Resonance: An Anarchist Audio Distro

The Unquiet Dead Anarchism, Fascism, and Mythology Chapter 7. Elitism, Populism, and Democracy – By Anonymous – MP3– Read– Print – Archive– Torrent– YouTube

Chapter 7 discusses Nietzsche, anti-Semitism and elitism as well as The Peróns fascism and populism. The full text is available at unquietdead.tumblr.com; we will be posting recordings of other chapters in the future.

“I tell you unless something is done to alleviate such things there will be more anarchists, aye, red-handed anarchists, in this country. I do not wonder that there are anarchists in this country; the wonder is that there are not more of them.”

Simon & Garfunkel – I Am A Rock, Sum 41 – Fatlip, Sharon Campbell – Evita – Don’t Cry For me Argentina, John Mellencamp – Pink Houses

Trailer for another podcast in the Channel Zero Network from Time Talks Podcast

Revolution and Destituent Power: How do we de-activate the State without founding a new one? – MP3 – Read – Print– Torrent – Archive– YouTube

Historically, the revolutionary process in the West has centered on violently destroying a certain order and then re-founding a new order based on that prior violence. From the revolutionary terror of the French Revolution, and the writing of the American constitution in the wake of revolutionary war, to the authoritarian nightmare of the Soviet Union, to contemporary demands in Chile for a constitutional assembly, it seems impossible for revolutions to escape the logic of sovereignty, constituency, and security. How do we escape what Agamben calls the vicious spiral of terrorism and the State? Seeking a way out of the traps of modernity, some theorists and revolutionary movements have proposed an idea of destituent power: a revolutionary process that breaks the law not in order to found a new law, but to do away with the logic of law altogether.

This talk presents an overview of Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben’s writing on the question of destituent power, tracing the history of the idea from Walter Benjamin and Georges Sorel, through the Italian Autonomia movement and the refusal of work, and into present theories of destituent power. Finally, we briefly discuss the interesting points of intersection between the largely European concept of destituent power, and the decidedly Black and North American concepts of fugitivity and the undercommons, rooted in Fred Moten’s work.

Trailer at the end for another Channel Zero podcast trailer Rebel Steps Season 2

For those who are interested in the source material, reading suggestions include:

Giorgio Agamben, From the State of Control to a Praxis of Destituent Power

Giorgio Agamben, The Use of Bodies, Prologue and Epilogue

Robert Hurley, Communist Ontology

Fred Moten & Stefano Harney, The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study

Now by The Invisible Committee – MP3 – Read– Print – Torrent – Archive – YouTube

Now (2017) is the phantom chapter to the Invisible Committee’s previous book, To Our Friends: a new critique from the anonymous collective that establishes their opposition to the world of capital and its law of labor, addresses current anti-terrorist rhetoric and the ferocious repression that comes with it, and clarifies the end of social democracy and the growing rumors of the need for a coming “civil war.”

Now emerges at a time when the Invisible Committee’s contestation has found echoes throughout the West, with a collapse of trust in the police, an inept weariness on the part of the political system, a growing urgency for opposition, a return of the theme of the Commune, a vanishing distinction between radicals and citizens, and a widespread refusal on the part of the citizen to be governed. As farcical political elections continue to unfold worldwide like a line of tumbling dominoes, and governments increasingly struggle to reclaim a legitimacy that has already slipped out of their grasp, Now clarifies the Invisible Committee’s attitude toward all such elections and their outcome: one of utter indifference.

Now proposes a “destituent process” that charts out a different path to be taken, a path of outright refusal that simply ignores elections altogether. It is a path that calls for taking over the world and not taking power, for exploring new forms of life and not a new constitution, and for desertion and silence as alternatives to proclamations and crashes. It is also a call for an unprecedented communism—a communism stronger than nation and country.

Musical interludes by Debussy from Arabesque Number One

“No more waiting.

No more hoping.

No more letting ourselves be distracted, unnerved.

Break and enter.

Put untruth back in its place.

Believe in what we feel.

Act accordingly.

Force our way into the present.

Try. Fail this time. Try again. Fail better.

Persist. Attack. Build.

Go down one’s road.

Win perhaps.

In any case, overcome.

Live, therefore.

Now...”

The Olympia Communard: Dispatches from the Olympia Rail Blockade – By Various Authors – MP3 – PDF – Torrent – Archive – YouTube

For seven days during the winter of 2016, radicals, revolutionaries and ne’er-do-wells – inspired by the then unfolding revolt at Standing Rock – built a blockade encampment on the train tracks in downtown Olympia, Washington (Nisqually and Squaxin Land), in order to stop a train full of essential fracking supplies from reaching the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota. One year later the blockade reemerged and for another twelve days during the winter of 2017, participants took a stand against the industrial machinations of death.

This compilation of writing comes from the second year of the blockade and was intended to be record of sorts, of a special time and place affectionately referred to by its participants as the Olympia Commune. In the Olympia Communard’s own words:

“It is simply the perspective of some future possible world, glancing back at the collapse of this world and searching for those elements of redemption hidden therein”.

More audio resources on the Olympia Train Blockade(s) check out

The (Ex)Worker #61: The Olympia Train Blockade (2017)

SoleCast on the Olympia Blockade (2017)

IGD Cast – Discussion on the Blockade (2017)

IGD Cast – Audio Report (2017)

IGD Cast – Barricade That Train (2016)

Final Statement by Willem Van Spronsen – MP3 – Read – Archive – Torrent – YouTube

On July 13, 2019, Willem Van Spronsen was killed by police while
attacking transportation infrastructure for the Northwest Detention
Center in Tacoma, WA.

The Northwest Detention Center can hold over 1,500 people, making it the
largest immigration prison on the west coast, and one of the largest
immigrant detention facilities in the country.

Willem was a long-time activist, anarchist, anti-fascist, musician and
father. In a memorial posted to Puget sound anarchists, his comrades
wrote: “We are grief stricken, inspired and enraged by what occurred
early this morning... Will gave his life fighting ICE. we may never know
what specifically was going through his head in the last hours of his
life but we know that the NWDC must be destroyed and the prisoners must
be freed. We do not need heroes, only friends and comrades. Will was
simply a human being, and we wish that he was still with us. It’s
doubtless that the cops and the media will attempt to paint him as some
sort of monster, but in reality he was a comrade who fought for many
years for what he believed in and this morning he was killed doing what
he loved; fighting for a better world.”

The following is Willem Van Spronsen’s Final Statement:

There’s wrong and there’s right.
It’s time to take action against the forces of evil.
Evil says one life is worth less than another.
Evil says the flow of commerce is our purpose here.
Evil says concentration camps for folks deemed lesser are necessary.
The handmaid of evil says the concentration camps should be more humane.
Beware the centrist.
I have a father’s broken heart
I have a broken down body
And I have an unshakable abhorrence for injustice
That is what brings me here.
This is my clear opportunity to try to make a difference, I’d be an
ingrate to be waiting for a more obvious invitation.
I follow three teachers:
Don Pritts, my spiritual guide. “Love without action is just a word.”
John Brown, my moral guide. “What is needed is action!”
Emma Goldman, my political guide. “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be
in your revolution.”
I’m a head in the clouds dreamer, I believe in love and redemption.
I believe we’re going to win.
I’m joyfully revolutionary. (We all should have been reading Emma
Goldman in school instead of the jingo drivel we were fed, but I
digress.) (We should all be looking at the photos of the YPG heroes
should we falter and think our dreams are impossible, but I double
digress. Fight me.)
In these days of fascist hooligans preying on vulnerable people in our
streets, in the name of the state or supported and defended by the
state,
In these days of highly profitable detention/concentration camps and a
battle over the semantics,
In these days of hopelessness, empty pursuit and empty yearning,
We are living in visible fascism ascendant. (I say visible, because
those paying attention watched it survive and thrive under the
protection of the state for decades. [See Howard Zinn, A People’s
History of the United States.] Now it unabashedly follows its agenda
with open and full cooperation from the government. From governments
around the world.
Fascism serves the needs of the state serves the needs of business and
at your expense. Who benefits? Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet, Elon Musk, Tim
Cook, Bill Gates, Betsy de Vos, George Soros, Donald Trump, and need I
go on? Let me say it again: rich guys (who think you’re not really all
that good), really dig government (every government everywhere,
including “communist” governments), because they make the rules that
make rich guys richer.
Simple.
Don’t overthink it.
(Are you patriots in the back paying attention?)
When I was a boy, in post-war Holland, later France, my head was filled
with stories of the rise of fascism in the ’30s. I promised myself that
I would not be one of those who stands by as neighbors are torn from
their homes and imprisoned for somehow being pe...