Relaunch and Recommended Readings

Machete 408 is back serving you up with a new series of postings after a summer hiatus. A continuing state of joblessness and downgrading to a slower internet connection both put a bit of a damper on the political juices that went into the blog. But despite these, there’s a nice backlog of recently published [...]

Latin American Anarchism

 
 A street mural by a Chilean anarchist cultural/muralist group (Read an interview with them in Spanish here).
  There’s a rich history and tradition of anarchism in Latin America that is still largely waiting to be translated and brought to the attention of the left and others who focus on the region. Below is a review [...]

Especifismo, Social Insertion and Recent Anarchist Organization

  A new edition of the “Especifismo Reader: Anarchist Organization and Praxis” has been made publically available. Topping 120 pages, the updated reader includes several newly translated pieces such as the short political statement “Who We Are, What We Want, The Path We Follow” by Coletivo Comunista Anarquismo in Brazil, the article “Anarchist Advances in Uruguay [...]

What Would a Relevant Anarchist Politics Look Like?

 Workers and popular organizations connected to the anarchist movement rally on May Day 2009 in a public square in Argentina.
  What would an anarchist politics look like that spoke to the needs of today’s realities and to today’s movements? How can revolutionaries apply the values of anarchism to an understanding of building mass movements from below, [...]

Where there’s smoke… Anarchism after the RNC

  An anonymous and well written reflection piece that begins with a critical look at the Republican National Convention protests in Minneapolis/St. Paul in late 2008, draws lessons from the autonomia and the Italian radical left on the 1970’s, and then looking at the current political juncture of massive economic crisis asks how we can [...]

May 1: International Worker’s Day – Día Internacional de los Trabajadores

  Yet again May Day quickly approaches.  Since 2006 the immigrant rights marches- made up of millions of undocumented migrant workers along with their supporters, families and children- has brought back May 1st to its original roots in the US. But many are still unaware of its origins in US labor history and the impact [...]

Thinking about hegemony

  Today a friend handed back to me a long borrowed copy of Arif Dirlik’s Anarchism and the Chinese Revolution (University of California Press, 1991). Full of nuggets and insights, the work is composed of several essays discussing the influence and role of anarchism from about 1900 to 1930; a period of tremendous social upheaval in [...]

The Workplace Papers

The Workplace Papers
  From the Sojourner Truth Organization 

 
  The Workplace Papers are a collection of articles and reflection pieces assembled by members of the Sojourner Truth Organization involved in workplace struggles during the 1970’s and early 1980’s. Although coming out of the new communist milieu of the early 1970’s, the organization took up a number [...]

Election Statement: Looking For Democracy In All The Wrong Places

Below is a statement released right before the election day in November 2008. I think it provides some useful perspective on how radicals, or regular people for that matter, would react to the election of Obama. –AW
 
10/28/08 – Amanecer Election Statement
http://amanecerblog.wordpress.com/
Looking for Democracy In All The Wrong Places
An Anarchist Perspective on the 2008 Elections
 
 

 
  With [...]

Anarchism and Radical Governments

How should anarchists relate to revolutionary or left-wing populist governments? Should they denounce them out of hand? Should they join in the movement? What are the traps to avoid? This is an important question as radicalized populations are creating movements which give rise to alleged progressive governments. As capitalism goes into ever-deeper crisis we can [...]