The following conversations are excerpted from Full Circle: A Life in Rebellion, by 1000 voices and Ben Morea. A legendary figure best known for his role in the notorious 1960’s collectives Black Mask and Up Against the Wall Motherfucker, today Ben is a beloved elder for young radicals around the world. We created this book together as a medium for transmission, that seeks to draw insight and inspiration from Ben’s lifelong revolutionary journey and pass it on for the generations to come. Here, we discuss his reemergence after forty years of intentional obscurity, the political and spiritual practice of relating to life in the universe, and the dire necessity of animism today.
1000 voices is a publishing platform and a tool for encounter. Taking the spoken word as the basis of our publications, we work to transmit and translate conversations about people’s lives in struggle across the planet.
“…And the tribes are afraid to stand up to this nuclear monster, which is rational because it is the core of US imperialism. It’s the heart of US imperialism. And it’s a truly disturbing thought that this nuclear heart right here, that’s probably going to be the frontline of the final battle — that’s the last thing they’re going to let go of. It represents the stronghold that the US has on the world. So I think that my homelands and our sacred sites are going to be the final battle for resisting US occupation. I think there may be a moment in history where it’s going to be us having to seize that power, for the sake of making sure that we can rid the world of it.” — Jen Marley, Tewa anti-nuclear activist from San Ildefonso Pueblo
At a communal land project in the Pacific Northwest, around a fire on a spring evening, revolutionaries coming from Japan, Korea and the US meet and share stories. As the night deepens, the conversation winds from human ecologies, nuclear disaster and land defense to the politics of ritual, the materiality of animism and the need of re-enchanting the world amidst the wreckage of Euro-American Empire.
Over 500 years after the first colonists arrived to Turtle Island, after 500 years of genocide waged against the original peoples of this land, and amidst the apocalyptic culmination of an even longer war against the natural world itself, we ask: how have some traditional Kanien’kehá:ka (Mohawk) people survived to this day, and what gives them the power to keep fighting? What are the roles of culture and language in their struggle to survive as a people? For those born into settler colonial societies, inheriting their relations based on greed and destruction and the culture and language which realize those relations: could it be possible to orient towards another way, to reestablish connection with the Earth and to uphold their role as part of creation?
To find words to express your spiritual connection with the land, to people visiting from the other side of the planet, using a language they can't speak: that was the challenge posed to Masanori Naruse when we asked him to tell us about his life as a yamabushi, an ancient and famously secretive Buddhist ascetic tradition grounded in particular mountains in Japan. Thanks to several fortuitous factors — Masanori’s poetic sensibility, a friend’s impeccable interpretation and, especially, great collective enthusiasm — we were able to have this short but very sweet conversation. Stay tuned for an expanded version in the coming months…
Voices from Weelaunee Three Conversations from the Struggle to Stop Cop City ウィーラウニーからの声 アトランタの森を守る、ストップ・コップ・シティの闘いをめぐる会話 Voci da Weelaunee Conversazioni sulla lotta per difendere l'Atlanta Forest e Stop Cop City
In March 2023, during a critical moment for the struggle to stop Cop City, some of its protagonists took the time to sit down and collectively reflect on their struggle as it was unfolding. More than just analysis, these conversations convey the spirited presence of a dynamic movement which, even if it didn’t ultimately achieve its primary aim — to defend the Weelaunee Forest and prevent the construction of a mega police training complex — still was wildly successful in mobilizing thousands of people in heterogenous compositions, fighting on various fronts. Situating itself in a continuum of resistance, the Stop Cop City movement consciously drew upon both the 2016-17 defense of Standing Rock and the 2020 George Floyd uprisings, and it lives on as a point of reference for the powerful struggles against ICE and deportation emerging today.