|
Anarchy After Leftism, by Bob Black
"A farewell to the Anarchism that was!" One of the wittiest writers on this side of the anarchist milieu lets his scathing fury out on Murray Bookchin, and in the process, Social Ecology and Left Anarchism. Hilarious and well done, another step towards "Post-Left Anarchy." A Green History of the World, by Clive Pointing One of the most important works in print. Pointing offers an ecological critique and history of civilization, pointing towards collapse through ecological excess. This book lays out a complete argument against civilization that is as personally revealing and urgent. The Continuing Appeal of Nationalism, Fredy Perlman No description yet. Society Against the State, by Pierre Clastres Groundbreaking anthropological work and essential reading for anarchists. This was the book to show that 'primitive' societies were not only without hierarchical, institutionalized power, but they had social mechanisms to ensure these never took place. The Revolution of Everyday Life, by Raoul Vaneigen Finally back in print! This is easily one of the most influential books ever written. Partnered the Society of the Spectacle as primary text for the Situationist International. "The essential handbook of all of us still alienated by modern capitalism." "You want to fuck around with us? Not for long!" - Vaneigem. Journey to the Ancestral Self, by Tamarack Song Tamarack brings us a kind of primal 'art of war'. This book serves as an opening towards the journey of undomesticating our lives. Important for anyone who's serious about ending the totality of civilization and reconnecting with wildness. No new age crap here. Having Little, Being Much, by Lorraine Perlman A great insight to one of the more amazing of thinkers of our time from the person who knew him best. This chronicle gives a background to where Fredy was coming and going with his ideas as well as track the development of his anarch-'ism'. Against His-story, Against Leviathan, by Fredy Perlman The book that broke the mold. This essay is a grand, critical narrative of civilization as told through the amazing story teller, Fredy Perlman. It offers critique through example as it strings through the rise and fall of Empires that gave birth to our Western, Techno-Industrial nightmare in a comprehensive historical view. Feral Revolution, by Feral Faun Long awaited collection of classic Feral essays. After the tedious introduction from Alfredo Bonanno it’s extremely worthwhile. Feral was responsible for pushing egoist elements and widening the span of anti-civ critique as these essays all show. Cultural Creatives, by Paul H. Ray and Sherry Ruth Anderson In an attempt to reconceptualize shifting American demographics that's similar to David Brook's Bobos in Paradise (Forecasts, Mar. 13), Ray and Anderson posit that hidden within America are 50 million people, 26% of the population, who are what they call "cultural creatives." Based on 12 years of survey research, 100 focus groups and dozens of interviews, their study presents a complex portrait of these citizens. According to the authors, cultural creatives share a series of attitudes and concerns: "they like to get a synoptic view [and] see all the parts spread out side by side and trace the interconnections"; they have strong concerns about the well-being of families; they have a well-developed social consciousness and a "guarded optimism for the future"; they are disenchanted with "owning more stuff... materialism... status display and the glaring social inequities of race" and are critical of almost every big institution of modern society, including corporations and government. This cultural groupAdrawn from all classes, races, education and income levels and social backgroundsAhas emerged only during the past 50 years and, according to the authors, forms a coherent subculture, only "missing a self-awareness as a whole people." Ray and Anderson argue that cultural creatives hold the potential for radically reshaping the values and material realities, the "deep structure," of American life, and so they aim to make this group cognizant of their shared values, to bring about substantive changes. More successful than Brooks in grappling with issues of gender, ethnicity, race and class, Ray and Anderson offer unusual insights that, while broad and sweeping, shed new light on American culture and politics. Running on Emptiness, by John Zerzan The newest of three collections of John’s essays, and still holding up. More essays in the ‘origins’ vein, plus the bulk of his ‘short and sweet’ pieces with a recent memoir and introduction by Theresa Kintz. Against Civilization, by John Zerzan Anthology spanning nearly fifty writers from Freud to Horkheimer to Shepard and F.C. Separated into five sections on life before civilization to its coming, nature and pathology as well as resistance to it. Great introduction to ideas and writers. Elements of Refusal, by John Zerzan The first collection of essays from John Zerzan, who has been providing fuel for the Anarcho-Primitivist critique. This book revolves around his ground breaking ‘origins’ essays, which pushed the realm of anarchist critique into once sacred grounds of civilization and symbolic thought. This is essential reading. My Name Is Chellis and I'm In Recovery From Western Civilization, by Chellis GlendinningOUT Chellis lays out, through an amazingly moving narrative, a psychological critique of civilization. Moving from civilization itself being a trauma through a juxtaposition of her life. Extremely powerful. Evasion, from CrimethInc. A 288 page novel-like narrative, Evasion is one person's travelogue of thievery and trespassing across the country, evading not only arrest, but also the 40-hour workweek and hopeless boredom of modern life. The journey documents a literal and metaphorical reclamation of an individual's life and the spaces surrounding them -scamming, squatting, dumpstering, train hopping and shoplifting a life worth living and a world worth the fighting for. ". . . then life began, and since then we remember each dumpster, abandoned house, and foot-chase by retail security. At night, after running around, plotting and scheming, our checklist items all crossed out, we paused to think:'What to do tomorrow?' and the answer was always, 'As we please . . .'" Days of War, Nights of Love, from CrimethInc.OUT After years full of adventure, mayhem and more zines, pamphlets, manifestos, newsletters and diatribes than you could ever hope to keep track of, we are very proud to present the first of many CrimethInc. books. A hefty 292 pages full of exciting ideas and amazing tales related with the characteristic CrimethInc. passion and humor you have come to love, this brilliantly and abundantly illustrated tome is your ticket to a world free of charge! Boasting a format that is truly beyond description, Days of War, Nights of Love contains articles, essays, stories, interviews, posters, artwork, maps, myths, realities, fantasies, historical accounts, declarations, manifestos, and exclamations aimed at the revolution of your world. With the book being so difficult to describe without actually having in it in your hands (otherwise why would we have gone to the trouble to make a book, if it could be described accurately in just a few short sentences?), we have opted to instead make movie-trailer like pieces that convey the mood and idea of the book. Listening to the Land, by Derrick Jensen Newly reissued, this work is the outcome of Derricks’ epiphanies of civilization. Instead of offering a single perspective the book is a collection of 30 conversations with various ‘activists’ and ‘writers’ as a communal effort to address the problems we are all facing. Great introduction to writers and ideas. The Culture of Make Believe, by Derrick Jensen This mammoth book is vital. It is a journey of trying to understand Hate, moving through the traditional conceptions into an amazingly comprehensive assault on civilization. Never a dull moment and no easy book to walk away from. Essential. A Language Older Than Words, by Derrick Jensen An amazingly personal and heartfelt attack on civilization. Derrick contrasts the abuse in his life against the culture, and more so, civilization that propagates it. His style is direct and extremely accessible giving books that are hard to put down and give a hard smack of reality of the world we live in. The Language of the Land, by James StephensonOUT A rare adventure with the last Stone Age hunting and gathering tribe in Africa. In l997 James Stephenson arranged to have almost a full year free, a year he wanted to spend among the Hadzabe in East Africa. He had visited these people several times previously and with every trip his fascination with them deepened, for the Hadzabe are the last hunters and gatherers still living a traditional life in Africa. At the age of 27, Stephenson intended to spend the year living among the Hadzabe, and, more importantly, living their life, hunting what they hunted, eating what they ate, participating in their dances and ceremonies, consulting with their medicine men and learning their myths and dreams. Armed only with his camera, his art supplies and the open-hearted courage of youth, he set out to visit with a people who have changed little since the Stone Age. He wanted to glimpse the world as they perceived it and learn the wisdom they had wrestled from the land. This account of his adventure and what he learned is travel writing at its best, reminiscent of the books of Peter Beard and Bruce Chatwin. The Man Who Grew Young, by Daniel Quinn Quinn's (After Dachau) new graphic novel incorporates his interests in alternative realities and the environment while using an odd and engaging narrative device. The entire social, technological and biological life of the planet, and indeed the universe, is traveling backwards. People are "born" in cemeteries, dug up and transferred to a hospital where they awake into life. In this strange universe, individuals enter life as adults driven by fate to reunite with (and reenter) their mothers, all the while growing younger as they return like salmon to the point of their beginnings. Quinn's book offers an elegant cosmological loop suggesting that at death we just start over again in another realm retracing our existential steps. Mankind methodically abandons technology; incredibly, coal and raw resources are put back into the ground; computers are discarded for typewriters and the great cities are dismantled. But Quinn's protagonist, Adam Taylor, is the odd man out, his mother nowhere to be found. Seemingly immortal, Taylor outlives his peers to witness entire human epochs pass before his eyes in reverse until he reaches the very beginning of civilization and an answer to the riddle of his mother's whereabouts. Quinn's quirky tale is compelling, but its implications are a bit too obvious (as technology recedes, the environment recovers, native peoples recover their lands from whites, etc.), and a little silly (if vegetables go back into the ground, just where, dare we ask, do foodstuffs come from in the first place?). Eldred's color artwork is competent but bland and conventional. The Holy, by Daniel Quinn A detective goes demon hunting in this supernatural mystery from the bestselling author of Ishmael. Chicago sexagenarian private eye Howard Sheim is hired by millionaire Aaron Fischer to probe the existence of Baal, Ashtoroth and Moloch, "false gods" named in the Old Testament book of Exodus. The search leads him to a self-styled mystic who, after reading his future with tarot cards, refers Howard to a teenage seer, Richard Holloway. The boy tells him that there are those living among us-he calls them "yoo-hoos"-who are not really human, though he has no idea exactly what they are. After consulting a rabbi and a warlock, the skeptical Howard is about ready to throw in the towel and go back to his missing-person cases. The narrative switches to follow the quixotic odyssey of 42-year-old Midwesterner David Kennesey, who suddenly abandons his wife and 12-year-old son and heads west without a thought to his destination. Separately, his wife and son embark on their own quests to find him. After adventures in Chicago and Vegas, David stumbles into a mountain Shangri-La inhabited by a woman named Andrea and her coterie of oddball denizens. Back in Chicago, Howard-now with David's son-tracks David to Andrea's, where he finds out that the gods are alive and up to their old tricks. Quinn's playful metaphysical sleuthing and cast of chimerical figures are entertaining, but fans of Ishmael and After Dachau may feel that this book doesn't have quite the originality or moral weight of his earlier efforts. After Dachau, by Daniel Quinn From the author of the bestselling novel Ishmael, 1992 winner of the highly controversial $500,000 Turner Tomorrow Fellowship, comes this absorbing cautionary tale imagining a homogenous future society. In 1992 A.D., when the narrator, Jason Tull Jr., the dilettante scion of a famous, incredibly wealthy family, graduates from college, he decides to work for We Live Again, an underfunded foundation dedicated to tracking down and authenticating reported instances of reincarnation. After 10 years and hundreds of dead-end investigations, Jason encounters the case of Mallory Hastings, a 28-year-old librarian from Oneonta, N.Y., who, following a minor car wreck, regains consciousness as a deaf mute. Hoping he has finally stumbled onto the elusive "Golden Case," Jason gains Mallory's confidence. He is ill-prepared, however, to cope with the enormity of his discovery: the person now occupying Mallory's body is Gloria MacArthur, a Manhattan artist born in 1922 A.D. But this is only a hint of a dark, complex conundrum, for the "new" Mallory has scarcely learned to talk when she realizes that Jason's A.D. is not the Christian anno Domini. Quinn's provocative, Orwellian tale imagines that Adolf Hitler beat the Allies to the A-bomb in 1944 and set in place a chilling plan to achieve a world of Aryan perfection. In Mallory/Gloria's brave new world, 2002 years have passed "after Dachau," the chilling A.D. of the title. (Feb.) Forecast: Since the publication of Ishmael and its two companion volumes, My Ishmael and The Story of B, Quinn has gained a cult following. The added intrigue of a revisionist, Nazi-dominated history will likely rally fans, and Context's vigorous promotional plans, including a 20-city reading tour in March to support a 30,000-copy first printing, may extend Quinn's reach. Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, by Jerry Mander A total departure from previous writing about television, this book is the first ever to advocate that the medium is not reformable. Its problems are inherent in the technology itself and are so dangerous -- to personal health and sanity, to the environment, and to deomocratic provesses -- that TV ought to be eliminated forever. Weaving personal experiences through meticulous research, the author ranges widely over aspects of television that have rarely been examined and never before joined together, allowing an entirely new, frightening image to emerge. The idea that all technologies are "neutral," benign instruments that can be used well or badly, is thrown open to profound doubt. Speaking of TV reform is, in the words of the author, "as absurd as speaking of the reform of a technology such as guns." Stone Hotel, from CrimethInc. “OK. First off, I have to admit that I don't really like much poetry. Being one who finds the majority of the poetry I have seen too lofty, uninspired, or just aesthetically awful, I told Clamor I probably wouldn't be the best candidate for reviewing this, and started curiously flipping though anyway. Needless to say, I ended up eating my words. Maybe I've just been reading the wrong poetry… This is Butcher’s first book, and a commendable one in many ways. These poems are meaningful and strong, each one a stark glimpse of an aspect of prison life, a bleak, raw snapshot of that reality and the ponderings on life that spring from it. They cut directly to the essential feeling underlying what they're addressing. For example, in "love is a clenched fist", Raegan writes "i am surrounded / by men who live / in cages / and blink in the sun / like psychotic moles / connoisseurs of / hatred / disguised as racial pride / the tattooed husbands / of battered wives / who think / love is a clenched fist." Others detail being strip searched by guards, being caught by the police and processed, the vibe in the mess hall, prison power dynamics, anxiety about getting out, suicide attempts, unfulfilled sexual desires, time, war, his childhood and wage slavery. What initially drew me to the book is the cover, a beautiful mixture of offset printing and letterpress printed by Pinball Publishing in Portland, OR. It is more than something to stick the pages inside; it is an artwork unto itself. All-in-all, a great beginning for Raegan, and another well-executed piece of work conceived of and assembled by the folks at CrimethInc., one of their best yet in my opinion. The attention to all aspects of the book and all of the processes it took to create it, beyond (of course) the poetry itself, personalizes the book, making for something more akin to an artifact than a mass-produced item for mass-produced consumption." -Jason Powers, Clamor, July/August 2003 |
Beyond Civilization, by Daniel Quinn
"Futurist" Daniel Quinn (Ishmael) dares to imagine a new approach to saving the world that involves deconstructing civilization. Quinn asks the radical yet fundamental questions about humanity such as, Why does civilization grow food, lock it up, and then make people earn money to buy it back? Why not progress "beyond civilization" and abandon the hierarchical lifestyles that cause many of our social problems? He challenges the "old mind" thinking that believes problems should be fixed with social programs. "Old minds think: How do we stop these bad things from happening?" Quinn writes. "New minds think: How do we make things the way we want them to be?" Whether he is discussing Amish farming, homelessness, "tribal business," or holy work, Quinn's manifesto is highly digestible. Instead of writing dense, weighty chapters filled with self-important prose, he's assembled a series of brief one-page essays. His language is down to earth, his metaphors easy to grasp. As a result, readers can read about and ponder Beyond Civilization at a blissfully civilized pace. Restless Mind, Quiet Thoughts, by Paul and Charles Eppinger Paul Eppinger was a gifted and sensitive young man who ended his life by suicide at the age of 29. Restless Mind, QUiet Thoughts is the account of his journey toward that final decision. Through brutally honest journal writings and correspondence with his father, the reader enters Paul's world of anguish and beauty as he struggles with issues of identity, purpose, relationships, family and career. The book lovingly portrays a unique father and son relationship between Paul and Charles. "Restless Mind, Quiet Thoughts is the tragic story of a young man who took to heart what we teach our children: that something must be desperately wrong with you if you can't find fulfillment working in one of our culture's many glamorous and rewarding prison industries. Most children docilely accept the chains we offer them, but a few are like Paul, who refused the chains and paid for it with his life. It's time we listened to the anguished cries of these rare ones, and there's no better place to start than this." -Daniel Quinn My Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn In this sequel to Quinn's controversial best seller, Ishmael, the telepathic gorilla has another pupil intent on saving the world: 12-year-old Julie Gerchak. Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn Winner of the Turner Tomorrow Fellowship, a literary competition intended to foster works of fiction that present positive solutions to global problems, this book offers proof that good ideas do not necessarily equal good literature. Ishmael, a gorilla rescued from a traveling show who has learned to reason and communicate, uses these skills to educate himself in human history and culture. Through a series of philosophical conversations with the unnamed narrator, a disillusioned Sixties idealist, Ishmael lays out a theory of what has gone wrong with human civilization and how to correct it, a theory based on the tenet that humanity belongs to the planet rather than vice versa. While the message is an important one, Quinn rarely goes beyond a didactic exposition of his argument, never quite succeeding in transforming idea into art. Despite this, heavy publicity should create demand. Experience and Education, by John Dewey John Dewey's thesis regarding experience and learning in a democracy can be stated with some measure of accuracy with a few simple statements. However, these statements based upon layers of theoretical and philosophical writings by Dewey are a surreptitious higher exercise that tests the reader's aptitude to discern seemingly indistinguishable yet distinct concepts into a cohesive statement on the complementary nature of experience and education. Dangerous Minds, by LouAnne Johnson A fiesty female ex-Marine teaches a class of inner-city high school students about self-respect, courage and success. What had been called "the class from hell" went on to defy everyone's expectations, and proved that LouAnne Johnson's unorthodox technique worked. Soon to be a major motion picture from Disney/Buena Vista Pictures starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Andy Garcia. Brave New World, by Alduous Huxley Community, Identity, Stability" is the motto of Aldous Huxley's utopian World State. Here everyone consumes daily grams of soma, to fight depression, babies are born in laboratories, and the most popular form of entertainment is a "Feelie," a movie that stimulates the senses of sight, hearing, and touch. Though there is no violence and everyone is provided for, Bernard Marx feels something is missing and senses his relationship with a young women has the potential to be much more than the confines of their existence allow. Huxley foreshadowed many of the practices and gadgets we take for granted today--let's hope the sterility and absence of individuality he predicted aren't yet to come. Amusing Ourselves to Death, by Neil Postman From the author of Teaching as a Subversive Activity comes a sustained, withering and thought-provoking attack on television and what it is doing to us. Postman's theme is the decline of the printed word and the ascendancy of the "tube" with its tendency to present everythingmurder, mayhem, politics, weatheras entertainment. The ultimate effect, as Postman sees it, is the shrivelling of public discourse as TV degrades our conception of what constitutes news, political debate, art, even religious thought. Early chapters trace America's one-time love affair with the printed word, from colonial pamphlets to the publication of the Lincoln-Douglas debates. There's a biting analysis of TV commercials as a form of "instant therapy" based on the assumption that human problems are easily solvable. Postman goes further than other critics in demonstrating that television represents a hostile attack on literate culture. The Culture of Fear, by Barry Glassner Americans are afraid of many things that shouldn't frighten them, writes Barry Glassner in this book devoted to exploding conventional wisdom. Thanks to opportunistic politicians, single-minded advocacy groups, and unscrupulous TV "newsmagazines," people must unlearn their many misperceptions about the world around them. The youth homicide rate, for instance, has dropped by as much as 30 percent in recent years, says Glassner--and up to three times as many people are struck dead by lightening than die by violence in schools. "False and overdrawn fears only cause hardship," he writes. In fact, one study shows that daughters of women with breast cancer are actually less likely to conduct self-examinations--probably because the campaign to increase awareness of the ailment also inadvertently heightens fears. Although some sections are stronger than others, The Culture of Fear's examination of many nonproblems--such as "road rage," "Internet addiction," and airline safety--is very good. Glassner also has a sharp eye for what causes unnecessary goose bumps: "The use of poignant anecdotes in place of scientific evidence, the christening of isolated incidents as trends, depictions of entire categories of people as innately dangerous," and unknown scholars who masquerade as "experts." Although Glassner rejects the notion that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself, he certainly shows we have much less to fear than we think. And isn't that sort of scary? Coercion, by Douglas Rushkoff In 1994's Cyberia: Life in the Trenches of Hyperspace, Douglas Rushkoff extolled the democratic promise of the then-emergent Internet, but the once optimistic author has grown a bit disillusioned with what the Net--and the rest of the world--has become. His exuberantly written, disturbing Coercion may induce paranoia in readers as it illuminates the countless ways marketing has insinuated itself not just into every aspect of Western culture but into our individual lives. Rushkoff opens with a series of pronouncements: "They say human beings use only ten percent of their brains.... They say Prozac alleviates depression." But "who, exactly, are 'they,'" he asks, and "why do we listen to them?" Marketing continues to grow more aggressive, and Rushkoff tracks the increasingly coercive techniques it employs to ingrain its message in the minds of consumers, as well as the results: toddlers can recognize the golden arches of McDonald's, young rebels get tattooed with the Nike swoosh, and news stories are increasingly taken verbatim from company press releases. "Corporations and consumers are in a coercive arms race," argues Rushkoff. "Every effort we make to regain authority over our actions is met by an even greater effort to usurp it." As he surveys the visual, aural, and scented shopping environment and interviews salesmen, public relations men, telemarketers, admen, and consumers, Rushkoff--who admits to being one of "them" in his occasional capacity as paid corporate consultant--concludes that "they" are just "us" and that the only way the process of coercion can be reversed is to refuse to comply. "Without us," he assures, "they don't exist." Exit Strategy, by Douglas Rushkoff Exit Strategy, the much-hyped open source novel by columnist and commentator Douglas Rushkoff (Coercion, Ecstasy Club), is both a moral allegory and a "hypertext labyrinth of references and cross-references" creating a "community riff on our bizarre age." It can be as daunting as it sounds: the tale of a modern Joseph who's caught between the opposite worlds of hackers and venture capitalists sometimes ny readers of the novel's online version, who were told to imagine that the novel had been discovered in the 23rd century ("wedgie: an attack meant to cause pain and embarrassment simultaneously," writes a helpful contemporary reader to future humans). Media Culture, by Douglas Kellner Media Culture develops methods and analyses of contemporary film, television, music and other artifacts to discern their nature and effects and argues that media culture is the dominant form of culture which socializes us and provides materials for identity and both social reproduction and change. Through studies of Reagan and Rambo, horror films and youth films, rap music and African American culture, Madonna, fashion, television news and entertainment, MTV, Beavis and Butt-Head, the Gulf-War as cultural text, cyberpunk fiction and postmodern theory, Kellner provides a series of lively studies that both illuminate contemporary culture and provide methods of analysis and critique. Nobrow, by John Seabrook John Seabrook, The New Yorker's "Buzz Studies" writer, deftly conveys the hubbub of modern pop culture, the blending of highbrow and lowbrow tastes, into a new sensibility he dubs "Nobrow." In Nobrowland, nobody can sell out, because art and commerce have fused like colliding electrons. America used to be split between "stark intellectuality and the plane of stark business," but now, as Puff Daddy observes, "It's all about the Benjamins [$100 bills]." It's not just that an Oxford-bred guy like Seabrook is a connoisseur of Biggie Smalls, it's that everyone, high and low, wants to feel part of the Buzz, to soak up the power of celebrity success. Puffy's rap hit constitutes "merchandising, advertising, salary-boasting, and art all at once," says Seabrook. Nowadays, "commercial culture has to do the work that both high and folk culture used to do--not only enlighten and teach but bond families and communities." Nobrow is itself a work of Nobrow art, shape-shifting like a Beck tune: it's art appreciation, memoir, social history, high-altitude academic theory, and shoe-leather reporting all at once. Seabrook captures world-historical figures in action: George Lucas, MTV's Judy McGrath, music exec Danny "Nirvana" Goldberg, and kabillionaire David Geffen, who helped bring you Tom Cruise and DreamWorks. The big book on Geffen may be The Operator, but Seabrook can nail him in a phrase: "The boredom in his eyes, which seemed on the verge of spilling over into other parts of his face, was held in check by his lively eyebrows." And no one has outdone Seabrook's jaunty account of his elite magazine's Nobrowification by Tina Brown, who established "a hierarchy of hotness." Seabrook doesn't score on every shot, but it's fun to watch him play. He's like a kid brother to his cult idol, George W.S. Trow, author of the prescient 1978 classic Within the Context of No Context. If Eustace Tilley, The New Yorker's famous monocled snob icon, got zonked on "chronic bubonic" pot and gangsta rap, he might have written this dizzy yet erudite book. Indeed, one might not be altogether amiss in calling it "da bomb." In the Absence of the Sacred, by Jerry Mander Mander crafts one of the most accessible critiques of civilization by way of contrasting megatechnology and the life ways of indigenous peoples. Using examples from techno-industrial civilizations self-image to highlight just how ludicrous and damaging this way of ‘life’ really is, while giving a look into its effects upon the indigenous peoples of the Americas. Society of the Spectacle, by Guy Debord A primary text of the Situationist International and brought such terms as ‘spectacle’ into the revolutionary critique. Extending off Marx’s critique of Capital and moving onto ‘modern’ hyper capitalism and consumerism. Oversights? Yes, but this is still a must read. The Continuum Concept, by Jean Liefloff OUT Jean Liedloff, an American writer, spent two and a half years deep in the South American jungle living with Stone Age Indians. The experience demolished her view of what human nature really is. She offers a new understanding of how we have lost much of our natural well-being and shows us practical ways to regain it for our children and for ourselves. Now living in California, Jean Liedloff practices and teaches psychotherapy based on the Continuum Concept. She lectures and broadcasts in many countries where her views have earned a substantial following. The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: Waking Up to Personal and Global Transformation, by Thom Hartmann As the world's population explodes, cultures and species are wiped out, and we have now reached the halfway point of our supplies of oil, humans the world over are confronting difficult choices about how to create a future that works. Thom Hartmann proposes that the only lasting solution to the creses we face is to re-learn the lessons our ancient ancestors knew -- those which allowed them to live sustainably for hundreds of thousands of years -- but which we've forgotten. Hartmann shows how to find this new yet ancient way of seeing the world and the life on and in it, allowing us to to touch that place where the survival of humanity may be found. Truth or Dare: Encounters with Power, Authority and Mystery, by Starhawk An examination of the nature of power that offers creative alternatives for positive change in our personal lives, our communities, and our world. Starhawk is a Witch, peace activist, ecofeminist, and author of several books, including The Pagan Book of Living and Dying, The Fifth Sacred Thing, and Truth or Dare. She is the cofounder of the Bay Area Reclaiming Collective, and she teaches and lectures in the U.S., Canada, Central America, and Europe. Off the Map, from CrimethInc. A punk rock vision quest told in the tradition of the anarchist travel story, Off the Map is narrated by two young women as they discard their maps, fears, and anything resembling a plan, and set off on the winds of the world. Without the smug cynicism that seems to permeate most modern radical tales, this story is told with genuine hope, and a voice that never loses its connection with the mysteries of life, even in the midst of everyday tragedies. Wandering across Europe, the dozens of vignettes are the details of the whole—a squatted castle surrounded by tourists on the Spanish coast, a philosophizing businessman on the highways of France, a plaça full of los crustos in Barcelona, a diseased foot in a Belgian train squat, a glow bug on the dew-covered grass of anywhere—a magical, novel-like folktale for the end of the world. Student as Nigger, by Jerry Farber "Students are niggers. When you get that straight, our schools begin to make sense. It's more important, though, to understand why they're niggers. If we follow that question seriously enough, it will lead up past the zone of academic bullshit, where dedicated teachers pass their knowledge on to a new generation, and into the nitty-gritty of human needs and hangups. And from there we can go on to consider whether it might ever be possible for students to come up from slavery." Pacifism as Pathology: Reflections on the Role of Armed Struggle in North America, by Ward Churchill Pacifism, the ideaology of nonviolent political action, has become all but universal among the more progressive elements of contemporary maintstream North America. In Pacifism as Pathology, scholar-activist Ward Churchill dares to ask some uncomfortable questions about that ideaology. He argues that while pacifism promises that the harsh realities of state power can be transcended through good feelings and purity of purpose, it is in many ways a counter-revolutionary movement that defends and reinforces the same status-quo it claims to oppose. Mike Ryan responds to Churchill's essay, further developing it in consideration of a Canadian context. Pacifism as Pathology is an important intervention into the delusion, aroma of racism, and sense of privilege which mark thecovert self-defeatism of mainstream dissident politics. It is written in the hope that others - many others - will begin to seriously address the issue. |
|
"Harbinger," CrimethInc.
"Hunter/Gatherer," CrimethInc. "Fighting For Our Lives," CrimethInc. "CrimethInc. Worker Bulletin 47 & 74" "Green Anarchist," issues 68/9, 57-58, 59 "Green Anarchy," issues 1,5,6,8,9,10,11,12,13 "Species Traitor," issues 1,2,3, Coalition Against Civilization "Take Back Your Life: A Wimmin's Guide to Alternative Health Care," Alicia Non Grata "Resistance," Earth Liberation Front "Fifth Estate," volume 35, #1-2 "The Final Nail: Destroy the Fur Industry" "Some People Push Back: On the Justice of Roosting Chickens," Ward Churchill "The Rise of the West: A Brief Outline of the Last Thousand Years," John Conner "Black Badger #4," Bob Black "Weeping Willow: Herbal Remedies" "The Abolition of Work: Primitive Affluence," Bob Black "The Defiant, Prisoners in the Global Resistance," Rob los Ricos and the Anarhist Prisoners Legal Fund "D.I.Y. Guide," CrimethInc. "Dropping Out," CrimethInc. "The Walls Are Alive," CrimethInc. "The Digust of Daily Life," Kevin Tucker "Anti-Semitism and the Beirut Pogrom," Fredy Perlman "The War Machine Continues.." "A Primitivist Primer," John Moore "Jeff 'Free' Luers" TONS OF NEW ZINES JUST CAME IN--BUT I'M TOO LAZY TO TYPE THEM ALL IN JUST YET |
|
"PickAxe and Breaking the Spell", CrimethInc.
"PickAxe" is an account of a group of people blocking off a logging road in the northwest - staying there for something like 14 months, some locked down, so that the logging equipment could not proceed. "Breaking the spell" contains coverage from the WTO protests in Seattle some years back. "Koyaanisqatsi", Godfrey Reggio First-time filmmaker Godfrey Reggio's experimental documentary from 1983--shot mostly in the desert Southwest and New York City on a tiny budget with no script, then attracting the support of Francis Ford Coppola and George Lucas and enlisting the indispensable musical contribution of Philip Glass--delighted college students on the midnight circuit and fans of minimalism for many years. Meanwhile, its techniques, merging cinematographer Ron Fricke's time-lapse shots (alternately peripatetic and hyperspeed) with Glass's reiterative music (from the meditative to the orgiastic)--as well as its ecology-minded imagery--crept into the consciousness of popular culture. The influence of Koyaanisqatsi, or "life out of balance," has by now become unmistakable in television advertisements, music videos, and, of course, similar movies such as Fricke's own Chronos and Craig McCourry's Apogee. Reggio shot a sequel, Powaqqatsi (1988), and completed the trilogy with Naqoyqatsi (2002). Koyaanisqatsi provides the uninitiated the chance to see where it all started--along with an intense audiovisual rush. "Powaqqatsi", Godfrey Reggio Powaqqatsi (1988), or "life in transformation," is the second part of a trilogy of experimental documentaries whose titles derive from Hopi compound nouns. The now legendary Koyaanisqatsi (1983), or "life out of balance," was the first. Naqoyqatsi (2002), or "life in war," was the third. Powaqqatsi finds director Godfrey Reggio somewhat more directly polemical than before, and his major collaborator, the composer Philip Glass, stretching to embrace world music. Reggio reuses techniques familiar from the previous film (slow motion, time-lapse, superposition) to dramatize the effects of the so-called First World on the Third: displacement, pollution, alienation. But he spends as much time beautifully depicting what various cultures have lost--cooperative living, a sense of joy in labor, and religious values--as he does confronting viewers with trains, airliners, coal cars, and loneliness. What had been a more or less peaceful, slow-moving, spiritually fulfilling rural existence for these "silent" people (all we hear is music and sound effects) becomes a crowded, suffocating, accelerating industrial urban hell, from Peru to Pakistan. Reggio frames Powaqqatsi with a telling image: the Serra Pelada gold mines, where thousands of men, their clothes and skin imbued with the earth they're moving, carry wet bags up steep slopes in a Sisyphean effort to provide wealth for their employers. While Glass juxtaposes his strangely joyful music, which includes the voices of South American children, a number of these men carry one of their exhausted comrades out of the pit, his head back and arms outstretched--one more sacrifice to Caesar. Nevertheless, Reggio, a former member of the Christian Brothers, seems to maintain hope for renewal. --Robert Burns Neveldine |