In heartbreak and rage over the murder of Oscar Grant and the institutionalized hypocrisy of a system that kills black men by the dozen while excusing the killings as accidents, we present this poster. We hope it will appear on telephone polls alongside burning police stations all around the US and the world.
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Color Version [PDF, 1.5 MB]
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Throughout diverse subject matter, Rolling Thunder #9 subtly explores issues of legitimacy. Who is entitled to speak, to act, to organize? How important is legitimacy in the public eye, and how can anarchists cultivate it? What are the drawbacks of pursuing various kinds of legitimacy? As usual, one must read between the lines of on-the-ground news coverage and analysis to seek the answers—and, more significantly, the further questions they suggest.
Following up on our coverage of the 2008 DNC and RNC protests, this issue of Rolling Thunder appraises anarchist action at the 2009 G20 summit, detailing the background of the mobilization, mapping conflict throughout the city, and analyzing the factors that determined the strategies of the police and protesters. The accompanying Pittsburgh scene report examines the decade of local organizing that prepared the ground for this and other confrontations, deriving lessons relevant to communities around the country.
Elsewhere within, this issue scrutinizes protest and resistance on campus—from the recent student occupation movement in the US to the campaign to shut down a fascist organization at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Overseas, we survey Smash EDO, a British anti-military campaign that tests some of the hypotheses advanced in coverage of the SHAC campaign in Rolling Thunder #6.
This issue also includes Russian history from the “time of troubles” to Kropotkin’s escape from prison, reviews of Uri Gordon’s Anarchy Alive! and the obscurantist publication Politics Is Not a Banana, and more of the reflections and witticisms that set Rolling Thunder apart as a peerless exemplar of “how beautiful anarchist journals can be.”
Starting with this issue, we’ll also be complementing each issue of Rolling Thunder with an online supplement offering additional information, links, and materials. Among other things, the supplement to this issue features maps of action during the Pittsburgh G20 protests, a PDF of the newspaper wrap anarchists used in their campaign against a fascist student group, and a FAQ flier answering objections to militant antifascist organizing commonly posed by partisans of liberal democracy.
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At long last, Rolling Thunder #8 is back from the printer!
Balancing out the previous issue’s focus on breaking news, this issue steps back to reflect on the priorities and relationships that can make resistance effective and infectious. The centerpiece of this issue is a critical examination of the strengths and shortcomings of contemporary insurrectionist theory and practice, spanning 24 pages and a wide range of lines of inquiry. Elsewhere herein, one can find a guide to crafting constructive accountability processes, a survey of the past four decades of anarchist activity in Chile, and a report from San Francisco exploring the broader context of anarchist organizing leading up to and following the Oakland riots covered in Rolling Thunder #7. We’ve also turned up a retrospective by a member of the legendary clandestine prison abolitionist group Os Cangaceiros, distilling the lessons of years of underground struggle. All this is rounded out by inspiring accounts, entertaining anecdotes, magical realist fiction, and a whole lot more. Also, just a reminder that subscriptions are now available, and starting your subscription now, beginning with #8, is an option.
We’ve also composed a new poster to celebrate its arrival and convey one of the themes of the issue.
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The workers who operate the means of production have power;
The bosses who tell them how to use it have authority.
The tenants whose rent maintains the building have power;
The landlord whose name is on the deed has authority.
Armies have power;
Generals have authority.
A hurricane has power;
A meteorologist has authority.
Anarchism is not a rejection of power itself. There are so many kinds of power we affirm: the power to provide for ourselves and one another, to defend ourselves and sort out conflicts, to perform acupuncture and steer a sailboat and swing on a trapeze. We prize the freedom to develop our capacities and capabilities, especially in ways that increase others’ freedom as well. Every time one of us acts to achieve her full potential it is a gift to all.
Authority over others, on the other hand, always comes at the price of power over one’s own life. It is always derived from outside oneself:
The authority of the Constitution, the president, the general, the soldier—
Of the law, the judge, the attorney, the police officer—
The economy, the executive, the manager, the customer—
The scripture, the pope, the cardinal, the bishop, the priest—
The text, the critic, the professor—
The bluest eye, the deepest voice, the thinnest waistline.
Just in time for Rolling Thunder #8, we’ve produced a new sticker on this subject. Screen-printed on vinyl and 4” in diameter, they are going out free in every single order.
For a nuanced discussion of various forms of power and authority, one could try Uri Gordon’s Anarchy Alive; an expanded version of the relevant chapter is available in pdf form here. Uri is currently touring North America.
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At long last we’ve worked out a method to offer Rolling Thunder subscriptions for a substantial discount without sacrificing quality or delivery speed—so, we are very excited to announce our new two-year, four issue subscriptions. Have four issues shipped to your door for just $22 (U.S.) and $25 (Global)— a respective savings of $10.64 and $44.60 versus ordering each issue separately. You can opt to start a subscription with the current issue or the next one; all the details, including an FAQ, are over on the subscription page. It has always been our goal to make RT available for as little money as possible while still sustaining itself, and we feel that these subscriptions are a solid step in both of those directions. In the meantime, we’re working hard on RT#8, on schedule to ship at the beginning of September.
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We now have the CD version of the From the Depths “Germinate” recording in stock. They are packaged in letter-pressed gatefold chipboard sleeves, hand-made by the band and their friends. For those who regard ownership of a physical object to be a needless hassle, the download version of the recording is still available, and significantly cheaper.
From the Depths just completed their West Coast tour, which went smashingly, and extend their deep appreciation to everyone who helped them along the way. They expect to return to the road in autumn.
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The seventh issue of Rolling Thunder is back from the presses—a mere five months after the previous issue, which is a record for us! We lost a lot of sleep working on this one; it’s definitely our best effort yet. We’ll also be losing money on it, but there was no way around it—so much happened in the second half of 2008 that we had to put off all our other content and add an extra 8 pages to cover it all.
Rolling Thunder #7 examines the events of those busy months in careful detail. Anarchists coordinated mass mobilizations against the Democratic and Republican National Conventions, provoking major clashes at the latter; the global economy collapsed, and radicals are still scrambling to find appropriate responses; Greece experienced an anarchist-organized insurrection in response to a police murder; and at the beginning of 2009, Oakland, California was shaken by similar unrest in response to a similar killing. Our coverage pushes beyond the surface of events to offer insight into the organizing structures and historical background, fleshing out timelines and analyses with personal narratives and cutting-edge cartography, and drawing on this material to pose questions about long-term strategy. In addition to all this, the issue includes an exploration of the relationship between the punk subculture and the anarchist movement, complemented by interviews with bands and collectives from beyond the white punk ghetto, and ends with a primer on small-town organizing using Winona, Minnesota as a case study. No advertisements or pleas for funding; an unprecedented 24 pages in full color; 114 pages, altogether.
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Anarchist punk band From the Depths, currently on tour in the US, have just finished their debut album. Recorded at Mars Studio (known for recording Catharsis, Undying, and scores of more famous hardcore bands), “Germinate” comprises 7 songs in 36 minutes, an epic paean to self-determination and resistance.
Hearkening back to the days when anarcho-punk was characterized by bands as diverse as Crass, Chumbawumba, and Contropotere, the songs on this album combine d-beat power, slower and faster hardcore, harsh noise, and even a passage from a traditional Italian anarchist folk ballad. This is intense, defiant, dark music, but it is based in compelling melodies; you can scream these songs at the top of your lungs in a riot, but you could also sing them quietly to yourself in jail to maintain your spirits.
From the Depths was formed at the beginning of 2008 by members of Catharsis, Requiem, Network of Terror, Auryn, and Balaclava. Traveling in a van donated by Winona’s Really Really Free Market after their vegetable-oil-powered truck died mid-tour, they performed for fellow demonstrators outside the 2008 Democratic and Republican National Conventions; they’ve also played benefit shows for RNC arrestees, Green Scare defendants, and other prisoners in the anticapitalist struggle.
We’re trying a new experiment with this release, making it available via online downloading. We’re hardly convinced that the internet is a positive thing for humanity, but we recognize that it is one of the primary ways people get music these days. In order to offset the tendency of internet downloading to separate music from the context that gives it meaning, the download includes all the lyrics, artwork, and liner notes.
The band paid $3100 to record the album, and mastering cost another several hundred dollars. Presuming that at least 1000 people are interested in the record, we’re requesting that people donate $4 in return for downloading it. If you have particular access to resources, consider donating more to cover those who have less; to do so, simply increase the number in the “Quantity” column of your order. As soon as the recording and mastering expenses are covered, we’ll make downloading free; thus any donation goes towards making this available to everyone. If you can help the band break even on the costs of recording, that will also help them to play more benefit shows so as to contribute more than music to the public.
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We’re excited to announce that we’ve printed up our two most recent posters to the tune of 20k copies each and both the Iraq Anti-Enlistment and Crisis is Business as Usual posters are immediately available in all of their two-color, jumbo-sized glory. Of course, all paid orders get one copy of each poster for free, and they are also available in bundles of 25 copies for a paltry $2. Additionally we have added them to the Poster Mix Kit which now includes 4 (or 5) copies of six different posters for a total of 25 for $2, which is pretty sweet. Unlike our other four posters which we keep in print perpetually, these will be limited to a single printing of 20k copies due to their topically ephemeral nature.
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One month ago—to be precise, at dawn on September 1 in St. Paul, Minnesota—a bleary-eyed ex-worker gave the final go-ahead for the sixth issue of Rolling Thunder to be sent to press, before donning a sweatshirt to attend to other business. So it is that the new issue of our biannual journal has now returned from the printers, only a few weeks behind schedule. We tried a new printer for this issue, incidentally, and are quite pleased with the improvements.
Rolling Thunder #6 focuses on experimentation—the processes by which radicals invent and refine new approaches. It features an evaluation of the model activists have used to target the animal testing corporation HLS, discussing whether it could be effective in other contexts; a photoessay documenting the efforts of Swedish anarchists who, unable to defend a squat, built a social center from the ground up; a consideration of the role proper support plays in cultivating communities of resistance; a report from student strikes and riots in Colombia; and an analysis of the past decade of anarchist organizing in NYC. In addition, the issue includes an investigation of the function of gift shops in maintaining global empire, historical accounts of Bakunin’s daring escape from Sibera and the riots that killed off the hated poll tax in Britain, and lots more. As usual, there are 16 pages of full color, plenty of fun tidbits, and no advertisements or filler.
The next Rolling Thunder will be out precisely on schedule, to offer definitive coverage of last summer’s DNC/RNC protests and a great deal more.
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A century ago, unwitting CrimethInc. agent Winsor McCay sketched a political cartoon lambasting the waste of human life in overseas imperialism. Back in 1991, we updated it for the first Iraq invasion, but never got around to releasing it. Finally, over five years into the latest occupation, we are giving up and presenting it to the public. All along, we hoped that the poster design was about to become dated and irrelevant; unfortunately, we now fear that it will remain timely for years to come.
In hopes of shortening those years, please print these out and post them everywhere potential recruits and deserters might see them. In a couple months or so, we’ll have the two-color version printed and ready to include in orders.
A fairly comprehensive list of resources and groups related to conscientious objection, G.I. rights, and anti-recruitment resistance can be found at Objector.org.
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We’re pleased to announce the fourth printing of our flagship piece of propaganda, Fighting For Our Lives. We had 100,000 copies printed this time—bringing the total now in print to 600,000—and implemented a few minor improvements to the text and design. Additionally, we switched printers for this new printing, and the results are, by our estimation, a significant upgrade from those previous. You can place bulk requests as well as peruse PDFs of the new edition on our FFOL page.
Continuing to push the limits, the fifth Rolling Thunder features 16 full-color pages and several competing feature-length stories. This issue was nearly a year in the making and definitely sets the bar higher for the magazine once again. We’re actually losing a small amount of money on these just to keep narratives from and analysis of current anarchist activity available in a durable, high quality format.
This issue focuses on different ways of conceptualizing strategy, exploring the ways anarchist efforts can be repressed, assimilated, and neutralized only to reappear in new forms. It opens with a study by David Graeber of the successes and stumbling blocks of direct action movements over the past thirty years, followed by a special report distilling lessons from the recent wave of federal repression known as the Green Scare. Two features give the inside story on anarchist mobilizations overseas via interviews, personal narratives, and 16 pages of full color photos: an examination of the riots following the eviction of Denmark’s beloved social center Ungdomshuset, and a full review of last summer’s G8 protests in Germany. The issue is rounded out by a subject’s analysis of the medical study industry as a case study in modern day precarious labor, a spotlight on anarchist organizing in Modesto, California, and reviews of controversial works by anti-art duo Brener and Schurz. 100% ad-free.
CrimethInc. Launches New Offensive with the Publication of Expect Resistance
They called us bourgeois for urging people to abandon bourgeois culture.
They called us anti-worker for refusing complicity in exploitation.
They dismissed our advocacy of plagiarism as unoriginal.
They mocked us for producing paper bullets,
Then cried foul play when those projectiles hit their targets.
When we subsisted on crusts of bread, they insisted it was the upper crusts;
When we discovered cornucopias of abundance, they preferred their sour grapes.
We’ve been branded militants and dilettantes, black bloc and bête noire, primus inter pariahs.
We reply, as Marie Antoinette might have, that they can have their words and eat them too—like Samuel Clemens, we don’t care what our detractors say about us, so long as they don’t tell the truth.
Long ago, we embarked on the greatest adventure of our lives: the total rejection of hierarchy, submission, and tedium, of status and status quo. Seceding from an entirely colonized world, we cast ourselves as crash-test dummies in a life-or-death mission to smash through the walls of capitalism.
Contrary to all expectations, we’ve survived. To our surprise, we are now able to present Expect Resistance, a coded account of our adventures hitting those walls and a full report on our findings beyond them.
Printed in stunning black and red and bound in the skin of corporate executives, Expect Resistance is the perfect coffee table book for anyone who lives out of a backpack. Our writers have spent years experimenting with every possible extremity of existence; our editors have spent months hammering out imperfections and adding sickles to the periods to turn them into question marks; our designers, as everyone knows, are the best in the business, not to mention the best against it. A thousand sleeper cells across the planet prepare to swing into action as this announcement is typed.
Concerned citizens may object that some of the raw materials from which this book has been assembled have yet to enter the public domain; we ask them to think of Expect Resistance as a book ahead of its time.
To enjoy your very own copy of Expect Resistance, simply commit to a project as ambitious and absurd as our own, blunder obstinately forward for several years, then send a few dollars to CrimethInc. Far East to defray printing and shipping expenses. Better yet, save your money and request a copy at your local library.
Still in love with all of you and the amazing things we have yet to do–
–your faithful ex-workers
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A newly reformatted version of the classic The Walls Are Alive graffiti guide is now available in a similar format to our A Civillian’s Guide to Direct Action, maximized for table-appeal and cost-effective distribution. 25 copies will run you $2. A Guide Mix Kit of The Walls Are Alive and A Civillian’s Guide to Direct Action is also now available, 25 papers (a 12/13 mix) for $2. You can grab the hi-res PDF, free-of-charge, right here.
Speaking of PDFs, sadly this announcement also serves to notify you that DIY Guide II is no longer in print. To date we’ve distributed more than 60,000 of them into the world, and due to its disproportionately high-cost of printing, we feel at this point it is best presented as a free PDF in our downloads library. Enjoy and use well!
$18.00
