“i, vega!, love writing. im just getting started on this journey but im trying to go in with honesty. its a beautiful thing to me. its my art. so i write for you and i write for free because it’s my passion. its the satisfaction of an urge of the living. to leave the world more beautiful for having youwaking up naturally, saying nothing, with a ballroom of cascading thoughts snaring my mind. what’s left of a dreamy sleep state where belief becomes true and magic still holds power. i turn away from the wall and brush the pillow next to me. i find myself adrift, careening down the rivers of consciousness. lost in a sea of coffee stained memories. i don’t preoccupy myself so much with the movement of days. i abstain from such unfathomable mysteries. instead i spend my time entranced with the sureness of my feet, the frailty of my time. this is my reality. this is existence.” – Vega (RIP)
Grotesque & Tranquility: A Queer Nihilist’s Compilation of Poetry
From back cover:
“Vega is a southern born west coast anarcho-nihilist. Their identity is found in subtle notes throughout their prose. Being a constructed element of self, their identity has been constructed through a warped vision of what’s in front of you momentarily. Nothing written can capture that which is Vega, so nothing written will really do. If you knew them you would know. And that’s all there is. One might label them as disabled or a drug user. Another might label them as another construct to convey emotion. What resonates here is what matters. Leave the rest for someone else.”
Grotesque and Tranquility_A Queer Nihilists Compilation of Poetry pdf
I Am Not Broken: Anarcho-Nihilist Disability & Survival Against Industrial Society
From back cover:
“My job couldn’t kill me, it could only tear me down to place me on a path of healing, a path to helping others through their struggles as I was able to work through mine. The pain is not an easy companion but it’s a constant reminder to look after myself and to look after others. This world is a dark, isolating place but I serve as a reminder that we can make it through our darkest times, that a flickering flame may well be the spark that lights industry aflame. We are not weak, only prisoner of the illusion of weakness. If we refuse to crumble under the immense pressures of this world we may cast light into the shadows, bearing witness to transformation and casting aside despair.”
I Am Not Broken_Anarcho Nihilist Disability and Survival Against Industrial Society pdf
A Feral Life: One Last Nihilist Exposition
“Speaking of changes, lately I’ve begun imagining expressing my ideas and thoughts with more face to face interactions rather than through the medium of writing. I could surely do both, and have been for quite some time. But as I write this, I feel I have reached a point in my life where I am finding the activity of writing these texts as limiting as the very words themselves. It is fun and easy to do during the winter, or spontaneously during or after exciting experiences at riots, etc. But I think I am ready to shift my focus onto something else.
Over the years, I have made many accomplices and enemies with the circulation of my writing – these literary expressions of my thoughts, experiences, and ideas. And I am deeply moved by the kind things many of you have said – as well as the awful things too! Maybe I will pick up writing again if the desire overcomes my hesitation to open a computer and type in a coffee shop, or in a notepad under a bridge while waiting for a train, or during or after a riot – or even after an exhilarating heist! Maybe I will write again from within the confines of a prison cell – because really though, let’s be honest, how much damage to this industrial leviathan can one really do within the limitations of legality? How much freedom can one really reclaim without provoking those who benefit from enslavement? (But of course, I’ll do my best not to get caught!)
So to the readers of my writing, I bid you a literary farewell! If my writing has inspired you to think differently, it is only because you had the courage to read something unfamiliar to you in the first place. If any of my writing has encouraged you to live more freely, it was only because you possessed the power to reclaim your life and live on your own terms. On paper, I am Just an idea that you read aloud in your head with your own voice.”
Oblivion: Anarchy & the Collapse of Industrial Civilization
From back cover:
“Of course, regardless of how myself or anyone else feels about industrial collapse, and whether or not people want to believe we can either prevent or accelerate it, industrial collapse is already happening, and has been for quite some time. Perhaps the reason why it’s gone unnoticed is either due to denial, or because the rate at which it’s collapsing doesn’t resemble a single, crumbling tower that quickly turns into ash and smoke. That is because something as large and socially complex as industrial society doesn’t break down all at once, but instead decomposes at different points and at different times. It is commonly understood as collapse due to an acknowledgement that as the natural resources needed to sustain industrial society are depleted, the points of decomposition break down beyond repair.”
“I can imagine a couple possible reasons why industrial collapse doesn’t cross the minds of many. One reason could be the socialized mentality of immortality driven by human supremacist arrogance. There are many people today – including leftists – who continue to put faith in science and technology as the saviors of life, and as a primary response to ecological disasters. At the root of this unwaivering faith is a refusal to acknowledge how science and technology have re-defined life by securing human-centric control over the wild. Science and technology, regardless of their greening continue to be the alphabet of industrialization – expanding power and influence through a language of increased alienation and ecological extinction. From military empowerment through the expansive production of weapons of mass destruction, to the tireless gaze of increased State surveilance over the population, science and technology never sleep. And as industrialization continues to absorb what remains of the wild world, the relationship to wildness erodes on both an individual and societal level.”
Oblivion_Anarchy & the Collapse of Industrial Civilization pdf
Fuck Around and Find Out: An Obituary for Victimhood
“Here, I reflect on a specific memory that involves physical abuse and sexual assault…
…after years of accumulated anger and despair, something changed. The line between life and death blurred as I stood up holding a chair over my head and screamed incoherently at a man who, for years, used my body for both sexual assault and various forms of corporal punishment. This man, who was supposed to be my father figure, my role model, my trusted best friend, slowly backed away. Today was the day he lost all power and control over me. For the first time there was fear in HIS eyes instead of mine, and years of childhood mental and physical abuse would cease forever.
It wasn’t until I became aware of my own violent potential that I experienced freedom. Despite being much smaller and weaker, I was no longer afraid. A new confidence had consumed me – one that could never be inspired by the protection of my Family, Community, or the State. Even the threat of imprisonment couldn’t subdue this deranged exhilaration. I waited. I waited for him to try again. I watched him poison himself with the usual gin, brandy, and beer combination, waiting for his drunken wrath to return. But it never did. My abandonment of victimhood hadn’t gone unnoticed. Almost as if he could smell his own pool of blood from an impending ambush attack in the night. The future was written. He was lucky to still be alive – and seemingly had no intentions on taking that gamble.”
Fuck Around and Find Out_An Obituary for Victimhood pdf
Toward Terra Incognita: A Critical Look at Cultural Essentialism, Nationalism, and Body Policing
“I feel nationalism has escaped the grave long enough. With this text I seek to instigate and encourage an anti-authoritarian flame that once and for all sets fire to its anarcho-confused, stumbling corpse. I also encourage anarchists to question the notion of any said thing belonging exclusively to any said culture, to question the notion that every individual identifying with said culture claims to own it, and to question the authority of whoever it is making universal claims on behalf of others in the first place.
I say normalize dreadlocks across all racial categories; rebel against work – especially the type of work that seeks to conform us to beauty standards of marketing and production! I say dismantle white supremacy by making whiteness as insubordinate to colonial order as every black and brown youth who light up precincts like bonfires to freedom!
I propose an anarchy that moves beyond the politics of embracing assigned identity, toward de-territorializing one’s body and destroying identity-based occupation all together. At the intersection of anti-colonial and anti-authoritarian praxis is a nihilist critique of any and all cultural ownership of one’s body, becoming a dangerous space of terra incognita.”
Toward Terra Incognita_A Critical Look at Cultural Essentialism, Nationalism, and Body Policing pdf
The Match Consumed: A Condensed Reading of “Blessed is the Flame”
“A few months ago a comrade and I decided to take on the task of creating a condensed version of blessed is the flame. This was in response to a vast misunderstanding and fash-jacketing of those who post content on nihilist thought. This task turned out to be more difficult than we imagined. Condensing 50+ pages wasn’t easy, at times it felt wrong to even omit some of the passages/stories from the book. On a particular night of working on this project the question came up of whether or not this was a disservice to all people whose stories were told in the book. But we found solace in the ‘afterthoughts’. There will never be enough paper to document all the stories of those who were imprisoned in the camps. Many of them are still relatively unknown and majority of the ones that are ended in tragedy. Most of the prisoners who resisted were met with swift death. So knowing all the tragedy and suffering that happened how did this book become so important to us? Enough for us to spend months trying to compile a shorter read for people to have access to?
Blessed was our introduction to nihilist resistance. On a summer morning in the middle of the desert it became a sacred text to us. We poured over the pages red and reread each section – the stories lit a fire under us. When you pick this up it’s our hope that you may be consumed by that same fire.
“I find it comforting that everything is so hopeless”
-Tal & Skinny”
The Match Consumed_A Condensed Reading of Blessed is the Flame pdf
BREAKING RANKS: Subverting the Hierarchy & Manipulation Behind Earth Uprisings
“At this point, many anarchists in the US are already familiar with how tiqqunists destroyed the struggle at the Notre-Dame-des-Landes ZAD (Zone to Defend) occupation in France in favor of legalization and property ownership [1]. The narrative that this tragic conclusion to the decade-long struggle was actually a victory has been regurgitated ad nauseum by tiqqunist platforms in the US. For example, Ill Will Edition’s “The Strategy of Composition” is about applying this “strategy” to the struggle against Cop City: “The territorial phase of the struggle took shape gradually over a ten year period from 2008 until its eventual victory in 2018, and has since continued to nourish collective experiments on the Zone to this day”.
The next initiative of the ex-ZAD tiqqunists failed when those familiar with their methods of recuperation and authoritarianism sabotaged their attempts to take the vanguard of a ZAD located in Carnet. Comrades from the Carnet ZAD along with those from several other struggles co-authored a statement outlining the attempts at cooptation and centralization, which we included as an appendix in this zine as an inspiring example of anti-authoritarians making a struggle inhospitable to authoritarian power plays.
After this failed attempt at bringing autonomous and decentralized struggles under their control, the tiqqunists of the ex-ZAD moved on to their most recent initiative: Soulevements de la Terre (which translates to “Earth Uprisings”, aka SDT). Exploiting the momentum of groups like Extinction Rebellion, and the broader youth climate movement, SDT offers activists a militant alternative to civil disobedience: mass demo-actions against ecologically destructive targets. While these have included some notable acts of sabotage, it is important to notice that their actions are often just as limited to symbolic engagement as those of the non-violent environmentalists, designed to promote the organization through sensationalism aimed at capturing the attention of the mass media. A recent mass action against a water basin on March 25th resulted in serious injuries, prompting anarchists to more broadly articulate warnings about this organization’s political foundations and motivations. The authors of these texts are careful to critique the centralized forces behind SDT and not the participants, clarifying that they are not telling anyone to stop attending SDT actions, but rather encouraging them to maintain a critical eye towards how the actions are organized and what they are being asked to do.
Predictably, the two primary tiqqunist platforms in the US have championed Soulevements de la Terre: Ill Will Editions republishes their propaganda, and Inhabit does the same while proclaiming that their actions are “an exhilarating example of all that has gone well in the movement up until this point and chart a path forward we hope others can imagine walking themselves”. [2] The following three critiques from anti-authoritarians in France are therefore also relevant to our context. These texts focus on manipulative and vanguardist practices, the spectacularization of the struggle, and the use of radicals as shock-troops. The goal of these texts, and our translation effort, is to increase familiarity with these deceptive practices and strategies, an essential first step towards sabotaging the influence and control of any similar attempts in our own neck of the woods.”
BREAKING RANKS_Subverting the Hierarchy & Manipulation Behind Earth Uprisings pdf
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
From back cover:
“The state will use machine learning to filter surveillance footage for criminals and potential criminals; capitalism will use machine learning to identify ways to appropriate resources and maximize profits…This doesn’t mean, though, that anarchists could appropriate machine learning systems for our own goals. Quite the contrary! For machine learning systems are not only at the beck and call of the forces of order through their emergence from prompts, but far more importantly, remain tethered to these forces through the models they create. The sources on which machine learning systems feed are the troughs of ‘big data’: billions of statistical, lexicographical, literary, medicinal, military and civilian, surveillance-based and contractually obligated, creative or robotic, data points.
…To sabotage a machine learning system, then, it must be fed content that is in itself coherent, very likely meets evaluation criteria, and yet leads the system’s propagations into a feedback frenzy from which they can’t escape. The machine learning system must be fed text that coherently self-destructs. And the text must directly concern the concept(s) that the machine learning system is modelling, to meet its evaluation criteria.”
A Nihilist Understanding of “Social War”: On Autonomy, Domination, Representation, Class War and Identity
From back cover:
“Social war is all around us. It is present in the cop cars that patrol our streets, in our schools, in the design of our cities and suburbs, and in the boundaries of what it means to be a man or a woman. To wage social war is to either exercise social control or destroy it, to govern or to be uncontrollable, or to forfeit your agency to a representative or to take direct action. Social war is all around us, we cannot choose whether we are subjected to it, but whether we choose to fight back.”
Animal Bodies, Colonial Subjects: (Re)Locating Animality in Decolonial Thought
From back cover:
“I suggest that the recognition of animals as colonial subjects has been absent from Indigenous Studies. That is, contemporary decolonial thought has yet to engage with a politics of animality that not only recalls “traditional” and/or “ceremonial” human-animal relations, but is also accountable to animal subjectivities and futurities outside settler colonialism and within a project of decolonization. That is, decolonial thought cannot, for example, demand the repatriation of land as an ecofeminist praxis while simultaneously advocating for hunting as a recreational activity precisely because hunting has been weaponized as speciesism to normalize the killability of animals for human ends. Here, I propose a re-centering of animality through Indigenous cosmologies and epistemologies (specifically Mi’kmaq and Cree) to propose a decolonial animal ethic. […]
Several of the recommendations proposed by the animal liberation movement are thus applicable to decolonization. For example, rejecting animal experimentation, disrupting the commodification of animal bodies, and abolishing animal agriculture are gestures that can be deployed as anti-colonial gestures that reify decolonial futurities insofar as these forms of knowledge production, capitalism, and food culture sustain the settler state.[…]
…settler colonialism wants to produce animal bodies as commodities embedded in a global economy of reiterated deathliness. Said different, animal bodies that are inserted into capitalist spaces of commodity production are always already scheduled for death to be consumed as meat, clothing, scientific data, and so forth.[…]
Similar to the ways in which Indigenous peoples can undergo a violent process through which we rid our colonial mentalities, I argue that animals can be liberated from their colonized subjecthood through an aided “process of desubjectification”. That is, thinking through animality as an infrastructure of decolonization re-positions animal bodies as agents of anti-colonial resurgence.They can consequently engender “forms of energy that are capable of engaging the forces that keep [Indigenous people and animals] tied to [a] colonial mentality and reality”. Settler colonialism has therefore required the normalization of speciesism within Indigenous communities to obfuscate the radicality of Indigenous-animal relations. In that sense, recalling the representation of animals in Indigenous cosmologies/oral traditions and unsettling speciesism as a “colonial mentality” must be prioritized in decolonial thought.[…]
Animal Bodies, Colonial Subjects_(Re)Locating Animality in Decolonial Thought pdf
Veganism and Mi’kmaw Legends
From back cover:
“This text proposes a postcolonial ecofeminist reading of Mi’kmaw legends as the basis for a vegan diet rooted in Indigenous culture. I refer primarily to veganism throughout this work because unlike vegetarianism, it is not only a diet but a lifestyle that, for ethical reasons, eschews the use of animal products. Constructing an Indigenous veganism faces two significant barriers—the first being the association of veganism with whiteness…
…A second barrier to Indigenous veganism is the portrayal of veganism as a product of class privilege. Opponents claim that a vegan diet is an indulgence since the poor (among whom Indigenous people are disproportionately represented) must eat whatever is available, and cannot afford to be so picky. This argument assumes that highly processed specialty products make up the bulk of a vegan diet. Such an argument also overlooks the economic and environmental cost of meat, and assumes that the subsidized meat and dairy industries in North America are representative of the world.”
Veganism as Anti-Colonial Praxis: A Collection of Indigenous Vegan Perspectives
From back cover:
“Despite the absorption of veganism by the capitalist market – a process that admittingly reinforces pre-existing divisions across class and racial lines – a vegan lifestyle taken to its logical conclusion is fundamentally anti-capitalist and anti-colonial. By (re)acknowledging sentience and personalities within the bodies of colonized (animal) subjects, a vegan lifestyle rejects authoritarian relationships based on disrespect for the bodily autonomy of those whose lives have been re-purposed for human supremacist consumption.
This small collection of shared experiences, while reflective of a larger anti-colonial struggle, highlights the inclusion of an anti-speciesist, animal liberation.”
Veganism as Anti-Colonial Praxis_A Collection of Indigenous Vegan Perspectives pdf
Of Diets & Morality: A Vegan Egoist Perspective
From back cover:
“…But I am also a vegan, not because I wish to limit my consumption of animals but because I desire to expand it! I still consume animals, but not as food, not as mere commodities alienated from me by capitalist production and given silly nicknames, such as ‘pork’ and ‘beef’, in order to distract whatever conscience they falsely believe that I am possessed by. I devour animals as individuals; no longer tethered to the service of Man, I am free to act without his prejudices, so I no longer refuse to look at the lesser animals, but instead gaze upon them, scanning every detail and making frequent observations, to see what pleasures I can take from them! I now take pleasure in the pleasure of animals, not because I am doing what is ‘right’, but because I seize their joy for myself and make it my property; I milk delight from the freed cattle, leaping gleefully through the fields of the sanctuary; I crack open the contentedness of the chicken as it pecks seeds from my hand; a pampered dog, descendant of a once ferocious wolf, and I devour hungrily the companionship that we share together. Animals can offer me many things that other ‘humans’ can not; new ways of communicating, of perceiving the world around me; the unique, aesthetic pleasure of their appearance, especially the details that one only notices with familiarity, and the mystery, intrigue and exciting unexpectedness of beings so morphologically and genetically different from myself! Just as a plate with greater variety is far more delicious, relationships with a greater diversity of beings is far more delectable for me and I will not limit myself to consuming only relations with Man!”
Kaimangatanga: Māori Perspectives on Veganism and Plant-based Kai
From back cover:
““To adopt a form of veganism – a plant-based lifestyle and ethics – that acknowledges, is based upon, and celebrates Te Ao Māori, is a break from the dominant and from the status quo and but also an act of decolonialism. It is a way to reclaim sovereignty and exercise individual choice.
And finally, it is a means by which collective power and community may be built; this is evident in the existence of online forums and comment threads on Māori-based vegan and plant- based social media accounts.
Discussions regarding the intersections of vegan ethics, Indigeneity and Māoritanga and ideas about plant-based kai, and kaimangatanga are already occurring within Māori families and communities and the outcomes and possiblities that arise from this kōrero are potent and unique. There are karakia or prayers that refer to the sustenance provided by plant-based kai, and waiata (songs) which are based upon the care and protection of animal species and the environment. There are also resources and recipes for ‘veganizing’ traditional foods such as hangi (food cooked in the earth), and boil-up (a popular meat-based dish which usually includes plants such as pūha [sowthistle], potatoes, and watercress).”
Kaimangatanga_ Maori Perspectives on Veganism and Plant-based Kai pdf
DISSENT FROM WITHIN: The Hidden Story of the Anti-Whaling Members of the Makah Tribe
From back cover:
“This zine was put together not only to honor the memory of Mahak whale protector Alberta Nora Thomspson, but also to commemorate the story of resistance surrounding the Makah anti-whaling warriors whose very existence has been (intentionally) hidden from the world. Their dissenting voices silenced by the powers of intimidation, patriarchy, and a capitalist pursuit disguised as “traditional hunting”. For many outside of the situation, the narrative most widely accepted is one that reduces the situation to mere identity politics; White animal rights activists vs Indigenous people. Indigenous writer Linda Hogan and Seattle writer Brenda Peterson journeyed to Neah Bay to interview Makah elders who were breaking the silence about this narrative and speaking out against their tribe’s return to whaling.”
Dissent From Within_The Hidden Story of the Anti-Whaling Members of the Makah Tribe pdf
Anarchy & Animal Liberation: A Journal of Wild Attack
From back cover:
“The anti-authoritarian relationship with non-human animals (and the earth) combined with clandestine attack against industrial society can be seen throughout history. Past and present, many anarchists not only maintain a vegan lifestyle as a rejection of hierarchy in their relationships to non-human animals, but also recognize the necessity for destroying civilization itself.
This zine was created with the intention of illustrating the relationship between veganism, individualist anarchy and insurrectionary attack by highlighting a few of the many groups and cells that turned anger into action.”
The Intersections Between Anti-Speciesism, Anti-Civilization, & Individualist Anarchy
From back cover:
“Veganism, like anarchy, isn’t a system; it’s an individual praxis of abstention and individual resistance against consumerist violence and civilization-induced destruction. Veganism is the individual anti-speciesist refusal to take part in all forms of exploitation and systematic extermination…
…Vegetarianism is part of my egoist self-affirmation as I strive towards veganism as part of my own individualist liberation struggle, evicting the social constructs and herd mentalities that haunt the mind.”
The Intersections Between Anti-Speciesism, Anti-Civilization & Individualist Anarchy pdf
The Conditioned Dysthymia of Civilization
From back cover:
“…And eventually, I came to believe that the problem had never been with my brain – at least, not in the way I had been taught. Without the pills, I was not ‘chemically imbalanced’. I was traumatized, yes – both on a personal level and on a societal level – but I was not broken, sick, or damaged.”
Technology and Class Struggle
From back cover:
“This technology —controlling and out of control—cannot serve any truly human purpose and has no place in the development of a world of individuals free to create their lives as they desire. So the illusory utopias of the syndicalists and marxists are of no use to us now. But were they ever? The new technological developments specifically center around control, but all industrial development has taken the necessity of controlling the exploited into account. The factory was created in order to bring producers under one roof to better regulate their activities; the production line mechanized this regulation; every new technological advance in the workings of the factory brought the time and motions of the worker further under control. Thus, the idea that workers could liberate themselves by taking over the means of production has always been a delusion.”
On Self-Love and Gun Power
From back cover:
“I remain an embodiment of insubordination, the fluidity of unbridled emotions, the nihilist poetry of a tsunami in flux. I do not sympathize with conforming to behavorial servitude in order to preserve the general peace of subordinating civility! Rather than pacify my outrage or silence my despair, I have put all of society’s shame-on-mes and peer pressures to rest in coffins lined up for a bonfire in my head. And during their incineration, I will look up to the stars with a smile of admiration, for they are a dazzling beauty beyond the reach of civilized governance.”
Morality vs. Ethics
From back cover:
“Moral systems are designed to oppress and marginalise anyone the system deems undesirable. They are based on transcendent rules that are forcibly applied to all people from all backgrounds, in all situations; regardless of each individual’s desires and values.
Unlike reactionary universal ‘morals’, ethics are decided on a case-by-case basis by the individual based on their own values and desires. Ethics are tangible and tied to real cause and effect outcomes.”
KEEP SABOTAGING SHIT: Relating to the words of Winston “Boogie” Smith
From back cover:
“Y’all telling motherfuckers to come with they hands up and peacefully assemble? For what? Nah, fuck that, fuck that, fuck you, fuck them, fuck anybody who’s peaceful right now. Cuz when Martin Luther King was here we had a million motherfuckers marching saying let’s be peaceful, and now y’all still begging for y’all freedom, so they still shooting y’all down. They must want a war. So get y’all gasoline at y’all gas station.” – Winston “Boogie” Smith”
Keep Sabotaging Shit_Relating To The Words of Winston Boogie Smith pdf
Has the Insurrection Come Yet? A Cartography of The Coming Insurrection, Tiqqun, and their Party
From back cover:
“A major problem with The Coming Insurrection is that it basically dresses up a tried and defeated strategy in new clothes, the strategy of a good part of the European autonomous struggles of past decades. Perhaps this is why it was way more popular in the US than in France: because its suggestions aren’t all that groundbreaking, except here, where there never was an autonomous movement…
…one wonders how else European radicals could repackage the strategy of revolution through the networking of autonomous spaces as though it were a new idea…
…For the Invisible Committee, in the insurrection they prophesy, the real one, their insurrection, we are all “whatever singularities,” without predicates, an emptiness brimming with possibilities. It’s a beautiful dream, and I, for one, believe in fighting for dreams. But there is a certain ownership they exercise over their insurrection, a certain power of exclusion the Invisible Committee have vis a vis the Imaginary Party, that could make this dream nothing more than a maneuver identical to the one by which the communists suppressed difference by demanding adherence to the unified identity of the Working Class. There are no women, there are no blacks, there are only members of the Imaginary Party.”
Handful of Objections: A Response to a Proposal for Desertion
From back cover:
“An insurrectionary moment is a qualitative leap, a negation of existing social relations on a whole other level. From there ugly things can happen, beautiful things also. What has changed is our power to make things happen…
…There are those invested in the politics of insurrection, working in the tradition of the authoritarian Blanqui. An Eric Hazan and his Factory (producing theory for the aspiring intellectuals) have measures to implement, the (not so) Invisible Committee has the strategy (tested before and failed) and its (not so) Imaginary Party has the cadre (wannabe politicians) and the infrastructure (thanks to wealthy lefty benefactors). Cynical people willing to manipulate others to realize their authoritarian projects. Nothing new there. It’s up to persons with anarchist sensitivities to recognize these intentions and subvert them (if they care enough). Admittedly, a lot of the radical milieu got seduced by their mystifications….
…I concede this {Desertion} is a theory we are presented with. But more than being a “whole way of seeing” (as Bellamy defines it); a theory is based on generalizations and abstractions. At the best of times, a theory can provide us with tools to find a more conscious relation with what is surrounding us. Mostly though, theory produces crude categories that are imposed on complex beings and dynamic realities; reductions that are counter-productive to understanding. Moreover, a theory that is not understood as having its limitations and shortcomings (and thus, as being a peculiar way of seeing), but instead as forming a complete picture produces its own mystifications and idealizations.”
Handful of Objections_A Response to a Proposal for Desertion pdf
Egoist Vegan: Some Thoughts on an Individualist Animal Liberation
From back cover:
“If I am thoroughly an egoist, then I recognize the ego of others and the desire of that ego to not be controlled or dominated. I own nobody, and nobody owns me. This social relationship does not constitute a form of politics. Politics implies social governance guided by an external authority. My lifestyle is an anti-politics rejecting all anthropocentric power and authority constructed to govern my social interactions with other animals. My refusal to view nonhuman animals as “food” for consumption can easily be understood as a primal expression of this anti-authoritarian lifestyle.”
Egoist Vegan_Some Thoughts on an Individualist Animal Liberation pdf
Destroy Race Destroy Society: Another Diary of Mayhem and Race Nihilism
From back cover:
“I am sure there will be some who will find this text redundant – another critique of identity. Fair enough. But allow me to be clear: I write this with the intent of further agitating identity politics by confronting the idea that Race is sacred and/or above criticism. My anti-fascist, anti-racist views recognize Race as nothing more than a social construct used to govern individuality. Despite attempts to personalize it with glory, cultural value, and meaning, Race continues to be just one of many phantoms woven into the fabric of social control and domination. My same desire to destroy white supremacy extends toward any and all racialized supremacist ideologies that attempt to take its place. So whether people call it “Post-Race Anarchy” or “Race Nihilism”, a critique of Race could be understood as a necessary re-wilding toward the rejection of civilized identity.”
Destroy Race Destroy Society_Another Diary of Mayhem and Race Nihilism pdf
Cultural Appropriation is a Toxic Concept
From back cover:
“I have faced racism — it is a fact of my life as a woman of colour. But I refuse to be on the cultural appropriation bandwagon — I find it nearly insulting that while I deal with people’s harsh judgment for the colour of my skin, that while I have faced actual physical violence for it — there are people who care so goddamn much about who gets to wear henna on their hands and who doesn’t. How about making this world a safer place for me? How about not deciding on my behalf what could offend me?…
…I am asking you to look at the concept of cultural appropriation with a critical lens. Ask yourself if the censorship and banning of words/arts/crafts/food by people in power is something that provides a viable solution to the problem of structural racism and inequality here. For instance, when black people are mocked for wearing dreadlocks, while white people wearing dreadlocks are seen as cool and edgy — that is absofuckinglutely racism. But is the solution then to instruct white people (or nonblack people of colour) to not wear dreadlocks? Will white people or nonblack PoC stopping to wear dreadlocks stop the discrimination and mockery that black people get for wearing dreadlocks? The censorship of freedom of expression lies at the core of this concept, and the parallels it has with the blasphemy laws of the country I come from are really rather striking.”
Cult of Resentment: How Identity Politics Fails Everyone
From back cover:
“Individuals are nearly as unique as their fingerprints might suggest. Attempts to lump large swathes of people together is often based on ones own limited ability, or willingness, to know and genuinely understand other unique individuals on an individual level. This mechanism has served as the underpinnings of some of the most brutal ideological manifestations in all of history.”
Adulthood Is A Trap: Anti-Natalism, Youth Liberation, and a Refusal to Surrender
From back cover:
“What is it to love one’s self so thoroughly as to never surrender youthful play, dreaming, and imagination to the dusty bookshelves of fading memories?…
…Many formative years of youthful development and imagination are riddled with the bullet holes of coercion and emotional labor demanded by one form of authority of another. Any resistance comes with consequences intended to influence and shape one’s fear with precision. And in a subtle voice, the pressure of distant adulthood repeats a mantra; “grow up and get to work”…
…When I speak of “play”, I mean exactly as the word suggests: activity for personal enjoyment. And even though this word and its definition are commonly attributed to an exclusive age group, I say fuck that! There is nothing more deserving of the definition of play than the exhilerating experience of “acting out” against a society that demands life for its divine worship of work….”
Adulthood Is A Trap_Anti-Natalism Youth Liberation and a Refusal to Surrender pdf
A Dagger of Feral Anarchy
From back cover:
“For me, post-left anarchy is synonymous with anti-left anarchy. The “post” in post-left anarchy does not represent a ‘new’ or evolved form of leftism – as some would claim with various contemporary anti-state communist and socialist projects. Rather I use the phrase post-left anarchy to merely express a present frame of mind distinct from a past experience of having identified and engaged with leftist thinking. And from this perspective, anti is synonymous with post because it accurately expresses the nature of my present existence – my desire for individualistic, feral freedom – as antagonistic toward the civilizing order of leftism. For me, post-left anarchy does not mean some sort of alignment or sympathy with right-wing politics – I am equally hostile toward nationalism, fascism, and all other conservative ideologies created in the name of preserving law and order. I recognize that both left and right wing ideologies are fundamentally collectivist, requiring the absorption of individual freedom in exchange for the uniformity of a republic. Both sides of the political spectrum integrate people into a binary interpretation of reality that ultimately maintains industrial society.”
A Balanced Account of the World: A Critical Look at the Scientific World
From back cover:
“One cannot come to an understanding of how a machine works simply by observing it as it functions in its environment. One needs to break it down into its parts — the gears, the wheels, the wires, the levers, etc. — in order to figure out what each part does. Thus, a foundational aspect of the method of modern science is the necessity of breaking everything down into its parts, with the aim of achieving the most basic unit. It is in this light that one can understand why scientists think that it is possible to learn more about life by cutting a frog open in a laboratory than by sitting by a pond observing frogs and fish and mosquitoes and lily pads actually living together. The knowledge science pursues is quantitative knowledge, mathematical knowledge, utilitarian knowledge — a type of knowledge that transforms the world into the machine it claims the world is. This sort of knowledge cannot be drawn from free observation in the world. It requires the sphere of the laboratory where parts can be experimented with outside of the context of the whole and within the framework of the ideological foundations of mathematics and a mechanistic worldview.”
A Balanced Account of the World_ A Critical Look at the Scientific World View pdf
Wildpunk: Black Against Civilization
Originally published by 1312 Press, “Wildpunk: Black Against Civilization” is the first English-language translation of writings by Elany, a Black anti-civ anarchist from Switzerland. Her 2021 book Schwarze Saat collected first-time German translations of 85 diverse Black and Indigenous anarchist texts previously available mostly in English. The collection also included several German-original essays written by Elany herself as well as her late dad, Samuel B. “Wildpunk” brings these passionate essays into English:
Scorched Earth, Sick Bodies: The Necessity of Destroying Industry [Elany]
A Black Critique of Civilization [Samuel B]
Tools of Anarchism [Elany]
-Part 1: On Interpersonal Relationships (and Lived Anarchy)
-Part 2: On Decolonization (and the Technological Components of Colonialism)
-Part 3: On Decivilizing (and a Revaluation of the World)
Survival in the Endtimes: A Wildpunk “Manifesto” [Elany and Samuel B]
Elany and Samuel B’s works tackle the brutal reality that we must demolish industry and civilization rather than attempt to separate them from colonialism, capitalism, and the state. They also examine the inspirations and practices of a decolonial, decivilized anarchism.
This zine hopes to make a small contribution to the task of translating essential anarchist thought by bringing these German-original works into English for the first time. Elany and Samuel B may now enter into direct conversation with the movements they helped to translate.
ELANY’S ARREST: During the translation and layout of “Wildpunk,” Elany was arrested by the Swiss government (https://feralfire.noblogs.org/post/2022/01/31/update-zur-situation-von-elany-update-on-the-situation-of-elany/). She has remained in investigatory detention since January 9, 2022. The jail has denied her medication has been, restricted her outside contact, and forced her onto a meat and grain jail-diet.
Channeling Elany’s spirit, her partner has called for: “No prison demonstrations and other actions in a certain place because a certain person is imprisoned but actions in all places because prisons exist at all. This would make her heart smile much more. No one is free until everyone is.”
Fire to all the prisons!
Updates and asks on Elany’s case can be found at feralfire.noblogs.org and via #FreeElany on Twitter and Mastodon.
Support offers or info requests can be directed to freeelany@riseup.net
Elany’s original German-language writing and translations can be found at feralfire.noblogs.org, a “Black-led Ⓐ-Publication about Insurrection, Sabotage & Destruction, Wildness & Queerness, Anti-Leviathan, Anti-Ableism, Black and Indigenous Anarchism, and More.”
Wildpunk_Black_Against_Civilization pdf
Against The Gendered Nightmare
From back cover:
“In the past several years, the question of gender has been taken up again and again by the anarchist milieu. And still few attempts amount to much more than a rehashing of old ideas. Most positions on gender remain within the constraints of one or more of the ideologies that have failed us already, mainly Marxist feminism, a watered down eco-feminism, or some sort of liberal “queer anarchism.” Present in all of these are the same problems we’ve howled against already: identity politics, representation, gender essentialism, reformism, and reproductive futurism. While we have no interest in offering another ideology in this discourse, we imagine that an escape route could be charted by asking the question that few will ask; by setting a course straight to the secret center of gendered life which all the ideological answers take for granted. We are speaking, of course, about Civilization itself.”
(Zine cover art and booklet format by Little Mouse Fun, http://www.littlemouse.fun/zines.html)
Why Nihilism? A Response to John Zerzans “Why Hope? (Critique of the Nihilist tendency in Anarchism)”
From back cover:
“The electioneering of hope and countless other political promises may captivate some, but not all. In the case of this text, I’m pointing out that some discover freedom in the total abandonment of positive politics including the “utopian future” tied to it like a carrot. For some, nihilism is the pursuit of creating moments of bliss here and now with the rubble of burned down slaughterhouses, the cartloads of retail theft, the spontaneous attacks against fascism and so on. Some nihilists do more than just look at the stars; some enjoy the night sky from the rooftops of squatted buildings, the sunrise from moving freight trains, or the thunderstorms during nighttime property destruction.”
Arming Negativity: Towards the Queerest Attack
From back cover:
“My queerness is an experimentation that never ends. It is the totality of a life lived against the law, insubordinate and wild. It is not a communist politics but a nihilist negation to all systems that attempt to subordinate individuality. It is not the leftist politics of demanding and “building a better world” but an anarchist insurgency of reclaiming life day to day, and setting fire to its captors. Since gender is embedded in every fabric of this industrial, civilized society, I find no hope in salvaging any part of it only joy in every second of its calculated demise.”
Baedan: Queers Gone Wild (An excerpt from Baedan: A Journal of Queer Nihilism issue 1)
Text from back cover:
““ If we can determine anything from our project of queer negativity, it is that capitalism has an unlimited capacity to tolerate and recuperate any alternative politics or artistic expression we could imagine. It is not a political negativity that we must locate in our queerness, but rather a vicious anti-politics which opposes any utopian dreams of a better future residing on the far side of a lifetime of sacrifice. Our queer negativity has nothing to do with art, but it has a great deal to do with urban insurrection, piracy, slave revolt: all those bodily struggles that refuse the future and pursue the irrationality of jouissance, enjoyment, rage, chaos. Ours is not the struggle for an alternative, because there is no alternative which can escape the ever-expanding horizons of capital. Instead we fight, hopeless, to tear our lives away from that expanding horizon and to erupt with wild enjoyment now. Anything less is our continued domestication to the rule of civilization.”
Criminal Intimacy
Text from back cover:
“We do not offer ‘criminal’ or ‘queer’ as identities, nor as categories. Criminality. Queerness. These are tools for revolt against identity and category. These are our lines of flight out of all restraint. We are in conflict with all that restricts every and each desire. We are becoming whatever. Our sole commonality is our hatred for everything that exists. Held in common, such a revolt of desire can never be assimilated into the state-form.”
Degenerations: Between Pride and Gender Victimhood by Anna Beniamino
From back cover:
“I am anarchist, I am not feminist because I see feminism as a sectorial and victimist withdrawal, I have never made any gender discrimination although I don’t use genderfriendly linguistic conventions, on the contrary I often use dirty politically incorrect language. I think that the annulment of gender privilege and similar oppression is already contained in the search for anarchy, that is to say in the practice of anti-authoritarian relations, and should be cultivated there. Ah, I forgot, I loathe consciousness-raising in public meetings and I also consider assemblies to be blunt instruments. I understand and also have the will to meet. But I see how all too often the assembly degenerates into sterile self-representation.”
