- “On the (s)hit TV show “Beverly Hills, 90210” an entire episode was created around a character’s problem with drugs, ending with Brandon (Jason Priestley) and his sister Brenda (Shannon Dougherty) acting out the Partnership’s commercial with their friends in their favorite diner. After the show, the actual 30-second commercial aired, and Jason Priestley delivered his own anti-drug message on air.”
fucking rage. i mean, the tv show. videos… music… like, a lost cause. (at the old greek?!?) all set to go (not) to the benefit gig for the g20 folx on thursday february 9 at the annandale with the hard-ons.
- “2/15/90 The Old Greek Theater. Melbourne, Australia
Notes: Mudhoney had most of their money stolen from their hotel room in St. Kilda and scheduled this show at the last minute so that they’d have enough money to make it back home. The crowd gets up on stage during Come to Mind and Mark dives into what’s left of the crowd on the floor while the rest of the band jams it out.”
and this is steve price on protest:
- “What’s happening in the Southern Ocean is more consistent with the violent, ugly, anti-business protests (such as those at G20) seen in recent years. Throw some rocks through a jeweller’s window, or burn some cars to get attention. That’s what Sea Shepherd wanted, and that’s what it got – but at what cost?”
$64?
molly has a list of anarchist sites, a best of for the year 2007. i may compile my own top ten, hell why not. and stick it in freedom maybe.
- “Freedom Press is the oldest surviving anarchist publishing house in the English speaking world and the largest in Britain. It is based at 84b Whitechapel High Street in the East End of London. Alongside its many books and pamphlets, the group also publish a fortnightly newspaper, Freedom, which is the only regular national anarchist newspaper in the UK.
The Press was founded in 1886 by a group of friends, including Charlotte Wilson and Peter Kropotkin, who were already publishing Freedom newspaper, and has operated, with short breaks, ever since. Much of the bookshop’s recent history was tied up with Vernon Richards, who ran both it and Freedom newspaper from the 1930s until late in the 90s…
one anarchist press that isn’t going is cienfuegos (later refract). i’ve been reading copies of the cienfuegos press review. it’s neat.
- “Simian and Cienfuegos came out of the anarchist resurgence of the nineteen sixties. Under the direction of Stuart Christie, the charismatic Scottish anarchist, they went from duplicated pamphlets to an ambitious book publishing programme. Cienfuegos (and later Refract) developed an international network of collaborators and supporters and an impressive list of titles recording anarchist history and advancing a practical libertarian critique of authoritarianism. Their achievements included the irregular but voluminous Cienfuegos Press Anarchist Review and the controversial resistance handbook Towards A Citizens’ Militia…
The greatest achievement of Cienfuegos Press was the weighty Cienfuegos Press Anarchist Review. The Review shared the international reach of the Cienfuegos project, but also its breadth, bringing together academics and students of anarchism with its activists to discuss history, theory and tactics. The review reprinted whole pamphlets including classics like Sabotage (Walker C. Smith) and Libertarian Communism (Isaac Puente) and contemporary essays like Chomsky’s ‘Objectivity and Liberal Scholarship’. In its reviews, it gave an anarchist view on revolutionary theory and history, also covering a broad range of subjects including feminism, economics and literature, as well as promoting a revolutionary anarchism and countering misrepresentations. Though it came from a class-struggle anarchist perspective, the Review was intellectually omnivorous, reprinting relevant reviews from the mainstream press as well as taking them from titles like Freedom and the Laissez Faire Review. It also contained a healthy dose of humour, provided by Richard Warren’s Misadventures of Ann and Archie comic strip and ‘sarco-adverts’ attacking everything from supermarkets, religion and employers to vanguard parties. Though it never approached anything like the quarterly publication that was planned, the six issues form an encyclopedia of Anarchist theory and history. Albert Meltzer bemoaned the fact that ‘the amount of essays in one Cienfuegos Press Anarchist Review would have made a couple of dozen pamphlets and a book or two’ but perhaps it is this abundance that explains its appeal. So many topics covered by so many authors give it the status of the collective memory of the anarchist movement of the time…”
thanks to molly i also stumbled upon zombietime, which has a rather irreverent account of the 2006 anarchist bookfair in san francisco. (the thirteenth annual book affair is on in march.) as for molly’s top ten anarchist sites of 2007, they are:
10. La Commune (NEFAC-Montreal) : which looks neat, but is in french (and thus one for vince);
9. good old schnews;
8. el libertario : an excellent source of news and views on the so-called ‘bolivarian revolution’ (in both english and spanish);
7. the wobblies;
6. the spanish cgt (Confederación General del Trabajo) : for whatever reason, molly prefers the cgt to the cnt (Confederación Nacional del Trabajo / National Confederation of Labour); the cgt emerged as a split from the cnt in 1979;
5. the trend continues with molly citing the french CNT-Vignoles (or CNT-f) in preference to the CNT-AIT;
4. anarkismo : a multi-lingual anarchist-communist source of news and views;
3. Le Revue Gauche : a blog by eugene plawiuk. molly reckons it’s a “joy to explore” but i find the formatting a little confusing;
2. @-Infos : old school. oddly, @-infos recently published a history of pga-pacifika which was drawn directly from a blog by trevor loudon, a member of the far right (“Far from being an isolated aberration, the recently discovered quasi-military training camps in the Ureweras are part of a world wide movement, born more than a decade ago” according to trev). crackpottery and a disservice to pga;
1. libcom.org : nee enrager.net (may 1, 2005). a neat site, with a great archive of libertarian texts.
my top ten… er, make that six… on the other hand (in alphabetical order) are…
Anarchy Alive! : a blog, this one by uri gordon. most recently i stumbled upon an interview by uri with an anti-fascist researcher on ‘Ultra-nationalist, fascist and neo-Nazi movements in Russia’.
deadanarchists : Welcome to the World of Dead Anarchists! bringing the dead to life, i hope to one day appear on its pages.
negations : another, excellent blog by chuck morse.
Old Punks Never Die! : they write yummy blogs. nicely-written and well-presented (just like old punks). muzak & politricks!
Our War : political photoblog from comrades in chile. (see also Bombs and Shields.)
subMedia : not exactly anarchist (i thunk) but close enough. funny too.
and speaking of freedom and the price of protest, in the usa:
- “…Eric was arrested amidst the whirlwind government crackdown on radical environmentalists known as the “Green Scare.” What sets Eric’s case apart from the majority of these others, however, is that Eric was not actually charged with carrying out a crime—rather, he was charged with “conspiracy” to commit one. In essence, Eric was pursued and arrested for “thought crime.” Nothing makes this more clear than the prosecution’s non-ironic invocation of association with CrimethInc. as proof in itself of criminality. It is unclear whether the prosecutors are aware that the word they constantly uttered has the same Orwellian roots as the case itself.
A quick glance at the criminal complaint against Eric and his former co-defendants (which can be viewed on his web site) reveals the extent to which the charges against him stemmed from the state’s targeting of certain lifestyles and political beliefs. The 15-page complaint uses the words “anarchist,” “anarchy” or “anarchism” 26 times and makes multiple references to CrimethInc., train-hopping and hitchhiking while tracing Eric’s path across the country to various political protests and gatherings. The focus on anarchism and political thought extended into trial, with a rather heavy focus on the works of one author, Derrick Jensen. At one point, the prosecutor actually confused Derrick Jensen with co-defendant Zachary Jenson and claimed that the author had visited Zach’s mom in Tennessee over the Winter! Derrick Jensen was probably mentioned in the trial more than anyone other than Eric and his co-defendants.
This case makes it clear how far the government is willing to go to spy on and repress people based on their politics and lifestyle. Eric met Anna in August 2004 and the two remained in contact after that time. It was made clear during trial that Eric had fallen in love with Anna and that she used his feelings to keep him hooked and, eventually, to entrap him. Anna manufactured this “crime” by providing the means for it to occur and by manipulating the three into doing things that would allow her employers to arrest and prosecute them. She constantly pushed and cajoled Eric, Weiner and Jenson when they showed resistance to her plans. She paid for their entire existence—the cabin they lived in, their travel across the country, the car they used, the computers they used (which the FBI later confiscated), groceries and supplies. Weiner testified that Anna pulled $100 bills out of her pocket and gave them to Eric so that he could purchase groceries and supplies—leading to Anna’s outlandish statements during trial that the money the group used came from Eric and Lauren’s pockets!”
Sorry you found the formatting for La Revue Gauche confusing, I like to quote my sources my text is bold the quoted text is italics and not bolded.
Hi, Molly here,
Choosing the “best” is always an exercise in the subjective. I’ll be adding some of the sites you mentioned to my Links at Molly’s Blog.
As to the question of my “preferring the CGT” and other anarcho-syndicalists around the International Libertarian Solidarity (which has gained the support of the ‘Platformist current’ worldwide) over the AIT the answer is very simple. Effectiveness. Period. When I was in Spain some years back I had the occasion to visit several of the syndicalist offices. Granada was, at that time, the national headquarters of the CNT, and in that city they shared office space with the CGT. In Barcelona I visited the main CNT offices from which Solidaridad Obrera was published. Communication was hard as it was mostly staffed by elderly men who spoke no English and no French. My Spanish was such that I could hardly engage in “subtle” political questioning. The younger editor of Soli spoke French. From what I could gather the people at least in this one office were rather put off by the fact that the National Committee of the CNT would see fit to abandon their sectarianism enough to share offices with the CGT. In Barcelona the CNT had several offices, but the CGT, as a real and vibrant functioning union, had far more. I spent 2 to 3 hours at the main CNT office, which also contained a bookstore, and as far as I could tell I was the only visitor. The contrast with the CGT, which occupied the top floor(s!!!) of a major office building in downtown Barcelona could not be greater. The CCOO and the UGT occupied the bottom floors. It was a hustling and bustling place engaged in the activity of actually doing unionism. I had little chance to actually meet with people in the CGT, as their external relations branch, the Fundacion Salvador Segui, was on vacation at the time — Spaniards take their vacations VERY seriously, even the anarchists. My comrade Larry Gambone (see Red Lion Press and the Porkupine Blog) had much more extensive contacts with them, and you can get the flavour of what he saw from his report on them.
The bottom line of this is that the tactical choices of the CGT have led to them being the preferred choice of close to 2 million Spanish workers in workplace elections in Spain. Their actual membership is only about 100,000, but in that they are typical of union elections in much of western Europe. What do such numbers mean? The membership numbers are such that the CGT “membership” probably equals the membership of all those anarchist organizations in the world that deserve the name multiplied by 10. The number of “sympathizers” who will vote for them in union elections equals about five percent of the Spanish population. This may not seem like much, but it is actually 100, 1,000 or 10,000 times the proportion in other countries. They have earned this credibility by acting in a realistic manner that appeals to ordinary people outside of a leftist ghetto. An influence on 5% of the population may not seem like much, but it is actually a great goal and can lead to REAL political influence. It is something that I would like to see duplicated in other countries before it is my time to pass on.
The choice of tactics should always be dependent upon local and historical situations. In my opinion the CNT (and the AIT which is mostly its creation) have basically dealt themselves out of the game in hopes of preserving an ideological purity that can only become effective in a crisis situation that is very unlikely to occur in the foreseeable future. The ordinary person is not motivated by grand ideological visions but rather by what can be done practically here and now. The CGT has chosen to advance such interests rather than wait for the Second Coming. It should be noted that the CNT is itself not without members who feel as I do, that the advancement of anarcho-syndicalism would be better served by a reunification with the CGT and by fighting certain overly “compromising” trends FROM WITHIN an organization that actually has public influence. The CGT today still holds to anarcho-syndicalism, and the members of the CNT would be better able to advance their own views of what tactics are acceptable or not from within rather than from without. Should they rejoin they would also act as a barrier to certain trends in the CGT that lead away from the syndicalist vision. The position that the CNT presents to foreigners is NOT without its own critics WITHIN the CNT. Similarly, organizations in the AIT that actually have ambitions of becoming real unions such the the FAU of Germany thumb their noses at the sectarianism of the AIT. There is a lot in the history of the AIT in the past few decades that is more than slightly “off-putting”.
Be that as it may my own position is clear. I may or may not agree with each and every tactical move of the non-AIT anarcho-syndicalist unions, but I see little evidence that some sort of “crisis situation” is going to come along and rescue the purism of those who hold to the ideas of the AIT from their present obscurity. I vote for practical effect, and my position on this simply mirrors the way I approach many other questions of “what anarchists should do”. The “5% goal” depends on our recognizing just how SMALL an influence we have now, and aiming to broaden it rather than dreaming pure and holy dreams that we think can be communicated to ordinary people by telepathy. Working to broaden the anarchist appeal may seem to be unduly “messy” to those whose primary goal is to be “right and pure”, but it is, unfortunately, the ONLY way forward.
My choices for the “best” were drawn from what I term “social-anarchist” sites. Others have objected, as you have, to the inclusion of ILS sites. Various AIT sites WERE on the list from which I chose the “winners”. In actual fact El Libertario has pretty well much chosen the AIT side in the international dispute, mostly because of the support they have received from the FAI. I personally find it shameful that organizations such as the CGT have not come out unequivocally in support of the Venezuelan anarchists. What I deliberately EXCLUDED were what could be termed “anti-social” anarchist sites, no matter their technical brilliance. Like rotting fruit the United States [pullulates?] with such maggoty sites (sights?). The dispute between the AIT and non-AIT pales in a realistic comparison to the difference between such things and real anarchism. That’s my view anyways. In a different world I might support the AIT, but that is not the world we live in today.
Molly
G’day Eugene,
Sorry: my brief remark on formatting doesn’t do justice to your blog. Maybe it’s my machine (which is old), or it may be just a question of personal taste, but I find your site a little bit hard to read and to navigate. Your analysis and commentary is another matter.
Molly,
“I didn’t expect the Spanish Inquisition!”
Seriously: I thought it noteworthy that you chose the Spanish CGT and the French CNT-f as being among your top anarchist sites for 2007, and maybe you’re right. I don’t speak French, unfortunately, and mi español no es muy bueno. As for the political distinctions between the various anarcho-syndicalist organisations, I’m vaguely familiar with the history you present, and the ‘controversy’ over non-/participation in things like works’ councils…
In Australia, such forms of representation do not presently exist, at least, not on any substantial scale that I’m aware of. Nonetheless, they have been discussed, including by former ACTU Secretary, Greg Combet; since November 2007:
“Parliamentary Secretary for Defence. He will have particular responsibilities for Defence procurement. Greg Combet has a firs-class [sic] mind. Defence procurement is a first-class minefield in my experience. Therefore, we need someone who has the intelligence, the commitment, the drive, the energy to take with both hands the challenges which that represents. This is an area of Government which represents billions and billions and billions of taxpayers’ dollars and frankly, very few, if any previous governments have got this right. Greg Combet as Parliamentary Secretary will of course be working to the Minister of Defence on this but it will be a substantial slice of work.”
So yeah, former Champion of the Working Class turned arms buyer.
Anyway, a few years ago Combet raised the idea of introducing works’ councils into the workplace:
ACTU vision for a non-union future
Brad Norington, Industrial Editor
Sydney Morning Herald
August 18, 2003
As far as I’m aware, shit went nowhere. (For obvious reasons.)
(See also : Works Councils and Employee Relations in Australia, Greg Combet, Address to the Don Dunstan Foundation, September 18, 2001 [PDF].)
As for contemporary anarcho-syndicalism, I know a few militants from Melbourne, London and Madrid, and have had some discussions with them concerning the issues you detail. I’m not in much of a position to comment other than to say that I think their perspective is different, and they align themselves with the IWA.
I may add some further comments later.
Cheers,
@ndy.
The International Libertarian Solidarity site has expired.
http://www.ils-sil.org/
Anyway, here’s a copy of the founding document, the ‘Declaration of the International Libertarian Meeting, Madrid, 31st March & 1st April 2001’:
http://www.fdca.it/fdcaen/ILS/ils_madrid.htm
And a response by the IWA-AIT:
http://www.iwa-ait.org/defence.html
http://www.iwa-ait.org/Defence2.html
Some analysis from the latter:
As far as I can tell, ‘International Libertarian Solidarity’ is now effectively dead (although “reports of its death” yadda yadda yadda).