Insurrectionary Anarchist Quarterly From A Longing For Collapse
for a borderless and razor-edged revolutionary solidarity.
June 2008
As anarchists, revolutionary anarchists, it is obvious we are mutually in opposition to the order of capitol and the state, among other things of course (all institutions of domination and control). What we seem to lack here, specifically in the cascades of the northern United States, is revolutionary solidarity. Solidarity is not synonymous with charity or another moral service done in hopes of rewards of good fortune. Sadly this seems all to often the mentality when one is asked to show solidarity with a captured comrade. An anarchist is taken hostage by the state and all we do is donate money? Clearly money is needed for legal support, and surely those sisters and brothers locked away appreciate it dearly; however, revolutionary solidarity is not just holding benefits and fundraisers, teach-ins and letter writing groups. Revolutionary solidarity is solidarity in action, revolutionary solidarity is in a continued struggle and attack.
Some of the simplest lessons can be learned from the anarchists in Greece on this matter. A comrade held for bank robbery is beaten in prison by the guards, anarchists show support outside of the prison followed by attacks on banks, along with those who defend the current social order, the police. In the states, the police were fought against after attacking demonstrators at a port in Olympia W.A, then within a few months police were again confronted for their brutal acts of violence against us all and were forced to leave their vehicle to the rage of spectators at a dead prez show, then in weeks following that, others attacked banks in Bremerton W.A, leaving a trail of notes attached to bricks addressed to those who perpetuate the existence of a suffocating life of poverty. These acts are acts of revolutionary solidarity in and of themselves. To see fellow anarchists taking a stand and striking at the very mechanisms and institutions that wish to see us enslaved, to see their hollow authority struck down, and then acting to maintain and escalate this degree of resistance, to join in this struggle for absolute agency over every aspect of our lives, by fighting those who wish it otherwise, this is revolutionary solidarity.
taken from the article "Some thoughts on revolutionary solidarity" by Run A. Crow
other content:
-Riot 2010! Indigenous and insurrectionary anarchist resistance to the Olympics and 2010.
-Social War in Chile- Mapuche resistance in chile and insurrectionary solidarity.
-Revolutionary Solidarity (article and reports)
-Prisoner Updates (reports)
-An Army of One: Breaking away from the deception of political efficiency
-Some Bridges can be Burnt
-As i walk through the valley of darkness. I mostly walk alone.
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Sunday, June 8, 2008
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Insurrection #5
Anarchist Magazine Issue 5, Autumn 1988
Elephant Editions
A perspective based on the need to completely destroy technology is confusing to many comrades, and a considerable number of them refuse to accept it. They find it more reasonable and realistic to consider only the problem of destroying so-called hard technology(all kinds of nuclear armaments, asbestos, etc.) They consider soft technology(electronics, information technology, etc.) socially useful and think they will be able to make good use of it in the future, as though the latter could be detached from the logic of domination that produced and developed it.
In this way comrades are demonstrating an "enlightened" positivist attitude to science. They claim the instruments produced by technological and scientific knowledge as neutral, and only criticise the bad social use that Power puts them to.
We think on the contrary, that the instruments created by Power cannot fail to obey the logic that created them. They are totally functional to its aims no matter who uses them and in spite of any apparent advantages they might bring to society.
(from the article "against technology")
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Elephant Editions
A perspective based on the need to completely destroy technology is confusing to many comrades, and a considerable number of them refuse to accept it. They find it more reasonable and realistic to consider only the problem of destroying so-called hard technology(all kinds of nuclear armaments, asbestos, etc.) They consider soft technology(electronics, information technology, etc.) socially useful and think they will be able to make good use of it in the future, as though the latter could be detached from the logic of domination that produced and developed it.
In this way comrades are demonstrating an "enlightened" positivist attitude to science. They claim the instruments produced by technological and scientific knowledge as neutral, and only criticise the bad social use that Power puts them to.
We think on the contrary, that the instruments created by Power cannot fail to obey the logic that created them. They are totally functional to its aims no matter who uses them and in spite of any apparent advantages they might bring to society.
(from the article "against technology")
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Insurrection #4
Anarchist Magazine Issue 4 May 1988
Elephant Editions
With this issue of Insurrection we are adressing ourselves to anarchists and all those who feel themselves to be in a situation of antagonism against the dominion of the State and capital. We also adress ourselves to those who are disheartened and perhaps even disgusted by the absorption of certain structures that once held high banners and hopes within the workers movement. We adress ourselves to those who have begun to see the charade of pacifism as futile in the attempt to move the nuclear industry(both civil and military) an inch. We adress ourselves who see that science is no longer neutral - if it ever was- and to those who see that the struggle against the vile experimentation on animals in all fields cannot be fought as a single issue struggle but must be brought into the global project of the capitalist enterprise. We adress ourselves to those who see that the feminist movement while bringing women's issues into the open, cannot alone bring women to be free beings. We adress ourselves to those who see that although the colour of their skin is the moset immediate cause of their oppression, to fight back on that level alone merely leads to a more refined form of exploitation. To those who see that even if their colonial exploiters are chased away they will still a local bourgeoisie to contend with. To those who see that moral indignation is not enough. That simply adhering to a movement in name and having no concrete project is not enough. We adress ourselves to those who want to take the risk of throwing old schema out of the window and look for a new road. An informal, flexible road. One which requires the constant engagement of comrades in a dimension of permanent conflictuality, not sporadic movements, spectacular displays of numerical strength. To those for whom reform is nothing but a support to capital. To those who are not afraid to speak of revolution without a cynical smile on their lips. For those who want everything now and are prepared to make sure they get it, realising that this can only be done through the development of both a specific anarchist movement organised informally, and the relationship of that movement with mass organisms which give themselves intermediate aims in an insurrectional logic. We adress ourselves to those therefore who realise that this road is one that we must work to create, eexperimenting together. What we are offering here is one instrument in that project. Not abstract theory but an attempt to go foreward and develop means that are adequate to the present day in the struggle towards a free society. Much of the analytical and theoretical contributions are the fruit of involvement in the struggle elsewhere in recent years, also by some of the Insurrection comrades ourselves. It is therefore also an attempt to break down some of the geographical and linguistic barriers that are an obstacle preventing a full development of the struggle.
(Introduction)
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Elephant Editions
With this issue of Insurrection we are adressing ourselves to anarchists and all those who feel themselves to be in a situation of antagonism against the dominion of the State and capital. We also adress ourselves to those who are disheartened and perhaps even disgusted by the absorption of certain structures that once held high banners and hopes within the workers movement. We adress ourselves to those who have begun to see the charade of pacifism as futile in the attempt to move the nuclear industry(both civil and military) an inch. We adress ourselves who see that science is no longer neutral - if it ever was- and to those who see that the struggle against the vile experimentation on animals in all fields cannot be fought as a single issue struggle but must be brought into the global project of the capitalist enterprise. We adress ourselves to those who see that the feminist movement while bringing women's issues into the open, cannot alone bring women to be free beings. We adress ourselves to those who see that although the colour of their skin is the moset immediate cause of their oppression, to fight back on that level alone merely leads to a more refined form of exploitation. To those who see that even if their colonial exploiters are chased away they will still a local bourgeoisie to contend with. To those who see that moral indignation is not enough. That simply adhering to a movement in name and having no concrete project is not enough. We adress ourselves to those who want to take the risk of throwing old schema out of the window and look for a new road. An informal, flexible road. One which requires the constant engagement of comrades in a dimension of permanent conflictuality, not sporadic movements, spectacular displays of numerical strength. To those for whom reform is nothing but a support to capital. To those who are not afraid to speak of revolution without a cynical smile on their lips. For those who want everything now and are prepared to make sure they get it, realising that this can only be done through the development of both a specific anarchist movement organised informally, and the relationship of that movement with mass organisms which give themselves intermediate aims in an insurrectional logic. We adress ourselves to those therefore who realise that this road is one that we must work to create, eexperimenting together. What we are offering here is one instrument in that project. Not abstract theory but an attempt to go foreward and develop means that are adequate to the present day in the struggle towards a free society. Much of the analytical and theoretical contributions are the fruit of involvement in the struggle elsewhere in recent years, also by some of the Insurrection comrades ourselves. It is therefore also an attempt to break down some of the geographical and linguistic barriers that are an obstacle preventing a full development of the struggle.
(Introduction)
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Insurrection #3
Issue 3, 1985
Elephant Editions
THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES...that of the miners, the unemployed, the low paid workers, immigrant workers, proletarian women, young people...the groups and sub-groups are endless in the great mass of the exploited of advanced capital. The urban ghettoes kindle, there is ferment in the schools. Anger is mounting among the services workers pushed out of their jobs or devalued by privatisation. Shipyard workers, workers in the car industry, skilled and unskilled workers in all the heavy and light industries are finding themselves thrown like rejects on to the scrap heaps of poverty and depression. Meanwhile the rich get richer. And to keep this wealth they are building more and more bunkers, bullet proof cars, training armies, special corps for crowd control, building new prisons, formulating new laws, tightening border controls, perfectioning social control. The obvious place to turn in this situation is the official workers' movement. This however has miserably failed in its historic task. There can no longer be any doubt. The unions need the space to survive and grow that only capital will provide for them. Even the seemingly combative ones have no intention or desire to destroy a system which is happy to delegate to them the role of bargaining over the cost of the restructuring process in course. Their role is indispensable, and is worth the price of policing picket line battles when workers are no longer prepared to accept the results of the conference table.
The only losers are those who fought and gave all-and lost all. What good is the credit balance of 'self-respect' if all it serves to do is to palliate another twenty years down the mines or a life on the dole.
The struggle continues, in spite of the unions. In spite of the parties and hangers on. In spite of the anarchists so long as we remain tied to the illusions that our movement has fostered for so long now.
What to do? Wait for the next confrontation to appear? Improvise next time, become insurrectionalists, abstentionists for the day, anti-militarists or whatever else the occasion demands of us?
Or is it time to work out-and make known in clear terms-what anarchists really are. What we really want: to subvert the present order and be protagonists in the struggle for the new. This is not an abstract concept, a maximalisation to delay the moment of action. Of our final subversive, destructive, aim is forgotten for a moment, allowing ourselves to be fascinated by the pull of activism without clear thought and profound analysis, we can often end up flanking the very counter-revolution we believe we are fighting.
We need organisational proposals that become a clear point of reference beyond the institutionalised haggling of capitalist forces. These proposals must be concrete and we must be present to participate in bringing them about. It is time to come out from our ideological bunkers and confront each other not so much on the immediate and pressing tactical choices for the next demo, but to analyse the reality in which we are trying to work. It is time to come out.
(from the introduction)
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Elephant Editions
THE STRUGGLE CONTINUES...that of the miners, the unemployed, the low paid workers, immigrant workers, proletarian women, young people...the groups and sub-groups are endless in the great mass of the exploited of advanced capital. The urban ghettoes kindle, there is ferment in the schools. Anger is mounting among the services workers pushed out of their jobs or devalued by privatisation. Shipyard workers, workers in the car industry, skilled and unskilled workers in all the heavy and light industries are finding themselves thrown like rejects on to the scrap heaps of poverty and depression. Meanwhile the rich get richer. And to keep this wealth they are building more and more bunkers, bullet proof cars, training armies, special corps for crowd control, building new prisons, formulating new laws, tightening border controls, perfectioning social control. The obvious place to turn in this situation is the official workers' movement. This however has miserably failed in its historic task. There can no longer be any doubt. The unions need the space to survive and grow that only capital will provide for them. Even the seemingly combative ones have no intention or desire to destroy a system which is happy to delegate to them the role of bargaining over the cost of the restructuring process in course. Their role is indispensable, and is worth the price of policing picket line battles when workers are no longer prepared to accept the results of the conference table.
The only losers are those who fought and gave all-and lost all. What good is the credit balance of 'self-respect' if all it serves to do is to palliate another twenty years down the mines or a life on the dole.
The struggle continues, in spite of the unions. In spite of the parties and hangers on. In spite of the anarchists so long as we remain tied to the illusions that our movement has fostered for so long now.
What to do? Wait for the next confrontation to appear? Improvise next time, become insurrectionalists, abstentionists for the day, anti-militarists or whatever else the occasion demands of us?
Or is it time to work out-and make known in clear terms-what anarchists really are. What we really want: to subvert the present order and be protagonists in the struggle for the new. This is not an abstract concept, a maximalisation to delay the moment of action. Of our final subversive, destructive, aim is forgotten for a moment, allowing ourselves to be fascinated by the pull of activism without clear thought and profound analysis, we can often end up flanking the very counter-revolution we believe we are fighting.
We need organisational proposals that become a clear point of reference beyond the institutionalised haggling of capitalist forces. These proposals must be concrete and we must be present to participate in bringing them about. It is time to come out from our ideological bunkers and confront each other not so much on the immediate and pressing tactical choices for the next demo, but to analyse the reality in which we are trying to work. It is time to come out.
(from the introduction)
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Insurrection #2
Issue 2, 1984
B.M. Elephant London
We must force ourselves to see things as they are, not how we would like them to be. Our innate love for utopia - of great nobility and sentimentality - must take second place in the face of the need for analyses based on reality. To do this, or even to simply understand it when it is done by other comrades, we must provide ourselves with some basic instruments. we might as well limit ourselves to pub talk if we don't possess some basic awareness (and perhaps a bit more than that) of economics. The point blank refusal to widen our study of certain instruments such as economics, history, philosophy, State administration, public finance, etc. is based on a mistaken interpretation of the anarchist concept of destruction.
(taken from the article Strategy & Methods)
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B.M. Elephant London
We must force ourselves to see things as they are, not how we would like them to be. Our innate love for utopia - of great nobility and sentimentality - must take second place in the face of the need for analyses based on reality. To do this, or even to simply understand it when it is done by other comrades, we must provide ourselves with some basic instruments. we might as well limit ourselves to pub talk if we don't possess some basic awareness (and perhaps a bit more than that) of economics. The point blank refusal to widen our study of certain instruments such as economics, history, philosophy, State administration, public finance, etc. is based on a mistaken interpretation of the anarchist concept of destruction.
(taken from the article Strategy & Methods)
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Insurrection #1
Bi-monthly anarchist review 1st issue December 1982
For we anarchists the revolution is our guide, our constant point of reference, no matter what we are doing or what problem we are concerned with. The anarchy we want will not be possible without the painful revolutionary break. If we want to avoid turning this into simply a dream we must struggle to destroy the State and exploiters through the revolution.
But this revolution is not a myth simply to be used as a point of reference. Precisely because it is a concrete event, it must be built daily through more modest attempts which do not have all the liberating characteristics of the social revolution in the true sense.These more modest attempts are insurrections. In them the uprising of the most exploited of the masses and the most politically sentisized minority, opens the way to the possible involvement of increasingly wider strata of exploited in a flux of rebellion which could lead to the revolution but could also end up in the establishment of a new power or a bloody confirmation of the old one. In the case of the latter, although the insurrection begins as a liberating uprising it concludes bitterly with the re-establishment of State and private dominion. That is the natural way of things. Insurrection is the indispensable element of the revolution without which, without a long and painful series of which, there will be no revolution and power will reign undisturbed in the fullness of its might. We are not to be discouraged. Once again, obtusely, we are preparing and struggling for the insurrection which will come about, a small part of the great future mosaic of the revolution.
Download PDF here
For we anarchists the revolution is our guide, our constant point of reference, no matter what we are doing or what problem we are concerned with. The anarchy we want will not be possible without the painful revolutionary break. If we want to avoid turning this into simply a dream we must struggle to destroy the State and exploiters through the revolution.
But this revolution is not a myth simply to be used as a point of reference. Precisely because it is a concrete event, it must be built daily through more modest attempts which do not have all the liberating characteristics of the social revolution in the true sense.These more modest attempts are insurrections. In them the uprising of the most exploited of the masses and the most politically sentisized minority, opens the way to the possible involvement of increasingly wider strata of exploited in a flux of rebellion which could lead to the revolution but could also end up in the establishment of a new power or a bloody confirmation of the old one. In the case of the latter, although the insurrection begins as a liberating uprising it concludes bitterly with the re-establishment of State and private dominion. That is the natural way of things. Insurrection is the indispensable element of the revolution without which, without a long and painful series of which, there will be no revolution and power will reign undisturbed in the fullness of its might. We are not to be discouraged. Once again, obtusely, we are preparing and struggling for the insurrection which will come about, a small part of the great future mosaic of the revolution.
Download PDF here
Monday, March 10, 2008
Crisso and Odoteo: Barbarians - Disordered Insurgence
Venomous Butterfly Publications
It is particularly useful that, as Italians, Crisso and Odoteo are familiar with the various movements that have been influenced by Negri, as well as with recent works of his that are not available in English. This allows them to place Empire in a context that further exposes its recuperative significance.
Crisso and Odoteo clearly expose the love Hardt and Negri actually have for the Empire and its methods of homogenizing the world. It, in fact, reaches the point of support for the European Union. Negri recently co-edited a collection of texts by leftists in praise of the political unification of Europe (choosing however to ignore the fact that this unification is a reality mainly in terms of the needs of the ruling class: a free flow of capital, the unification of policing networks and so on).
More frightening is their unquestioning support of the totality of technological development – proclaimed to be expressions of the desires of “the multitude” – going so far as to call for the “recognition […] that there are no boundaries between […] the human and the machine” (Empire, p. 215) and, thus, the acceptance of ourselves as cyborgs (see for example, Empire, p.92). For them the project of technologizing life – i.e., biotechnology integrated with cybernetics – is desirable and necessary, simply because it exists.
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It is particularly useful that, as Italians, Crisso and Odoteo are familiar with the various movements that have been influenced by Negri, as well as with recent works of his that are not available in English. This allows them to place Empire in a context that further exposes its recuperative significance.
Crisso and Odoteo clearly expose the love Hardt and Negri actually have for the Empire and its methods of homogenizing the world. It, in fact, reaches the point of support for the European Union. Negri recently co-edited a collection of texts by leftists in praise of the political unification of Europe (choosing however to ignore the fact that this unification is a reality mainly in terms of the needs of the ruling class: a free flow of capital, the unification of policing networks and so on).
More frightening is their unquestioning support of the totality of technological development – proclaimed to be expressions of the desires of “the multitude” – going so far as to call for the “recognition […] that there are no boundaries between […] the human and the machine” (Empire, p. 215) and, thus, the acceptance of ourselves as cyborgs (see for example, Empire, p.92). For them the project of technologizing life – i.e., biotechnology integrated with cybernetics – is desirable and necessary, simply because it exists.
Download PDF here
Tuesday, March 4, 2008
Wolfi Landstreicher - Willfull Disobedience-Selections from Volume 2; Nr.10-12
Venomous Butterfly Publications
It can be argued that democracy is the very heart of capitalism. Capitalism views people as equivalent in terms of the work they do - it reduces people to simple labor power. Democracy views people as equivalent in terms of voting, in terms of having an equal say in some machinery controlling you. Here too, Justice and morality are equivalent parts of this machinery.
So why do so many anarchists embrace democracy?
-- Because being against "authority" seems to many of them to be simply being in favor of Justice, perhaps?
-- Because they haven't rejected exchange and the way that exchange can work to make people equivalent to each other. Perhaps it is similar to what Nietzsche called the final cruelty of Christians, the need to kill God to keep the logic of religion.
Many anarchists feel the need to kill the top, the boss, of a bureaucracy in order to keep the bureaucracy itself alive.
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It can be argued that democracy is the very heart of capitalism. Capitalism views people as equivalent in terms of the work they do - it reduces people to simple labor power. Democracy views people as equivalent in terms of voting, in terms of having an equal say in some machinery controlling you. Here too, Justice and morality are equivalent parts of this machinery.
So why do so many anarchists embrace democracy?
-- Because being against "authority" seems to many of them to be simply being in favor of Justice, perhaps?
-- Because they haven't rejected exchange and the way that exchange can work to make people equivalent to each other. Perhaps it is similar to what Nietzsche called the final cruelty of Christians, the need to kill God to keep the logic of religion.
Many anarchists feel the need to kill the top, the boss, of a bureaucracy in order to keep the bureaucracy itself alive.
Download PDF here
Wolfi Landstreicher - Willfull Disobedience-Selections from Volume 2; Nr.7-9
Venomous Butterfly Publications
What is a militant? What is the left? Leftists altogether could be defined as the international association of specialists in oppression. From racism to sexism to ageism to class oppression to looksism to homophobia and so forth, leftists study, quantify and aspire to own each different sort of oppression. A racial nationalist who presents him or herself as the only authority on the feelings, ideas and aspirations of black or latino people is one classic example of a leftist. A feminist academic who presents her or himself as the only authority on the feelings, ideas and aspirations of women is also a classic leftist.
The leftist militant derives their need for constant action from their cultivation of guilt. The need for action and the cultivation of guilt soon overwhelms any consciousness of the larger purpose of their action. Soon the domination of leftism, of guilt politics, becomes more important than any positive outcome of the activity.
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What is a militant? What is the left? Leftists altogether could be defined as the international association of specialists in oppression. From racism to sexism to ageism to class oppression to looksism to homophobia and so forth, leftists study, quantify and aspire to own each different sort of oppression. A racial nationalist who presents him or herself as the only authority on the feelings, ideas and aspirations of black or latino people is one classic example of a leftist. A feminist academic who presents her or himself as the only authority on the feelings, ideas and aspirations of women is also a classic leftist.
The leftist militant derives their need for constant action from their cultivation of guilt. The need for action and the cultivation of guilt soon overwhelms any consciousness of the larger purpose of their action. Soon the domination of leftism, of guilt politics, becomes more important than any positive outcome of the activity.
Download PDF here
Wolfi Landstreicher - Willfull Disobedience-Selections from Volume 2; Nr.1-6
Venomous Butterfly Publications
The informal anarchist organization has nothing to do with programs, platforms or flags but is based on a common affinity between comrades whose objective is to intervene in struggles
in an insurrectional direction. In that way it is possible to be present in and heighten the class struggle.
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The informal anarchist organization has nothing to do with programs, platforms or flags but is based on a common affinity between comrades whose objective is to intervene in struggles
in an insurrectional direction. In that way it is possible to be present in and heighten the class struggle.
Download PDF here
Monday, March 3, 2008
Wolfi Landstreicher - Willfull Disobedience-Volume 5, Number 3
Venomous Butterfly Publications
We have a tendency to overvalue words. We put so much time into producing them, as if they were the source of life itself. We believe that there are words and ways of using words that are inherent sources of oppression and spend vast amounts of time trying to suppress these words impoverishing our language in the process. In the meantime, the real practices of oppression go on, often carefully using the correct words to hide the practical reality. At the same time, we think that if we find the right combination of words, this will spark rebellion. So we make flyer after flyer, zine after zine, with an evangelistic zeal, forgetting our own lives, our own desire for freedom, joy and the intensity of existence. By giving words such great value, we forget our own purpose in using them. They become our masters. This becomes evident in the attempt to evangelize, where our words become means for winning others over to a position, assuming that when enough people believe the right thing, they will rise up. But have those who rise up for words, and not for their lives, really risen up at all, or are they just embracing a new master? If my aim is to take back my life, to create my desire, my joy, my passion, then how can I turn my words into tools for a position? They would cease to be my own words. For me, words can only be a tool (or toy) for expressing and communicating my desire, my project, my life; one of the many tools I use to find accomplices, to create my enjoyment and to express the intensity of my passions, the wildness of my dreams. But disconnected from life, from practice, they are empty. And any word in the service of a cause, any evangelistic word, any word intended to draw followers to a position, has been disconnected from life, separated from the immediate practice of freedom, and so is empty. Thus, in overvaluing words, we drain them of meaning, because their meaning comes precisely from our lives and our choices.
Download PDF here
We have a tendency to overvalue words. We put so much time into producing them, as if they were the source of life itself. We believe that there are words and ways of using words that are inherent sources of oppression and spend vast amounts of time trying to suppress these words impoverishing our language in the process. In the meantime, the real practices of oppression go on, often carefully using the correct words to hide the practical reality. At the same time, we think that if we find the right combination of words, this will spark rebellion. So we make flyer after flyer, zine after zine, with an evangelistic zeal, forgetting our own lives, our own desire for freedom, joy and the intensity of existence. By giving words such great value, we forget our own purpose in using them. They become our masters. This becomes evident in the attempt to evangelize, where our words become means for winning others over to a position, assuming that when enough people believe the right thing, they will rise up. But have those who rise up for words, and not for their lives, really risen up at all, or are they just embracing a new master? If my aim is to take back my life, to create my desire, my joy, my passion, then how can I turn my words into tools for a position? They would cease to be my own words. For me, words can only be a tool (or toy) for expressing and communicating my desire, my project, my life; one of the many tools I use to find accomplices, to create my enjoyment and to express the intensity of my passions, the wildness of my dreams. But disconnected from life, from practice, they are empty. And any word in the service of a cause, any evangelistic word, any word intended to draw followers to a position, has been disconnected from life, separated from the immediate practice of freedom, and so is empty. Thus, in overvaluing words, we drain them of meaning, because their meaning comes precisely from our lives and our choices.
Download PDF here
Wolfi Landstreicher - Willfull Disobedience-Volume 5, Number 2
Venomous Butterfly Publications
We are living in desperate times. The capacity to dream and desire appears to be depleted. Most people merely seem to resign themselves to what is. It is, therefore, not surprising that even some anarchists are turning to apocalyptic visions of “the end” rather than pursuing projects of revolutionary transformation – projects which require a capacity both to dream and desire and to look at the world as it is in terms of how to go about realizing those dreams and desires. I have recently heard certain anarchists declare that revolutionary projects are “unrealistic” and that people should instead prepare for an inevitable collapse of civilization. The determinism inherent in this view may give those who hold it a kind of hope, but it is a sad hope, lacking joy. The joylessness of this perspective stems from the fact that those who hold it are placing their bet on an apocalyptic event that is beyond their control rather than on their own capacity to act and interact, to join together with others to create a rupture with the present.
Download PDF here
We are living in desperate times. The capacity to dream and desire appears to be depleted. Most people merely seem to resign themselves to what is. It is, therefore, not surprising that even some anarchists are turning to apocalyptic visions of “the end” rather than pursuing projects of revolutionary transformation – projects which require a capacity both to dream and desire and to look at the world as it is in terms of how to go about realizing those dreams and desires. I have recently heard certain anarchists declare that revolutionary projects are “unrealistic” and that people should instead prepare for an inevitable collapse of civilization. The determinism inherent in this view may give those who hold it a kind of hope, but it is a sad hope, lacking joy. The joylessness of this perspective stems from the fact that those who hold it are placing their bet on an apocalyptic event that is beyond their control rather than on their own capacity to act and interact, to join together with others to create a rupture with the present.
Download PDF here
Wolfi Landstreicher: Willfull Disobedience-Volume 5-Number 1
Venomous Butterfly Publication
In this abyss of war, hunger, pandemic disease and desperation, the threatening flames of proletarian rebellion are leaping up more often. From Argentina to Algeria to the Far East, they split the capitalist order. The exhaustion of these revolts, their suffocation in nationalist,
fundamentalist or ethnic drifts depends only on their isolation.
Attacking the state and property, insurgents everywhere speak to us. It is just up to us to respond, bringing their attack here into the big cities of the West, where the conditions of life are crushed more and more every day between precariousness and fear and where social life is militarized as if in an internal front that does not allow desertion.
Because it is here, where the beating heart of the Economy and its armed hands reside, that the capitalist order can be smashed, when the flames ignited by the exploited of the planet set fire to the minds of their class brothers and sisters in the West.
Download PDF here
In this abyss of war, hunger, pandemic disease and desperation, the threatening flames of proletarian rebellion are leaping up more often. From Argentina to Algeria to the Far East, they split the capitalist order. The exhaustion of these revolts, their suffocation in nationalist,
fundamentalist or ethnic drifts depends only on their isolation.
Attacking the state and property, insurgents everywhere speak to us. It is just up to us to respond, bringing their attack here into the big cities of the West, where the conditions of life are crushed more and more every day between precariousness and fear and where social life is militarized as if in an internal front that does not allow desertion.
Because it is here, where the beating heart of the Economy and its armed hands reside, that the capitalist order can be smashed, when the flames ignited by the exploited of the planet set fire to the minds of their class brothers and sisters in the West.
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Friday, February 29, 2008
Wolfi Landstreicher - Willfull Disobedience; Selections from Volume 4
Venomous Butterfly Publications
Within a capitalist society it should be no surprise that the “liberation” of sexual frankness would predominantly mean an increasing discussion of the mechanics of sex. The joy of the sexual act is reduced not just to physical pleasure, but more specifically to the orgasm, and sexual discourse centers around the mechanics for most effectively achieving orgasm. I do not want to be misunderstood. An ecstatic orgasm is a marvelous thing. But centering a sexual encounter around achieving an orgasm leads one to lose touch with the joy of being lost in the other here and now. Rather than being an immersion into each other, sex centered around achieving orgasm becomes a task aimed at a future goal, a manipulation of certain mechanisms to achieve an end. As I see it, this transforms all sex into basically masturbatory activity – two people using each other to achieve a desired end, exchanging (in the most economic sense) pleasure without giving anything of oneself.
...Since the old religious justifications for sexual repression no longer hold much water for large portions of the populace, a material fear of sex now acts as a catalyst for a repressive sexual environment...
Download PDF here
Within a capitalist society it should be no surprise that the “liberation” of sexual frankness would predominantly mean an increasing discussion of the mechanics of sex. The joy of the sexual act is reduced not just to physical pleasure, but more specifically to the orgasm, and sexual discourse centers around the mechanics for most effectively achieving orgasm. I do not want to be misunderstood. An ecstatic orgasm is a marvelous thing. But centering a sexual encounter around achieving an orgasm leads one to lose touch with the joy of being lost in the other here and now. Rather than being an immersion into each other, sex centered around achieving orgasm becomes a task aimed at a future goal, a manipulation of certain mechanisms to achieve an end. As I see it, this transforms all sex into basically masturbatory activity – two people using each other to achieve a desired end, exchanging (in the most economic sense) pleasure without giving anything of oneself.
...Since the old religious justifications for sexual repression no longer hold much water for large portions of the populace, a material fear of sex now acts as a catalyst for a repressive sexual environment...
Download PDF here
Wolfi Landstreicher - Willfull Disobedience; Selections from Volume 3
Venomous Butterfly Publications
A world of disaster… this is all that capital offers, all that it has ever really offered, but now it can’t even hide this behind the apparent abundance of goods. The world falls apart as it becomes one huge poisonous supermarket. Desperation abounds in its many guises. The loss of values, of principles, a desperation that is willing to take any action, and so mostly acts in ways that reinforce the current order of things. The apocalyptic visions of collapse, the dreams of the hopeless, replace revolutionary desire. If joy can’t ever be ours, if wonder and the festival of revolt are beyond our reach, at least we can imagine the collapse of our misery, the fall of the horror, even if it must take us down with it (all but the elect few who will somehow survive in its poisonous ruins). So the “dream” of some is nothing more than the belief that this sad, impoverished vision is the only possibility, because the other possibilities that they imagine, variations on the continuation of the present desolate survival, seem so much worse.
Download PDF here
A world of disaster… this is all that capital offers, all that it has ever really offered, but now it can’t even hide this behind the apparent abundance of goods. The world falls apart as it becomes one huge poisonous supermarket. Desperation abounds in its many guises. The loss of values, of principles, a desperation that is willing to take any action, and so mostly acts in ways that reinforce the current order of things. The apocalyptic visions of collapse, the dreams of the hopeless, replace revolutionary desire. If joy can’t ever be ours, if wonder and the festival of revolt are beyond our reach, at least we can imagine the collapse of our misery, the fall of the horror, even if it must take us down with it (all but the elect few who will somehow survive in its poisonous ruins). So the “dream” of some is nothing more than the belief that this sad, impoverished vision is the only possibility, because the other possibilities that they imagine, variations on the continuation of the present desolate survival, seem so much worse.
Download PDF here
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Wolfi Landstreicher - Willfull Disobedience; Selections from Volume 1
Venomous Butterfly Publications
Willful Disobedience is intended to express ideas that are part of my life projectuality. It is an explicitly anarchic project in the sense that it opposes to every form of authority the self-determination of individuals who refuse all domination; it is insurrectionary in its recognition that authority must be attacked and destroyed as an essential part of the project of creating our lives for ourselves based upon our desires. That means that this project is not a forum for democratic dialogue in which all ideas are equal and therefore equally vapid...The understanding of anarchic insurgence underlying this project is as follows:
Within the present social context our lives as individuals have been made alien to us, because society creates interactions and activities for us which are not based on the singularity of our unconstrained
dreams and desires, but only serve the continuing reproduction of society by channeling the energy of desire into that reproduction through a variety of institutions and systems which integrate to form civilized society: the state, capital, work, technology, religion, education, ideology, law...Opposition to this begins when we as individuals rise up in willful disobedience and recognize the necessity of attacking and destroying all institutions of domination, not as a cause, but for ourselves, because we want to create our own games...
Wolfi Landstreicher
Download PDF here
Willful Disobedience is intended to express ideas that are part of my life projectuality. It is an explicitly anarchic project in the sense that it opposes to every form of authority the self-determination of individuals who refuse all domination; it is insurrectionary in its recognition that authority must be attacked and destroyed as an essential part of the project of creating our lives for ourselves based upon our desires. That means that this project is not a forum for democratic dialogue in which all ideas are equal and therefore equally vapid...The understanding of anarchic insurgence underlying this project is as follows:
Within the present social context our lives as individuals have been made alien to us, because society creates interactions and activities for us which are not based on the singularity of our unconstrained
dreams and desires, but only serve the continuing reproduction of society by channeling the energy of desire into that reproduction through a variety of institutions and systems which integrate to form civilized society: the state, capital, work, technology, religion, education, ideology, law...Opposition to this begins when we as individuals rise up in willful disobedience and recognize the necessity of attacking and destroying all institutions of domination, not as a cause, but for ourselves, because we want to create our own games...
Wolfi Landstreicher
Download PDF here
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