Author Archives: Sean Swain

Radio Essay: Shockupy

    Okay. I’ve had four cups of coffee this morning and I’ve got a plan. Check it out: We need to go from Occupy to Shockupy. Here is the deal;
Based on what I have seen in Kiev, what we need to do in the U.S. is get rid of the delusional pacifists who insist on absolute nonviolence. That’s the first thing. These pacifists are the reason that Occupy resisters couldn’t meet state violence with equal and opposite revolutionary violence- like they did in Kiev.
So, for the Shockupy plan, we get rid of the pacifists. We can get rid of them, and get them to think it is their idea. Let me read for you a letter I’ve already written for setting this in motion.

Dear people of Kiev:
On behalf of the people of the United States, I
regret to inform you are not doing this right.
You are clearly not adhering to the principles of
nonviolence. Please know that we are sending
American advisors to help you.
Sincerely,
Sean Swain

Now, once Shockupy gets rolling, if we identify a delusional pacifist or a protest marshall, we hand them a flier and tell them
“The people of Kiev need you.” We give them an orange vest with U.S.A. stenciled on it and a plane ticket to Kiev. By now, plane   tickets to Kiev are probably cheaper than Greyhound bus tickets to Cleveland. We can send thousands of goofy pacifists to Kiev. Thats
the last we will ever see of them. First problem solved.

Did you know there are 48,000 homeless vets from Iraq and Afghanistan? We can put out the invitation to them to replace the pacifists we sent to Kiev as “advisors.” That’s 48,000 disciplined and disillusioned combat ready resistors who know how to shoot.
Also,did you know there are 200 million privately owned firearms in the United States? That’s far more firearms than all government forces combined.
So,with pacifists on planes to Kiev, and with 48,000 homeless vets joining us to take back the future from traitors, banksters, and profiteers,we only need to converge on one area in order to turn Occupy into Shockupy. In the last engagement State forces could
overwhelm Occupy because pacifists precluded a violent response and encampments were spread out all over the country; numbers were divided.
So, with Shockupy we converge on one area, not with some silly goal of getting newspaper coverage, or holding a square until cops show up, but with the goal of creating an autonomous zone where the government collapses and the system of international crapital dissolves. Permanatly.
Shockupy
Converging on one State like, say, Ohio- we out number State forces. Molotov cocktails, bowling balls raining from rooftops, and, as Neo said in the Matrix “Guns. Lots of Guns.” And in Ohio, it’s legal. The Ohio Constitution promotes it.
Shockupy. We take one autonomous zone. An area, like Ohio- this is where rail, shipping air and highway transport converge. If Ohio goes off grid, the whole countries economic system starts to unravel. You create a major choke point and you inspire further rebellions. You export revolution to Indiana, Michigan,Kentucky and Pennsylvania.
You burn down swivelization, like the Barbarians who invaded the Roman empire and took it down by pooping in the bushes. And if the fascist forces can mobilize enough troops to take it back, you give it up, abandon it and gather back together the next state over. Like a bunch of swarming locusts. A travelling flash robbery.
Anyone gets captured, you liberate them. You can always find your way back to the main body of Shockupy, by following the train of burning cop cars.
Shockupy. A concentration of forces on one weak spot in the fascist order. Ohio has a lot of colleges with a lot of dorm rooms. The weather is getting nicer, this would be an awesome summer  for a convergence to tear down this fascist machine once and for all. It all starts with a few volunteers  at each university arranging for sleeping space. We can forage free food at Kroger’s and free combat supplies at Dick’s sporting goods.
By Autumn, we could all be dancing naked around a bonfire where the Ohio Statehouse used to be. From there, all it would take is 49 more cans of gasoline and a bunch of matches.
Shockupy. Tell all your friends.
This is Anarchist prisoner Sean Swain from Ohio’s Supermax. If you can hear the sound of my voice you are the resistance.

Radio Essay: Patriotism

This originally aired on The Final Straw radio show.

Patriotism is a really twisted if you think about it. It’s a kind of moral and intellectual cowardice. To be patriotic is to cheer for your country- which means the government of your country, which is to say the government that claims jurisdiction over you. Patriotism demands that you cheer for that government and hope it prevails over some other government that claims jurisdiction over other people.

What determines who you cheer for isn’t principles or the qualities of character demonstrated by this government or or that one, but geography. If you are born in Minnesota, patriotism demands that you cheer for the side that the Minnesota National Guard fights on, even if-such as the Civil War- your state is fighting against other states such as Georgia. You have to cheer for Minnesota and the United States. Patriotism says so, even if, for instance, you’re vacationing in Georgia at the time hostilities break out.

The issue of slavery or states rights or federalism are irrelevant.
Those are principles. Patriots don’t care about those things.What matters is geography.

Now, if you are born in one state but move to another state, patriotism demands that you cheer for the government where your house is located. So, at the time of the Civil War, if you were born in Minnesota, but you moved to Georgia, and you were in Pennsylvania  on vacation when hostilities broke out, you have to cheer for the Confederate States because your home is in Georgia. It doesn’t matter where your person is.
If all that seems very confusing, we can simplify. To be patriotic, you have to cheer for the government that gouges you for the most tax money. You are obligated to reserve your greatest allegiance to the government that robs the most.
In fact, you are obligated, as a patriot, to volunteer and lay down your life in defense of the interests of the government that gouges you by killing as many people as you can who volunteer to defend the government that gouges them.
So, if, at any time, you come to the irrational conclusion that the government that gouges you might not be superior to some other government that never took a dime from you, and that you have nothing personal against that other government or the subjects it gouges, and you have the misfortune of speaking these sentiments out loud, you can be hanged from the nearest tree as a traitor.
See, patriotism requires you to believe in your country- which, really, is your government, which really is the government gouging you- is the “good guys”even when that government isn’t acting like the“good guys.” Patriotism is a kind of mass dishonesty where every one must pretend the government isn’t a bully and a hypocrite and a liar a murderer and a thief, even when all the evidence is right under your nose tells you the government really is. Patriotism demands that you insist your county is doing “ the right thing,” even when it is a reprehensible atrocity. You have to shake pom-poms for the home team, even when the home team is a bunch of ruthless monsters. You have to blindly serve the interests of the government gouging you rather than standing up for the principles you believe in, and rather than serving your own best interests.
That’s how governments stick around. They convince the people of their nation that they are exceptional and their government is exceptional. This euphoric government worship blinds everyone to the continuous and never ending crisis the government creates. In the U.S. the government has created an untold number of crises. The financial crisis, the unemployment crisis, the drug crisis, the economic crisis, the housing crisis, the environmental crisis,the energy crisis and of coarse, the international crisis of the week, the terrorism crisis, the crime crisis,the crazy gunman shooting people in public places crisis,the infrastructure crisis and on and on…..They never end. If not for sloganeering and flag-waving that manipulates all of us, we’d recognize how government makes our lives intolerable and we’d act in our own best interests ,toppling not just our lives intolerable and we’d act in our own best interests, toppling not just our government but every government and putting down anybody else who attempted to impose another one.
My allegiance is to freedom, a world without governments. I don’t love my country. I don’t have a country. And if I had one, it certainly would not act like this.
The government hated me first.
This is anarchist prisoner Sean Swain from Ohio’s supermax facility. If you can hear the sound of my voice, you are the resistance.

Fascism on Trial: A Reveiw of Insurgent Theatre’s Behind the Badge

bencopsmileWe are all raised in normative society to view the police as the good guys, as protection. The consistent message bombarding us from public schools and from prime-time entertainment—which is inordinately obsessed with the cop drama—is that police officers are the defenders of social order against all forms of deviance and harm. “To protect and to serve.”

But the reality is quite different. Without digressing into unnecessary statistics here, we all know that cops kill Black people at a bewildering rate and the trend continues unabated. Amadu Diallo, Michael Pipkens, Malice Green, Oscar Grant… and on and on. We’re talking about genocide here. A one-sided war being waged by the enforcers of an undeclared fascist police state, where a gang of uniformed thugs firing 137 shots into a car in Cleveland and killing two unarmed people is no longer an exception to the rule. It’s business as usual.

The unnecessary and shocking level of violence—employed with relish and excitement by the police—against the Occupy Movement across the country stands as another example that the mythology fed to american kids in classrooms across the nation is an absolute falsity. We are now confronted with an obvious situation where we are instructed at gunpoint to believe a constructed lie that defies our own experiences; we are virtually ordered to swallow this false indoctrination of law enforcement’s righteousness and service, and to ignore the contrary lessons that have been sprayed into our faces or fried into our flesh or pounded into our bones.

It is in this context that Ben Turk, a good friend of mine, has created an excellent medium for de-constructing the lie, not on some vast and complex scale, but in the example of just one cop and his seeming flow-of-consciousness monologue. It starts off, of course, as a defense of himself, his role, and the instution of law enforcement, but eventually devolves into a kind of confusion, one that offers an accurate glimpse into the psychology of the fascist enforcer. What we encounter in Ben Turk’s play is more than entertainment; it is the personification of the fascist pathology, the sickness not just of the individual fascist pig, but the infection that constitutes the very foundation of law enforcement as an institution, and of hierarchy itself.

By the end of this masterful deconstruction, Ben Turk’s Officer Lance Mead cannot hide the sickness from us nor from himself. He can only be understood as a human turned agent, an agent turned tool-of-violence, with all the consequences that result from such an unnatural modification of a human being.

So we are left with some interesting questions which may or may not have answers. To what degree is the cop responsible, as a volunteer, as a moral agent, for allowing the State to turn hi m into an instrument of State violence? That is, to what degree is Lance Mead responsible for his own dehumanization? And, on the flipside of that, to what degree is Lance Mead the victim of economic forces that compel him to accept a role as a fascist enforcer, in order to feed his family.

What ultimate good and what ultimate harm can we envision for society by the creation of the Lance Meads, by the programming of enforcers who cannot imagine a world beyond the fascist police state, whose minds have been mismanaged with great skill? Do we really need them?

When I had simply read Ben Turk’s brilliant work, I was left to wonder what the monologue might sound like if the police who fired 137 shots into that car in Cleveland were to speak honestly and as openly as they are capable. What would the rambling statements sound like?

Then I had the opportunity to view a performance .

The advantage of a one-man show is that it can be performed even in the plexiglass visiting cube of a supermaximum facility’s visiting room. For the purposes of the performance by default, I became the silent “suspect” that serves as Lance Mead’s sounding board, the inexpressive “other” that provokes Mead’s rambling monologue by maintaining a continued silence.

Ben Turk does not so much portray Lance Mead as he assumes the persona; seeing this up close and personal in a visitation booth, I noted the impressive details: The tremors in his voice when upset; the shaking of his hands when opening his wallet to extract a family photo; the flaring of the nostrils, curling of the lip as if involuntary, and dilation of the pupils when he’s angry. He brings the character to life.

This cop persona has a Boston accent. It would seem all dramatic portrayals of cops present one of three dominant accents – the Brooklyn accent, the Irish brogue of Sean Connery’s beat-cop in “The Untouchables” or the more-recently fashionable Boston accent of Donny Wahlberg and Matt Damon in “The Departed.” Lance Mead’s Boston accent is consistent throughout, and allows Ben to create a separation between the character and his own interaction with his audience during intermissions. A unique feature of this performance is that, as set intervals, the action pauses for discussion of relevant issues that arise from the character’s self-justifying monologue. In this way, the play creates an interesting forum for thought provoking exchange.

The character of Lance Mead, the cop with his self-serving obfuscations, confronts us. What must we do, collectively, to bring about a world where we are no longer terrorized by these armed instruments of state violence? What response to the cop and the institutions that rely upon him is just and fair and moral to save the lives of the next Oscar Grant, the next Malice Green, the next Michael Pipkins, the next Amadou Diallo? How do we bring about a cop-free world?

Perhaps the adage holds true:

Guns don’t kill people.

Cops do.

Save lives.

Kill cops.

If so, then Ben Turk’s principle contribution here serves that cop-killing process by first killing “the cop”—the mythology, the archetype, the lie imposed on us all—that occupies our own heads.

 

That’s a great start.

Against the Legitimacy of Social Sciences

A friend recently wrote and apologized for taking so long to get back with me explaining the cause of the delay to be “psychological”and “mental health” issues. I know what that means of course. People sometimes have a sense of life being overwhelming and experience difficulties, emotional trauma and conflict. When things get bad and we have trouble coping, we understand the events as involving “psychological” and “mental health” implications.

I find myself questioning this. I find myself inquiring into the legitimacy of what we now accept as the psychological and psychiatric paradigms.

But before I proceed, some disclosure: In high school and college I studied the social sciences. My degree from Ashland, I had a concentration in psychology (they did not call it a ‘major’ then) After my degree, I studied via correspondence with the Ohio University until my G.I. bill funding expired.

In short, I’m qualified to write some pop psychology self-help book to help you adjust to swivelization and delay and delay your eventual “postal” moment, when you go bonkers and shoot co-workers,or your “road rage” response where you turn some lousy, distracted driver into a mulch for cemetery grass. I could give you advice on how to live a “well adjusted”and “mentally healthy” life. Continue reading →

Review of Keith LaMar’s Condemned.

Dear Governor Kasich,

Please find enclosed Condemned by Keith LaMar. It was sent to me nearly a month ago so that I could write a review. It took prison officials 24 days to get it to me. I received it at mail call yesterday. I had it read in under a day, and I am now sending it to you.

If you can read this, cover to cover, without tears of rage rolling down your face, you don’t have a pulse.

Last month you praised the three women who survived the brutal captivity, held for years by Ariel Castro. You spoke passionately about their courage and heroism. Read Condemned and you’ll be convinced that Keith LaMar is just as deserving of the medals you gave those three surviving women.

Some irrefutable conclusions, upon reading Condemned: Continue reading →

Anarchist Prisoner Sean Swain Smuggles Communique out of Supermax Blacksite: Confirms Prison Officials are Really Really Stupid

Blacksited

The Oppressive Department of Retribution and Corruption (ODRC) has officially blocked my communication with the outside world, completely, silencing me indefinitely. It’s totally unprecedented. I cannot even contact my mom who just got through total hip replacement surgery.

I am cut off totally from the outside world which involves the collaboration of Jpay to block all emails and freeze all funds, and tele and Global Tele link to lock me out of the phone system. I’m the target of fascist fuckweasals and multi billion dollar corporations that seek to the plug on my involvement in AshevilleFM.org “The Final Straw”radio show.

To describe this fascist, extra judicial scenario, I have to find ways to smuggle communiques out of a super maximum security facility. Fortunately, while the fuckweasels are brutal, they are not very bright. Frankly, getting this out to you was so easy, I really, I don’t feel safe with shitheads partrolling the public.

I don’t want to reveal how this got out in case I need to keep using this system- no telling how long I’ll be Blacksited, given how incredibly dangerous my own radio segments are-but once this is over,I’ll give a detailed account and we can another good round of laughter at the expense of these goof troops. Continue reading →

Sean Communication Still Restricted

We are working with Sean’s Lawyer to get to the bottom of the current communication black-out. We’ve been getting rather inconsistent information from the ODRC and from the Ohio State Highway Patrol. It seems clear that Trevor Clark is, as always, trying to justify repression of Sean by claiming that his free and protected speech is a threat. Currently Sean only has access to legal phone calls (Rick hopes to talk to him soon) and snail mail.

He is not officially on hunger strike, because he doesn’t want to get thrown in seg, but says he has been throwing his food away since April 8th. We cannot verify anything about this, because the prison officials don’t have to tell us anything about unofficial hunger strikes.

You can call ODRC Legal Services at 614-752-1765 and ask to talk to Trevor Clark and demand that the end the communication ban and let sean out of supermax isolation. Below is a message from Sean connecting the OSHP involvement back to gov Kasich.

Or you can just send Sean a letter of support.

Message from Sean:

“11th of April I am hopped up on coffee and I am not really hungry. My experience after 3 days you stay hydrated and you do not really feel hunger.

In the meantime I learned Ohio State Highway patrol is investigating. So that means it’s not just the gestapo, Gary Croft and the ODRC. My guess is that Jwow took offense to my exposure of his German Shepard and fireworks, Fetish behind the Masonic Temple. He’s got his trained chimpanzees burning up thousands of dollars of taxpayers money listening to radio broadcasts regulated By the FCC. I Am hoping they will keep me off the radio for a few weeks so Bursts can get volunteers to read the scripts I have sent.

It would be awesome if we could get Jeremy Hammond, or Marie Mason, or Eric McDavid or Mark Neiweem of the NATO 5….maybe all of the Cleveland 4 as guest presenters for the podcast. I have to imagine nothing gives me more credibility than this state repression. I am hoping they will write another ridiculous conduct report targeting the radio segments this time, or beat me half to death. If they were smart they would have killed me over a year ago. I can’t believe they let me live through what they did to me and then retain Richard Kerger, one of the most feared attorneys in Ohio and then they engage another round of repression that they do not even disguise. They will get tired of killing me before I get tired of dying.

Anyone who wants Jwow to get off my back get back to the dogs and fireworks can call him at 614-466-9354. Jwow black sites political opponents instead of wrestling them. What a fuckweasel!”

 

Sean Responds to the Anarcho-Trolls

We sent Sean comments from his recent post to @news, and he wrote this response.

 

SEAN SWAIN RESPONDS: A couple of important points that need responses. In “De Mystifying”I concluded the US would not carpet bomb its own cities, not because the government if beneficent- it isn’t I believe US pilots ordered to bomb a US city where the pilots family lives,and would be more likely to bomb the White House instead. Also,based on the fear of that being true,the government would never roll those dice .A second issue is the irrational premise that irregular warfare can only be employed by authorizing specifically. Marxist-Leninist : Spartacus led a guerrilla war against the Roman Empire, using strategies learned from the “ barbarian slaves.” It was the greatest slave revolt in history and Spartacus was not a Marxist-Leninist. Also the Shawnee organized a federation of tribes that employed strategies and tactic of guerrilla warfare with great success until the federation unraveled for reasons NOT related efficacy of their approach. Later, the Lakota defeated the US Army in 3 consecutive engagements using guerrilla strategies and tactics, something the Vietcong (who were Marxist-Leninsts) cold not do. Later still, the Chihuahua Apache waged a decades long guerrilla war against the colonizer. If you have to be an authoritarian and a Marxist-Leninist to be an effective guerrilla, clearly Tecumseh, Crazy Horse and Guantanamo never got the memo. Marx never so much as mentioned guerrilla warfare. Lenin never used it . The strategy preceded both of them.

Never forget, contrary to the official story, Lakota women killed General Custer with frying pans. Emulate them.

 

Freedom.

Sean Swain (the fucking “wingnut”who believes rifles will still fire even if its not a Marxist-Leninist pulling the trigger.)

Retaliation for getting a lawyer- CALL ODRC.

It has become clear that the ODRC is messing with Sean’s ability to communicate. This is very likely a retaliatory attempt to obstruct his ability to sue their pants off. Below find a message from him about the phone restriction. Supporters have been calling since Sunday about the Jpay email restriction. It seems both originated with Cheif Inspector Gary Croft.

We were unable to reach Gary Croft today, but hope to try again tomorrow. Sean encourages other supporters to also call Croft and demand that he return Sean’s access to these forms of communication. This morning Sean started dumping his meals down the toilet, on an unofficial hunger strike (since official hunger strikers who refuse meals are often punished).

Please call Gary Croft at 614-752-1677.

The message from Sean:

On April 6 I put Attorney Richard Kerger’s phone # on my phone list. Next attempt to call, my PIN # was suspended, locking me out of the phone system entirely. [Sean might not realize it, but the ODRC has also restricted Sean from receiving Jpay emails]. When I notified Global Tel Link, I received a response that my PIN is suspended per “operations support center, chief inspector’s office.” The chief inspector is Gary Croft. His job is to answer grievance appeals, not harass my communication. I’ve had to sue this goofball three times and while the last lawsuit was pending, he was named to the parole board to give me 5 years, then went back to chief inspector. Now, he has cut off my outside communication just when I got an attorney and can sue them successfully. The Cheif Inspector can be reached at (614) 752-1677.
I ate my last meal, dinner April 8th. I’m not hungerstriking, as I don’t want [to be] stuck in a strip cell and fucked around. But, the world knows I’m not eating and I won’t be- I’ll be flushing my food until my communication is resumed and the call I missed this past weekend is provided to me.
The more people who contact Gestapo Gary and demand he stop fuckweaseling me, the better. Please feel free to post and re-post everywhere. My concern is that the fascists, who haven’t done such a whizbang job running the prisons now want to control what you read and hear and know. Nothing they “regulating” by stopming on well-established political speech in a public forum is related in any way to a legitimate penological interest. They want to exterminate ideas, free thought.
I don’t think they’ve thought this through… But I have… So stay tuned.
Freedom or Death,

Sean Swain