Chris Plummer wants nothing less than a global revolution.

He said he was detained by the state of Texas as a political prisoner more than eight years because of his beliefs. And he said most Americans, if they heard the truth, might agree with him.

“It’s not about guns,” Plummer said Thursday. “It’s about living in a system that’s not based on greed, not based on oppression and not based on power.”

Hundreds who share Plummer’s beliefs this weekend are at Clinton Lake for the North American Anarchist Gathering 2002. The event started Thursday, attracting the notice of a Canadian television crew  preparing for a summit of leaders of industrialized nations this month at Calgary, Alberta  and the U.S. State Department.

The Overseas Security Advisory Council, which is run by the State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security, has listed the Lawrence gathering as a “date to watch” along with summits and elections being staged around the world.

“It’s totally ridiculous,” said Lowell Fletcher of Lawrence’s Mother Earth Collective, which helped sponsor and organize the event. “We know there’s undercover persons monitoring us.”

A spokesman for the Bureau of Diplomatic Security did not return a phone call for comment. Jeff Lanza, spokesman for the FBI in Kansas City, declined to say whether agents were watching the gathering.

“I wouldn’t comment on anything like that,” he said.

Organizers of the gathering met Thursday afternoon with officers from the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office and Kansas Wildlife and Parks. Both sides pledged, more or less, to stay out of each other’s way  though normal patrols of the park will continue.

“We’ve got other campers out here,” Douglas County Sheriff Rick Trapp said. “We’ll have a presence out here, but we’re not going to try to keep anybody from having a peaceful time.”

Anarchists gained visibility in recent years for anti-globalization and anti-capitalism demonstrations in Seattle and Genoa, Italy, among other places. Capitalism remains a big topic this weekend.

“Global capitalism adversely affects the majority of the planet’s population,” said a Lawrence man who would identify himself only as “Tad.” “Americans use a disproportionate amount of the planet’s resources. As we move to a global future, we’re interested in seeing a more egalitarian sharing of those resources. … Americans and anarchists should set an example for the rest of the world.”

Tad said the Sept. 11 attacks had given the government a new tool kit for oppression.

“It’s given the powers that be the opportunity to suspend civil liberties in this country, to ram through and rubber stamp repressive legislation,” Tad said.

But it’s not all politics this weekend. The gathering also features workshops on songwriting, vegan cooking and gardening.

Plummer speaks at 4 p.m. today about how to support political prisoners; his 8 1/2-year prison stint, he said, was the result of breaking into and wrecking the organizing center of a Houston neo-Nazi group.

He said this weekend’s gathering showed what was possible for anarchists.

“We’re living for three days, four days, the way we would like to live the rest of our lives,” Plummer said. “That is amazing. And empowering.”