IWW Olympia Branch
Train Riding Subcommittee
Special Black Hills Reportback pt. 6
Fellow worker! Do you hear that? A billion voices joined in song? Solidarity forever and ever. The biggest union. So big, so beautiful. DO YOU SEE IT FELLOW WORKER? The World Wide General Strike. Our motherfucking future. Don’t doubt it. Or do. Either way, here’s another Black Hills Special Reportback from the Train Riding Subcommittee.
“So that’s what you guys are doing out there, huh.”
“Pretty much.”
I’m sitting with a broken leg on the couch in my friend’s apartment.
“Good thing I found you.”
“Yeah.”
I was laying in the road when he picked me up.
“Well, I don’t know about all this sitting around. Let’s go downtown.”
I climb down the stairs one step at a time and we get in the van to go to downtown Rapid City. If you could build a town out of dirty wire and racism you’d have Rapid City, fellow worker. A dystopian post-wild west place where people sell and wear T-shirts that say things like ISIS Hunting Permit. If you’re a native american living there, you know not to walk around at night.
And if you’re a white wobbly from Washington out there to help the native american cause then those same goons who stabbed your friends radiator are gonna loosen some screws on your motorcycle. This means, fellow worker, that when I used the front brake the front wheel shot out to one side and the bike fell on my leg.
At first I thought it was my fault for not changing the tires, but after I looked at it I was sure it was sabotaged. Attempted murder.
Luckily I wasn’t going very fast at the time. And I was on a back road by myself. Also lucky was that half an hour behind me was a van full of people coming to camp. If it hadn’t been for them I would have had to crawl.
They took me to the emergency room in Rapid City. While I was being set up to get a splint I got shaken down by security because apparently I was bristling with weapons. They kept finding more knives and getting more upset that I didn’t tell them I had them on me.
They gave me a receipt so I could pick up all my ‘weapons’ when I left.
The nurses kept offering me pain meds, but I didn’t want their dirty opioids so I refused. I was in so much pain that night. What a moron I am. I stayed up all night getting tortured by invisible knives. In the morning I took all the pills I could find.
We went to Walmart to fill my prescription for pain meds and I fell on the pavement outside the entrance. Laying on the pavement in hospital scrubs in front of a Walmart. It was a new low. Liberating in a big way. Never had I been so fucked. Riding around in the motorized shopping cart I made ornery anticapitalist remarks, philosophical announcements, everything I received in my mind I yelled back across the store. And my mind was full of pain.
It was about time for me to exit this story. My friends were on their way to take me to Minneapolis where I could rest and heal.
Kiki had come into town to help take care of me. I needed help doing everything. It was hard to accept at first. But it was nice to have more time with Kiki.
Bye and bye my friends came to take me offstage concluding my part in this drama. I actually hobbled a mile and a half through the mountains on my crutches to spend one more day at camp. I can’t imagine living anywhere more beautiful again, but seeing as National Parks are being opened up for mining across this grotesque nation, I might get another chance.
One last observation, fellow worker, before I conclude this special reportback. Being on crutches has given me a new perspective on public life. I have been realizing in high detail just how much my appearance completely changes how strangers treat me. From being a train rider to being a motorcyclist was a definite change, people treated me much better. But being on crutches takes the cake. People have never treated me better.
People also give me the weirdest looks. Over the course of having this injury I have become hyper observant to people’s body language and facial muscles. I have started noticing that there is no way to not interact with someone.
I had conceived of public situation as one in which all parties are comfortably alienated and anonymous to one another. But now I can see the energy bouncing between people as they walk around the grocery store. How a man my age might approach with his eyes downcast, then raise them as we cross paths in preparation for some kind of invisible dominance contest, only to sigh with relief as he realizes that I am wounded and therefore not a threat. This all happens in half a moment and is hard to describe. I’m still learning more about it, but it is clear that hierarchical behavior is part of this invisible world of strangers bumping into one another.
All in all fellow worker, I have learned a little more on the long road of knowledge. The world keeps getting worse, and it will continue to do so as long as we don’t stop it. Our enemy is adapting. They have already moved to the post-standing rock mindset. We are adapting too. We have new technology for composting human shit, which is a real game changer. We have new demographics of revolutionaries working together that had been previously isolated.
Most of all we can’t let them scare us, fellow worker. Our enemy relies on fear as a mind control technique. Fear is nothing special. It’s just like getting aroused in an unpleasant way. Certain stimuli get your body to secrete certain hormones. Seize the means of hormone production! Your endocrine system should work for you and not the enemy! It’s a tall order, of course. How does one control one’s own neurotransmitters?
I’ll leave speculation on this topic for another time, fellow worker. I hope you enjoyed hearing about all this trouble and as always I hope your projects are going well and I hope you are helping your comrades and fellow workers!
Fuck the police,
Gonzo Wobbly
