21 August 2020 — crimethinc.
21 January 2014 — New Left Project
Despite its title, Wilde’s 1891 essay ‘The Soul of Man under Socialism,’ first published in the Fortnightly Review, advocated not state socialism but anarchism: there were to be no laws, no prisons, no punishments, no family, in short no authority over the individual. In Wilde’s utopia everything necessary or useful was to be manufactured by communally-owned machines, while people were to be left free to choose their own occupations, cultivating leisure and pleasure, ‘the making of beautiful things, or reading beautiful things, or simply contemplating the world with admiration and delight.’
12 December 2012 — MRZine
One of the Left’s great challenges is to understand when the great watershed of change is upon people and seize the time. Racism, sexism, inequality, and uncertain futures have weighed heavily on the conscience of many a movement. For every great moment, hundreds of crushing defeats never to be remembered are handed down. Once in a rare moon, stunning defeats like the 1965 Selma to Montgomery demonstrations or the Long March galvanize participants and become iconic — something history recalls as a moral victory that alters the fates of those involved. But how often does that happen? It’s much more seldom than you’d think.
3 August 2011 — Joe Bageant
Kingdom of Survival, a documentary film in which Joe Bageant is a focal point, will premier at the World Film Festival (Festival des Films du Monde) in Montreal, August 18 through August 28. The segments of the film with Joe were made more than a year ago. Before he died last March, Joe had seen an unfinished version of the documentary and told director M. A. Littler that he was pleased to be a part of the film. In addition to Joe, the documentary has interviews with Noam Chomsky and Mark Mirabello — plus a reclusive cabin builder, an anarchist book publisher, and a folk musician.
Here is a trailer for Kingdom of Survival. For those who don’t know Joe Bageant, he is the second speaker in this clip. Continue reading
31 July 2011 — Network for Police Monitoring – Reposted from Random Blowe
I doubt many people have heard of Project Griffin. It is a joint initiative between the City of London Police and the Metropolitan Police, set up in 2004 and based at the City Police’s HQ, which has spread its network to police forces around the country and seeks to ‘advise and familiarise managers, security officers and employees of large public and private sector organisations across the capital on security, counter-terrorism and crime prevention issues’.
Every week, Chief Inspector Nick Smith and his team at the ‘Westminster Counter Terrorism Focus Desk’, one of the Project Griffin projects, send out a briefing to businesses and this week’s edition includes the extraordinary advice opposite. Leaving aside the rather limited definition of ‘anarchism’, the suggestion that ‘any information relating to anarchists should be reported to your local Police’ is another example of the attempted criminalisation of ideas.
For the time being, holding anarchist sympathies is not a crime – although presumably any gossip, however dubious and ill-informed, will be passed on by borough-level SO15 Counter Terrorism Liaison Officers to the feverish data collectors at the National Extremism Tactical Co-ordination Unit. Are the Metropolitan Police simply starting to run low on ‘Islamists’ to keep tabs on or are we seeing a shift towards the creation of a new amorphous, imaginary bogeyman?
28 June 2011 — New Left Project
On March 26, a movement that has existed for several decades but has largely been absent from UK politics, known as ‘Black Bloc’, emerged from the shadows and scared the living daylights out of Middle England. They blitzed central London, smashing the windows of the Ritz and the high street facades of corporate giants, threw paint and smoke bombs, and ran rings around the police.
5 June 2011 — Joe Bageant
Here is an outtake from The Kingdom of Survival, a documentary now in production that includes interviews with Joe Bageant, Noam Chomsky, a radical book publisher, a cabin builder, a musician, and a radio host. This segment was shot one year ago when Joe was visiting his home in Winchester, Virginia.
‘Hemingway’s Whisky’ was written by Guy Clark and became the title for Kenny Chesney’s recent album.
5 June 2011 — Joe Bageant
Here is an outtake from The Kingdom of Survival, a documentary now in production that includes interviews with Joe Bageant, Noam Chomsky, a radical book publisher, a cabin builder, a musician, and a radio host. This segment was shot one year ago when Joe was visiting his home in Winchester, Virginia.
‘Hemingway’s Whisky’ was written by Guy Clark and became the title for Kenny Chesney’s recent album.
The New Dark Age 