I basically agree with what you said, pfm, in response to the raccoon collective, although I think hard and fast rules are generally unhelpful, so if there are good contributions from people not in the ”crimethinc inner circle” I think they should be posted. I understand your point though: instead of everyone getting on board with your project, they should be encouraged to start their own. But you can tell people to start their own projects without turning them off and making them feel unwelcome and inferior. This a challenge for all closed projects/collectives/affinity groups. How do you say, ”No, you can’t join us, but you’re free to start your own” without sounding like a jerk? My answer is this: such situations are opportunities for mutual aid. Instead of just saying, ”No, you can’t post here, go do your own thing,” you could say, ”Can I help you get your own blog off the ground? I have lots of skills and resources and experience, and instead of hoarding them, I will use this opportunity to share them and make a connection with someone with whom I probably have some kind of an affinity, while simultaneously multiplying the number of well-designed anarchist projects in the world.” I guess I just feel like turning people away completely in situations like that is a missed opportunity.

-beware we never hibernate

the raccoons

http://www.raccooncollective.blogspot.com

I think that War on Misery and the Bluegrass Insurgent make sense is that they weren’t made for the hell of it. They emerged from social conflict in both areas. In the case of WoM, a strike that involved actions against scabs and then a string of arsons against development. In the case of BGI, an escalation of attacks on police, particularly one really brazen attack.

I don’t think it would make sense to make a local publication unless it was attached to something like that (even if you made it to talk about a rise of vandalism at your school, social struggle and tensions emerge in non-spectacular ways, not just fire and cop beatings), and I think with any publication there’s a dangerous road towards evangelism.

This is true, however, I have noticed that the folks in St. Louis have their own newspaper stand boxes for their publication “War On Misery”. Such as the ones that you might see local newspapers in, or ‘apartment guides’ that are usually standing around outisde of restaurants, coffee houses, music venue, or even high schools. And I can’t tell if they actually bought their own or merely stole someone else’s and used it for their publication.

I apologize in advance for picking out a part of this review that doesn’t really deal with the main thrust of it, because I’m not trying to get all worked up about something tangential, but I don’t follow the logic in this excerpt. Why will the DNC and RNC demos serve as effective litmus tests for local anarchist organizing? Or maybe you’re reference to 2008 is more cryptic than I imagine, and there’s some other events that will take place in that year that will serve to display the successes or failures of community-based organizing. But assuming that you’re talking about big summit-style protests, I don’t quite see how successful or unsuccessful local organizing will or wll not be on display at said events. In general, I don’t see the Black Bloc turn-out at big demos as an effective way to gauge the successes of things like Really Really Free Markets, but maybe you have something else in mind. Do extrapolate.

I’m down with the idea of duplicating this format in many states and communities, and also your suggestions for alternate formats, of which I imagine there are even more possibilities (a wiki site for everyone working on a zine such as this would be a helpful source of links, for instance.) I also appreciate the jargon-free, non-dogmatic approach of this zine; it strikes me as a graceful practical application of the insurrectionary critique of ideology (and if ever a critique of ideology has suffered from too much ideology it is insurrectionism…actually it’s primitivism, but nevermind.) I’d love to see a national or even international ”Greatest Hits” version of this zine compiled from the many local versions that are no doubt in the offing. That’d be sweet.

”Looking over these two issues, I don’t think they’re publishing this just for the radical cachet; it appears they sincerely aspire to promote insurrection.” Every project that does that is worth its weight in fucking gold. Hail to our disaffected comrades in Missouri!