Crooked Bough News Round-up

— Shane Radliff - Samuel Konkin III (SEK3) on Rayo and Vonu

 

at 9/23/26 12:13am

Author: Shane RadliffTitle: Samuel Konkin III (SEK3) on Rayo and VonuSubtitle: Different Approaches?Date: April 25th, 2017Source: https://theconsciousresistance.com/samuel-konkin-iii-sek3-rayo-vonu-different-approaches/ If you were a libertarian/anarchist in the 1960s and 70s, southern California was the place to be. This bustling community was home to many ideological figures who largely developed the theory, and practice, of modern libertarian/anarchist thought. Two gentleman, specifically Rayo (a.k.a El Rayo) and Samuel Konkin III (SEK3), also called this place home for at least some time, although they never crossed paths. Rayo is lesser-known for his development of vonu, and SEK3 is now well-known for his strategy called agorism. Vonu, simply defined, is the hardening of one’s lifestyle to such an extent that an individual could be said to have rendered himself nearly invulnerable to coercion; vonu, itself, is an awkward contraction of the phrase “VOluntary Not vUlnerable.” This invulnerability from coercion could be defense from public coercers (governments) or private coercers (criminals). Agorism, on the other hand, is a revolutionary market anarchist strategy that advocates the goal of bringing about a society in which all relations between people are voluntary exchanges by means of counter-economics, which is black and grey market trading; that is, “trafficking” in products and services which are either illegal, or unregulated and untaxed, but not immoral or unethical. To put it another way, vonu is defensive, whereas agorism is offensive; much like a duality, they could be used together to mutually reinforce each other, not entirely dissimilar to a two-parent household composed of Mommy and Daddy. Before diving into what SEK3 had to say about Rayo and vonu, let’s first compare and contrast the two individuals. First, both were wholly apolitical, even anti-political. Rayo chose to not participate in politics, and even went so far as to coin the terms “political crusading” and “bullshit libertarianism.” Mainstream politics itself is collective, and Rayo had a term for that too: “collective movementism”, which he was also against. From his other idea of “controlled schizophrenia” from his book, it’s safe to conclude that he would clump the political crusaders under that label as well. SEK3 was against political crusading, as he viewed it as an inconsistent application of means and ends. In New Libertarian Manifesto, he said: “Worst of all is Partyarchy, the anti-concept of pursuing libertarian ends through statist means, especially political parties.” (p. 7) As far as why they both opposed this anti-strategy, they were very much in line. Secondly, they were both freedom pioneers and developers of strategies that were outside of the political sphere. They differed in approach, but we’ll get to that in a moment. To keep this brief, the last important commonality is that they both saw the advantages of trading in the black and grey markets. In November 1965, when SEK3 would have been 18 years old, Rayo published an article in Innovator titled, “Self-Seeking: Ethical Enclave (Black Markets).” He defined this concept as: “An ethical enclave is defined here as voluntary transactions between individuals who are living under a collectivist government, when such transactions are conducted independent of that government. ‘Ethical’ denotes the distinguishing characteristic of the participating individuals: an adherence to the ethical principle of voluntarism…And ‘enclave’ denotes physical emersion within a philosophically alien society.” Sounds awfully similar to agorism, right? More on this later—you’re going to want to keep reading. So, where did these two individuals differ? To start with ideology first, Rayo was not an anarchist—unfortunately, as we discovered in one of his articles, he saw all anarchists as folks who use retaliatory force against the rulers. From the articles that will be discussed momentarily, we also learned that the individuals in the Free Isles Project agreed upon a nominal State. Konkin, on the other hand, was an openly-avowed anarchist—nothing else needs to be said on that note. Next, they differed in strategy—Rayo’s interfacing with the public was in the form of newsletters and other such publications; as can be ascertained from his book, he didn’t have a whole lot of patience for folks and was more of a hermit. SEK3 was a quite a bit different though—not only did he openly admit that he didn’t pay taxes in a debate with Robert Poole, but he had much more of a public presence—he spoke at conferences, wrote books, and pursued culture jamming efforts, such as the CounterCampaign ’76. It’s safe to say that these two individuals’ approaches varied drastically on this point. Lastly, Rayo saw mobility as being crucial. He lived as a “van nomad” for awhile, and then pursued wilderness vonu, both methods containing the option to pick up and leave quickly. He also discussed country shopping and minimalist sailboating, which are more evocative of Hakim Bey’s idea of Temporary Autonomous Zones, rather than a fixed geographical locale. Diagram of Rayo’s wilderness abode. SEK3 was different—as we will get to momentarily, he had some disparaging things to say about vonuists. In one article, he wrote, “As for me, anarchy begins at home.” ...

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— Leonardo Caffo - Rethinking Lampedusa

 

at 9/23/26 12:11am

Author: Leonardo CaffoTitle: Rethinking LampedusaSubtitle: Conceptual Architecture and the Philosophy of Europe’s ParadoxDate: 2026Source: Anthropology (journal of) 2026 Abstract Lampedusa is habitually narrated as a site of emergency, yet its condition is structural rather than exceptional. This paper argues that the island functions as a paradox-object through which Europe’s constitutive contradictions become legible: geographically African, juridically European, and symbolically the very membrane that renders the two categories thinkable as distinct. Drawing on Foucault’s dispositif, Deleuze’s typology of continental and oceanic islands, and Achille Varzi’s distinction between fiat and bona fide boundaries, the paper shows that Lampedusa’s administrative and political borders systematically fail to coincide with its own geology — a mismatch condensed in the island’s municipal pairing with the volcanic, geologically European Linosa. Reading Agamben’s homo sacer against Hardt and Negri’s new barbarians, the paper treats the migrant not as a single, settled figure but as the site of two irreconcilable theoretical wagers, staged empirically in the recurring legal confrontation between Italian anti-NGO decrees and search-and-rescue obligations under international maritime law. Building on original fieldwork from the Rethinking Lampedusa research residency (2022–2025), the paper proposes reading the island as an anarchic object — a site where sovereignty is permanently held in default — and extends this default beyond the human register via Rosi Braidotti’s critical posthumanism, arguing that the same arche which excludes the migrant also subtends the human/non-human hierarchy visible in the island’s shared ecology of turtle nesting sites and disembarkation quays. The paper closes by proposing, through Rancière’s partage du sensible and Ariella Azoulay’s civil contract of photography, a counter-design for Lampedusa’s spatial and visual regime — one that would force the coexistence, rather than the segregation, of the island’s tourist and migrant economies. This remains, deliberately, an open rather than a concluding argument: further sections will need to test the proposal against concrete institutional and architectural alternatives. Keywords: Lampedusa; Linosa; new barbarians; fiat boundaries; Mediterranean migration; search and rescue; European Union border regime Methodological Note: Practice-Based Research and the Position of the Author This paper departs, at several points, from the conventions of purely textual philosophical argument by drawing on material generated through Rethinking Lampedusa, a research and art-residency program the author has coordinated since 2022. It is necessary to state explicitly what kind of evidentiary status this material is being given, since practice-based research operates under different epistemic warrants than either empirical social science or textual exegesis, and conflating the three would misrepresent what is being claimed. The fieldwork referenced in Section 1.1 and elsewhere does not constitute ethnographic data in the disciplinary sense: it was not collected under a formal research protocol, does not involve systematic interviewing, coding, or triangulation, and makes no claim to generalizability beyond the specific, repeated, situated encounters it records. What it offers instead is what practice-based research literature has termed embodied and situated knowledge — insight generated through sustained, reflexive presence in a site, mediated by artistic and pedagogical practice (the residency’s Moleskine notebooks, workshops, and exhibitions) rather than by observation held at methodological arm’s length. This is a recognized, if still contested, mode of knowledge production within philosophy of art, aesthetics, and increasingly within border and migration studies, where scholars such as Federica Mazzara (cited throughout this paper) have similarly drawn on direct engagement with artistic and activist practice on Lampedusa itself to ground theoretical claims that pure textual analysis could not have generated independently. Three consequences follow from this status, and the reader should hold them in mind throughout. First, the fieldwork material functions in this paper as illustrative and generative, not as evidentiary in the sense a claim like “in April 2026, nineteen migrants died of hypothermia” is evidentiary, where the latter is grounded in verifiable third-party reporting and is treated accordingly, with appropriate sourcing. Observations such as “migrants are, for most of the time, nowhere to be seen” are offered as a phenomenological report from a specific, repeated vantage point — one that shaped the theoretical questions this paper pursues — rather than as a quantified claim about visibility that could be falsified or replicated by an independent observer under controlled conditions. Second, the author’s dual position — as philosopher constructing the paper’s theoretical apparatus, and as coordinator of the very project supplying its empirical texture — constitutes a conflict of standpoint that must be disclosed rather than concealed by the register of academic prose. The theoretical claims of Sections 2 through 5 are not dependent on the fieldwork for their validity; they are argued independently through engagement with Agamben, Negri, Varzi, Deleuze, Braidotti, Rancière, and Azoulay, and could in principle be evaluated on that basis alone. The fieldwork’s role is to motivate and to particularize these claims — to show why they were asked of Lampedusa specifically — not to verify them. ...

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— Confederación Nacional del Trabajo - Ceuta, Morocco and the Weaponisation of the Working Class

 

at 9/21/26 4:08am

Author: Confederación Nacional del TrabajoTitle: Ceuta, Morocco and the Weaponisation of the Working ClassDate: 3 August 2026Source: Retrieved on 21st September 2026 from www.iclcit.org First of all, we’d like to state our solidarity with the families and friends of all those who have died and those who are imprisoned. The recent tensions between the Spanish and Moroccan states have once again placed Ceuta at the centre of a conflict which is being presented as a matter of national sovereignty and border control. However, we at the CNT believe that this approach obscures the real problem and diverts attention away from those who suffer the consequences: the working class from both sides of the border. The governments of Spain and Morocco use the border as a tool for political bargaining. The Moroccan state uses control over migration flows as a means of exerting diplomatic pressure and to extract concessions to the dictatorship of Mohammed VI, and the Spanish one responds by stepping up the militarisation of the borders and tightening immigration policies (‘outsourcing’ the deadly border policy). This concessions include the legitimisation of the king’s dictatorial regime, with its hundreds of political prisoners and disregard for international rules, or the acceptance of its military occupation of Western Sahara, with its trail of human rights violations. Trapped in the midst of this dispute between states are the thousands of workers forced to migrate due to political repression, poverty, precarious living conditions, lack of opportunities, or the consequences of a deeply unequal economic model. It is this inequality that creates borders. Without it, there would be no ‘border’. This situation is exploited by the far right, which singles out migration as the root cause of all social problems. The fact that the arrival of migrants has become an international spectacle is a political decision made by the big capital and its governments. In this regard, there is a clear de facto alliance between the xenophobic far right – which defends the capitalists and scapegoats the migrants – and the dictatorship of the king of Morocco, who, as we have seen, cares very little for his own people. It is no coincidence that, just a few days ago, the dictator named a motorway in the occupied Sahara after ‘Donald Trump’. An occupation of the Sahara that, let us remember, is maintained thanks to the military aid provided by the State of Israel. The ruling class consciously uses the deliberate scarcity of public resources to pit the working class from one country against that of other territories. Public services are being privatised, social investment is being cutback – with this money diverted to military spending – and the accumulation of private profits is given primacy, all while it is repeated that the problem lies with those arriving in search of a better life. This discourse has the effect of shifting responsibility away from those who truly concentrate wealth and make economic decisions. Migrants are not our enemies. Nor are Moroccan workers, whose exploitation follows the same logic as that suffered by those of us who work in Spain. Competition does not arise from migration, but from an economic system that requires a precarious workforce—without rights and easy to exploit—to drive down working conditions as a whole. In this regard, we support regularisation measures that improve living conditions, grant rights and prevent the very competition that the far right so fervently desires. As an anarcho-syndicalist organisation, we reject both Spanish and Moroccan nationalisms. No state represents the interests of the working class. In the face of those who use borders to defend geopolitical or economic interests, we call for international solidarity amongst workers. The answer cannot be the closure of borders, their militarisation, or international conflict. Neither can we accept that public services remain deliberately underfunded, whilst military spending is increased, according to Trump’s wishes, and a wealthy minority gets even richer. The only viable solution for the social majority is socialising wealth, guaranteeing adequate public services for all and strengthening the organisation of the working class, regardless of their origin or nationality. CNT considers that the right to migrate can‘t be disregarded: the UN recognises the right to seek political asylum in the face of persecution. We consider that it must be respected and that anyone can do it to escape destitution, improve his or her living conditions, or simply for the sheer pleasure of discovering new places and cultures. In this regard, a person from Finland should have no greater right to move around the world than someone from Senegal, Colombia, Spain or Morocco. We advocate the abolition of borders. This is already the case of many European citizens globally, who can move freely around the world. This is also the case of countries with no significant inequality between them, such as Spain and Portugal. In this sense, what has happened in Ceuta is a mass exodus from the dictatorship of Mohamed VI, comparable to the flow of people that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall. Just like the people of Ukraine, Moroccans have the right to flee a dictatorship supported by the governments of the US, Israel and, as Pedro Sanchez says all the time, Spain. ...

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— Solidarity Collectives - Interview with ‘Priama Diia’ union members

 

at 9/21/26 3:59am

Author: Solidarity CollectivesTitle: Interview with ‘Priama Diia’ union membersDate: 14 September 2026Source: Retrieved on 21st September 2026 from www.solidaritycollectives.org Anti-authoritarian self-organization in Ukraine today encompasses a wide range of initiatives, projects, organizations, ideas, and practices. Today, we would like to present a short interview with members of the “Priama Diia” (Direct Action) student union about their recent actions and projects, their views on contemporary activism in Ukraine, and the pressure the union has faced from law enforcement agencies. “Priama Diia” is a student trade union and a successor to a grassroots anarchist tradition whose modern history dates back to 2008. After several generations of activists and periods of inactivity, the current fourth generation of the organization brings together hundreds of students across Ukraine. One of the union’s recent campaigns focuses on the struggle for affordable public transport in Kyiv — an issue that, under wartime conditions, directly affects people’s ability to study, work, and move around the city. Tell us about your role in the campaign against the increase in public transport fares. Why did you join the campaign? “Priama Diia” became an active participant in the campaign: our activists joined protests, put up posters, took part in public consultations, sent official appeals to the Kyiv City Administration, and shared information about the protests through our social media platforms. This active involvement stems from the fact that the issue of affordable public transport directly affects students. Because dormitories are located far from universities and private means of transportation are unaffordable, students are forced to rely constantly on marshrutkas, trolleybuses, and the metro to get to their places of study. This means that the cost of transportation—which under the new fares will amount to at least a quarter of a standard scholarship—is a constant and unavoidable expense for students. A nearly fourfold increase in fares will only intensify the financial pressure on students, who will now find it even harder to meet their basic needs. Who will be most affected by the increase? The change will be particularly noticeable for students who live on the outskirts or outside the city and are forced to plan their trips carefully and count every penny. At the same time, access to the city will be restricted not only for young people, but also for so-called pendulum migrants: teachers, nurses, shop assistants, construction workers, technical staff, service-sector workers—as well as elderly people, homeless people, and other vulnerable groups. Why is public transport a political issue for you? Public transport is essential for living a dignified life in the city and for equal access to its infrastructure. When we are forced to pay more in order to exercise the basic right to freedom of movement—and, along with it, the rights to work, education, and so on—our freedom is being restricted. The fact that neoliberal policies make low-income sections of the population less mobile and less free is a political problem. This decision embodies a particular vision of who should have access to the city and who should be excluded from social life. Cuts to the social sphere can limit the ability of the majority of citizens to participate equally in society, the economy, and politics. Social protests during wartime are often criticised with the argument that “now is not the time.” Do you encounter this, and how do you respond? We encounter this accusation quite often, but by the fifth year of the war it has lost all credibility. What benefits the enemy is precisely the idea that people should put their lives on hold and surrender their civil liberties. Freedom and security are a false dichotomy. For many people, resistance to Russian imperialism has acquired not only a negative but also a positive meaning: we are fighting not only against subjugation, but also for democracy and justice. In other words, we are fighting for a particular vision of Ukraine—one that is independent, autonomous, anti-authoritarian, classless, progressive, feminist, and socialist, in [Davyd] Chychkan’s words. In this sense, protests against abuses of power, anti-social and authoritarian laws, corruption scandals, and so on become a continuation of this struggle. We have come to see that the Ukrainian people’s victory in the war does not depend on the impunity of those in power, but, quite the contrary, on the free expression of the people’s will. Unaccountable power also makes it easier to profit from the war and deepens social inequality, which only increases resentment among the population and destabilises civil society by leaving people unable to meet their basic needs. All of this has a negative impact on our country’s military capacity. So social protest is, in fact, a very timely issue. Has your strategy of activism changed following the public pressure on former Priama Diia activist Maksym Shumakov? The criminal case against Shumakov has deepened our distrust of the security services, heightened concerns about the safety of our activists, and highlighted the importance of remaining visible. It became the culmination of prolonged pressure from the law enforcement agencies on our organisation and on progressive initiatives more broadly. Many comrades felt anxious because of how close and personally relevant these repressions had become. ...

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— Tara Knight - Going Rogue

 

at 9/21/26 1:31am

Author: Tara KnightTitle: Going RogueSubtitle: & Love Outside CommunityDate: 2025Notes: Written by Tara Knight. Trans Black Heritage flag design, cover & book design by Joy Frown/Rhiza.Source: <www.barnesandnoble.com/w/going-rogue-tara-knight/1147667531> Going Rogue & Love Outside Community — Tara Knight * Going <br>Rogue & Love Outside Community Tara Knight * Contents 1. [[#going-rogue][Going Rogue]] 1. [[#part-i-the-myth-of-us][Part I: The Myth of “Us”]] 1. [[#1-not-all-skinfolk-not-all-kinfolk-not-all-queerfolk-either][1. Not All Skinfolk, Not All Kinfolk, Not All Queerfolk Either]] 1. [[#2-chosen-family-still-choosesand-often-not-you][2. Chosen Family Still Chooses—And Often, Not You]] 1. [[#3-the-house-always-wins-how-the-margins-recreate-the-center][3. The House Always Wins: How the Margins Recreate the Center]] 1. [[#4-community-is-a-surveillance-state-with-rainbow-flags][4. Community is a Surveillance State with Rainbow Flags]] 1. [[#5-accountability-or-popularity-contest][5. Accountability or Popularity Contest?]] 1. [[#part-ii-the-politics-of-abandonment][Part II: The Politics of Abandonment]] 1. [[#6-they-love-your-pain-just-not-your-power][6. They Love Your Pain, Just Not Your Power]] 1. [[#7-every-time-i-spoke-they-asked-me-to-whisper][7. Every Time I Spoke, They Asked Me to Whisper]] 1. [[#8-inclusion-means-containment][8. Inclusion Means Containment]] 1. [[#9-solidarity-as-a-performance-review][9. Solidarity as a Performance Review]] 1. [[#10-safe-spaces-arent-safe-for-people-like-me][10. “Safe Spaces” Aren’t Safe for People Like Me]] 1. [[#part-iii-fugitive-futures][Part III: Fugitive Futures]] 1. [[#11-the-desert-is-better-than-the-plantation][11. The Desert Is Better Than the Plantation]] 1. [[#12-your-name-for-solitary-existence-is-my-term-for-autonomy][12. Your Name for Solitary Existence is My Term for Autonomy]] 1. [[#13-we-were-never-meant-to-survive-but-we-do][13. We Were Never Meant to Survive— But We Do]] 1. [[#14-going-rogue-as-an-ethical-practice][14. Going Rogue as an Ethical Practice]] 1. [[#15-the-future-is-not-a-place-we-will-arrive-together][15. The Future Is Not a Place We Will Arrive Together]] 1. [[#coda-going-rogue][Coda: Going Rogue]] 1. [[#love-outside-community][Love Outside Community]] 1. [[#1-against-legibility-toward-fire][1. Against Legibility, Toward Fire]] 1. [[#2-love-without-a-witness][2. Love Without a Witness]] 1. [[#3-t4t-as-a-spell-not-a-structure][3. T4T as a Spell, Not a Structure]] 1. [[#4-the-erotics-of-sovereignty][4. The Erotics of Sovereignty]] 1. [[#5-we-were-never-meant-to-be-palatable][5. We Were Never Meant to Be Palatable]] 1. [[#6-passion-beyond-redemption][6. Passion Beyond Redemption]] 1. [[#7-to-be-free-together-outside-the-frame][7. To Be Free Together, Outside the Frame]] GOING ROGUE A Diatribe PART I: THE MYTH OF “US” 1. Not All Skinfolk, Not All Kinfolk, Not All Queerfolk Either The truth I learned at a great cost reveals that being the same person does not mean you have solidarity. It is not safety. It is not kinship. It is not protection. Before I lost everything I thought that being Black, trans, queer or poor with political awareness formed a sacred bond with others. Some secret vow. Some unspoken agreement which stated: I have your back, you have mine. Throughout my life I brought this notion to meetings that consumed me before delivering cheerful smiles to everyone. They said “we got you,” but what they meant was: as long as you’re not too loud, not too angry, not too messy, not too critical of our favorite personalities, not too visibly poor, not too femme, not too different. People who resemble us but betray us create deeper emotional wounds. It has layers. The experience suddenly interrupts moments of happiness to reveal that being close to someone does not guarantee safety. It stings because it shouldn’t happen, and yet it does. Over and over again. The most destructive actions against me have originated from people who identify as radical. The most devastating experiences of elimination emerged from people who shared my pronouns and maintained organizational abilities. The truth about shared values is that they do not correlate with shared identity. The world does not work that way. The same enemy does not unite people who oppose each other despite their common adversary. The enemy resides within the hearts of particular individuals. The person who betrays me wears the appearance of a dashiki while displaying Pride pins thus making it simpler to doubt my perception than to acknowledge reality. It’s simpler to doubt my own perception than to understand that some of your oppressors may appear identical to you. 2. Chosen Family Still Chooses—And Often, Not You When someone first said “sister” with genuine affection I remembered the experience. That word entered me with the same tenderness as a blossoming cut. I clung to it like I needed air to breathe. I had lost my identity completely because no one considered me their family member. The idea of “chosen family” provided me with a sense of redemption. Someone finally understood me. Chose me. Claimed me. The basic reality of chosen family is that their selection process remains active. People show love to their chosen family through subtle restrictions they do not openly declare. ...

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— Derrick Broze - Vertical and Horizontal Agorism

 

at 9/21/26 1:22am

Author: Derrick BrozeTitle: Vertical and Horizontal AgorismDate: July 7th, 2017Source: https://theconsciousresistance.com/vertical-horizontal-agorism/ “As more people reject the State’s mystifications — nationalism, pseudo-Economics, false threats, and betrayed political promises — the Counter- Economy grows both vertically and horizontally. Horizontally, it involves more and more people who turn more and more of their activities toward the counter-economic; vertically, it means new structures (businesses and services) grow specifically to serve the Counter- Economy (safe communication links, arbitrators, insurance for specifically “illegal” activities, early forms of protection technology, and even guards and protectors). Eventually, the “underground” breaks into the overground where most people are agorists, few are statists, and the nearest State enforcement cannot effectively crush them.” SEK III, Applied Agorism, An Agorist Primer We are going to take a look at two different types of counter-economic action which are applicable to a variety of individuals in a range of living situations. We refer to these strategies as vertical and horizontal agorism. We are working with two complementary definitions of horizontal and vertical which further explain the “how” of agorist philosophy. These definitions are taken from the above quote from Samuel Konkin III and from Swedish Austrian economist Per Bylund and his 2006 essay “A Strategy for Forcing the State Back”. Let’s compare the definitions and see how they can provide a path for the eager agorist. Konkin starts by describing the counter-economy as growing horizontally in the sense of an increasing amount of the mainstream population turning their activities towards the non-statist economy. Vertical growth, in the Konkian sense, involves the actual creation of counter-institutions to the statist counterparts. This means building alternatives not only to the economic power centers via alternative currencies, but alternatives to the deadstream corporate media, the corporatized food production systems, the compliant academic centers, and the growing non-profit industrial complex. (Side note: the industry formerly known as the mainstream media is correctly referred to as the deadstream media because everything produced by this industry leads to misinformation, faulty decision making, and eventually, death. The corporate media is a constant stream of lies and decay.) Per Bylund describes his vision of vertical agorism as the “introvert” strategy based on the work and ideas of radical libertarian Karl Hess. Hess was an extremely eloquent speaker and speechwriter who grew from conservative to libertarian anarchist to a more left-leaning community organizer and activist. During the 1960’s, he was heavily involved in organizing on campus during the rise of the new left and antiwar student movements. Hess worked with Murray Rothbard, Konkin, Carl Ogelsby of the Students for a Democratic Society, and several others, attempting alliances between the emerging new left and libertarian movements. He was also one of the few people to have 100% of his wages stolen by the IRS for challenging the income tax. In the 1970’s, Hess shifted the focus of his activism to experiment in community building within the low income neighborhood of AdamsMorgan in Washington D.C. In his books, Community Technology and Neighborhood Power, Hess outlines how he worked with the local neighborhood to build an empowered community focused on sustainability, or what they termed “appropriate technology.” Hess describes a neighborhood with aquaponic gardening in basements, rooftop gardens, and community services meant to replace the state option. He was adamant that tools and technology directly contribute to freedom. By being able to share tools with your community members, you are able to share access to the means of production and encourage entrepreneurship. It is this focus on community empowerment that Per Bylund refers to as the vertical or introvert strategy. These actions can be considered agorist in the sense that they are aimed at building self and community reliance rather than dependence on external forces, but they are not explicitly counter-economic because they do not involve black and grey markets. Still, these vertical actions are extremely valuable and necessary. Vertical agorism would include participating in and creating community exchange networks, urban farming, backyard gardening, farmers market, supporting alternatives to the police, and supporting peer to peer decentralized technologies. While these vertical steps could potentially involve the use of the state’s currency (and therefore not completely counter-economic) they are still significant for challenging the dependency on the state and corporate classes. Other vertical steps may not directly involve exchanging currency but still work against dependency. dependency. This could include moral support and promotion of technologies that disrupt the status quo and foster stronger relationships among community members. One very pronounced example of vertical agorism is seen in the growing alternative media, which has been made possible by the internet. Less than one generation ago, the mainstream media, owned by megacorporations and tightly regulated by government, controlled all of the information that filtered down to society. The distribution of information in society came from the top down, making it very easy to brainwash and propagandize the population. However, with the rise of the internet, activists and freedom seeking individuals discovered that they could use this new medium to create their own media, become journalists themselves, and fight back against the propaganda of the state. In just a few short years, the alternative media quickly upset the monopoly of the mainstream media, taking up large portions of their once exclusive market share. The surge of independent media provides an excellent example in our study of how alternative systems and institutions can be created to compete with existing state monopolies. ...

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— Aeris - Toward an Economy of Relationships (Anarchist Mutual Credit System)

 

at 9/21/26 1:22am

Author: AerisTitle: Toward an Economy of Relationships (Anarchist Mutual Credit System)Date: May 8th, 2026Notes: Note: I haven’t updated my blog in quite some time, so my thoughts may vary from what I’ve written here. To any new readers, reproductive labor is the work that sustains and reproduces people and communities, from cooking and cleaning to caregiving and emotional support, not just pregnancy and childbirth.Source: https://aeris.baby/?p=1216 After reading Kevin Carson’s Anarchist Notes on the Theory of Money, Credit, and Capital, I was struck by two things: We can do this. Where the fuck is reproductive labor in this? Here’s where my thoughts have led me so far. If you’re not familiar with mutual credit, I’ve added a summary at the end you can read first – What IS Mutual Credit? Legibility and Credit Extension In Anarchist Notes, Carson quotes Thomas Greco on the proper basis of credit issuance: “It is crucial that the quantity of the exchange medium be balanced with the flow of goods and services coming into the market, and that it be self-adjusting…. If money is properly issued, there will never be any problem of under-supply or over-supply. The quantity of money will always be just the right amount to purchase the goods and services which it represents…. The proper basis of issue is the transfer of value, as it is being exchanged, from a producer to another (potential) producer.” And later, on what qualifies a participant to issue credit: “A participant is qualified to put into circulation an amount of ‘money’ up to the amount of his/her sales over a 2 or 3 month period.” Both treat market activity — value transfer between producers, sales turnover over a recent window — as the natural anchor for credit issuance. The unit of account is calibrated to the flow of legible exchange. This is sensible as far as it goes, but it leaves two substrates unaccounted for, and both matter. The ecological. “The transfer of value” treats value as a closed loop between producers, but every transfer is also a draw on ecological systems whose regenerative capacity is finite. Issuing credit against value that depends on irreversibly depleting non-substitutable natural capital is issuing claims against a wealth base that may cease to exist. The proper basis of issue isn’t only transfer of value — it’s transfer of value within the limits of what ecological systems can regenerate. Without that constraint built in, the “self-adjusting” property Greco describes is self-adjusting only with respect to the market, not with respect to the substrate the market depends on. The currency floats free of the conditions that make it possible. The reproductive. Sales-turnover-based credit qualification builds in a structural bias toward productive labor and against the labor that makes productive labor possible in the first place. Every adult capable of generating sales is the product of decades of reproductive work, such as feeding, teaching, protecting, integrating into community life, that doesn’t itself generate sales but without which there is nothing to sell and no one to sell it. A credit system that calibrates issuance to recent sales volume treats this entire substrate as exogenous, the way classical economics treats the household. Would one need to ‘rent’ their creditworthiness from someone in the productive sector, reinforcing hierarchies? We already see the capitalist version of this bias in lending discrimination against women-owned businesses, where the same pattern of “what counts as legitimate productive activity” leads to less lending. Continuing to favor productive activity in a mutual credit system would carry the bias with it. Both omissions suffer the same underlying issue: the proper basis of credit issuance has to make legible what the system actually depends on. Sales volume is easy to measure. Ecological regenerative capacity is harder. Reproductive labor may be harder still. But the difficulty of measurement isn’t a justification for treating the substrate as if it weren’t there. Credit extension is a decision about whose contribution counts as economic and who is recognized as a participant capable of issuing claims against future flows. When the basis of legibility is sales turnover, the people whose labor doesn’t pass through markets become economically invisible, even though the markets depend on their labor. They become illegible in the social field, with no material agency that the system recognizes. Someone in that position may reasonably wonder whether someone like them is allowed to dream of a different life — because the system has already answered, in its choice of what to count, that they’re not the kind of person economic flows are organized around. In time, the coercion of the system becomes internalized. Although I haven’t explored it here, I also believe that records should be adjustable afterwards, during clearing or during a collaborative accountability session. If an activity ultimately had a greater impact than anticipated, the historical record should be adjusted to reflect that instead of the original transaction considered final. What matters is the actual relationship and its consequences. Some examples would be like a fisherman who overfishes being held responsible for damages to the fishery or a sex worker internalizing any unexpected costs imposed by a client. A mutual credit system worth building has to extend legibility to ecological stewardship and to reproductive labor, both, and it has to be accounted for in such a way that the system functions even when its users do not naturally adhere to anarchist ideology. The basis of issue itself has to internalize what capitalism made external. The rest of these notes work out what that may look like, although I’m still exploring functional implementation. ...

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— Derrick Broze - Towards Panarchy

 

at 9/21/26 1:18am

Author: Derrick BrozeTitle: Towards PanarchySubtitle: Anarchy Without AdjectivesDate: May 1st, 2015Source: https://theconsciousresistance.com/towards-panarchy-anarchy-without-adjectives/ Since “Anarchy” is one of the most maligned and misunderstood words in the English language, we are going to use a very simple definition that gets straight to the point for the purposes of this conversation. Simply put, Anarchy is a social arrangement in which there are no “rulers.” A ruler is defined as a person who claims unwanted authority over another life. Sadly, there cannot be a master without a slave, and by the nature of the relationship, the slave is physically and morally obligated to obey the commands of the master. Many people believe this relationship is the stitch that holds the fabric of civilized society together, while in reality, nothing has caused more pain and suffering in this world than corrupt authority and the concept of rulers and slaves. These social relationships are the manifestations of the internal struggles that exist within us. The relationships between rulers and slaves, kings and subjects and even presidents and citizens do not exist in reality. They are mental constructs, which allow some people to harm and take advantage of others in the open while maintaining moral superiority. This is far more dangerous than the relationship of a common criminal to his victims– When someone attacks from a position of authority, with moral justification, his crimes will go unpunished, and his power will be amplified as a result. This is why police brutality and government corruption have been a problem since before ancient Rome. The relationship of authority breeds and encourages corruption. That being said, to achieve anarchy, or the abolition of masters and slaves, the solution is far more complicated than simply having a revolution and taking on the current establishment in physical combat, though some argue that this will be a part of the process. This has been attempted many times before and each time power has shifted hands, but the cycle of violence and slavery has continued. This cycle has been in constant repetition throughout the generations. While power has shifted hands over time, very little has actually changed about how our species views the world, how we view one another, or how we view ourselves as individuals. This is not by mistake. Mountains of propaganda have been released over the centuries to reinforce the old ways and to keep people from thinking outside of the box. Thankfully, there were a number of brave philosophers who recognized this dynamic and worked to construct a philosophy of anti-authoritarianism, which came to be known as “anarchism”. Later we will explore the anarchist themed writings of Lao-Tzu, from back in the 6th century. There are those who believe Christ was the first Anarchist. William Godwin, a writer in France during the 1790’s, is said to have been the first philosophical anarchist with his book Political Justice. The first person to publicly proclaim himself an Anarchist was Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, with the publication of his seminal work What is Property? in 1840. Around that time in America, anarchism was taking roots in the abolition movement. Many abolitionists recognized that slavery and government were essentially the same thing and that slavery will exist in one form or another as long as government exists. One of the main pioneers in American anarchist thought was outspoken entrepreneur and abolitionist, Lysander Spooner. Unlike many other anarchist philosophers in Europe, Spooner’s breed of anarchism was strictly individualistic, with a strong emphasis on markets and property rights. Spooner was also very critical of collectivist ideas like democracy and constitutionalism, so his work was heavily focused on deconstructing these concepts and showing them as deceptive forms of oppression. Spooner thought of a way to put his philosophy into action by creating his own businesses that would directly compete with government services. One of his most groundbreaking entrepreneurial achievements was forming the “American Letter Company”, a letter and package delivery business that competed with the US Postal Service and proved that we don’t need the government to deliver mail. Hundreds of years later this strategy was identified by Samuel Edward Konkin III as “Agorism,” a philosophy of non-compliance that uses underground markets as a means of making the state obsolete. We will be exploring the potential of Agorism throughout this book. As with many other popular schools of thought, anarchism has evolved and even splintered off over the years in various directions, creating a number of sub-sects within the philosophy. In the 1870’s, Europe saw a great divide between anarcho-communists and anarcho-collectivists. Around the same time, American anarchists were debating the pros and cons of individualist and communist-anarchist thought. As a result, anarchist philosophers in Europe and America began calling for “anarchism without adjectives”, which was essentially an acceptance of all those who believe in self-governance and a lack of coercion regardless of their particular economic solution. More recently, libertarian activist and writer Karl Hess discussed the need for what he called “Anarchism Without Hyphens.” Hess was well-known for working in and out of political circles, with Anarchists on the left and the right. In 1980 he outlined his argument for Anarchy Without Hyphens. ...

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— K. C. Sinclair - When Wars Converge

 

at 9/18/26 10:25am

Author: K. C. SinclairTitle: When Wars ConvergeDate: September 17, 2026Source: Retrieved on September 18, 2026 from historykeepshappening.wordpress.com When Ukraine carried out a military strike on an Iranian commercial vessel in the Caspian Sea on July 25th, 2026, killing one sailor and injuring another, under the pretense that the ship was transporting arms to Russia, some mainstream media pundits pondered aloud whether two major wars were converging. Namely, the war that Russia has been waging against Ukraine since 2014 (escalating in 2022) and the war that America and Israel started with Iran in 2026 (growing out of the war that Israel launched against Palestine in 2023, expanding to target Lebanon, Yemen, Syria, Iraq and Iran as the years dragged on.) On July 29th, 2026, Ukraine’s allies Saudi Arabia and America carried out a series of coordinated strikes on Iraqi state-affiliated militias, killing 20 militia members and injuring another 32. Back in the 2000s, Ukraine participated in the American and British led invasion and occupation of Iraq, but Ukrainian forces were eventually ousted by Iraqi insurgents defending their territory. In the 2010s and ‘20s, Ukraine sold arms to wealthy Saudi Arabia, helping to facilitate its aggression against impoverished Yemen. Also in the early 2020s, Ukraine purchased various kinds of Israeli weapons (already battle-tested against Palestinians), helping pad the wallets of Israeli arms makers and enabling them to produce more weapons for use against Palestine, Lebanon and Iran, etc. Before the two big wars even began, they’d already long been brewing together in the cauldron of Western imperialism, which doesn’t excuse Russian aggression any more than it does its Israeli counterpart. In July of 2026, Saudi Arabia also carried out its first airstrikes on Yemen since March of 2022, breaking a four-year long ceasefire. Back in 2015, Saudi Arabia (with the backing of America, Canada and the United Arab Emirates) launched a war and blockade against Yemen. Now, in 2026, the war between the two main factions in Yemen is back on, the one faction being backed by Saudi Arabia but losing ground to the other, aligned with Palestine and Iran, and expanding the territory it controls down the west coast of Yemen, giving it greater positioning over the global shipping route of the Red Sea, which it had previously blockaded in solidarity with Palestine starting in late 2023. Back in 2025, when Israel and America engaged in more limited airstrikes on Iran, Ukraine restricted itself to making public statements in support of the aggression, but in 2026, Ukraine has shifted to a more active role. In addition to the aforementioned attack on an Iranian commercial vessel, Ukraine has been making alliances with and supplying drones to the Gulf monarchies that host American military bases and thereby facilitate American and Israeli aggression against Iran and other countries in South West Asia. Ukraine’s alliance with the UAE, which includes the previously mentioned drone sales, also implicates Ukraine in the genocide in Sudan, since the UAE arms and otherwise backs the Rapid Support Forces there. One of Ukraine’s most staunch allies, Canada, has already seen its weapons end up in the hands of RSF fighters via Canada’s arms sales to the UAE. In March of 2026, Iran even claimed it had struck a Ukrainian drone depot in the UAE. In May, the Washington Post revealed that the UAE and Saudi Arabia had been secretly carrying out numerous attacks on Iran since the beginning of the war. In early 2026, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy on the sidelines of international security meetings twice met with Reza Pahlavi, the son of the last Shah of Iran, only further confirming Zelenskyy’s total lack of concern for either democracy or imperialist aggression as such. Not to mention liberal Ukraine’s appeasement of its own fascists (already covered in one of my previous articles, Fascism, Militarism and Anarchism), or its unethical and anti-civilian use of anti-personnel landmines and depleted uranium rounds in warfare (already mentioned in my article, The Downward Spiral of Militarism.) Social Struggle and Internationalism Back in 2024, an anonymous Israeli settler anarchist, in an article titled ‘Gaza, My Love’ and published by the American anarcho-liberal website CrimethInc, claimed that a different kind of convergence was occurring, a convergence of social struggles, specifically that the “Ukrainian resistance to Russian imperialism” is connected to “all struggles for freedom and liberation”, namely the movements in Palestine, Rojava (part of Kurdistan), Iran and Myanmar, among others. The Israeli writer further claimed that “we draw inspiration, strength, and lessons from each other.” Neither the Israeli author nor the editors at CrimethInc made any distinction in the article between Palestinians being a stateless Indigenous people (Israelis and Brits being their colonizers) and Ukrainians being the ethnically predominate people within their own state, a state that has in fact occupied the territories of Indigenous peoples such as the still unrecognized Gagauz of southwest Ukraine and the Crimean Tatar people of the southeast, the latter not being officially recognized by Ukraine until it was already too late, after Russia had taken Crimea in 2014. ...

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— Lilia Folt - Riding the Waves of Repression

 

at 9/17/26 7:32pm

Author: Lilia FoltTitle: Riding the Waves of RepressionDate: August 30th, 2026Notes: Originally published in Dissonant Times, a grassroots journalism and counter-info project from the Willamette Valley of Oregon.Author bio: Lilia Folt is a transsexual anarchist enamored with cycles of death and rebirth, creation and destruction, and convinced that strategic thinking requires limitless, amoral compassion. She’s excited to explore these ideas and more in her column, Anarchic Reflections.Source: Dissonant Times “Trust your instincts. To all people, and across all civilizations, you know what ‘normal’ is. You know what ‘beautiful’ is. You know what ‘good’ is. You know that families are right. You know that children are precious and beautiful and must be protected. You know that the criminal, and the junkie, and the predator, is a threat to normal, healthy, living. This is so much deeper than issues about taxation and regulation, though they’re incredibly important. It’s about normal, healthy, ordered, living.” — Stephen Miller These words, spoken by White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller at the Ministerial on the Resurgence of Political Terrorism, sum up the fascist project. Normal, healthy, ordered living. And to achieve this, the expulsion and extermination of everything deemed abnormal, unnatural, disorderly — in a word, uncontrollable. This Ministerial, called for by the US, brought officials from 66 countries together in Washington, DC on July 16th, 2026. At the Ministerial, Stephen Miller and secretary of state Marco Rubio declared that, amidst devastating and accelerating climate-destruction, compounding economic crises, and genocidal and imperialist wars, “left-wing terrorism” constitutes the gravest threat to civilization, and that rooting it out and fighting it must be prioritized accordingly by world leaders and the states they command. Rarely has the essential function of the state* been laid so bare. Defenders of the state claim that the state exists to provide for and protect its people. At many times in history, this claim has been given a tenuous truth due to the pittances it has given in the form of social programs. However, the past year and a half has shown what the state really is when push comes to shove: a means of sorting people into categories of included/excluded, productive to the economy/surplus to the economy, to provide conditional ‘safety’ and support for the former, and violence in forms both dramatic and insidiously minute for the latter. And, as the crises continue to pile on, more and more people are being sorted into the latter category. The Ministerial is merely the formalization of an ongoing global wave of repression of social movements on the part of the governments of this planet. Here in the United States, there is the Prairieland case, Spokane, the Minnesota 15[1]. Overseas, in the Philippines and Indonesia, there are high-profile cases wherein anarchists are being targeted explicitly for espousing an anti-state, anti-capitalist ideology. In Indonesia, dozens of anarchist comrades have been arrested, kept in terrible conditions, and charged with being part of the so-called “Chaos Star Network,” a completely fictional entity made up by the Indonesian state. Some are calling it a renewed “Red Scare”[2]. Comrades in the Philippines are calling it the “Black Scare,” to point out how much anarchism as an ideology is being singled out in the repression[3]. And of course, no matter what you call it, here in the United States the repressive wave against social movements is one in the same as the campaign of terror, violence against, and displacement of immigrants, further legislative attempts to eliminate transgender existence, a rollback of women’s rights in general, and an overall attempt to restrict any form of truly free expression and existence. Here in Eugene, there are the federal indictments that came down for alleged actions during the unrest in January following the ICE murders of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, numerous arrests and detainments by feds for protest activity at the Federal Building, and arrests at various street protests over the past year and a half that indicate a growing intolerance for disruptive protest³. There is a steady trickle of ICE detainments, sometimes leading to deportations, numbers of which have increased since earlier this year. Not to mention, the continued war on the unhoused in the form of sweeps of encampments, and now recently, persistent ticketing, and arrest of members and supporters of longstanding local street-feed initiative Neighbors Feeding Neighbors[4]. For me, the most poignant example of this repressive wave is the Prairieland trials. For those who don’t know: On July 4th, 2025, a small noise demonstration occurred at the Prairieland Detention Center in Alvarado, Texas — an ICE concentration camp. Noise demonstrations, or noise demos, are of course protests outside of jails or other detention facilities meant to communicate to those on the inside and let them know they’re not alone. At this noise demo, a police officer drew his weapon on unarmed protestors, and an armed protestor — Benjamin “Champagne” Song — shot at the ground in front of the officer to keep him from shooting anyone. Allegedly the officer was injured, but prosecution never produced evidence of this during the trial. All attendees at the noise demo were arrested, as well as some people who had given them rides, and later people who had nothing to do with the events that night besides knowing and being in relation to those who were present. One of the most egregious examples of this were the charges against Daniel “Des” Sanchez Estrada, who was charged with “corruptly concealing a document or record” for moving a box of zines on request from his wife, Maricela Rueda, who had been present at the demo[5]. ...

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— Kenyon Zimmer - Premature Anti-Communists?

 

at 9/17/26 4:44pm

Author: Kenyon ZimmerTitle: Premature Anti-Communists?Subtitle: American Anarchism, the Russian Revolution, and Left-Wing Libertarian Anti-Communism, 1917–1939Date: 2009Notes: The author thanks the late Paul Avrich, William Chase, Donna Gabaccia, Scott Giltner, Wendy Goldman, Janelle Greenberg, Franca Iacovetta, Richard Oestreicher, Marcus Rediker, Johnathan Scott, and two anonymous reviewers for their comments, and Barry Pateman of the Emma Goldman Papers at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Kate Sharpley Library for his invaluable and generous assistance.Source: Labor: Studies in Working-Class History of the Americas, Volume 6, Issue 2 (2009) pp. 45–72 “The greatest problem facing the Anarchists since the War,” the struggling American anarchist newspaper Freedom declared in 1934, “is summed up in the word ‘Russia.’ All revolutionists, all enemies of bourgeois society, have a natural sympathy with the Russian workers, who ‘stormed heaven’ and, for the first time in history, set about the building of socialism. But all friends of freedom feel an equally natural repugnance for many aspects of the Russian Revolution.” [1] Caught between these two impulses, American anarchism entered into an irresolvable crisis after 1917. It retained the majority of its adherents through the interwar period, but they became increasingly marginalized and ineffectual. This paradox of persistence and marginalization resulted not from a blind refusal to adapt to new circumstances but from an informed and compelling analysis of Communist politics that guided anarchists’ every move. The transnational dynamics of anarchists’ encounter with the Russian Revolution, the discourse they developed as a result, and their subsequent actions reveal a hidden tradition of left-wing libertarian anti-Communism and offer a new perspective on the evolution of the American Left. John Earl Hynes notes that among historians anti-Communism is usually “treated as a political obscenity, something without redeeming social value.” Ellen Schrecker’s authoritative work on the topic, Many Are the Crimes, portrays all opponents of Communism, on both the Left and Right, as part of a vast “anticommunist network” serving McCarthyism. By contrast Haynes, Richard Gid Powers and others have shown that anti-Communism was not a unified movement and its history “is not the same as the story of anticommunist extremism.” Their work has attempted to rehabilitate certain strains of American anti-Communism, but it is difficult to escape the fact that many of the Social Democratic and liberal anti-Communists these authors praise did, as Schrecker charges, knowingly function “as a kind of intelligence service” for the less morally scrupulous mainstream anti-Communist movement and lent their support to some of America’s most excessive domestic and foreign Cold War policies. There were, of course, exceptions, and Schrecker certainly overstates her case. Anarchists, who have been completely overlooked by historians on both sides of this debate, provide one of the most intriguing counterexamples. [2] Their absence from the literature on Communism and anti-Communism is understandable, however, in light of the incongruous position anarchists occupied. The anarchist anti-Communist critique developed out of a complex transnational process almost totally autonomous from the Social Democratic, liberal and conservative anti-Communist movements, as well as from the Trotskyist “Left Opposition” that emerged after 1928. While their “premature” anti-Communism alienated them from most radicals and liberals in the 1920s and the Popular Front movement of the 1930s, their intransigent radicalism and libertarianism excluded them from the ranks of mainstream anti-Communism. This, in turn, has led to their erasure from Cold War and post–Cold War scholarship within which the poles of “Left” and “Right” are defined in terms of support for either Soviet Communism or American democracy — both of which the anarchists rejected as inherently corrupt and oppressive. But by ignoring their analysis, opponents of the Soviet Union opened the way for the destructive anti-Communism of the McCarthy era, while Communists and their sympathizers blinded themselves to fundamental problems of the Soviet system. Red Dawn At the time of the Russian Revolution, there were tens of thousands of anarchist activists and many times more sympathizers in the United States. From 1900 to 1917, the circulation of the American anarchist press, which included publications in more than a dozen languages and served as the makeshift institutional base of the movement, averaged more than sixty thousand. [3] The most successful newspaper was the Yiddish Fraye Arbeter Shtime, which peaked at a circulation of nearly thirty thousand in 1914. Fifty-one Italian-language titles also appeared between 1887 and 1923, indicating anarchism’s place as the dominant ideology of the Italian American Left — in 1914 there were probably more Italian anarchists in New York and New Jersey than in all of Italy. [4] Though popularly known for a few individual acts of violent “propaganda by the deed,” anarchists were also among the leading American proponents of syndicalism, which viewed militant unions utilizing direct action and the general strike as both defenders of workers’ interests and instruments of revolutionary change. Anarchists played a leading role, albeit one subordinate to the more numerous Socialists, within the Jewish labor movement, and the explicitly anarcho-syndicalist Union of Russian Workers of the United States and Canada (UORW), founded in 1908, counted seven thousand members in 1914 (and, in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, fifteen thousand members by the end of 1919). Native- and foreign-born anarchists — including many Italians and UORW members — constituted an influential faction within the syndicalist Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), which peaked at around one hundred thousand members in 1917. [5] Former IWW member William Z. Foster, who considered syndicalism to be “anarchism made practical,” also found anarchists to be the strongest supporters of his small Syndicalist League of North America and its successor, the International Trade Union Educational League, founded in 1913 and 1915, respectively. [6] ...

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— OCD Rebellion - Towards an Anarchist centred critical theory of OCD

 

at 9/17/26 1:24am

Author: OCD RebellionTitle: Towards an Anarchist centred critical theory of OCDDate: 16/09/26Source: Original draft here: <medium.com/@davidayokadeniyi/towards-an-anarchist-phenomenology-and-critical-theory-of-ocd-b0c36b7744a3> Looking on the anarchist library there is nothing specifically related to OCD. Ugh.... Same as a few years ago, while there is a lot of criticism of psychiatry and diagnostic logics used to pathologise and often otherise and exclude folks, what is not talked about in detail is specifically OCD, which stands for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder and how it relates to the anti authoritarian and no hierarchical ideology, milieu and ‘state’ of social formation called anarchism, anarchists and an-arche. In terms of. General academic theory there has been an attempt by writers Matthew Hiller and Eva Stepney called “The Paradox of Purity” pointing out certain guidelines for what could make a useful approach to critical theory. It touches on themes and thinkers that I also found relevant such as Mary Douglas and her work on purity, pollution, ritual and dirt such as found in the classic text “Purity and Danger,” in 1966. While I fine essay in and of itself what I often think is a missing thread not only in this article but in larger radical (and even “anarchist”) discussions is the usage of anarchist theory and thinkers which can locate key concerns in not only the phenomenology of OCD but in cultural conceptions which can make it a cross match for critical analysis. OCD is Dis-Order? Anarchy is Order? A lot of critical theories as well as more poststructural theories are about challenging binaries and things which structure and control our life whether of normality, rationality of even concepts of order, chaos and control. As stated in the aforementioned article a Critical OCD approach looks to challenge binaries of Order/Chaos, similar binaries that are crucial to contemporary, social and historical conceptions of anarchy. Anarchist parlance has had a long history with playing between anarchism and its association with chaos, violence and disorder. Anselme Bellagarigue has the famous quote “Anarchy is order, government is civil war,” with the famous anarchist emblem painting the anarchist A over an O to symbolise in avarice to hegemonic notions that anarchy is in line with harmony order. While some anarchists have thought to recuperate anarchism from negative notions of chaos, messiness and disorder some anarchists have embraced it such as Enzo Martucci in an essay titled “In praise of chaos” who gave chaos a new meaning to signify non conformity, flux and freedom. Order is a weird term taking on multiple associations, some metaphorical, some societal and some even at the micro and even visual scale. An example of this is the anarchist inspired writer James C Scott and his use of the visual in Seeing Like a State to elucidate “Visual and aesthetic” order (A supposes characteristic of Authoritarian High Modernism). OCD can be contrasted to order in many ways but in this section it is interesting to look at the often found label “symmetry/Order” OCD with OCD finding heavy cultural concepts with psychotic levels of neatness, harmony and visual unity with “Im so OCD” often referring to a need to have things in just the right order, so precise as to try to reach absolute perfection. As Meaghan Rice of TalkSPace says “Symmetry and Ordering OCD is a subtype of OCD causes a person to focus excessively on how things look or are arranged, balanced, or positioned.” This leads to distress if the compulsions or actions to neaten, balance, position or order/perfect things aren’t done “correctly. While this is just one aspect of OCD it is to note that there has been work with OCD in disability studies regarding order. As the writers of The paradox of Purity put it, “cb5 Disability studies scholars have challenged medicalized and individualized accounts of OCD, arguing that the disorder is instead a symptom of modernity, in which individuals over-internalize social imperatives towards order and control (Davis 11; Castel 302; Fleissner 34). To this end, they present OCD as a constructed category that pathologizes thoughts and behavior that are deemed as excessive or unproductive, with treatment acting to discipline non-normative ways of being.” While not cited in the article, this passage is similar to the one found in “The philosophy of Dirt” on page 126 echoing the work of Norbert Elias in “The Civilising Mission,” in which the early modern period is exemplified by a new desire for self discipline and self control, with the increase of modern forms of surveillance creating an internalised form in which shame and disgust continue to rear their ugly head. For Olli Langerspetz, the aim of purity in the early modern period was not hygiene, or health but an intensified control of the private life of peoples, culminating in a sort of self respectability culture which reinforced norms of self government maybe even literally. Other writers such as Nikolas Rose in ‘governing the soul’ echo these sentiments, as it was influential in shaping the ideal mora; compass of the obedient worker. He calls is ‘the government of the self” and the book is subtitled The Shaping of The Private Self. It talks about work, family, war and governmental techniques of increasing the obedience and self discipline of the citizenry. ...

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— Derrick Broze - Assessing the Agorist Movement’s Progression from Statism to Freedom

 

at 9/17/26 12:49am

Author: Derrick BrozeTitle: Assessing the Agorist Movement’s Progression from Statism to FreedomDate: September 7th, 2016Source: https://c4ss.org/content/45978 The goal of this essay is to examine where the counter-economy and the “Agorist movement” is in relation to Samuel E. Konkin III’s hypothesis of a progression from Statism to Agorism in four phases. Readers who are new to the philosophy of Agorism and the practice of counter-economics are likely better served by reading The New Libertarian Manifesto or introductory essays provided by C4SS. In the late 1970’s, anarchist, activist, and writer Samuel E. Konkin III (SEKIII) released The New Libertarian Manifesto, presenting his case for a new strain of Libertarianism that he called “New Libertarianism”. The philosophy behind the New Libertarian Movement was Agorism, named after the “agora”, the Greek word for market place. “An agorist is one who acts consistently for freedom and in freedom,” SEKIII wrote. Essentially, Agorism is a radical libertarian philosophy that seeks to create a society free of coercion and force by using black and gray markets in the underground or illegal economy to siphon power away from the State. Konkin termed this strategy “counter-economics”, which he considered to be all peaceful economic activity that takes place outside the purview and control of the State. In the NLM, SEKIII outlines his vision of a more free and just world by first describing society’s present condition: Statism. Konkin briefly outlines the path of human thinking from slavery to the discovery of libertarian thought and also emphasizes the importance of consistency between means and ends. Indeed, Konkin believes exposing Statist inconsistencies is “the most crucial activity of the libertarian theorist.” From here Konkin describes the goal of Agorism and the Counter Economic means necessary to achieve this goal. In order to paint a clear picture of the Agorist struggle for a more free world, Konkin explains the four stages from Statism to Agorism, as well as various actions that a consciously practicing Agorist might seize upon in order to advance Agorist propaganda and Counter-Economic activity. By understanding Konkin’s vision of progress it is possible to create a diagram to outline how far society as a whole has come and where we, as individuals, fit within these steps. After the steps have been mapped it will then be possible to pinpoint strategies that can help the New Libertarian move from one stage to the next. Konkin starts in “Phase Zero: Zero-Density Agorist Society”. Phase Zero is the time when no Agorists existed and libertarian thought was scattered and unorganized, which Konkin says has been “most of human history”. Once Libertarians became aware of the philosophy of Agorism counter-economic activity began and we moved into “Phase 1: Low-Density Agorist Society”. In this phase the first counter-economic libertarians appear. Konkin believed that this was a dangerous time for activists who would be sold “Get-Liberty-quick” schemes. Konkin also reminds Agorist’s not to be tempted by political campaigns. “All will fail if for no other reason than Liberty grows individual by individual. Mass conversion is impossible,” he wrote. Phase 1 is presented as a time when the few existing practicing counter-economists’ main goal is recruitment and creation of “‘radical caucuses,’ ginger groups, or as a ‘Libertarian Left’ faction in general”. Konkin also notes that the majority of society is acting “with little understanding of any theory but who are induced by material gain to evade, avoid, or defy the State. Surely they are a hopeful potential?”. In order to achieve the free society Konkin again emphasizes the need for education and “consciousness-raising of counter-economists to libertarian understanding and mutual supportiveness”. SEKIII also called for the creation of a Movement of the Libertarian Left which may grow strong enough in influence and numbers in the latter stages of Phase 1 to be able to “block marginal actions by the State”. The ability to block actions by the State has absolutely increased in recent years (see this and this for starters) with the explosion of decentralized, peer to peer networks via the internet that allow for rapid sharing of information and calls to organize. With the spread of ideas like Freedom Cells we will continue to see communities stand up against State actors. As we move to “Phase 2: Mid-Density, Small Condensation Agorist Society” the statists take notice of Agorism. Is it in this phase that Konkin believes the counter-economy will grow and Agorists will begin to represent “an ever-larger agorist sub-society embedded in the statist society”. Although the majority of Agorists are still living within the States claimed territories, we begin to see a “spectrum of the degree of agorism in most individuals”. This includes benefactors of the State who are “highly statist” and “a few fully conscious of the agorist alternative”, however, the majority of society is still engaged in the Statist economy. From here Konkin suggests that Agorists may want to start condensing into districts, ghettos, islands, or space colonies. We are, in fact, beginning to see the creation of Agorist minded communities, eco-villages, co-ops, and underground spaces which emphasize counter-economic activity and the creation of counter-institutions to the State. Konkin believed these Agorist communities might be able to count on the sympathy of mainstream society to prevent an attack from the State. This is the moment where the question of community protection and defense comes into play. We have seen the creation of community protection alternatives to the police state monopoly, but so far nothing completely Agorist has come into existence. ...

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— Iain Mckay - What it means to be libertarian

 

at 9/16/26 8:29pm

Author: Iain MckayTitle: What it means to be libertarianDate: September 8, 2017Notes: Talk: What it means to be libertarian (London, 28-Oct-2017)Source: https://anarchism.pageabode.com/blog/talk-what-it-means-to-be-libertarian-london-28-oct-2017/ , Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20260917011058/https://anarchism.pageabode.com/blog/talk-what-it-means-to-be-libertarian-london-28-oct-2017/   Yes, it is that time of the year again – the London Anarchist Bookfair. This year’s Bookfair will be on Saturday 28th October from 10am to 7pm at Park View School, West Green Road, London, N15 3QR. As usual, I have a talk entitled – after some humming-and-hawing about doing a Poverty of Philosophy related one (too niche) – as follows: What it means to be libertarian 2017 marks 160 years since Joseph Déjacque coined the word “libertarian” in an open letter challenging Proudhon’s patriarchal and market socialist views. By the dawn of the twentieth century, anarchists across the world had embraced the term. Today, it is now increasingly associated with the far-right. How did this happen? What does it mean to be a libertarian? Can you be a right-wing libertarian? Can we reclaim the word for the twenty-first century? These questions as well as the history of “libertarian” will be explored by Iain McKay, author of “An Anarchist FAQ”. There seem to be a lot of Russian Revolution ones this year, so just as well I got in early last year with The Bolshevik Myth Reloaded. Talking of the Russian revolution, I have a chapter in a new book by AK Press entitled Bloodstained: One Hundred Years of Leninist Counterrevolution. Not completely happy with the title (nothing to do with me!), but very happy with the contents as it contains a lot of works I think of as essential reading for any socialist (libertarian or otherwise): Anarchy and “Scientific” Communism, by Luigi Fabbri The Soviet System or the Dictatorship of the Proletariat? by Rudolf Rocker The Idea of Equality and the Bolsheviks, by Nestor Makhno The State and Revolution: Theory and Practice, by Iain McKay A Decade of Bolshevism, by Alexander Berkman Preface to Ida Mett’s “The Kronstadt Commune,” by Maurice Brinton The Kronstadt Commune, by Ida Mett The Struggle Against Fascism Begins with the Struggle Against Bolshevism, by Otto Rühle My Disillusionment in Russia—Afterword, by Emma Goldman Cries in the Wilderness: Alexander Berkman and Russian Prisoner Aid, by Barry Pateman Bolshevism and Stalinism, by Paul Mattick The Role of Bolshevik Ideology in the Birth of the Bureaucracy, by Cornelius Castoriadis I must admit to feeling very humble about being included with such greats thinkers and activists. Hopefully my chapter will not suffer in comparison. The chapter is something I’ve wanted to do for sometime, which is a review (if you like) of Lenin’s The State and Revolution. It is in two parts, the first discusses the theory (i.e., the book) and the second indicates reality (i.e., what happened – based on section H.6 and section H.1.7 of An Anarchist FAQ). Some of what happened was not in the book (but could be predicted, knowing more about Bolshevik ideology), but a lot of post-October developments were in-line with what was promised. This is best seen from the economic notions expressed (centralised, statist, as per Marxist orthodoxy) but also politically (centralisation, primarily). It may be Lenin’s most libertarian work, but it is not that libertarian when you pay attention. Anyways, the book contains many an important text (those by Fabbri and Castoriadis are my personal favourites) and I recommend it wholeheartedly. On less happy news, in relation to the bookfair I did notice that the Communist Workers Organisation has a meeting of Russia (presumably, the Bolsheviks were great until they seized power?) and stall (like in recent years) and I have to wonder why. They are not libertarian communists, not council communists, but followers of Armadeo Bordiga – an advocate of party dictatorship (and whose leadership of the Communist Party of Italy actively aided the rise of fascism). So the anarchist bookfair is giving space to a bunch of anti-anarchist ultra-leftists, great… Which suggests what it means to be libertarian is somewhat important, not least the right-wing appropriation of the term in the US (and to a lesser degree here in the UK). Obviously, this talk will be based on my recent 160 Years of Libertarian article (soon to appear in the journal Anarcho-Syndicalist Review). It would appear this is particularly relevant with developments in America and the anti-”alt-right” demonstrations. Some have noted that “it seems observably true that libertarianism is disproportionately a gateway drug to the alt-right. Again, the question is… why?” (The Insidious Libertarian-to-Alt-Right Pipeline – also see As cockroaches scurry for the darkness, so do the Nazis) Let us remember that the current usage of “libertarian” – both valid (anarchist/socialist) and invalid (right-wing “Libertarian”, or more correctly propertarian) traces back to Joseph Déjacque. It was coined in opposition to the sexism of Proudhon, to note the illogicality of attacking the hierarchies of property and State while defending that within the home. American propertarians stole the term in the 1950s to use in defending the former, the hierarchies associated with property. Locke, after all, defended the patriarchal family in the same way he did the hierarchies of property – consent. ...

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— Philip Ruff - Anarchy in the USSR

 

at 9/16/26 8:20pm

Author: Philip RuffTitle: Anarchy in the USSRSubtitle: A New BeginningDate: 1991Notes: Print copies can be bought from anarchist publisher AK Press: <www.akuk.com>Source: <www.archive.org>   Seventy years after the death of Kropotkin, the massacre of the Kronstadt Commune and the rout of Makhno, the Party which outlawed anarchism in Russia has itself become a banned organisation. But anarchy in the USSR, has made a new beginning. Might anarchism now fill the ideological vacuum, left by the collapse of Marxism? Here, with commentaries from some of their West-European comrades, the new Russian anarchists speak for themselves about their ideas, and of how anarchy may bring a new order, based on freedom, to the chaos of the USSR.   In memory of David Markham (1913 — 1983) a harbinger of Russian anarchism who put resistance to oppression above the idealisation of aims Introduction “We do not fear anarchy, but invoke it, convinced as we are that anarchy, meaning the full affirmation of unfettered popular life, must inaugurate liberty, equality, justice, the new order and the clash between Revolution and Reaction”. (M. A. Bakunin)[1] * * * On 28 May, 1989, 20,000 people marched through Moscow, demonstrating against the Congress of People’s Deputies. The Guardian’s Jonathan Steele noticed among the banners, “a black flag with a red star carried by the recently formed Anarcho-Syndicalist Club. The slogan read: ‘No confidence in the Supreme Soviet — form a left-wing faction’”. This was the first open display by anarchists in the Soviet capital since 13 February, 1921, when a crowd of the same size joined the funeral cortege of Peter Kropotkin. Then came Kronstadt, the rout of Makhno and the outlawing of open anarchist organisation[2]. Trotsky boasted: “At last the Soviet government, with an iron broom, has rid Russia of anarchism”. Anarchism in the USSR was not so easily swept away. The full history of the anarchist underground during the Stalin years has not been told (there were ‘armed anarchist uprisings’ in Siberia, in the late 1920s, of which nothing is known). Yagoda’s OGPU was still busy, breaking-up illegal anarchist groups, well into the early 1930s. From then, until the late 1940s, the only news of anarchists in Russia which reached the west was of those in prisons or labour camps. In October 1936, a delegation of the Spanish CNT went to Moscow, seeking Soviet aid against Franco. The delegation took with them a long list[3] of exiled or imprisoned anarchists and syndicalists, whose release and passage to Spain they requested of the Soviet government. Heading the list was Aaron Baron, one of the founders of the Nabat Confederation in Ukraine, who had been a prisoner since 1920. The CNT delegation went back to Spain alone. Baron was unexpectedly set free in 1938 and allowed to settle in Kharkov. Less than a year later, he was re-arrested and disappeared[4] for ever. A lot of old political prisoners (like the Left SR leader, Maria Spiridonova, held in the “isolator” at Orel[5]) were killed by the NKVD in 1941, during the evacuation of territory threatened by the Nazi invasion: to stop them falling into the hands of the Germans (who would have hanged them!). By 1942, the Germans occupied Ukraine, Byelorussia and the Baltic states, and had reached Leningrad and the outskirts of Moscow. Among the partisan groups who resisted, were some who professed an allegiance to anarchism and the memory of Makhno. Not every claim to that effect, however, can be swallowed without a good-sized pinch of salt. One post-war Russian emigre maintained, in July 1955, that an anarchist resistance organisation existed in Byelorussia, called the Black Cat. The organisation was said to have, “led the fight against the Nazis; and it continues that fight against the Bolsheviks. Many of its members profess to follow the example of Makhno”[6]. In reality, the Black Cat guerrilla band was a force of thirty Byelorussian Nazis, commanded by Michael Vitushka, who were trained at Otto Skorzeny’s SS commando school at Dahlwitz, near Berlin, and dropped behind Soviet lines[7] at the end of the war. But anarchist partisans were active in Ukraine. In 1944–45, the nationalist Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) noted in its war despatches, freguent encounters with “the Ukrainian anarchist partisans”. Assuming that these were the same people who later appeared as prisoners, in the camps at Karaganda and Vorkuta, they included some old members of Makhno’s army[8]; the younger ones having become anarchists under the spell of Makhno’s legend. Another independent partisan unit, which harked back to Ukraine’s anarchist past, was the Nabat youth organisation, set up by V. I. Us. A school headmaster who had been badly wounded and captured by the Germans in 1941, Us escaped to his native village and recruited his former pupils as guerrillas. In November, 1943, Nabat launched an armed uprising, seized the village and created a bridgehead on the West bank of the Dnieper, which it held until reinforced by a Corps of the Second Ukrainian Front. Nabat was highly commended by the political division of the Fourth Guards Army. After Soviet forces regained control of Ukraine, Us was arrested and sentenced to twenty years, for “voluntarily surrendering and creating a nationalist organisation”. Though Us was set free four years later, he and Nabat were only rehabilitated after Stalin’s death[9]. ...

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— CharlieBanga & Semiyah - The Assumptive Logic of Anarchism

 

at 9/16/26 12:12pm

Author: CharlieBanga & SemiyahTitle: The Assumptive Logic of AnarchismDate: 06/01/26Source: https://charliebanga.substack.com/p/the-assumptive-logic-of-anarchism “William Godwin, Max Stirner, Mikhail Bakunin, Peter Kropotkin, Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, Emma Goldman, and Errico Malatesta didn’t really talk about Blackness, were not really concerned with Blackness, didn’t bring Blackness to bear on their thinking, and didn’t think that Blackness’s specificity demanded attention.” — Marquis Bey, Anarcho-Blackness “The world came to a global consensus that blackness must bear the brunt of being an occasional outsider—a being whose inclusion in the group is circumstantial. The human employs black suffering as a form of relief since the black’s lived experience delineates that they are the ones cursed with personifying an abject form of humanity.” — Anarcha Semiyah, Freedom Fantasies and Failures: Assata, Alby, and The Human ”Anarkatas seek to abolish the Human construct as the center of empowerment completely, and look towards new ways of understanding being and personhood, and ultimately new ways by which we actively tend toward our collective transformation. In the words of Calvin Warren “as long as we continue to invest in the value structure that renders the human the highest, most important being in the world, we will continue to plead for recognition and acceptance.” — Afrofuturist Abolitionist of the Americas, Anarkata: A statement Distinct from other socialist schools of thought, anarchism asserts that it’s vehemently opposed to all coercive hierarchies as they exist in every aspect of life. Whereas the marxists primarily aims to abolish economic exploitation and destroy the capitalist mode of production, the revolutionary feminists strive to dismantle male domination and eradicate cis-hetero patriarchy, and the post-colonial insurgent seeks to end settler colonialism and imperialist interventions on dispossessed lands, the anarchist primarily begins with the position that all systems of oppression and pyramidal power structures are a threat and the antithesis to the total liberation of all marginalized, poor, and working class people—regardless of race, gender, and sexuality. In this context, to be an anarchist is to be ungovernable and unapologetically anti-statist, anti-racist, anti-capitalist, anti-imperialist, and anti-authoritarian etc. Ideally and theoretically, this should mean that this decentralized and intersectional ideology should somehow also account for and be attentive to anti-black violence. However, as you’ll see this becomes increasingly more complicated when considering the fact that aside from the black anarchist milieu, specifically the second wave, analyses around anti-blackness (which should not be conflated with the catch-all term racism) is hauntingly absent within every tendency and tradition of anarchism. This in and of itself is not surprising when you understand that the inability to genuinely engage with black studies and black radical theories is a historic reoccurrence—a limitation that always shows up across the entire political spectrum. But what does it mean for the white and non-black (people-of-color) anarchists, who, despite having (what we believe to be) the most flexible, consistent and comprehensive radical analytic to date? What’s to be said about our so-called comrades that religiously express the sentiment that at the end of the day all our struggles are analogous because “none of us are free until we’re all free”? What happens when they appear to be under the assumption that we’re all fighting the same battles and beasts? While we could agree that we do indeed share certain commonalities with other nonblack anarchists and have similar beliefs, values, and approaches, it’s important to investigate the human subject and reckon with the often disregarded differences in relation to the paradigmatic positionality of the black slave subject. And more to the point, although most are not class reductionists or campist, the average modern anarchist, even those that mean well, still tend to think only at the level of political economy and material reality. This explains why so many non-black anarchists remain unequipped to adequately address what is happening on a libidinal, ontological, and psychoanalytical level when witnessing human civil society’s regular and perpetual (mis)treatment of black beings. This is why Afropessimism is imperative and indispensable. Afropessimists are primarily staunch critics of all agents and entities that uphold, endorse, and perpetuate anti-blackness. They recognize the state and its entire apparatus not only as main contributors and facilitators of anti-black violence, but all systems of oppression in general as negrophobic technologies that proliferates the continuation of black bondage and terror throughout the diaspora. In a world, where anti-blackness is foundational, institutional, trans-generational, intercontinental, a global phenomenon and a structural antagonism that maintains the universal master and slave relational dynamic, solidarity around anarchy, mutual-aid, and revolutionary societal transformation is not enough to overcome the absurdity of social death. That is to say, anarchic grand narratives and notions of prefigurative politics, direct action, and horizontalism alone cannot resolve or redress the gratuitous violence that is constitutive of african abjection. In the following examples, we offer an examination of a post-structuralist anarchist text through an afropessimist lens of interpretation to illustrate something that is often overlooked and avoided. At the central part of our black anarchist and afropessimist analysis (our anarcho-afropessimist critique if you will) is the claim that anarchism, whether it be post, social, or individualist, have yet to thoroughly account for the “negro problem” that underpins contemporary anarchic ideologies, which stems from classical anarchism’s historical ties to enlightenment humanism. ...

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— Punch Up * Kick Down Distro - Abolish Punishment

 

at 9/15/26 7:49pm

Author: Punch Up * Kick Down DistroTitle: Abolish PunishmentSubtitle: Rejecting Carceral Ideology & Embracing Radical Compassion Author’s Note What you’re about to read is the second edition of this zine. This will continue to be a living text, hopefully. We here at Punch Up • Kick Down invite you to engage with it. We’d love for you to voice your critiques, point out blind spots, offer fresh ideas, and we welcome feedback of any kind. Our email is on the back of this book. More importantly, we invite you to further the conversation with the people around you. Since I am not an academic, this is not an academic work. I have done my best to cite references and credit resources. The numbers you see next to quotes or excerpts - like this1` – correspond numerically to the list on the reference page in the back of this zine. For sources, refer to that reference page. I am highly indebted to the source materials that I cite and refer to within, and want to acknowledge those works for inspiring, shaping, informing, and building this piece. By no means is this an exhaustive or definitive work. I don’t claim to be breaking new ground here. My goal has been to gather and collect some ideas, distill and organize those ideas, and to present them in a way that is (hopefully) coherent and accessible. I hope this can help folks think critically about these topics even if they may be challenging. Also (I can’t believe I have to say this) at no point in the writing or editing of this work did we utilize Large Language Models (aka A.I.) While this whole work is a critique of punishment, I wish nothing but Destruction to the demonic machines who threaten our capacity to think and relate, who deny us our full humanity. Punishment As meaning-seeking creatures, human beings long for narrative structure. In response to the disempowering conditions of today's world, we often cling to a dichotomy of Good versus Evil. Filled with righteous indignation, burdened by economic stress, haunted by existential uncertainty, and emboldened by cognitive biases and social conditioning, we search for somewhere to place the blame for these feelings. Inflicting pain on someone we deem deserving of it is the only power that feels within reach. “Being alive in a knife-edge moment like this, being forced to be complicit in it while our so-called leaders fail so miserably to act, unavoidably generates all kinds of morbid symptoms. Inevitably, people reach for narratives to make sense of this reality.”6 Modern conditions create moral panic and foster a social dynamic that reframes systemic social problems as individual moral failings. This path leads us towards a belief that other people are a threat; that cooperation is impossible and we must therefore seek out and punish some existential enemy. This general blaming structure is a phenomenon prevalent all along the socio-political spectrum: identifying a target for discontentedness and deriving a sense of identity, purpose, and superiority by punishing scapegoats. Basic functioning requires constant cognitive dissonance, particularly for politically conscious people who are aware of the implicit violence of our society. Directing a pent up tension towards some external enemy becomes a source of validation for the precarious self. The uncertainty and disorientation we feel can be soothed through rituals of punishment. The reinforcement of punitive carceral ideology is dressed up as “good politics” and deemed virtuous. Too often, though, we take out our frustrations on members of our own class and community. This is simply a matter of proximity; we can’t get our hands around Elon Musk’s throat, so we instead we search for reflections of oppressors as they appear in the behavior and attitudes of the people in our personal lives. In doing so, we feel as if we are attacking and dismantling oppressive structures, when in reality we are tearing down the people whose wellbeing is enmeshed in our own. When we engage in acts of punishment against people with whom we could potentially have solidarity, we are being irresponsible with our righteous outrage. Taking out disgust at systemic violence and social injustice on people who are also victims of those oppressive forces (particularly those who are in our same oppressed class and with whom we have some political affinity) is a “reproduction of the dominator within the dominated.”17 How we relate to members of our communities and the people who occupy our lives is how we put our values into practice. If those values are punitive, the affects will be felt in the ways we treat each other. Our material survival requires collaboration, and our social health requires connection. The relationships we must foster to meet these needs should be founded on good-will, dignity, and friendship, not suspicion, judgment, or revenge fantasies. This is not to suggest we sit around singing kumbaya with our oppressors or their ideological defendants. However, the demand for moral purity and the impulse to punish when that demand is inevitably unattainable is a threat to the health of our personal relationships as well collective emancipatory political aspirations. ...

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— Emon Azmi - The Reformism Inherent to Statism

 

at 9/15/26 11:12am

Author: Emon AzmiTitle: The Reformism Inherent to StatismSubtitle: Autonomous Politics against FascismDate: September 15, 2026Source: https://thatanarkatamuslim.substack.com/p/the-statism-inherent-to-fascism As oppressive conditions internal to the u.s. settler empire are clarified through the (re)consolidation of amerikan fascism, the prospect of revolution feels strikingly urgent and yet ever more remote. So much of our “past” seems to be reappearing as our present, but our moment is not the same and the state of our struggles reflect this fact. Many purported “revolutionary outlooks” are taking on reformist ends and proposing reformist means. (Neo)liberalism is shaping the political projects of most progressive forces in the imperial core. Much of ‘the left’ continues holding to statist theories and methodologies of struggle despite these proving incapable of meeting the challenges defining our political epoch in any revolutionary way, especially on u.s. occupied Turtle Island. Our stands against fascism, if they are to be effective, must come through our liberation struggles. And our liberation struggles, if we are to win, must move beyond statism. Here, we will explore: 1) how the State, repression, and reformism interconnect as counterrevolutionary forces and fuel fascism; 2) why government must be de-centered and statism must be rejected to keep our movements oriented toward liberation; and 3) the politics of autonomy as necessarily revolutionary, and expropriation as an alternative strategic logic for winning concessions from the government. Inshallah, i hope you derive something beneficial from this essay and engage the works i reference throughout further. The State, Repression, & Reformism There’s a pervasive notion across progressive spaces, especially in the u.s. settler empire, that we should quell the ire of the State to “win favorable policy changes (concessions) until conditions are right for revolution”. That unless a movement is big enough, the people angry enough, the cause popular enough, we do what’s necessary to stave off the State’s mobilization against us, to keep its repression confined and not widely felt. So when radicals within these movements and spaces say, as the writers of Black Armed Joy do, “We seek unmediated and uncompromising conflict with the State and Capital… Living by principle means we dismantle systems (as best we can) in this world at this moment.”, they are marginalized, framed as undisciplined and impractical for “inviting repression”. There are crucial things to consider around repression when acting on our conditions. Protecting those in and across our communities who are most vulnerable when it heightens and as it spreads is necessary. Organizing to effectively counteract it is necessary and a task in itself. But we should not confuse giving these things proper attention and effort with the impulse to avoid or stave off repression in itself, whether all-together or until some arbitrary “revolutionary moment”. Jonathan Jackson illustrates the significance of repression in Blood In My Eye. Discussing the aftermath of a 1969 shootout around the Black Panther Party LA headquarters, he says: Have you grasped the significance of the backlash? It has stung the fascist. The people are in foment, all of them, of all persuasion. They don’t dig midnight or dawn raiding parties, bullets with steel jackets, cowardly pigs perched upon their roofs, the same gases manufactured for use against the Vietnamese Liberators blowing back into their faces: Repression. Do you see the effect it has on the uncommitted? Comrade, Repression exposes. By drawing out the violence of the beast, the vanguard party is demonstrating for the world to examine just what terms [capitalist, fascist, rule] is predicated on — their power to organize violence, our acquiesce. (Jackson, p.23) Repression is a core part of revolution. The drive to avoid it, in notable part, roots to a politics of reform. Reformists, progressive and conservative alike, derive no benefit from ongoing direct conflict with the State and ruling classes, nor the wide-spread repression accompanying it, when a path to negotiation is available. In fact, even when no such path exists, the benefit of this type of conflict and its accompanying repression is still negligible; because it indicates some strategic failing on the part of the reform movement or the reformist currents in a revolutionary movement. In the former case, where a path to negotiation is available, the State functions to orient the movement toward capture upfront. It sets the terms: 1) upon which the movement’s ‘cause’ is defined — i.e. what and how demands are developed and put forth; and 2) under which the movement’s ‘struggle’ is waged — i.e. what and how strategies are conceived and implemented. This setting of terms determines the means, methods, and terrains in/through which antagonism will be allowed to popularly surface as tension between the movement and government. If the movement succeeds on the basis of these terms, its demands and strategy were deemed legitimate in the eyes of the State. An agreement can be made. The surfaced tension can be resolved through government policy. The antagonism persists through reconciliation. Hierarchical power is upheld and the patriarchal-colonial-capitalist order is reformed, reproduced through collaboration. The State incorporates the movement into itself, suppressing the parts it can’t. ...

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— Emon Azmi - Solidarity has to have teeth

 

at 9/15/26 11:05am

Author: Emon AzmiTitle: Solidarity has to have teethSubtitle: Where’s the anti-imperialism that goes beyond lip service in the west?Source: https://thatanarkatamuslim.substack.com/p/solidarity-has-to-have-teeth A recent Open Letter to Iran’s Political Prisoners published by the Guardian has gotten lots of attention (criticism and defense). i have some thoughts on this. However, i’m more interested in discussing an ongoing anti-anarchism issue within the western ‘anti-imperialist’ sphere. Let’s get into it. (Note: the title is a quote from F12 in a recent interview with The Dugout) On the Guardian letter (kinda) That the Islamic Republic of Iran is, de facto, an anti-imperial State in our present international context is not a question. That carcerality is a defining feature of modern States, a core colonial-imperial infrastructure exported from and upheld to an outsized degree by the west (especially the u.s. and israel), is not a question. That the Guardian letter does not properly articulate this — that it does not offer a constructive analysis of the resulting tensions nor a useful outlook for anti-carceral international solidarity, insofar as revolutionary internationalism is concerned — is clear. There is no need to defend the letter or its signatories on these points. It is, however, frustrating that many segments of the western left are sooner jumping to defend the anti-imperial position of the Islamic Republic than to clarify how their anti-imperialist praxis contends with carcerality across contexts and present an alternative anti-carceral outlook within their critique. It’s even more frustrating that this is so unsurprising. The sib X, from HoodSchoolNYC, hit the nail on the head when they penned this: I think a lot of the western left, and right for that matter, engages politics like sports teams mascots. There’s a certain decadence to an “anti imperialism” that never requires a drop of your blood — only statements, open letters and unfounded audacity… It’s all so unserious. Safiya Bukhari said, “it could be that, after all, we don’t want the same things”, maybe that is true. What frustrates me most is that despite freedom dreams or slogans, the proverbial big bad wolf of imperialism sleeps peacefully each night in the house we all live in. The evident lack of substantive anti-imperialism in the west — that is, the kind which would position progressive and anti-war forces against empire’s existence in their ‘internationalist’ practice — is telling. Where is the solidarity with teeth so needed in this moment? At present, ‘anti-imperialism’ in the west largely amounts to sectarian navel gazing, sideline cheering, and moral posturing of the sort we see in the Guardian letter. ‘Narrative war’ is waged between factions of leftists in a virtual ‘marketplace of ideas’ in a propaganda economy that metabolizes their open letters and statements — fueling their hostilities and feeding off their content, rendering the bulk of their interventions materially insignificant, relegating them to silos in our current media ecosystem. Here, ‘anti-imperialism’ is largely assessed by one’s rhetorical fealty to whatever stance or analysis their niche of leftists has deemed correct. “Hollow”, ironically, characterizes this all quite well. Criticisms can be pointed at the individuals, groups, media outlets, and social media accounts comprising these factions — many, justifiably so. But at what point does this counterproductive form of practice itself receive greater scrutiny? At what point do insights from those who have been naming the issues of this approach to ‘solidarity’, analyzing the conditions from which it emerges and the forces perpetuating it, get foregrounded? At what point will the work of developing material bases of power at the grassroots level become the primary site from which revolutionary internationalism is conceptualized and discussed, specifically among ‘anti-imperialists’ in the west? To these ends, non-statist and anti-statist frameworks (e.g. anarchism, autonomism) have great value. But a pervasive left anti-anarchism is blurring this reality. Reflection on left anti-anarchism (Note: My essay The Reformism Inherent to Statism discusses this further) Elder Ashanti Alston made multiple crucial points at the 2025 National Black Radical Organizing Conference. During a panel discussion , anarchism and anti-imperialism had been presented as fundamentally at odds. Having an affinity for anarchism was presented in one case, by elder Ajamu Baraka, as emblematic of one’s unpreparedness “to subject themselves to the discipline of structure, the discipline of organization.” He described it as a form of ‘individualism’, that “plays into the fundamental liberalism of this capitalist, backward society.”, and which ultimately undermines a truly revolutionary praxis in both national and international contexts. Ajamu’s characterization of anarchism and what prompts many radicals (especially Black and Indigenous) to draw upon it in their praxes was off. In the context of Black radicalism, anarchism has proven especially useful in developing alternative forms of organization and concepts of how our liberation struggle may look, as decentralized and horizontal practice are two of its ideological tenets. This has enabled deeper reflection on and more direct confrontation with how we reproduce (and have upheld) oppressive systems in and through our own movements. ...

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— E. DRAMA - A Short History of Anarchism in Brussels

 

at 9/15/26 2:52am

Author: E. DRAMATitle: A Short History of Anarchism in BrusselsSubtitle: Part 1 (1830–1900)Date: 15/09/2026Notes: Zine published in Brussels to spread the knowledge of the city’s Anarchist history. ***A short history of Anarchism in Brussels*** — **Part 1 (1830 — 1900)**   E. Drama (2026) This text is the first part of three zines on the history of anarchism in Brussels, in an effort to promote its memory both here and abroad. It is part of the history of the international social movements, the local proletariat, the different emancipatory struggles and the revolutionary processes in Belgium. It is based on a collection of pre-existing resources, combined into a digestible, coherent narrative. Because this was just meant to be a zine, there was little research done based on primary sources (to generate new information) or particular effort paid to settling historical contradictions and debates. You’ll forgive me if you find that some information is incomplete or missing. My aim was to bring you a basic understanding of our local history, without immediately turning this into a fat book. Choices were made, certainly influenced by my stronger identification with anarcho-communism. The following text is unfortunately very dominated by cis men. This is due to several reasons: Prevailing sexism within different anarchist movements, societal pressures keeping women and queer people out of public politics, a lack of available sources on figures less in the spotlight, the patriarchal reflexes of anarchist historiography (including my own), and the absence of archives due to political repression of anarchist, queer and feminist movements. I hope that this text will inspire new research into overlooked organisers and forgotten groups. For those interested in picking up this task, you can find a list of anarchist women active in Brussels at the end of this zine. As we live in a time of increasing hopelessness and despair, we remember the past to imagine the future. We are inspired by the revolutionary dreams and struggles that have lived, just like we will inspire new generations. What does “Anarchism” mean? I am not sure if it is possible to give a real “definition” of anarchism. It is often said that there are just as many anarchism-s as there are anarchists. As we will see in this zine/booklet, there are many different ideological currents. Each have their own histories, even if they are often intertwined. Thus, the following explanation is my own interpretation. The word “Anarchism” comes from the greek terms “an-arkos”, meaning the absence of power or domination. Originally used to refer to a state of chaos and lawlessness, it was appropriated by the first libertarian socialist or “anarchist” thinkers. Indeed, they had realised that the violence and suffering rife in their societies was not the result of an absence of “order” or “power”. Instead, it came forth from the structures of oppression and inequality. Domination of humans over humans (and humans over non-human nature) created inequality, hatred and suffering. Instead of bringing prosperity to the poor, capitalist industrialisation had thus brought them only misery. Capitalism, colonialism, organised religion, imperialism and patriarchy are all systems rooted in hierarchical violence, enabling the rich and the powerful to exploit the impoverished working classes and other vulnerable groups, appropriating the fruits of their labour and depriving them of the means necessary for survival. Those who are hungry, fearful and wounded then have little choice but to use violence to secure the resources they need, often becoming oppressors themselves to those in weaker positions. The collection of institutions that we call the “State” (the police forces, courts, government, parliament, military, taxation system, etc.) are not here to protect these “wretched of the earth”. On the contrary; The primary function and design of the State is to maintain “order” for the upper classes, by preventing the abolition of privilege and inequality. The State and its institutions secure their interests through the use of violence: riot police, prisons, psychiatric asylums, economic sanctions, fines, bailiffs, forced conscription, forced labour, cultural suppression, expropriation, banishment, deportation, corporal punishment, slavery, concentration camps, executions, war, genocide. The State, its elites and its institutions only possess this power because of the historical dispossession and exploitation of the working class, women, and colonised peoples. Anarchists believe that all humans (and other beings) should live in freedom and equality (equity), in a society rid of hierarchies and interpersonal domination, providing for everyone’s material needs. This society is what we call “Socialism” or “Communism”. But contrary to the Marxists, (most) anarchists believe that this cannot be achieved through a capture of State power. They think that the dismantling of the hierarchical systems of oppression, especially the State, is a necessary (first) step in the construction of this better world. That utopian societal way of being, were all structures of domination have disappeared, is what we call “Anarchy”. ...

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— Yasmeen Mekawy - Feeling Revolution

 

at 9/15/26 12:33am

Author: Yasmeen MekawyTitle: Feeling RevolutionSubtitle: Affect and the Afterlives of the Arab UprisingsDate: 29 April 2026Source: “The I.B. Tauris Handbook of Authoritarianism in the Arab World”, 2026 Introduction One demand that rang out across virtually all the Arab uprisings was the call for dignity, or karama. Though its precise meaning varied across national contexts and political actors, the act of reclaiming dignity generally signaled a response to sustained humiliation, and an assertion of pride, empowerment, and self-worth. As Dakhli argues in a recent special issue on post-revolutionary affect in the region,[1] dignity is at the heart understanding the 2011 mobilizations, understood as the struggle for “lives that are both felt as good and recognized as good.”[2] Dignity, in this sense, is not only a normative claim but an affective experience: during moments of mass mobilization and the occupation of public space, revolutionaries engaged in acts of reclaiming dignity through the expression of emotions such as anger, joy, love, and solidarity. These emotional practices were not only personal but deeply political, entangled with broader aspirations for social and political justice and the desire to escape what Dakhli describes as “negative emotions”[3] tied to systemic repression. What renders these emotions political is that “through their subjectivation and sharing, they produce a political imaginary.”[4] This chapter asks, what can affect and emotion tell us about the Arab uprisings and their aftermath? Scholars have turned to affect and emotion to account for a wide array of political phenomena—from rebellion, revolution, and resistance, to co-optation, polarization, quiescence, and even popular support for authoritarianism. This chapter surveys key contributions to this growing body of work since 2011, situating them within broader literatures on emotion in social movements, affect theory, and the study of informal politics and everyday practices in authoritarian contexts. Rather than offering a comprehensive review, this is a selective mapping of key intersections, conceptual convergences, and thematic innovations that illustrate how an emotion-centered approach can illuminate processes of mobilization, demobilization, and the exercise of authoritarian power during and after the Arab uprisings. There are several challenges scholars studying political emotion come up against: First, there is no consensus on the concepts of emotion and affect, and the boundaries of what counts as an emotion or “feeling states” are often unclear. In her highly influential and widely cited study of the ACT UP movement in Chicago, Gould makes a useful distinction between affect and emotion, conceptualizing the former as visceral, inchoate, non-cognitive, felt responses to stimuli, and the latter as socially and culturally constructed codifications of those responses.[5] This distinction is useful because affect not only calls attention to the embodied aspect of feeling, but also leaves room for unknowability and unpredictability, helping to avoid a deterministic and automated understanding of stimulus and response, of emotions and action. Second, there are no unified models or generalized theories of emotions in mobilization comparable to those found in more traditional political science accounts of revolution or democratization. The “emotional turn” in social movement studies, crystallized in the influential volume by Goodwin, Jasper and Polletta,[6] has provided valuable conceptual tools for analyzing how affect and emotion shape repertoires of contention, framing strategies, recruitment, identity formation, and movement sustainability.[7] Yet these tools are often employed in fragmented ways, and remain subject to ongoing critique and revision. This lack of grand theory is not a failure of scholarly rigor, but rather a reflection of the nature of emotion itself, which is inherently ambiguous, ambivalent, contradictory, nonlinear, and multidirectional. Works highlighted in this review take this ambivalence seriously while reflecting on the political work that emotions do. Finally, scholars must confront the perennial methodological question: how does one access, identify, and read emotion? A range of methods—from literary analysis to survey experiments to machine learning and emotion recognition or “sentiment analysis” software—have been deployed to study political emotion. This chapter focuses primarily on works that use ethnographic and interpretive discursive methods, which are especially attuned to the construction and circulation of meaning in emotionally saturated contexts. While not discounting the value of political psychology, this approach foregrounds the epistemological assumptions that undergird affective inquiry and emphasizes the importance of deep case knowledge. Tracing how affect shapes both social reproduction and political rupture requires sustained attention to history, language, symbolic form, and everday practice. Mobilization The vast majority of political science scholarship seeking to explain the onset of the Arab uprisings focused on identifying the structural causes of revolution over the long durée: youth bulges, climbing inequality and unemployment rates, the corruption intrinsic to crony capitalism, globalization and imperial exploitation, and neoliberal reforms such as the retraction of subsidies, services, and welfare benefits.[8] Much of the literature has also referred to structural characteristics of the state to explain variation in the uprisings, for example, pointing to regime type (e.g., monarchy vs. republic) to explain differences in scale and trajectory. While some scholars acknowledged the limitations of state-centered approaches and called for greater attention to contentious dynamics from below, the post-2011 authoritarian reconsolidation has largely pulled the field back toward its familiar analytical terrain: regimes, institutions, and elite behavior. ...

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