Anarchy Info-Boxes in Olympia

"All materials are free. Feel free to take, borrow and leave print information. Enjoy."

The story of the anarchy infobox

The idea for an anarchy infobox came when people wanted to learn about
anarchy 24 hours a day in Olympia.
Keeping the local zine library open all night seemed impractical. People also
don't have access to the internet at all times and can't access websites like
zinelibrary.net. Having an old newspaper box in the backyard helped put this
idea into action.

People painted the old newspaper box and installed a new plexiglass
window. A new shelf was made for the zines to sit on inside the infobox. People
also put zine subject dividers and book holders to make the info in the infobox
more accessible.

The zine infobox made its debut at 4th and Washington
streets in downtown Olympia in
front of a coffee shop, across the corner from the Industrial Worker (the paper
of the IWW) newspaper box.

A couple of days later someone threw all the zines in the street. Realizing
this is often how zines get distributed publicly in authoritarian societies, we
were surprised people were redistributing revolutionary writing to others in downtown.

Most of the zines and subject dividers got picked up. The infobox was
restocked with more revolutionary writings.

While the infobox was being restocked, the manager of the coffeeshop came
out to interrogate who owned the box and what was it doing there. She said she
was going to cut the lock on the box and remove the infobox herself.

I thought the coffeeshop manager was going to take direct action on the
anarchy infobox and cut the lock herself. She ended up calling the city to have
the infobox and the Industrial Worker Newspaper box impounded.

Apparently the city stole private property by removing the box, destroyed
property by cutting the lock, and censored an infobox full of ideas they didn't
agree with. This was all expected.

Hierarchies are intolerant to critique, particularly living examples of
people doing it themselves without hierarchy. Having a free speech zone inside
a little box on main street can be intolerable to the town's hierarchy.

In the mean time, another infobox was made in front of US Bank at a big
intersection in downtown Olympia.
This info box was a red "Work at Home" brochure box with a full sheet
sticker over it saying "24 hour information" with a circle a.

Someone from the IWW asked the city about the missing newspaper boxes. The
IWW informed the city bureaucracy that the IWW has a long history of free speech
fights and this was about to be another one. The city handed over the newspaper
boxes saying they thought the two newspaper boxes looked like other stolen newspaper
boxes.

Now two anarchist infoboxes exist in downtown Olympia.
They are often under stocked. The sticker on one of the boxes keeps getting
ripped off. People are grabbing the zines faster than we can print them on our
laser printer.

No hierarchy can tolerate good ideas that don’t involve them. The struggle
to express ideas and learn freely continues. We will report news about the
infobox as it develops.