The Witch’s Child – By Anonymous – MP3 – Read – Updated PDF – Archive – Torrent – YouTube
We recorded and released this piece in 2015 but that version of the text omitted some key parts. So in anticipation of this years May Day we have reformatted the zine and rerecorded the audio. We hope this beautiful story gives you the strength and inspiration to sprout forth for spring.
The Unquiet Dead: Anarchism, Fascism, and Mythology – Chapter 3 the Spanish revolutionists and their betrayal – By Anonymous – MP3 – Read – Print – Archive – Torrent – YouTube
Chapter three of this multipart series discusses Spain before the war; the rise of the fascist; anarchist resistance; the betrayal of the revolution and its consequences.
The full text is available at unquietdead.tumblr.com; we will be posting recordings of other chapters in the future.
Helen Graham tells us of post-war Spain:
“The defeated cast no reflection. No public space was theirs. …The Republican dead could never be publicly mourned. The defeated were obliged to be complicit in this denial. Women concealed the violent deaths of husbands and fathers from their children in order to protect them physically and psychologically. In villages all over Spain, many kept secret lists of the dead. Sisters mentally mapped the location of their murdered brothers, but never spoke of these things. The silent knowledge of unquiet graves necessarily produced a devastating schism between public and private memory in Spain. It was a schism that would outlive even the Franco regime itself”
I write here in solidarity with these unquiet dead.
1:31:08 – The Unquiet Dead Chapter 2. conflict and complicity: early Italian anarchists and fascists – By Anonymous – MP3 – Read – Print – Torrent – Archive – YouTube
Chapter two of this multipart series discusses the rise of fascism in 1910s Italy, the historical and class factors that contributed to its rise, and its associated mythologies. It also describes the challenging and complex history of the Italian adventure in Fiume and the relationship of Marinetti’s Futurism to fascism.
The full text is available at unquietdead.tumblr.com; we will be posting recordings of other chapters in the future.
Witches, Midwives & Nurses: A History of Women Healers – By Barbara Ehrenreich and Deirdre English – MP3 – Read – PDF – alt PDF – Archive – Torrent – YouTube
Women have always been healers, and medicine has always been an arena of struggle between female practitioners and male professionals. This audio zine explores two important phases in the male takeover of health care: the suppression of witches in medieval Europe and the rise of the male medical profession in the United States. The authors conclude that despite efforts to exclude them, the resurgence of women as healers should be a long-range goal of the women’s movement.
Originally published in 1973, this text offers a good brief analysis of the history of patriarchy as it relates to the medical establishment. However, it has some blind spots around Eurocentrism and intersectionality.
Musical Interludes – Stevie Nicks – Gate and Garden
Queer Fire: The George Jackson Brigade, Men Against Sexism, and Gay Struggle Against Prison – Published by
A collection of histories, speeches, and interviews with members of the George Jackson Brigade and Men Against Sexism. These stories give inspiration for the multiform queer struggle against prison, capitalism, and the state.
“The Brigade’s diversity extended beyond the political as well. The group consisted of black and white members; gay, straight, and bisexual members; college graduates and ex-cons. Where groups such as the Weather Underground were, by and large, coming from the upper-middle class, Brigade members’ experiences gave the group a more nuanced view of struggle. The struggle against prison was, from the beginning, central to the Brigade’s activities, influenced, in no small part, by the fact that members of the Brigade had been in and out of prison their entire lives.”
One of the GJB members whose writing is featured in this audiozine, Bo Brown, has some serious health problems with which she needs support. Please click here to help her out if you can.
“I stand before this mockery of justice court to be condemned as its enemy – and I am its enemy! I am a member of the George Jackson Brigade and I know the answer to Bertolt Brecht’s question: “Which is the biggest crime, to rob a bank or to found one?” It is to my sisters and brothers of the working class that I am accountable – NOT to this court that harasses and searches my peers before they can enter what is supposed to be their courtroom. NOT to this or any court whose hidden purpose is to punish the poor and non-white in the name of the U.S. government. A government which perpetuates the crimes of war and repression has NO right to prescribe punishment for those who resist the continuation of worldwide death and misery.”
1:07:16 – Lines In Sand: three essays on identity, oppression, and social war – intro by Peter Gelderloos – MP3 – Read – Print – Archive – Torrent – YouTube
“…I think we all need to fiercely reject the Ally as a primary identity of
struggle. You cannot give solidarity if you are not struggling first
and foremost for your own reasons. To be only or primarily an ally is to
be a parasite on others’ struggles, with no hope greater than to be a
benign parasite; it is to refuse to acknowledge our interests and place
in the world out of a dogmatic insistence on identifying ourselves with
the system we are supposed to be fighting. Being aware of relative
oppression and privilege is vital, but emphasizing those differences
over the fact that all of us have common enemies and all of us have
reasons to destroy the entire system is deliberately missing
opportunities to make ourselves stronger in this fight.”
Lines in Sand is a collection by various unnamed authors with an intro by Peter Gelderloos that looks
critically at identity politics and anti-oppression politics. All of
them are very thought provoking and well worth reading. These aren’t
knee-jerk criticisms, but rather are thoughtful explorations of the
problematic aspects of identity and anti-oppression politics and
practice.
“…tokenization and paternalism are on any list of “fucked up” behaviors in
an anti-oppression practice, thus the practice protects itself from
open complicity with the very problems it creates. Human agency is a
fundamental component of freedom, perhaps the most important one;
therefore if someone is denied agency in their own struggle because the
most legit thing they can do is be an ally to someone else’s struggle,
it is inevitable that they will exercise their agency in the course of
supporting a struggle they view as someone else’s. To do so, they will
either look for any oppressed person who supports a form of struggle
they feel inclined towards, and use them as a legitimating façade, or
they will try to participate fully and affect the course of a broader
campaign or coalition in which they are pretending to be mere allies. In
other words, by presenting privilege as a good thing, anti-oppression
politics creates privileged people who have nothing to fight for and
inevitably tokenize or paternalize those whose struggles are deemed
(more) legitimate.”
Archipelago – Affinity, Informal Organization, and Insurrectional Projects – From Salto #2 – MP3 – Read – Print – Archive – Torrent– YouTube
This zine explores the topic of affinity and informal organization. The author(s) argue that informal organizations based on affinity are the ideal ways of acting as anarchist because they overcome the limits of qualitative projects and organizations that exist as ends in and of themselves. Incorporated into the text are criticisms of formal organizations and discussions of what exactly affinity means.
[Translated from Salto, subversion & anarchy, issue #2, november 2012 (Brussels).]
“We believe that anarchists have the most amount of freedom and autonomy of movement to intervene in social conflictivity if they organize themselves in small groups based on affinity, rather than in huge formations or in quantitative organizational forms. Of course, it is desirable and often necessary that these small groups are able to come to an understanding between each other.”
Musical Interludes: I Only Wish This For You by Saltland
With Allies Like These: Reflections on Privilege Reductionism – by Common Cause – MP3 – Read – Print – Archive – Torrent – YouTube
“…this article aims to critically engage with the dominant ideas and practices of anti-oppression politics. We define anti-oppression politics as a related group of analyses and practices that seeks to address inequalities that materially, psychologically, and socially exist in society through education and personal transformation. While there is value in some aspects of anti-oppression politics, they are not without severe limitations. Anti-oppression politics obfuscates the structural operations of power and promotes a liberal project of inclusion that is necessarily at odds with the struggle to build a collective force capable of fundamentally transforming society. It is our contention that anti-oppression furthers a politics of inclusion as a poor substitute for a politics of revolution. The dominant practices of anti-oppression further an approach to struggle whose logical conclusion is the absorption of those deemed oppressed into the dominant order, but not to the eradication and transformation of the institutional foundations of oppression.”
The Faggots & Their Friends Between Revolutions – by Larry Mitchell – MP3 – Read – Torrent – Archive – YouTube
In a joyous and perverse intermingling of fable, myth, heterotopian vision, and pocket wisdom, The Faggots and Their Friends tell us stories of the 70s gay countercultures and offer us strategies and wisdom for our own time living between revolutions.
From the 2016 introduction:
“These pages sketch a different shape to time and offer instructions for living within it. This story, like our own, plays out in liminal time. Not the time of revolution, and not after-the-revolution, the story occurs between revolutions. Being between revolutions: being enmeshed in slow entropy, in abandoned spaces, in lives forged without recourse to ‘winning’ or ‘after’. The faggots feel this disintegration, and live best when empires are falling.”
First published in 1977 by Calamus Books, this Radical Faerie classic was reprinted last year.
“This is possibly the sweetest gay fantasy book written during the magical post-Stonewall, pre-AIDS epoch. It’s a series of poems/stories about fairy men living in a community, spending time together, wearing spangles, and mocking straight society. “ – a comment on Goodreads
Musical interludes: False Moon by Them Are Us Too
38:42 – The Incomplete, True, Authentic and Wonderful History of May Day – by Peter Linebaugh – MP3 – Read – Print – Torrent– Archive – YouTube
This essay tells a story of the two sides of May Day: the red and the green. From Maypoles to the Haymarket martyrs, listen to this AudioZine and get excited for an awesome May Day.
“The repression had begun with the burning of women and it continued in the 16th century when America was “discovered,” the slave trade was begun, and nation-states and capitalism were formed. In 1550 an Act of Parliament demanded that Maypoles be destroyed, and it outlawed games. In 1644 the Puritans in England abolished May Day altogether.”
The essay has recently been expanded into a full length book available from PM Press.
Musical interludes – The Chain by Fleetwood Mac
Check out our other May Day hype piece Witch’s Child!
1:34:46 – When Insurrections Die – By Gilles Dauvé – MP3 – Text – Print – Archive – Torrent – YouTube
Are fascism and democracy two sides of the same statist coin? What can the history of fascism tell us about our current moment? How can opposition to fascism end up strengthening liberal capitalist democracy?
“The question is not: who has the guns? but rather: what do the people with the guns do? 10,000 or 100,000 proletarians armed to the teeth are nothing if they place their trust in anything beside their own power to change the world. Otherwise, the next day, the next month or the next year, the power whose authority they recognize will take away the guns which they failed to use against it.”
This is a reconceived version of “Fascism and Anti-Fascism“(PDF), which Dauvé wrote (under the pen name Jean Barrot) as a preface to a selection of articles on the Spanish Revolution in the French communist journal Bilan (published in 1979). In this text, Dauvé draws on the experiences of the revolutionary movements in Russia, Germany, and Spain to criticize anti-fascism and democracy, and to draw general conclusions for communists today.
Another version of this text appeared in Endnotes #1 (2008) and corrects some typographical errors and improves layout, but has no substantive alterations.
Musical interludes: No Police by Doja Cat
59:59 -Two essays, Insurrectionary Anarchy Organising for Attack! (Text) and Without a Trace(Text), from issue #10 of Do or Die – MP3 – PDF – Archive – Torrent – YouTube
“Insurrectionary anarchism is not an ideological solution to social problems, nor a commodity on the capitalist market of ideologies and opinions. Rather it is an on-going practice aimed at putting an end to the domination of the state and the continuance of capitalism, which requires analysis and discussion to advance. Historically, most anarchists, except those who believed that society would evolve to the point that it would leave the state behind, have believed that some sort of insurrectionary activity would be necessary to radically transform society. Most simply, this means that the state has to be knocked out of existence by the exploited and excluded, thus anarchists must attack: waiting for the state to disappear is defeat.”
Musical interludes New Noise by Refused
For another formatting of this zine click here
Revolutionary Echoes From Syria: Conversations With Two Anarchists From Aleppo – Published by Hourriya – MP3 – PDF? (Coming Soon) – Archive – Torrent – YouTube
The discussion below reflects an overview of the conditions experienced by individuals who are trying to liberate themselves from the system of social hypocrisy and the mentality of subordination. Our experience is still fragile, a newborn.
During the revolution and even now the difficulty lies in our inability to observe clearly the inherent authoritarian power within the society and the state. Consequently this prevented – and still prevents – us from stripping the layers they hide behind and fighting them raw and bare.
“Have no Kalashnikov, Choose Molotov.”
Musical interludes: Samih – (Ya Haif) Ya Hef – سميح شقير – يا حيف, Ibrahim Kashush – أغنية الشهيد البطل إبراهيم قاشوش
30:48 – Understanding Patriarchy – By bell hooks – MP3 – PDF – Torrent – Archive – YouTube
In this short essay bell hooks offers a quick introduction to patriarchy and particularly the way it affects men. She draws on examples from her own life and from other writers. This essay comes from an older feminist perspective that has not taken into account the experiences or existence of trans, intersex, or genderqueer people; however we believe it still offers a useful understanding of patriarchy.
“Patriarchy is a political-social system that insists that males are inherently dominating, superior to everything and everyone deemed weak, especially females, and endowed with the right to dominate and rule over the weak and to maintain that dominance through various forms of psychological terrorism and violence. When my older brother and I were born with a year separating us in age, patriarchy determined how we would each be regarded by our parents. Both our parents believed in patriarchy; they had been taught patriarchal thinking through religion.
At church they had learned that God created man to rule the world and everything in it and that it was the work of women to help men perform these tasks, to obey, and to always assume a subordinate role in relation to a powerful man. They were taught that God was male. These teachings were reinforced in every institution they encountered– schools, courthouses, clubs, sports arenas, as well as churches. Embracing patriarchal thinking, like everyone else around them, they taught it to their children because it seemed like a “natural” way to organize life.”
3:04:00 – A Crime Called Freedom: Writings of Os Cangaceiros Vol. 1 – by Os Cangaceiros – MP3 – Read – Print – Torrent – Archive – YouTube
Click Here for a Chapterized Version
Os Cangaceiros was a group of delinquents caught up in the spirit of the French insurrection of 1968 who refused to let that spirit die. With nothing but contempt for the self-sacrificial ideology practiced by “specialists in armed struggle”, this uncontrollable band of social rebels wreaked havoc on the French state—attacking infrastructures of oppression, supporting popular revolts, stealing and releasing secret blueprints for high-tech prisons, raiding the offices of corporate collaborators, and creating their lives in complete opposition to the world based on work. This volume, translated by Wolfi Landstreicher and originally published by Eberhardt Press, is the first substantial collection of the writings of Os Cangaceiros in English.
“Have you recovered from your wounds, architect? Have you guessed why it happened? Shamelessly, without a single scruple, inch-by-inch, you have designed the cells in which even the handicapped will be locked up. Inside the walls that you design, people who are worth much more than you are will be beaten regularly. It was about time that you had a taste of what thousands of prisoners will have to suffer to a much greater degree. Of course, architect, your corporation is no less infamous. Seeing the habitations you construct for normal city dwellers, one can recognize your competence for locking up delinquents. It is easy to pass from the towers of the 13th district to the prison cell. Pig, seeing your snout up close, we were able to observe on your weary face how much you busy yourself with your projects. Earlier you built walls; now you keep close to them.”
– Os Cangaceiros
Musical Interludes: “Trop de temps” – Le Gale
26:59 – Bern Notice: Building A Material Force In The Age Of Trumpism – from Its Going Down – MP3 – Read – Print – Torrent – Archive – YouTube
Radio Edit – MP3
“If we strive to create a material force within the social landscape; an autonomous anti-capitalist and anti-colonial movement that builds counter-power and new forms of life, then we must take stock of the other emerging forces in the current terrain. We have to think about how we can fight—and win, against the growing rise of the autonomous far-right, especially after Trump’s presidential run ends. For after Trump returns to being a real estate billionaire baron full-time, the cadres that gathered their forces during his campaign will take further shape autonomously, as backlash will surely build against Hilary, assuming that she takes the Presidency. At the same time, as we take a position in this ‘three-way fight,’ we must make sure that our resistance to the far-right is also linked to our struggle against the state and capital; attacking white supremacy as a neo-colonial system and not simply a fight against white nationalist formations on the fringes.”
“For those that worked with Sanders’ campaign, we state plainly that nothing they have done has gotten us closer to this goal. With Sanders’ defeat now official in the eyes of many, the Democrats are now in a position to finally harness all the grassroots mobilization that the Bernie campaign has developed, and push people in the millions to pull the level for Clinton. ‘Anybody but Trump!,’ will be the new rallying cry, as millions will choose to either drag their feet or tow the party line. In this way, Sanders will have served his biggest role: playing revolutionary for the most counter-revolutionary party in history.”
Musical Interludes: YG & Nipsey Hussle – FDT (Fuck Donald Trump), Savage Fam – Rezizt, Rihanna – Take a Bow, AntLoc (from Savage Fam) – Hand of Vengeance, Sindicato Latino –“20 de abril” Fuck nazis, Tinashe – All Hands on Deck, Yung Joc – Its Going Down
2:13:21 – Illyria Street Commune – by Fredy Perlman – MP3 – Read – Print Part 1 – Print Part 2 – Torrent – Archive – YouTube
Radio Edit – MP3
Illyria Street Commune is a play originally written and performed in 1979 in Detroit. It follows the inhabitants of a house over the years as it goes from isolated tenants to anarchist commune then devolves into in fighting and recuperation. Be sure to check out Revolutionary Purity Showdown another take on collective living and conflict, as well as the interview with Robby and Sylvie. (Musical interludes: Chopin – Spring Waltz)
*Sorry for background noise and quality problems our recording set up is not great for recording multiple voices and some of the intended content of the play is lost without a visual component. That being said it was a blast to record and we hope that you enjoy it! For the full effect of the play gather together a bunch of people and put on a live performance of it. and if you feel so inspired videotape it and send it to us and we can link to it here 😉
36:46 – Revolutionary Purity Showdown – By Richard Ades – MP3 – Read – Print – Torrent– Archive – YouTube
This play was originally written by Richard Ades and performed in Detroit in 1979, in part, as a response to Illyria Street Commune, a play released that year by Fredy Perlman. Revolutionary Purity Showdown is a game show where contestants compete “By throwing critiques, insults, and otherwise maligning the character of [their] two fellow contestants.” “the show which says there’s no point in having a line if you don’t have the best line, and there’s no point in being right on, if you aren’t right on top.”
Judged by Emma Goldman, Harpo Marx and Leon Szolgocz this play is makes fun of an all to real dynamic in radical scenes. Be sure to check out the interview with Robby and Sylvie for more context. Theme song from “Password Plus”
*it should be noted that the character of Harpo Marx is almost entirely absent from this recording (only present in the honking horn) his character as you might imagine is all about physical comedy. So for the full effect of this play gather together you and 7 of your friends and put on your own performance of the revolutionary purity showdown.
You could even take a video we can post it on this site 🙂
2:27:26 – Robby Barnes and Sylvie Kashdan – MP3 – Torrent – Archive – YouTube
We sat down with Robby and Sylvie in their home in Seattle to get some of the context for the two plays we were planning on recording. The interview turned into a nearly 2 and a half hour conversation where we discussed Rojava, The 5th Estate, 1968, burnout, and the last 30+ years of anarchy in the United States and much more. It was such a pleasure to hear their stories and perspectives. Though we recorded it almost a year ago we are exited to share it with you now and hope that you find it as interesting as it was for us. The interview is intended to provide some context for Illyria Street Commune by Fredy Perlman and Revolutionary Purity Showdown by Richard Ades which are both well worth a listen.
31:30 – The Party’s Over: Beyond Politics Beyond Democracy – by CrimethInc – MP3 – Read – PDF – Torrent – Archive – YouTube
“Even if it was true that anyone could grow up to be President, that wouldn’t help the millions who inevitably don’t, who must still live in the shadow of that power. This imbalance is intrinsic to the structure of representative democracy, at the local level as much as at the top. The professional politicians of a town council discuss municipal affairs and pass ordinances all day without consulting the citizens of the town, who have to be at work; when one of those ordinances displeases citizens, they have to use what little leisure time they have to contest it, and then they’re back at work again the next time the town council meets. In theory, the citizens could elect a different town council from the available pool of politicians and would-be politicians, but the interests of politicians as a class always remain essentially at odds with their own—besides, voting fraud, gerrymandering, and inane party loyalty usually prevent them from going that far. Even in the unlikely scenario that a whole new government was elected consisting of firebrands intent on undoing the imbalance of power between politicians and citizens, they would inevitably perpetuate it simply by accepting roles in the system—for the political apparatus itself is the foundation of that imbalance. To succeed in their objective, they would have to dissolve the government and join the rest of the populace in restructuring society from the roots up.”
Musical into/outro – Hail To the Chief
7:24 – This Is A Call To End Slavery In America – by prisoners across the US – MP3 – PDF – Text – Archive – Torrent – YouTube
Prisoners from across the United States have released this call to
action for a nationally coordinated prisoner work stoppage against
prison slavery to take place on September 9th, 2016.
“Forty-five years after Attica, the waves of change are returning to
America’s prisons. This September we hope to coordinate and generalize
these protests, to build them into a single tidal shift that the
American prison system cannot ignore or withstand. We hope to end prison
slavery by making it impossible, by refusing to be slaves any longer.
To achieve this goal, we need support from people on the outside. A
prison is an easy-lockdown environment, a place of control and
confinement where repression is built into every stone wall and chain
link, every gesture and routine. When we stand up to these authorities,
they come down on us, and the only protection we have is solidarity from
the outside.”
Music: The Stand by The Coup
For further updates:
SupportPrisonerResistance.net
FreeAlabamaMovement.com
IWOC.noblogs.org
13:44 – Some Notes on Insurrectionary Anarchism – By Sasha K. – MP3 – Read – Print – Print (Handout) – Archive – Torrent – YouTube
“The state will not merely wither away, thus anarchists must attack, for waiting is defeat.”
This short zine provides a brief introduction to insurrectionary anarchism. In a clear and concise manner it articulates the basic concepts of insurrectionary anarchism including, the necessity of attack, self-activity, uncontrollability, permanent conflictuality, and informal organization. The text originally appeared in 2001 in the now defunct anarchist publication “Killing King Abacus.” Despite its age, it is one of the clearest pieces on insurrectionary anarchy and largely avoids the cumbersome rhetoric and writing style that characterized many of the later attempts at explaining insurrectionary anarchism.
52:15 – On The Poverty of Student Life: considered in its economic, political, psychological, sexual, and particularly intellectual aspects, and a modest proposal for its remedy – by students and members of the Situationist International – MP3 – Text – Print – Archive – Torrent – YouTube
First published in 1966 at the University of Strasbourg by students of the university and members of the Internationale Situationniste. Attacking the subservience of university students and the strategies of student radicals, it caused significant uproar, led to the dissemination of Situationist ideas, and precipitated the events of May 1968 in France.
A few students elected to the student union printed 10,000 copies with university funds. The copies were distributed at the official ceremony marking the beginning of the academic year. The student union was promptly closed by court order, and the students responsible were expelled. The pamphlet was described by a local newspaper shortly after its release as, “the first concrete manifestation of a revolt aiming quite openly at the destruction of society.”
2:05:40 – Friendship as a Form of Life – Various – MP3 – Read – Print – Archive – Torrent – YouTube
For a Chaptarized Version Click Here
“friends, lets communize an idea: friendship as a form of life. When its use is common we can communicate,conversations occur and perhaps, if this pleases us, we will find each other; we will become powerful. If we succeed, all of this will become evident. The evident is what is held in common,or what sets apart. It is here that we begin:”
For more zines like this check out Friendship as a Form of Life website.
“I call upon you to investigate your nature as I have been compelled to confront mine. I challenge you to risk abjection and flourish as well as have I. Heed my words, and you may well discover the seams and sutures in yourself.”
24:28 – Baba Yaga Burns Paris To The Ground – By Wren Awry – MP3 – Text – PDF – Archive – Torrent – YouTube
As the Paris Commune of 1871 fought desperately against its own suppression, much of the city was set ablaze.
Conservative journalists, desperate for a scapegoat, invented the pétroleuses—torch-wielding women desperate to burn everything. In this text, fairy-tale critic Wren Awry ties the pétroleuses into a long line of mythologized fire-wielding devil-women—women like Baba Yaga, the youngest sister in the Grimms’ “Fitcher’s Bird,” and the women burned during the great witch hunts of early Modern Europe—as a source of revolutionary inspiration.
“Furies glide through the rich quarters […] and fling their little vials of petrol, their devil’s matches, their burning rags.”
33:28 – Passion for Freedom : An Interview with Jean Weir – MP3 – Read – Imposed – Torrent – Archive – YouTube
Originally published in issue 8 of the magazine 325. , this interview with Jean Weir (of Insurrection magazine and Elephant Editions) features a critical and humble reflection on prison, insurrection, and anarchist publishing.
“We must never forget that — beyond the anecdotes and reminiscences, prison consists of so many reinforced boxes that millions of people all over the world are locked up in day and night. The latter are hostages of the State and live at the mercy of a hierarchy of vile cowards 24 hours a day.”
29:32 – A Day Mournful and Overcast – by an Uncontrollable of the Iron Column – MP3 – Read – PDF – Archive – Torrent – YouTube
Written by a member of the Iron Column, an Anarchist militia unit made up entirely of liberated ex-prisoners, which fought with great distinction in defence of the Spanish Civil War and Revolution of 1936-1939. More than a discussion of the politics of militarisation and control, it’s a hymn to freedom and a tribute to those who fight for it.
“I am an escaped convict from San Miguel de los Reyes, that sinister prison, which the monarchy set up in order to bury alive those who, because they weren’t cowards, would never submit to the infamous laws dictated by the powerful against the oppressed.”
1:21:25 – Against Innocence: Race, Gender, and the Politics of Safety by Jackie Wang – MP3 – PDF – Torrent – Archive – YouTube
First published 2012 in LIES: A Journal of Materialist Feminism Vol. 1
“Ultimately, our appeals to innocence demarcate who is killable and rapable, even if we are trying to strategically use such appeals to protest violence committed against one of our comrades. […] When we rely on appeals to innocence, we foreclose a form of resistance that is outside the limits of law, and instead ally ourselves with the State.”
1:02:11 – How Do We Fight Gentrification? – From Rolling Thunder #11 – MP3 –Text – Archive – Torrent – YouTube
“There are fights it is impossible to win and impossible to avoid. Gentrification is one of these. It is a ceaseless earthquake, breaking up communities, shaking us from one neighborhood to another or into outright homelessness. The ones who take our place face the same fate in our wake.
We have to reimagine these defensive struggles as offensive initiatives–that’s the only way they could turn out to our advantage. What could we gain in fighting, even as the ground is snatched from beneath our feet? How could these losing battles position us to take on the structures that produce gentrification?”
19:25 – The Witch’s Child – From Unsettling America – MP3 – PDF – Article – Archive – Torrent – YouTube
You’re probably thinking “A MayDay hype piece now?!” but we say… “Why Wait?!”
“This is how they destroyed our roots. And this is why, on May Day, we tell stories. Stories of our lives, of our struggles, of the future we want, of a past we invent because we no longer remember it.”
5:09:51 – To Our Friends – By The Invisible Committee – MP3 –Read – Print – Archive – Torrent – YouTube
Click Here for a chapterized version
From The Invisible Committee:
“In 2007 we published The Coming Insurrection in France. It must be acknowledged that a number of assertions by the Invisible Committee have since been confirmed, starting with the first and most essential: the sensational return of the insurrectionary phenomenon. Who would have bet a kopeck, seven years ago, on the overthrow of Ben Ali or Mubarak through street action, on the revolt of young people in Quebec, on the political awakening of Brazil, on the fires set French-style in the English or Swedish banlieues, on the creation of an insurrectionary commune in the very heart of Istanbul, on a movement of plaza occupations in the United States, or on the rebellion that spread throughout Greece in December of 2008?
During the seven years that separate The Coming Insurrection from To Our Friends, the agents of the Invisible Committee have continued to fight, to organize, to transport themselves to the four corners of the world, to wherever the fires were lit, and to debate with comrades of every tendency and every country. Thus To Our Friends is written at the experiential level, in connection with that general movement. Its words issue from the turmoil and are addressed to those who still believe sufficiently in life to fight as a consequence.
To Our Friends is a report on the state of the world and of the movement, a piece of writing that’s essentially strategic and openly partisan. Its political ambition is immodest: to produce a shared understanding of the epoch, in spite of the extreme confusion of the present.”
Review by anarchist prisoner Sean Swain
Zines for the first five chapters are available here: 1 2 3 4 5 from Ruine des Kapitals
Full text available at The Anarchist Library
*08/08/15 Sound Quality Improved
36:04 – Fire At Midnight, Destruction at Dawn: Sabotage and Social War – By Kasimere Bran – MP3 – Text – PDF – Archive – Torrent – YouTube
Originally published in the first issue of A Murder of Crows, this pamphlet is a good explanation about how individual acts can fit into collective revolt and not become isolated in specialized armed struggle
“Sabotage can be used in all situations, in all terrains, and by anyone who wishes to use it. It requires no specialization or skill, just initiative. While news of sabotage is difficult to find, obscured and negated as it is by those in power, there are some notable examples of its use that we would like to examine. This list is by no means comprehensive but rather a sampling of relevant examples.”
23:21 – 10 Points On The Black Bloc – By Harsha Walia – MP3 – PDF – Archive – Torrent – Text – YouTube
A talk by No One is Illegal’s Harsha Walia speaking about the diversity of tactics strategy and the black bloc tactic (10 Quick Points!) and experiences of the tactic in the context of 2010 Olympics resistance, Heart Attack March.
(This is not our own recording unlike the rest of the audio on our site. We ripped this off of YouTube and cleaned up the audio a bit to make it available in audio as it is already available as video and text.)
27:46 – Industrial Domestication – By Leopold Roc – MP3 – PDF – Archive – Torrent – YouTube
With the sub-title “Industry as the Origins of Modern Domination,” this zine analyzes the industrial revolution happening roughly between 1750 and 1850 in the West. In it, the author argues that industrialization was part of domestication process that was built on discipline, control, and surveillance. The essay originally appeared in the anarchist magazine Fifth Estate.
10:40 – “ETERNAL WAR ON THE HITLER YOUTH” (THE EDELWEISS PIRATES, 1938-1945) – From Outlaw History and Theory – MP3 – Text – Archive – Torrent – YouTube
What drew me to this article was not any sort of knee-jerk liberal antifascism, that gets all warm inside at any talk of resistance to fascism no matter what the source, but rather the description of resistance by youth largely from the exploited classes attacking the domination under which they lived with audacity even when it took the form of a genocidal totalitarian police state of the most extreme form. The actions these youth took were direct action, and in the case of the Edelweiss Pirates, seem to have been largely autonomous. The Meuten were apparently connected with communist groups, and I wish the article had gone into differences between the practice of the Pirates and the Meuten, since this could have been a fruitful area for practical analysis, but of course an article like this is just a beginning.
18:08 – Manifesto of the Committee to Abolish Outer Space – By Sam Kriss – MP3 – Read – Print –Text – Archive– Torrent – YouTube (Performed in front of a live audience)
We have been lied to, subjected to a cruel and chilly lie, one so vast and total it’s no longer fully perceivable but has turned into the unseen substrate of everyday life. It’s a political lie. They told us that outer space is beautiful.
1:12:36 – The Continuing Appeal Of Nationalism – Fredy Perlman – MP3 – Text – PDF – Archive – Torrent – YouTube
Why do the ideas of nation and race still have such an influence even after the lessons of fascism have been so widely drawn? An excellent analysis by the late Fredy Perlman that answers this question and reveals the enduring appeal of nationalism to statist rulers of both left and right.
29:31 – 3 Positions Against Prison – August O’Clairre – MP3 – PDF – Archive – Torrent – YouTube
This zine offers an excellent critique of prisons, arguing that prison is not just a physical site but also a condition that exists within society. Specifically, it offers a solid analysis of prison abolition, arguing that in seeking to “shrink” the prison industrial complex, abolitionists often end up replacing prison with other less brutal institutions. Consequently, prison doesn’t disappear but rather its mechanisms – surveillance, militarization of the police, etc – spread throughout society.
1:45:15 – Revolutionary Solidarity: A Critical Reader for Accomplices – Various – MP3 – PDF – Archive – Torrent – YouTube
Click Here for a chapterized version
Check out this new reader that compiles some of the best texts that critique “ally” politics as well as the closely linked, ‘non-profit industrial complex.’ As the text, ‘Accomplices not Allies” writes: “The ally industrial complex has been established by activists whose careers depend on the “issues” they work to address…Ally has also become an identity, disembodied from any real mutual understanding of support. The term ally has been rendered ineffective and meaningless…But we need to know who has our backs, or more appropriately: who is with us, at our sides?” As the riots and moments of youthful rebellion often give way to more reformist efforts, this collection of texts will hopefully be a tool to begin and continue conversations with everyone who rejects the Left’s managers of revolt.
Resonance: An Anarchist Audio Distro 