Anarchism in America
The full documentary: (hat tip to Ray Mangum) Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six, Part Seven, Part Eight Anarchism and American Traditions by Voltairine De Cleyre
On Overcoming Race and Class Reductionism in the Anarchist Milieu
from Ed D’Angelo (Anytime Now Discussion Forum) I think racial politics in the anarchist movement derives from the broader American Left, for which race has been a key issue since the abolitionists of the pre-Civil War period. Class based analysis is not common in American politics, especially in […]
Updated News Digest September 6, 2009
Why Read the Sunday Papers When You Can Read AttacktheSystem.Com! Quotes of the Week: “As political and economic freedom diminishes, sexual trends compensatingly to increase. And the dictator…will do well to encourage that freedom in conjunction with the freedom to daydream under the influence of dope, movies, and… […]
A Dissection of Classical Marxism
by Keith Preston Three important works by Karl Marx, written early in his career as a revolutionary theorist, contain the core ideas that would provide the foundation of the vast intellectual system later to be identified with his name. Among these are his conceptions of historical materialism, class […]
Interview with Andrew Yeoman on Voice of Reason Radio
On Tuesday, September 1, 2009, at 9 PM Eastern US time, Dr. Tomislav Sunic will interview founder and spokesman of the Bay Area National Anarchists (BANA), Andrew Yeoman. It will air on the Voice of Reason Broadcast Network http://reasonradionetwork.com/ (use the minicaster at the upper right of the […]
Updated News Digest August 30, 2009
Why Read the Sunday Papers When You Can Read AttacktheSystem.Com! Quote of the Week: “Most of the official left has retreated into the loving arms of Whole Foods culture and the self loathing feel-goodism of identity politics.” -Dylan Hales “It may be that the Old Right will […]
Why Conservatism is a Failure
by Keith Preston Review of Critchlow, Donald T. The Conservative Ascendency: How the GOP Right Made Political History. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press, 2007. Donald Critchlow traces the history of modern American conservatism from its inception in the 1950s as an intellectual synthesis of the American […]
Decentralizing the Decentralist Movement
For three years in a row, between 2006 and 2008, a North American secessionist convention was held where delegates from actual secessionist organizations and interested observers gathered to discuss the possibility of decentralizing the United States into smaller political units. Thus far, it does not appear there will […]
Updated News Digest August 23, 2009
Why Read the Sunday Paper When You Can Read AttacktheSystem.Com!! Quote of the Week: “A brilliant developer in Southern California did a market survey, and he found that in the area where he had the property, so he had to do the development, conservative Republicans and liberal Democrats […]
Gandhi: Politics, Economics and the Backlash
by Keith Preston I. Gandhi as Spiritual Godfather of the Indian Independence Movement II. Critics of Gandhi and the Conservative Hindu Backlash Early Life and the Beginnings of Gandhi’s Radicalism Mohandas K. Gandhi originated from India’s business caste and grew up amidst Vaishnovite and […]
Updated News Digest August 16, 2009
Why Read the Sunday Paper When You Can Read AttacktheSystem.Com! “You’re cultivating disrespect for government in your children!” protested a relative not long ago. “Every way I can think of doing so, with each opportunity that presents itself, every single day that God sends me!” I responded. Children […]
The Revolution Within Anarchism: Goodbye, Ultra-Leftism; Hello, Pan-Secessionism
For any movement or system of thought to remain relevant or dynamic, it must possess the internal capability of periodically reassessing its present course and shifting its focus and direction. Thus far, political anarchism has experienced two distinct stages. The first of these was the era of “classical” […]
Updated News Digest August 9, 2009
Why Read the Sunday Paper When You Can Read AttacktheSystem.Com! Quotes of the Week: “America is just the country that how all the written guarantees in the world for freedom are no protection against tyranny and oppression of the worst kind. There the politician has come to be […]
The Fruits of Anarchist "Anti-Racism"
“Certain attitudes derived from the New Left and the so-called counter-culture permeated neo-anarchism and had a deleterious effect upon it. Chief among these was elitism. It was the common belief among the New Left that the majority of the population were “coopted”, “sold-out”, “racist” and “sexist”. For the […]
Updated News Digest August 2, 2009
Quote of the Week: “My political opinions lean more and more to Anarchy (philosophically understood, meaning abolition of control not whiskered men with bombs) — or to ‘unconstitutional’ Monarchy. I would arrest anybody who uses the word State (in any sense other than the inanimate realm of England […]
Updated News Digest July 26, 2009
Quotes of the Week: “We anarchists do not want to emancipate the people; we want the people to emancipate themselves.” -Errico Malatesta “We are bound first to imform ourselves concerning so great a matter as the revolt of millions of people- what they are struggling for, what they […]
Updated News Digest July 12, 2009
Quote of the Week: ““Adolf Hitler as chancellor of Germany is a horror; Adolf Hitler at a town meeting would be an asshole.” -Karl Hess It’s Not Just Fundamentalists Who Are Ignorant by TGGP Rot in Hell, Robert McNamara: The Life of a Monster Considered by Ray Mangum […]
Updated News Digest July 5, 2009
Quote of the Week: “I would love to be disassociated from anti-racists. I think their cultural leftism is a turnoff. And I say this as a non-white. I can’t speak for all people of diverse or non-caucasian racial makeup, but I for one am tired of some people […]
Updated News Digest June 28, 2009
Quote of the Week: “A century ago, anarchism was a major force within the European revolutionary movement, and the name of Michael Bakunin, its foremost champion and prophet, was as well-known among the workers and radical intellectuals of Europe as that of Karl Marx.” -Paul Avrich, Anarchist […]
Program for a fictional ARV-ATS Scholars Conference
Recently at the No Treason site, Josh Rhodes made the following point concerning the recent rhetorical warfare between myself and some in the “left-libertarian” community: As someone who has read quite a bit of Keith’s work and corresponded with him extensively, I can assure you that he is […]
Updated News Digest June 21, 2009
Quotes of the Week: “No doubt in the days since we last gathered together as APOC (Autonomous / Anarchist / Anti-Authoritarian People of Color), much has changed for each of us. We’ve each experienced new joys and grieves, up and downs. Across the vastness of this metropolitan wasteland, […]
Updated News Digest June 14, 2009
Quote of the Week: “I participated in a forum on state sovereignty at Drexel University a short while ago where the subject of secession came up (naturally). A Pennsylvania state legislator was the other speaker, and while he did not dismiss the possibility of secession he said that […]
The Concept of the Vanguard
Recently a reader of Attack the System wrote: Keith Preston, in his Liberty and Populism: Building an Effective Resistance Movement in North America, writes of “anarchist” “city-states”, “anarcho-papis[m]“, and “anarcho-monarchis[m]“! In the same essay he writes that most anarchists favor the “town meeting” approach of “direct democracy”. To […]
Updated News Digest June 7, 2009
Quote of the Week: “We can tolerate intolerance and we can tolerate intolerance of intolerance.” -TGGP “Avrich does not shy away from controversy in his books, treating the anarchist acts of violence honestly and in the context of the time. He does not condone the violence of Berkman, but […]
Property and Freedom Society Conference in Bodrum, Turkey
Dr. Hans-Hermann Hoppe’s Property and Freedom Society held its annual conference in Bodrum, Turkey on May 21-25. The Property and Freedom Society is arguably the most radical gathering of anti-state scholars and intellectuals anywhere in the world, as an examination of their program will indicate. Dr. Hoppe’s introductory […]
Is Something Really Wrong with Kansas?
ABSTRACT: The widely believed claim that many voters in American elections are voting against their economic interests (“lower income Republicans versus affluent Democrats”) in favor of their social or cultural values is not supportable by the data concerning class voting patterns. American voters are polarized on both a […]
Updated News Digest May 31, 2009
Quote of the Week: “An intellectual is someone who has discovered something more interesting than sex.” “That all men are equal is a proposition which, at ordinary times, no sane individual has ever given his assent.” “There’s only one corner of the universe you can be certain of […]
Congratulations, Comrades! We're Getting Some Upward Mobility
American Revolutionary Vanguard and Attack the System! have now joined the world of Major League Sedition. http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?aid=1058 And congratulations to BANA and Folk and Faith as well. Much gratitude is extended to the SPLC for their promotional assistance. We look forward to this new partnership.
The Political Theory of Carl Schmitt
By Keith Preston Discussion: Carl Schmitt The Crisis of Parliamentary Liberalism The Concept of the Political The Weimar Republic Sourcebook (p. 331, 334-337, 342-345) The editors of The Weimar Republic Sourcebook attempt to summarize the political thought of Carl Schmitt and interpret his writings […]
Ernst Junger: The Resolute Life of an Anarch
by Keith Preston Perhaps the most interesting, poignant and, possibly, threatening type of writer and thinker is the one who not only defies conventional categorizations of thought but also offers a deeply penetrating critique of those illusions many hold to be the most sacred. Ernst Junger (1895-1998), who […]
Updated News Digest May 24, 2009
Quote of the Week: “The exception is more interesting than the rule. The rule proves nothing; the exception proves everything: It confirms not only the rule but also its existence, which derives only from the exception. In the exception the power of real life breaks through the crust […]
Updated News Digest May 17, 2009
Quote of the Week: “The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it.” “Moral certainty is always a sign of cultural inferiority. The more uncivilized the man, the surer he is that he knows precisely what is right and what […]
Updated News Digest May 10, 2009
Quote of the Week: “There’s the populist wing of the libertarian movement, and then there’s the Washington crowd that’s still trying to sell libertarianism, or their version of it, to elites. These people want to go along and get along. As long as they can abort their babies […]
Updated News Digest May 3, 2008
Quote of the Week: “In spite of the unceasing efforts made by men in power to conceal this and to ascribe a different meaning to power, power is the application of a rope, a chain by which a person will be bound and dragged along, or of a […]
Updated News Digest April 26, 2009
Quote of the Week: “Yes, something very ugly has surfaced in contemporary American liberalism, as evidenced by the irrational and sometimes infantile abuse directed toward anyone who strays from a strict party line. Liberalism, like second-wave feminism, seems to have become a new religion for those who profess […]
ATS Book Review: Ken MacLeod's "The Execution Channel"
by Peter Bjorn Perls Ken MacLeod is one of the better Science Fiction authors of this day. He is best known, I think, for his “Fall Revolution” quarilogy consisting of the books The Star Fraction, The Sky Road, The Stone Canal and The Cassini Division, which were released […]
Updated News Digest April 5, 2009
Quotes of the Week: “I read the Social Democratic newspapers. I saw their disgusting attitude towards anything that bore even the slightest revolutionary character, and I realized that there could be no reconciliation between a revolutionary party and a party trying to earn a reputation for ‘moderation’ in […]
Updated News Digest March 22, 2009
Quotes of the Week: “Bad laws are the worst sort of tyranny.” -Edmund Burke “Laws: We know what they are, and what they are worth! They are spider webs for the rich and mighty, steel chains for the poor and weak, fishing nets in the hands of the […]
Updated News Digest March 15, 2009
Quote of the Week: “All universal moral principles are idle fancies. All, all is theft, all is unceasing and rigorous competition in nature;…Are not laws dangerous which inhibit the passions? Compare the centuries of anarchy with those of the strongest legalism in any country you like and you […]
Updated News Digest March 1, 2009
Quote of the Week: “Everything the State says is a lie, and everything it has it has stolen.” -Friedrich Nietzsche “Journalists and opinion makers who now deride what was revolutionary and progressive about modern capitalism (an easier life and a higher standard of living) do so as […]
Updated News Digest February 22, 2009
Quote of the Week: “Conservatives uphold voluntary community, quite as they oppose involuntary collectivism. Although Americans have been attached strongly to privacy and private rights, they also have been a people conspicuous for a successful spirit of community. In a genuine community, the decisions most directly affecting the […]
Updated News Digest February 15, 2009
Quotes of the Week: “Nowadays the Capitalist cry is: “Nationalize what you like; municipalize all you can; turn the courts of justice into courts martial and your parliaments and corporations into boards of directors with your most popular mob orators in the chair, provided the rent, the interest, […]
Updated News Digest February 8, 2009
Quote of the Week: “A war for Kuwait? A war for an oil-can! The rest is vanity; the rest is crime … an unimaginative, ‘democratic capitalist’ Republican regime, early in 1991, committed the United States, very possibly, to a new imperialism. –Russell Kirk, The Politics of Prudence […]
Obama, The Ruling Class and the Future of Secession
Thus far, the Obama presidency has moved along lines similar to what one might expect. The significance some would assign to his mulatto ancestry notwithstanding, Mr. Obama is very much an Establishment Man. The actions of the Obama administration in its earliest days indicate that the policies of this […]
Updated News Digest February 1, 2009
Quotes of the Week: “A centralised democracy may be as tyrannical as an absolute monarch; and if the vigour of the nation is to continue unimpaired, each individual, each family, each district, must preserve as far as possible its independence, its self-completeness, its powers and its privilege to […]
Updated News Digest January 25, 2009
Quote of the Week: “It seems unlikely that many Americans will do other than breathe a long sigh of relief when George W. Bush finally leaves the White House. His farewell appearances last week were suitably bizarre, suggesting a man of limited capacity for sustained ratiocination, who, like […]
The State and the Banksters
by Peter Bjorn Perls As an old libertarian and anarchist, news like this is not a surprise to me anymore, and neither should it be for others of like persuasion, but for those not accustomed to cynicism against the Establishment, a lot of reminders of the corruption in […]
Updated News Digest January 18, 2009
Quote of the Week: “In the republic of mediocrity, genius is dangerous. We need men with courage to speak and write their real thoughts, and to stand by their convictions, even to the very death. When the will defies fear, when duty throws the gauntlet down to fate, […]
Updated News Digest January 11, 2009
Quote of the Week: “As a matter of priority the new generation of “Alternative” righties are decentralists and anti-imperialists first, and culture warriors second, if at all. To them the warfare state and erosion of civil liberties are vastly more important and relevant than the overturning of Roe […]
The Kind of Anarchist Movement I'd Like to See
In a previous post, I outlined my view that the radicals from the 60s have won on virtually every issue, and that the kinds of values associated with 60s radicals aren’ t all that radical anymore, but are actually rather mainstream and normal. Given the demise of Communism and […]
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