From a leaflet that was handed out to idling motorists waiting for an anti-automobile rally by Critical Mass, an anarchist collective from Portland, Oregon, to pass:

Critical Mass is an anti-car, pro-bike and skate ride. The goals are varied because participants have many different mind sets, but some of us see Critical Mass as an expression of a much larger idea.

We believe that car culture is just one aspect of the state-capitalist system that destroys community and keeps us alienated from each other. We want communities to be rebuilt, with people putting their energy into working in their neighborhoods to create a free and ecological world, rather than traveling downtown to take part in the circle of exploited labor. As Anarchists, we understand that it is not work or capitalism alone that is to blame, but every system of hierarchy and domination. The nuclear family, for instance, is a cornerstone in the oppression of women, which is enforced by car culture and the destruction of community. The racism of the system is apparent when one realizes that highways and freeways are usually built and expanded in poor, usually non-white neighborhoods, destroying people's homes and raising the noise pollution and toxins in these neighborhoods. All so middle class white people can get downtown to work—often for multinational corporations which exploit to an almost unimaginable degree the people of the so-called Third World.

In protest of all this and more, we take to the streets. We take over, temporarily, what we believe must be destroyed and creatively rebuilt. We celebrate our resistance, We learn from each other and build solidarity and strength. We become visible, as bikers, skaters and revolutionaries, in a world where we are constantly wrongly portrayed by the corporate-owned media. We take to the streets. We will not be pacified.

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