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ANARCHY IN MORE THAN THE U.K.
Spunk keeps anarchist torch lit on net
by
K.K. CAMPBELL
There are lots of politics discussed -- ha! I mean ranted about -- on
the net. What many newbies are surprised to find is the number of
radical political perspectives.
At first, they think there's just a disproportionate number of
"oddballs," but it's not the case. What's different is they get to
hear/read a disproportionate number of alternative views.
In the "real world," the mass media game is structured to
deliberately marginalize alternative political voices. Monitor any
mainstream paper/broadcast and editorial slants become evident.
Something called the "conventional wisdom" dominates. Journalism
likes to claim "objectivity," but that's hype. It's extremely
ideological. (See Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent or
Visualizing Deviance: A Study of News Organizations by Ericson,
Baranek and Chan.)
The horizontal structure of the net means radical political
perspectives aren't automatically "edited out" per verticalized
corporate ideology. This is unfamiliar to newbies, thus it appears
that radical political views -- such as social anarchism -- are more
prevalent on the net than in "real life." Many think "anarchism"
means bomb-throwing, nihilistic barbarism and chaos. This is
centuries-old ruling class disinformation. In crudest terms:
anarchism is the belief that human beings naturally engage in
mutually beneficial social interaction if hierarchical power
structures are not allowed to pervert innate social instinct. The
state isn't corrupt because it attracts lots of "immoral" people; the
system breeds corruption by protecting class, strata and privilege.
DA KID'S GOT SPUNK
One of the strongest anarchist voices on the Internet is Spunk Press,
started in late '92. It's only fitting that its founders found each
other through net.activism.
"We largely met online, via the Anarchy Discussion list and other
fora," says Ian Heavens
That mailing list is still moderated by Holland's Jack Jansen
(jack.jansen@cwi.nl). Americans Chuck Munson and Mikael Cardell,
editors of Practical Anarchy Online (mjmc@fullfeed.com), rounded
out the original crew. This Spunk editorial collective can be reached
at spunk@lysator.liu.se .
Spunk's numbers have grown, members often recruited from Jansen's
email list -- which is "a good way of people getting involved,"
Heavens says. "Discussion is sporadic but focused."
Their goal is to amass vast digital libraries of famous (and not-so-
famous) works with an anarchist bent, and use the power of the net
to distribute them far and wide. It holds hundreds of files --
available free -- by and about Mikhail Bakunin, William Godwin,
Emma Goldman, George Orwell, Hakim Bey, Peter Kropotkin,
Alexander Berkman, Max Stirner, Malatesta, Abbie Hoffman, etc. --
including, among my faves, those proponents of enlightenment and
entertainment through mindfuck, the Situationist International.
Heavens hopes radical publishers will store works in Spunk sites.
"At the Glasgow summer school on anarchism a few weeks ago, I got
an encouraging response, and we'll give some U.K.-based radical
publishers their own directories in Spunk archives," he told eye.
These archives are reachable via anonymous FTP at
etext.archive.umich.edu in /pub/Politics. (Note: This site carries
loads of alternative political material!)
Jansen believes Spunk is unique. "As far as I know, we're the only
group working this way -- i.e., distributing globally by using the net
as our communications medium. There are other groups with similar
subject matter, but they tend to be one-person projects. There are
also groups who make documents available, like Project Gutenberg,
but they are funded." Jansen's Anarchy Discussion list can be joined
via anarchy-list-request@cwi.nl; Spunk Press list, spunk-info-
request@lysator.liu.se. There's an anarchist web page at
http://www.cwi.nl/cwi/people/Jack.Jansen/anarchy/anarchy. html
which will take you to the Spunk page.
FREE ANARCHY
There are also lots of electronic publications (ezones). Autonome
Forum has several (aforum@moose.uvm.edu); Love & Rage
(lnr@blythe.org); Baklava Autonomist Collective, Wind Chill Factor
paper/'zine (thak@midway.uchicago.edu); Libertarian Labor Review
(jbekken@igc.apc.org); Industrial Worker, IWW or Wobblies
(jditz@igc.apc.org), or Canada's IWW (indwrk@web.apc.org); Arm The
Spirit (ats@etext.org); Ireland's Workers' Solidarity Movement
(anflood@macollamh.ucd.ie).
MANUFACTURING CHOMSKY
One of the most notable American anarchists (or social libertarians)
today is MIT linguistic prof Noam Chomsky. In July, a Chomsky
Archive "officially" came online -- though transcripts of his works
have circulated the net for years. You can get to it via ftp.cs.cmu.edu
in the directory usr/cap/chomsky/ (note: no slash at beginning of
pathname). Via WWW, jump to
http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu:/usr/tp0x/chomsky.html .
LIBERTARIANS
You'll also find lots of Libertarians (big-L) on the net, claiming to
be "anarchists." In actuality, Libertarians are a laissez-faire
capitalist party, only seeking to roll back the state enough to serve
their capital interests. They adhere to current property relations and
desire politicos/police enough to ensure they keep their economic
position. Read alt.politics.libertarian for lots of capitalist
apologia.
MICKEY ANARCHISTS
Oh ya, gotta mention these guys. The net is loaded with .edu sites, so
you get scads of just-outta-high school kiddies who fancy anarchism
is telling one's teacher to Eat Shit or fiddling with chemicals in a
friend's basement. Easily spotted -- nothing but slogans and visions
of "anarchist society" as some vague artisan, pre-capitalist barter
society. Take 'em in stride. Often WareZ d00dZ in disguise.
INTERNATIONAL LOOMPANICS
An interesting source of alternative/controversial reading material
is Port Townsend, Washington publisher Loompanics Unlimited
(loompanx@pt.olympus.net -- no orders by email). It maintains a vast
catalogue of underground stuff at The Well's gopher site --
gopher.well.sf.ca.us .
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