Joris J. - Bounds for sorting by prefix reversal

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Dominic Frontiere-Outer Limits

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OneTooFreeFor-Serious Flippancy

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Andrew Coltrane - "The other side of your face"

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"Ich bin glücklich über Ihr Urteil" - Revolutionärer Katechismus

Der Sowjetmythos brauchte die Hingabe des physischen Lebens als eine Art «Erlösungsprophezeiung» für die anderen. Dabei knüpften der sowjetische Staat und nicht zuletzt Stalin persönlich an Traditionslinien an, deren Ursprünge im 19. Jahrhundert liegen. Damals etablierten sich zwei wichtige Zweige der russischen revolutionären Bewegung – die «Narodnaja wolja» (Volksfreiheit) und die Sozialrevolutionäre. Der «normale» Terror und das Selbstmordattentat waren fester Bestandteil der Aktivitäten dieser Gruppen. Allein 1906 verübten die «Kampfgruppen» beider Bewegungen fast 5000 Attentate; viele davon waren Suizidangriffe. Zu den prominenten Opfern der «Kampfgruppen» gehörten Zar Alexander II. (1881), der Justizminister von Plewe (1904) und der Grossfürst Sergej (1905).
Heute versuchen viele WissenschaftlerInnen, einer Psychologie des Terrors auf die Spur zu kommen. Terror ergreift von der Psyche der TäterInnen Besitz. «Eine Analyse der Äusserungen der Terroristen selbst demonstriert, dass der Terror nicht einfach eine Arbeit, ein Beruf ist», schreibt Dmitrij Olschanskij, der Leiter des russischen Zentrums für strategische Analysen und Prognosen in Moskau, in seinem Buch «Psychologie des Terrorismus»: «Bei seiner ganzen Gefährlichkeit und Risikobereitschaft erfordert der Terror die Unterwerfung der ganzen Persönlichkeit. Der Terror kann nicht einfach eine Art Hobby sein.» Der Sozialrevolutionär Boris Sawinkow (1879–1925) gilt heute unter russischen ExpertInnen als Klassiker des Terrors. Seine autobiografischen «Aufzeichnungen eines Terroristen», verfasst 1908 und 1909, gelten bis heute als Pflichtlektüre zum Fachgebiet «Psychologie des Terrors». Sawinkow schreibt: «Ein Mitglied der Kampforganisation sollte über eine grenzenlose Hingabe für die Sache der Organisation verfügen bis hin zur Bereitschaft, sein Leben in jeder gegebenen Minute zu opfern.»
Der Haupttäter des Anschlags auf den Grossfürsten Sergej und Held von Albert CamusÕ Stück «Die Gerechten», Iwan Kaljajew, entsprach diesen Anforderungen gänzlich: «Kaljajew liebte die Revolution so tief und so innig, wie sie nur diejenigen lieben, die ihr Leben für sie opfern. Zum Terror kam er auf seinem besonderen, originären Weg und sah in ihm nicht nur die beste Form des politischen Kampfes, sondern auch ein moralisches, vielleicht sogar ein religiöses Opfer.» Nach seiner Festnahme am 4. Februar 1905 schien es für Kaljajew eine unerträgliche Schmach zu sein, überlebt zu haben. «Wider all meine Bemühungen bin ich am 4. Februar am Leben geblieben», schrieb Kaljajew in einem Kassiber an seine Mitstreiter. Und in einem weiteren Brief bekundet er: «Seit ich hinter Gittern gelandet bin, habe ich nicht mal eine Minute lang den Wunsch gehabt, irgendwie mit dem Leben davonzukommen. Die Revolution bescherte mir ein Glück, das höher steht als das Leben.»
Sergej Netschajew (1847-1882), neben Michail Bakunin ein Gründer des russischen «revolutionären Machiavellismus», veröffentlichte 1869 in Genf seinen «Revolutionären Katechismus», der für mehrere Generationen russischer Revolutionäre zur Bibel wurde. Er formuliert das Programm eines breit angelegten Terrors und schreibt: «Der Revolutionär ist ein Mensch, der sich seiner Aufgabe verschrieben hat, dem Staat und den gebildeten Ständen gegenüber erbarmungslos zu sein. Zwischen ihnen besteht ein schonungsloser, unversöhnlicher Krieg bis auf den Tod.» Die Parallelen zwischen dem «Katechismus» und der Psychologie der Mitglieder der Kampforganisation der Sozialrevolutionäre sind augenfällig. So erklärte Kaljajew in seiner Rede vor Gericht am 5. April 1905: «Ich bin kein Angeklagter, ich bin euer Gefangener. Wir sind zwei Kriegsparteien. Ihr seid Repräsentanten der Imperatorregierung, die gedungenen Diener des Kapitals und der Gewalt. Ich bin ein Volksrächer, Sozialist und Revolutionär.» Vor seiner Hinrichtung erklärte Kaljajew: «Ich bin glücklich über Ihr Urteil, ich hoffe, dass Sie sich entschliessen, es genau so offen und in aller Öffentlichkeit zu vollstrecken, wie ich das Urteil der Partei der Sozialrevolutionäre vollstreckt habe.»

The Coffee House

PAIN

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Tōru Takemitsu - Eclipse / Masque

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Genus Inkasso - "Chewed to Pieces, Bonded Well"

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There Is No Music

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Reversal of Man - Discography

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Strike strategy

A period of reaction is a time when labor has to be
especially vigilant. The Taft-Hartley Act is but one of the
insidious attacks on the right to strike put over in such a
time. There are others. In recent years, in a number of
States, laws have been adopted that tend through similar
provisions seriously to weaken labor's right to strike.
Of late the term has been used in another connection.
Particularly since enactment of the Taft-Hartley Law,
employers, with the help of Congress, have



used the phrase as a peacetime pretext to restrain and nullify
labor's right to strike. When certain key industries are
confronted with a strike, it is declared that if these work-
ers strike a "national emergency" will be created.

This has brought about a curious situation in America.
Those working in our basic industries, upon which our
entire economy depends, are reduced to a state approxi-
mating second-class citizenship. Buttonhole makers and
candlestick workers may exercise the right to strike be-
cause their cessation from work could not be said to create
a "national emergency." But railroad and steel workers,
coal miners and longshoremen are denied the use of the
strike weapon. (This partly explains why miners, steel
workers, electrical workers and longshoremen have put
up the greatest resistance to the Taft-Hartley Law.)

Add to the aforesaid encroachments on labor's basic
right the vicious interpretations and decisions of the Na-
tional Labor Relations Board in applying the Taft-Hartley
Act, and the picture becomes clear. The interpretations
and decisions of the Board constitute another attack on
the right to strike. What an insult it was to workers and
their unions when the Board decided that not only can
scabs remain in the factory, but that they have the right
to vote in elections supervised by the National Labor Re-
lations Board!

hat are the underlying causes that force workers to
strike? Economists, newspapermen and radio commenta-
ors have spoken and written millions of words against
strikes. They have attempted to prove that a prolonged
strike eats up the very wage demands for which the
workers are striking, and that it takes months to catch up
financially. They have argued that most strikes end in
compromise then why not compromise in the first place?
There are those who claim that there would be hardly
any strikes at all were it not for a small group of selfish
and power-hungry labor leaders. Increasingly we hear the
argument that the "reds are responsible for strikes." Some
newspapers even absolve the leaders of the unions in-
volved and put the blame for strikes and walkouts entirely
on "Communists." Others, again, concentrate on being
great defenders of the "public," which they portray as an
innocent victim of the strike. In recent years, the cry of
the "right to work" has been advanced as an argument
against strikes.

hese and other arguments are by now well known to
the average American worker. Yet strikes, and the number
of workers involved in them, do not diminish. On the
contrary, as time goes on, the strike weapon is resorted to
by ever new sections of wage earners such as telephone
workers, bank clerks, foremen, newspapermen, teachers,
engineers, insurance agents and similar groups. Indeed,
during the past decade there was hardly a wage earner's
family that did not have some member on the picket line.

Obviously, the arguments popularized in our press and
on the radio are not convincing, and obviously, standard
surface causes for this or that strike, or group of strikes
do not tell the whole story of why workers strike. The
strike is a social phenomenon of great significance in our
economic life and cannot be explained so lightly. What
the anti-strike economists and writers fail to understand
is that a strike is a social act and, as such, goes beyond
the boundaries of the immediate and specific economic
demands brought forward by the workers involved. In a
certain sense a strike is an elementary, unconscious ex-
pression of revolt against conditions which the worker is
no longer able to tolerate.

These broader aspects of strikes have been recognized
by many government experts on labor, and by the more
serious-minded economists and historians. Miss Florence
Peterson, for many years a leading authority of the United
States Department of Labor, in her preface to a study on
strikes, says very significantly:

The strike is a cultural development, a conventionalized expression
of discontent. It involves mass action and presupposes a belief in
the efficacy of mass action. ... A strike is an evidence of discon-
tent and an expression of protest...

But even from the viewpoint of dollars and cents the
strike is not a losing proposition. A study of wage move-
ments for a period of years will show that general wage
increases, in peacetime, came about as a result of a strike
wave, or a threatened strike wave. The latest examples
are the post-war strikes that established a pattern of wage
increases to meet the rise in the cost of living. We may
also cite numerous examples of wage increases to non-
union employees white collar and administrative work-
ers after the union employees struck and obtained such
increases. In certain unorganized industries employers
have granted partial wage increases in an effort to stem
the tide of organization, but in the final analysis even such
types of wage increases have resulted from the fear of the
strike weapon. There is unquestionably a connection be-
tween the relatively high standard of living of American
workers and their high degree of strike consciousness.

Moreover, another factor should be taken into consid-
eration when balancing up the credits and debits in the
"dollars and cents'* argument.

In recent years the anti-strike propagandists have con-
centrated on the argument that each strike wave means a
dollars and cents loss to the workers because strikes are
followed by a rise in prices. They elaborate on this by
stating something like this: "Why are you workers so fool-
ish? You go out on strike; you gain a wage increase; your
pay envelope is slightly higher, but when you go to the
grocery and furniture stores, or when you buy an automo-
bile or refrigerator, you pay a lot more/'

On the surface it sounds like a substantial argument.
But when analyzed, it falls apart. Strikes or no strikes,
prices have been steadily rising for the past four decades.
Numerous instances could be cited from the past and
present showing that prices have gone up without any
relation to wage movements. Examples could also be cited
of prices remaining the same after wages were cut. There
is nothing automatic about price increases.

...

In the 1900' s. The struggle for the 8-hour day and union
recognition remained the principal demands of the work-
ers in the nineties. It was also during this decade that the
strike movement spread toward the Western states. The
Western Federation of Miners and, later, the Industrial
Workers of the World were in the leadership of many
Western strikes, and up to this very day the deep imprint
of their militancy upon the Western labor movement re-
mains.

Pre-War Strikes-1910-1916. The period between 1910
and our entry into the First World War was a time of
growth for organized labor. The basic demands of the
workers remained the same the 8-hour day and union
recognition. However, in 1914, with the outbreak of
World War I, the workers were confronted with a new
problem: the tremendous rise in the cost of living. This
brought forward an additional central demand substan-
tial wage increases. In 1915 and 1916, 4,924 strikes took
place. Of these, 1,386 were for wage increases. The two
most important strikes during this period were the
Lawrence textile strike, in 1912, and the Colorado Fuel
and Iron strike in 1913-14 better known as the "Ludlow
Massacre." The significance of the Lawrence strike is that
it was one of the first mass strikes led by the IWW in the
East and that the strike was victorious. It was one of the
early tests in militant strike strategy, and proved superior.
The Colorado Fuel and Iron strike was not just an ordinary
strike for higher wages. It lasted fifteen months and still
remains one of the longest strikes in American history.

Over fifty people miners, wives and children were
murdered in this strike.

Wartime Strikes 1917-1918. During our two years in
the First World War the strike movement reached large
proportions. Over two million workers participated in the
strike struggles, despite the stubborn opposition of AFL
leaders to any wartime strike movement. The chief causes
were the ever rising costs of living and the determination
of the workers to obtain recognition of their unions. Out-
standing strikes of this period were the packinghouse
strike, the lumber workers' strike in the Northwest, the
machinists' strike in Bridgeport, Conn., the Seattle gen-
eral strike, the coal miners' strike, and the strike of the
Boston policemen.

Post-War Open Shop Offensive-1919-1923. After the
war the strikes assumed a general defensive character with
the unions fighting desperately against wage cuts and for
their very existence. In the basic industries the unions
were nearly wiped out, and many craft unions became
mere skeletons of their former selves. Never before did
the government assume such an open strikebreaking role
as during the open-shop offensive; the government's main
weapon was a wholesale application of injunctions. During
this period the most important strike was the great 1919
steel strike, led by William Z. Foster and receiving a varied
degree of support from 24 AFL International Unions.

The Coolidge Period-1923-1928. Despite the oft-
repeated theory that "strikes develop in time of prosper-
ity," during the Coolidge administration there were very
few. Every year there was a decline until in 1928 there
were fewer strikes than at any time since 1884. One great
strike there was the textile strike in Passaic,
led by the militants of the Trade Union Educational League. The
strike attracted national attention and received the sup-
port of the broad labor movement.

The Economic Crisis-1929-1932. When the depression
came, labor unions were too weak and demoralized to
fight back the new wage-cutting offensive of the em-
ployers. In 1930, for example, when the wage slashing
campaign was at its height, only 182,975 workers were on
strike. This, too, can be compared with the year 1884. A
relatively large number of strikes against wage cuts were
called by independent unions during the years 1929-1933.
The National Textile Workers, the Needle Trades Workers
Industrial Union and the National Miners Union, affiliated
with the Trade Union Unity League, are some of the
unions that led such strikes.

The NRA Period-1933-1935. With the establishment of
the National Recovery Act a strike wave once again spread
from industry to industry, coast to coast, electrifying the
whole nation. Causes? The failure of employers to wipe
out the wage cuts while reaping new millions of profits;
the growing determination of workers to organize into
their own unions, buttressed as this now was by Section
7-A of the National Recovery Act, which gave workers
legal sanction to join a union of "their own choosing." The
strikes were so numerous that only the most outstanding
can be noted. In 1933, 30,000 miners from the "captive"
and hitherto unorganized mines struck and won. The
strike of 60,000 garment workers, of whom the majority
were as yet unorganized, resulted in victory.

The outstanding feature of these strikes of
the late thirties was that during this period labor was
definitely on the offensive workers fought relentlessly for
wage increases and union recognition. Another outstand-
ing characteristic was that, for the first time since the end
of World War I, the workers in basic industries such as
auto, steel, rubber, electrical, etc. participated in such
great mass strikes and that nearly all ended in complete,
or in substantial, victory. A unique feature of this strike
wave was the introduction of the sit-down, or stay-in,
strike technique, which proved very effective. The sit-
down began in 1936 in the rubber plants in Akron, Ohio,
and spread to the auto industry. It has been estimated that
from September 1936 through May 1937 sit-down strikes
directly involved 484,000 workers and closed plants em-
ploying 600,000 others.

Although the newly organized CIO unions led the
majority of the workers engaged in strikes, the AFL
unions also played a major role. In 1937, for example,
583,063-or 30% of the total workers on strike-were led
by AFL unions.

In 1940 the strike wave declined sharply. The total in-
volved in strikes dropped to 447,000 and enabled Secre-
tary of Labor Perkins to declare that the number of strikes
was much smaller than in the somewhat comparable
period of national emergency, 1916-1917. In March of the
following year the first wartime medium to handle many
labor problems was created when President Roosevelt ap-
pointed the National Defense Mediation Board.

World War II Strikes-1941-1945. Even the most con-
sistent enemies of labor must admit that its wartime record
was one of patriotism, devotion and sacrifice.

The new feature of these post-war strikes was the in-
creasing "fringe" demands brought forward by the unions.
These included medical plans, insurance, pensions, holi-
day and vacation pay and portal-to-portal pay. Another
feature was the industry-wide character of the strikes;
such was the case with steel, auto, electrical and marine.
The fact that the strikes of the post-war years were of
longer duration than those of the late thirties indicates
that opposition on the part of the employers toward or-
ganized labor was growing.

A strike of major political importance was America's
first nation-wide railroad strike. This took place in May
1946. President Truman broke it in an old-fashioned way
by threatening to use the armed forces against the strik-
ers, and this act, more than any other, showed Truman's
complete departure from Roosevelt's labor policies. The
injunction obtained by the Truman Administration against
the coal miners, in November 1946 was a natural follow-
up.

In this post-war period a development of great signif-
icance was the growing number of general strikes. At
Stamford, Connecticut, in January 1946, 12,000 workers
crippled the industrial life of the city in the first general
strike in that State.

...

Leading a strike is never a one-man project. It is a col-
lective effort. Although it often appears that a certain in-
dividual union leader is running everything, it takes a
team of leaders, each responsible for a different phase of
activity, to handle a strike. What qualifications are re-
quired of the men and women who make up this team?

First and foremost, there must be undivided loyalty and
devotion to the union and its membership. The team must
be composed of people with proved and tested records of
struggle. They must be men and women with courage
and steadfastness and endurance. The background of
strike leaders cannot be ignored. The union not only has
a right but a duty to review the past life of potential strike
leaders. Certainly men who scabbed in the past, or who
were employed by private detective agencies, should first
prove themselves as loyal rank and file strikers before they
are promoted to leadership. Likewise persons with past
criminal records, even if completely rehabilitated, could
at times do damage to a strike. It has happened in the past
that employers and the press played up such individual
records in order to alienate public opinion.

The capacity to win and hold workers' confidence stands
high on the list of qualifications for strike leadership. Rank
and file workers are oftentimes not vocal, but beneath
their silence there is clear thinking and sound judgment of
the men in front. It is only when the workers know their
leaders well and have basic confidence in the leadership
that they will give the strike a maximum, instead of token,
support.

Self-control is another quality very important for strike
leadership. During moments of great provocation on the
part of employers or their hired agents or scabs, a leader
must remain calm. It takes more courage at times not to
fall for provocative acts than to lead head on into danger.
Calm also means not to be overwhelmed by the multitude
of problems thrown into the lap of strike leaders every
minute of the day. The ability to remain calm under trying
circumstances plus the ability to make correct spot deci-
sions and resolutely carry them out are at the core of
leadership.

Another quality a strike leader must have is the knack
of delegating responsibility to the right people. The secret
of this, of course, is to assign to people the task they know
best. To ask a man who has native abilities as a speaker to
take charge of picketing, and to give a man who has or-
ganizing abilities an assignment as a speaker, is not to get
the best out of either.

It is very rare that any one person can possess all the
attributes and qualities outlined above. This is one of the
reasons why it is better that a strike be led by a team
rather than by a single individual.

For the convenience of local union leaders there is pre-
sented below a chart or blueprint of a strike plan. In the
event it becomes obvious that a strike is inevitable all
possibilities of a settlement without a strike having been
exhausted union leaders can follow this plan, taking from
it whatever is applicable to their conditions and circum-
stances. It should be remembered that proper timing is
the key to success. In seasonal industries, to plan a strike
at the end of the season is to invite a long strike. If condi-
tions are such that the union is free to choose when the
strike shall take place, it is obviously to the advantage of
the union to strike at the beginning of the season.

1. Call a meeting of the workers involved and present
an honest and accurate report on all the efforts the union
has made to settle the dispute without a strike. The entire
union machinery must be put to work in preparing for this
general membership meeting.

2. At this meeting a vote should be taken on whether or
not to strike. If the members vote to strike, the next point
on the order of business is to set up the leading strike com-
mittees. It may be advisable to have the officers or the
Executive Board bring in recommendations for such com-
mittees.

3. Carefully examine the attendance record of the meet-
ing or meetings. If a substantial group of workers failed to
attend such an important meeting or meetings, do not take
it lightly. Those workers must be reached through the
mails, by visitation, or through a special meeting.

4. Issue a statement to the press announcing the im-
pending strike because of the employer's stubborn resist-
ance to reach an agreement across the conference table.
In the statement stress the needs of the workers, the de-
mands of the union, and make an appeal to the public.

5. Meet with the leaders of the key committees and
check on their plans and personnel. Pay special attention
to the picketing plan.

6. If there is need for additional strike headquarters,
these must be rented before the strike and properly
equipped. There should be a telephone, chairs, and first
aid supplies. A reliable striker should be appointed to take
charge.

7. If the strike is of major proportions in the community,
consider the idea of a radio address, an advertisement
in the newspapers, or a handbill to the public presenting
the union's point of view.

8. A committee consisting of the most authoritative
union officers and members should visit the mayor, the
city councilmen, and leaders of the church, veteran, and
other civic organizations to explain the issues and solicit
their good will and support.

9. A similar committee should visit the AFL and CIO
central bodies and labor unions.

10. Alert the union attorneys and put them to work on
legal matters, such as unemployment insurance, instruc-
tions to pickets, and analyzing city ordinances that could
be applied to strike situations. Also arrangements must be
made in advance with bonding companies for bail in the
event of arrests.

11. Call a meeting of the Executive Board and see to
it that a sufficient sum of money is allocated for various
phases of strike action.

12. Send an official report on the pending strike to your
International and outline your needs and how the Inter-
national could assist you.

13. Meet with the person in charge of security and
check if proper measures have been taken to protect union
offices, strike leaders, and strike headquarters.

14. Make sure that "coffee and" stations will be set up
and ready to serve as soon as picketing begins.




- from John Streuben

Born Against, the WFMU Sessions

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Unexist - Fight The Power

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Realicide- Enduring the Viral Hell

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Stock, Hausen and Walkman - Giving Up With

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Brötzmann- Berlin Djungle

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Unzipp me

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Corrupted / Cripple Bastards Split

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D.S Hastings

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It´s Time to see everything

An anarchist superhacker has just released a powerful little program called “sslstrip.”
On encrypted web pages, the letter “s” appears at the end of “http.” This program strips the “s” away, leading the victim to an unencrypted but otherwise identical version of the page. The victim then enters their log-in information unaware that the attacker is recording what they type. The program requires its operator to be between the victim’s computer and its internet connection, such as on a free wireless internet server. The security researcher stressed that the attack succeeds because browsers have moved from providing positive feedback when a site is secure to only providing negative feedback when the software detects something wrong. By providing additional cues, such as a locked icon as the favicon, an attacker could make a targeted user more likely to fall for the ruse. In addition, an attacker could use international domain names to create a URL that appears to be a valid address to a major Web site, but in reality, includes '.' and '/' characters from international character sets.



You can download sslstrip NOW !

Mars - The Complete Studio Recordings NYC 1977-1978

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Poststructuralist Anarchism: An Interview with Todd May

The following interview conducted in October 2000 by Rebecca DeWitt :


Postructuralist Anarchism is the combination of anarchism and poststructuralist philosophy (the work of Foucault, Lyotard and Deleuze). What is essential to both these political philosophies that makes it possible to combine them?

What I see as the essential link between anarchism and the poststructuralism of Lyotard, Deleuze, and especially Foucault, is the denial that there is some central hinge about which political change could or should revolve. For Marx, political change was a matter of seizing the means of production; for liberals, it lies in regulating the state. What anarchists deny (at least in parts of their writings, the parts which I'm trying to draw out) is that there is a single Archimedean point for change. Inasmuch as power is everywhere, the need for political reflection and critique is also everywhere. Not only at the level of the state or the economy, but also at the level of sexuality, race, psychology, teaching, etc. etc.

Is there anything left of anarchism?

I believe there is. If I'm right in my approach, what anarchism provides to poststructuralism is a larger framework within which to situate its specific analyses. The framework is a different one, to be sure, from the traditional anarchist framework. It is not unchanged by poststructuralism. But the new framework I have tried to articulate would be news to most poststructuralists, who resist the idea of a larger framework altogether.

How do we reconcile anarchism, which often relies on politically unifying principles (such as anti-capitalist/statist stances), with postructuralist thought, which sees power as an interconnected network rather than a system to be opposed?

Regarding the idea of totalizing systems, it is surely the case that much of anarchism, both in practice and in theory, targets capitalism and the state. My book is a suggestion that we not look in those two places so as to blind ourselves about the ubiquity of power's operation. If capitalism and the state were the sole culprits, then eliminating them would by itself open us up to a utopian society. But we ought to be leery of such simple solutions. One of the lessons of the struggles against racism, misogyny, prejudice against gays and lesbians, etc. is that power and oppression are not reducible to a single site or a single operation. We need to understand power as it operates not only at the level of the state and capitalism, but in the practices through which we conduct our lives.

In your book, political philosophy is cast in terms of the articulation of "the discordance between the world as it exists and the world as it is envisioned." When the discordance is no longer present, that particular political philosophy became obsolete, whether it occurs because the world has changed or because the goals have been realized. You give the example of the communist revolution where, once the goals of the revolution were reached, the political philosophy that described such a change becomes obsolete and therefore a new political philosophy was needed in order to advance. Is political philosophy a process where we are constantly remaking our view of the world and what we want?

The idea I'm trying to press early in the book is that political philosophy is motivated by a discordance between how people think the world should be and how they find it. Why think about political philosophy unless there is a problem that needs to be addressed? And that problem, for political philosophy, is that the world is distant from how one thinks it should be. Whether political philosophy is a constant process is something I'm not sure how to answer. I don't see any reason in principle why it should be, although it may turn out to be. The question of whether political philosophy is a process of constantly remaking ourselves is tied to the question of what kinds of nature human beings have and what kinds of environments they find themselves in. Since elsewhere in the book I deny that there is anything interesting to say about human nature, it all comes down to environment. But who knows how environments will change, and what kinds of questions they will raise for us?

For postructuralist anarchism, power is both creative and destructive. In contrast, anarchism natural justification of its own existence - that humans are essentially good and it is the institutions of power that are bad therefore we need to get rid of them - characterizes all power as bad. How does the anarchist concept of power change with the addition of postructuralism?

While [anarchists] have a two-part distinction: power (bad) vs. human nature (good), I have a four-part one: power as creative/power as repressive and good/bad. I do not take creative power as necessarily good, nor repressive power as necessarily bad. It all depends on what is being created or repressed. The ethical evaluation is independent of which kind of power it is. That's why it's so important for there to be clarity on one's ethical vision - a point which too many poststructuralist thinkers neglect. But one does not solve the ethical problem by positing a good human nature and then saying that it should be allowed to flourish. There is too much evidence against the idea of an essentially good (or essentially bad) human nature for that claim to be made. One cannot rest one's ethical judgments on human nature, but instead must develop the socially given ethical networks within which our lives unfold.

You state that we "must abandon [for the most part] the idea of a clear demarcation to be made between political philosophy and political programs.as one moves away from analysis and toward suggestions for intervention, one passes from philosophy to programmatics." Most political philosophies seem incapable of passing into programmatics and then back again. The tension between the world as it exists and what we envision is most often destroyed by consolidation of power by one idea or political party. Anarchism advocates a direct democracy or federalism to ensure that this doesn't happen but is the life of a political philosophy capable surviving programmatics?

Bear in mind that the anarchism I'm trying to draw out of the tradition would not see direct democracy as the answer to all political problems (otherwise, anarchism would be another strategic political philosophy). That said, your question still remains, since one can wonder what happens to political philosophy when a programmatics is carried out. Certainly, one thing would remain of the view I tried to develop: the idea that we need always to be investigating the power relationships that arise in various practices and to give them proper ethical evaluation; that is to say, to ask whether they are acceptable or not. On the view I'm defending, since we never know in advance how power works, we need always to keep investigating its operation, in order to see where it's leading and what it's creating; and we need always to ask the ethical question of whether we find that acceptable.

Whose job is it to construct the programmatic?

As far as who is to construct the program, it is certainly not to be philosophers. (Goodness gracious, banish the thought.) This idea is, I hope, no longer taken seriously, even by philosophers. The only response as to who IS to construct the program, or at least have input into its construction, is that it is those who are affected by the current situation and the proposed changes. Now that may be another way of saying "the people," but it does limit things somewhat. For instance, I will have little to say about ho w gays and lesbians should be treated in society (e.g. should they be admitted into the category of the marriageable or should they challenge marriage itself?) That, it seems to me, is up to them. My role is to support them in their choices.

The anarchist concept of power is characterized as one which "conglomerates at certain points and is reinforced by [power] along certain lines", and therefore can be amenable to the idea of reform because certain reforms at certain points could result in revolution. Is there a place for revolution in postructuralist anarchism?

The term "revolution" strikes me as a loaded one. Sometimes it seems to mean that there is an overturning of the key point of power in a society. When used in that way, the term "revolution" seems to imply a strategic political philosophy, so I think it is better avoided. When things change enough as a result of political intervention, then we have a revolution. Thus, the distinction between reform and revolution should not be the tired one of "mere reform" vs. "real revolution." It should instead be an issue of how much and how deep of a change is going on. In fact, I think the term is often used as a banner, a mark of one's radicalism, and an unconsidered way of marking out one's distinction from liberalism. As such, it hides the question, which we should be asking: what needs to be changed and how does it need to be changed? When we ask that more concrete question (yes, a philosopher suggesting that a certain jargon is hiding our ability to see the concrete), then we're on the right track. The question of is it revolution or just reform drops away.

What is the World Trade Organization to poststructuralist anarchism? The WTO seems to be one of those organizations where power conglomerates, where a variety of practices collude to create an oppressive power arrangement. I think we mistake many supporters of the WTO if we describe them in terms of a conspiracy theory. My suspicion is that most of them sincerely believe they are doing good things, even though they're not. How to explain this? It seems to me that we need to look at the practices they're engaged in and the effects of those practices on others, and to recognize that there are a whole series of deleterious effects that supporters of the WTO have failed to recognize. That, it seems to me, would be a poststructuralist anarchist take on the WTO.As an activist, I find myself in accordance with the recent demonstrations intended to eliminate the WTO and related oppressive institutions and to abolish loan paybacks from Third World countries. Of course, there's a lot more, but philosophy, while it interacts with the programmatic, does not, it seems to me, have as a role the construction of the programmatic

As far as action is concerned, you offer suggestions of how postructuralist anarchism can be acted upon. These include: experimentation, situated freedom, valorization of subjugated discourses, and the intellectual as a participant in theoretical practice rather than a leader. Can you tell me how you and other politically active people can practice these guidelines? It is difficult to practice much of any politics in South Carolina. Just to point in the general direction of how I live this stuff, it concerns my attitude toward gays and lesbians (I was faculty advisor for the gay/lesbian group for six or seven years); my teaching (I try to reject the idea of a given human nature in my courses, I experiment with course ideas, I include neglected works, often with a political spin, in my syllabi, I often situate the problems we face in the context I've developed in the book); and my parenting (trying to see the effects of power relative to my children's lives and attitudes, and offering alternatives to them). If I were to approach the question from the standpoint, say, of someone living in an urban area in the U.S. I would point to the necessity of understanding and participating in struggles against racism, sexism, the WTO, etc., and in doing so to see the interactions among those struggles and the oppressions those struggles seek to overturn, without trying to reduce them all to a simple formula.

Many anarchists feel it is imperative to create a public intellectual culture and that, increasingly, the university is not a place that encourages intellectual freedom, not to mention political thought. What is your experience?

I agree that the university is a questionable source of intellectual culture.I believe that the reality of an intellectual culture is difficult to achieve now, because with the "mall-ization" of the U.S the whole idea of public space is being marginalized. Some say that the internet is a new place for a public culture, but I have my doubts. First, the sheer size of the internet makes the intimacy of an intellectual culture difficult to achieve. Second, there is something about sharing the same space and time in conversation that is denied by the internet, something without which interchange remains too anonymous in character. I don't think the internet is useless; but it's ability to substitute for what we have lost is more limited than some folks think.

Can you respond to critics who charge that poststructuralist theory (postmodernism in general) is an example of a highly specialized, abstract and obscure language that is alienating to most people and doesn't encourage thought outside of a graduate department?

Guilty as charged. But that doesn't apply only to poststructuralists and postmodernists. It is a general problem across the humanities and across academics generally. We talk to one another rather than to those outside our immediate circle. There are a number of reasons for this: pressure to publish, the history of anti-intellectualism in the U.S., etc. But we also contribute by adopting the jargon we do. I have tried to stay away from jargon as much as possible, and I hope that my anarchism book, although difficult, is at least not laden with jargon. But what you're pointing to is a problem for all academics, and only serves to marginalize us further.

Given that "knowledge, like other subjects, is a matter of struggle and domination" and recent publish or perish/cost-analysis tendencies of universities, how does postructuralism escape being just another commodity? Much of poststructuralist discourse is, of course, just like other academic discourse in that it replicates the current academic system of ideas in the cost-benefit consumerist model currently dominating academia. I think that change comes not only through the ideas themselves but, especially in academics, who's spouting them. The real question, it seems to me, is whether people are living these ideas out or whether they are just holding them as ideas. ~

John Coltrane - "Coltrane"

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