Posted on July 16th, 2012 in Events
ERIC LAURSEN, author of “The People’s Pension: The Struggle to Defend Social Security Since Reagan” (AK Press), will be speaking at Washington’s Busboys and Poets about his book and about the political challenges facing Social Security and the 213 million Americans who participate in it.
Social Security has been the centerpiece of one of the biggest public-policy debates in America, starting with the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980. In “The People’s Pension,” author Eric Laursen refocuses on the political struggle itself: the fight by millions of grassroots activists, organizers, the elderly and disabled to defend this crucial program against a well-funded campaign aiming to privatize it or phase it out. “The People’s Pension” offers not only the first comprehensive history of the contemporary Social Security wars, but an analysis of the real retirement crisis facing Americans and what’s needed to preserve and expand Social Security in the future.
ERIC LAURSEN is an independent journalist and author. He first began reporting Social Security more than 15 years ago as managing editor of Plan Sponsor, the leading monthly magazine for pension managers. Since then, he has written for a wide variety of publications including Institutional Investor, The Nation, The Village Voice, CFO, In These Times, and The AICPA Journal of Accountancy. He is co-author of Understanding the Crash (Soft Skull/Counterpoint, 2010).
This event is cosponsored by Campaign for America’s Future, the Economic Policy Institute, and the Strengthen Social Security Coalition.
More information about the event: http://bbpbooks.teachingforchange.org/book/9781849351010
Posted on July 2nd, 2012 in Events
A conversation with authors: Michael Staudenmaier, Jason Ferreria, Amy Sonnie, and labor organizer Carole Travis. Moderated by James Tracy. What: Nostalgic for Nothing: Emerging Authors Tackle the New Left When: Friday, July 20, 7:30 pm Where: Pegasus Books Downtown What else: Wheelchair accessible; refreshments served. This event is free.
Posted on July 2nd, 2012 in Events
Truth and Revolution author Michael Staudenmaier discusses the history and legacy of the Sojourner Truth Organization – a revolutionary Leninist group active in the 1970s with an interesting critique of whiteness. Don’t miss it!
Founded in Chicago in 1969 from the rubble of the recently crumbled SDS, the Sojourner Truth Organization (STO) brought working-class consciousness to the forefront of New Left discourse, sending radicals back into the factories and thinking through the integration of radical politics into everyday realities. Through the influence of founding members like Noel Ignatiev and Don Hamerquist, STO took a Marxist approach to the question of race and revolution, exploring the notion of “white skin privilege,” and helping to lay the groundwork for the discipline of critical race studies.
Michael Staudenmaier is a doctoral candidate in history at the University of Illinois-Urbana.
About the Author
Michael Staudenmaier: Michael Staudenmaier has been an active part of the anarchist movement in the United States for over twenty years. Currently pursuing his PhD in History at the University of Illinois-Urbana, Michael’s activist work centers around supporting and encouraging resistance to white supremacy. he has published extensively in anarchist and academic journals, and is a contributor to The Hidden 1970s: Histories of Radicalism (Princeton UP, 2010), and The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest, 1500 to the Present (Wiley-Blackwell, 2009). He lectures widely on a variety of topics related to struggles around issues of race and whiteness.
Posted on June 29th, 2012 in AK Authors!, Reviews
We were very pleased to see this review of David Porter’s Eyes to the South: French Anarchists and Algeria by Javier Sethness-Castro.
It is held in some circles that anarchism, like Marxism, is a form of thought and praxis that originated in nineteenth-century Europe and as such is inseparably related to this social milieu; interventions and mobilizations taken outside of this geographical-historical intersection, however strongly critical they be of patriarchy, the State, and capital, are in patronizing manner considered not to be anarchist. This raises the question of ethnocentrism among self-identified proponents of anarchist social philosophy—a concern that is not without its historical basis, given that even the Spanish anarchists of the CNT and the FAI refused seriously to consider emancipating Spain’s colonies in Morocco as part of the radical socio-political program it would counterpose to feudalism and capitalism in the Iberian peninsula.1 These glaring trends are ones that anarchist academic David Porter confronts and challenges strongly with his Eyes to the South: French Anarchists and Algeria, an extensive work that examines the various dramas of modern Algerian history and the engagement by French anarchist observers of this. In broad terms, it can be said that Porter in this work seeks to advance a mutual enrichment between established Western anarchist perspectives with the effectively anarchist practices seen in the Algerian context after the military defeat of Nazism in Europe, in addition to challenging the reactionary tendency of residents and workers of core Western societies to identify with the colonial projects promoted by their ruling classes as well as showing the potential of anarchism’s relevance to the lives of the social majorities of the world—following in the example of the CNT-FAI in Spain.
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Posted on June 25th, 2012 in Events
The Allied Media Conference advances our visions for a just and creative world. It is a laboratory for media-based solutions to the matrix of life-threatening problems we face. Each conference builds off the previous one and plants the seeds for the next, drawing strength from our converging movements to face the challenges and opportunities of our current moment.
For more information: http://amc.alliedmedia.org/
AK Press will be tabling throughout the conference with our books and a selection of distributed titles! Stop by and say hi!
Posted on June 25th, 2012 in Events
Our annual summer warehouse sale! Get 25% off EVERYTHING, plus check our tables of sale titles (good stuff, too!) marked down to just $1-$5! Plus complimentary snacks and beverages, and all the fun you’ve come to expect…
If you’re on Facebook, check out the event here: http://www.facebook.com/events/484105154948302/
Posted on June 21st, 2012 in AK Authors!, Current Events
Our friend and author Cindy Milstein has been spending quite a bit of time in Montreal recently and has been thoughtfully blogging about the Maple Spring.
A Little Bit of Direct Democracy (for Now), Montreal, Day 55
The past two days, I finally got my first chance to check out self-governance in Montreal: a neighborhood assembly yesterday, and the CLASSE Congress today. Both in 100% French, and my French is next to nothing. But I can recognize some words, such as “démocratie directe” and “autonomie.” Better yet, I can read the body language of good cheer and respectful interactions, and follow the informal & formal processes–all of which put most of what I participated in and saw within US occupy to shame.
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This Bike Is a Poster, or “A-Anti-Anticapitalista,” Montreal, Night 51
This past weekend in Montreal’s unfolding maple-spring saga pitted the Grand Prix’s blatant display of wealth and sexism against the brave display of disruption and solidarity. Many of the always-illegal marches were a collaborative call from CLAC, an anarchist organization that’s at least 10 years old and probably more like 12 or so, and CLASSE, the most radical of the student associations, including many anarcho-syndicalists in particular from what I hear.
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Posted on June 19th, 2012 in AK Allies, AK Authors!, Happenings
For our readers in Baltimore:
On Thursday June 21st 2012 at 9am community and student organizations will host a demonstration to demand the immediate reinstatement Friend of a Friend program at Jessup Correctional Institution following its arbitrary indefinite suspension. The demonstration will take place at 300 East Joppa Road in Towson, Maryland. Please join us, and bring signs and placards that read Reinstate Friends!
The Friends program was founded by a group of concerned men in the prison system, including political prisoner Eddie Conway, to provide mentoring to young prisoners. The program began with an attempt to identify the problems, expectations and daily needs of prisoners – many of whom are of African descent – and excluded from full participation in the social and political process.
Following a graduation ceremony for program participants at the Jessup Correctional Institution (JCI) we were informed that the project was being “dismantled” with no explanation except that contraband was found on the premises. There is no evidence that the Friends volunteers were involved in the smuggling of the contraband, nor is there any evidence that our incarcerated participants were involved. We are asking the entire community to attend this demonstration and support our incarcerated brothers, to demand immediate reinstatement of this program that has helped hundreds of prisoners and former prisoners, and more transparency in the Maryland Office of Public Safety and Correctional Services. We are asking concerned community members to email and/or fax the Secretary of Public Safety and Correctional Services Gary Maynard atgmaynard@dpscs.state.md.us and the fax number is 410-339-4240.
Demonstration Co-sponsors include: Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle, Students Against Mass Incarceration-Howard University, The Social Justice Committee of Pleasant Hope Baptist Church, Red Emma’s, the Baltimore Free School, The Youth Resiliency Institute, and Nommo Theater.
Posted on June 19th, 2012 in AK Distribution, AK News
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| New E-books from AK Press! |
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Some of you may have noticed that we’re going a bit e-book crazy lately. We’ve been producing e-books for a while now, but finally with our awesome new website, we are newly able to sell them directly (which also means we can make them available DRM-free)! Below are just a few of our latest e-book offerings; visit the downloads section on our website for more, and check back soon–we’re continually adding new ones!
 Anarchism and its Aspirations
Cindy Milstein · AK Press
E-book ISBN: 9781849350297 · $9.00
From nineteenth-century newspaper publishers to the participants in the “battle of Seattle” and the recent Greek uprising, anarchists have been inspired by the ideal of a free society of free individuals-a world without hierarchy or domination. But what exactly would that look like, and how can we get there? Anarchism and Its Aspirations provides an accessible overview of an often-misunderstood political philosophy, highlighting its principles and practices as well as its reconstructive vision of a liberatory society.
 Captive Genders
· AK Press
E-book ISBN: 9781849350716 · $14.99
Pathologized, terrorized, and confined, trans/gender non-conforming and queer folks have always struggled against the enormity of the prison industrial complex. In the first collection of its kind, Eric A. Stanley and Nat Smith bring together current and former prisoners, activists, and academics to offer new ways for understanding how race, gender, ability, and sexuality are lived under the crushing weight of captivity. From rioting against police violence and critiquing hate crimes legislation to prisoners demanding access to HIV medications, and far beyond, Captive Genders is a challenge for us all to join the struggle.
 Chomsky on Anarchism
· AK Press
E-book ISBN: 9781849350372 · $12.95
We all know what Noam Chomsky is against: among other things capitalism, imperialism, domestic repression, and government propaganda. But relatively little has been said about what exactly Chomsky stands for, his own personal politics, his vision of the future. That is, until Chomsky on Anarchism, a collection that shows the anarchist principles that have guided him since he was a teenager. This collection of Chomsky’s essays and interviews paints a fresh picture of Chomsky, showing his life-long involvement with the anarchist community, his constant commitment to nonhierarchical models of political organization, and his hopes for a future world without rulers.
· AK Press
E-book ISBN: 9781849350310 · $13.95
If we want to preserve what’s still left of the natural world, we need to stop using so much of it. And cities are the best chance we have left for a sustainable future … but only if they remain vibrant, dynamic spaces that are unfolded by millions of people working together-and not by master plans and planners. What will it take to make our cities truly sustainable? Engaging, accessible, and relentlessly original, Common Ground in a Liquid City is an appealing portrait of what the urban future might look like-if we can get our act together.
 Dancing with Dynamite · AK Press
E-book ISBN: 9781849350464 · $11.99
In the past decade, grassroots social movements played major roles in electing left-leaning governments throughout Latin America, but subsequent relations between the streets and the states remain uneasy. Dancing with Dynamite explores the complex ways these movements have worked with, against, and independently of national governments. From dynamite-wielding miners in Bolivia to the struggles of landless farmers in Brazil and Paraguay, Benjamin Dangl discusses the dance between movements and states in seven different Latin American countries, and suggests how Latin American social movement strategies could be applied internationally to build a better world now.
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| 50% Off These AK Press Summer Reads! |
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| Just for this month, we’ve decided to discount a few titles that make great summer reading–full of travel, intrigue, and adventure! Check these titles out and get them at half-price through the end of June.
 Clandestines
Ramor Ryan · AK Press
PB ISBN: 9781904859550 · Now just $7.98!
A shrewd political thinker and philosopher, with a knack for ingratiating himself into the thick of precarious situations, Ramor Ryan has been there and lived to tell about it. As much an adventure story as an unofficial chronicle of modern global resistance movements, Clandestines spirits the reader into subterranean locales. From the teeming squats of Berlin, to intrigue in the Zapatista Autonomous Zone, a Croatian Rainbow Gathering on the heels of the G8 protests in Genoa, mutiny on the high seas, the Quixotic ambitions of a Kurdish guerilla camp, the contradictions of Cuba, and the neo-liberal nightmare of post-war(s) Central America we see everywhere a world in flux, struggling to be reborn.
 Peace, Love & Petrol Bombs
· AK Press
PB ISBN: 9781849350617 · Now just $7.48!
Wayne Foster is fed up. How long can you work in a dead-end job as a full-time burger-flipper in a small town in Scotland before you start to wonder what comes next? Set in the heady days of the early antiglobalization movement, and centered around a group of friends working at “Benny Burgers” who find themselves thrust into the midst of a conflict with the bosses and the cops, Peace, Love & Petrol Bombs is the modern working-class novel. Rife with dry wit and disaffected humor, this is the perfect antidote to “serious” political fiction.
 Suffled How It Gush
· AK Press
PB ISBN: 9781904859857 · Now just $8.48!
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Shon Meckfessel appropriates the peculiar slogan of an Albanian mineral water company as the title for this uniquely intellectual book. Equal parts journalism, history, and personal memoir, Suffled How it Gush records Shon’s travels throughout ex-Yugoslavia and the greater Balkans region, chronicling the beauty of an area too renowned for its ugliness. George Katsiaficas says: “Shon Meckfessel bathes in undercurrent discourses and points us to Balkan dynamics contradicting the nationalist loyalties that distort people’s lives. Rather than making ethnic claims or endorsing any hierarchy, he clarifies existing struggles against states and points toward a region free of domination.”
· AK Press
PB ISBN: 9781849350211 · Now just $9.00!
Bilked bankers, grifted gamblers, and swindled spinsters. Welcome to the world of confidence men. You’ll marvel at the elaborate schemes developed by The Yellow Kid and cry for the marks who lost it all to his ingenuity: $8,000,000 by some estimations. Fixed horse races, bad real-estate deals, even a money-making machine, were all tools of the trade for the Kid and his associates. A fantastic, engaging read you won’t be able to put down! “I never cheated an honest man, only rascals. They wanted something for nothing. I gave them nothing for something.”-Joseph “Yellow Kid” Weil
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| New Sale Titles from AK Press Distro! |
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 Guerilla Art
Sebastian Peiter · Laurence King Publisher
HB + DVD ISBN: 9781856695930 · Now just $14.95!
This unique book features full-color images alongside interviews with key artists including Banksy, Futura, Ramm:ell:zee, Os Gemeos, Invader, Barnstormers, WK Interact, Zevs, Blek le Rat, André, Noki, and Eine. Graffiti-inspired street art pioneers discuss their own work, how street art was born out of the days of subway train graffiti, spraypainting and tagging, and how the new movement of street artists are doing things differently. Filmed in New York, London, Paris, São Paulo, and Tokyo, the accompanying documentary shows the artists at work.
 Stuffed & Starved
· Melville House
PB ISBN: 9781933633497 · Now just $5.00!
It’s a perverse fact of modern life: there are more starving people in the world than ever before while there are also more people overweight. To find out how we got to this point and what we can do about it, Raj Patel launched a comprehensive investigation into the global food network. What he found was shocking, from the false choices given us by supermarkets to a global epidemic of farmer suicides, and real reasons for famine in Asia and Africa. Yet he also found great cause for hope in international resistance movements working to create a more democratic, sustainable and joyful food system. Going beyond ethical consumerism, Patel explains, from seed to store to plate, the steps to regain control of the global food economy, stop the exploitation of both farmers and consumers, and rebalance global sustenance.
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| Be Our Friend… For Life! |
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Sign up as a Friend of AK Press and receive Imperiled Life , plus a Friends of AK Press tote bag, as your first month’s shipment. For a limited time you will also receive a free AK Press title of your choice as a free thank-you gift!
As a Friend of AK, you’ll get EVERY new AK Press release delivered to you hot off the press, and great discounts on everything else you order from us, and you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that you are doing your part to help get our books out into a world that’s now, more than ever, desperately in need of them. Our publishing program has grown by leaps and bounds in the past few years, and we depend on the Friends of AK to help us keep up our frenetic pace. We’ve got no shortage of ideas and energy, but times are tough and we need to raise funds to help support our efforts. That’s where you come in!
We now offer several different options for Friends of AK Press: receiving print books, e-books (in Kindle or epub formats), or both! Just take your pick. For the first time in a decade, we’ve also decided to reopen the Lifetime Friends of AK Press program, and make available a limited number of Lifetime Friends memberships! We rely on all kinds of Friends to keep us going, just pick the subscription that’s right for you!
. Find out more, and sign up, on our Friends of AK page!
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Posted on June 14th, 2012 in About AK, AK Distribution, AK News, Happenings, Recommended Reading, Uncategorized
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There’s never been a better time to join the Friends of AK Press program …
Now featuring ebooks!
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Every single book we publish, delivered straight to your door.
Or your email.
Automatically.
Every month.
Sign up before September 1st and get a free copy of any previously-published AK Press book you want!
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 E-Book-Only Friends of AK Press Subscription
$15 a month worldwide.
Brand-spanking new, and DRM-free: Get a copy of every new AK Press book in ePub or mobi format sent to you via email and a 50% discount on any additional AK titles you buy, plus a 20% discount on everything else!
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 Print & E-book Friends of AK Press Combined Subscription
$35 a month in the US.
($40 Canada, $45 Elsewhere)
Wanna have it all? Now you can: Get a copy of every new AK Press book in ePub or mobi format sent to you via email, and a copy of the print book in the mail. Plus a 50% discount on any additional AK titles you buy, and a 20% discount on everything else!
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 Print-Only Friends of AK Press Subscription
$25 a month in the US.
($30 Canada, $35 Elsewhere)
The classic: Get a copy of every new AK Press book in the mail. Plus a 50% discount on any additional AK titles you buy, and a 20% discount on everything else!
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(Sign up for the combined program and get both a print book and an ebook …)
There are multiple ways to pay! Sign up for an ongoing subscription and we’ll charge your card on the 15th of every month. Or, pay for three, six, nine months, or a year at a time. Plus … for a limited time only, don’t miss the deal of a lifetime: $2500 gets you a Lifetime Friends of AK subscription – you get every book we publish for the rest of your life or ours. Now THAT’s a deal.
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