In response to the statement we published from Fire Ant Movement Defense,¹ we received the following submission from Eric King, an anarchist and former political prisoner who spent nearly a decade behind bars.

Nonconsensually providing information to police, prosecutors, or others involved in the criminal justice industry is one of the most damaging things a person can do, because it exposes people to danger from a vast structure that exists for the purpose of systematically inflicting violence.

Those who have provided testimony incriminating others must never be trusted with information that can put anyone else at risk again. And because it is not possible to be sure which information falls into that category, that means keeping them out of a wide array of spaces and relationships.

When questioned by police or prosecutors, the only ethical decision is to refuse to incriminate others. When everyone does so, this limits the amount of harm that the state can inflict. Those who consider informing on others must understand that when they do so, they are crossing a line from which there is no return.

Likewise, no defendant should be compelled to depend on a support committee that supports anyone who informed on them.

At the same time, we should trust non-cooperating defendants to decide how best to conduct their defense and how best to engage with those who provided testimony against them. Federal agencies are attempting to use the Prairieland case to both criminalize and divide all who resist. State repression is intended to inflict harm not only at the point of immediate impact but also via the ruptures it opens up.

Controversy about the decisions of the support committee in the Prairieland case must not discourage people from supporting the non-cooperating defendants. Please donate to their support funds, write to them, and spread awareness about their plight.

What follows is Eric King’s submission.

No Way Home

I’m writing this response to Fire Ant Movement Defense’s recent statement, “Manufactured Betrayal,” not as a confrontation but in the spirit of opening dialogue and clarifying the values we stand on. This is not an attack. I’m sharing my personal views that are based on my personal experiences. I am not an expert or an arbiter on revolution, I am simply someone who has been directly impacted by a loose-lip piece of shit and have seen people I love experience the same.

Prison is a truly horrible place. It is a place where people can die, brutally. It is a place that forces violences upon you every second of the day. It is a place that activates your fight or flight reaction to the point where it never stops being fight. It is a place that changes you––how you view the world, how you handle stress, etc. It makes you do things that you cannot forget and have to live with. It takes your families’ hearts and smashes them over and over, every day, as they worry if you are OK, if you are still around. I have been free for two and a half years, and I still think about all the circumstances I was forced into and all the trauma that still lives within me to this day.

The Fire Ant statement regarding Meagan Morris felt like a insult to everyone who has ever been impacted by the prison system. It was confusing, enraging, and painful. Fire Ant has done great work in regards to prisoners, which is why this statement confused me so personally and hurt me so deeply.

I will never understand, and I don’t want to understand, the need to be a snitch apologist. Meagan Morris having regrets, or anyone who cooperates with the police feeling regrets, means nothing compared to the lives she helped to destroy. The fact that Meagan ultimately chose not to testify means nothing. She gave the state ammunition to use against us, not just the Prairieland prisoners, but all of us. In every single case against leftists in the future, the state will be able to use her words to portray our friends, our comrades, as violent terrorists, doing the state’s job for them. She gave the state information for HOURS. What the fuck are we doing?

As Fire Ant said, many new radicals will join the struggle after the horrendous state repression they are witnessing. And the conversations we are having now are ones that need to be had––but AHEAD of time. What risks are you willing to take? What are the worst possible consequences, even if you think you’re safe and no matter how legal those risks are at the time? What will you do if you get caught up? Who are the most vulnerable? Who are the most ready? These are conversations that should be had. But never should we plan to allow snitches back into the community, never should there be a path of understanding, never should there be the justification that they paid their price and their remorse is enough. Honestly, fuck that. As an abolitionist, I do not want snitches or anyone else to be in prison. I do not want them to be hurt or harassed, attacked online, none of that shit. I do not have time for it. But I also will never comprehend the idea that they should be allowed back into radical communities. Why on earth would we risk the safety of ANYONE, just to appease someone else’s betrayal and guilt? What is the point of that? That is the line I hold. If my best friend became friends with a snitch because the snitch apologized, I would never talk to that friend again.

Making space for their re-entry means spitting in the face of every single captive and all of their families as well. It means looking at people who dedicated their ENTIRE LIVES to the movement and saying, “I know that someone selfishly destroyed your life and betrayed everything they said they stood for, but they feel bad.” Ask yourself, would Kuwasi Balagoon be OK with that mindset? Would Emma Goldman or anyone else? We are living at a moment in time where people who are established and in good graces with the movement are making space for betrayers. Those who snitch are cops. They are prison guards. They are judges and prosecutors. They took the lives of others in their hands and tore them to shreds. There is no space in any organization or movement I love for people who would do that. It is unfathomable. Would Fire Ant Movement Defense be able to look my family in the face and tell them that the person who assisted in getting me tortured, sexually assaulted, and hospitalized had actually suffered enough? That it wasn’t fair to have them removed for the safety of others? That their feelings were more important than the brutality they would allow to happen to all of us?

Imagine if the FBI read that statement (we have to assume they read literally all of them), would they be happy that we were contemplating allowing cooperators back into the fold? They would be elated. 1) They already know that those who flipped are vulnerable to pressure and would probably do it again, but also 2) They could easily see it as a continuous open door, without fear of consequences. How much easier it would be to convince someone to “do the right thing,” when they can show folks there are no lasting consequences to their betrayal. It is a complete erosion of trust within our movement as well. How on earth could I ever trust a comrade who has a soft line on something so dangerous? These are life or death decisions they are making. This isn’t a small ideological stance, it is putting the entire community in jeopardy. The door to return after even the smallest cooperation needs to remain closed and people need to know that. It’s the bare minimum that should happen to those who aid the police in ruining our lives and maintaining their fascist status quo.

I don’t understand the thought process behind writing this statement. The “why” of it all makes no sense to me. It hasn’t even been two months since the Prairieland sentences and we’re already dropping statements of support for the snitches? People can have their own thoughts and live their own lives and I can disagree with that. It was almost triggering, though, picturing the people who alerted the cops to where I was hiding out, and picturing a comrade I cared about and trusted asking me to be the rat’s friend again. The scars on my head, the blood in my mouth, the pain in my heart, would never allow this to happen. Because I have empathy for those whose lives were ruined by snitches, I could never be friends with a snitch. To snitch is to decide that your comrades’ lives mean less than your own.

These are my views. I hope I’m sharing them respectfully. But I am hurt. I want to scream, “WHAT WORLD IS THIS?” Some of my closest friends and people I admire and support have been snitched on, and I hope we never see or hear from those rats again. There should never be space for that, in my opinion. It is a betrayal of all I stand for to give them an inch when they took away decades.

Love and respect to everyone who supports prisoners. I’ve got your back if you’ve got mine.

Towards Liberation

EK