“What use is health if you are otherwise an idiot” – Adorno
Introduction
The coronavirus and the lung disease Covid-19 it causes plunge people all over the world into chaos and misfortune. Never before have so many people suffered from contact-bans and curfews at the same time as at the moment – at the moment it is probably about 25% of the world population – and the trend is rising. It is also probably quite a while ago that in the centers of the so-called Western world sick and needy people were no longer able to get a place in hospital, that their surgeries were delayed and that a disease infected a considerable part of hospital staff, thus further worsening the health care situation. The world... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Abstract
This article proposes the bund (Peterson, 2001) and the band (Ingold, 2004) both as a way of analyzing autonomous social movements (ASMs) and as a basis for a future alternative society. It begins by reviewing the literature on social movements, showing its limits in relation to the group forms of ASMs. Many theories assume that social movements necessarily take organizational (gemeinschaft) or community (gesellschaft) forms, and succumb to the logic of hegemony. Others base their analysis of ASMs on networks or constituent power, but without showing how this power is actualized or how the nodes of networks are composed. It then outlines the theories of the bund and band, before reviewing literature from within European and ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
An anarchist critique of Hollywood’s sympathy for the indigenous,
dedicated to the 7 CIA agents blown to bits in Afghanistan.
I just got back from fulfilling a holiday obligation of going to the theater with my family, my head brimming with thoughts for an essay, only to find that James Cameron’s new flick, Avatar, has already provoked a good deal of writing on the anarchist news sites. The one appreciative article, Avatar: An Anarcho-Primitivist Picture of the History of the World sadly speaks for itself, when placed alongside the actual movie, in demonstrating a common and longstanding criticism aimed at a large part of anarcho-primitivist thought.
More on the mark is When will white people stop making movi... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
“Information is the oxygen of the modern age. It seeps through the walls topped by barbed wire, it wafts across the electrified borders.” Ronald Reagan
After landing in Paris the police woman sitting in a glass box scanned my passport and ushered me past her without a word. She then turned her attention to the next traveler in line. Having a criminal record in multiple country’s in the EU and having been deported twice had almost made me accustomed to the nervousness I feel whenever having to deal with les flics (French for cops) in any country. So I immediately felt a rush of relief and thought, good I am in, as I walked to the baggage pick up area. Standing there waiting for my bag I then felt a firm tap on ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
When we try to read the reality that surrounds us we realize that we are assisting to a development of profound transformations when we look at the management of economic and political power. Such changes are also reflected on a social level. It is necessary to confront ourselves with the current transformations and to take them into consideration in relation to our analysis and prospective of attack.
Capital is not in crisis, but more ’simply’ the financial choices of the states have created some difficulties in the traditional management of the market and have produced, in general, a worsening of conditions of existence in the life of consumer citizens. The contradictions that capital has developed have contributed to d... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
The facts of the anti-GM movement in the UK would seem to be this: Inspired by anti-GM actions, the first of which took place in California in 1987, followed by others all across the world, people in the UK began to take action against GM crop trials 6 years ago. This mostly consisted of very simple nighttime activity: groups of people pulling up the crops. There were also some open and accountable actions, some succesful and some failed daylight raids, some other sabotage of GM facilities and companies plus a lot of pressure from lobby groups.
In summer 2003 at an EF! gathering, with commercialization looming and the last of the crop trials fled from Britain, the largest genetic company in Europe, Bayer AG, won itself the attention ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
“Now we only have two options: allow this crack to close up, losing a unique opportunity for a veritable social change, or open it as much as we can, widening it until it reaches the very foundations of our misery and exploitation.”
-Excerpt from Catalan anarchist flier distributed at Occupy Seattle
Our struggle is social not political. We will not martyr ourselves as the urban guerrilla nor compromise as the reformist. We make no demands and see our struggle reflected in the struggles of many others. It is from these beliefs that anarchists engaged with Occupy Seattle.
The beginning of Occupy Seattle was drenched in the misery of what it means to live in a place that has known so little recent s... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Blood soaked the sidewalks of Anaheim last weekend, only several miles from Disneyland, after a brawl broke out between protesters and members of the Ku Klux Klan, who attempted to conduct a “White Lives Matter” march. By the end of the altercation, over a dozen people were arrested and several stabbed. Only several hours later however, five Klansmen walked free, as anti-fascist youth who suffered stab wounds, faced criminal charges and expensive medical fees. Later that night, people marched and protested outside of the police station, calling for the release of their friends.
The next day, “respectable community members,” non-profits, and unions took to the streets as well, trying to calm down the anger of y... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
The tute blanche (White Overalls) are already well-known in the European and American protest movement, being well recognizable with their uniform and protection pads in the front lines. They undeniably showed their reformist and reactionary core to the worldwide movement in Prague, but still they fail to get the adequate response true revolutionaries should give them, which is the same deserved by blue-dressed cops. That’s why we consider it necessary to spread info on them, their tactics and their lies.
The tute bianche/Ya Basta comes out of the bigger and more sold-out social centers of northern Italy, like Leoncavallo in Milan, Rivalto in Mestre and Pedro in Padova. Just giving a good look at these places, it’s easy t... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
As ongoing struggles confront new conditions in the escalating crisis, fighting will be concentrated along two main frontlines. Once the struggles along these two lines merge and communicate things will heat up: it could be the precondition for finally putting an end to this system and starting something new and better! At one frontline the urban working class of the highly productive web of factories, offices and informal economy will have to smash the increased polarization between over-exploitation and unemployment. At the second frontline all those will fight who were subjected to and subjects in the silent and invisible revolution of the last decades: the rural proletariat of the global south. The main division of any previous revoluti... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
The end of syndicalism corresponds to the end of workerism. For us it is also the end of the quantitive illusion of the party and the specific organization of synthesis. The revolt of tomorrow must look for new roads. Trade unionism is in its decline. In good as in evil with this structural form of struggle an era is disappearing, a model and a future world seen in terms of an improved and corrected reproduction of the old one. We are moving towards new and profound transformations. In the productive structure, in the social structure. Methods of struggle, perspectives, even short term projects are also transforming.
In an expanding industrial society the trade union moves from instrument of struggle to instrument supporting the prod... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
That humanity is somehow ‘out of balance’ with nature is hardly a topic of controversy nowadays. There is little question that humans are fouling the world to the point of suicide for us and mass extinction for all other life. To claim otherwise is ludicrous. In a variety of ways, people have attempted to grasp the problem, define it, and seek solutions. Of the many new and more faddish results, few have been as popular as Deep Ecology — also known as Biocentrism — the view that humans are acting out of excessive human-centredness (anthropocentrism) and thus destroying the planet and the rest of the species which have just as much ‘intrinsic right’ to live out their biological destiny as we do. Accordingl... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
While there are certainly a number of radicals who recognize the oppression of non-human animals and are fighting against it, we continue to see non-human animals offered as food items at many radical potlucks, bookfairs, and other anarchist gatherings. We believe this is a hierarchical form of oppression worthy of a much needed anarchist critique.
This short essay will attempt to address some of the most common anarchist objections to veganism. We aim to inspire a praxis of insurrectionary anarchy and eco-defense by asserting a position against speciesism and the objectification of non-human animals.
Definitions:
Insurrectionary anarchy: Insurrectionary anarchy is a way of conceptualizing anarchism within our present m... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
If you’re looking for some delicious and healthy food in Seattle, try the Black Cat Cafe on Roosevelt Way. This relatively new vegetarian cafe collective has become a popular hangout on the strength of its relaxed and homey atmosphere, reasonable prices and commitment to the local community.
Popular menu items include: Biscuits & Gravy, Chilaquiles, Home Fries with Veggies, Tofu Scramble, Black Bean (or Garbonzo Bean) Burritos, Salads and Soups. With a total of six collective members along with ten to twelve volunteers sharing the work, the kitchen is always bustling with activity. But it wasn’t long ago that the building was abandoned and boarded up, before opening on the final day of August last year.
Black C... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Being gaslit by non Black Indigenous people is exhausting.
The tweets I’ve gotten for daring to ask white proximity indigenous to not talk over black and brown indigenous are, dare to say downright harm. More black cause Brown indigenous have piled on too. Anti blackness. These fuckers really think they’re exempt from being called out for anti-Blackness and got mad when I said they have a close proximity to whiteness. This kind of shit is what Black Indigenous deal with constantly. One even dare to say that Black Indigenous is a US only concept.
Okay insert appropriate gif here.
This brings me to my next point:
You’re American/Gringo
Not only is this a dismissive deflection. It superimposes a... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
The “Black Flag”, Le Drapeau Noir, No. 1, August 12 1883.
To live free working or die fighting.
It’s not just as another challenge to bourgeois society that we gave the title Drapeau Noir [Black Flag] to this newspaper—bound to continue the struggle of the Lutte—and that we print here the immortal motto of our brothers the Canuts [in Lyon]. We also wanted to keep this glorious workers’ insurrection alive; to remind those who have already forgotten and to inform those who might still be ignorant. We wanted to warn the bourgeoisie that the only flag under which we will stand together now is the same one that poverty and desperation raised up in the streets of Croix-Rous... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Long-time ASR [Anarcho-Syndicalist Review] subscriber and activist Bob McGlynn died in August 2016, apparently of a heart attack. He was 61. McGlynn organized bike messengers in New York City, fought the attempts of vanguardists to take over community and movement organizations, and worked tirelessly to build cross-border solidarity through projects including Neither East Nor West (which organized solidarity with East European anarchists as the Soviet empire crumbled) and the publication On Gogol Boulevard. (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
As the total number of prisoners in the United States approaches one million, the demand for literature in prisons is skyrocketing. In response, the Books To Prisoners Project, an all-volunteer, collectively-run distribution service, sends books free on request to incarcerated people in Washington state and across the U.S. But the project always needs help with its mission.
Books To Prisoners is one of only four groups performing this service nationwide. (Other programs exist in Philadelphia, Boston and San Francisco in the U.S., as well as in Vancouver, Canada.) Kris, who has been involved with the collective for six years, says that when she started the project received just under 50 letters a month. By December of last year the ma... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
There will be no Google-Campus in Berlin Kreuzberg, for now. Although Google continues to work worldwide on infiltrating every life and on technologizing all social matters, preventing the campus is still a small success, a pinprick against one of the most powerful structures in the world. This may encourage people to defend themselves, not just put up with everything - even if Google seems all-powerful. But a pinprick is not a stab in the back and even a stab in the back does not reject all power relations.
This text will go into more detail on those initiatives that were based on the idea of informal self-determination. It is a search for moments of quality within the struggle from a perspective hostile to domination.
Why no Cam... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
BLACK AND RED is a brick. It is hurled at:
plate-glass windows, fencing around showcases of plenty for starving millions: meat wrapped in paper behind easily shattered glass;
crew-cut corporate heads; the pot-bellied parasites whose victims people all the continents;
the ugly eagle that shits dollars all over the world;
the small glass-screened propaganda machines: media of mindlessness, trivia, vicarious living and middle-class morality;
the advocates of “Law, Order and the American Way,” and their vicious watchdogs, Superman, Batman and Minuteman;
the profiteering Masters of War and their striped and freckled Symbol.
song:
AMERICA, THE BEAUTIFUL
O... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Meiji — From Socialism to Anarchism
1882
Tokichi Tarui and others organized The Oriental Socialist Party in Nagasaki prefecture which had about forty members and proclaimed equality, maximum well-being of the public, common ownership of property, joint management of companies, and cooperative child rearing. However, about two months after its formation, this party was banned and dissolved.
1889
Dai Nippon Teikoku Kenpou (The first constitution granted by the sovereign) was promulgated.
1897
Farmers around the Watarase River went to Tokyo several times (1897–1900) to make petitions concerning Ashio Copper Mine Pollution and clashed with police.
Social Issues Study... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Dearest white progressive/radical,
I have to confess I had no idea how true the forecasts made in “An Open Letter to White Progressives/Radicals” would be. I had a hunch I was correct on many predictions, but how accurate I was proven was a surprise.
I wanted to share why “An Open Letter” was written, and what the outcomes can be. I’ll try to refrain from the supposedly unconstructive commentary this time, though I make no promises.
As I made clear in “An Open Letter,” I have no faith white activists have the wherewithal to be the change they envision or to upend white supremacy. I have witnessed too many whites mutilate the idea of radicalism in defense of whiteness to believe ... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
In the Istanbul of the Ottoman Empire there was a palace with seemingly endless corridors; where those outside had little idea what happened inside and those in one department didn’t know what happened in the other. At least that’s how it was in the imagination of Ismail Kadare, the Albanian novelist who wrote The Palace of Dreams. In his novel, the protagonist is given a job as a dream reader. He is sent to a room that he has difficulty finding, and told to read the dreams of others, sorting them into those that are of no interest, and that need to be investigated further: those that could be prophesies of events that will be threatening to the state. People throughout the empire submitted written accounts of their dreams to... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
We all start life with our teapot intact and at some point a little crack starts and slowly grows, or maybe one day we slip and the whole thing just crashes to the floor. Those with intact teapots, they don’t know what its like to try and make tea with all the water leaking out. You can’t do it.
The play of power that is accountability and how it currently (mal)functions in the anarchist ‘community’ has become a great fissure in my teapot. Its a big crack because I used to be very invested in it but it isn’t working anymore. When tea is made now, because of this crack and, of course a few others, all that happens is that steam comes out and people get burned.
Ever notice the way that trauma can bu... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Bulgaria had a strong anarchist tradition prior to the movement being smashed and driven underground or into exile after Bulgaria was consigned to the Stalinist sphere of influence in the post-1945 carve-up of Europe.
The national revolutionary movement that developed around 1870 was to free the Bulgarians from five centuries of Turkish domination (1393 through 1877) was heavily influenced by the Russian revolutionaries of the time. including the anarchist Mikhail Bakunin. Cristo Botev, the Bulgarian national hero who died fighting for Bulgarian independence in the mountains, was a disciple of Proudhon and Bakunin.
After national independence anarchism remained a force in Bulgarian society. The movement's historic paper Rabotn... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Introduction
When I moved to Seattle many years after the infamous upheaval of 1999, I found almost no remnants of whatever had existed here. Certainly, I could find other anarchists, but for a long time I found myself in variations of the same conversation: How do we reach each other? What are we doing? Why does nothing happen?
And then, finally, I was with other anarchists in the street — friends and acquaintances, but others, too. Who are all these people? We were all in black masks. This was the first black bloc in Seattle in about a decade. Hundreds of posters all over town had announced a demonstration against police violence in the middle of Capitol Hill as part of the West Coast Days of Action Against State Viole... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
Proposition I
Nothing is missing from the triumph of civilization. Neither political terror nor emotional poverty. Nor universal sterility.
The desert can no longer expand: it is everywhere. But it can still deepen.
Faced with the obviousness of the catastrophe, there are those who become indignant and those who take note, those who denounce and those who get organized. We are on the side of those who get organized.
Scholium
This is a call. That is to say it aims at those who can hear it. The question is not to demonstrate, to argue, to convince. We will go directly to what is already obvious. This is not primarily a matter of logic or reasoning. What is obvious is what is perceptible, the realm of rea... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
There exists no escape from reality. This totalitarian reality, which claims to be definitive, and tries to prevent any rejection or deviation from the one-way attitude imposed by political and economic power. This reality, which brings all perspectives back to the sad parables of economic growth and opinion polls. This reality, which has infested all corners of life with police blocks and surveillance cameras, alarm sirens and safety limits.
But this miserable world from which we cannot escape is decomposing before our eyes. And when air fills with tensions it is sufficient a small spark to provoke an explosion. This is why today the State is compelled to repress anyone opposing it, and in some cases even those who just dare tell it... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)
What is capital? The harvest of the rich by the sweat of the people.
Yes, we workers created capital. By our work we increase it every day. And far from profiting from what we have created, we become slaves to it and by making the capitalists richer to our own detriment, we become insufferable. Many workers look to suicide to end this order of things. I think there is a better way.
What, the capitalist wallows in pleasure and the worker cannot live off the product of his labor. While the former is dancing and feasting, the latter is starving.
O worker, my brother, you are suffering and the capitalist is laughing at your pains. You die and he insults your corpse. Faced with these blatant facts, you find nothing b... (From: TheAnarchistLibrary.org.)