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“At the end of the world, plant a tree.” — Musnad Ahmad, hadith 12491, as reported by Anas Ibn Mali

— Lifehouse by Adam Greenfield (Page 186)

In some cases, it may be possible for a community to form a special purpose land trust or the like: some legal instrument that would let it buy a derelict school or house of worship legitimately, refit it as a Lifehouse and build up a reserve fund for the upkeep, maintenance and repair that will be necessary. But gaining access to underutilized or abandoned structures, and occupying them over any meaningful period of time, will often mean summoning the courage to act outside the bounds of law. Elaine Brown explains how this worked for the Black Panthers: "If we wanted wanted to open a clinic, we took over a piece of property, we didn't pay rent. We would run an electrical line from wherever, we didn't pay for electricity. We'd go to the hospital and just steal supplies."

I know many of us struggle with such fearless directness of action, often for excellent reason. There are no upsides to getting your life tangled up with authority, for any of us, and the consequences of having done so can drag on for years even where they are not immediately lethal. But the Long Emergency has a way of clarifying the stakes of inaction. The derelict middle school on the avenue is unambiguously worth more tonight, as a shelter for bodies at risk, than the land beneath it is to some sovereign wealth fun far across the sea at some abstract time to come. At moments like this, when all that stands between people in desperate need and the possibility of their rescue is a pair of bolt cutters, the moral force and practical necessity of breaking the law are in complete alignment. all that's required of us is that we summon the courage to act.

— Lifehouse by Adam Greenfield (Page 157)

When everything goes sideways, we're largely compelled to make do with the resources in our immediate vicinity. But there's a good argument to be made for continuing to organize and work locally, too. At this most granular scale, it ought to be possible to reassert at least some control over our conditions and to witness the results of our efforts.

That "witness" is vital in ways that aren't simply about functional assessment. In dark times, we need to be able to see the impact of our actions to keep despair at bay. We need to feel like there's something more or less gearing between the choices we make together and the concrete extension of shelter to those in danger. We need, in other words, to feel our power. That only really becomes possible when the questions we are deciding involve things that are close at hand.

— Lifehouse by Adam Greenfield (Page 154 - 155)

The AANES was by no means a prisonless LeGuinian utopia. It has maintained prison systems throughout its existence, which at one point held some 2,700 civilians and 11,200 Daesh fighters and their families. But there does seem to have been a concerted, consistent effort to rethink criminal jurisprudence in such a way as to divert people from ever entering the system. And though, as we've seen, there were police units in Rojavan society, they appear to have conceived of their role differently than any public safety department we're likely to be familiar with.

Graeber gives us a sense of just how differently, in his account of a December 2014 visit to an Asayîs training academy:

Everyone has to take courses in nonviolent conflict resolution and feminist theory before they were allowed to touch a gun. The co-directors explained to us that their ultimate aim was to give everyone in the country six weeks of police training, so that ultimately, they could eliminate the police.

— Lifehouse by Adam Greenfield (Page 145 - 146)