One book a month. This was the quiet goal we set ourselves upon for 2012 and, so far, it has been working.

Now that the book is dead, anarchy is a relic of history, and the end of history is upon us it is the perfect time to make anarchist books about the end of this world and the start of ours. This is our task and so far at least the words are there. At least we have the words.

Little Black Cart Books & Distro 2012 (http://lbcbooks.com & http://littleblackcart.com)

About a year ago I worked on a research project for my qualitative research methods class where I spent time with members of the electro dance music scene. When I started the project I had no idea what it meant and what it still means to be a raver or even what a 'real rave' was. After about a month of spending time in the scene I started to believe that the venue, people, and scene I was studying were not the things I thought they were. I entered the project with the understanding that I was studying ravers; it wasn't until I spent some time studying and observing the subjects that I realized I was studying the product of a commodified subculture. The venue wasn't an authentic venue for 'real raves,' instead of a warehouse the events I attended were hosted in clubs. Instead of cultural beliefs like PLUR (peace, love, unity, and respect) constituting the collective conscious, drugs, sexual activity, etc. were. And instead of collective self-organization playing a role in the events, business owners were planning and throwing the events. Despite the fact that raves lost many of their core qualities, electro music was never able to be kicked out of the culture.

In times of high activity, it’s easy to get absorbed in the quotidian, responding to every opportunity and crisis and abandoning more playful pursuits. Yet in so doing WE LOSE OUR GREATEST STRENGTH. If anarchist practices are finally gaining currency, it is because they’ve had time and space to gestate at the margins, outside the logic of narrowly goal-oriented thinking. THOSE WHO DOMINATE THE PRESENT ABDICATE THE FUTURE: one must step back from the demands of this world to attune oneself to the secret tremors hinting at worlds to come. So est we lose our edge, THE EXPERIMENTATION COMMITTEE has been hard at work on two new publications, VORTEXT and TERROR INCOGNITA, the contents of which HAVE NOTHING TO DO with the recent surge of social movements. Vortext explores speculative philosophy, nihilist performance art, black magic, and MAXIMUM FUCKING ULTRAISM, celebrating the nonfunctional, non-productive, and irrational. OUTLIERS TO THE FRONT!

The plan calls for the remodeling of the Detention Center and the incorporation of upscale apartments and storefronts into the block. The County Council is proposing a tax levee to voters and will sell off over half the property to private interests in order to “offset costs to the taxpayer.” There is clearly some ass-slapping and money-dealing going on behind the scenes. In light of these developments, dozens of people attended the meeting with County Council in order to make clear the utter disgust and hatred they had for these youth-incarceration profiteers.

This is a report written by two IWW organizers from out of state on the activities of the union during the height of the protests in Madison and Wisconsin. The version is slightly modified from a text sent to the 2011 Delegate Convention and reflects the opinion of the authors.

Shortly before Valentine’s day of 2011, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker announced a budget bill which, along with a package of severe neoliberal cuts to social services, took the unprecedented measure of effectively outlawing unions for state or municipal employees. In order to ‘balance the budget’, the bill made it illegal for unions and public entities to negotiate on any conditions (work safety, hours of work, pensions, healthcare) other than wages, and outlawed any contracts which would give wage increases above the official rate of inflation, unless a referendum was held to approve those raises.

Furthermore unions would no longer be able to rely on the ‘dues check-off’, in which the employer collects the dues on behalf of the union. Finally, unions would be required to undergo a ‘re-certification’ election every year in order to be considered legitimate bargaining agents. On top of this were roughly 20% pay-cuts for all public employees!

I must beg the indulgence of readers who don’t see the point to following the arguments of the founder of the Occupy movement, but his concepts are quite as important in their own way as that of the Iran mullahs. Anarchism, being essentially non-violent until non-anarchists get involved, is not dangerous until it begins to suck in people who don’t have much experience in the real world.

Anarchism is one of those ideas which are very attractive on a warm summer day. It reminds me of a family picnic, where the food somehow appears and everyone helps in laying it out and cleaning up. People learn to cooperate, even to love one another, and if your mate decides to move in with someone else, well, that too is an aspect of learning to share.

We have entire school systems, mostly private in the US, some public in Europe, which try to inculcate these progressive values into children. For those with a willingness to tolerate a bit of slapstick humor, I recommend the old movie, Auntie Mame, with Rosalind Russell. You’ll never think of Progressive Education the same way again.

The following reports are from organizers in First of May Anarchist Alliance. (The Minneapolis report has contributions from IWW Fellow Worker, B.)

Baltimore Report - Report by M.B.

A member of M1 attended a Trayvon Martin Rally and March in Baltimore Maryland. The route was a half mile, originating at the Baltimore Harbor/Former Occupy Baltimore Encampment and ended at 7pm at city hall. The estimated attendance was 1,200 – 1,500. The city and most of the activist community anticipated a few hundred people at most. The event was publicized by the local All People’s Congress/Workers World Party and progressive African American Religious Leaders rather than the traditional leftist milieu, the crowd was made up almost entirely of first time activists, families and youth.

Nyki is currently serving a life sentence in Ontario for little more than looking like a street kid. In what the media dubbed "The Panhandler Killing" which was used as the excuse for the Toronto Safe Streets Act, we have a case where police "lost" the video tapes, there was a complete lack of evidence including multiple eye witnesses who did not identify Nyki, and a lack of DNA. This case shows how corrupt the legal system truly is. As per usual, in the media's version of this tragic story some very important details were left out, such as that the man they labeled a "business man" was a 250 pound "ex street fighter" who's business was running porn websites and marketing of porn. His best friend who was with him that night admitted that he had made explicit sexualised comments towards Nyki's friends including telling them to suck dick for money.

This is a rough transcript:

"Vagaries of the Left"

Back in February the progressive columnist Chris Hedges wrote "The Cancer in Occupy", Truthdig Feb 26, 2012. A fairly predictable attack on Black Bloc militancy. It voiced, in general, the perspective of the liberal, moderate, reformist folks. Who have been mostly predominate in Occupy. Hedges's screed against anarchists and others who "go too far" shows just what anti-authoritarians have been up against. And why so few of them, in my experience, have been interested in Occupy. Hedges basically counsels that if everyone behaves in Occupy we'll continue to succeed. Obviously exaggerating the potency of the movement so far. He represents voting, property, respecting, obeying the rules of the game unless he's talking about somewhere else. He has lauded rioting and resistance in Greece, for example. His cancer essay is full of gaffes and bloopers. For example that I am a big voice of Black Bloc, anarchists are full of a repellent cynicism, etc. It has been critiqued by many. including Peter Gelderloos, Magpie, Bobby Whittenberg James.

Street protests against the attacks of capitalist States on our living conditions have recently spread throughout Europe. Despite the strikes, actions, and massive demonstrations, and despite the broad movements that haven’t even expressed any grand revolutionary aspirations beyond the mere defense of minimum basic necessities, the States have responded with indifference.

Appealing to confusing economic formulas, numbers, statistics, and abstract concepts, those States have tried to locate the problem’s origin in inaccessible, metaphysical realities. However, the origin and causes of our daily problems have no metaphysical foundation whatsoever. Poverty, exploitation, repression, and systematic abuse are the results of very concrete structures, of specific decisions taken by specific people who have specific interests.