Anonymous Comrade writes
A death in the family...
but we carry on.

On August 7, 2005, Walmart LP (Loss Prevention) workers in suburban Houston killed Stacy Driver who left the store without paying for diapers.

This is not a shock. It is the logical result of a massive illogical conspiracy to profit from our needs (and desires). We only have to look back to the 1992 L.A. riots to see when the system, in an immense social crisis, was forced to reveal its brutal, property-first ideology as police shot dozens of unarmed looters on sight. In these quieter times, a dead shoplifter here and there can be passed off as an accident. We are hardly fooled.We mourn Stacy and fiercely defend him and all others who, like ourselves, grow weary trying to simply survive using legal means. When our survival becomes a good to be bought and sold on the global market, only those of us with any trace of humanity left bypass this commodity-exchange relationship and expose the real thieves (in this case- Walmart) as such.

This is not about 5 vigilante Walmart security guards. It is about the entire infrastructure of the American economy that dictates how we relate to one another. Given this, we have no other way to respond to this sickening homicide other than to lay siege on this infrastructure. We are sick of this society of wage slavery, instability, and cover-ups. Walmart is swimming in a pool of blood. Let them fucking drown.

The tragedy is not that this man disobeyed orders to stop running - as the Right would have us think. Nor is the tragedy that Walmart has inhumane anti-theft procedures - as the Left would have us to think. The tragedy is that this faceless “free market” has murdered yet another one of us who takes this term literally - and more importantly, that those 5 security guards regardless of whether or not they are found guilty will continue to cling to the dominant values of right and wrong and refuse to see Stacy, and others like him, as a fellow brother forced to live as a slave to money and work.

The inevitable compromise involved in surviving in this society is hidden by a morality that makes certain forms of slavery (work) superior to others (shoplifting). Carpentry, retail work, and teaching children are hailed as somehow more ‘dignified’ and ‘creative’ than bank robbing, shoplifting, and insurance scams.

In this vein, we don’t dare call for the prosecution of the guards or even Walmart. We simply call for solidarity with Stacy’s actions and for the humiliation of those of us who choose to defend the economic values which dictate and degrade our lives.

We call on workers and security guards to look the other way and stop the mindless defense of ‘your’ company over your class.

For Stacy, a moment of silence as we pocket what we need, cruise away from the gas pump’s incomplete transaction, or loot en masse with our friends.

Avenge Stacy!
Long live subversion!
Death to profit!

-St. Louis Battalion of the 82nd Division of the Revolutionary Shoplifting Army
Late August 2005"