It’s almost quaint to declare permanent conflict with this society, with a world that sows domination in every corner. As long as it exists, conflict is guaranteed. And this world cannot exist without it’s strongest weapon: prison. The specter of punishment, the instrument of captivity, the ceaseless reformation of slavery. Until that realm is destroyed, freedom is meaningless. In our chosen struggles as anarchists, one of our tasks is to give real depth and content to our antagonisms. Negation should not stop at our refusals but extend into the shattering of every veiled threat that keeps us bound to this life, in word and in deed. That is what our Casey has been made guilty of. Daring to refuse power made flesh. More than the choice of a single judge, the state was forced to make an example of a comrade of immeasurable conviction, clarity and steadfastness in their chosen conflicts, regardless of what awaited them. Such an incongruent sentence compared to charges levied shows us yet again the lengths the state reaches to crush active opposition to war and genocide. This was a message. Though dismayed by the judge’s severity, we know that prison is not the end of struggle but the emergence of new terrain, one which Casey was already an active participant. And we may soon find ourselves participants as well.
Repression doesn’t end with the hammering of the gavel as every aspect of imprisoned life is shaped by it. So then how will our solidarity take shape? If it’s to mean anything at all, anything more than tried and true slogans bellowed from outside the walls on New Years Eve, it needs to expand the destruction of prison society in gesture and action, not just contribute to the survival of our comrades inside. The legion of liberal abolitionists who only five years ago demanded to defund the police have all but reversed their positions and begun advocating for their carceral defenders. This is where the break should be emphasized, against such poor and paltry visions and making destruction our ground floor. Therefore delegitimization of prisons and their necessity in the public imagination has to coincide with their material disruption. Strikes and revolts inside met with blockades and stoppages on the outside, actually. Our activity should correspond with our dispelling of prison’s invincibility and of the myth of it’s usefulness. The two must go hand in hand so there cannot be even a feigned misunderstanding about what we mean when we say “fire to the prisons.”
The machinery of justice will continue to drag us along, feeding on our corpses in the name of preserving democracy. Bombs will continue dropping, the nation-state will continue to tear the undesirable from within it’s ever-changing borders, and the lie of civilization will be cleansed and recast without blemish. Having already colonized all aspects of our daily activity, capital will continue to coerce every ounce of life from us while presenting just two outcomes, prison or the grave. That is if we accept it, leaving each other alone in the hands of the state. Even if we can’t stop it on our own, we can throw as many wrenches into the gears as possible. The end of prison society through the direct subversion of daily life, one imbued with logics and structures that insure it’s replication. Everything comes to a halt, never again returning to normalcy. Rupture, revolt, and the total evacuation of modern slavery. Only then can any of us truly talk of freedom.
Freedom for Casey Goonan
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