A chat with Eric McDavid on prison, post-incarceration, hope, ice cream and more
This week we’re speaking with Eric McDavid, a recently released eco-anarchist and vegan. Eric and his two co-defendants (Lauren Weiner and Zachary Jenson) were entrapped by an FBI agent provocateur who went by the name of “Anna” and arrested for allegedly planning to blow up cell-phone towers, small dams & a lab researeching genetically modifying trees. Eric was arrested in January of 2006 during an FBI raid on the cabin that “Anna” was providing for the four.
During the court case, the government prosecutors were able to turn Zachary and Lauren against their slightly older co-defendant, Eric, with threats of spending decades of their life behind bars. So, Zachary and Lauren posed Eric as their “leader” and threw him under the bus. As a result, Eric was given a 20 year sentence for what was effectively the charge of being guilty of Thought Crime.
After years of the appeal process, Eric’s support team finally recieved documents within a FOIA that pointed to evidence they should have had during trial; evidence that could have led to a not guilty verdict at trial. Finally on January 8th 2015, Eric was released into the arms of supporters, family and loved ones in Sacramento, CA.
More on his case can be found at http://supporteric.org
We spend the hour chatting about his incarceration, experiences of support as one of the two names central to the June 11th Day of Solidarity with longterm Anarchist Prisoners alongside Marius Mason, decarceration, hope, ice cream and more.
More about this year’s June 11th at http://june11.org, including their recent call-up
A quick note. Brent Betterly of the NATO3 is slated for release from prison on April 16th of 2015, just 3 days before his birthday on the 19th. You can send him a birthday present to support his post-release life while he gets on his feet by visiting youcaring.com and searching his name.
More about the NATO3 entrapment case can be found at http://freethenato3.wordpress.com.
Read more: A chat with Eric McDavid on prison, post-incarceration, hope, ice cream and moreTranscription
TFSR: I’m pleased to speak with Eric McDavid, a formerly incarcerated green anarchist and vegan. Eric and his two co-defendants, Lauren Weiner and Zachary Jensen, were entrapped by an FBI agent provocateur who went by the name of Anna, and arrested for allegedly planning to blow up cell phone towers, small dams, and a laboratory searching genetically modified trees. Eric was arrested in January of 2006 during an FBI raid on the cabin that Anna was providing for the four. During the court case, the government prosecutors were able to turn Zachary and Lauren against their slightly older co-defendant, Eric, with threats of spending decades of their lives behind bars. So Zachary and Lauren posed Eric as their ‘leader’, and threw him under the bus. As a result, Eric was given a 20-year sentence for what was effectively the charge of being guilty of a thought crime. After years of the appeal process, Eric’s support team finally received documents from a Freedom of Information Act request (or FOIA request) that pointed to evidence they should have had during the trial. Evidence that could have led to a not-guilty verdict at the trial. Finally, on January 8th, 2015 Eric was released into the arms of supporters, family, and loved ones in Sacramento, California. Thanks a lot for chatting, Eric.
Eric McDavid: It’s my pleasure to be here.
TFSR: You’ve been described as a green anarchist. Do you accept that moniker? And what does it mean to you?
Eric McDavid: I accept it just because I define it pretty much as the perception of the environment being the largest common denominator of whatever social critique I adhere to and utilize. So, it’s basically the environment as the primary concern and orientation towards social critique.
TFSR: So sort of an eco-anarchist perspective, or do you have a critique of agriculture or industrial civilization or technology?
Eric McDavid: My understanding of anarchy comes with a full critique of culture and society, and pretty much Western culture in total, which encompasses all the different nodes and aspects within it. Basically, a lot of this stuff right after folks moved towards domestication of themselves and everything around them.
TFSR: How did you and your supporters finally get you out, and what were the conditions of your release?
Eric McDavid: How I finally got out was through the habeas [corpus] appeal. Habeas [corpus] is kind of the last-ditch appeal that you can use in the federal courts after your direct appeal to the Circuit [Court] and then to the Supreme Court. Both of those have been denied in my case, and we were on the habeas appeal when my support team, Sacramento’s Prison Support, had acquired these documents from a FOIA request, which hadn’t existed prior, allegedly.
And the funny thing is that these are just documents that point to other documents that existed at the time of trial. They were able to show that in the habeas [corpus] appeal to the magistrate judge, who was a little bent out of shape about it. I suppose more so because at about the same time I went to trial, he used to work for the US Attorney’s Office. And so he was going to be shoving a whole lot of negative energy into this case from their perspective.
We ended up getting a call, I want to say the beginning of November, end of October. Mark Vermillion, who is one of my legal team along with Ben Rosenfield, got a call from the US Attorney’s Office, and they were like: ‘Yeah, what do you want to do? Do you want to do anything? Because you’re supposed to have those things that you’re pointing out in this appeal.’ And Mark was just: ‘No, what do you want to do?’ So they came back at them with: ‘How about we just do a cut and dry, drop everything, head out the door type deal.’ And then after a hearing on the 16th of December, that’s where it was all leading towards.
TFSR: Are there any stipulations that you can’t file lawsuits against the prosecutors for withholding evidence, or are you on any sort of house arrest or anything like that?
Eric McDavid: Yeah, they always include “you can’t sue us for anything that we might have done wrong” type of stuff. And of course, they say you’re always agreeing to this, not under any type of coercion or anything like that.
TFSR: Sure, because prison doesn’t count as coercion or anything? [sarcasm]
Eric McDavid: No, totally, yeah, definitely. So, I’ve just got pretty basic unsupervised release conditions. I just have to stay within the Eastern District of California. If I want to go out, I gotta give notice to my Parole Officer (PO). You got the basic: at least three piss tests throughout the whole supervised release. I got 24 months of the supervised release, but they say if I go squeaky clean, then they’ll probably drop it after 12. Let’s see, you got random checks by the PO of your residence. Oh, I got the computer monitoring on my laptop for school, where you have to pay for that. I have to pay for that.
TFSR: What?
Eric McDavid: Yeah, yeah.
TFSR: Wow, just jabbing in the needles.
Eric McDavid: You know, they try.
TFSR: Your release by the state was basically saying: “We conducted ourselves in a poor manner during the case and withheld evidence.” Not: “This whole thing was BS, and you shouldn’t have been in there in the first place”, right?
Eric McDavid: Yeah, totally. They couldn’t even go as far as that first part that you stated, because if they had said that they would have done something wrong during the case, if they had stated that in front of the court, the court would have had to drop the charges due to the Brady infractions. Basically, the whole twist of it was around the Brady violations, where they’ve got a precedent that says everything that the US Attorney’s Office, the government has they have to turn over to the defense to be able to use as evidence, either for or against the case.
From transcript that I’m pretty sure is on the website of that January 8th hearing, it’s really self-evident how they try to jump around that and it kind of added to the whole drama of it all. But we had no idea until that last instance, what was going to happen. It was quite the roller coaster ride of just still keeping that awareness around [the fact that] I’m still gonna be [in prison] for another eight and a half years. I mean that part was always there. And you know, what do you do with that? You just keep moving from day to day, and try and keep your body healthy, keep your mind sharp and keep your mind healthy, and keep soaking in all the support that kept on coming in nonstop throughout the whole process. But still being open to the possibility and probability of walking out the door.
I actually had a friend in [FCI] Victorville who would help keep that aspect alive in me, even though there were just the showboating probabilities that came from the appeals process they had to go through. I knew they were gonna get denied, but he helped me. Every few weeks he’d hit me up. He’d be like: “Hey, if you had to leave tomorrow, would you have everything all lined up? Are you ready to go? Okay, now the situation changes. Here’s a different situation. You’re getting out, how would you have to change your mindset and what your process would be to get out, and what would you have to handle on the outside? And how would you do that?” That person really, really helped build a good foundation to help keep my brain sharp, my mind sharp and my heart open to other options and different probabilities.
TFSR: Sounds like a really good friend.
Eric McDavid: Definitely.
TFSR: For people in the audience who haven’t experienced prison or jail or what have you, can you talk a little bit about what was your experience of relationships with other prisoners while on the inside? Did you have to deal with gangs and sectarianism and such a lot?
Eric McDavid: Yeah, definitely. I mean, for me, it was part and parcel throughout the whole run. And the thing is that in the federal prison system, it’s not nearly as intense and heavy as it is in the state systems. So those folks that are going through that part of the prison industrial complex, they’ve got to deal with a lot heavier stuff than I do or I did. There was definitely dealing with gangs and everything. Starting at Victorville, which was a medium-security prison. If you mess up at some other medium or a low [security prison] really bad, you get in a real big fight, they send people to Victorville for extra punishment.
TFSR: Just because it was so much harder to keep your head down at Victorville? Or just get by, sort of like: ”Well, you screwed up. Let’s set you up to fail” type of thing? Or was it that the guards were more harsh? Or what?
Eric McDavid: The whole system at Victorville was a little bit more harsh than other medium yards. That’s what it was. It was a disciplinary yard. It’s out in the middle of the desert, on top of everything, and it was a part of a complex. So there are two medium yards, the penitentiary, which is one of the highest security [prisons] in the system. And then there was a camp for female folks.
The intensity at Victorville was a little bit higher than the usual medium yard. For one, because they had a bunch of folks coming down from the pen that was right next door, so they had a high population of folks that had been dealing with that intensity for 5-10 years on the yard. And then just a lot of folks that are there for what they call disciplinary action. So there are less resources, he cops are more assholes, the administration is worse. There’s just not that much to do there for folks so far as resources or whatnot. And so with all of that as a foundation, it creates a lot of stressful environment for everybody within.
I think a couple of weeks after I got there, there was a lockdown for a week after two groups, two gangs got into it. And then six months after I got there, there was a 45-minute riot in the yard, after which we were locked down for a month and a half to two months. So it was a pretty active yard, and there was definitely that type of politics going on with gangs.
For me personally, the way that I danced with it all, I found that so long as I did my program, so long as I kept my own program, my own routine, and just did the same thing pretty much every day, that creates a structure for other people to go off of. So as far as they can see and know what you’re doing throughout the day, and they know that you’re not going to mess with their routine and their program, that creates a bit of security for them, because they get so dependent upon those types of patterns. Just to make the days roll into weeks, into months, into years, because that’s what they have left to do.
That type of relationship to your own routine and pattern is really highly respected because they know that you’re not just some random cannon that might go off in their face and fuck up their program, and then they have to go to the shoe, or they might have to stab you because you’re fucking up in their situation and bringing heat onto them, or any number of things. And so I saw how just having my daily routine and keeping to myself, and even hooking up with some other folks on similar routines, no matter who or what kind of groups there were, they just respected me being independent and doing stuff on my own.
TFSR: It seems like a lot of what you’re talking about is obviously very stressful. I would call prisons a very stressful situation, from what I understand. Some prison reformists and prison abolitionists have pointed to the high percentages of mental health issues of people going in and also exacerbation of mental health issues of people that are inside because of the conditions that are there and the lack of treatment. Is that something that you can comment on, from what you’ve experienced inside?
Eric McDavid: Yeah, that is prolific throughout my entire experience. Especially at the last place I was at, which was a medical yard, it was definitely prolific, and there’s no two ways about it there. They had a whole bunch of folks that were so traumatized by the experience of prison on top of their prior traumas experienced throughout life that there was no question that the added stressors and structure of prison did nothing but further debilitate [them]. I mean, regardless of whatever type of help they said that they were trying to do via groups or therapy, most of the time it was just over medication and the therapist trying to just get people through their program so that they could get recognition for fulfilling program requirements and keep numbers high in their classes to keep on getting paid for their job that they weren’t doing. Basically, classic bureaucracy.
TFSR: Can you talk about what your experience of support coming from the outside has been and if and how it changed with the resurrection of June 11th as the Day of Solidarity with Long-term Anarchist Prisoners, including you and Marius Mason?
Eric McDavid: Yeah, the resurrection. Where does that come from? Did it go away for a while? Was I gone during that?
TFSR: I mean, I feel like after Jeffrey Lures was released, because [solidarity with him] was the original point of that [day], and then he said: ‘Okay, let’s reassign it to long-term eco and anarchist prisoners.’ And you and Marius were the top two names for that. So I guess maybe the re-emergence or rebirth, or Phoenix rising from the flames, I don’t know.
Eric McDavid: [laughs wholeheartedly] Okay.
TFSR: [in funny voice] Easter egg!
Eric McDavid: For real, for real, I don’t know if it’s just my memories faded up for so long, but it feels like every June 11th I’d get this huge batch of letters, and that would only trail off maybe come August, or September, would it start to dissipate. And pretty darn sure, when I’d gotten to prison, that was when I definitely remember that for certain. And I know you could talk to folks at SPS [Sacramento Prisoner Support] about this, and they’d have a better relationship to it all, because they had more of a hands-on so far as fundraising and direct interaction with other groups, especially around J11. I mean, every June 11th, I remember Jenny from SPS talking about how those funds that were generated on June 11th were what….. [Sorry, the dog is just whining at the door right now.]
TFSR: [Oh, I can hear that, poor dog]
Eric McDavid: [Sasha, come here, come, come.] So whenever June 11th came around, those funds that were generated and given at that time were pretty much what paid for her to be able to come and see me throughout the whole year. They weaned off about June, and then the next June 11th will come, and then those funds would fill right back up. So, yeah, the support that came from that was phenomenal and continuous from my experience of the whole bit.
TFSR: Good. Petey, Jenny and the other folks involved in Sacramento Prisoner Support, SPS, do a phenomenal job of organizing, from my experience at least. I guess maybe you don’t have any views or critiques of how prisoner support goes in the US, from your experience, because you’ve had a good crew working on your side.
Eric McDavid: Are you posing a question? [laughs]
TFSR: Yes, or maybe you do. You can’t see me winking at you.
Eric McDavid: [laughs harder] Darn it, the video link, is not working.
TFSR: Do you, in fact, have a critique?
Eric McDavid: [laughs some more] The most basic stuff is the most important so far as prisoner support goes, from what I experienced of it. If there are differences of opinion within the support group, they would always contact me directly and have a conversation about it. And then it’d be like: ‘Okay, so this is where we’re at with it. How do you feel about it? We see these two different things, or four different things, or eight different things. Can you respond about this right now? Or would you like to take time to think about it and then come back and hit me up?’ I mean, for real for real, it was all just the basis of healthy communication patterns being utilized within the group, including me as well. So as long as that stuff was happening throughout the whole experience, that’s how I felt like, especially with SPS. That was one of the main things that held everything together, and the most effective and efficient way of just making sure everything was covered, because we talked about everything in an open way. And so after you get that covered, then everything else just kind of falls into place. It’s like a Tetris game that you don’t have to turn the pieces on because you have the right foundation already set up.
TFSR: Prefigurative anarchist praxis. [in funny voice] What! Weeee! Cool, good to hear.
How do you feel about the term political prisoner?
Eric McDavid: There are a couple of things on that. I mean, for real for real, when you’ve got the long indictment with 15 uses of the word ‘anarchy’, or ‘anarchism’ in it, and it’s not a terribly long indictment, actually, so that word is used at least every other page, then you have to think that there’s a little bit of a political influence, happenstance, maybe something happening in the indictment. And so there’s that.
TFSR: I detect sarcasm.
Eric McDavid: [laughs] No, no, no. I said a very true statement. There’s nothing sarcastic whatsoever. And then there’s also the utilization of “how is that different from folks that are politically influenced from a second-hand aspect?”. Where they’re brought up in such economically deprived and neglected (or not neglected, because that actually means something else), so definitely economically consciously deprived areas and regions, where their option is to move outside of the legal system, which is politically in place as well… And so when those folks are put in prison, how is that not… how can that be differentiated from a political frame of reference as well?
I guess it just all depends on your definition of “political prisoner”, so far as what type of framing we’re trying to use to discuss. So how do I feel about the “political prisoner” term? I mean, I don’t have any problem with it. It feels valid from a basic sense. And then you can kind of go for “prisoner of war” too because it’s just internal [logic]; there’s that easy translation between the two. Yeah, it’s kind of there. I don’t really trip on it.
TFSR: While on the inside already, having been convicted, how did your beliefs and your desire to live in a certain way, for instance, like your political beliefs around veganism or your anarchism, how did those things affect the way that you were treated by your jailers and also by the folks around you?
Eric McDavid: By the folks around me. I mean, for most of the time, it was just like: ‘What do you eat? How do you eat? If you don’t eat meat, what do you eat?’ And it’s just like: “Well, I don’t know, I eat beans and legumes and rice and fruit and nuts and vegetables,” and [I would] go off with that whole array of things. And they just go: “Man, I don’t know how you do that.” Because, I mean, I’d have to eat the soy during chow [mealtime], and everybody’s just like: “Uuuggghhh, soy… yadda yadda yadda”. Actually, I helped out the cooks to make the stuff taste pretty good at the last spot I was at. But every time they came at me with: “Oh, what do you eat? How do you eat that? Uughh, that stuff’s nasty.” I was just kind of like: “Man, I didn’t come here for the food.”
TFSR: Good point
Eric McDavid: ‘I did not come to prison for the food. So, you know what? For real, for real. I have to look at it like this right now. I’m just feeding a machine, and I need these certain things, these certain aspects covered to keep my body going, what are you gonna do?
And then you also had folks with perspectives on anarchism, having no clue or idea of anything other than just “total random chaos” and stuff like that. And so [I was] trying to sit down with folks sometimes, and just being able to iterate some very basic concepts and ideas in ways that folks could receive it. And every time I did that, I mean, folks would just kind of go ahead: “Well, yeah, I can’t really argue with that.” There were people there that are interested in conversation, and that’s always there. And the cops, most of the time, you just go: “You know what? You got access to my file. Go and read my file. I’m not going to talk to you. I don’t need to talk to you. You don’t need to talk to me. I don’t care how bored you are. If you’re really bored, go and talk to the file.”
TFSR: I seem to recall a few times of you going on hunger strike because you were being denied vegan food. Was that just based on the facilities that you were in? I understand state facilities, for instance, where I think you may have been held initially. I may be totally wrong, and call me out on it, please. I’ve heard that folks that are in state prisons and especially county jails, usually have a lot of difficulty getting hold of vegan food and getting hold of supplements and let alone being able to pay for stuff through commissary if you have to buy it separately. But can you talk about the difficulties that you’ve faced on the inside and what came of those in terms of getting a hold of a more healthful vegan diet?
Eric McDavid: Yeah, the county was the worst, definitely. That was where I had to do those two hunger strikes. Once I got to federal prison, actually one of the first spots that I got to at Victorville, they had a tray of vegetables and peanut butter sitting there waiting for me, before I’d even gotten off the bus. That was nice that I didn’t have to deal with that once I got into the federal prison. But yeah, in counties they’re so focused on the money tunnel that they’ve got going that any deviation from this script is fought tooth and nail.
TFSR: Just another stop on the road towards dehumanization, I guess.
Eric McDavid: Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, you got dehumanization on so many levels in this culture, it’s amazing. It just manifests itself in the militarization of the police as well, and even with the way folks interact with the jailers. All of the folks that were in prison with me or in the county jail with me were always [shouting]: “Hey CO, hey CO”, calling them CO – correctional officer. I don’t know if this is universal across America, but in Sacramento County, the sheriff’s office runs the county jail. The deputies have to do two years of work in the county jail before they can go out on the street. And so that’s part of their process of ensuring the dehumanization of ‘the other’ from within the indoctrination of the people that become no longer people, but deputies.
And all the folks that are there in the cells, people that have been within the system for a while when interacting with cops [shout]: “Ay, CO, ay, CO, ay, CO!”. And so I was like: “You know what: Hey, deputy. You’re not a correctional officer, you’re a deputy. I’m gonna call you a deputy.” And some of them got pissed about it. Some of them got livid about me calling them a deputy. I mean, it was just something to knock them off of their center. Maybe it was just so that I wasn’t going to play into that dehumanization, just to get them out of that frame of reference of just being that screw. So if you’re constantly referred to as a screw and somebody calls you a nut, you’re going to react differently.
TFSR: Or both [laughs]. In relation to the increased dialog around the prison industrial complex in the mainstream, I have recently become aware that political support around prisoner issues has started engaging more actively and in the more mainstream with post-release support for the formerly incarcerated. Eric, in your experience, what sort of things should the audience members understand about the psychological effects of incarceration and post-incarceration? What sorts of things are we doing right, and what could we be doing better?
Eric McDavid: This is a really good question. So, for real, for real, right at the gate, the support that I’ve been getting is still breathtaking. I mean how it comes in, on a personal level and through different mediums, it seriously knocks me off my feet continuously. So for me personally, the types and the amount of support that I’ve been getting have just been phenomenal. Maybe after a while, I’ll be able to find a critique for it, but right now, it’s just so overwhelmingly beautiful that it’s hard to conceive of critiquing it. I don’t know. Maybe it’s just kind of like one of those things, when you’re in the box, it’s hard to see what’s on the outside of the box.
TFSR: Yeah, that makes sense.
Eric McDavid: Does that make sense? Maybe it’s just one of those things with that.
TFSR: You’re getting good support and you’re amazed about it. But what sort of things have you felt that you’ve needed support about? Especially those things that could be… not universalized, but you know, the same sort of things that people who are looking to support and folks who are getting out in general look for. For instance, Brent Betterly of the NATO 3 is scheduled for release coming up. (In any case, more information on that at freethenato3.wordpress.com.) Whether or not someone’s a political prisoner or in for political reasons, and getting support in that way, this is the most carceral state in the world. So many people go in or are in one stage [of imprisonment] or another, especially among marginalized and racialized communities and classes. What sort of things have you had to deal with that you think are kind of universal, that we should be thinking about with our community members, our comrades and our family members?
Eric McDavid: That’s a good way of putting that. The biggest thing is dealing with the bureaucracies right when you come out. Getting a driver’s license again, if you have to deal with getting a car, all the stuff that comes with that. Getting a job or getting back into school because for fed [federal] you have to either go to school full time, or you have to work full time, or do half and half. And, so, dealing with those types of bureaucracies and all that comes with it. Some people do not want to mess with that shit, and it’s really difficult for them. Especially with all the PTSD that comes with getting out and coming out of the shock of the different social realms, the transition between them.
So maybe checking in with people that just get out and say: “So what is it? Do you need any help with dealing with this bureaucracy or that bureaucracy, or getting food stamps, or getting into financial aid for school?” A lot of that stuff could be a great space to help folks out. Over the last nine years, I have just been dealing with bureaucracies so damn much that it’s like second nature for me now. So, I know how to deal with that in a healthy way for me, and it ends up being really efficient. Just really efficient, there’s nothing pleasurable about dealing with bureaucracies. That could be one of the huge stressors, a major stressor for folks just coming out.
The monetary stuff is always there too. Any type of buffer for folks just coming out is always monumental. I got that box of vegan sausages that I’ve only made a third of the way through. I got that a week and a half after I got out. Maybe it may be that long, it’s not the next week, so that’s okay. So now I don’t have to worry about purchasing protein for the next six months, and that is a huge load off in my mind. One less thing I have to worry about. And then folks sending me a letter that had two stamps in it, that’s just sweet. And now I have a stamp to write you back and say: ‘Thank you, and how are you doing, and what’s up, and what do you get going on?’ And I also have a stamp for someone else who sent me a letter, and that’s one less thing I have to worry about. A lot of this stuff may feel really small, but it ends up being monumental in the end. Even the incremental, small things that we support folks with.
TFSR: Are there any culture shocks that you care to share, good or bad, that you’ve had since your release? Not in terms of what you just referred to, like post-incarceration PTSD, but more like, for instance: have the vegan sausages gotten better?
Eric McDavid: [laughs] Yes, they’ve gotten better! The vegan sausages have become phenomenal. And there’s one thing that keeps hope in my heart for the human race. And I have a very contentious and very narrow definition of hope, by the way. There is still hope when humans can make vegan ice cream that tastes this good. What is impossible? Seriously. There’s nothing impossible after that.
TFSR: [laughs] Is it the nut-based ones?
Eric McDavid: It’s every single kind I’ve tried so far. They’re just phenomenal.
TFSR: Good. I mean, I’m glad, but I’ll bite since you said it’s contentious and such. Are there elements other than the vegan ice cream that you would like to talk about in terms of hope? What does hope mean to you? You can pass this if you want.
Eric McDavid: No, definitely. No, I love this one. And I have to give credit to it because the person that worded it the most beautiful way possible is the person that wrote the Doris magazines.
TFSR: Cindy Crabb, right?
Eric McDavid: Yes, thank you. And she talks about hope in this… oh-so-beautiful way! She words it so much better than I ever could. Saying that hope isn’t this thing for me where I place all my energy and just kind of allow that to do whatever it is I hope to do or to accomplish. It’s not anything near that. It’s more like the feeling of a crush, of having a crush on something. There’s this idea and there’s this outpouring that just comes from everything around me and within me all at the same time. Towards this idea and towards this beautiful thing that I’ve just so deeply fallen lustfully in love with, and just can almost touch it.
TFSR: And what happens without hope, do you think?
Eric McDavid: Without hope?
TFSR: When you lose hope?
Eric McDavid: Oh, yeah, no, don’t do that. You just don’t do that. That one’s not fun, because that’s a downward spiral that leads to a whole bunch of toxicity and trauma and self trauma especially.
TFSR: But I mean finding that there’s hope, and then just shifting the object of that hope from one to another seems kind of unhealthy, too. In terms of not allowing yourself to feel like a roller coaster and also be actively engaged in what the next taste sensation is, or whatever… You know what I mean?
Eric McDavid: Yeah, no, I hear that. I didn’t say that the crush was without heartbreak. Yeah, no, there’s definitely a balance there.
TFSR: But you’re just not cutting yourself off to it.
Eric McDavid: Exactly. There’s always the possibility of heartbreak, and that’s what always helps create that extra little dangerousness.
TFSR: It makes it worthwhile.
Eric McDavid: Definitely.
TFSR: Do you have any observations, just generally, on the anarchist scene upon release that are kind of a surprise? Where it’s at in North America or worldwide, or in your community? As far as what the discussions are, or levels of activity, or talking to people who are maybe going through the continued post-Occupy depression, or whatever?
Eric McDavid: [laughs frantically] Don’t put all your bags in one basket.
TFSR: I like that.
Eric McDavid: Don’t ever do that. Always leave an opening. Let go of that stuff. For real, for real. It’s done, in the past, and once we let go of something, we can open our hands once more, and find something else to play with. So why would you hold on to something that’s not there anymore, anyway? I know it’s sad, and we can grieve. But I mean, seriously: let it go, let it die, learn from it, and then we can put our hands on something else and something new and something now instead of what was in the past.
TFSR: I mean, I’m still burned from the anti-war movement, so…
Eric McDavid: You and me both [laughs]. That’s what opened my gates and so I’ve still got grief from that leftover, definitely. But it’s blossomed and developed into a new thing, and then it’s definitely not what it used to be for me any longer. But seeing stuff, for real, for real, I’ve been just galloping in a little bit and getting a little bit more and more into stuff, but not terribly fast. I’ve got school and everything. But I’ll tell you what, I’m going to the Anarchist Book Fair in San Francisco on the 25th. I’m sure that there will be more than something after that.
Oh, you know what, there was one little thing. There was one thing about drama within the milieu. And how it’s just [makes a funny voice]: ”Oh God, more drama about this, drama over here, about this.” And I kind of almost wanted to reframe the idea of drama. In so far as how I was hearing people talk about it and hearing the relationship to it. Especially, for real, for real, us humans are just full of drama. I mean there’s no way to escape it, there’s no way to get around it, and there’s no way to avoid it. We’re dramatic individuals and groups. I mean mostly because we have really dramatic ideas and really passionate ideas, and so that type of energy is bound to manifest within our relationships. And I just would really like to maybe put out there an idea, regardless of how much drama we create and inadvertently… that [we should be] trying to move with a consciousness about how we communicate to each other and ourselves, and how we relate to ourselves, with types of communication. I think for the drama part, which is never going to go away, I think we could actually just get better at being dramatic.
TFSR: Think of a community of dramaturges, you know. [makes exaggerated voice] Thespians everywhere! In the streets! Yeah.
Eric McDavid: Now, see, you can’t put a limitation on that type of potential.
TFSR: Okay, okay. [both laugh]
To that last question that I was going to ask: on a more personal note, on the tongues of many anarchists in the US since your case has begun, was the example of Anna. She’s been described in support literature as a college student, who, for a paper, infiltrated anarchist groups like Food Not Bombs and the black blocks during the FTAA protests in Miami in 2003. An FBI agent enrolled in the same community college course as her, heard about her activities and engaged her with the FBI, leading to her meeting you, Zachary, and Lauren after attending CrimethInc and other gatherings around the country and embedding herself into anarchist scenes. It’s assumed by many that she’s been placed into protective custody by the FBI and possibly furnished with a new identity. Do you have any observations you’d like to make about that or any words you’d like to broadcast to her or others who may take the same sort of path in their lives?
Eric McDavid: Not really, for real for real. I couldn’t see anybody who’d want to take that path really listening to your program, for real for real. So that part feels a little irrelevant. But words to her, definitely not. She gets to live her life however the devil she wants to, and so long as it’s away from me in as many ways as possible, there’s no problem on my end whatsoever.
TFSR: Was there anything that we didn’t talk about that you’d want to?
Eric McDavid: Good question.
TFSR: Snuck that one in.
Eric McDavid: One aspect of the use of entrapment within the legal system isn’t something that’s out of the norm or an oddity or just some random happenstance. Throughout my whole bid, there was nothing but that: “Damn you got just like I did! You got to hit just like I did!” Over and over and over again. “Oh, your sounds just like mine, but is a little bit different on this.” It’s prolific within the so-called legal system. My case is definitely not special in any type of way regarding that aspect. Entrapment is used prolifically throughout the whole system.
TFSR: Do you have any words for listeners, especially young folks coming up who may not have learned lessons that many of us have learned at least being around for a bunch of years? Folks are passionate and just how to be safe or how to be safer?
Eric McDavid: Yeah: read history. Now I know that that can be a hard thing to hear, but our history is really important for us to know on a very intimate level, because it’s not even our history, it’s our story. All of our different stories have a really profound, intimate impact on our lives that we live today. The greater understanding that I would have had back then of our stories, the more of a foundation I would have had to be able to look at what was going on around me at that time and to be able to orientate it and put it in a correct frame of reference. Instead of just being able to throw it off as: “Oh, yeah, it’s just that. That’s just that, that’s just whatever. I’m just tripping out.” If that makes sense.
TFSR: So since that question was posed the agency to younger people who are just coming up and learning stuff, or people who are new. What do you have to say to folks who have been around for a while in terms of fostering those relationships with younger folks and folks who are coming up, and who are asking them questions? What do we do? Do we point them to the history? Do we just sit down and have the long conversations and see what they want to know, and then do our best to say “Oh, yeah, I know a little bit about this. Here’s my thoughts.” How do we foster as… I know it’s gonna sound funny, and I’m not 40 yet.
Eric McDavid: [laughs hard] Were you going to use the word ‘elder’?
TFSR: Yes, I was! [both laugh frantically]
Eric McDavid: [with emphasis] Oh! I don’t know. I’m still debating on whether that’s an ageist term or not.
TFSR: Ageist as in negative to the people who are considered elders or agist to everyone else who’s not considered an elder?
Eric McDavid: [laughs some more] Yes.
TFSR: “Yes.” Good answer.
Eric McDavid: I like you, Bursts.
TFSR: I like you too, Eric.
Eric McDavid: Of course, there’s no rote way to do this, and it’s all going to be totally organic and created out of each individual situation. But maybe a basic orientation to the situations that may arise could be of course being aware of healthy communication and styles of communication. And not being in the mindset that someone who may appear younger or who wants to talk about this type of stuff is fragile in any way. So that you’re not going to scare them off if you’re talking about something heavy, and they’re not going to be ruined after you have this type of conversation with them.
TFSR: I’ve made the mistake of having conversations with folks… There was a conspiracy trial that happened in this town after May Day in 2010. And you know, parts of this community have been sort of shattered, and folks who have been around for a while, especially the folks that did support, or lived with the co-defendants of the actual 11, [were] just super paranoid about everything. “If we hear anything, we just shut it down. Don’t even talk about that. What are you doing? Are you insane? Are you a cop? Dadidadada.” Which is not helpful and not realistic either. It gives so much power or assumption of power to the state and omnipotence and stuff like that. But I guess just having real conversations and just listening to where people are at, I guess?
Eric McDavid: Yeah, and being honest with where you’re at, too, with everything. If you don’t feel comfortable talking about something with someone, then definitely don’t do that, but don’t shit on them in the process, because you’re not comfortable. Does that make sense?
TFSR: Yeah, totally.
Eric McDavid: Yeah. And I mean the more we become aware and familiar with all these COINTELPRO practices that have continued to this day and will continue for a while, the more we familiarize ourselves with it and how they’re used, the more comfortable we get with how to deal with it. And so, like you said, by not dealing with it and by totally shutting down, we definitely provide the state with exactly what they are trying to do and accomplish. There has to be some medium and some comfort zone within the conveyance of trying to articulate these types of ideas in healthy ways.
TFSR: Just to jump back a little bit to when I was talking about post-release: Brent Betterly is going to be released on April 16th, and his birthday is on the 19th. So…
Eric McDavid: Holy mackerel!
TFSR: I know, it’s great.
Eric McDavid: That’s awesome.
TFSR: Thank you so much for having a chat, Eric.
