Post by Modesto Anarcho on Mar 12, 2007 19:54:56 GMT -5
A Murder of Crows #2 Out Now!
Dear Everybody,
We are pleased to finally announce the publication of A Murder of Crows #2! It’s been a year since the last issue, longer than we expected, but we think it was well worth it. The price has been bumped up a buck to $3 (ppd) from the last one, but we think you’ll appreciate the expanded content and color cover. A preview of the cover art is now on our website, as is one of the issue’s featured articles, “Repression as State Strategy.” Check it out—we believe it is internet time well spent.
If you want to grab an issue off us in person, we’ll have a table at this year’s San Francisco Anarchist Book Fair, March 17-18th. Look for the festive St. Patty’s Day green. You can also mail order directly if you send us some blood money/greenbacks. We’re still looking for people to help us distribute A Murder of Crows, especially throughout North America. Anyone who wants to buy quantity should get in touch, and we’ll hook you up with a sweet bulk discount. Also, for those who missed out on the glory of A Murder of Crows #1, its full contents are now available on the website for hours and hours of online fun.
A Murder of Crows
PO Box 20442
Seattle, WA 98102
www.geocities.com/amurderofcrows1
Here’s the “Opener” of the new issue:
A year has passed, and subversive tensions have burst forth from the fault lines of the social order: the struggle against the CPE in France, student strikes in Chile, street battles in Nicaragua, continued riots and uprisings in China, squat defense in Denmark, and others we’ll never hear about. The lie of social-peace would like nothing better than to erase these conflicts and deny their capacity to break with the normality of subservience. To us, the people that are the driving force of these struggles are the living embodiment of an active refusal to bow before the global work camp.
In the revolts of the year past, many of us found ourselves inspired by these struggles. Yet these, like many before them, passed through time like so many forgotten events. We see the discussion of revolt often deteriorating into cheerleading and superficial analysis, both of which make us sick. Those with their ear to the ground may know of the events that took place in Oaxaca, Mexico. There an energetic social movement was in conflict with the Mexican state, but portions of the struggle adhered to the prevailing political logic of representation and democratic dialogue. This is precisely the kind of situation in which acritical commentary debilitates our capacity to dynamically understand and intervene in the course of events. “This is What Recuperation Looks Like” takes a closer look at the various organizations and politicians that affected the path of this social conflict. In addition to the rebellion in Oaxaca, there was also the much larger, and much more destructive insurrection that swept through Bangladesh this past year. “Setting Hell on Fire” gives you all the lovely details of factory destruction and police beatings, and also analyzes the development and future of this cascade of fury. Another article takes an in-depth look at the ongoing occupation by Six Nations people in Canada, which was inspiring because of the open clashes with the state, the high degree of solidarity amongst native people, and the defiant reclamation of traditional territory.
Many of us are not strangers to recent state repression both here and abroad. The “radical” response to it has been more of the same. Some people have distanced themselves and withdrawn support, doing exactly what the state wants. Other people defended direct action with dominant social ideas and the state’s useless notions of justice. Still others pandered to the media public opinion machine by presenting comrades as harmless and innocent do-gooders, like the Salvation Army Santas who beg for scraps of metal in the dead of winter outside of some nutsty mall. We think the saying, “if the innocent deserve our support, the guilty deserve it even more,” is a much better frame of reference. Shallow understandings of and spineless reactions to repression are detrimental to the revolutionary evolution of social movements. “Repression as State Strategy” addresses repression in its larger context as a long-term state strategy for destroying revolutionary threats in particular and oppositional tendencies in general. As recent events have proven, the state’s repression has been effective in exploiting the lack of affinity and commonality amongst us. Lee Hunter’s article, “Repression and Its Discontents,” addresses the “Green Scare” and proposes practical ways we can build a stronger base and combat the fear spread by the state.
Repression, unfortunately, is not the only problem we have to face. Capital is continuing to tighten the technological noose around our necks: commodifying and altering the biology of living things, weaving a web of surveillance and tracking technology, furthering the spread of the industrial order, and substituting face-to-face communication with sterilized implements like cell phones and the internet. As of late the discussion of technology has been wasting away into ideologically-divisive dead ends between so-called “greens” and “reds.” We hope to reorient the debate about progress, removing it from the ideological dumpsters that many are so fond of diving into. Towards this end we present two articles, one, a translation about the struggle against the High Velocity Train in northwest Italy, and another, “The Arms of Exploitation,” that addresses development and technology as impositions of class society.
For those of us in the US, who isn’t tired of hearing politicians and reactionary white Americans complain about the so-called invasion of illegal immigrants? These people love the border like they love their immigrant-picked apples and oranges. We won’t hide our hatred of everything about borders; the piece “Fortress Everywhere” will give you the low down. And finally, an article sure to offend many and hopefully interest most, is a critique of the animal liberation movement and ideology—a critique we feel is long overdue.
You might notice we haven’t yet had any articles about US wars and occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq. This is not due to any lack of interest on our part, but rather an unwillingness to contribute to the mass of wasted words, which merely repeat the usual, tired formulations of the “anti-war movement.” We have seen the continually worsening situation in Iraq, in which sectarian militias and other states-in-waiting are building up piles of human corpses alongside the US military. These rackets deserve nothing but contempt for their continual human sacrifices to the altar of capitalism, albeit Islamic capitalism. But we won’t busy ourselves with purely symbolic demonstrations, which are about as exciting as standing in line at the post office. The anti-war marches, so loved by guilt-ridden liberals and activists, clearly haven’t stopped anything and have actually increased the amount of nutsty slogans on poster board. Most opponents of the war either do not recognize, or deny, that the mechanism of war is fundamental to states and necessary for the expansion of the economy. Hundreds of thousands of people are dying in the Middle East not simply because of George Bush and oil, but because capitalism is allowed to continue and expand. War is healthy for capital because the bombs dropped –commodities in themselves— destroy other commodities in the form of buildings, infrastructure, and so on, creating the need for replacement. The war is only going to be stopped when we stop the economy.
We hope you enjoy the issue, but most of all we hope you find something useful in the pages that follow. Feel free to give us feedback, send submissions, and contribute large amounts of cash.
A Murder of Crows
www.geocities.com/amurderofcrows1
Dear Everybody,
We are pleased to finally announce the publication of A Murder of Crows #2! It’s been a year since the last issue, longer than we expected, but we think it was well worth it. The price has been bumped up a buck to $3 (ppd) from the last one, but we think you’ll appreciate the expanded content and color cover. A preview of the cover art is now on our website, as is one of the issue’s featured articles, “Repression as State Strategy.” Check it out—we believe it is internet time well spent.
If you want to grab an issue off us in person, we’ll have a table at this year’s San Francisco Anarchist Book Fair, March 17-18th. Look for the festive St. Patty’s Day green. You can also mail order directly if you send us some blood money/greenbacks. We’re still looking for people to help us distribute A Murder of Crows, especially throughout North America. Anyone who wants to buy quantity should get in touch, and we’ll hook you up with a sweet bulk discount. Also, for those who missed out on the glory of A Murder of Crows #1, its full contents are now available on the website for hours and hours of online fun.
A Murder of Crows
PO Box 20442
Seattle, WA 98102
www.geocities.com/amurderofcrows1
Here’s the “Opener” of the new issue:
A year has passed, and subversive tensions have burst forth from the fault lines of the social order: the struggle against the CPE in France, student strikes in Chile, street battles in Nicaragua, continued riots and uprisings in China, squat defense in Denmark, and others we’ll never hear about. The lie of social-peace would like nothing better than to erase these conflicts and deny their capacity to break with the normality of subservience. To us, the people that are the driving force of these struggles are the living embodiment of an active refusal to bow before the global work camp.
In the revolts of the year past, many of us found ourselves inspired by these struggles. Yet these, like many before them, passed through time like so many forgotten events. We see the discussion of revolt often deteriorating into cheerleading and superficial analysis, both of which make us sick. Those with their ear to the ground may know of the events that took place in Oaxaca, Mexico. There an energetic social movement was in conflict with the Mexican state, but portions of the struggle adhered to the prevailing political logic of representation and democratic dialogue. This is precisely the kind of situation in which acritical commentary debilitates our capacity to dynamically understand and intervene in the course of events. “This is What Recuperation Looks Like” takes a closer look at the various organizations and politicians that affected the path of this social conflict. In addition to the rebellion in Oaxaca, there was also the much larger, and much more destructive insurrection that swept through Bangladesh this past year. “Setting Hell on Fire” gives you all the lovely details of factory destruction and police beatings, and also analyzes the development and future of this cascade of fury. Another article takes an in-depth look at the ongoing occupation by Six Nations people in Canada, which was inspiring because of the open clashes with the state, the high degree of solidarity amongst native people, and the defiant reclamation of traditional territory.
Many of us are not strangers to recent state repression both here and abroad. The “radical” response to it has been more of the same. Some people have distanced themselves and withdrawn support, doing exactly what the state wants. Other people defended direct action with dominant social ideas and the state’s useless notions of justice. Still others pandered to the media public opinion machine by presenting comrades as harmless and innocent do-gooders, like the Salvation Army Santas who beg for scraps of metal in the dead of winter outside of some nutsty mall. We think the saying, “if the innocent deserve our support, the guilty deserve it even more,” is a much better frame of reference. Shallow understandings of and spineless reactions to repression are detrimental to the revolutionary evolution of social movements. “Repression as State Strategy” addresses repression in its larger context as a long-term state strategy for destroying revolutionary threats in particular and oppositional tendencies in general. As recent events have proven, the state’s repression has been effective in exploiting the lack of affinity and commonality amongst us. Lee Hunter’s article, “Repression and Its Discontents,” addresses the “Green Scare” and proposes practical ways we can build a stronger base and combat the fear spread by the state.
Repression, unfortunately, is not the only problem we have to face. Capital is continuing to tighten the technological noose around our necks: commodifying and altering the biology of living things, weaving a web of surveillance and tracking technology, furthering the spread of the industrial order, and substituting face-to-face communication with sterilized implements like cell phones and the internet. As of late the discussion of technology has been wasting away into ideologically-divisive dead ends between so-called “greens” and “reds.” We hope to reorient the debate about progress, removing it from the ideological dumpsters that many are so fond of diving into. Towards this end we present two articles, one, a translation about the struggle against the High Velocity Train in northwest Italy, and another, “The Arms of Exploitation,” that addresses development and technology as impositions of class society.
For those of us in the US, who isn’t tired of hearing politicians and reactionary white Americans complain about the so-called invasion of illegal immigrants? These people love the border like they love their immigrant-picked apples and oranges. We won’t hide our hatred of everything about borders; the piece “Fortress Everywhere” will give you the low down. And finally, an article sure to offend many and hopefully interest most, is a critique of the animal liberation movement and ideology—a critique we feel is long overdue.
You might notice we haven’t yet had any articles about US wars and occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq. This is not due to any lack of interest on our part, but rather an unwillingness to contribute to the mass of wasted words, which merely repeat the usual, tired formulations of the “anti-war movement.” We have seen the continually worsening situation in Iraq, in which sectarian militias and other states-in-waiting are building up piles of human corpses alongside the US military. These rackets deserve nothing but contempt for their continual human sacrifices to the altar of capitalism, albeit Islamic capitalism. But we won’t busy ourselves with purely symbolic demonstrations, which are about as exciting as standing in line at the post office. The anti-war marches, so loved by guilt-ridden liberals and activists, clearly haven’t stopped anything and have actually increased the amount of nutsty slogans on poster board. Most opponents of the war either do not recognize, or deny, that the mechanism of war is fundamental to states and necessary for the expansion of the economy. Hundreds of thousands of people are dying in the Middle East not simply because of George Bush and oil, but because capitalism is allowed to continue and expand. War is healthy for capital because the bombs dropped –commodities in themselves— destroy other commodities in the form of buildings, infrastructure, and so on, creating the need for replacement. The war is only going to be stopped when we stop the economy.
We hope you enjoy the issue, but most of all we hope you find something useful in the pages that follow. Feel free to give us feedback, send submissions, and contribute large amounts of cash.
A Murder of Crows
www.geocities.com/amurderofcrows1