Posted on March 14th, 2012 in Events
Learn about some of the themes of our new book The Accumulation of Freedom: Writings on Anarchist Economics, at this talk with editor Deric Shannon! Deric will give a presentation and lead a discussion on anarchist analyses of capitalism and propositions for a world free of oppression, domination, and the institutionalization of coercive social control. Do we have to accept living in a society divided between the wealthy few and the wanting many? Must people starve? Is the state eternal? Does the world need cops, prisons, bosses, and politicians? How do economic hierarchies intersect with things like racism, sexism, rigid gender roles, compulsory monogamy, and heteronormativity? Do we have to live like this? Are other worlds possible? What kinds of alternatives have anarchists put forward and how do we propose to get there? This event will be a great chance to learn more about (and discuss!) anarchism, economics, and the fight for accumulating freedom in a world currently organized for hierarchy, coercion, and control.
Posted on March 14th, 2012 in Events
Learn about some of the themes of our new book The Accumulation of Freedom: Writings on Anarchist Economics, at this talk with editor Deric Shannon! Deric will give a presentation and lead a discussion on anarchist analyses of capitalism and propositions for a world free of oppression, domination, and the institutionalization of coercive social control. Do we have to accept living in a society divided between the wealthy few and the wanting many? Must people starve? Is the state eternal? Does the world need cops, prisons, bosses, and politicians? How do economic hierarchies intersect with things like racism, sexism, rigid gender roles, compulsory monogamy, and heteronormativity? Do we have to live like this? Are other worlds possible? What kinds of alternatives have anarchists put forward and how do we propose to get there? This event will be a great chance to learn more about (and discuss!) anarchism, economics, and the fight for accumulating freedom in a world currently organized for hierarchy, coercion, and control.
Posted on March 14th, 2012 in AK Authors!, Happenings
We’re getting ready, folks—in just a couple short days Kate and I will be on our way up to New York for Left Forum. We’ll have fully stocked book tables in the exhibits area all weekend, so we hope you’ll stop by to say hi to us, check out all our latest releases, and maybe even sign up as a Friend of AK Press and take home your copy of our beautiful new Haymarket Scrapbook!
We’re also pleased to announce that a whole bunch of AK Press authors will be around and speaking on panels throughout the weekend. We already told you about the “Occupying from Below” track organized by our friends at the Institute for Anarchist Studies—and we do still encourage you to check those panels out—but for your reference, here are some more AK Press author appearances for you to consider when planning your busy weekend:
Friday, March 16th
6:30pm: Opening Plenary [includes Marina Sitrin], Schimmel Auditorium
Saturday, March 17th
10:00am: Where Did Occupy Come From? Movement Histories and Presents [includes Cindy Milstein & George Katsiaficas], W510
10:00am: Anarchist Descriptions & Analyses of Capitalism [includes Deric Shannon & John Asimakopoulos], W211
10:00am: Justice Communications: Toward a New Paradigm in Social Change Communications [includes Makani Themba], W603B
10:00am: Love & Struggle: The WUO and the Occupy Movement, A Mother and Child Reunion? [includes Dan Berger], E302
12:00pm: Horizontalism vs. Revolutionary State Power as the Path to Social Transformation: A Debate [includes Eric Laursen], W522
12:00pm: The North America Occupy Movement in Global Perspective [includes Cindy Milstein & George Katsiaficas], E306
12:00pm: Social Movements, the State and the Question of Autonomy [includes Marina Sitrin], E301
3:00pm: Occupy the 1% to Liberate the 99% [includes Max Rameau], LHS
3:00pm: Beyond the Encampmments: New Directions for the Occupy Movement [includes Max Rameau], W510
3:00pm: Anarchism’s Post-Capitalist Vision [includes Deric Shannon & Chris Spannos], W625
3:00pm: “Community” as an Activist Concept [includes A.K. Thompson], E322
5:00pm: Wall Street Is War Street: Art & Social Change in the Sixties and Today [includes Josh MacPhee], W605
5:00pm: Occupy Anarchism [includes Cindy Milstein], W510
5:00pm: America’s Pacific Century? US & Korea Relations [includes George Katsiaficas], W617
5:00pm: Budgets and Bombs, Foreclosures and Teargas: Making the Economic Links Home and Abroad [includes Maia Ramnath], W625
5:00pm: Developing an Occupy Wall Street Vision for the Future [includes Chris Spannos], W618
5:00pm: Occupy for Real Democracy: Experiences from Egypt, Spain, New York and Argentina [includes Marina Sitrin], E310
Sunday, March 18
10:00am: The Question of Colonialism: Unoccupying, Reoccupying, De-Occupying [includes Maia Ramnath], E310
12:00pm: Money Monoculture: Consequences and Alternatives [includes David Graeber], W401
12:00pm: Let Them Eat (and Flip) Cheeseburgers: Race, Gender, Class and the Struggle for Food Justice [includes Makani Themba], W602
3:00pm: Thinking Debt Forgiveness [includes David Graeber], LHS
3:00pm: Anarchism and National Liberation [includes David Porter & Maia Ramnath], W622
3:00pm: Understanding the Essential Economic Role of the New York Times [includes Chris Spannos], W603B
3:00pm: The History of Social Movements and the Future of the Occupy Movements [includes Marina Sitrin], E301
Posted on March 12th, 2012 in AK Allies, Happenings
Someone recently reminded me of a great talk that Ashanti Alston gave in the AK warehouse a while back. I tracked it down through the wonder of the Interweb and watched it again. Despite being daunted by how quickly time seems to be moving as I get older (it happened in 2006, not the year or two ago I thought), I was once again blown away by Ashanti’s words and ideas. Now you can be too…
Thanks to Free Speech TV for documenting the event!
And if you want an audio version of the talk, go here.
Posted on March 10th, 2012 in About AK, AK Allies, AK Authors!, Happenings
Okay, not really. There will probably still be more Marxists at this year’s annual Left Forum conference (March 16-18 at Pace University in NYC), and a lot of those Marxists are our close friends and colleagues and we look forward to seeing them every year! But there are a tremendous number of very pointedly anarchist panels planned this year, which makes us happy. (Still no anarchists vs. Marxists dodgeball match, but ya know, that’s because they know we’d win!)
Especially exciting is the track organized by our pals at the Institute for Anarchist Studies, called Occupying from Below: Resist, Reflect, Re-create, which aims to create a participatory space and encourage theoretical conversations as political practice–where thought and strategy are inextricably bound in dialogue with movement concerns and experiences, through an antiauthoritarian lens, so as to better reflect and act on the possibilities as well as messiness of social transformation made palpable by occupy.
All sessions will take place in Room W510, which will also double as an IAS social space in between sessions. Here’s the full list & description of this seven-part track:
(more…)
Posted on March 9th, 2012 in Events
Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots? contributors Jason Lydon and Khary Polk read at one of our favorite east coast bookstores: Food for Thought Books in Amherst! Visit their website for more details: http://www.foodforthoughtbooks.com/event/book-event-why-are-faggots-so-afraid-faggots
Posted on March 9th, 2012 in Events
Chris Bartlett and CAConrad, contributors to our sassy new anthology Why Are Faggots So Afraid of Faggots?, will be reading at legendary Philadelphia GLBTQ bookstore, Giovanni’s Room! Check out their website for more info: http://www.queerbooks.com/event/reading-chris-bartlett-and-caconrad
Posted on March 9th, 2012 in AK Authors!, Happenings
Heads up, folks: Deric Shannon, one of the editors of our recent release The Accumulation of Freedom, is doing a short speaking tour to discuss the book! If you’re in one of these places, mark this on your calendar NOW!
At these events, Deric will give a presentation and lead a discussion on anarchist analyses of capitalism and propositions for a world free of oppression, domination, and the institutionalization of coercive social control. Do we have to accept living in a society divided between the wealthy few and the wanting many? Must people starve? Is the state eternal? Does the world need cops, prisons, bosses, and politicians? How do economic hierarchies intersect with things like racism, sexism, rigid gender roles, compulsory monogamy, and heteronormativity? Do we have to live like this? Are other worlds possible? What kinds of alternatives have anarchists put forward and how do we propose to get there? This event will be a great chance to learn more about (and discuss!) anarchism, economics, and the fight for accumulating freedom in a world currently organized for hierarchy, coercion, and control.
UPCOMING EVENTS:
Saturday, March 10 at 8pm: PITTSBURGH @ The Big Idea (4812 Liberty Ave)
Thursday, March 15 at 7pm: PHILADELPHIA @ The Wooden Shoe (704 South Street)
Saturday, March 17: NYC @ Left Forum (Pace University)
Session 1, 10:00am, W211: “Anarchist Descriptions and Analyses of Capitalism”
Session 3, 3:00pm, W625: “Anarchism’s Post-Capitalist Vision”
Thursday, March 22 at 7pm: PROVIDENCE @ Libertalia (280 Broadway Room 200)
Friday, March 23 at 7pm: BALTIMORE @ Red Emma’s (800 St. Paul Street)
Sunday, April 1 at 12 noon: SAN FRANCISCO @ Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair (County Fair Building, Golden Gate Park)
Details forthcoming for events coming up in Boston, Rochester, Buffalo, and Sarasota: stay tuned for updates!
Posted on March 6th, 2012 in AK Allies, Happenings
We recently held an important funeral here in Oakland: for capitalism. There weren’t any tears that I could see. Paul Dalton, one of the organizers—and a former AK Press collective member—wrote a moving “dyslegy” (anti-eulogy) for the not-so-dearly departed. Read it and don’t weep. I’ve also included a short video of the event. You can hear/see Daphne Gottlieb reading Paul’s words toward the end…just before the grave dancing begins.
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Daphne and Paul lead the procession
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This is dedicated to everyone who made today possible. To, the Diggers and to General Ludd. To the IWW and the 1st International. To the peasants retaking their fields and the workers occupying their factories. To the philosophers and the saboteurs. To the anarchists in Greece and the Egyptians in Tahrir Square. To Phoolan Devi and Lucy Parsons. To Alexander and Emma. To the Black Panthers and the Young Lords. To the autonomen in Germany and the radical student in South Korea. To those who sat at segregated lunch counters. To those who organized farm workers. To those who have perished, and those who survived. To those who took to the streets, and, yes, those who took up arms. To everyone who stood up and took a stand against an unjust and corrupt system. And last, but certainly not least to you, my fellow fighters, the courageous and spirited voice of the 99%—a voice that cannot and will not be silenced.
We gather together today not to praise capitalism, but to bury it. Rejoice, the great god greed is dead! It lived far too long. Now, its chains have been broken, its tentacles severed. The world is free to breathe again—to grow, to flourish—no longer weighed down by this most voracious monster.
Nobody knows its exact birthday. Sired by mercantilism, midwifed by banking, and nurtured by imperialism, Capitalism’s life was built upon a simple, but powerful lie. An early acolyte, one Adam Smith, proclaimed that material wealth could be conjured by alchemy of hoarding and gambling. Logic and history be damned! No longer did riches need to be stolen, pillaged, spirited away in the night. Now, material wealth could magically appear—like pennies (and pounds, and rupees and dinars) from heaven.
Yet, even as the monster gestated, signs of discontent emerged: textile workers went on strike, farmers claimed their land from its lords, even some men of the churches inveighed against its excesses.
From its earliest days, it showed a mighty appetite—gorging itself on the fruits of others’ labor. Quickly, it grew fat and strong. Like the royalty it emulated, it surrounded itself with sycophants and sidekicks; bodyguards and nannies. It hired bards to sing its praises, and historians were commissioned to celebrate it every accomplishment.
Of course, not everyone delighted in this hungry beast. Many saw Mr. Smith’s lie for what it was—a deception inside a prevarication soaked in the blood of untold millions.
Although it grew large, it was never very healthy. Insatiable, it required ever more and more just to stay alive, leaving storehouses and fields barren in its wake. When its demands couldn’t be met, its fragility was plain to see—as when rampant speculation in tulips collapsed the Dutch economy in 1638, an event echoed by economic bubbles bursting from the South Seas Company in the 18th Century to the Great Depressions of the 19th, 20th and 21st Centuries.
Each bout of illness gave it greater resolve. It sent its minions out to find new fields to pluck, new forests to level, new fodder for its machines. It conquered new lands and people, and took all they had to give—and much, much more.
As it grew larger and more unstable, it developed great skill in the art of distraction. When it faltered in one place, it shifted to another. It was as creative as it was destructive. It gave us our bread and our circuses. It let us eat our cake. It assigned value to things where none existed, made virtue from vice, sacrament from sin.
Of Capitalism’s many children, Industrialism deserves special note. With its machines and interchangeable labor, it took what was old and made it seem new. The production of things was transformed into the manufacturing of profit. It sullied the air, poisoned the water and ravaged the soil. All the time, it remained unperturbed. As long as it got it succulent feasts, it cared not for the ingredients, nor for the cooks.
For a brief moment it faced off against some formidable foes. With names like Marx and Bakunin, Goldman and Luxenburg, Hill and Debbs, groups of fighters emerged, shouted the truth to power, laid bare the lie and said we’d all be better off once we put this behemoth down. Too quickly, capitalism used brute force and ingenuity to crush those who opposed it and turn those who survived into sad, and sickly junior partners—frightening sidekicks. It turned those visions of liberation into the suffocating gray bureaucracies of the so-called communist countries and the simpering unions, stripped of their purpose and their power.
But today we can rejoice in Capitalism’s demise. It has finally succumbed to its own weakness and the strength of its enemies, who are legion. The workers threw monkey wrenches into the gears. The farmers gave food to the hungry. Students took over their classrooms. Capitalism’s gilded gates were torn down. Its thugs were disarmed, its statues toppled.
The lie rejected, the corpse of the leviathan lays steaming, the stench of its decay as sweet as honeysuckle. Now, farmers are free to tend to the field, nurturing rather than ravaging them. Workers can run their workplaces. We can reclaim Capitalism’s ill-gotten gains, and to share them fairly. We can use its machines for our benefit, and dismantle those that don’t serve us. We know our health comes not from the endless gorging by the few, but by the nurturing sustenance of the many.
We slayed the beast and now we come to dance on its grave.
And dance we will. For we have no reason to mourn, only to celebrate and revel in the joy of possibilities—of a world where monsters don’t enslave us, don’t steal our food, don’t kill us when object too loudly to our suffering or in any way interfere with its rapacious plunder.
We have surely suffered enough, but we know Capitalism’s legacy will haunt us. But ghosts only have the power we give them, and they can be exorcized. Each following generation will benefit more than the last. Our triumph is that we overcame, our legacy a world free of this scourge.
So, let’s dance, be merry, celebrate, rejoice! Soon we must get to work, begin rebuilding our new world in the shell of the old. Let us remain ever mindful that the germs of capitalism—greed, destructiveness, violence—reside within us. We must keep them at bay with the medicines of solidarity, mutual aid and love; love of each other and the world which has always sustained us, even under Capitalism’s relentless attack.
Let our final words to Capitalism be: you won’t be missed, nor forgotten. Killing you has made us strong and remembering your avarice will help us avoid our own downfall. May you rest forever, in OUR peace—the peace we have made by ensuring your demise. We have felled the beast, let it never rise again!
Rejoice, the great god greed and its monstrous child capitalism are dead. Let the celebration begin!
Posted on March 1st, 2012 in AK Allies, AK News, Current Events, Happenings, Uncategorized
Mobilizing and Organizing from Below
June 1-3, 2012 | at The 2640 Space in Baltimore, Maryland
Mobilizing and Organizing from Below will be a gathering of activists and organizers, workers and parents, revolutionaries and militants and radicals and dissenters, dedicated to increasing our ability to come together and challenge the systems of exploitation and oppression that have taken hold of the world. The conference will be a weekend of intensive, horizontally-organized political education, in which we can share skills, analyze the problems we face, and pose difficult questions. It will also provide a space for people from different traditions to come together and recognize the depth of our similarities and the richness of our differences; a space for reflection and discussion, distinct from both the chaotic excitement of spontaneous mass actions and the intense demands of long-term organizing work.
Why this conference, and why now? This moment in history is a moment of global revolt: against tyranny, against the violence of the state and capital, against the systems which pit us against each other. In country after country, social movements are taking to the streets in unprecedented numbers against authoritarian regimes and the transnational 1%. What can all these social movements learn from each other? What can Cairo learn from Santiago? What can Madison learn from Greece? (And what about the other way around?) What does global solidarity from below look like for a world in revolt?
At the same time, social movements remain, especially in the US, fragmented and underprepared for the demands of the moment: MOBConf hopes to facilitate conversations across generations, across cultures and subcultures, and across the commitments to different sets of tactics which can divide us. How do we build our capacities to intervene and act on a rapidly changing historical terrain? What kinds of long-term infrastructure do we need to build to make this happen? Can we sharpen our theoretical understanding of the situation we’re facing? And how can we carry all of this into our everyday lives, making a movement truly grounded in care and sustained by solidarity? Our goal is to begin answering these question in a gathering as participatory and horizontal as the movements it will draw upon, and we hope you’ll join us in Baltimore to help make this happen.
MOBConf will be a chance for everyone committed to building autonomous social movements that work towards popular power, real democracy, and an end to oppression to learn from each other’s experiences and develop more effective networks of solidarity. Ready to join in? We invite you to submit a proposal for a workshop, panel, or performance, and to bring information about your work to our bookfair/science fair style hall of projects, but also to think about using the other radical spaces in Baltimore to organize autonomous parallel events during the weekend. Register for the conference now!
MOBconf * June 1-3, 2012 * Baltimore
mobconf2012@gmail.com * @mobconf * Facebook Page * Facebook Event
Brought to you by Red Emma’s
