We would like to take this time to introduce ourselves. Our names are Fox, Raccoon, Possum, Frog, and Annie, the May Queen, the Anaculture Druid, Maiden, the Goddess of Spring, flower bride, Queen of the Faeries, and the Lady of the Flowers, and we are here to tell you stories. Stories of incredible depth of emotion, the highest highs and the lowest lows. Stories we hope you’ve never heard before and wouldn’t find elsewhere. So grab a pillow or a stump and light that fire in your heart, take care and listen while we tell you who we are and why were here. Our stories are the first we will tell, but we will certainly bring you more in time. As we build this project we want to hear from you, our audience. We want to hear your story, we want to tell your story, whatever it may be. It’s importance isn’t merely sentimental, the act of storytelling is communal and instructive. You can never know what someone may take from it. We will never know what you take from these stories, but we hope you take something you can use, something that makes you able to expend the strength you need to and accept the weakness we all need.
Fox found their way to our collective through the music of the struggle, being musical from a young age. Always drumming on everything they provide the heartbeat of our radical core. They raged against machine after machine all through school and young adulthood. After experiencing the brutality of the police firsthand in Oakland, CA during the occupy years, they were radicalized and on a path of learning leftist politics and history like never before. Since fox is neurodivergent its hard for them to read the theory that a young anarchist might be inclined to read, but luckily the magic of the internet was able to bring them into contact with the Crimethinc podcast and things were never the same again. They were soon deep in anarchist culture, exploring every nook and cranny they could. always in audio format, always listening. They were moved by the history of radical femmes in the likes of Emma Goldman to Cindy Milstein, from Lucy Parsons to Carla Bergman. They love the tradition of radical joy and love that these figures exude. This joy, armed against the darkness on the horizon, is the center of centers in all our lives, joy makes our work worthwhile, the flames worth fanning. Fox hopes to spark this fire in others through this project, from embers to firestorm, a fire that can change the world.
Not having been raised in house with defined political leanings Raccoon was left alone to decipher the world from their own perspective. Their house was led on a few principles, a few of which did however tilt the scales left as the house had an policy of an open door, an open couch, and an open fridge. This led to meeting a lot of various kinds of people all telling various kinds of stories. Being a mostly quiet individual they sat back and listened, watched, and evaluated. After being introduced to various genres of punk by their cousin such as CRASS and corrupted by a couple of clowns they know also helped in pushing the needle even further left. These experiences coupled with those brought on by personal experiences with the cycles of poverty and addiction raccoon began to open their mind to a wider understanding of the various systems of oppression we all face as individuals. Finally, after years of making mistakes and educating themselves on these topics. One day, during a lunch break at one of their four jobs, they thought they would try to find some sort of philosophical basis for this anarchism that had been brewing in the back of their mind the past twenty plus years. On YouTube they eventually found a neat little channel called Thought Slime, which led to a plethora of other creators such as Non-Compete & Luna Oi!. These channels forever changed the course of this forest creature’s life path and they want you to know they have quit all of those jobs for a full time career of organizing.
Although Frog’s upbringing made a huge impact on their journey to radicalization, it was not just one life-changing event that drew them to their beliefs today, it was the gradual letdown of the community by authority figures. They saw firsthand how CPS works, and the corruptness within the system. They were failed by the people who were supposed to protect and serve. Frog will not forget the unforgivable things these authority figures have done to them, and will seek personal justice, as they are not a simply a file on their desk anymore. Frog grew up in a careless environment, with little to no political talk. It wasn’t until they got older that and realized they can create their own path to their journey. Frog started hanging around a wonderful human in November of 2021 and they helped frog realize who they wanted to be and who they are. That person introduced frog to a lot of amazing people. A lot of those people have educated them and helped them define who they want to become. They have been introduced to actively participating in change.
Possum got their start in all of this through cooking weekly with Food Not Bombs in the desert. They learned why they ought to question the supposed “natural order of things” and why they ought to trust their fellow woodland denizens. They got small glimpses of the world could be like, learning from the lessons of Murray Bookchin, Peter Kropotkin, music, their fellow comrades, and life itself. They work to build a freer world, an abundant forest, a nurturing and empowering society.
Otter was raised in a house with a seaman father and a busy mom. Their interest in leftist politics stemmed from being a history kid. They started watching democracy now at a young age, eventually they got disillusioned with the faux radicalism. They moved onto more radical media after learning about The Black Panthers and Young Lords through podcasts like Rev Left Radio and Foreign Languages Press. Lenin, Fred Hampton,and Malatesta were formative authors. Punk music of course also helped spur it. Otter found out about a local leftist group in February 2021 and has been helping out since 🙂
The Harbor Rat Report is an investigative reporting outlet for uncovering the stories that aren’t being told that need telling. We are a storytelling device for the vulnerable and disabused, the working class and the poor. We hold the act of storytelling in great regard as it takes us out of ourselves and puts us in the shoes of another for a moment. It humanizes people who the elite want to dehumanize, and we find this to be a need that we aim to fill. We don’t just want to tell you these stories, we want you to be inspired to create change in yourself, in your community. We need more people taking direct action to solve the problems we will shine light on.
Our focus at The Rat will be strictly local to Aberdeen and Grays Harbor County. Still, we want a wide diversity of subject matter in what we publish. The following represents a preview of just some of the stories you can look forward to here. Some of the topics we plan to cover are gentrification and the role of Terry Emmert, City/County politics and their relationship to the homeless community, the deaths that occur on our streets at the hands of the City, section 8 housing, local mutual aid efforts, how the non-profit industrial complex has impacted the harbor, the impact of police in our community, radical history of the area, the juvenile criminal justice system, and CPS.
What we want to accomplish with this work is to uplift the untold stories of struggle that our working class need to hear to reach solidarity with those most vulnerable to the system of exploitation that squeezes us all. We want to punch up with our reports, never shifting blame to those lowest in the power structure. We want to hold those at the top accountable for their actions. To keep everyone up to date on what is going on in their community so that they can make informed decisions in these matters. We need to expose the corruption going on in local politics and the non-profit sector. We think a good way to connect these sometimes abstract issues to actual human lives is to tell those human stories alongside our reporting work. To that end we will tell stories of the past and present that can relate and contextualize our more straightforward reporting.
The inspiration for this project is a never ending list including all the usual parents, lovers, children, and comrades. But there are a few note worthy projects that we thought would provide the reader with more insight on our internal biases and get an understanding of the particular lenses that we will be looking at our work from.
- Aaron Goings works The Red Coast and The Port of Missing Men
- Everything from Crimthinc
- It’s Going Down platform and podcasts
- Author Cindy Milstein’s
- carla bergman & Eleanor Goldfield’s Silver Threads podcast
- Margaret Killjoy and the Stranger In A Tangled Wilderness Collective
At the end of the day we hope that our audience gains something valuable from our work here. We do it as a labor of love and we hope it generates some healthy and productive discussions around dinner tables in Grays Harbor County. We want you to be educated and informed about local politics and what local leaders are doing on a regular basis. What they’re saying in their meetings, and what they’re doing when they think no one is looking. Afer reading The Harbor Rat you should be well informed about these current events and be able to put them into their proper historical context. Finally we want you to take action in your neighborhood, get involved in grassroots organizing, and become revolutionaries in the struggle for our liberation from oppression. Solidarity comrades.
If you have any tips, we prefer you download the Signal messenger app and then use the link bit.ly/sabottipline.
If you want to contribute to this this project with writing submissions or suggest a person for us to interview for a story of interest please email us at sabotmedia {at} riseup {dot} net with the subject header “Harbor Rat Article”.