Editorial: by Lawrence Jarach

Article: Anti-Franco Activism After the Spanish Civil War by Barry Pateman

Review: Endgame by Aragorn!

Column: The Politics of Blame by Liana Doctrines

A link to fire to the prisons #2 is included at the end of this message.

http://forums.infoshop.org/

You are invited to participate at the Infoshop Forums, one of the oldest and most popular anarchist forums on the Internet. Started in 2002, the Infoshop Forums have thousands of registered users and several dozen forums. We offer a mixture of moderated and lightly moderated forums.

“Folk-punk” doesn’t have to be a dirty phrase. Even “anarcho folk-punk” (no matter how many out-of-tune acoustic guitars, bad parodies of “Baby, I’m an Anarchist” or strong odors it evokes) shouldn’t automatically gain a listener’s ire. I used to be one of the naysayers, but Mischief Brew reminded me of what sparked my interest in the genre. Thankfully, their songs come across more as a Crassed-out American Billy Bragg with a less cheesy sense of humor, than as aping any one of today’s influential political acoustic guitar-wielders.

Mischief Brew consists chiefly of Erik Petersen, as he writes all the songs and usually tours alone. The records often credited with launching him into the punk public eye, the EP Bakenal and a split LP with Robert Blake, chiefly feature the sonic contributions of Petersen. A friend pops up every now and then to assist with some makeshift percussion or strum a mandolin, but it wasn’t until the debut full-length, 2005’s Smash the Windows, that Mischief Brew was ever an electrified, intense full band. Petersen’s technically impressive songs make for an engaging listen, but often seem out of place in this context; a good example is how a re-recording of one of the strongest songs from Bakenal went from anthemic to almost comical due to the bouncy bassline.

Please stay tuned for a table of contents, an online version, and information on where to get your own spiffy copy! Send submissions, questions or comments to: fredcrimethinc@yahoo.ca.

The second issue of fire to the prisons is out now. Fire to the Prisons is an insurrectionary anarchist quarterly focusing on anti-prison and prisoner support content, but also includes articles to inspire opposition to this cold world. The link to the site to download the pdf is included at the end of this bulletin, if you have any problems downloading, feel free to contact us directly with your email, and well send it to you directly. Our email is, guerillaheart@yahoo.com.
PLEASE feel free to print and distribute this zine to your full capability, or forward the file to someone who will.

If you'd like, please respond with a confirmation that you will be furthering distribution for the zine, its good to know where it gets around.

Available Early December 2007:

CONFRONTATIONS: Selected Journalism

By Kristian Williams

Foreword by Ward Churchill

“The theme of the articles collected here is the complex relationship between ideas and what could broadly be called force—not merely violence, but the whole spectrum of tactics that one side in a conflict uses to disrupt the other. That includes sabotage, vandalism, blockades, boycotts, and strikes—but also infiltration, intimidation, arrests, and imprisonment.

“No one has a monopoly on direct action.… Winning in politics means something more than having the best argument, the most votes, or the biggest gun.”

—Kristian Williams, from his Introduction.

The event was timed to coincide with the International Day of Solidarity with Gabriel Pombo Da Silva and Jose Fernandez Delgado ('Aachen 4' prisoners*) and all prisoners in struggle around the world. It was in a central part of town and had a high profile due to the many people who were able to come because it was on the highstreet. Over 400 people partied until after dawn and hundreds of pounds were raised for the Anarchist Black Cross prisoner support organisation and 325 magazine. There were radical films shown and information distributed about the anarchist and anti-prison struggle. Havok sound system destroyed the dancefloor and blew the minds of the crowd with heavy Drum & Bass, Jungle and Tek breaks.

The first venue for the event had been busted by police after they had received a tip off. This was just before the soundsystem arrived to the building late in the evening, and this action threatened to disrupt the party. So after being thrown out from our intended venue, another disused building was immediately broken into and turned into an autonomous space and secured from further police action. The new venue was even closer to the central consumer district and was much larger, meaning that more people could come and dance. It was the last weekend of the month, a time when many people have been paid and it was also the last weekend of the free party summer season. It was a major victory to pull off an illegal rave in the city despite a police operation to stop us.

In this issue we have the main article (page 1) which deals with the current situation in Greece after the tragic fires during the last week of August in conjuction with the upcoming general election (16 September), a small comment/our positions about the incident a few months ago when insurectional anarchists burnt out a national monument outside the Greek parliament building (page 2), two anti-electoral articles about the Communist Party of Greece (KKE) and an ecological party that emerged lately (both on page 3), an article-leaflet distributed by our comrades on 17 June in the the county town of Livadeia against the proposed construction of harmul factories there (page 4), a really serious critique against Nechaev and some of his followers today after the publication in Greece recently of a book with the dialog between Bakunin and Nechaev (pages 5, 6 and 7), a common statement with other anarchist communist organisations from around the world about the 80th anniversary of the execution of Sacco and Vanzetti and a short review of 3 anarchist books in the Greek language.

The second issue of A MURDER OF CROWS is out, and features an important essay about repression of dissent. This is a must read for anyone who still thinks that "peaceful" protests are meaningful. This is an excerpt.

...In July 2006, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Northern California released a detailed report in which they documented a variety of instances in which local police departments, along with the California Anti-Terrorism Information Center, placed officers into anti-war groups. First and foremost they infiltrated the groups in order to gather information, but more insidiously, the police hoped to steer the organizations in a direction more useful to the state. When asked why officers had been placed in the San Francisco group Direct Action to Stop the War (DASW), Captain Howard Jordan of the Oakland Police Department stated: "if you put people in there from the beginning, I think we'd be able to gather the information and maybe even direct them to do something that we want them to do."3Clearly the state's perspective is one of infiltrating in order to undermine.