Posted on September 13th, 2010 in AK Book Excerpts, Recommended Reading
(Above photo of Tresca addressing workers, likely in PA in 1904 or 05,
from the collection of N. Pernicone)
Hot off the press this week is a new edition of Nunzio Pernicone’s biography Carlo Tresca: Portrait of A Rebel. We are pleased to announce this revised paperback edition (the hardcover edition was published back in 2005) that contains two new sections: “Tresca and World War II” and an addendum, “Tresca and the Sacco-Vanzetti Case: Innocence or Guilt?” The book is orderable now at a 25% discount. Don’t miss out.
Below is an excerpt from Chapter 12 “Early Anti-Fascist Activities.”
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Fighting Fascism became the great crusade of Tresca’s life, the struggle in which he achieved unrivalled preeminence among Italian-American radicals and reached the pinnacle of his career. The fight against Italian-American Fascism represented a new phase in the class struggle Tresca and other sovversivi had waged against the consuls, prominenti, and Catholic Church since the turn of the 20th century. No compromise with the enemy was possible; no quarter given and none expected. Tresca’s war against Fascism was a fight to the death.
Testimony to Tresca’s unique status and formidable abilities as a resistance leader was provided repeatedly by the Fascists themselves. Italian ambassador Giacomo De Martino reported to Mussolini in 1926 that Tresca topped the list of “three renegades” (Vincenzo Vacirca and Arturo Giovannitti were the others) whose deportation would most benefit the Fascist regime. By 1928, Tresca had distinguished himself as such a dynamic and implacable foe of Fascism that the Political Police in Rome dubbed him the “deus ex machina of anti-Fascism” in the United States. That same year, overjoyed that Tresca was the target of a smear campaign intended to undermine his status, the consul general of New York, Emilio Axerio, notified Ambassador De Martino that “the definitive liquidation of Carlo Tresca, imposed upon his followers as well, would administer a mortal blow to anti-Fascism, which depends so much on Tresca.”
Had Tresca still lived in Italy, his “liquidation” would have been physical rather than figurative. His presence in the United States, however, was no guarantee of security. Since paranoia is endemic to all police states, the Fascist regime in the 1920s consistently over-estimated the strength of the anti-Fascists, worrying that their activities might undermine Mussolini’s prestige and influence among Italian Americans and jeopardize his cozy relations with the American government and the Wall Street moguls. The anti-Fascist who caused Rome its greatest concern during the early years of the regime was Tresca. Directly or in collusion with American authorities, Mussolini’s official representatives and local disciples caused Tresca to suffer periodic harassment, several arrests, loss of his Italian citizenship, a four-month prison term, a narrow escape from deportation, destruction of his property, and a bomb attempt on his life. But Tresca never relented.
Tresca’s principal weapon against Mussolini and Fascism was Il Martello, described by the consul general of New York in 1925, as “the most dangerous [anti-Fascist newspaper], because of the skillful manner in which it is edited, and because of its influence over certain elements of the people.” A consummate political analyst, Tresca understood that propaganda and myth were the indispensable props of Mussolini’s regime. Therefore, nearly every issue delivered “hammer blows” (martellate) to dismantle the false image of idealism and heroism with which Fascists enveloped themselves, and to dispel the notion that the Blackshirts had turned back the red tide.
The voices of anti-Fascist opposition required amplification from outside sources abroad, as the free press in Italy was progressively stifled. Tresca therefore placed Il Martello at the disposal of many prominent radicals who lacked publication outlets. Once Il Martello became distinguished as an anti-Fascist organ, letters from Italy requesting the newspaper poured into Tresca’s office; he responded by sending free copies to comrades throughout the country. Alarmed, the Italian Postal and Telegraph Ministry banned the importation and circulation of Tresca’s newspaper in May 1923, prescribing stiff penalties for violators. Tresca attempted to circumvent the ban by asking Italian Americans to send copies to friends and relatives (a risky proposition for recipients) and by establishing clandestine operations to smuggle Il Martello into Italy. By 1928, for example, he was sending 100 copies of each issue to a former lover in Locarno, who ferried them by boat across Lake Maggiore. Tresca’s efforts were greatly appreciated, as indicated by the legendary anarchist Errico Malatesta: “I receive Il Martello very irregularly, because it gets through only when it escapes the police bloodhounds; however, I have read enough to admire the energy and fighting courage you sustain against Fascism, which torments us in Italy.”
Interdiction of Il Martello in Italy did not prevent Tresca from utilizing his newspaper to raise vitally needed funds for the anti-Fascist opposition. Channeling money to comrades in Italy was a long-standing practice of the sovversivi. By raising funds, Tresca helped sustain the Italian anarchist press until its complete suppression in 1926. Funds were also collected on a regular basis to help the victims of Fascist violence and persecution. Over the next two decades, countless anti-Fascists in Italy, Europe, and South America would have found themselves in hopeless circumstances if not for the financial support of Italian immigrant workers in the United States, a factor of major importance invariably overlooked by Italian historians of the anti-Fascist resistance.
Tresca was not content to attack Mussolini’s regime merely with “propaganda of the word” and by assisting political victims with money. The best means of subverting Mussolini was to strike where the regime was most vulnerable—the Italian economy. Rising unemployment and taxes, falling wages, the declining value of the lira, military expenditures for the re-conquest of Libya, and the unresolved dilemma of war debts all added up to one inescapable conclusion by 1923: the Fascists could not make good on their promises to improve the lives of the Italian people. Convinced that Mussolini’s prestige at home and abroad would suffer if recovery failed, Tresca advocated economic sabotage and boycotting of Italian financial and state institutions that generated income for the government. He urged workers in Italy to employ obstructionist tactics on the job, abstain from state monopolies (tobacco, salt, lotteries) that generated revenue, purchase food and other provisions only from merchants friendly to the anti-Fascist cause, avoid luxuries and other non-essential expenditures, and boycott all bourgeois establishments. On his own turf, Tresca sought to deprive the Italian economy of the benefits derived from the remittances sent to family members back home by immigrants in the United States. Tresca urged immigrant workers to boycott all Italian financial institutions that operated in the United States, to deposit their savings in American banks, and to avoid utilizing Italy’s Cassa Postale and other agencies that collected fees for transferring remittances. He also exhorted immigrant workers to boycott every Italian American—doctor, lawyer, shoemaker, grocer, barber, etc.—who was a Fascist. Adoption of his boycott strategy, Tresca acknowledged, would inevitably impose hardships upon Italian workers and peasants, but in his words, “war is war.” Mussolini’s government viewed Tresca’s scheme with genuine concern, and the consul general of New York was instructed to remain vigilant for any sign that the plan was gaining momentum. It never did. (more…)
Posted on September 10th, 2010 in AK Allies, Anarchist Publishers
The rumoured Kate Sharpley Library blog has now appeared. It “will share, notes, news, and more. It is a special place to share information from the archive that you might not find anywhere else.”
The first entry is an article on Mat Kavanagh and the History of Anarchism. It’s partly about how movements record their history, but also about what we miss if we only focus on the ‘big names’ of anarchism.
Posted on September 8th, 2010 in AK Authors!, AK Book Excerpts, AK News
Just received two cartons of AK Thompson’s new treatise Black Bloc, White Riot: Anti-Globalization and the Genealogy of Dissent here in Baltimore, and it looks phenomenal. With a cover designed by the ever-innovative Josh MacPhee, and printed on a rougher cover stock than one normally finds on AK Press books, I think this is one of the more design-conscious books we’ve released in recent seasons. Hooray for branching out a bit design-wise. Just wait til you see what’s coming up later this year.
It’s also great to see this book finally in print, because it’s a timely intervention into the public discourse around anti-globalization / counter-capitalist organizing that’s been especially prevalent this summer in Canada, where the demonstrations against the G-20 left activists literally in cages, and resulted in mass public outrage over the treatment of protesters. Thompson, who lives and works in Toronto, ON, as a matter of fact, is, shall we say, a child of the anti-globalization generation, someone who, like me, came of age politically in the years leading up to the new millennium, who took part in the heady pre-9/11 days of riot and rebellion, of collective development and counter-summit organizing that defined the height of the anti-globalization movement. And, for Thompson, the story starts in 1998 in Toronto at the Active Resistance conference … interesting when things come full circle, no?
Below, you’ll find an excerpt from the book’s introduction, entitled “Our Riot, Ourselves.” Read on, enjoy, and order a copy of the book today on the AK Press website. (If you’re in Baltimore, run on down to Red Emma’s, which already has the book in stock.) Copies will ship from the Oakland warehouse soon! And, if you’re interested in bringing AK Thompson to speak at your infoshop or university, please get in contact (publicity -at- akpress.org). If we get enough requests, he’ll make the journey down from Canada to do a US tour, I suspect!
Black Bloc, White Riot: Excerpt from “Our Riot, Ourselves”
Finding a place to begin can be difficult. Let me jump quickly, then, to the hot summer of 1998 where, in Toronto, the sun made the pavement blister and desperation made the squeegee punks take off their t-shirts to show tattoos to passing traffic. It was in this cauldron of boiling tar and road rage that activists from across Canada and the US gathered for Active Resistance, an anarchist counter-convention. The event, which was raided by cops when it was held in Chicago two years prior, generated considerable hype. It is in this light that writer Jim Munroe, who spent a great deal of time capturing the political spirit of the gathering, did not limit his gaze to the scheduled workshops.
Interviewing an activist named M for a report to be published in This Magazine, Munroe allowed his gaze to linger conspicuously on a poignant moment. “From nowhere,” he wrote, “a small punk guy with glasses comes up to M and melts into his big arms. The small punk has a gas station name-patch with BUMBOY stitched on it and M is tenderly caressing his shaved head.” Like all things sublime, however, the scene doesn’t last forever: “M and BUMBOY part, sharing a glance as brief as the hug was lingering…” (1998: 28).
In an article devoted to the anger and strategic vision of the new anarchist politics, M and BUMBOY’s flirtatious interaction seems like a strange thing to notice. Granted, a gentle caress does make a nice counterpoint to the tabulation of extremist tendencies. And the ability to “humanize” a story has long been considered a journalistic virtue. But there’s more to it than that. Munroe’s story is about the activists as much as it is about the issues they seek to address. Throughout the article, invocations of dirt and disorder abound. In the first four paragraphs alone, conference participants are called “dirty kids” (not once but twice), “crusty punks,” and “disease.” For Munroe, there is a definite connection between this cultivated state of degeneracy and the political project at hand. “It must be admitted,” he says, “the dirty kids are angry.”
Their tastes more often run to a stiff Molotov cocktail than the milk of human kindness. Injustice is everywhere. The governmental control that infuriated anarchists in the past pales in comparison with how corporations profit off of anxiety and banality and even death. It’s no wonder the kids want to raze it all and start building at the grassroots. (28)
I am BUMBOY. I participated in Active Resistance and have participated in the activist and “anti-globalization” struggles that flourished and floundered over the last decade. It is not hyperbole to say that these struggles, which increased in frequency and militancy after Seattle only to fall into disarray in the years following September 11, managed (for a brief moment and in a small but significant way) to transform the world. Though the issues that activists highlighted in Seattle may not have been new, there is no doubt that resistance itself had adopted a new form (or, maybe it reconnected with something that had always been there, something lying in wait for the moment of its actualization). And though it was not on the Active Resistance schedule, Munroe captured the precursor to this “new” form in his description of the dirty kids.
♦
The connection between radical politics and the people who express them is, in some ways, obvious. Since at least the time of the New Left, activists in Canada and the US have made considerable efforts to distance themselves from the loathsome mainstream. Describing the scene at Berkeley in the aftermath of the Free Speech Movement of 1964, Jerry Rubin recounted how the university—the “credential factory”—became “a fortress surrounded by our foreign culture, longhaired, dopesmoking, barefooted freeks who were using state owned property as a playground” (1970: 26). In his estimation, the university administration’s fears were prompted not only by the activist’s political efforts but also by their utterly foreign disposition. As Abbie Hoffman put it, when the cops confronted the hippies, they did not see peace and love and flowers. Instead, they saw “commie-drug-addict-sex-crazy-dirty-homosexual-nigger-draft-card-burner-runaway-spoiled-brats” (1969: 20).
However, if one looks just beneath the surface of these most overt skirmishes, it becomes evident that the distance between activists (or freaks, or dirty kids) and the straight world has much deeper roots. Indeed, it seems hardwired into the very concepts we use to talk about change. The etymology of the word “dissent,” for instance, reveals the extent to which it is distance and distinction—rather than identity and unity—that lie at the heart of both the activist project and activism itself. On first glance, the most noticeable part of “dissent” is the prefix “dis,” which implies a separation or a break. However, despite having obvious implications for radical politics, the “dis” is nevertheless not of principle importance.
Instead, things get interesting upon consideration of the suffix “sent,” which comes from the French verb “sentire” and means “to feel.” Sentire strongly implies embodiment. It is frequently used to describe states of wellbeing (or sickness or disease). It also has strong psychic or mental connotations, as can be judged by its appearance in words like “sentiment.” Read in this way, the concept of “dissent” denotes a state of being set apart from others by a sense that something feels wrong. This separation is unsettling. It requires action, intervention. Most importantly, it suggests that dissent, although ordinarily perceived as a political category, is first and foremost an ontological one.
The word “dissident” reveals a similar connection between radicalism and modes of conduct in the physical world. Once again, the prefix “dis” implies a break. However, in the case of the “dissident,” the suffix is derived from the Latin verb “sedere” and means “to sit.” At its most basic, the dissident is the one who refuses to sit with the others. Here, political disagreement comes of necessity to take the form of a cultivated distance. In fact, without this physical and psychic separation, the dissident would be an impossible category. A complication thus arises: in order to exist as such, the dissident must set herself apart from the people but, in order for her dissent to amount to anything, she must simultaneously be with them as well.
Beyond governmental repression and corporate profiting from death, it is this ontological contradiction that defines the scope of the dirty kids’ political universe; it is this contradiction that lies at the heart of radical political experience for the white middle class; and it is this social group that became most activated by the struggle against corporate globalization in Canada and the US. It is a double bind. Caught not only between the poles of capitalist social relations (where labor continues to be exploited and bosses continue their vampire extractions of surplus value) but also between those of petit-bourgeois consciousness (where heart and mind coexist in a never-ending fratricidal feud), the white middle class dissident incorporates schizoid dynamics into her very being. And the question of how to be with people for whom one feels no strong identification in the end becomes a question of how to feel anything at all. What for Antonio Gramsci was a melancholic reflection has become for the white middle class dissident a permanent state of despair.
Why? In order to answer this question, it’s necessary to move beyond the phenomenal register in order to treat the white middle class as a socio-historical phenomenon. Such an approach is all the more necessary given that the middle class itself is now mostly incapable of tracing its origins and has, as a matter of psychic necessity, for the most part forgotten them.
♦
In his Reflections on Violence, Georges Sorel argued that the emergence of a stable middle class during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries had the effect of papering over capitalism’s contradictions. Since, according to Sorel, the middle class was no longer able to connect the content of its intellectual life to its own material interests (and often could not produce an account of what these were), it tended to succumb to decadence and inertia. In this way, it came to value peace—a life free of conflict—above all. This “peace” found its precondition not in the resolution of historic contradictions but rather in their avoidance. Neither ruthless in its pursuit of profit, as were the bourgeois captains of industry, nor outraged by the false gravity of circumspect policy-makers, as were the revolutionary syndicalists, Sorel’s middle class was a force of historic entropy, a decadent mass that served as ballast for a social system caught in a storm of unsettling contradictions. And while ballast kept the ship from being torn apart at sea, it also kept it from reaching port on the distant shore called freedom.
Accordingly, Sorel proposed that revolutionary violence could force the entropic mass to assume its historic responsibilities in the class war. In the absence of violence, Sorel intoned, the decadent middle class would continue along the course of utopian delusion. Even worse, it might seduce the proletariat with ubiquitarian visions of a better world. Class war—the only means by which the proletariat could traverse the gulf between the capitalist present and the socialist future—could not come about “if the middle class and the proletariat do not oppose each other implacably, with all the forces at their disposal.” Consequently, “the more ardently capitalist the middle class is, the more the proletariat is full of a warlike spirit and confident of its revolutionary strength, the more certain will be the success of the proletarian movement” (2004: 88–89).
Despite the stakes, Sorel found the middle class in France at the turn of the twentieth century ill-prepared for the challenges the class war entailed. Unlike the middle class in the United States, which seemed to still possess some of its fighting spirit, the middle class Sorel confronted seemed both enfeebled by decadence and politically neutralized by its incapacity to draw meaningful correspondences between means and ends. As far as Sorel was concerned, this situation amounted to deadly historical arrest.
If … the middle class, led astray by the chatter of the preachers of ethics and sociology, return to an ideal of conservative mediocrity, seek to correct the abuses of economics, and wish to break with the barbarism of their predecessors, then one part of the forces which were to further the development of capitalism is employed in hindering it, an arbitrary and irrational element is introduced, and the future of the world becomes completely indeterminate. (2004: 89–90)
Unlike other thinkers working in the socialist tradition, Sorel glossed over the fact that the contradictory disposition of the middle class arose from a contradiction in the historic constitution of the middle class itself. Although the middle class is undoubtedly “one part of the forces which were to further the development of capitalism,” it is shortsighted to suggest that this is its only defining feature. The “chatter” of the middle class is not a distortion of its character; it is instead constitutive of it. In the middle class, the “is” of bourgeois empiricism is forever plagued by the “ought” of bourgeois idealism. The contradiction is raw and on the surface (or else it is repressed, coiled tightly and bound by parentheses, awaiting the moment of its inevitable and catastrophic return).
Sorel’s account therefore needs to be revised slightly so that we might consider how the middle class’s dissident energies can be turned over to the project of radical social change. Nevertheless, by highlighting the interconnection between psychic dispositions and historical dynamics, Sorel provides an important starting point for developing an understanding of the situation in Canada and the United States today. Indeed, the pervasive myth that holds the middle class to be an existential norm (not to mention the significant growth of a stratum concerned primarily with the economic and representational circulation—rather than production—of commodities) makes Sorel more relevant than ever.
♦
Because of the entrenchment of pseudo-managerial “work” in the Canadian and US economy, people now encounter their productive activity with a diminishing sense of its practical outcome. To measure the distance between the alienation of the 1844 Manuscripts and our own depthless present, we need only to consider the application of psychoactive drugs to the social organization of work. In their clinical reference material, GlaxoSmithKline report that their drug Paxil can help to manage panic disorder, which they say is characterized by “recurrent unexpected panic attacks, i.e., a discrete period of intense fear or discomfort.” Possible symptoms of this discomfort include accelerated heart rate, sweating, trembling or shaking, shortness of breath, nausea, feeling faint, feeling that things aren’t real, feeling detached from one’s self, and fear of losing control. Less acute than panic disorder, Paxil is also recommended for the treatment of social anxiety disorder (SAD), a “persistent fear of one or more social or performance situations in which the person is exposed to unfamiliar people or to possible scrutiny by others.”
What’s so striking about these criteria is how they transform the regular anxieties of contemporary pseudo-managerial work—where “possible scrutiny by others” has become massive in scope—into problems that can be managed at the level of the individual. In fact, many of the problems for which Paxil is indicated—feeling that things aren’t real, feeling detached from one’s self, and fear of losing control—are nothing but the normative substratum of late capitalism’s postmodern epistemology; and though they’re experienced individually, they remain social problems throughout. The problem of Paxil’s individuation becomes explicit when GlaxoSmithKline’s promotional literature is read alongside great social histories of labor like Engels’ Condition of the Working Class in England and Orwell’s Road to Wigan Pier.
Remarkable for their accounts of working class tenacity in the face of industrialism, these books remain exemplary for their ability to deduce psychic states from social organization (and vice versa); because of this, they are also highly suggestive when it comes to considering the means by which the terms of the social might themselves be changed. But while the transformation of fundamental social patterns is a dream that resonates like never before, the middle class has for the most part acquiesced to the managerial demand to change the body/mind instead. And while GlaxoSmithKline acknowledges that “lesser degrees of performance anxiety or shyness generally do not require psychopharmacological treatment,” the profit motive underlying diagnosis and prescription has led to what many experts now acknowledge to be a dangerous crisis of overmedication.
But objections based on market dynamics tell only part of the story. Psychoactive drugs are more than snake oil. They are more than means in the war against newer and more unbearable forms of alienation. Like caffeine, nicotine, and alcohol, they are part of an optimizing strategy aimed at bringing the body/mind into productive conformity with the logic of late capitalism. This logic finds its perfect object in the white middle class, a group for whom all ontological connections to the political realm have been severed.
(more…)
Posted on September 6th, 2010 in AK Authors!, Happenings
Okay, not really … BUT, Jeff Conant, author of A Poetics of Resistance: The Revolutionary Public Relations of the Zapatista Insurgency, takes to the road this month with a fantastic East Coast tour. If you’re in any of the cities Jeff will be visiting over the next three weeks (including, but not limited to, Burlington, Montpelier, Boston, Washington DC, Baltimore, New York, Asheville, and Chapel Hill), check out one of his events, you won’t be sorry!
A Poetics of Resistance examines the means, meanings, and mythos behind the Zapatista image using a blend of narrative history, literary criticism, ethnography, and media analysis. The first “postmodern revolution” presented itself to the world through a complex web of propaganda in every available medium: the colorful communiqués of Subcomandante Marcos, the ski masks, uniforms, dolls, murals, songs, and weapons both symbolic and real. By proliferating a profound and resonant set of myths, symbols, and grand historical gestures calculated to reflect their ideologies, organizing methodologies, and cultural values, the Zapatistas helped set into motion a global uprising, and the awareness that behind this uprising is a renewed vision of history. Jeff Conant’s engaging and innovative examination of the Zapatistas’ communication strategies will be an important tool for movements everywhere engaged in creating a world where many worlds fit; in demolishing History in order to construct histories; and in unseating not only the powerful, but Power itself.
Check out the tour schedule:
September 7th, 4:45 PM, Jeff Conant speaks at Cornell University!
Jeff Conant discusses A Poetics of Resistance at the office of the
Committee on US-Latin American Relations at Cornell University!
September 9, 6:30 PM: Jeff Conant on CCTV in Burlington, Vermont!
Jeff Conant discusses his new book, The Poetics of Resistance, on the
Center for Media & Democracy’s CCTV with Global Justice Ecology
Project and Upside Down World. http://www.cctv.org/ for more info.
September 10, TBA: Jeff Conant at the Global Justice Ecology Project’s
annual celebration
Jeff Conant discusses A Poetics of Resistance in Hinesburg, Vermont!
September 11, 7PM: Jeff Conant at Black Sheep Books!
Jeff Conant discusses A Poetics of Resistance at Montpelier’s favorite
collectively run bookstore! http://www.blacksheepbooks.org for more info.
September 13, 7PM: Jeff Conant at Bluestockings Books!
The Poetics of Resistance Road Show hits New York City with a book
release event at Bluestockings Books on NYC’s Lower-East
Side. http://bluestockings.com for more info.
September 15, 6PM: Jeff Conant reads at the Bowery Poetry Club
Jeff Conant underscores the cultural importance of the Zapatistas with
a reading at NYC’s Bowery Poetry Club. http://www.bowerypoetry.com for
more info.
September 20, 7PM: Jeff Conant at Firestorm Books in Asheville! 2
nights!
Jeff Conant does a double-header at Asheville’s swingin’ worker-owned
bookstore & cafe, Firestorm. September 20: A Poetics of Resistance;
September 21: A Guide to Community Environmental
Health. http://www.firestormcafe.com for more info.
September 23, 7PM: Jeff Conant at Internationalist Books
Jeff Conant presents A Poetics of Resistance at Internationalist Books
in Chapel Hill! http://www.internationalistbooks.org for more info.
September 26, 1PM: Jeff Conant, Marina Sitrin, and Ben Dangl on
Lessons from Latin America at the Radical Bookfair Pavilion in
Baltimore
Three AK gringos discuss the lessons to be learned from the Latin
American political and cultural spectrum. What could be better?!
http://www.redemmas.org/bookfair for more info!
September 28, noon: Jeff Conant at Johns Hopkins University
A talk at JHU sponsored by the Program in Latin American
Studies. Location TBA.
September 28, 6PM: Jeff Conant at Busboys & Poets Books in DC!
Jeff Conant discusses A Poetics of Resistance in conversation with the
Institute for Policy Studies. Co-sponsored by Teaching for Change
Books! http://www.busboysandpoets.com for more info.
September 29, 7PM: Jeff Conant at Food for Thought Books in Amherst!
The Poetics of Resistance tour hits Amherst for a evening discussion
at Food for Thought books. http://www.foodforthoughtbooks.com for more info.
September 30, 7PM: Jeff Conant in discussion with Doyle Canning at
SmartMeme
Jeff Conant visits Boston for an event at the SmartMeme Design
Studio. http://www.smartmeme.org for more info.
October 6, 7PM: Jeff Conant at Pegasus Books
Back on the West Coast! Jeff Conant reads at Berkeley’s Pegasus
Books. http://www.pegasusbookstore.com for more info.
I am exhausted just looking at Jeff’s tour schedule! Luckily I’ll get to host Jeff for a few days in Baltimore right in the middle of the tour, so we’ll make sure he has a comfy place to stay so he can catch up on his sleep!
Lots of other AK author tours coming up this fall, so stay tuned for more info!
Posted on September 3rd, 2010 in AK Distribution
| Happy September! Looking good everyone!! So, in the four or five month tradition of me randomly choosing some AK Press titles for a 50% off sale, I’ve done it again! If you meant to buy them and procrastinated, you’re in luck. For the entire month, these books are on sale: |
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How the Irish Invented Slang
By Daniel Cassidy
Irish words and phrases are scattered all across the American language, regional and class dialects, colloquialisms, slang, and specialized jargons (like gambling), in the same way that Irish-Americans have been scattered across the crossroads of North America for five hundred years. Cassidy traces the hidden history of how Ireland fashioned America, not just linguistically, but through the gambling underworld, urban street gangs, and the powerful political machines that grew out of them. Just $9.50! |
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At War with Asia
By Noam Chomsky
Drawing in part on his visits to Asia and in part on his extensive reading in the field, Chomsky discusses the historical, political, and economic reasons behind our involvement in a Southeast Asian land war. Chomsky examines the impact of our involvement on United States military strategy and what its eventual effect will be in America and abroad. Also just $9.50! |
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Abolition Now!
Edited by CR-10 Publications Collective
For a decade, Critical Resistance has organized to abolish the reliance on imprisonment, policing, and surveillance, seeing the prison industrial complex not as a broken system to be “fixed,” but a well-oiled machine that must be eliminated entirely. Published in honor of Critical Resistance’s tenth anniversary, Abolition Now! reflects the themes “Dismantle, Change, and Build.” It presents bold strategies to create a stronger movement of people committed to PIC abolition and build healthy communities free from surveillance, policing, and imprisonment. Just $8.00 |
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An Anarchist FAQ
Edited by Iain Mckay
Having been an internet staple for over a decade, we are proud to offer this solicitously edited print version. This exhaustive volume, the first of two, seeks to provide answers for the curious and critical about anarchist theory, history, and practice. More a reference volume than a primer, An Anarchist FAQ eschews curt answers and engages with questions in a thorough, matter-of-fact style. 700 oversized pages for $12.50! |
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Italian Anarchism
By Nunzio Pernicone
Maybe kind of new for this list? I don’t know but I’m excited about the Carlo Tresca bio that’s at the printer so… From the First International to the 1872 Anti-Authoritarian International, from government suppression and anarchist insurrection to Errico Malatesta’s prominent role in resurrecting the anarchist movement, Nunzio Pernicone’s Italian Anarchism provides a critical examination of early anarchist practices across three decades of Italian history. Just $11.00! |
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Facing the Enemy
By Alexandre Skirda
Drawing on decades of research, Alexandre Skirda traces anarchism as a major political movement and ideology across the 19th and 20th centuries. Critical and engaged, he offers biting and incisive portraits of the major thinkers and, more crucially, the organizations they inspired, influenced, came out of, and were spurned by. Opinionated and witty, he is equally at home skewering the actions of the early anarchist Victor Serge as he is the Paris chief of police who organized undercover “anarchist bombers” in an attempt to infiltrate and discredit the movement. Just $9.00! |
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We’re also going to select another publisher whose books we’ll feature at 25% off for the month (stay tuned), but if you haven’t checked out Arbeiter Ring (August’s featured publisher), it’s not too late! All of these books are 25% off for a couple more days.
Posted on September 2nd, 2010 in AK Authors!, Happenings
I will now proceed to use the AK Press Blog to shamelessly promote an event that I have been co-organizing for the past five years: The Mid-Atlantic Radical Bookfair, a three-day cavalcade of radical and anarchist authors, publishers, zinesters, and bookgeeks of all varieties that takes place every year here in Baltimore. After two years of organizing the Bookfair as a standalone event (including one year wherein we took over a gigantic theater in the middle of the downtown and crammed it with more than 50 tablers and another 50 panels & workshops), we were approached by the organizers of the Baltimore Book Festival with an invitation to bring the Radical Bookfair inside the larger city-sponsored Festival and organize our own tent & speaker stage. Weird, right? We thought so too, but we like to try new things, so we gave it a whirl for the first time back in 2008 and you know what? It was awesome. It was so awesome that we did it again the next year. And now, 2010 marks the fifth anniversary of the Radical Bookfair, which takes place in Baltimore this September 24-26.
If you are anywhere within traveling distance of Baltimore, I really suggest you think about coming out for the event. Check out some of the amazingness that’s in store for you:
Friday, September 24:
6:30PM: Anarchism 101 with Cindy Milstein
Saturday, September 25:
Noon: Indigenous activist Jessica Yee on Colonization, Communities of Color, and Sexuality
1PM: Bitch Magazine co-founder Lisa Jervis and author Sheri Parks discuss Representations of Women
2PM: Tricia Shapiro and Mark Nowak on the costs of coal (a release event for Mountain Justice!)
3PM: A panel discussion on the history and legacy of the Panthers and the politics of imprisonment with Eddie Conway
4PM: Political cartoonist Ted Rall launches An Anti-American Manifesto
5PM: Radical urbanist Matt Hern & Take Back the Land founder Max Rameau discuss the city from below
6PM: The Uses of a Whirlwind super panel, with Craig Hughes, Stevie Peace, Max Rameau, Betty Robinson, and more!
Sunday, September 26:
12PM: Chris Williams on Ecology and Socialism
1PM: Ben Dangl, Jeff Conant, and Marina Sitrin on Lessons from Latin America
2PM: Kari Lydersen on the Chicago Factory Takeover, in conversation with Deborah Rudacille on Sparrow’s Point
3PM: Penelope Rosemont and Noel Ignatiev on the critique of whiteness from Surrealism to the steel mill
4PM: Dan Berger and Daniel Burton-Rose on Rethinking Resistance in the 1970s
Seriously? That’s an incredible lineup. It’s also a bunch of AK authors (because we seriously have far too many great books coming out this Fall), so it’s even vaguely legitimate for me to promote this on the AK Press blog!
I love all of the panels, I really do … but, I mean, come on. Everybody’s got to have a favorite, right? I think Max Rameau and Matt Hern on Saturday evening is going to be min-blowing. These are two of the all-time best speakers I’ve ever seen … last March, during the Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair, I saw Matt Hern speak twice in the same day and was captivated both times. And Max Rameau’s talk was definitely one of the strongest parts of The City From Below conference. And, on Sunday, if you’re in Baltimore and you miss Penelope Rosemont and Noel Ignatiev … well, you should probably just go ahead and kick yourself now. I hear there’s folks coming into town just for that panel … let’s hope they stay for the rest of the day too!
All in all, I really think this will be one of our best bookfairs yet. More info to come, I’m sure, but feel free to check out the bookfair website at http://redemmas.org/bookfair for more details!
Posted on August 27th, 2010 in AK Allies, Happenings
I recently found out from reading my Illinois Labor History Society newsletter that the Haymarket Memorial in Waldheim Cemetery is in need of repair. Apparently it was “vandalized by metal thieves who removed the original bronze floral arrangement at the base of the monument and the bronze plaque naming the Martyrs.”
When I read that I was gutted a little bit.
I reckon a lot of you reading this blog already know the story of the Haymarket Martyrs. Theirs is one of the most inspiring stories in Anarchist history in my opinion. I’ve personally visited the memorial twice now.
In 1997 the monument was recognized as a National Historic Landmark by none other than the U.S. Department of the Interior and the ILHS was named its official “Steward.”
At the ceremonies celebrating this recognition Les Orear, then ILHS President, declared:
“The Monument is a place of pilgrimage. It is a place where people come for inspiration. Some may visit in worship of ancient dogmas. Others find encouragement to carry on the struggle, however the goal may change through the years. Some fix on a symbol of injustice at the hands of the state; to others the Monument speaks, magnificently, of the determination to overcome all injustice.”
I’d agree with that sentiment. Hell. I made two pilgrimages myself. Anyway, they are trying to raise $30,000.00 to restore the monument and insure future maintenance. They’ll even list your name in connection with the rededication ceremony planned for May Day 2011.
I wasn’t able to find a link where you could donate online. The newsletter gives these details:
Make check payable to the Illinois Labor History Society and mail to 28 E Jackson Blvd., Room 1012, Chicago, IL 60604
and for those who can deduct these sorts of things: ILHS is a 401(c)3 organization.
Posted on August 23rd, 2010 in Reviews of AK Books
From time to time, I like to do a little roundup of which AK Press books are getting some love in the radical press, and this summer has been a great one for reviews! As always, if you write for a periodical – a radical one, or a mainstream one, or a well-read blog – and are interested in reviewing a new AK Press title, don’t hesitate to get in contact!
Common Ground in a Liquid City got a great writeup in last month’s Yes! Magazine:
“An intriguing collection of essays that reads much like a travel journal; the tone is conversational and relaxed, the stories often personal.” (Read the review)
And, a rave review in one of my personal all-time favorite radical newspapers, The Defenstrator:
“A put-your-money-where-your-mouth-is activist educator, Hern isn’t a utopian and he doesn’t posit an “ideal” city, but his book offers valuable insights and motivations for pushing towards more livable, equitable and ecological cities, a survival imperative. “Is there the political and ethical will to work toward sustainable cities that are based on local knowledge and local economies or must cities simply roll over and show their belly to the global marketplace?” he asks. Only we can answer that question.” (Read the review)
Matt’s book also got a nice writeup on Feminist Review last April:
“Through disarming chunks of personal narrative, Hern manages to craft an argument that soothed me, a victim twice-over of mainstream urban planning, sufficiently enough to win me over. Perhaps city-dwellers can rationally and emotionally work toward a better urban future for all. Patiently, he turns up the dial on radical analysis to indict our metastasizing capitalist “growth” and help us hear its attendant liquid slosh of cash, careers, and mobility.” (Read the review)
Come to think of it, Feminist Review, an awesome reviews/news blog run by a loose collective of geographically-dispersed bloggers/editors with an interest in feminist politics (!!!) has been dishing out the love for AK Press titles over the past few months! Thanks Feminist Review, we love you too!
Feminist Review on Anarchism and Its Aspirations in July:
“The focus on unabashed utopianism [is] particularly compelling. In a world in which even the most progressive of activists often think in terms of strategic compromise, it is refreshing to remember that it is possible to dream bigger dreams–anarchist dreams of pluralism, direct democracy, organizing for mutual aid based on true consensus, and above all, an abundance of resources, love, play, sustainability, and peace for all inhabitants of the planet.” (Read the review)
Feminist Review on You Don’t Have to Fuck People Over to Survive in April:
“You Don’t Have to Fuck People Over to Survive is a creative, in-your-face resource and a critical tool for resistance.” (Read the review)
Feminist Review on You Don’t Play with Revolution: The Montreal Lectures of CLR James in June:
“Those interested in social movements and, more specifically, James’s work, will find this collection to be a great contribution to existing scholarship. James’s work is relevant to revolutionary politics today, while opening the window into the particular cultural moment in which James’s work took place. I recommend it to both the novice and the expert who wants to learn more about James and his stunning insights.” (Read the review)
You Don’t Play With Revolution: The Montreal Lectures of CLR James received a great review in Canadian journal of theory and action, Upping the Anti. If you haven’t heard of UtA, you should really check it out. It’s without doubt one of the best new journals of left scholarship out there today, and the hip kids all love it.
“A thought-provoking and challenging collection of writings and lectures by one of the most important public intellectuals of the 20th century … infused with James’ love for humanity and his commitment to examining and challenging the contradictory social conditions in which we live.” (Read the review)
New online political media journal Political Media Review is also chugging through the entire AK Press frontlist and finding some worthwhile things to read, it seems. They’ve reviewed three of our books recently, and we hope they’ll review more! If you haven’t checked out PMR yet, head on over to their website. Like Feminist Review, PMR is made up of a loose collection of authors & academics who are dedicated to keeping their finger on the pulse of the world of political publishing. Many of the folks I know who write for PMR are just lovely, so please support them … and get in contact with them about reviewing books in the future (especially ones published by AK … but other ones are good too!).
Political Media Review on Anarchism and Its Aspirations:
“Milstein’s book is an excellent starting point for people who want to think outside of the bland, boring, and violent status quo—and, with any luck, will help in the final push to rid ourselves of these fundamentally absurd and confining social relations.” (Read the review)
Political Media Review on You Don’t Play With Revolution:
“[Readers will] soak in from You Don’t Play With Revolution the mind that influenced the ways we think and how we see our potential for freedom.” (Read the review)
Political Media Review on Academic Repression:
“Amid news reports that students of color are being sidelined from colleges across the United States, and the fact professors branded Marxists or radicals are often speaking directly to students of color and the poor about disparities, Academic Repression comes at a crucial time.” (Read the review)
And finally, there’s been some renewed interest in some of our older titles this summer. Mythmakers & Lawbreakers got a great writeup in Counterpoise:
Counterpoise (Spring 2010) on Mythmakers & Lawbreakers:
“This book of interviews [is] an inspirational tool. It is recommended as a distinctive and worth addition for literature collections.” (Counterpoise online)
Plus, there’s a great interview with Diana Block, author of Arm the Spirit, in the new issue of Hip Mama #46 | Summer 2010. The interview is conducted by that hippest of mamas, Vikki Law!
Posted on August 19th, 2010 in Anarchist Publishers, Happenings
Are there any songs about Providence? There should be!
Tabling for AK is always an adventure! I had the distinct pleasure of traveling up to Rhode Island this past weekend to table at the 5th Annual Providence Anarchist Bookfair. I’m not gonna lie, I was not a happy camper when Spencer (an awesome tabling helper!) and I rolled into Providence at about 11pm on Friday night after a ten hour drive through heavy traffic and construction. It was uphill from there, as our gracious host/bookfair organizer, Mark, offered us some delicious white peaches to stave off the malnutrition we had developed on the drive. I’m staring off wistfully thinking about them right now…
In my grand bookfair tabling style, I stayed up way too late hanging out with our hosts, taking a walk to the check out the amazing local community garden, and getting a taste of Providence night life. It would have been downright improper to get a good night’s sleep before tabling. Heavens!
FOO FEST is an outdoor street festival with bands, beer, food, cheap-ass coffee (my personal favorite. My eyes were permanently glued open all day due to over-caffeination) and, of course, a book fair right in the thick of it. It’s always a pleasure to hang out with other tabling friends, like folks from the Wooden Shoe, Lucy Parsons Center, PM Press, the Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative, and new friends from the Providence IWW and NEFAC. Old friends were seen, new friends were made, and plenty of books were sold. The tabling wound down around 8pm so we packed up and enjoyed the festival for a bit, then took our tired asses back to home base.
I am still tired, and somewhat regretful that we didn’t stay long enough to go to the beach on Sunday. If you haven’t had a chance to go to the Providence Anarchist Bookfair you are missing out. Thanks to Gray and Mark for making this happen! I can’t wait to go again next year.
Posted on August 17th, 2010 in AK Allies, Happenings
CALL FOR PAPERS!!!
North American Anarchist Studies Network Conference
Toronto, Canada
January 15-16, 2011
Deadline for Proposals: November 1, 2010
The North American Anarchist Studies Network is currently seeking presentations for our second annual conference to be held at the Steel Worker’s Hall in Toronto, Canada. We are seeking submissions from radical academics, independent researchers, community activists, street philosophers and students. We invite those engaged in intellectual work within existing institutions, such as universities, but also those engaged in the production of knowledge beyond institutional walls to share their ongoing work. From the library stacks to the streets, we encourage all those interested in the study of anarchism to submit a proposal.
In keeping with the open and fluid spirit of anarchism, we will not be calling for any specific topics of discussion, but rather are encouraging participants to present on a broad and diverse number of themes- from the historical to the contemporary to the utopian. For inspiration, we have included a number of suggested themes that have been of interest us; we invite you to suggest and submit your own topics, papers, themes, panels and workshops:
- Theorizing Anarchism: Perspectives on Anarchist Studies
- Greening Anarchy: Anarchism and the Environment
- Bridging the Marxist/Anarchist Divide: Is Black and Red Dead?
- Race, Class & Solidarity: Migration Politics
- Indigenous Rights and Politics in (Occupied) North America
- Expanding the Anarchist Canon: Non-Western Anarchism(s)
- The South American ‘New Left’ and Anarchism
- ‘Queering’ Anarchy: Anarchism and LGBTQ Issues
- ‘Revolution’ in the 21st Century: The Meaning of Social Change Today
- Militant Research: Connecting Activism and Academia
- Practicing Anarchy: Organization, Insurrection and Anarchist Social Movements
- Envisioning Alternatives: Anarchist Utopias
- Anarchism and Radical (Dis)ability Politics
- The Greek ‘Crisis’ and Anarchist Responses
- Post-G20 Toronto: Learning from Toronto’s G20 Mobilizations
- Anarchist Cultural Perspectives and Practices
- The Post-Anarchist Challenge?
- Anarchists and Academia: The Perils, Pitfalls and Potentialities of the University
It is our sincere hope that this conference will, to the greatest extent possible, accurately represent the diversity of North American anarchist politics and thought; to that end, we encourage submission(s) in English, French, Spanish and in any other language or on any other topic you feel relevant to this experience and this community.
Send your proposal, including a short abstract, a working title and three keywords that describe your project to the Toronto NAASN Crew at naasntoronto@gmail.com.
For more information on the North America Anarchist Studies Network check out our website at www.naasn.org.
We look forward to hearing from you, organizing with you and, of course, learning from you!
