The park was full, and no cops dared to show, although they and other agents were probably there undercover. Joints were being passed around, and we got high. Smoking grass back then had an innocence to it that it hasn't had since. Cannabis helped us to abandon the death world we saw around us and resurrect our child-selves. Stoned people were learning to play again, singing, blowing giant iridescent soap bubbles, juggling pine cones, tossing Frisbees back and forth. But under it seethed a mood of defiance and rebellion. A statement in Ramparts magazine summed up our feelings: "Alienation is when your country is at war and you want the other side to win." But I would have spelled it a-lie-nation. A group of conga drummers were playing, and their furious, insistent beat seemed to herald a rising tidal wave of protest that would sweep the militarists out of power.
We didn't realize it at the time, but this wasn't the beginning of the wave but its crest, and in the next years it would dwindle down. But this was better than no wave at all. It didn't sink the ship of state, but it did slosh over the deck. And now a new one is rising that may go even higher.
The events of the day bonded Trucker and me as friends, and although our lives took different directions after that, we stayed in touch. Years ago he went totally underground, changing his identity and location, and since then all I've had for him is a webmail address, through which we held the following interview.
Hathaway: Why don't you start by telling us why you became a saboteur.
Trucker: Well, like Jerry Garcia said, "What a long, strange trip it's been." After you went back to New York I joined an anarchist affinity group, and we worked with the Weather Underground to move demos in the direction of revolt -- trashing the headquarters of war corporations, barricading the entrance to the Oakland Army Terminal, throwing rocks at the cops. By then the fuzz had refined their tactics and had special squads that would target the activists, rush into the crowd and grab the hard-cores. They clubbed me, kicked me, punched me, then charged me with assaulting a police officer. I did four months in the Alameda County Jail. Later I found out our group had been infiltrated. One guy who was always pushing us to be more violent was actually an agent. He gave them all our plans, even photos of us he'd made with a hidden camera.
After that I gave up on groups and since then have focused on individual guerrilla insurrection, autonome actions, monkeywrenching the machine. Especially now with the Patriot Act, that's become the safest way to work. There's a good book, Leaderless Resistance , on how to organize that without getting smashed. You can't totally prevent being infiltrated, but you can prevent the agents from knowing much.
Hathaway : I remember back then you were complaining about all the infiltration, and I thought you were paranoid, but it turned out you were right.
Trucker: Yeah, the government took our threat very seriously and did everything they could to smash us. But they couldn't.
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