Category Archives: Calling All Anarchists

For months now, three courageous individuals—Matt Duran, Katherine Olejnik, and Maddy Pfeiffer—have been held captive in the Federal Detention Center in Seatac, Washington for refusing to cooperate with a grand jury currently underway in Washington state. Another person, Kerry Cunneen, has been subpoenaed but declines to appear. Convened in March of 2012, the grand jury is clearly intended to discourage anarchist activity, which has proliferated on the West Coast over the past few years.

In the following statement, we emphasize the urgency of offensive as well as defensive strategies, and present new support materials to draw attention to the grand jury resisters. This situation has been going on for many months now, but it’s important to renew public awareness on a regular basis.

Read on after the jump.

The last of next week’s Catharsis reunion shows will take place at the conclusion of a full day of performances, discussions and tabling in Washington, DC, the day before the Presidential Inauguration. This festival of resistance will offer a venue in which to envision a world without capitalism or hierarchy and to strategize about how to get there.

Details after the jump.

Our lovable comrades of the Mysterious Rabbit Puppet Army, whose work we’ve shared here before, are embarking on a month-long tour presenting their newest production, “Donny Quixote!” The show offers a scathing critique of “green” capitalism and technology a a humorous adaptation of the story of Don Quixote. MRPA will offer two other feature performances as well, alongside a wide range of literature relating to the content of the shows.

This tour is intended to help build a culture of ecological resistance that embraces a diversity of tactics, including direct action. The narratives debunk the false solutions that capitalists propose in response to the ongoing ecological crisis.

Tour dates after the jump!

Just in time for May Day, we are excited to debut a new line of posters: “What Does Democracy Mean?” [PDFs 700k] Together, the posters explain how democracy depends upon policing, borders, and other institutions of control. Please print, photocopy, and circulate widely!

We hope that this series will help to clear up lingering confusion about the differences between democracy (a form of government) and anarchy (i.e., freedom). Democracy, even direct democracy, is not the same as self-determination. Democracy is premised on the idea that only one decision-making body should have legitimate authority, while anarchism proposes the decentralization of power: not just horizontality, but also autonomy.

Just as anticapitalism has entered public consciousness in the US since we published last year’s line of anti-capitalist posters, the coming year may see people looking for alternatives to democracy as well. It’s up to us to offer liberating possibilities, since the other alternatives to democracy are even more oppressive than it is.

Read on after the jump.

The ides of April are here again: Steal Something from Work Day! The bane of corporate consultants and security guards, Steal Something from Work Day is responsible for taking a couple years off poor Glenn Beck’s life and putting food on the table for underpaid employees around the world. If it’s good enough for executives and heads of state, stealing from work is good enough for the rest of us.

This year, April 15 falls on a Sunday, but that won’t stop people from participating—thanks to the shift from production to service sector employment, more people than ever find themselves working every day of the week. And in the wake of the financial recession, with millions struggling to get by, can you imagine how much worse off working folks would be if they didn’t steal from work? Here are some resources with which to help your community celebrate Steal Something from Work Day:

Steal Something from Work Day website
Steal Something from Work Day video and follow-up video
Frequently asked questions about stealing from work
Steal Something from Work Day theme song by Test Their Logik
Steal Something from Work Day journal: color reading PDF (4.3MB) and imposed B&W printing PDF (2.3MB)

We also send a shout out to the Steal from Work tumblr and to the book, Steal Stuff from Work. In addition, let’s take a moment to remember the 25 people killed in the chicken processing plant fire in Hamlet, North Carolina in 1991, as a result of the owners keeping the fire doors locked for fear that employees might pilfer a little of the food they were packaging. We observe Steal Something from Work Day because human life is more precious than capitalist profit.

To mark the occasion, we present this narrative of resistance from an insurgent service worker, Out Of Stock: Confessions Of A Grocery Store Guerrilla.

Read the account after the jump.

Next week, CrimethInc. operatives will return to the Midwest for events in Columbus, OH, Champaigne-Urbana, IL, Chicago, IL, and Indianapolis, IN, continuing their ongoing speaking tour about the subjects discussed in the Work book. These talks will also engage with the strategic lessons of the Occupy movement in the broader context of anti-capitalist resistance.

Details after the jump.

Our comrades in the Mysterious Rabbit Puppet Army are following up their summer shows with a short winter tour down south. Their feature show, “What Are Prisons For?”, uses shadow puppets to outline the history of the Prison Industrial Complex from chattel slavery in the South to today’s exploding prison population. We highly recommend this excellent introduction for viewers of all ages.

Tour dates after the jump.

This coming week, CrimethInc. operatives will be in northern California, tabling with a wide range of material and speaking about Work at the Humboldt County Anarchist Book Fair and other locations from Eureka to Oakland and Santa Cruz. We’re starting to plan events for 2012 now; if you can help, contact us via help@crimethinc.com.

Details after the jump.

Test Their Logik is currently on a ten-week tour of Europe promoting their new album “A”. They’ll be traveling everywhere between England, Greece, and Catalonia, stopping at the anarchist book fair in London and the G20 in Cannes and playing shows at legendary squats and social centers. Joining them at some of these shows will be some of the best European anti-authoritarian hip-hop acts, including Mary Read Collectif, DJ Malatesta, and Drowning Dog.

Continue reading →

This Thursday through Sunday, September 29 through October 2, we will maintain a somewhat improbable CrimethInc. table at the New York Art Book Fair in New York City. We will also have tables at the anarchist book fairs in Boston, MA and Carrboro, NC on November 12 and in Humboldt County, CA on December 10.

In addition, on the strength of the success of our earlier events presenting on the issues discussed in the Work book, we’re booking two more short tours: one in October that will traverse the South as far as Texas before returning east via the Midwest, another in November to New York City, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh. Whether or not you’ve read the book yet, please join us for one of these discussions.

If you have questions or would like to volunteer to set up a speaking date, email help@crimethinc.com.

Tour dates and promotional materials after the jump.