Category Archives: Author

activism, Anarchist, Author, CounterInsurgency, Earth & Animal Liberation, Earth First!, Environment, General, Grand Jury, History, Police, Prisons, repression

Lelsie James Pickering on surveillance and radical history

L.J. Pickering & Co
L.J. Pickering + Fam
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This week Bursts spoke to Leslie James Pickering about a range of different subjects. Mr. Pickering worked for the North American Earth Liberation Front Press Office (NAELFPO), acting to spread the message and communiques of the ELF, from 1997 to 2002. Obviously, he experienced heavy state oppression during that period of time. And recently, it’s become apparent that the state hasn’t forgotten him.

Leslie James Pickering is no longer allowed to enter Canada (despite no relevant arrests in the last decade and a half) and has found that he’s got a “Mail Cover” via the Post Office where his mail is photocopied and tracked by an as yet unidentified Law Enforcement Agency. He’s also had friends on the West Coast contacted by the Buffalo (NY) FBI Office and asked if Leslie has enemies or do direct action and business contacts of Leslie’s have been subpoenaed to Grand Juries around Burning Books Radical Bookstore. Leslie is an owner of that radical bookstore in Buffalo, which carries books, zines and hosts political events and via which, according to the FBI, Leslie is “stirring up the youth.”

We spend most of the hour talking about government surveillance in his case in particular and in general in the U.S. and also about the prosecution of Jeremy Hammond. Leslie shares some thoughts on parts the forgotten history of radical resistance in the U.S. In particular, he talks about his recent book on the Evan Mecham Eco Terrorist International Conspiracy (EMETIC), a predecessor to the ELF, as well as his earlier book on a radical, white, working class radical named Sam Melville who bombed government and capital centers in New York and inspired the Weather Underground. Melville, who’s the focus of Pickering’s book “Mad Bomber Melville”, went on to organize at Attica before and die during the Attica Prison uprising in 1971. In Pickering’s view, the importance of recognizing and learning from radical history allows us to better strategize for current and future struggles.

Lastly, we briefly touch on the story of Martin Sostres, who’s ideological journey brought him from Nation of Islam through Black Nationalism to Anarchism. Sostre was framed up on drug charges in order to silence his organizing and shut down his bookstore in Buffalo, NY, in 1967 and served 10 years before having his case overturned. Martin Sostre now lives in New York City. There was a 1974 documentary about his case called “Frame-Up!: The Imprisonment of Martin Sostre” (Pacific Street Films). The film HAS been available for streaming at christiebooks.com, alongside MANY other films in many languages.

http://lesliejamespickering.com where you can find news of, updates on and writings/speeches by L.J. Pickering

http://burningbooksbuffalo.com/

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activism, Anarchist, Author, General, Nonviolence, Occupy, Peter Gelderloos, repression

Peter Gelderloos on the Failure of Nonviolence

The Failure of Nonviolence
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This week’s episode features an interview with Peter Gelderloos. Peter is the author of “How Nonviolence Protects the State”, “Anarchy Works” and most recently of “The Failure of Nonviolence: From the Arab Spring to Occupy.”

In this hour Peter discusses the arguments in “The Failure…”, surmises the efficacy of nonviolent civil disobedience mass movements since the end of the Cold War, looks at some of the main and most visible supporters of the NVCD and what a more verdant struggle might look like.

Check out the book on the left banks website

For more of Peter’s writings, check out The Anarchist Library

Anarchist, Assassins, Author, General

Nihilist Anarchism (July 21, 2013)

Attentat
Cover of a new Nihilist Anarchist journal
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This week’s show features a conversation with one of the editors of the recently released journal of Nihilist Anarchism called Attentat, available from Little Black Cart.

We explore some of the history of the term nihilism and some of the philosophical underpinnings to it, as well as what intellectual nihilism today and active nihilism today look like around the world and in the U.S. in particular. The editor speaks about what they think nihilism can bring to anarchism and vice-versa.

More info on the journal can be found at http://pistolsdrawn.org .

Playlist

Anarchist, Author, Capitalism, General

Crime Thought: A conversation with Alden Wood

Crime Thought by Alden Wood
Crime Thought by Alden Wood
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This week on the show we interview Bay Area author Alden Wood about his book “Crime Thought; Theorizing CrimethInc.” published in 2012 by Little Black Cart.

In this interview we discuss the anarchist publishing project CrimethInc., which has been active and extremely prolific since the early 1990’s. It serves as an entry point for many people who are just becoming acquainted with anarchism as a political ideology. We discuss CrimethInc.’s successes and shortcomings as a unified front of political analysis, as well as possible jumping off points for people interested in exploring anarchism further.

Check out the LBC page for the Alden Wood book at Little Black Cart

Also, take a look at Crimethinc‘s website where you can find articles, propaganda and their podcast.

Anarchist, Author, Capitalism, Environment, General, History, Labor

Market Anti-Capitalism: A conversation with Charles W. Johnson

Markets Not Capitalism, edited by G. Chartier & C. Johnson
Markets Not Capitalism, edited by G. Chartier + C. Johnson
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This week’s show features an interview with Charles W. Johnson, an editor and contributor to the new edition “Markets Not Capitalism: Individualist Anarchism Against Bosses, Inequality, Corporate Power, and Structural Poverty”, just out from Autonomedia Press.

Charles is a market anarchist writer from Auburn, Alabama. He is a member of Occupy Auburn, a Research Associate at the Molinari Institute and an alumnus of Auburn University. He has published the Rad Geek People’s Daily weblog at radgeek.com since 2001, and is a frequent speaker and columnist on radical responses to the economic crises, stateless social activism and the philosophy of anarchism.

We discuss definitions of Capitalism, critiques from Left Libertarians and possible market alternatives. We also touch on racism, regulation, and class struggle.

Charles will be speaking about this new compilation at Firestorm Books and Cafe, 48 Commerce St in Asheville at 6pm on Thursday, March 15 (Tyrannicide Day).

http://radgeek.com/gt/2011/10/14/markets-not-capitalism-1st-ed/
http://charleswjohnson.name/

activism, Anarchist, Antifa, Author, General, Klan, Nazis, Police, Prisons, Racism, repression

Memphis organizes against police and the KKK: A Conversation with Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin

Lorenzo Kom'boa Ervin
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Memphis, TN, is heating up! This year will be the first observance of the International Day of Action Against Police Brutality on March 15th, organized in part by Black Autonomy CopWatch. Also, on March 30th, the KKK will be holding a rally against the city’s decision to rename the park housing the body of Nathan Bedford Forrest, a confederate General and founder of the KKK. Memphis also plans to rename 2 other Confederate parks in the city, not only forrest park. Counter-demonstrations are planned by Anti-Racist Action and other American antifascists.

It should not surprise folx that one of the people working so hard to organize against police brutality and challenge white supremacists is Tennessee’s own Lorenzo Kom’boa Ervin. Mr. Kom’boa Ervin is a former black panther, an author, a former political prisoner and a Black Autonomist.

The show also features an update from the Tinley Park 5 website on the status of the antifa prisoners.

The Playlist can be found here

Anarchist, Antifa, Author, communization, Feminism, gender, General, Marxism, Nazis, Queer

Anarcha-Feminism: A conversation with J. Rogue and Abbey Volcano

fem_07
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This week features a conversation with J. Rogue and Abbey Volcano, contributors to the 3rd Edition of “Quiet Rumors: An Anarcha-Feminist Reader” and contributors to and editors of the 2012 book, “Queering Anarchism”, both published by AK Press.

Firstly, though, a few announcements about the speaking tour on the East Coast of 3 Greek Antifa which’ll be coming to Eastern/Central NC on March 17, the March 30th anti-Klan rally planned for Memphis, TN, and the repression facing Lorenzo Komboa Ervin in TN due to his organizing work around this and police brutality.

The conversation flows from an intro to Anarcha-Feminism and what differs with and what’s common with other forms of Feminism, gender in Communization Problematic, Transfeminism, Intersectionality, Queer, BDSM and the placement of this year’s Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair in a community center owned by Kink.com, and anti-capitalist analyses of sex work.

The playlist can be found here

Author, CounterInsurgency, Dawn Paley, Drug War, General, Immigration, Indigenous, Neoliberalism, Police, Prisons, Racism, repression

Drug War Capitalism: A conversation with Dawn Paley (February 17, 2013)

drugwar-politico-cartoon
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Dawn Paley is an independent journalist based in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Much of her work deals with the displacement of peoples, particularly of First Nation peoples, in Latin America as a result of the militarized and U.S. fueled War on Drugs. The story that Ms. Paley tells illuminates the creation of Free Trade agreements, the Multinational corporations that profit from the displacement of marginalized peoples from resource rich lands and links between state security forces and paramilitary narco-groupings into a complex web of profits and losses. As in most cases under Capital and State, there are a few winners and many who suffer the penalties.

Dawn’s journalism can be found at dawnpaley.ca

The playlist for this show can be found here.

activism, Anarchist, Author, China Martens, gender, General, Labor, Parenting, PM Press, Queer, Vikki Law

Radical Parenting and Sustaining a Multi-Generational Movement

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China Martens has published Future Generation, a zine about radical parenting since 1990 (published as a book by Atomic Books in 2007). Vikki Law has worked to get the voices of women in and out of prison around by producing Tenacious: Art and Writing by Women in Prison and the recently republished Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women. China and Vikki are authors, editors, anarchists, activists and also, mothers.

This week we speak to Vikki Law and China Martens about the newly published book, Don’t Leave Your Friends Behind: Concrete Ways to Support Families in Social Justice Movements and Communities (PM Press, 2012), which they edited and contributed to. We talk about multigenerationality in struggle as well as intersections of age, class, gender and race.

Vikki Law: http://resistancebehindbars.org/
China Martens: http://kidzcitybaltimore.blogspot.com/

*Correction, Vikki Law is involved with a group called WORTH, not GROW. http://womenontherise-worth.org/

Anarchist, Anti-Civ, Author, Cartoons, Comics, gender, General, Margaret Killjoy, Queer

Margaret KIlljoy on Post-Civ, Steampunk and myth

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Margaret Killjoy is an author, designer, musician, cartoonist and a proponent of an artisanal anti-civiliization anarchism called Post-Civ. We speak about subcultures, storytelling, technology and myth.

 

http://birdsbeforethestorm.net
http://www.combustionbooks.org/
http://nomadicwarmachine.bandcamp.com/
http://www.tangledwilderness.org/