FRAC April 2003 Conference Summary

By External Communications Committee
6/13/03

On April 5th and 6th 2003, the Federation of Revolutionary Anarchist Collectives (FRAC) held its second biannual conference in Chicago. In attendance were FRAC member collectives BRICK (Chicago, Illinois), Burning River (Cleveland, Ohio), and Nightvision (Lansing, Michigan). Also participating in the conference were members of the Mutual Aid Society (Detroit, Michigan), and members of a collective that is currently being formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Members of the Ruckus Collective (Phoenix, Arizona) observed the conference.

At the conference a number of proposals were discussed and voted on. A new Webmaster position was established to update and maintain a FRAC website which is located at http:///www.frac.ws. FRAC dues were lowered from 2% to 1% of income per month per member and members with dependents (such as children) will now pay half that amount.

Political discussion at the conference mostly focused on the Tasks and Perspectives documents authored by each FRAC collective. These documents were written to give an overview of what each collective felt were important political, economic, social, cultural developments internationally, regionally, and locally, and what projects, organizing and action, we as FRAC need to take up in light of these developments, with the goal of building a revolutionary anarchist movement.

FRAC voted to contribute money to a delegation from BRICK to attend the 1st General Assembly of the Consejo Indígena Popular de Oaxaca "Ricardo Flores Magón" and establish ties with the anarchists of the CIPO-RFM. The conference was on April 10-13, 2003 in held in the community of San Isidro Aloapam, Ixtlan, Oaxaca, Mexico.

A publications committee was established to coordinate a poster series and a yearly CD. The yearly CD will contain music playable on any CD player but will also have computer resources such as flyers, graphics, protest material, and video that focus on the theme of occupation. The poster series will be published quarterly and like the first FRAC poster “No to Capitalist War, Yes to Anarchist Revolution!” the text will be in at least English and Spanish.

Plans were made to initiate an anti-authoritarian anti-war conference at Kent State University, Ohio on May 3rd and participate in a regional day of action against the war on May 4th. Four student demonstrators were killed at Kent State on May 4, 1970 when a unit of the Ohio National Guard opened fire on a demonstration against the US war in Vietnam and the invasion of Cambodia, killing the four and wounding 9 others. The week of the event the Kent State Administration canceled permits, for the “Throwing a Wrench in the War Machine” conference and the Kent State Anti-War Committee’s rally, citing a potential for violence. The conference was moved to a nearby church with around 75 people participating. The May 4th action drew several hundred people who rallied on campus despite the cancellation of permits and took to the streets of Kent in a march, which was brutally attacked by hundreds of riot cops who arrested fourteen people.

Federation of Revolutionary Anarchist Collectives
External Communications Committee