News & Reviews

Both of the best selling issues of this newspaper, our 1970 Special Women’s Issue, which had to be reprinted three times to meet the demand for it, and our recent Queer Anarchy edition met with high acclaim for their coverage of gender issues. However, each was met with criticism for being “sectoralist” or even “pornography” in the case of the later edition.

Sissy Sabotage, who was responsible for the queer anarchy articles, has struck again with a zine entitled “HBS—Horny Bisexual Sluts”—in which s/he visualizes “a steamy, silly & at times astute gesture of erotic arousal & political insurrection advocating communal orgiastic omnisexual bliss in these times of talk-show voyeurism & vindictive morality.” This zine should carry a warning label informing anarcho-puritans to beware of its prurient, rebellious content of prose, poetry, photography and advocacy of wanton lust. $2 from Sissy Sabotage, PO Box 11589, Detroit MI 48211.

Speaking of special women’s issues, The Alarm, a journal of revolutionary ecology, has published a “Womyn’s Edition,” which is its best effort to date. The question of the liberation of women and the understanding of patriarchy as the major system of the administration of domination has often fallen by the wayside in recent years. This issue of the Alarm (“a mechanism that warns of danger, arouses from sleep, etc.) brings those issues front and center through intelligent, radical and compelling articles about defense of the planet.

The authors contend that “the liberation of women is an essential and integral part of the liberation of the planet from the death grip of capitalist-patriarchal rulers.” The women of the Eastern North American Native Forest Network, who publish this once-a-year well done magazine, have contributed a wide range of articles from a womyn’s perspective. Highly recommended. Available from FE Books or Alarm, POB 57 Burlington VT 05302; phone (802) 863–0571; e-mail peacejustice@igc.apc.org.

Our congratulations to two publications celebrating their hundredth issue—The Nuclear Resister, PO Box 43383, Tucson AZ 85733, the newspaper of record for assaults on the nuclear state and its deadly machinery; and Dialogue, PO Box 71221, New Orleans LA 70172, which covers community efforts at peace, racial justice and ecological sanity in a city known for none. Samples available from both, but send them a couple of bucks for postage.

One gets a sense of the strength of a movement by how many PAZs—Permanent Autonomous Zones (using Hakim Bey’s phrase from last issue)—are created and sustained. As the resistance develops, projects become more viable and take on a history, such as with publications like those above. Since ideas which contradict the dominant ones are crucial, the written word always played a key part in movements of revolt in the last three hundred years. An increasing number of anti-authoritarian book stores, reading rooms and mail order services have appeared in recent years. AK Press and Distribution has been particularly prolific having just printed its 1995 catalog containing over 3,000 titles. They also will publish a dozen new titles this year including works by Noam Chomsky, Stewart Home, Murray Bookchin, Albert Meltzer’s autobiography and a two-volume collection of spoken word by ex-Dead Kennedy band leader, Jello Biafra. Their 84-page catalog is available from POB 40682, San Francisco CA 94140; phone 415/923-1429. They take both individual and bookstore orders.

Most of us at the FE have always questioned the wisdom of anti-fascist actions in the U.S. Mobilizing hundreds of people to stop 20 boneheads from marching, participating in coalitions with authoritarian leftists, and being easily set up by the cops has always left us with the distinct impression that we would ignore these right-wing idiots as long as they don’t mess with us. However, after reading a couple of issues of ARA—Anti-Racist Action, PO Box 02097, Columbus OH 43202—it’s clear these psychotic fascists are armed and dangerous and hurting people. How to fight them without getting caught up in a battleground between competing leftist factions or getting set up by the cops is an important question for debate, but not one taken up in ARA.