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101 THINGS TO DO 'TIL THE REVOLUTION, a bookReview by Vin Suprynowicz (vin@lvrj.com) or (vin@intermind.net)

About once a year, a book crosses my desk that gets me up on my feetpacing, cornering my long-suffering cohorts so I can read thempassages aloud. When their response is to try to pilfer the thing offmy desk until I have to stand guard with a metal pica-pole, whackingtheir hands and informing them this is not the local lending library, Iknow I'm onto something.

It happened about a year ago with John Ross' novel of the gun culture,"Unintended Consequences" (from little Accurate Press in St. Louis.)Previous to that was Peter Duesberg's "Inventing the AIDS Virus"(Regnery) and L. Neil Smith's inspiring novel of handguns in outerspace, "Pallas" (hardcover from Tor, or paperback from Laissez-Fairebooks, 1-800-326-0996.)

This year, Christmas came just a few days late, as I opened my mailon Jan. 3 to discover an unobtrusive little 191-page trade paperbackby Claire Wolfe. Put off by the parody ladies-magazine title, I preparedto read a few passages and consign the thing to the "someday" heap.

Instead, I found myself messaging bookseller friends from San Francisco

to Providence: "Recommend you make prompt inquiries RE stockingClaire Wolfe's new paperback, '101 Things To Do 'Til The Revolution'."

Of late, I can pretty well predict my e-mail will contain several messagesa week from earnest souls who plead: "Have just discovered yourcolumns. Always thought of myself as a conservative or Republican,but I find I agree with almost everything you say. The government is outof control and our remaining freedoms and being sold down the river.But no matter how many politicians promise to roll back taxes and repealbad laws, we just get more of the same, and then I'm told 'Youcan't complain, you voted for them.'

"Help! I'm not ready yet to start shooting bureaucrats at random. There

are too many of them; they'll just use it as an excuse to clamp downeven harder; and who'll take care of my family when I'm gone? Whatcan I do?"

In the past, I've tried to answer these earnest pleas by talking aboutthe importance of becoming a fully-informed juror, since jury duty(providing we honor our consciences and the Ninth Amendment, inthe face of any "instructions" to the contrary from the black-robedprosecutor behind the bench) allows us to stand as a last line ofdefense for our fellow citizens against the intrusions of an out-of-control government.

I've struggled to explain the importance of exercising our Second

Amendment rights, of acquiring and learning the safe use of militia-style arms and standing up for those who are persecuted for insistingthat only an armed people can ever be free. And I've talked of theinsidiousness of the mandatory government youth propaganda camps.

Imagine my relief at now being able to say "There happens to be anew book that answers this very question, available for just $20.90postpaid from Loompanics in Port Townsend, Washington. Twentypercent discounts for five to nine copies, 40 percent off for 10 to 49,dial 1-800-380-2230 ..."

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In her introduction to "101 Things To Do 'Til The Revolution," ClaireWolfe writes:

"America is at that awkward stage. It's too late to work within thesystem, but too early to shoot the bastards. On the road to tyranny,we've gone so far that polite political action is about as uselessas a miniskirt in a convent. ...

"Something's eventually going to happen. Government will bloatuntil it chokes us to death, or one more tyrannical power grab willturn out to be one too many. ... Maybe it'll be one more round of'reasonable gun control' or one more episode of burning childrento death to save them from 'child abuse.' [i.e Waco] Whatever.Something will snap ...

"Until then, what do you do if you ... don't want to be a Good LittleCitizen begging an unhearing congresscritter to give back the rightshe and his buddies swiped from you? ('Dear Congressman Baron:You're such a busy and important person, I'm sure this little matterhas just slipped your mind temporarily. But 90 percent of the federalgovernment is unconstitutional. ... I'm sure you'll want to abolish allthe unauthorized agencies and programs right away. Please don'tforget to repeal all the illegal laws and get rid of the taxes while

you're at it' ..."

Ms. Wolfe's "101" answers are useful, and thoroughly entertaining.

From shifting your meager assets to where that junkie with themillion-dollar-a-minute habit, Uncle Sam, can't lay hands on them, topreserving and storing enough food and water to last you through anyextended shutdown of the government and commercial services, to the properway to bury your guns should blanket confiscation loom (as in Australia rightnow), this common-sense guide never loses its sense ofhumor and perspective.

It's blissfully free of the delusion that the system can still be reformed,

but also of those tedious ramblings about U.N. conspiracies andbiblical prophesy that clog so much of what passes for "survivalist"literature these days.

If you're just starting to realize the "police" gang is unlikely to protectyou in times of real disorder -- that you'd better break down and buysome firearms to protect your home and loved ones -- where do youstart?

"101 things" has the specific, well-thought-out answers.

Handguns? Sexists may have to re-examine their prejudices as this"middle-aged lady" warns her readers to go no smaller than .40 Smith

& Wesson or .357 magnum: "Nothing smaller, please! Don't go out andget a .25 or a .32 because you're inexperienced, have small hands orare afraid of big guns. Instead, get some experience, overcome yourfears, or find a large caliber gun with a grip that fits smaller hands.A gun that is too underpowered may not have the stopping power tosave your life in an emergency."

Where on earth did this serendipitous little volume come from?

"I'd been active in the Libertarian movement for ages," Ms. Wolfe

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explained by telephone, as I took her away from a warm supper athome in the boondocks of the Pacific Northwest. "Before the 1994election I was really excited, I worked on the campaign of aRepublican, Linda Smith, who ran for Congress in the 3rd District inWashington State. I grilled her, I had dinner with her, I backed herup against the wall at a cocktail party and wouldn't let anyone elsetalk to her; I asked her all the questions, and she gave every rightanswer.

"I worked for her, she won, and within six months she voted for HouseBill 666, which would have gutted the Fourth Amendment, would have allowedevidence to be used that was the product of illegal searches.She voted for that and then she didn't even answer my letter asking why.

"So over the course of '95 I just became angrier and more furious. I wasoffered the chance to write a manual of political action for the gunrights people, based on the Handgun Control manual that someone had gottenhold of, so I worked on that. But I thought, 'I'm telling peoplelies, I'm telling them how to work within the system, and it's all useless.It just doesn't work.'

"I was just to the bursting point with hate and frustration, I thought Iwas going to go postal. But one day the name of this book just hit me,the name and the first line, and I started laughing, I thought it was

funny. So I sat down, wrote about a third of the book in a week, sentthe proposal off to Loompanics, and they bought it. ...

"All I wanted was to write it; I didn't know if anyone would read it.So now it's so strange to have people tracking me down over theInternet, asking 'Are you the one who wrote, "America is at thatawkward stage. It's too late to work within the system, but too earlyto shoot the bastards"...'? Especially because so many of them say'Well, that's what I think, too.' ...

"When I was working on the book, of course I thought I was beingvery radical, but then after it came back from the publisher I said tomyself, half the message of this book is 'Take responsibility for

yourself; be responsible.' And that's a very 19th-century message, avery old-fashioned message. But people who do that are the worstenemies of the state, or at least the people the state can least control ...

"It's an angry but an uninhibited book, it's a middle-aged lady sittingdown, sick to death of her respectability" (Ms. Wolfe makes her livingwriting corporate newsletters and advertising copy, mostly under apseudonym) "and saying 'Screw that, we can't win within the system,so screw that.'

"That's part of the reason for the title. 'One-hundred-and-one things'is always attached to '101 ways to fold napkins,' so I wanted to takethat concept and apply it to a very different kind of problem. ...

"I'm sorry that I circumvented the question of when to shoot; I don'tknow when it will come that time. I just think we will know when itis time."

Till then, "101 Things to Do 'Til The Revolution" is available fromLoompanics Unlimited, P.O. Box 1197, Port Townsend, Wash. 98368,at $20.90 postpaid, volume discounts available. Buy several. You havefriends.

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Vin Suprynowicz vin@lvrj.com, (OR:) vin@intermind.net========================================================Vin Suprynowicz is the assistant editorial page editor of the Las VegasReview-Journal. Readers may contact him via e-mail at vin@lvrj.com,or vin@intermind.net. The web site for the Suprynowicz column is athttp://www.nguworld.com/vindex/. The column is syndicated in theUnited States and Canada via Mountain Media Syndications, P.O. Box4422, Las Vegas Nev. 89127.===========================================================Note from Claire Wolfe to Vin:In answer to posting on the Search for Liberty List Serve:

Doc, thank you and bless you! To all on this list who read Doc's"off-point" message, I'll speak up in Doc's defense and say, "No it isn't!Item #43 in the book Vin reviewed is about moving to a freer place."So the message on-topic, after all.

Doc and Ed from this list were instrumental in bringing me to Searchfor Liberty, and have helped make a quote from the book "famous"(or infamous, as the case may be). What you don't know yet is thatVin would never have written the review below if you guys hadn'tgotten the ball rolling on the quote.

I hope the book makes a difference. I know you folks have made a

big difference to me. If there is ever a Volume II of the book, it willno doubt have more items about the search for freer places, thanksto the people here.

Claireclaire.wolfe.freedom@worldnet.att.net