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BUSTIN’ OUT 5!! TransMarch Afterparty Benefit for Transfolx in Prison!

Posted on June 16th, 2010 in AK Allies, Happenings

The 5th Annual TransMarch Afterparty to Benefit Transfolx Organizing against the PIC and for self-determination!

Announcing….

BUSTIN’ OUT 5!!
Friday, June 25th
9 pm – 2 am
EL RIO
3158 Mission St, SF
21 and over
$5-$50 Sliding Scale–No one turned away!

Strut your stuff @ the Transgender Pride March’s Afterparty! Come dance and show your solidarity with transfolks resistin’ the prison industrial complex and fighting for a better world for all of us!

Featuring: DJ Durt and DJ Black

www.myspace.com/deejaydurt
www.myspace.com/clubsweet

Great giveaways from Good Vibrations, AK Press and more! Party will benefit
Transgender, Gender Variant and Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP).

More info: TGIJP 415.252.1444, info@tgijp.org

Transgender, Gender Variant and Intersex Justice Project (TGIJP)

TGIJP’s mission is to end the discrimination, medical neglect, abuse and violence experienced by transgender and gender variant people, and people with intersex conditions (TGI) in CA prisons. We are a prison abolitionist organization, in that while we fight for the immediate needs of TGI people in prison, we do not advocate for reforms that further expand the prison industrial complex. We work to improve conditions for TGI people in prison and to promote public awareness of the experiences of TGI people in prison, all while prioritizing and building the leadership of current and former prisoners. Our work deliberately combines race, class, and ability along with gender and intersex status, because low-income communities of color are disproportionately harmed by the prison industrial complex. Thus, TIP embraces the wide diversity of gender apparent in communities of color, such as butches, studs, gressors, A.G.s, queens, divas, gay boys, and others.

Take a moment to support Eddie Conway

Posted on June 15th, 2010 in AK Allies, AK Authors!, Happenings

AK Press was saddened to receive the news of the passing of Eleanor Conway, mother of Marshall “Eddie” Conway, author, activist, and former Panther currently incarcerated in the state of Maryland for a crime he did not commit.

The Conway family has released a statement urging people to contact the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services to support Eddie’s request for a temporary bereavement leave so that he can attend the funeral services this Thursday (June 17). Please read the statement below, and consider sending an email or calling Secretary Maynard; the very nature of the prison industry in this country is designed to keep individuals locked away and separated from their families … please help to tear down that wall, and to make it possible for Eddie, and all incarcerated folks, to mourn the passing of their loved ones with those who care about them!

********************

The Passing of Eleanor Conway: An Urgent Plea!

From eddieconway.wordpress.com

We are contacting you on behalf of the Conway family. We are requesting your support to ensure that Eddie be allowed to attend the funeral of his dearly departed mother. There is information below on how to contact the Secretary, Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services who has the authority to temporarily provide bereavement leave to Eddie so that he can properly say goodbye to his mother. We urge that you contact the Secretary and reach out to as many others as possible to do the same to make certain that Eddie is permitted to do so. Given the urgency of the timing, please call and speak directly with the Secretary, or leave a voice message.

Please also send your thoughts and prayers!

Gary D. Maynard, Chair
Secretary, Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services
Maryland Police and Correctional Training Commissions
6852 4th St, Sykesville, MD 21784-7433

Email: gmaynard@dpscs.state.md.us

Telephone: 410-875-3400, Fax: 410-875-3582

Condolences and solidarity notes may be sent to:

Marshall E. Conway #116469
Jessup Correctional Institution
P.O. Box 534
Jessup, MD 20794

A New World From Below: An Anarchist and Anti-Authoritarian Convergence at the 2010 U.S. Social Forum

Posted on June 14th, 2010 in AK Allies, AK Authors!, Anarchist Publishers, Happenings

Going the to US Social Forum in Detroit next week? Well, here’s something to warm your little anarcho-heart. AK Press has teamed up with nine other collectives to try to make anti-authoritarian ideas a bit more visible, and fun, at the gathering. The project is called “A New World from Below: Anarchists and Anti-Authoritarians at the Social Forum.” It involves a track of workshops taking place at the Forum itself, as well as a second offsite location/convergence space for unscheduled meetings and activities, as well as a selection of forums & workshops that are not listed as a part of the full USSF program. The offsite location will also host free meals every day and a  Friday night book release party (with free beer!). Be there! Here’s the scoop:

—–

A New World from Below
Anarchists and Anti-Authoritarians at the Social Forum
Detroit, June 23-27, 2010
http://anarchistussf.wordpress.com/

We believe that social forums can greatly contribute to strengthening social movements both in the United States and internationally. The ecological destruction and economic disaster, coupled with disillusionment about the Obama presidency, makes the 2010 U.S. Social Forum (USSF) in Detroit an urgently needed convergence. We hope to bring what’s unique about anarchist and antiauthoritarian organizing to the social forum, and spark conversations not only about strategies of resistance but also visions of reconstruction from the bottom-up.

To that end, the New World from Below Organizing Collectives will be hosting the New World from Below workshop track within the USSF. This track will bring together a variety of talks, panels, and workshops organized by anarchist and antiauthoritarian collectives from across the continent. These will all take place in the USSF’s spaces at Cobo Hall and surrounding locations.

We will also be hosting the New World from Below convergence center, where each day a different collective will organize this space for tabling, art and performances, facilitated anarchist strategy sessions, and socializing as well as networking. The center will be located at the Spirit of Hope Church, 1519 Martin Luther King Junior Blvd., Detroit, MI 48208, at the corner of MLK and Trumbull. And Food Not Bombs/IWW Solidarity Kitchen will be serving food at Scripps Park, adjacent to the New World from Below convergence center.

Collective of Organizing Collectives

AK Press
City from Below
Institute for Anarchist Studies
Justseeds Artists’ Cooperative
Manifesta Musicians’ Collective
Midnight Special Law Collective
Red Emma’s
Solidarity and Defense
Team Colors Collective
Trumbullplex


**THE SCHEDULE SO FAR**

The schedule so far looks amazing. Over 33 workshops organized within the Social Forum have signed on to the New World From Below convergence at the USSF, and we’ve got a jam packed schedule of events in the evenings at the convergence center.

The New World from Below workshops will take place both within the “official” USSF schedule and at the anarchist convergence space, so as to be part of the official USSF schedule, but also to get the word out on many other self-organized workshops as a part of our presence.


Workshops and Events as of 6/10/2010
(keep checking back in as we will be constantly updating this page!)


New World From Below convergence center open hours

Thursday June 24 -Saturday June 26 * 10AM-6PM

Besides our program of evening events and free meals starting on Wednesday evening, the convergence center will be open during the day – stop by for info on what’s going on, to have a cup of coffee, pick up a schedule, drop off or pick up material from the free literature tables, or get in touch at anarchistussf@gmail.com to arrange to use the space for self-organized caucuses and workshops.

Another Detroit’s Been Happening!

Art show at the Trumbullplex (4210 Trumbull) celebrating the radical past and future of Detroit.
Official opening is June 21st, call 313.758.7144 for more info and opening hours.

TUESDAY JUNE 22nd

Detroit Highlighted: Fender Bender
Fender Bender Detroit

Tuesday, June 22 * 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. * Cobo Hall: W2-61

Our goal is to provide a safe space for women and people of marginalized gender identities to learn about and work on bikes in an inclusive and supportive atmosphere. In conjunction, we aim to provide a forum for discussion and resources for the ongoing work that must be done to address oppressive gender stereotypes, and all forms of oppression across the spectrum of our daily lives. (Fender Bender has open shops every Saturday in June from 4:00 to 7:00 p.m. and an all-inclusive skill share on Tuesday, June 22 from 7:00 to 9:00 p.m. at the Hub, 3611 Cass Avenue in Detroit.)

Detroit Highlighted: The Hub of Detroit
The Hub of Detroit

Tuesday June 22 * 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. * Cobo Hall: W2-68

Join us as we discuss our work: The Hub of Detroit is a full-service bicycle shop servicing the Cass Corridor and greater Detroit. It is open six days a week and fills a void in Detroit’s bicycle service market, including the sale of bicycles, accessories and parts, and bicycle repairs. All profits from The Hub of Detroit bike shop support youth and educational programming provided by The Hub nonprofit in the form of Back Alley Bikes programming, and outreach youth and educational partnerships in the community. The Hub bike shop also offers mechanical support staff for various area bicycling events as well as a place to train the adults of the future in our mechanics-in-training program.

WEDNESDAY JUNE 23rd

Class Struggle Anarchism in the Twenty-first Century: Recentering on People’s Movements
Common Action, Buffalo Class Action, organizations affiliated with Anarkismo, Workers Solidarity Alliance, and the Class Struggle Anarchist Conference

Wednesday, June 23 * 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon * Woodward Academy: 1435

This workshop will focus on what has been at the heart of anarchism since its birth in the nineteenth century: a commitment to furthering the class struggle of working peoples. Anarchists affiliated with Anarkismo and the Class Struggle Anarchist Conference will discuss the workplace and neighborhood organizing we are doing in cities across the country. Members will share their experiences working on movements to strengthen the working class, including topics on tenants’ rights organizing, workplace struggles, antimilitarism work, struggles to preserve public education, preventing sexual violence, and working against white supremacy. We will discuss the relevance of anarchist politics to the economic crisis that is destroying cities across North America as well as the attendant racism, sexism, and nationalism that is heightened by such a crisis. We will also look at the challenges anarchists face in supporting truly democratic and participatory social movements in the twenty-first century.

Join in the Whirlwind: A Cooperative Panel on Research and Movement Building
Team Colors Collective, Turbulence Collective, Chris Dixon, and other friends

Wednesday, June 23 * 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon * Cobo Hall: O2-42

For the past three years, the Team Colors Collective has been asking organizers, activists, artists, and theorists, “Will you join us in the middle of a whirlwind?” as we have sought to understand the current composition and strength of radical movements in the United States. In utilizing the metaphor of a whirlwind to describe the myriad of struggles that are taking place currently and those that have been blowing across the planet over the past decade, Team Colors has conducted an inquiry and examination of movements in the United States. In cooperation with other organizers and activists, in this workshop we will explore the importance of research to movement building as we seek a return to radical community organizing—toward making a revolution possible!

Popularizing Radical Politics: How We Convey Our Ideas and Ideals
Institute for Anarchist Studies

Wednesday, June 23 * 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon * Wayne County Community College: 349

Radical political thought is often hard to communicate to wide audiences for the very simple reason that it is viewed as, well, “radical.” But if we seek to expand our politics beyond our already-established milieus, we must find a way to transcend this seeming barrier. The subject of this panel discussion is exactly that: What are effective ways of engaging with those who do not already agree with our message, clearly communicating what our actions and words mean to say, and still further, using this messaging to then draw new people to our ideas? Participants in this discussion will draw on their backgrounds in writing, design, media, and other forms of dialogue to present various perspectives on communication between radical activists and those they desire to influence, politicize, and perhaps join them.

Self-Publishing a Radical Comic Book: How to Do It, and Why
World War 3 Illustrated

Wednesday, June 23 * 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon * TWW: 3

Editors of World War 3 Illustrated will explore the process of self-publishing a comic book that deals with social issues from a radical perspective and explain why they have been doing this for thirty years. We will deal with the technical aspects of self-publishing, such as printing and distribution, the aesthetic concerns of artists trying to transform personal experience into political comics, and the organizational issues of a collective editorship. We will start by describing the process of building and creating the magazine, but go on to discuss with the participants the projects they might want to do and how they might benefit from our experience.

Resisting State Repression, Defending the RNC 8
RNC 8 Defense Committee

Wednesday, June 23 * 1:00 to 3:00 p.m.* WSU Old Main: 1129

This workshop will include background and an update on the case of the RNC 8, anarchist/antiauthoritarian political organizers from Minnesota charged with conspiracy for helping organize resistance to the 2008 Republican National Convention, as well as a strategizing session to help create a movement response to their October trial. The RNC 8 were preemptively arrested and charged with terrorism before the 2008 RNC after their group, the RNC Welcoming Committee, had been infiltrated for a year and a half. Targeted because of their political ideologies and associations, they have been fighting their conspiracy charges (successfully getting two terror charges dropped) and preparing for their joint trial. The desired outcome of this workshop is to create concrete plans for both supporting the RNC 8 during trial and defending everyone’s ability to organize toward a world based on justice and liberation for all.

Responding to an Amnesiac Culture with Grassroots Social History
Shaping San Francisco

Wednesday, June 23 * 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. * WSU Old Main: 1133

The San Francisco Bay anchors a stunning environment, inspiring visitors and residents for generations, but the Bay and its urban surroundings are themselves the product of sharp social struggles. Shaping San Francisco is a project presenting the city’s untold and forgotten histories. In our workshop we will present the project, and demonstrate how this model can be applied to cities everywhere. Our forty-five-minute demonstration will course through labor history, ecological history, the Bay Area before European arrival, the role of various immigrant populations, transportation (Underground Railroad to the Transcontinental Railroad to containerization), housing, and much more.

Sledgehammer Visions, Housing Actions: Direct Action Solutions to the Housing Crisis
World War 3 Illustrated, Picture the Homeless, and Miami Workers Center

Wednesday, June 23 * 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. * TWW: 3

We will start with a short PowerPoint presentation of posters, cartoons, photos, and other documentation of the squatters’ movement in New York City in the 1980s, which seized empty buildings to provide low-income housing, then go on to a discussion with activists about how similar tactics are being used to address the current crisis.

Your City from Below
Red Emma’s and the Baltimore Development Cooperative for The City From Below

Wednesday, June 23 * 1:00 to 5:00 p.m. * Cobo Hall: O2-42

Drawing on the “Represent Your City!” discussion held at the City from Below conference in Baltimore last year, this workshop will provide an open space for activists and organizations working in an urban context to share stories, strategies, and successful models with each other. This will be a participatory workshop—everyone who attends will be encouraged to speak about what’s going on in their city. Our goal is to get beyond the surface of projects and campaigns, and explore what’s common (and what’s not) in the less-visible, long-term, and infrastructural struggles over “the right to the city.” We’ll let the participants’ contributions shape the dialogue, but will also offer questions like: How are you working to implement a vision of real urban democracy? How have you built successful grassroots and citywide alliances “from below”? How has the ongoing economic crisis impacted organizing? Where have things gone wrong?

Nowtopia: How Pirate Programmers, Outlaw Bicyclists, and Vacant-Lot Gardeners Are Inventing the Future Today!
Shaping San Francisco

Wednesday, June 23 * 3:00 to 5:00 p.m. * WSU Old Main: 1133

In other words, Jobs Don’t Work! This panel will examine how hard many of us are working, precisely when we’re NOT at our paid jobs. Wage labor and capital turn most jobs into a waste of time at best, or actively destroy the planet. We will investigate a range of productive, ecologically minded, and time-consuming behaviors that represent a logical place from which to engage in radical labor organizing—the work that many of us are already doing! The panelists include author Chris Carlsson, Julie Rosier of Detroit Red Thread Theater, Emily Ramsey from the Los Angeles Bike Kitchen, Azibuike Akaba, staffer at Regional Asthma Management and Prevention (RAMP) project based in Oakland, CA, and Arlen Jones of Los Angeles’ La Bici Digna.

(more…)

Dispersing Power: Social Movements as Anti-State Forces — Book Excerpt

Posted on June 11th, 2010 in AK Book Excerpts

“Zibechi goes to Bolivia to learn. Like us, he goes with questions, questions that stretch far beyond the borders of Bolivia. How do we change the world and create a different one? How do we get rid of capitalism? How do we create a society based on dignity? What is the role of the state and what are the possibilities of changing society through anti-state movements?… the most important practical and theoretical questions that have risen from the struggles in Latin America and the world in the last fifteen years or so…. The book is beautiful, exciting, stimulating…. Do read it and also give it your friends.”
—John Holloway, from the Foreword
“Raúl Zibechi recounts in wonderful detail how dynamic and innovative Bolivian social movements succeeded in transforming the country. Even more inspiring than the practical exploits, though, are the theoretical innovations of the movements, which Zibechi highlights, giving us new understandings of community, political organization, institution, and a series of other concepts vital to contemporary political thought.”
Michael Hardt, co-author of Empire, Multitude, and Commonwealth.

The first book by Raúl Zibechi to be translated into English, Dispersing Power: Social Movements as Anti-State Forces, just arrived at our Oakland warehouse. You can read John Duda’s great review of it here. If that sparks your interest, here are some excerpts from the Introduction.

We’re really excited about this book…and you can order it today at 25% off!

—–

What does the Bolivian struggle bring to the people of Latin America who seek to create a new world? The water and gas “wars” in 2000 and 2003 share some traits with other struggles on the continent like, for example, the lack of vanguards and leadership structures, or the ability to launch victorious insurgencies without any institution (workers, or farmers, union, or political party)—without those on top and those at the bottom. These struggles were won without the traditional division between the leaders and the led. The Bolivian experience also resembles other struggles on the continent in the sense that it was enough for them to draw from that which already exists in order to struggle and win: basically, the rural communities or ayllus,1 and the urban communities and local neighborhood councils. The “organizations” that carry forward the struggles and insurrections are the same “organizations” embedded and submerged in the everyday life of the people, and this is one of the new features of the movements (which are always social and political) of our region. I think it is necessary to elaborate on this point.

Revolution is the midwife of history. Marx’s phrase sums up a conception of revolution that has been buried by the Marxists. However, Marx was always faithful to this way of looking at social change, in which the revolutionary act of giving birth to a new world is just a short step in a long process of creating that other world.

Revolution helps give birth to the new world, but it does not create it. This new world already exists in a certain stage of development and that is why, in order to continue growing, it needs to be delivered by an act of force: the revolution. I feel that what is happening within the social movements is the formation of “another world,” one that is not only new but also different from the present one, based on a different logic of construction. This parallels Marx’s reflections on the Paris Commune. “The workers,” he said, “have no ready-made utopias to introduce par decret du peuple. They have no ideals to realize, but to set free the elements of the new society with which old collapsing bourgeois society itself is pregnant.”2

Allow me to dwell on “to set free,” because I think it points to a pivotal element that runs through Marx’s entire theory of production. For Marx, communism exists as a potential within capitalist society. He is very clear about this in the Communist Manifesto when he discusses the transition from feudalism to capitalism and emphasizes how bourgeois society was born in the bowels of the feudal society. The same, he anticipates, will happen in the transition from capitalism to communism. The new society is not a place that one arrives; it is not something to be conquered and therefore is not out there; and it is even less something implanted. The image that Marx offers us of revolutionary change is that of a latent power that lies dormant within the world of the oppressed, and grows out like a flower. This is why he uses the expression “to set free.”

Marx did not use the word “spontaneity” or “spontaneous,”3 which Kautsky introduced and Lenin later employed, in his state-centric drift. Marx only used the adjectives selbständig (alone, on its own initiative) and eigentümlich (own / inherent)—or in other words, what exists in and of itself. His work is permeated by the idea of the self-activity of the workers and by the use of the term “naturally” to refer to how this activity arises. He affirmed, beyond any doubt, that the concentration of workers caused by the development of capitalism creates the conditions for their unity, based on self-education, and argued that this unity would erode the basis of bourgeois domination: competition between workers. Notice how he finds within the class not only the weaknesses that oppress them but also the powers that free them.

I maintain that the idea “to set free,” and the concepts of “self-activity” and “self-organization,” all derive from the same conception of the world and social change. It is one based on the idea that these processes occur naturally—a word Marx used himself—or, by themselves: that is, as a result of their own internal dynamics.

The internal dynamic of social struggle weaves social relations among the oppressed, as a means of ensuring survival in the first place, both materially and spiritually. With time and the decline of the dominant system, a new world grows upon the basis of these relations or, better said, a different world from the hegemonic. So much so that, eventually, society takes the form of a sea of “new” social relations amid a few islands of the “old” social relations—essentially, statist relations.

Twentieth-century history is full of births of worlds that embody “old” social relations. This tumultuous reality has brought disastrous consequences: in general, revolutions have not given birth to new worlds, though revolutionaries have tried to build them with the state apparatus. Although a good many revolutions have improved people’s living conditions, which is certainly an important achievement, they have not been able to create new worlds. Despite the unimpeachable goodwill of so many revolutionaries, the fact remains that the state is not the appropriate tool for creating emancipatory social relations. This is a contested topic, and a point from which an abundant literature has emerged.

From this perspective, the most revolutionary thing we can do is strive to create new social relationships within our own territories— relationships that are born of the struggle, and are maintained and expanded by it.

(more…)

The first review of Dispersing Power!

Posted on June 9th, 2010 in Reviews of AK Books

Dispersing PowerI’ll let you folks in on a little secret: because of the location of our printer in Canada, and the various ins and out of freight shipping, I get copies of new AK Press books here in Baltimore before they arrive in the warehouse out in Oakland. And that tends to benefit Red Emma’s, since I usually just hand-carry a couple of copies of all the new AK books over there as soon as I receive them. So, it’s really no surprise that the very first review of our brand-new translation of Raúl Zibechi’s Dispersing Power: Social Movements as Anti-State Forces comes from John Duda, one of the books coordinators at Red Emma’s (and editor of Wanted! Men to Fill the Jails of Spokane, also available from AK Press Distribution)! I’m also psyched about this book – it’s been too long that Zibechi’s work has been largely unavailable in English, and our new translation by Ramor Ryan features John Holloway‘s Foreword to the German edition of the book, and a new Foreword to the English edition by Ben Dangl, whose Dancing with Dynamite: States and Social Movements in Latin America will be published by AK Press later this summer. The book also includes the original Epilogue by Argentinean research collective Colectivos Situaciones. Dispersing Power will be in the Oakland warehouse in a matter of days, so preorder now and get 25% off!

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Dispersing Power: Social Movements as Anti-State Forces, by Raúl Zibechi (AK Press, 2010)

Reviewed by John Duda, for Red Emma’s Bookstore Coffeehouse

One could, if one had confined one’s horizon to North America in 2010, be forgiven for the (mistaken) impression that a serious project aimed at the concrete negation of the state was of little relevance in today’s world-historical political conjecture – that the kinds of politics that describe themselves as anti-state or anarchist in, for instance the United State, are, at their best, precarious, small experiments, inspiring flashes of real revolt from below making unexpected or unlikely appearances in the interstices of late capitalism, and are, at their worst, farcical distractions from real struggles.   The experiences of, for instance, the Greek anarchists over the past half a decade have taught us in order to understand what a real challenge to state power, grounded in popular movements and able to shake the foundations of the global economy, might look like, we should remember to look outside our own immediate geographical context, that if, here, in the heart of Empire, anarchism might be mistaken for a beautiful dream; elsewhere it lives and breathes and fights and makes history.

Raul Zibechi’s book Dispersing Power teaches us that we also should remember, when we look across the globe to see where anti-state struggles are taking place, that the most successful, vibrant, and instructive of these struggles may not proceed under the name of anarchism, may not fly the black flag, and may lay outside of the horizon of European modernity altogether.  The book, the first work of Zibechi’s to be translated into English, is a theoretical and sociological examination of the struggles of the indigenous Aymara people in Bolivia (or rather, against Bolivia), where some of the most inspiring victories against neoliberalism have been realized.  Zibechi himself is no anarchist, but rather a Marxist with a strong proclivity towards the valorization of self-organized class struggle, a position which he has developed in his investigations of the past decade of revolt and social movement in Latin America.

The protagonists of Dispersing Power are the Aymara who over the past few decades have, faced with an often catastrophic process of modernization that made traditional rural life increasingly impossible, turned El Alto, a tiny suburb of La Paz which had only 11,000 inhabitants in 1952, into today a city of nearly a million people, the overwhelming majority of indigenous descent.  Here the experience of migration and urbanization has collided with traditional forms of Indian self-determination and self-governance, producing an overlapping patchwork of communities in resistance that have proved capable of waging mass struggles against neoliberalism and the Bolivian state.  Zibechi argues that one should not view the real social movement in Bolivia as one in which the aim is to take over the State, to humanize it, turn it’s power towards the construction of socialism—for Zibechi, the election of Evo Morales is a distraction or even a threat to the radically anti-state struggle being constructed on the ground in El Alto and elsewhere.  The power of the communities, he insists, stems from the way in which, to borrow Clastres’ phrase, not only fight against the state, but “ward it off”, organizing themselves in such a way that they are able to fight (and win) without giving birth to a new state within their social movement.  Here “state” means not just the parliament, executive, the palaces and official apparatuses of government, but any power which is separated from the people, which stands above it.

The Aymara alternative instead develops communities, units of self-governance, where this process of self-rule is indistinguishable from the material self-reproduction of the community, where mandatory rotation and other techniques forestall the emergence of hierarchy and separation, where leaders “lead by obeying”.   One minute the community is managing its own economic affairs and building its own urban environment, and the next it turns itself, without any centralized command but rather through a micropolitical process of self-activation, into an army ready to wage war on neoliberalism.  These remarkable communities, for Zibechi, represent a form of political life that, in dispersing power rather than embracing it, is entirely outside the horizon of the concept of the political state in the European tradition.

What’s perhaps best about Zibechi’s book is that he doesn’t fail to deliver something genuinely useful to someone really seeking to wrap one’s head around what makes the Aymara experience so different.  This is not a theoretical flight of fancy, but a rigorous examination of a real history that’s unfolding, and Zibechi makes us understand that the “communities” he describes are not pure, located in some sort of innocent radical space totally outside the power of the State, but rather that the State continually threatens to reemerge, that cooptation and neutralization (for instance within a kind of social democratic pluralism) always remain possibilities, and that the real story of the struggle against the state is a continual process of self-transformation, an impure and messy conjunction of movements in both directions at once.  And, as his incredibly frank discussion of the way in which these indigenous communities employ the death penalty as a tool of non-state justice makes clear, the Aymara experience poses as many questions as it answers.

The New Catalog is Here!

Posted on June 7th, 2010 in AK Distribution

Hey folks, just a heads up to let you know that our brand new Summer 2010 catalog supplement is here; right in time for you to scope out your summer reading!

Now you can check out all our latest and greatest in one convenient, newspaper-style package. And in perhaps even more exciting news, the catalog is available as a free product orderable right here on our website! You don’t even have to call us or sit scratching your head trying to figure out who to email to get one anymore– just add it to your cart!

And of course, if you’re the web-savvy, paper-saving type, all our new products will be orderable on our website as usual. You can always check out our new and upcoming release sections to see what we’ve got and what we’ve got coming.

The Price Hammer Strikes Again!

Posted on June 4th, 2010 in AK Distribution

Another new selection of books at 50% off the regular price! By the time I’m done with you, you’ll have all the AK books or have opened up an Amazon™ store!

Critical Mass: Bicycling’s Defiant Celebration
Edited by Chris Carlsson

This leaderless, grassroots social movement cuts through the noise and inertia of car-clogged urban transportation and teaches us to carve a wedge of our city for our dreams. So says essayist Anna Sojourner in this pushy and irreverent collection of ink-worthy social critique and optimistic celebration. Four dozen contributors document, define, and drive home the beauty of a quiet ride with a thousand friends, the anarchy of grassroots inspiration, the melodrama of media coverage, and the fight for the survival of our cities.
Now just $9.50!

1936: The Spanish Revolution
The Ex

Originally released in 1986, this 144-page photo-book about the Spanish anarchists’ fight against the fascists is available again and now on sale! Hubba hubba!

Within the deluxe hardcover, you’ll find previously unpublished photographs from the CNT (the Spanish anarchist trade union) archives, documenting the heroic revolutionary struggle from 1936–1939, with text in English and Spanish. Includes two 3″ CD singles with two Spanish anarchist songs and two original compositions, all performed by The Ex, everyone’s favorite anarchist-art-agitators.
Now just $12.50

Anarchism in America (DVD)
By Steven Fischler & Joel Sucher

Two fascinating documentaries on one DVD. Both are the work of Emmy and Guggenheim Award-winning filmmakers, Steven Fischler and Joel Sucher. In the first, Anarchism in America, the two take a road trip to map anarchism as a distinctly American tradition, interviewing a diverse cast of characters: from “ordinary” truckers and farmers to famous anarchists like Kenneth Rexroth, Ursula LeGuin, and Murray Bookchin. The second, Free Voice of Labor, traces the history of the Yiddish anarchist newspaper of that name—publishing its final issue after eighty-seven years—as told by its now elderly, but decidedly unbowed staff. Also included is first hand accounts of the labor organizing, propaganda, educational experiments, and monumental contributions from these cherished, if largely unsung, heroes of the American anarchist movement.
Now just $10.00!

Igniting a Revolution: Voices in Defense of the Earth
Edited by Anthony J. Nocella II & Steve Best

For decades, environmental groups have been resisting the destructive trends set by industry and government, but as the social and political climate has changed, popular protest movements have become less and less effective. As the earth’s situation worsens, those opposing its destruction have out of necessity become increasingly militant. Whether you’re drawn by frustration with environmental strategies that, to date, have been ineffective against this growing ecological crisis, or simply by curiosity (Who are these people? Why are they doing this? What do they hope to gain?), Igniting a Revolution offers a fascinating and compelling look at the emerging movement of revolutionary environmentalism.

Includes essays by Marilyn Buck, Robert Jensen, John Zerzan, Ashanti Alston, Jeffrey “Free” Luers, Derrick Jensen, Ann Hansen, and a preface by Bron Taylor.
Now just $11.00!

Black Flame: The Revolutionary Class Politics of Anarchism and Syndicalism, CounterPower Vol. I
By Michael Schmidt and Lucien van der Walt

Black Flame is the first of a two-volume set (the second still forthcoming) examining the democratic class politics of the worldwide anarchist movement, its vision of a decentralized planned economy, and its impact on popular struggles on five continents over the course of the past 150 years. From anarchism’s first glimmers as a nineteenth-century ideology to today’s anticapitalist struggles, Black Flame traces anarchism’s lineage and contemporary relevance, outlining the movement’s insights into questions of race, gender, class, and imperialism. With Black Flame, Michael Schmidt and Lucien van der Walt, both writers and activists in South Africa, have begun what promises to be the definitive synthetic account of the international anarchist tradition. Nearly exhaustive in scope, and rigorous in its scholarly detail, this first volume significantly reframes the work of previous historians and, especially, examines coherent alternatives to Marxist and nationalist approaches to revolutionary theory and practice. An indispensable conceptual roadmap to the history and continuing relevance of anarchist praxis.
Now just $11.50!

Real Utopia: Participatory Society for the 21st Century
Edited by Chris Spannos

Instead of simply declaring “another world is possible,” the writers in this collection engage with what that world would look like, how it would function, and how our commitments to just outcomes are related to the sorts of institutions we maintain. Topics include: participatory economics, political vision, education, architecture, artists in a free society, environmentalism, work after capitalism, and poly-culturalism. The catchall phrase here is “participatory society”—one that is directly democratic and seeks institutional solutions to complex sociological and economic questions.

Contributors include: Michael Albert, Barbara Ehrenreich, Steve Shalom, Robin Hahnel, Marie Trigona, Noam Chomsky, Paul Burrows, Justin Podur, Tom Wetzel, Cynthia Peters, Andrej Grubacic, and Mandisi Majavu, among others.
Now just $11.00!

Getting to Know AK: Suzanne

Posted on June 1st, 2010 in About AK

OK, so you’re probably thinking to yourself, “I read the AK Press blog religiously, but I’m sure I haven’t seen profiles for all of the collective members yet! My life feels empty and meaningless since there are still three AK collective members I haven’t virtually met yet!” Well, I can’t do much about the other slackers over here, but here I am—finally ready to do my part.

So here’s the quick background: I’m 27 years old. I have lived kind of all over the place (including stints in Wisconsin, upstate New York, the wonderful-but-freezing Twin Cities, and even Dakar), but I spent nearly half of my life living in a few different parts of West Virginia. It’s a beautiful landscape to be sure, but by some counts the poorest state in the U.S., and certainly the most racist place I’ve ever been. I may not have had a word for it at the time, but I like to think that I have been some sort of anarchist ever since I realized there how many people’s different experiences of oppression were so tied up in capitalism and the State. Later, of course, I realized that there were a whole tradition of people who had also realized this, which was a pretty inspiring discovery.

I have worked with books pretty much ever since I started working—partly because I appreciate them as objects, but also because they’re such an essential means of spreading ideas. My first paid gig as a teenager was in a public library (I was in charge of making sure the Harlequin novels were shelved in the correct order). A college education and a few food service jobs later, I ended up working in some amazing independent bookstores: the late, great Ruminator Books in St. Paul (formerly Hungry Mind), and Amazon Bookstore Cooperative in Minneapolis (a feminist spot that’s been around since 1970 and was recently reincarnated as True Colors). At the same time, I was lucky enough to be taken under the wings of the fine folks at Coffee House Press in Minneapolis, first as a publishing intern and then as a letterpress apprentice. I also stuck around and worked on Ruminator magazine (a feisty little book review rag) until it was shut down a year after the bookstore closed.

I became an AK collective member when I moved to the Bay Area in 2005. I applied for a job here because it seemed like the perfect way to combine my particular brand of workaholism (is that a word?) with my anarchist politics, and luckily the collective agreed… now I really can’t imagine doing anything else. I started out doing shipping & receiving, then moved into ordering, and about half a year ago landed in my current role doing distro sales. I get to spend my time building relationships with other publishers, infoshops, tablers, and independent bookstores; helping choose and work on the titles we publish and distribute; traveling all over North America to represent AK at bookfairs and conferences; and struggling (yes, I mean struggling, in the most constructive sense of the term!) to collectively manage a project that has been putting out amazing anarchist and radical books for 20 years. Seriously, that is pretty cool.

When I’m not doing something involving reading, publishing, or selling anarchist books, you can often find me doing one of the following: printing (I’m a member of the San Francisco Print Collective), designing (last year I joined Critical Resistance’s Abolitionist newspaper collective as the designer, and have been known to do a book or record cover here and there), pumping iron (to get ready for the revolution?), watching nerdy films, listening to geeky music, or drinking delicious bourbons.

You’re probably tired of hearing about me by now, so I will leave you with some big news: this fall, I will be relocating to join Kate at AK Baltimore. I am sorry to leave the Bay, but really excited to be part of developing a new AK office/warehouse and thinking of ways that AK can have more of a presence on the east coast and be a better resource for all the folks who are doing so much great work out there. So, if you’re on the east coast… I’m probably coming soon to a bookstore, tabling event, or whiskey bar near you, and I’d be thrilled to hear your ideas.

A Surrealist Response to the Oil Spill

Posted on May 29th, 2010 in AK Allies, Current Events

This just in: the Surrealist Movement in the United States, always friends of the earth and enemies of big business, has prepared a manifesto in response to the tragic disaster that’s filled the Gulf of Mexico with hundreds of thousands of millions of barrels of oil. Read on, and click the link at the end to download a pdf of the flyer to print out & distribute yourselves!

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O octopus, with your silken look! whose soul is inseparable from mine; you most beautiful inhabitant of the terrestrial globe, who have at your disposal a seraglio of four hundred suckers; you in whom, linked indestructibly by a common accord, the sweet communicative virtue and the divine graces are nobly present, as if in their natural residence, why are you not with me, your mercury belly against my aluminum breast, both of us sitting on some seashore rock, to contemplate the spectacle I adore!
The Songs of Maldoror

.We are through with the rational, reasonable, realistic and scientific solutions of faith-based positivism. Instead, we make the following demands and dedicate them to Judi Bari, an Earth First! liberator and lover of old growth trees who was car-bombed by the forces of law-’n-order twenty years ago on May 24th. Long live Judi Bari! Solidarity with Marie Mason, Oso Blanco Chubbock, Mumia Abu Jamal, and the Tarnac 9!

1. CLARIFICATION: It needs to be made clear that this is not an “oil spill.” This is a manmade disaster. Depending on which official version you chose to believe, somewhere between BP’s ridiculous estimate of 210,000 gallons and well over 4 millions gallons of oil have been gushing into the ocean every day since April 22, 2010. A “spill” is what happens when a drinking glass of water tips over; this is and always has been an unstoppable, unpluggable, uncleanable, uncontrollable, unleashed man-made geyser of toxic disaster.

2. PEOPLE’S TRIBUNALS FOR ECOTERRORISTS: An injury to one is an injury to all! We charge every BP America executive and governmental overseer of offshore oil drilling with manslaughter and ecocide. The mansions, yachts, and private jets seized from these executives and bureaucrats will be converted into sandboxes, tree forts, rain gardens, greenhouses, and amusement parks. The accused must face a people’s tribunal and stand trial in the Gulf Shore communities that their actions (and inactions) have affected. The jury will be made up of those drawn from the communities that their actions (and criminal inactions) has most affected, particularly the families of those eleven workers killed when the BP rig exploded. Bussed in from the cities, the underground, and the countryside, members of the Earth Liberation Front and Earth First! should be on hand to witness the proceedings, especially those who are currently serving harsh prison sentences for their work in defense of the natural world. The least we can hope for as an outcome is that the accused will be tarred with their own petroleum wastes and feathered with the soiled plumage of murdered birds.

3. DISMANTLING OF ALL OIL, COAL, AND NUCLEAR POWER COMPANIES: The obscene perpetuation of environmental devastation and endless wars in the name of energy company profits cannot be tolerated any longer. In the name of brown pelicans, shrimp, frigate birds, marlins, sea bass, laughing gulls, octopi, and piping plovers, we demand an immediate and total cessation of the violent industrialized extraction of oil and coal from the Earth. We also call for the shutting down of all nuclear power facilities whose foul radioactive wastes threaten ecologies everywhere.

4. DISSOLUTION OF ALL MEDIA CORPORATIONS: Our friend in New Orleans, Max Cafard, reports that monstrous tentacles of oil measuring ten miles long and three miles wide continue to grow beneath the waves, yet tellingly the media industry remains focused on the multicolored “sheen” on the sea’s surface. News outlets dutifully parrot the oil company’s party line of official estimates and explanations. When one BP official said that this disaster was a good opportunity to experiment with pollution containment strategies, no news agency explored the implications of an industry that can trigger a catastrophe and then grope around in the dark for a way out of it. In another interview with a BP spokesman, the CNN reporter concluded the report with the sympathetic assurance that “We’re all praying” for the corporation. Clearly, the media serve only the interests of their stockholders and the State in their coverage of this atrocity. Therefore we call for all equipment and broadcast network technology currently used to disseminate these outrageous lies and propaganda (“We’re glad that you’re on the job, Admiral”; “Don’t worry—warm water microbes break down the oil”) is to be collectivized and redistributed on street corners in order to encourage more participation and free expression in the report and analysis of such tragedies.

5. EMERGENCY MASS ACTION: We call upon everyone to defend your homes, your loved ones, and the Earth from destruction. We’ve seen the graffiti in Mobile, Alabama: “When life gives you oil spills, make Molotovs!”

THE SURREALIST MOVEMENT
IN THE UNITED STATES

Declaration of May 24th, 2010 * www.surrealistmovement-usa.org

Download pdf at: http://charleshkerr.com/images/oil-disaster-surrealist-response-v2.pdf