Hammer

I want to emphasize a point that should be obvious but clearly is not. If you want a review of your zine, pamphlet or book and it is anarchist in content please send it to me here.

With no further adieu here are some reviews for November…

Anarchist Magic Deck, PDF
The idea of an anarchist card game is a great one and detourning a popular one that many people are already familiar with makes the possibility of having someone to play with that much more likely. This is a detourned Magic: The Gathering deck that someone with a duplexing color laser printer would be able to convert into a usable deck in minutes. That said, and I say this with no prior experience with Magic, this looks like a fairly weak transformation. It is clear that Magic artwork is used and only the power and text is changed and the cards are mostly silly (with lots of green anarchist & celebrity references) rather than balanced (thematically or game play wise).
Download, Game

Capitalism for Dummies, PDF
This piece consists mostly of a set of definitions of capitalism, and the struggle against it. It outlines the libertarian communist definition, which reads like it’s from a Marxism that died on the vine around the time of WWII (“the middle class” and “unwaged labor” are the only non-Das Kapital terms used). The text is very clear and the introduction sets the bar higher than the text itself when it states “By resisting the imposition of work, we say that our lives are more important than our boss’s profits.” Mostly this will be useful for future commissars who are heading to their first meeting of the libcom politburo.
Webpage, 101

Desert, Pamphlet
When I was handed this small book I believed that it was old but, in fact, it is brand new (Summer 2011). It just has an old aesthetic (especially in its original form). This is a Green Anarchist manifesto that has learned the lessons of the past 5, 10 and 20 years of green anarchist rhetoric and hope. As a result it is, in John Zerzan’s words, a document of surrender. A surrender of the naive thinking and practice of “saving the environment” or “building a new world in the shell of the old” as neither of these things are possible — we can’t get there from here. Instead, argues this book, our future looks like survival in a desert, both existential and material.
Download, Order, Green Anarchist

Illegal Anarchism, Essay
This is a great accompaniment to the Sovereign Self and Enemies of Society. It is the text of a talk by Gustavo Rodríguez given in the Squatted Social Centre ¨La Casa Naranja¨ Tlalnepantla, Mexico State. “Not accepting the reformism, the evolutionary processes nor the contemplative attitudes of ‘legalist Anarchism’” this essay attempts to speak to a unitary critique that develops into a general insurrection. It develops the context of specifically illegal activities happening today around the globe that contribute to this goal including expropriators, propaganda by the deed, and the history of this tendency in Anarchism.
Download, Illegalist

Denver Ignite #2, PDF
This is the second issue of Ignite, the anarchist paper from Denver. It would be great if every major city in the country had an agitational paper like this one and Tides of Flame from Seattle. This is the first step to having a consistent way for people outside the milieu to have access to what we are doing in a way that reflects our local biases and interests. This issue is interesting nationally because it has more information than I’ve seen anywhere else about the dropped charges against Amelia Nicole (accused of throwing a Molotov cocktail at a cop car, and who was an inspiration in standing strong against the bullies). This issue also has some agitation about anti-police activities, anti-Whole Foods information, Occupy Denver, and other news.
Issue URL, Agitational

Sovereign Self #1, Paper
If we had 100 publications (or even 10) like this one… we would win. The publication succeeds on an aesthetic level that is unrivaled in the milieu today (expect for The Match, of course, but that has other issues). This is a self printed, self-published, do-it-yourself anarchist (anti)political paper. The position it espouses is individualist but will be difficult for the haters to pigeonhole as the content tends towards asking questions rather than answering them and includes articles that will be interesting to the “identity set” including a discussion on child rearing that hasn’t been seen in a similar paper in 100 years. If this crew maintains the aggressive publishing schedule they intend this will be the paper of west coast anarchy.
Email address, Order, Individualist

Tides of Flame #7/#8, PDF
Tides just keeps on cranking along, a testament to dedication and energy in the PNW. Since I’ve been so comradely (aka too nice) up til now in my reviews I’ll share a concern that I have with the lead article in issue #7, which stakes an anarchist claim in the Occupy Movement (which is fine and appropriate for anarchist engagement) but then falls back on a crass class perspective that is embarrassing, strategically unsound, and the conclusion of which relies on slogans and not analysis.

Why embarrassing? For starters because of the ad hominems against so-called “bo-bo’s” (aka the upper middle-class or the upper 25%) for not being “honest” about their backgrounds and assuming “leadership” positions in the Occupy Movement. As if participants in the GAs and Occupy can’t deal with these sorts of political actors within the context of the environment itself and instead have to snipe from afar (to people who probably don’t care). At best this is a shallow kind of Marxist analysis.

Why bad strategy? Because if you accept the argument of the 99% vs the 1% then why in the hell would you divide the 99% by 24% because… what? They own more than their fair share? This is exactly the kind of lowest common denominator thinking that will destroy the meager unity of the Occupy movement or (since I don’t actually agree with the Occupy strategy) create a kind of self-policing mechanism for what exactly?

Finally the conclusion, which IMO is the worst kind of anarchist blah blah blah… I’ll quote:
“Experiment, create, and if you feel like it, destroy what destroys you. Hold nothing back and let go. USE YOUR IMAGINATION. Perhaps we could turn Westlake into a riotous orgy of joy, freedom, and rebellion rather than a sterile shopping trough. Before this moment passes, let’s go knock the Bo-Bo’s out with their fancy wine, uncork the bottle, and drink til we’re drunk on total freedom.”
Web site, Seattle/Insurrectionary