Creating Anarchy

244 Pages·2013·3.094 MB·English

by  Ron Sakolsky

—James Koehnline
Creating
Anarchy
@anti-copyright 2005
Any part of this book may be reproduced for
non-profit purposes.
The author, artists, and publisher wish to be
informed of any reprints.
Fifth Estate Books
2013
Ardent Press
To
Natasha
evening star
ray of light
little red top
spinning
freely
in the
bebop
night
2005
Acknowledgements
This book was born in flames, nurtured with poetic
laughter, and simmered in a sea of possibility. It is the
fruition of an alchemical mix that only Pumpkin Hollow
and Denman Island could have provided. As for me, I
provided the words and the situation that brought us
all together in this wild embrace, creating anarchy page
by page. And special thanks go out to all the amazing
artists who are credited within and the many behind-
the-scenes participants in this project, including Gale
Ahrens, Hakim Baker, Bernard Cooper, Beth Garon,
Maurice Greenia, Sergio Lima, Sheila Nopper, Megan
Schultz, Ed Varney, and Erik Violet.
These selected writings have all been created since the
turn of the 21st century. Most have been published before
in a diverse array of dissident publications including (in
alphabetical order): Alternative Press Review; Anarchy:
A Journal of Desire Armed; Black Sun; Confluence;
Fifth Estate; Green Anarchy; Je Ne Sais Quoi; Lip (on-
line); Minus Tides; The Oystercatcher; Social Anarchism,
and Utopian Studies. Two are culled from previously
published volumes (one written for Rebel Musics, edited
by Daniel Fischlin and Ajay Heble, and the other from
my introduction to the Autonomedia anthology which
I edited, Surrealist Subversions). Almost all have been
updated, reworked, and remixed since their original
publication. Together, I envision them as composing a
resplendent collage of dreams and ideas that has now
taken on a life of its own. Three pieces are published
here for the first time. All are bathed in the subversive
light of anarchy and mad love.
Contents
Introduction to the Second Edition ii
Introduction vi
Teaching Anarchy 2
Why Consent to Being Ruled at All? 8
Liberty Shield 18
Refusing The Marketplace 20
The Myth of Government-Sponsored Revolution 26
Puppets vs Puppets 36
Whose Streets, Our Streets 38
Hangin’ Out on the Corner of Music & Resistance 46
Finding Your Voice 60
Firespitter 64
Anarchy in a Diasporic Key 76
Surrealist May Day Greetings! 82
Marvelous Freedom/Vigilance of Desire 84
Surrealist Desire, Anarchy & the Poetry of Revolt 90
Anarcho-Surrealist Poetics 128
Total Refusal 134
A Surrealist Re-Imagining of Canada 140
Black Star North 146
Dancing Waves 154
Utopia at Your Doorstep 176
My Life in the Academic Gulag 198
Occupying the Citadels of the Mind 212
—Jesse Gentes
War is endured because it offers us a spectacle… a better
and bigger kind of fireworks. It scares the hell out of us. It
turns us inside out. There is its hold, its fascination… But
the real secret lies in property! These are our guns, this
our fleet. This is my country. My country? You poor little
creature… What is yours? Your house… your job… your
kitchen chairs and the number plate on the door…ah! but
these don’t belong to you. Where did you get them? By
what right did they come to you. You worked for them?
Worked…? What did you do? Oh, you sat in an office and
put figures in a book. You even dug in a cold, water-filled
ditch. But I have already told you that property is murder.
Because of property people starve to death and are beaten
by the police. Because of property millions of men are
blown into bloody pieces… Refuse to murder in the name
of the State, and you will find yourself behind bars—your
house, your job, your kitchen chairs and the number plate
over your door… kicked into the ditch you spent your life
digging, your death but another figure you entered into the
monstrous book of Capitalism. I ask for an unconditional
overthrow of every last vestige of the world you will risk
your life for tomorrow… Wars are conducted that the
people may lose sight of their own need to wage war. The
people always fight for the cause which enslaves them; that
is, the cause of their rulers. A monstrous game is played.
—Kenneth Patchen,
Journal of Albion Moonlight

THE ONLY WAR THAT MATTERS IS THE WAR AGAINST THE
IMAGINATION
ALL OTHER WARS ARE SUBSUMED IN IT
—Diane Di Prima,
“Rant”