A week or so ago, Kate and I attended the inaugural conference of the North American Anarchist Studies Network. Hopefully, one or both of us will find the time to post a more detailed report back of the event. In the meantime, here’s a five-part video of the great opening talk Barry Pateman gave. He was in rare form.
As many of you know, this Monday, November 30 marks the tenth anniversary of the mass actions in Seattle against the World Trade Organization—actions that brought students, global justice organizers, trade unionists, peace activists, Seattle residents, and many, many others together in one of the most successful protests on United States soil in recent memory; actions that helped to mobilize a generation of young activists around the antiglobalization struggles taking place around the globe; actions that helped to inspire a decade filled with militant and artful interventions into the mechanics of the neoliberal machine.
N30 in Seattle wasn’t the first antiglobalization protest—J18’s Carnival Against Capitalism in London, Eugene, and other cities around the world might claim that honor, though strong demonstrations against the IMF and World Bank took place in Berlin in 1988, Madrid in 1994 as well. But Seattle played an important role in the decade of struggle against global capital that followed. Bolstered by the victory in Seattle, the antiglobalization generation continued to march on, through New York, Philadelphia, Prague, Montreal, Genoa, Quebec City, Davos, Cancun, Miami, Athens, Tokyo, Pittsburgh, and beyond. There were other successes, to be sure, and a hell of a lot of casualties, too, but Seattle continues to stand out as an important landmark in the history of mass mobilizations.
AK Press has just released a long-awaited collection of essays looking back on the events surrounding the Seattle 1999 WTO protests, edited by the incomparable David Solnit and Rebecca Solnit (with Chris Dixon, Anuradha Mittal, Stephanie Guilloud, and Chris Borte), The Battle of the Story of the Battle of Seattle. It’s on sale on the AK Press website for 25% off all this month, and I highly encourage you to get a copy for yourself … and for anyone you know who was touched by the events in Seattle. Rebecca and David have both done an amazing job of exploring the ways in which the memory of Seattle has become something of a contested terrain: David’s essay looks at the star-studded indy film, Battle in Seattle, and recounts the efforts of activists to help set the record straight, while Rebecca’s essay tells the story of her scuffle with the New York Times over their representation of (highly exaggerated, and largely fabricated) protestor violence in Seattle. And Chris Dixon’s “Five Days in Seattle” is an excellent analysis of what really happened during the shutdown from the standpoint of a key organizer. Plus the book is profusely illustrated with dozens of black and white photos documenting some of the key moments before, after, and during the protests.
But as much as November 30, 2009 marks an important anniversary, and, perhaps, the passing of an era, it also marks the start of something new. In preparation for the counter-activities around the UN’s summit on climate change which gets underway in Copenhagen next week, activists around the country have called for a day of action for climate justice. In eight cities, a broad and diverse coalition of organizations working for social, environmental, economic, and racial justice will come together to call for urgent action on the global climate crisis based on equitable, democratic and science-based solutions. Find more information on the Mobilization for Climate Justice website: http://www.actforclimatejustice.org/ – and if you’re in Chicago, DC, Boston, New York, Seattle, Burlington, Seattle, or San Francisco, you can find information on the MCJ website about the actions planned, as well as post information about actions taking place in other cities. Please check it out—even if you don’t join the actions on November 30, there’s important info there about climate change issues, and about other climate justice actions planned in Copenhagen and around the globe. (Plus, keep an eye out for AK’s forthcoming book, Sparking a Worldwide Energy Revolution, edited by Kolya Abramsky, due out early next year.)
You also might want to check out:
BeyondTalk.net, where you can join the Climate Pledge of Resistance.
There’s an interesting interview with Mark Leier on Iain McKay’s blog. It was conducted for Black Flag (issue #229). I’ve pasted the first two questions below, but you should take a look at the whole thing…including Mark’s thoughts on possible casting for a Bakunin biopic!
Mark, of course, is the author of the wonderful biography Bakunin: The Creative Passion. And Iain is the author of An Anarchist FAQ, and the forthcoming Property is Theft: A Pierre-Joseph Proudhon Anthology.
—charles
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Q. So, first, why write a biography of Bakunin?
I first started thinking about a biography of Bakunin in the aftermath of some of the anti-globalization and anti-WTO protests, such as the “Battle in Seattle” and the terrible police brutality in Genoa that resulted in the death of Carlo Giuliani. The anarchist presence at these protests had the media and “terrorism experts” scrambling to explain what was going on. Of course they were trying to explain away anarchism, not to understand, and they relied on parodies of anarchism. When they tried to do historical analysis, they always took it back to Bakunin, painting him as the father of propaganda by the deed, which they always interpreted as blind violence and terror. That worsened after the 9/11 destruction of the World Trade Towers. My first reaction was to blame the journalists and pundits, but when I went back to the English language works on Bakunin, such as Carr’s book and Mendel’s and Berlin’s articles, it was obvious that there was no comprehensive book, aimed at a more general audience, that treated Bakunin seriously as an activists and a thinker. So I decided to try to do that. I didn’t set out to write the biography of Bakunin or the most comprehensive biography; I tried to write a biography that used some primary research and that built on the splendid academic work on Bakunin that was not easily accessible to a non-academic audience.
Q. What would you say Bakunin has to offer today’s radicals?
First, he offers some hope, hope in the importance of struggle. This was an activist who fought on the losing side all of his life, yet did not lose his passionate hope, his understanding, that the struggle itself was meaningful, for without it, the world would certainly get worse. While some seem him as a quixotic figure, I see him as one who realistically assessed the opportunities for success and failure and decided to fight for an ideal even when he thought there was no immediate chance of victory.
Second, he offers a clear appraisal of what the radicals’ targets should be. After all, capitalism and the state have not changed much since his time; Bakunin would recognize much in the 21st century. He wrote powerful critiques of capital and the state that still serve as useful starting points for understanding the world, and he did so in accessible, evocative language.
Third, while there is a tendency to draw a dividing line between “classical anarchism” and contemporary anarchism and post-anarchism, a careful reading of Bakunin suggests that the “classical anarchists” wrestled with many of the same problems of goals, strategy, and tactics that anarchists face today. In fact, I believe that Bakunin offers a useful critique of today’s post-anarchism, for the ideas of postmodernism that inform post-anarchism are not as new as its advocates suggest. That is, Bakunin rejected the idealist thought of his day to become a materialist and a realist, and I believe materialism and realism offer a stronger foundation for criticism than idealism and some variants of post-modernism.
AK Press is proud to announce the 20th Anniversary edition of Seth Tobocman’s You Don’t Have to Fuck People Over to Survive. The book arrives this week (and will be 25% off for the next month) and Seth’s new t-shirt is already flying off the shelves.
And what better time to bring the book back into print? Unemployment is now in the double digits, cities are going bankrupt, and everyday people are developing new survival strategies for an increasingly dicey future. Alan W. Moore, from his introduction to the book says,
These are uncertain times and we are getting pushed pretty hard. As we push back let’s remind ourselves that you don’t have to fuck people over to survive.
Below is a piece Seth wrote for the new edition, it’s called “Continuity.”
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The story of this book is an odd one and I think it says something about the American media in this historic period.
Most of the work in this book was originally published in the radical comic book World War 3 Illustrated. I started this magazine in 1979 with the help of Peter Kuper and Christoff Kolhofer because we saw no outlet for the kind of work we wanted to do in mainstream media. Comic book companies were not interested in serious comics on political issues. Book publishers were not interested in comics. The term “graphic novel” had not yet been popularized. While Peter and I got some work doing illustrations for newspapers and syndications, they were often afraid to publish our more radical pieces. We published World War 3 Illustrated for the same reason that some of us did graffiti. We needed to get heard.
Ten years of putting out an underground zine didn’t earn me a cent but it put me in touch with some really interesting people. One of them, writer Peter Plate, introduced me to Martin Sprouse who was starting a small not-for-profit publishing company. He decided to put out an anthology of my work and we agreed on the title You Don’t Have to Fuck People Over to Survive. Chuck Sperry did the graphic design on the first edition. The book came out in 1989. Sprouse at first had a hard time finding a printer who would put out a book with a four-letter word in the title. But once he did, things went quite well for a while.
The book never got a review in any major magazine or newspaper. But the first print run sold out completely in less than a year. Unfortunately, Sprouse had lost money on other projects and could not afford a second printing of the book. So the book would remain out of print for years while stores, distributors, and readers kept asking for copies.
Meanwhile, the demand for these graphics was met by people who pirated them to make patches, posters, tattoos, and even murals based on the images in the book. Most of this was done by amateurs who made little or no money at it and did it for the love of the art or the belief in the message.
In 1999, Sander Hicks, who used to work at our local Kinko’s and print flyers free for the activists, started Softskull Press. He agreed to put the book back into print. This time it took about two years to sell out. But Softskull was sued because of two controversial biographies, one about George W. Bush and one about John Lennon. This, plus the bankruptcy of a distributor who owed them money, put Softskull into bad straits financially. And so they couldn’t afford to reprint the book and it vanished again.
Today in 2009, twenty years since the first printing, AK Press is again printing the book; hopefully it will stay in print this time.
So this is a book from the 1980s, the “Age of Reagan,” although I am not sure we have ever really escaped the influence of his disastrous policies and ideas.
But I have never believed that the Left should engage in nostalgia for its past battles. I grew up hearing a bit too much about the 1960s and the 1930s. So each time this book goes to print I update it. In 1999 I added comic strips about Amadou Diallo and Mumia-abu-Jamal. Today I am adding stencils about the war in Iraq, the bombing of Gaza, the shootings of Brad Will and Tristan Anderson, the radical housing movement, and today’s foreclosure crisis.
Thank you for looking at this book. It is people’s involvement that gives these words and pictures meaning.
—Seth Tobocman
The 8th Annual New Orleans (NOLA) Bookfair took place on Saturday November 7th from 10AM till 6PM on Frenchmen Street in the Marigny. For those unfamiliar with New Orleans, “Frenchmen Street” is a two-block stretch just downriver from the French Quarter with some of the best music clubs and bars in the city. The bars opened their doors to booksellers and other literary types for this bustling daytime celebration of books. Many bars cleared their dance floors to make way for tables full of books! Some nightclubs hosted readings. There were drink specials! There was even a puppet show! AK’s tables were set up outside on the corner of Chartres and Frenchmen, right next to Microcosm and PM Press, and across the street from the kid’s area with the four-headed giraffe bouncy-castle:
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Here’s the view to the left, around the corner to Microcosm’s table (they sold the shit out of those patches):
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As an exhibitor I got a free bookfair go-cup. You could bring it into any of the participating bars for various drink specials all day long! Unfortunately, or luckily depending on your point of view, I guess, I was not able to leave my station to partake of any of the drink specials—all of them helpfully listed in the nifty bookfair program booklet put together by the NOLA Bookfair organizer, Robin Stricklin. (Yay! Robin. Thanks for letting AK ship all of our books to your house and then you bringing them to the event for us. That was awesome.)
I sold two copies of I Want To Punch Your Face. Everybody loved it:
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There was a brass band and a confrontation with the police. Overall, it was a very enjoyable day. Being outside in nice weather with a bunch of even nicer people. With books. What more could you ask for?
Well… I had half a muffaletta!
Which reminds me.
There is another sandwich that is ubiquitous in New Orleans, the poboy. The New York Times just ran an article about the Poboy Preservation Festival. My favorite quote from that, and one that underscores part of my love and longing for New Orleans:
“I can’t imagine there’s another American food item that owes its birth to labor violence,” Dr. Mizell-Nelson said. “That’s the forgotten story.”
Here at AK, we’re all about being organized. And even with today’s modern technologies (I admit, I have a phone that could run my life for me if I let it…) there’s still no substitute for a good old-fashioned paper calendar. What would I do without my trusty Slingshot? My fellow collective members would probably all hate me, because I’d never meet a deadline. So let this be a lesson to all of you—get a good calendar or no one will like you. Just kidding (for the most part), but what I’m trying to be serious about here is the abundance of excellent 2010 calendars and organizers that have arrived in the AK warehouse this month. Check it out:
The Slingshot Organizer is our most popular calendar each year, and comes in two sizes—the teeny little pocket organizer and the larger, spiral-bound desk planner—as well as a variety of colors (but tell us in plain English if you care what color you get, because they name their colors all sorts of hilarious things we can’t keep track of). It’s popular because it’s cheap, it’s laid out in a way that won’t bore you, and it’s got a lot of good information in it (most notably some great historical factoids and a radical contact list for when you’re on the road).
Another calendar that looks great this year is Sparking Change: Poster Art & Politics, the War Resisters League’s 2010 Peace Calendar. Their calendars have a different theme every year, and 2010 just happens to be a good one for my inner (okay, outer) radical art nerd. Desk planner size and spiral bound, with a different full-color image for every week, this one would make a great gift.
If you’re more the wall calendar type, check out the Certain Days: Freedom for Political Prisoners Calendar. I have their 2009 calendar on my office wall and it has served me well! The Certain Days calendars always include great art and good information about political prisoners and the prison industrial complex. And this year the theme of the art and writings is Indigenous Resistance, in honor of the struggles against the 2010 Olympics.
Then of course there’s the World for Palestine wall calendar. In an appreciation of the solidarity work of international artists, the folks who have done the “Colors from Palestine” calendars in the past are now doing a series by international artists committed to the Palestinian struggle. This calendar features the work of Brazilian artist Carlos Latuff. Very cool artwork, and proceeds go to support young artists in Gaza.
Another wall calendar we carry every year is the Zapatista Solidarity Calendar. It’s been a popular one—the contents vary from year to year (this year it’s photos of life in Zapatista “communities in resistance”), but the folks who make it always give the money to projects in Chiapas, in this case to support the construction of drinking water systems and the development of autonomous health and education. Can’t argue with that, eh?
One more that we picked up for the first time last year and are giving another shot because it was so popular: the New Internationalist Planner. Last year it was called the Live , Love, Work, Play Diary, which sounds way more exciting, but we promise the contents are almost the same! Slick full-color graphics and tons of useful information (including conversion charts, radical holidays, and international transit maps).
And stay tuned, soon we’ll also have the Autonomedia Jubilee Saints wall calendar and also one from the IWW! I’m going to buy one of each, this will be my most organized year yet. Think color coding. Mmmmmmmmmmm. I mean it.
AK Press author Shon Meckfessel (Suffled How it Gush: A North American Anarchist in the Balkans) discusses the fate of the three American hikers still under arrest in Iran, on CNN, ABC, and CBS.
Shon Meckfessel made headlines three months ago as the “fourth hiker,” the travel companion of the three American travelers who have been held by the Iranian government since July 31, when news reports say they accidentally crossed the Iranian border during a hiking trip in Iraqi Kurdistan. Recent reports from Iran suggest that the government intends to try the three hikers under allegations of espionage. Saved from the same fate as his friends (Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd, and Josh Fattal) by a fateful cold that kept him home that day, Shon finally speaks out about his friends, about independent journalism, and about the situation in Iran.
Shon discussed the situation this morning on CNN Morning Edition, and is expected to appear on Good Morning America (ABC) and The Early Show (CBS) later this week.
You can find Shon’s interview on Morning Edition here, or check out his November 2 appearance on Democracy Now! with Amy Goodman.
You can also read the statement Shon released last August to help people understand what happened to his friends on The Nation‘s website.
The families of Shane Bauer, Sarah Shourd, and Josh Fattal have launched a website to build support, and keep friends updated on their conditions. Check out freethehikers.org for more information.
Black Flame co-author Michael Schmidt held a mini-launch of the book at a colloquium with professors of journalism and international affairs at the Tecnológico de Monterrey in Guadalajara, Mexico, on October 26. Schmidt was invited to Mexico to train Tec students in covering conflict in transitional societies, especially given the drug war currently ravaging Mexican society. Extracts of his talk, “The Journalist as Activist,” in which he located activist journalism within the Mexican anarchist tradition, follow:
“¡Más vale morir de pie que vivir de rodillas!”
This uncompromisingly defiant call, “It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees,” has been attributed to everyone from Ché Guevara and Dolores Ibarruri—La Pasionara of Spanish Revolution fame—although it was well known to have been adopted as a war-cry among Emiliano Zapata’s forces to rival “Tierre y Libertad” during the Mexican Revolution.
But the famous phrase appears to have originated instead with a Mexican journalist, Práxedis Guerrero, who, leading a fire-fight between 32 well-armed guerrillas of the anarchist Partido Liberal Mexicano and about 600 Federales in the Chihuahua town of Janos on the evening of 29 December 1910, literally died on his feet—and in doing so helped light the fuse on one of the most profound socio-political transformations of the 20th Century. He was 28 years old.
Guerrero also wrote for Ricardo Flores Magón’s famous newspaper Regeneración, and edited the El Paso, Texas, paper Punto Rojo, so it is clear that he straddled, or rather combined, two disciplines, that of the journalist and that of the activist, his writings—and his revolutionary activities—putting him directly in harm’s way. It is equally clear that it was his conviction that radical change was necessary in Mexico that led him to take up both the pen and, as the song has it, “the 30-30 carbine.”
There is a long tradition of the journalist-activist in Mexico. Take for example the remarkable Juana Belém Gutiérrez de Mendoza who first published her feminist journal Vesper in 1901: she would become an important Mexican revolutionary figure and Vesper, relocated to Mexico City, would survive despite repeated government bans—and despite Gutiérrez spending many spells in prison for her writings and activism—remaining in circulation until 1936, a remarkable longevity given exceptionally dangerous conditions. She was also the editor of the feminist journal Iconoclasta, established in 1917 within the ranks of the FORM, the Casa’s syndicalist successor organisation.
You will all know that the Plan de Ayala was written by the Ayala town school-teacher Otilio Montaño Sánchez, with input from Zapata and the anarchist-communist Regeneración journalist-cum-trade-union-militant Antonio Díaz Soto y Gama (1880-1967) who had spent three spells in jail for his politics, who Zapata had met in Mexico City, and who had split from the Casa centre over its antagonism towards the Zapatistas.
The Plan de Ayala famously stated that “the lands, woods and waters which have been usurped by the hacienda owners, scientists, or caciques, through tyranny and venal justice, will be restored immediately to the pueblos or citizens who have the corresponding titles to such properties, of which they were despoiled through the bad faith of our oppressors. They shall maintain such possession through force of arms… The land, free for all, without overseers and masters. Seek justice from tyrannical governments, not with a hat in your hand but with a rifle in your fists.”
And that Plan had far-reaching consequences on the later development of the Constitution of Mexico and on subsequent land-reform programmes of the revolutionary state. In fact, as Jeffrey Lukas has argued, to understand the trajectory of Mexican politics from the Porfiriato through the Revolution, the rebellions of the 1920s, the entrenchment of el-PRI and the Cold War era, one should pay close attention to the life of Soto y Gama.
Dear everyone,
If you happen to find yourself in or near the Oakland area in the coming days, then I think it’s pretty safe to say that you are one lucky bastard. Lucky because AK Press is hosting two exciting events at our Oakland warehouse and bastards simply because I see the word as a term of endearment. For those of you who don’t know, the warehouse is located at 674 23rd Street (between San Pablo and MLK). Closest BART stop is 19th station. The 15, 18, and 72 AC Transit bus routes all stop within feet from our front door. Ample bike parking. No excuses for you not to be here.
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Friday, November 13 @ 7pm
THE POLITICS OF DISPLACEMENT AND COMMUNITY SELF DETERMINATION with Simón Sedillo
Donations graciously accepted
Vegan Cuban food for sale!
Simón Sedillo is a community rights defense organizer and film maker. He has spent the last 7 years documenting, producing and teaching community based video documentation in Mexico and the US. Through multimedia presentations Sedillo helps show some effects of neoliberalism on indigenous communities, immigrant communities, and communities of color in the US and Mexico. Through collaborative media projects, Sedillo’s work has contributed to a growing network of community based media production whose primary objective is to share, teach, and learn from one another, about community based media production and the collective construction of horizontal networks of community rights defense. For more info visit http://elenemigocomun.net/banda/simon.
This workshop identifies several specific institutions, which threaten the lives of average everyday people everywhere. From banks and corporations to non-profits and universities, what role do these institutions have in making the poor stay poor, while making the rich get richer? This workshop also shows how the political devaluation of traditional forms of self governance and self determination, has lead to the degradation of entire sectors of society. Finally this workshop shares some indigenous strategies for community based self determination in guiding struggles for urban community liberation.
Screening of La Familia Raices: Short documentary on the family and Son Jarocho band ¨Los Raices¨ from Oaxaca. The Raices Family play traditional Son Jaracho music in support of the Oaxacan people’s social movement. This traditional Afro-indigenous music originates in the state of Veracruz and is also traditionally played in some parts of the state of Oaxaca. This musical tradition is based upon popular education, collective organizing, and long term self determination for its musicians and instrument makers. The Raices family breaks through the difficulties faced by any family, with music, resistance, and determination.
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Thursday, November 19th @ 7pm
FILM SCREENING: REBEL PATAGONIA
$5 suggested donation goes to benefit the Venezuelan Anarchist Newspaper El Libertario
From 1920 to 1921, there was an anarchist-led peasant uprising in Patagonia, South America. The army, led by Colonel Varela, reacted by executing some 1,500 people. Because of the remoteness of the region, the events did not become known in Buenos Aires at first. When word of the massacre became public knowledge, the anarchist movement started a campaign against the “killer of Patagonia,” as they called Varela, culminating in his assassination at the hands of Tolstoyan anarchist Kurt Gustav Wilckens on January 23, 1923.
Q&A session will be held after the film with visiting Venezuelan anarchist/member of El Libertario editorial collective. For more info on El Libertario, as well as archives in both English and Spanish, go here: http://www.nodo50.org/ellibertario/.
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Now you know, so bring yourself and a few friends.
Hi All.
We’re trying out a new idea at AK Press. When a new book goes to the printer (i.e. when we’re sure it’ll be available in a few weeks), we’re making it pre-orderable on our website. Anyone who pre-orders will get a 25% discount. Not too shabby, huh?
And, because we’re nice like that, we’ll be extending the discount for a month after we’ve received the book in our warehouse. Sometimes longer, if we’re too busy, spaced out, or forgetful!
Right now, the two lovely, pre-orderable books available for 25% off are:
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The Battle of the Story of the Battle of Seattle
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You Don’t Have to Fuck People Over to Survive
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And two more that we now have in the warehouse, but that are still discounted are:
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You Don’t Play with Revolution:
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Italian Anarchism, 1864-1892,
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We’ll be posting excerpts from The Story of the Battle of the Battle of Seattle and You Don’t Have to Fuck People Over to Survive in the next few weeks. You can find an excerpt from You Don’t Play with Revolution here, and one from Italian Anarchism here.
And, as another kick in the recession’s ass, we always have a sale section on our site. Head to it for massive discounts on all sorts of books…we’re talking up to 80% off!
