Friends, comrades, bibliophiles: prepare yourselves for some good news. If you haven’t already heard, it’s time again for our annual Fuck the Fourth sale! Join us here at the warehouse this Friday, July 2nd from 4-10pm for cheap books, complimentary refreshments, and quality time with all your favorite AK collective members.
As always, our entire inventory will be 25% off and you’re invited to wander through the epic warehouse stacks and pick the best of the best for yourself! And as if that weren’t enough, we’ll also have our usual selection of sale books, all for only $1, $3, and $5.
Of course, we understand not all of you are lucky enough to live in close proximity to AK headquarters here in Oakland, and we’ve got you covered too. To coincide with our warehouse sale, we’re inviting you to fuck the fourth from the comfort of your own home.
That didn’t really come out how I wanted it to.
At any rate, what I mean is that we’re also having a 25% off web sale, starting Friday and going through Sunday night. So order away, and get whatever you like for 25% off through the weekend! What better way to fight the celebration of the glorious history of American imperialism, intervention, sanctions, scandals, robbery, jingoism–oh I could go on and on!–than by arming yourself with finest in radical literature! Maybe buy yourself A People’s History?
Spread the word, and if you’re in the Bay Area, grab all your friends and head over this Friday. See you by the snack table!
As some of you are hopefully aware, we have just started a “Publisher Of The Month” special through AK Press Distro. The idea is that each month we feature one of the independent publishers who we distribute, and we mark down all their titles to 25% off for the entire month. That way we have an excuse to really talk up the great work of our indie publishing comrades, one at a time, and you get an extra excuse to fill out your personal library! Nice, eh?
Anyway, the point of all this is that you still have more than twenty-four hours to stock up on Monthly Review titles at the discounted rate before the month is over! Go here to see a full list of Monthly Review titles available through AK Press. Go go go!!!
When the Canadian Broadcasting Company needed a go-to anarchist to help make sense of the (then) upcoming G20 Summit protests, they interviewed AK author, and all-around nice guy, David Graeber. David does a nice job of injecting some balance into the mainstream media … balance that pretty much disappeared once the Summit began.
David has also written extensively on the strategies, meanings, and tactics of such mass actions in Direct Action: An Ethnography. Watch below…then get the book!
Thanks to Michael Truscello and Common Cause for making this available!
This is probably going to be the least coherent blog post you’ll ever read here. That’s because Kate, Jessica, John, and I have been tabling twelve-hour days since Tuesday. It’s been exhausting (hence our failure to blog yesterday) but it’s also been completely worthwhile and we’re still having a great time selling books, talking to folks who stop by our tables, and hanging out with authors and comrades.
Today Kate and I started our day off with the workshop we had organized, entitled “Community Supported Publishing: Print Media Strategies for Movement Building.” We were joined by Penelope Rosemont from the Charles H. Kerr Co., Max Uhlenbeck from Left Turn, and Daniel Tucker from AREA Chicago—plus an enthusiastic roomful of folks working on a variety of other book and media projects. A good time was had by all!!!
Kate loves workshops so much that she went off and talked on two more panels after ours—the “Movement Centers Assembly” (organized by the Brecht Forum) and “Weaving Urban Fabrics” (organized by Red Emma’s, Baltimore Development Cooperative, and City From Below)! In the meantime some comrades from Red Emma’s in Baltimore, the Wooden Shoe in Philadelphia, and Friendly Fire Collective in San Francisco came and helped me sell books (which totally saved my ass during the afternoon rush). We’ve sold out of a lot of popular titles by this point but still had our busiest tabling day yet, and even signed up five new Friends of AK!
For our daily dose of name-dropping, guess who stopped by our table? Ward Churchill, Lorraine Perlman, Penelope Rosemont, Peter Gelderloos, Selma James, and Grace Boggs! We are starstruck. Are you jealous? And look, here are some luminaries having dinner while we are blogging at the cafe. (At opposite ends of the table: Penelope Rosemont and Lorraine Perlman, and Seth Tobocman and Peter Werbe of Fifth Estate.)
This evening we closed up shop and headed over to the New World From Below Convergence Center for a collaborative book release party, where authors spoke on several recent AK titles (Anarchism and its Aspirations, Uses of a Whirlwind, and A Poetics of Resistance) as several other excellent books were launched by our comrades at PM Press, Haymarket, and Microcosm. Here is a lovely photo of Stevie Peace of Team Colors speaking at the event.
As you can see, behind the book table Kate, Jessica and I were the picture of energy.
That’s all for now. Fun fact about Detroit: the place where you buy beer is called the party store. I want to go there now.
(PS from Kate: The “USS AK Press” is what we have taken to calling the gigantic boat of an SUV that we borrowed to bring all of the stock up here for the Forum. Try parking one of those fuckers when you haven’t driven an SUV in 5 years. Hilarity ensues.)
Hi folks! As I type this, Suzanne and I are sitting here inside of Cobo Hall at the US Social Forum at the AK table, and trying to blog in-between customers, visits from AK authors, and other assorted friends who have been dropping by. In case you were wondering, the Social Forum is intense! There really are thousands of people wandering around Detroit wearing neon orange wristbands and attending the hundreds of great workshops, panels, cultural events, and, of course, meetings taking place in a variety of locations. Of course, we’ve been too busy tabling to get to many of the events, though Suzanne managed to sneak away from the table for a little while this afternoon to speak at the “Popularizing Radical Politics” panel hosted by the Institute for Anarchist Studies and the Friendly Fire Collective.
That’s Jessica working behind the table there. We just hired her to be our new marketing & publicity guru, and though she doesn’t start officially working for AK until July, she decided to come along to the USSF and help out at the tables (which totally saved our butts)! Check out this wide expanse of table frontage we scored in Cobo Hall, the epicenter of the USSF (also where the Detroit auto show is held … ie, it’s huge.)
Yesterday (Tuesday, which was the first day of the USSF, which included the opening plenary in the evening, and a mass march through the streets of Detroit) we also had a booth outside on Hart Plaza which is adjacent to Cobo Hall, and also hosts the cultural stages. It was an interesting experience, and quite a bit slower and more low-key than Cobo Hall, which is like a beehive of activity at all times. It was also extremely windy, being right on the water, and on several occasions we had to stop out tent from blowing away!
Today it was muggy and rainy, so we opted to forego the outside table. The jury’s still out on whether we’ll open up outside again tomorrow (Thursday). It’s nice being able to switch from inside to outside throughout the day, but we’re short-staffed, even with the help of Jessica, and John (pictured above), since all of us are speaking on panels and workshops in addition to tabling … and maybe attending a workshop we’re not part of … maybe. We’ll report back on that tomorrow.
We had visits from lots of great AK authors today. Craig Hughes and Stevie Peace came by the table today to pick up copies of their brand-new book, Uses of a Whirlwind, which we had rush-shipped from the printers so that it would be here in time. Craig & Stevie led a workshop this afternoon that was packed to the gills, and the book has been selling like crazy! Team Colors has another workshop on Friday, and will officially launch the book on Friday night at the collective book release party at the New World From Below Convergence Space at 7PM.
The always lovely Chris Spannos came and volunteered a few hours at the table this afternoon, helping us tremendously and telling us about some of the new projects he’s been thinking about and working on. Exciting stuff, as always!
Jeff Conant came by the table today and got to see his brand-new book A Poetics of Resistance: The Revolutionary Public Relations of the Zapatista Insurgency for the very first time! This is another one we rush-shipped to have here in Detroit for the Forum, and I was lucky enough to be able to capture that exciting moment … a joy, because we usually don’t get to see our authors see their books for the first time!
All in all, it’s been a lovely day for us, but we need food, and we need beer, and we need to go and dig through the left over stock from Allied Media Festival to replenish our tables for tomorrow, so we’ll sign off for tonight. Tomorrow: the saga of the outdoor table continues, Grace Lee Boggs talks with Immanuel Wallerstein (!), I talk about Direct Democracy with the IAS, Friendly Fire Collective, Firestorm Infoshop, and others, and we continue to wish we’d brought more copies of Detroit, I Do Mind Dying! Until then, dear readers …
Just thought I’d bring attention to a piece Chris Carlsson recently wrote on his blog comparing the work of Hardt and Negri (in particular their new book Commonwealth) with that of Matt Hern (author of Common Ground in a Liquid City). Chris’s insights into urban politics, ecology, and working class constituency make him the perfect guide to these new works (and of course this all dovetails nicely with his book, Nowtopia).
You can check out the piece “Conundrums of the Commons” here.
Greetings from Detroit, dear readers! I am pleased to report that the AK Press USSF Adventure 2010 has begun! I’ll be here at the second United States Social Forum (along with Suzanne) all week, and we’ve promised ourselves (and now you) that we’re going to try and post a reportback on the goings on in these parts right here on the AK Press blog every day. No guarantees … but we’ll do our best.
Like just about any tabling gig I do these days, our USSF adventure started off with … driving. On Saturday, John and I loaded up our little car with as many crates and boxes of books as we could fit – along with our 10 X 10 popup tent, a handtruck, a folding bookshelf, and other assorted tabling materials, and then crammed ourselves and our dog into the front seat and drove to Jersey, where we unloaded everything into a larger, borrowed car that we’d be driving to Detroit. (Anybody here ever been on a four hour car ride with a border collie on your lap? It’s not particularly comfortable.)
Good thing we had arranged that larger car. Made the drive up to Detroit much more pleasant. I’m one of those tablers who doesn’t really like to pack light. I can make it a week on a backpack full of clothes, but I need to have a copy of every possible book I think someone might want to take a look at, plus multiples of the ones I think will probably sell. On my shortlist of books that are likely to be a hit at the USSF this year:
Brand-spanking-new. Like, really. I had cases of this thing overnighted direct from the printer in Canada so that we’d have ’em for the USSF. It’s bound to be a hit here at the Social Forum – half of the contributors to the book are here in town for the event, many of them giving workshops of their own, in addition to participating in the two Team Colors-organized panels.
One of the best books on working-class struggle, and specifically centered around the rise and fall of the auto industry in Detroit, as predicted by the Revolutionary Union Movement and the League of Revolutionary Black Workers. A classic from the 70s, but an incredibly important book, and one that folks never seem to tire of reading.
Another classic, edited by the ass-kickingly-awesome folks behind INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence. This is always a big hit at tabling gigs, and at a place like the USSF, where the attendees are likely to be both dependent upon and highly suspicious of grantmaking organizations and other non-profit-y structures, it’s destined to strike a chord.
This has been one of our best tabling books this season, and I don’t expect to see any drop-off in interest in Cindy’s new, short, and highly-accessible primer on anarchism and its goals and theoretical framework. Since Cindy’s one of the AK authors speaking on a variety of panels and workshops, the interest in this title should be strong.
I had more to write, but my computer is about to die, and I need to move on to the next tasks of the day: tracking down a USSF organizer to find out what’s happening with vendor load-in tomorrow, finding the UPS pickup location to claim the TWENTY boxes of books Suzanne shipped out here for the event, and then fetching Suzanne herself from the airport. Wish me luck! And see some of you tomorrow when the Forum opens!
Abolish Restaurants: A Worker’s Critique of the Food Service Industry (Prole) A beautifully illustrated pamphlet illustrating the daily misery, stress, boredom, and alienation of restaurant work, and all the ways that restaurant workers fight against it. Drawing on a range of anti-capitalist ideas as well as a heaping plate of personal experience, it is part analysis and part call-to-arms. Anyone who’s ever worked in food service or eaten in a restaurant will find something of value here. Get a few copies to stash in your local dining establishments!
Behind the Spanish Barricades (John Langdon-Davies)
In 1936, John Langdon-Davies went to Spain to report on the May Day celebrations. By the time he returned in August, civil war was raging, and many of those he had seen celebrating lay dead. On his second trip he crossed Spain on his motorbike with his teenage son and described what he saw and heard in this book, which he wrote in just five weeks and was published in 1937. Now available in a new edition with an introduction by Paul Preston (who also wrote The Spanish Civil War and a great preface for Anarchism and the City).
Floodgates of Anarchy (Stuart Christie & Albert Meltzer) Back in print and featuring a new foreword, this polemic approaches the subject of anarchism in relation to class struggle. Drawing from the authors’ experiences as activists and documenting the activities of other 20th-century anarchists—including clandestine activities and social change by any means—this book argues that government is the true enemy of the people and that only through the dissolution of government can the people put an end to exploitation and war. If you’re curious about the inspiring (and entertaining) lives that qualify the authors as experts on such things, you should really also check out Granny Made Me an Anarchist and I Couldn’t Paint Golden Angels.
Guerrilla USA: The George Jackson Brigade and the Anticapitalist Underground of the 1970s (Daniel Burton-Rose) “We are cozy cuddly/armed and dangerous/and we will/raze the fucking prisons/to the ground.” In an attempt to deliver on this promise, the George Jackson Brigade launched a violent three-year campaign in the mid-1970s against corporate and state institutions in the Pacific Northwest. This campaign claimed fourteen bombings, as many bank robberies, and a jailbreak. This new written account, drawing on the experiences of living participants, is a complex history that belong on your bookshelf alongside Outlaws of America and Arm the Spirit—you do have those on your shelf, don’t you?
Henry & Glenn Forever (Igloo Tornado) The premise of this comic is explained at the front of the zine: “Henry and Glenn are very good ‘friends.’ They are also ‘room mates.’ Daryl and John live next door. They are satanists.” What follows is ultra-metal violence and cryfest diary entries, cringing self-doubt and mega-hilarious emo-meltdowns. Who knew Danzig was such a vulnerable, self-conscious sweety-pie? Who knew Rollins was such a caring spouse? Well, illustrating/writing team Igloo Tornado did and they kicked down sixty-four fully-illustrated pages on the subject. Come on, how can you resist?
Hopes and Prospects (Noam Chomsky) In this urgent new book, Noam Chomsky surveys the dangers and prospects of our early twenty-first century. Exploring challenges such as the growing gap between North and South, American exceptionalism (including under Barack Obama), the fiascos of Iraq and Afghanistan, the US-Israeli assault on Gaza, and the recent financial bailouts, he also sees hope for the future and a way to move forward—in the democratic wave in Latin America and in the global solidarity movements that suggest “real progress toward freedom and justice.” Similar to Interventionsthis is a book of essays and lectures on timely topics that tie together to create a unique picture of our time and place in history.
Listening to Revolt: Selected Writings (George Rawick) This volume offers the first major collection of the wide-ranging and revolutionary writings of the late George Rawick, a leading figure in both radical history and Marxist sociology. Personal assistant to C.L.R. James, and comrade of Marty Glaberman and Selma James, Rawick was a rarity who contributed decisively to African American history and to the study of white workers. His exciting scholarly and activist writings are generously represented here and put it context by David Roediger’s introductory essay on Rawick’s life, thought and politics.
Toward the Last Jubilee: Midnight Notes at Thirty Years (ed. Craig Hughes) In November, Midnight Notes collective marked thirty years of collective work with a day-long conference called MN30. The gathering addressed the past and present but also grappled with the future. “The short pieces in this [long] pamphlet [seventy pages] are characteristic of the gathering and the movements and environment around them. Here, the authors don’t mince words—not in their celebration and admiration of MN, nor in their presentation of the very real difficulties of the period; not in their critiques of where the project has been and gone, and certainly not in their raising of the real pressing political issues we all need to grapple with.”
Viva Vegan (Terry Hope Romero) Go beyond guacamole and spice up your life with festive ensaladas, hearty empanadas, tacos, tamales, and more (pupusas!!!)! With inventive twists on classic dishes from the Americas, this book opens up a world of fresh flavor without relying on animal ingredients. You’ll find hundreds of inspired recipes for all the foods you love, plus prep tips, menus, and color photos! From the co-author of some of our most popular vegan cookbooks: Veganomicon, Vegan Cupcakes Take Over the World , and Vegan Cookies Invade Your Cookie Jar.
Vive l’Anarchie: Illegalist Trial Statements Voila! A small handy pocketbook of French Illegalist trial statements for your delight and to keep your anger stoked. Why? Well because they still burn and they still point the finger at all the right places. Spoken from the dock of the court, that symbolic point of reckoning and alleged justice, these speeches tell it like it is: capitalism is robbery, work is theft of our time and life energy, crime is the dignified revolt against an unjust order of things, and no court or democratic institution is fit to judge the actions of any rebel. These statements are neither apologies nor justifications, but calls to revolution!
The folks from the Workers Solidarity Movement in Ireland recently announced the publication of the first issue of The Irish Anarchist Review. It looks pretty damn good…and of interest to folks outside Ireland. Here’s what they have to say (and there’s a link to a pretty PDF of the issue, as well as audio from their launch party in Dublin, at the end of the post)…
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Welcome to the first issue of The Irish Anarchist Review, the new political magazine from the Workers Solidarity Movement. This magazine will explore ideas and practical struggles that can teach us about building a revolutionary movement today. We decided to cease printing Red & Black Revolution, and start this project, aimed at provoking debate and discussion among anarchists and the left. For this purpose, we will be pursuing a non-sectarian approach, taking ideas from various left currents, mainstream discourse, and reflections on experiences of life and struggle. We will take, print, and discuss, anything that we find useful for our needs. We hope that readers will have a similar attitude, and will use the magazine to discuss, debate and develop ideas. We will also welcome submissions and responses to articles.
This issue is shaped by the current financial crisis, and more particularly, by the reactions of the Irish political and capitalist classes, as they pursue an aggressive strategy of cutbacks. We have seen the implosion of the building sector, the foundering of the banks upon corruption and incompetence and the failure of our foreign investment based economic model. Moreover, we have seen that the government response has been to protect the banks and builders by transferring wealth from social services, public pay and increased taxation straight into bank bailouts and NAMAland. This needs to be identified for what it is: an act of outright class warfare.
We are faced with a situation where a strong and organised response to government attacks is absolutely necessary, but is constrained by the prevailing ideology and practice of partnership. The most pressing concern for Irish radicals today is to build a labour movement that rejects the corporatist mentality and service-delivery model of ICTU and poses instead workers self-organisation as the basis for struggle. With this in mind, this and future issues will look for inspiration in revitalising class-based politics.
We feature two articles that try to learn from the experiences of radicals internationally. Ronan McAoidh reviews the work of Swedish group, Ka¨mpa Tillsammans!, which argues that affinity between workers, not just union organisation, is the basis of successful struggles. An interview with Alex Foti explores organising tactics that try to deal with the growing trend of flexible working conditions.
The reviews also tie into this theme, assessing the development of an American working-class counter-culture and, by looking at workplace blogging, discussing some ways in which this can be done today.
Overall, this issue attempts to learn from the current weakness of the Irish working class, and explores both the origins of this weakness and some routes towards a combative class movement, capable of disrupting the ruling class offensive on living and working conditions and posing an altogether different vision of society, and, most importantly, a way of getting there.
WORDS : DARA MCAOIDH
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Articles
Reflections on the 24th November
On the 24th of November something extraordinary happened. Some 250,000 workers acted together in a day-long strike against the public sector wage cuts planned by the government. The vast majority of these workers had never gone on strike before, yet across almost all workplaces the strike involved 90% or more of those working.
Capitalist crisis and union resistance in Ireland
Late 2008 saw the Irish capitalist class wage a major ideological struggle against the Irish working class. They called for workers to bear the brunt of the capitalist crisis. Print media, TV and radio carried segment after segment where well-paid commentators argued that workers, in particular public sector workers, were earning too much, had overly generous pensions and that the public had unrealistic expectations of public services.
The usefulness of Faceless Resistance
Although Faceless Resistance as a concept has been discussed among radical circles in Sweden for several years, it has only recently begun to be noticed in the English speaking world, primarily due to delays in texts being translated. In this article I will look primarily at the work of Kämpa Tillsammans, who developed the core ideas of Faceless Resistance, but I will also situate these ideas in their historical and social context and introduce other tendencies that have been influenced by and adapted some of the theory.
Mayday had become like a funeral – interview with Alex Foti
In the middle years of this decade, Alex Foti became known across activist circles for involvement in the Euromayday Parades. In a special themed issue of Green Pepper, Foti and the Chain Workers Collective sketched a very attractive understanding of the work discipline of contemporary capitalism. In their understanding, society had found itself in a situation of profound disjuncture with our working pasts – life today was defined by contingent employment rather than the traditional job for life.
The unions after the celtic tiger
A rather strange figure is moving to centre stage in Irish politics, that of the trade unions – absent from mass struggles until recently and weakened over the decades of social partnership, they are now the only possible source of a movement that can confront attemps to transfer the cost of the recession to working people. This statement does not come with out some qualms.
Checkout: Life On The Tills
“Anna Sam”, as you might guess, is a pseud- onym, the handle of a French blogger who decided to put her years behind the till to good use on a website describing the day-to- day experience of supermarket workers in all its tedious glory. In a way it’s refreshing to discover that the psychology of the checkout girl / boy appears to be the same wherever you go – my own days at Centra and the like are well imprinted on the brain, but they could have been an atypical reflection of my general misanthropy, grumpiness and ill will towards the rest of the species.
Review: The IWW and The Making of a Revolutionary Working Class Counter Culture
The book can be read in a number of ways; on one hand it rescues the IWW from Stalinist critics that fashionably flounced after Russian Bolshevism; it gives insight to the politics and personalities of the union itself and rescues Hill the man. But as suggested by the subtitle, it’s Rosemont’s treatment of how the IWW built a counter hegemonic working class culture that is the most interesting facet of this brick thick work.
All photos used in this publication were sourced under a Creative Commons License on Flickr.com.
The following usernames are credited. Page 3, 4 and 16: Infomatique. Page 6, 12 : Antrophe. Page 7: Asid- script. Page 8 and 10 Cinocino. Page 15: pasukaru Page 14: Mlibrarianus and Laburbuja. Page 15: alam- osbasement Page 18: Artecallejoro. Page 20: Cashen. Page 21: Erikwdavis. Page 23: Bear Clause.
Frontpage illustration: helene pertl Backpage illustration: lisa crowne
Jeff Conant came by the table today and got to see his brand-new book 
Uses of a Whirlwind: Movement, Movements, and Contemporary Radical Currents in the United States
Detroit, I Do Mind Dying: A Study in Urban Revolution
Welcome to the first issue of The Irish Anarchist Review, the new political magazine from the Workers Solidarity Movement. This magazine will explore ideas and practical struggles that can teach us about building a revolutionary movement today. We decided to cease printing Red & Black Revolution, and start this project, aimed at provoking debate and discussion among anarchists and the left. For this purpose, we will be pursuing a non-sectarian approach, taking ideas from various left currents, mainstream discourse, and reflections on experiences of life and struggle. We will take, print, and discuss, anything that we find useful for our needs. We hope that readers will have a similar attitude, and will use the magazine to discuss, debate and develop ideas. We will also welcome submissions and responses to articles.
The