Resonance: An Anarchist Audio Distro

Final Statement by Willem Van Spronsen – MP3 – Read – Archive – Torrent – YouTube

On July 13, 2019, Willem Van Spronsen was killed by police while
attacking transportation infrastructure for the Northwest Detention
Center in Tacoma, WA.

The Northwest Detention Center can hold over 1,500 people, making it the
largest immigration prison on the west coast, and one of the largest
immigrant detention facilities in the country.

Willem was a long-time activist, anarchist, anti-fascist, musician and
father. In a memorial posted to Puget sound anarchists, his comrades
wrote: “We are grief stricken, inspired and enraged by what occurred
early this morning… Will gave his life fighting ICE. we may never know
what specifically was going through his head in the last hours of his
life but we know that the NWDC must be destroyed and the prisoners must
be freed. We do not need heroes, only friends and comrades. Will was
simply a human being, and we wish that he was still with us. It’s
doubtless that the cops and the media will attempt to paint him as some
sort of monster, but in reality he was a comrade who fought for many
years for what he believed in and this morning he was killed doing what
he loved; fighting for a better world.”  

The following is Willem Van Spronsen’s Final Statement:

There’s wrong and there’s right.
It’s time to take action against the forces of evil.
Evil says one life is worth less than another.
Evil says the flow of commerce is our purpose here.
Evil says concentration camps for folks deemed lesser are necessary.
The handmaid of evil says the concentration camps should be more humane.
Beware the centrist.
I have a father’s broken heart
I have a broken down body
And I have an unshakable abhorrence for injustice
That is what brings me here.
This is my clear opportunity to try to make a difference, I’d be an
ingrate to be waiting for a more obvious invitation.
I follow three teachers:
Don Pritts, my spiritual guide. “Love without action is just a word.”
John Brown, my moral guide. “What is needed is action!”
Emma Goldman, my political guide. “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be
in your revolution.”
I’m a head in the clouds dreamer, I believe in love and redemption.
I believe we’re going to win.
I’m joyfully revolutionary. (We all should have been reading Emma
Goldman in school instead of the jingo drivel we were fed, but I
digress.) (We should all be looking at the photos of the YPG heroes
should we falter and think our dreams are impossible, but I double
digress. Fight me.)
In these days of fascist hooligans preying on vulnerable people in our
streets, in the name of the state or supported and defended by the
state,
In these days of highly profitable detention/concentration camps and a
battle over the semantics,
In these days of hopelessness, empty pursuit and empty yearning,
We are living in visible fascism ascendant. (I say visible, because
those paying attention watched it survive and thrive under the
protection of the state for decades. [See Howard Zinn, A People’s
History of the United States.] Now it unabashedly follows its agenda
with open and full cooperation from the government. From governments
around the world.
Fascism serves the needs of the state serves the needs of business and
at your expense. Who benefits? Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet, Elon Musk, Tim
Cook, Bill Gates, Betsy de Vos, George Soros, Donald Trump, and need I
go on? Let me say it again: rich guys (who think you’re not really all
that good), really dig government (every government everywhere,
including “communist” governments), because they make the rules that
make rich guys richer.
Simple.
Don’t overthink it.
(Are you patriots in the back paying attention?)
When I was a boy, in post-war Holland, later France, my head was filled
with stories of the rise of fascism in the ’30s. I promised myself that
I would not be one of those who stands by as neighbors are torn from
their homes and imprisoned for somehow being perceived as lesser.
You don’t have to burn the motherfucker down, but are you going to just
stand by?
This is the test of our fundamental belief in real freedom and our
responsibility to each other.
This is a call to patriots, too, to stand against this travesty against
everything that you hold sacred. I know you. I know that in your hearts,
you see the dishonor in these camps. It’s time for you, too, to stand up
to the money pulling the strings of every goddamn puppet pretending to
represent us.
I’m a man who loves you all and this spinning ball so much that I’m
going to fulfill my childhood promise to myself to be noble.
Here it is, in these corporate for profit concentration camps.
Here it is, in Brown and non-conforming folks afraid to show their faces
for fear of the police/migra/Proud Boys/the boss/beckies…
Here it is, a planet almost used up by the market’s greed.
I’m a black and white thinker.
Detention camps are an abomination.
I’m not standing by.
I really shouldn’t have to say any more than this.
I set aside my broken heart and I heal the only way I know how—by being
useful.
I efficiently compartmentalize my pain…
And I joyfully go about this work.
(To those burdened with the wreckage from my actions, I hope that you
will make the best use of that burden.)
To my comrades:
I regret that I will miss the rest of the revolution.
Thank you for the honor of having me in your midst.
Giving me space to be useful, to feel that I was fulfilling my ideals,
has been the spiritual pinnacle of my life.
Doing what I can to help defend my precious and wondrous people is an
experience too rich to describe.
My trans comrades have transformed me, solidifying my conviction that we
will be guided to a dreamed-of future by those most marginalized among
us today. I have dreamed it so clearly that I have no regret for not
seeing how it turns out. Thank you for bringing me so far along.
I am antifa. I stand with comrades around the world who act from the
love of life in every permutation. Comrades who understand that freedom
means real freedom for all and a life worth living.
Keep the faith!
All power to the people!
Bella ciao.

*Music by Willem Van Spronsen (Emma Durruti)

The Unquiet Dead Anarchism, Fascism, and Mythology Chapter 7. Elitism, Populism, and Democracy – By Anonymous – MP3– Read– Print – Archive– Torrent– YouTube

Chapter 7 discusses Nietzsche, anti-Semitism and elitism as well as The Peróns fascism and populism. The full text is available at unquietdead.tumblr.com; we will be posting recordings of other chapters in the future.

“I tell you unless something is done to alleviate such things there will be more anarchists, aye, red-handed anarchists, in this country. I do not wonder that there are anarchists in this country; the wonder is that there are not more of them.”

Simon & Garfunkel – I Am A Rock, Sum 41 – Fatlip,  Sharon Campbell – Evita – Don’t Cry For me Argentina, John Mellencamp – Pink Houses

Revolution and Destituent Power: How do we de-activate the State without founding a new one? – MP3 – Read – Print– Torrent – Archive– YouTube

Historically, the revolutionary process in the West has centered on violently destroying a certain order and then re-founding a new order based on that prior violence. From the revolutionary terror of the French Revolution, and the writing of the American constitution in the wake of revolutionary war, to the authoritarian nightmare of the Soviet Union, to contemporary demands in Chile for a constitutional assembly, it seems impossible for revolutions to escape the logic of sovereignty, constituency, and security. How do we escape what Agamben calls the vicious spiral of terrorism and the State? Seeking a way out of the traps of modernity, some theorists and revolutionary movements have proposed an idea of destituent power: a revolutionary process that breaks the law not in order to found a new law, but to do away with the logic of law altogether.

This talk presents an overview of Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben’s writing on the question of destituent power, tracing the history of the idea from Walter Benjamin and Georges Sorel, through the Italian Autonomia movement and the refusal of work, and into present theories of destituent power. Finally, we briefly discuss the interesting points of intersection between the largely European concept of destituent power, and the decidedly Black and North American concepts of fugitivity and the undercommons, rooted in Fred Moten’s work.

Trailer at the end for another Channel Zero podcast trailer Rebel Steps Season 2

For those who are interested in the source material, reading suggestions include:

Giorgio Agamben, From the State of Control to a Praxis of Destituent Power

Giorgio Agamben, The Use of Bodies, Prologue and Epilogue

Robert Hurley, Communist Ontology

Fred Moten & Stefano Harney, The Undercommons: Fugitive Planning & Black Study

Now by The Invisible Committee – MP3 – Read– Print – Torrent – Archive – YouTube

Now (2017) is the phantom chapter to the Invisible Committee’s previous book, To Our Friends: a new critique from the anonymous collective that establishes their opposition to the world of capital and its law of labor, addresses current anti-terrorist rhetoric and the ferocious repression that comes with it, and clarifies the end of social democracy and the growing rumors of the need for a coming “civil war.”

Now emerges at a time when the Invisible Committee’s contestation has found echoes throughout the West, with a collapse of trust in the police, an inept weariness on the part of the political system, a growing urgency for opposition, a return of the theme of the Commune, a vanishing distinction between radicals and citizens, and a widespread refusal on the part of the citizen to be governed. As farcical political elections continue to unfold worldwide like a line of tumbling dominoes, and governments increasingly struggle to reclaim a legitimacy that has already slipped out of their grasp, Now clarifies the Invisible Committee’s attitude toward all such elections and their outcome: one of utter indifference.

Now proposes a “destituent process” that charts out a different path to be taken, a path of outright refusal that simply ignores elections altogether. It is a path that calls for taking over the world and not taking power, for exploring new forms of life and not a new constitution, and for desertion and silence as alternatives to proclamations and crashes. It is also a call for an unprecedented communism—a communism stronger than nation and country.

Musical interludes by Debussy from Arabesque Number One

“No more waiting.

No more hoping.

No more letting ourselves be distracted, unnerved.

Break and enter.

Put untruth back in its place.

Believe in what we feel.

Act accordingly.

Force our way into the present.

Try. Fail this time. Try again. Fail better.

Persist. Attack. Build.

Go down one’s road.

Win perhaps.

In any case, overcome.

Live, therefore.

Now…”

The Olympia Communard: Dispatches from the Olympia Rail Blockade – By Various Authors – MP3 – PDF – Torrent – Archive – YouTube

For seven days during the winter of 2016, radicals, revolutionaries and ne’er-do-wells – inspired by the then unfolding revolt at Standing Rock – built a blockade encampment on the train tracks in downtown Olympia, Washington (Nisqually and Squaxin Land), in order to stop a train full of essential fracking supplies from reaching the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota. One year later the blockade reemerged and for another twelve days during the winter of 2017, participants took a stand against the industrial machinations of death.

This compilation of writing comes from the second year of the blockade and was intended to be record of sorts, of a special time and place affectionately referred to by its participants as the Olympia Commune. In the Olympia Communard’s own words:

“It is simply the perspective of some future possible world, glancing back at the collapse of this world and searching for those elements of redemption hidden therein”.

More audio resources on the Olympia Train Blockade(s) check out

The (Ex)Worker #61: The Olympia Train Blockade (2017)

SoleCast on the Olympia Blockade  (2017)

IGD Cast – Discussion on the Blockade (2017)

IGD Cast – Audio Report (2017)

IGD Cast – Barricade That Train (2016)

This Is What Democracy Looks Like: An Anarchist Critique Of Democracy – MP3 – Read – Print – Torrent – Archive – YouTube

In the words of the introduction to this pamphlet, “One would think that a political doctrine and system that was propagated by the bourgeoisie in their rise to power, that is promoted world-wide by the Western ruling class, and that has only existed in its so-called ‘pure’ form on the backs of slaves, would at least be suspect in the eyes of those who oppose the present social order. But such is not the case.” Indeed, it remains lost on many would-be radicals that contemporary democracy is only the form of government dominance which is best suited to industrial discipline, its late capitalist successors, and all the therapeutic measures that they necessitate. A substantial difference posited between even the most “direct” forms of democracy and a living, breathing anarchy? Inquire within.

These essays were collected in a Venomous Butterfly publication about 15 years ago. The main courses of this modest feast are the fourth and fifth pieces to appear in the sequence– “The Lesser Evil” by Dominique Misein and “Who Is It?” by Adonide– and the especially discerning listener or reader may want to proceed to these without delay. A small number of the insurrectionary critiques from the early part of this millennium can be said to lack a certain traction in our transforming social conditions, or to stand to benefit greatly from supplementation by other meditations. The best moments of this collection escape this fate. They portend more recent and lengthier essays on democracy like the CrimethInc pamphlet “From Democracy to Freedom” (now expanded into a book and audiozine) and the thorough demolition job found in “Against Democracy” by the Grupos Anarquistas Coordinados, originally composed in Spanish and now hurled as evidence at comrades in Spain who face time in the dungeons of the democratic state. These latter essays deftly explore the clusterfuck of contradiction, quiet desperation, sheer brutality, and lopsided hierarchies that mark each and every one of the toxic quagmires known as democratic “societies,” and may be forthcoming to Resonance Audio Distro. As for the present, these brief offerings retain a good deal of their heft and remain the sumptuous morsels they always were. The other pieces nicely round out a title that stands along with other of its early aughts contemporaries– impeccable journals like “Killing King Abacus” and “A Murder of Crows“– which contributed not a little to the anarchist ferment of the past couple decades.

The false opposition to fascism– democracy– stands unmasked as its progenitor and collaborator. The polis is a gendered slave state. The vote is a sham. One more indication for an anarchy that cannot be bought off or tamed.

This audio zine is appropriately set to “Red Right Hand” by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, an unnerving sonic portrait of the consummate recuperator: the smiley-faced propagator of the Big Lie, the miracle worker of Capital, the man who rolls into town promising all the good things of life but delivers naught but suffering and falsity, the one who has reduced you to a microscopic cog in his catastrophic plan. You might remember this song from the movie “Scream” or more recently from the “Peaky Blinders” series, itself a kind of portrait of the disaster wrought by liberal democracy and its world.

He’s the settler, the master, the businessman, the gentry, the democrat. He now puts a rainbow badge in his window and donates to the right charities.

They’re whispering his name through this disappearing land. But hidden in his coat…

Malediction – by Margaret Killjoy – MP3 – Torrent – Archive – YouTube

Originally published in Shock Totem #10 in March of 2016; this morbid story includes a gay squatter, suicide, cop hating and paranoia. For more by Margaret Killjoy go to birdsbeforethestorm.net and keep an eye out for more of her short fiction here on resonance.

Music – Their Wings Are Made Of Bone – by Nomadic War Machine

The Unquiet Dead: Anarchism, Fascism, and Mythology – Chapter 6 Mythologies – MP3 – Read – Print – Archive – Torrent – YouTube

Chapter 6 discusses Barthes’ critique of Leftist mythologies; Marx’s critique of mythology and a critique of Marx’s mythology; elements of fascist mythology; various kinds of speculative fiction, and its advantages and disadvantages around imagining towards liberation.The full text is available at unquietdead.tumblr.com; we will be posting recordings of other chapters in the future.

“There are many forces striving to hold our world together—the impulse to gain power and control over others, to have more resources than others, to have respect and admiration, to somehow feel happy within this fraught context. In the heat of this constant push of competition for success, it can be a liberatory gesture simply to refuse to try to succeed: to fall apart: to disintegrate. Furthermore, if you oppose huge social structures, your task can feel daunting—there is no way to force them to collapse. However, you can encourage them to disintegrate through a change in belief. To do nothing to challenge the future is to choose to support it.”

Resonance has recorded a full version of Faggots and Their Friends Between Revolutions by Larry Mitchell which is quoted at length in this chapter.

Musical Interludes: Gustav Holst – The Planets – Mars, the Bringer of War, Ludwig Van Beethoven – Symphony No. 6, Op.68 – 2nd Movement

Skin In The Game: How Antisemitism Animates White Nationalism by Eric Ward – MP3 – Read – Print – Torrent – Archive – YouTube

“To recognize that antisemitism is not a sideshow to racism within White nationalist thought is important for at least two reasons. First, it allows us to identify the fuel that White nationalist ideology uses to power its anti-Black racism, its contempt for other people of color, and its xenophobia—as well as the misogyny and other forms of hatred it holds dear…. Antisemitism, I discovered, is a particular and potent form of racism so central to White supremacy that Black people would not win our freedom without tearing it down.”

Music – Barikadn – The Klezmatics, The Specials – Do Nothing, Sublime – April 29, 1992

The Audio Zine ends with a trailer for another member of the Channel Zero Network called Radical People

The Evolution of Identity Politics: an Interview With Eric Ward

Antisemitism at the core of white nationalism

Les Guérillères – by Monique Wittig  – MP3 – PDF – Torrent – Archive – YouTube

Monique Wittig published Les Guerilleres in 1969, at a time when the whole world seemed on the brink of revolutionary change. It is the story of a successful feminist war against patriarchy. It was one of the most widely read feminist texts of the twentieth century both dated and ahead of its time. We include our own introduction and explanation at the beginning of the recording, you can read it here.

“They say, hell, let the earth become a vast hell. So they speak crying

Music – Ruth Crawford-Seeger – String Quartet (1931)