considering that Zionism dominates and directs USA foreign policy--was attacked as 1) an attack on Jews and 2) an attack on religion. I pointed out that anarchists of our persuasion are SUPPOSED to attack religion (not protect or conserve it) as atheists. I pointed out that regardless of whether the Star of David was a symbol for the whole Jewish people, it is quite correct for us, anarchists, to attack and denounce it because the Star of David is the symbol of KING David and we are anti-King, anti-Rule, anti-Christ, contra-cratic, etc. Two people were wearing T-shirts which proclaimed "NO GOD/NO KING." I pointed to them as correct examples of what we are about as anarchists and asked one of them to stick out his chest to make my point more visible, but he did the opposite. Jewish Chauvinist Hypocrisy in this area is quite extreme. Our May 2 demo which brought Anne R Key to Chicago's Magnificent Mile and 38 under "mob action" charges in jail, included a sign which explicitly included a direct attack on the Catholic church, but no one found anything wrong with this. The cover for SRAF bulletin #93 attacks Christianity. The conference organizers, when they had the Autonomy Centre, had there an installation which constituted a bitter, angry attack on Christianity. You might say they ritually crucified Christianity (including Jesus), and this passes as correct, without comment, except for my preference for less confrontational but more efficient method (see SRAF bulletin #94). But when an attack on a political symbol, the Star of King David which flies, quite appropriately, in the Israeli flag, is made Jewish Chauvinists pull out a lot of liberal (not anarchist) rhetoric, saying: "YOU DON'T' ATTACK RELIGION." Thus, under the hypocritical guise of being polite to religion, they protect both Jewish domination and monotheism. This Jewish Chauvinist doouubblleettaallkk is only accentuated by the fact that the chauvinists preface their remarks with a disclaimer of being Zionist (and the paucity of concern for the Mid-East in the @ press demonstrates their lie). Comrades: our cause, if it is to keep (or win) the respect of the public, should show that its practice is fair and unbiased. If you're going to piss on religion, make it certain and clear that you piss on Judaism as well. It's more important to be fair than to be atheist...Also, in my answer to the woman who introduced the Star of David issue, I made the pacifist point that David was a war criminal and they should read the Bible for confirmation. There is more than one reason why we an-archists atheists should be ESPECIALLY devastating on the Jewish monotheism, but one of them is that it is Zionist strategy to strengthen Jewish religion at the same time they undermine and weaken other religions (or subordinate them to Israel as in the case of Jerry Falwell/Born Again religions). Not only has the Holocaust (an outcome of Zionist support of Hitler) been incorporated into Judaism, but they are even conniving to teach it in public schools. And this will generally be at the expense of blacks because they are not about to tell you that the transAtlantic slave trade was significantly a Jewish thing and that Jewish money organized the slaughter of a million blacks a year for 20 years in the Congo, 1885-1905.
A woman (the same?) attacked as anti-Jewish my use of the dollar sign in the fifth letter of "Jewish." This referred to my Haymarket Centennial poem: "Lucy Parsons is Black as well as Indian and she married a confederate soldier." She distorted it by citing out of context. The $ occurred in "American Jewi$h Committee" which I explained was formed by rich German Jews. I would not be surprised if she were one of those in our May 2 demo who shouted for all to hear: "EAT THE RICH/FEED THE POOR" (anarcho-cannibalistic vegetarianism).
For a long time now, reasonable people have found Jewish Chauvinists impossible to reason with because they employ every contradictory and illogical argument to suppress criticism of Israel, Zionism and collateral issues like Judaism. I found some of this in the banquet scene, where one guy stood up to say that Jews are a race and that my graphic attacks on the symbols and crimes of Jewish nationalism were racist attacks (!) on him as a member of that race! I waited long and hard for someone amongst those hundreds of people to contradict his racism but no one did. In the 1984 electoral season, I went to a dialogue on black-Jewish relations and threw in the observation that the UN has designated Zionism (not Jews or Judaism) as a racism. (Jews, as well as others, know how to score Naziism as a racism without saying that Austrians, Swiss, Dutch, etc. constitute a "race.") The chair person abandoned nonpartisanship to say Jews were not a race (who said they were?) and therefore the UN finding was invalid. And in that synagogue gathering, larger than the an-arch gathering, no one corrected or contradicted him. Such Jews are successful in having it both ways even while the same Jews would apply rapier logic to cut down non-Jews trying to get away with the same thing. It is our fault as an-archists (or simply as fair-minded persons) if we let god's chosen people get away with it and you can do something about it if you are not already subjugated and defeated by the Jewish Chauvinist Drive to World Domination.
There was treachery at the an-archist gathering. Piles of literature I set out on literature tables disappeared without comparable reductions in literature next to them. And not just once. A pile of my poems was knocked off the table onto the floor. Literature collected at the end of a day at Crosscurrents--the gathering operated out of two spaces, about three-quarters of a mile apart--did not appear for the next day a CC. The readings I set out for the censorship workshop were deliberately turned face down to discourage use (THE JEWISH CHAUVINIST CENSORSHIP in spades!). All this over and beyond the honest disorder and confusion you might expect at such a gathering. The perpetrators were not stealing from me: the lit was free. They were stealing from you, depreciating our libertarian reputation, and obstructing the progress of our movement.
A content analysis of free literature on tables shows that from 49 sources there were about 107 pieces of literature with 13 pieces showing any concern with the Middle East. Of these, nine pieces featured the subject and five of these came from one source: Fifth Estate--55 percent from one source!--and one of the five was a letter from Christopher taking FE to task for avoiding the issue for a dozen years until the Establishment Press made it "safe" but then dumping on me as anti-Semitic because I did not wait for Establishment Leadership on the issue! The (dishonesty and) treachery began long before our Haymarket '86 an-archist gathering. What are you doing to overthrow it? (In the content analysis, I did not count my own literature.)
But there was a positive side. I received several thankful appreciations for the literature I supplied to tables and for workshop discussions.

 ---Joffre

 The Saturday evening banquet was a powerful and moving experiences. Early on there was a spirited verbal and theatrical demonstration by the largely vegan attendees against the minority that chose to eat meat, as well as against the organizers who chose to accommodate that minority. This demonstration sorta blended into a period of political speechifying and debating. Emotions soared as various political polemics flew back and forth until a few people started to climb up on chairs, shout to be heard, and deliver various statements designed to break the tension and cool things down. It did appear for a little while that this grouping of (once more, I guess) 250-300 anarchists in a church basement was about to turn into a free-for-all. Early in the evening, someone said to me that "this's certainly not what comes to mind when you hear the word banquet." The inflamed passions which caused me concern for the peaceful conclusion of the evening were, however, spontaneously cooled in response to the actions of an aware minority just in time to keep a fight from breaking out and cops from being called. Maybe the busts of the pervious evening (the last people who were busted were finally released before the "banquet" was over) had something to do with this or maybe they didn't.
After the speechifying was over, people started dancing. The music and dancing went on for a good while, with various people disrobing to differing extents. During this time, an Atlanta comrade (David) who was standing next to me said, "Consider that this is very probably the best party on the planet at this particular moment."
At about 9:30 that evening, I realized that we needed to be out of there in an hour and a half, and looked at the heavy-duty, serious partying which was happening. So I looked up one of the organizers and mentioned this to him, and was told "So YOU make the announcement." Which I didn't do, but did join the handful of other souls who had just quietly started to clean up. What happened is that a gradually increasing group just started folding up chairs, collecting empty beer cans, and generally straightening the place up. There couldn't have been more than three or four people doing this in the beginning, but by the time it was over, there were about ten times that number. We were supposed to be out of the place and have it cleaned up by 11:00 in the evening. In fact, all the folks except those working on the cleaning were gone by half past, and the job was finished in another hour. The church's minister and his wife were there for the last hour and a half or so, and my impression was that we left them with a good taste in their mouths despite being an hour and a half behind schedule getting out of the basement.

 ---Pat 

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Updated: Nov 98