Category Archives: History

Communisation and its Discontents: An interview with Dr. Ben Noys

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from http://www.ashevillefm.org/the-final-straw/04/2012/communisation-and-its-discontents-an-interview-with-dr-ben-noys:

This week’s show features a conversation with Dr. Benjamin Noys, editor of a new book entitled “Communisation and its Discontents”. Communisation theory evolved out of post-68 ultra-left communism and today is being explored and promoted by authors and journals like Riff-Raff, Theorie Communiste, End Notes, Sic and Tiqqun. This show is a short introduction to the theories and plays with the problematics of communisation including gender, terminology, identity, and activity.

The text of the book is available online for free at Libcom:
http://libcom.org/library/communization-its-discontents-contestation-critique-contemporary-struggles

Related projects that may be of interest include:
LibCom’s archive of communisation texts (http://libcom.org/tags/communisation)

Riff-Raff (http://www.riff-raff.se/en/9/)
Sic (http://sic.communisation.net/)
Tiqqun & Invisible Committee related (http://libcom.org/tags/tiqqun)

Tyrannicide Day 2012!

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from http://www.ashevillefm.org/the-final-straw/03/2012/tyrannicide-day-2012

This week’s show is dedicated to Tyrannicide. As discussed at the end of last week’s show, the ides of march approacheth. this date is celebrated as the date of the assasination of the tyrant, Julius Caesar. It also approximates the date of the assasination by the Nihilist group Narodnaya Volya, or people’s will of Czar Alexander the second of Russia, albeit after 7 attempts. We celebrate today
the equalling of the playing field, those who strove to be actors on the stage of history, lone wolfs if you will. I will say of the theme of today’s show that whether or not the Attentat, or propaganda of the deed, actually creates the change that people expect or desire is debateable. Maybe not. Maybe it just doesn’t. But, then, let’s celebrate those brave and/or crazy individuals who took it upon themselves to roll the dice in the face of authoritarianism and make at least one foul tyrant suffer.

Annoucement of local event can be found here:
http://mountaindistress.com/archives/222

Playlist for the show can be found at AshevilleFM

Conspiracy Trials, Grand Juries and Security Culture

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This week’s show features a conversation with Ian Coldwater, a co-founder of the Coldsnap Legal Collective, about Conspiracy Trials, Grand Juries, Security Culture and technology. We discuss some of the trials that have come up against Anarchists, Animal and Earth defenders and other radicals over the last 8 years in the U.S. and Canada with an eye towards what we can learn in order to increase our safety as activists and radicals.

For more info, check out the following links:

Keep an eye open for local events by the Never Alone Tour in your area.

Police Abolition: An interview with Kristian Williams

Today’s show features an interview with the Portland-based author and activist, Kristian Williams. Williams speaks on his first book, Our Enemies in Blue: A History of Policing in America), on recent articles about community policing and the counterinsurgency training shared between the U.S. military and domestic law enforcement agencies and the growing movement calling for the abolition of police in the United States, and the Pacific Northwest in particular). The show will air at 1pm EST at www.ashevillefm.org and be archived for a week at www.ashevillefm.org/the-final-straw .


Check out www.kristianwilliams.com for more information on the interviewee

“…For the love of one’s country is a terrible thing…” (January 24, 2011)


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Tonight’s show (Monday, 1/24/11 from 8-10pm EST, thanks to The Invisible Worm) will focus on the struggle for justice in Northern Ireland from Fenians through the United Men, the IRB, IRA, INLA and the Civil Rights Marches. Recognizing that this is guilty pleasure for some of us Americans of Irish Descent (myself included), allow me these two hours to play some of my favorite Irish Republican songs.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Please also understand that I do not condone the actions of the paramilitary movements (Unionist or Republican) or governments (Irish, Northern Irish or British). My understanding is that the Irish situation is a terribly complicated product of centuries of colonization, genocide and divide-and-conquer tactics of the lower classes (mostly along religious and ethnic lines) by the elite and powerful. A free Ireland, in my opinion, would be one: free of class division; free of the managing elite; free of religious persecution and the persecution of religions; free of sectarian conflict; free of racism, sexism and homophobia. A free Ireland would be autonomous from European oversight and debt and yet one in which Irish identity does not take the form of jingoistic nationalism.

For more information on some interesting Irish projects, check out the following pages:

  • Worker’s Solidarity Movement
  • Black and Red Revolution
  • RAG (Revolutionary Anarchafeminist Group

“Yo se que un dia te estarias con nosotros como querias, como querias.”

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This week’s show, during Dystopia, I presented my humble homage to the songs of the Spanish Civil War, and particularly to the Anarchist forces. These two hours feature many original recordings and beautiful readaptations, with little rants/snippets of history on the significance of songs.

Part 1:

Part 2:

I noted after the show ended that I left out the original of what is perhaps my favorite song ( “A Las Barricadas”, the CNT theme to the tune of Warszawianka 1905) from that period, available here for your enjoyment on youtube.

For some light reading on the subject, check out:

  • http://flag.blackened.net/revolt/spaindx.html
  • http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/scw/scw.htm