Here are a selection of radical takes on a variety of current events
i recorded and/or edited in the past few years,
they're all available from AK Press by clicking the images
Finkelstein breaks down the history, causes and consequences of the Israel-Palestine conflict ...from 1948 through today.
In a sweeping state of the world address, America's leading foreign policy critic surveys the role of the US in a post 9/11 world - and finds nothing has changed. Ranging over American intervention in the Middle East, Asia, and Latin America since World War II, Chomsky deftly sketches the logic behind our foreign policy, and its tragic results across the globe, and at home. Whether its globalization, oil, or a monopoly on real terror, it's business as usual, and we - not to mention the rest of the world - have to pay. Now more than ever, the venerable Professor stands as the voice of reason in an apparently insane world. "It can also be reasonably argued, I think, that the evolving system of state-corporate power, based in Washington, is a threat to its own population, us. The tendencies that lead in that direction are very real - they're not inexorable and there are others that strongly counter them. If you look over the centuries there has been significant expansion in the realm of freedom and justice - there are periods of regression - but the cycle is generally upward....The emerging framework of world power should not be an object of detatched contemplation, but has to be forged by dedicated work and struggle, always based on an effort to dismantle doctrinal constraints to see what's before our eyes, which is not really very deeply hidden." [Noam Chomsky, from the CD]
"By 1890, the census of the United States officially recorded that there were fewer than 250,000 living Native people within the borders of the 48 contiguous states of the United States. This from a population which ranged anywhere from 12 1/2 - 15 million: 98% attrition of population from the point the Pilgrim Fathers landed at Plymouth Rock, and the date that census was taken. Corresponding, you find Native people at that point reduced to approximately 2 1/2 % of their original land base. And the land, of course, is what it wa always about....In order to consume the resources within the land, you had to consume the people of the land. That is the nature of theprocess. And the situation has not changed at the present." - Ward Churchill, from the CD In this trenchant, and often bitingly acerbic lecture, coupled with a fiery question and answer session, Native activist scholar Ward Churchill lays out the current state of Native America. From the first recorded instance of biological warfare (a written order from the British commander Lord Amherst in 1763 to utlise small-pox infected blankets as a means of cleansing his rebellious subjects) to a Native population today living in conditions of Third World poverty (a life expectancy on the Reservations for a man of less than 50 years, 60% unemployment, and outbreaks of the Bubonic Plague, for example), Churchill tracks the effects, causes and consequences of 500 years of wars, broken treaties, duplicity, exploitation, environmental degredation, genocide and colonisation - life in occupied America (in the words of John Trudell) since predator came. Crucially, Chruchill addresses the confluence of interests that we all have, indigenous, and otherwise - the promise and challenge of overcoming Occupied America. "Whatever happens to us, ultimately happens to everyone else...It's self preservation and survival for you, just like it is for us. So you need to take a look at our resistance, and you need to support our resistance, not because you think in some abstract way that our resistance is just and correct, but because our resistance is your resistance in the end. If we lose, you're lost. To the extent that we win, you have a chance. Don't do us any favors, do it for yourselves....Indian struggles for land, life and liberty, are the same everywhere. Every square inch of land that Indians can maintain control of, or regain control of, is one less inch of land the predatory process that consumes you, along with us, can affect." - Ward Churchill, from the CD
In this acclaimed Lannan Foundation lecture, Arundhati Roy speaks poetically to power on the U.S. government's "War on Terror", globalization, and the misuses of nationalism. She contextualizes the recent invasion of Iraq within the history of U.S.-sponsored interventions in Chile, Palestine, and Afghanistan. With lyricism and passion, Roy combines her literary talents and encyclopedic knowledge to expose injustice and provide hope for a future world. A lively introduction and discussion with Howard Zinn rounds out this engaging, provocative recording. "To fuel yet another war - this time against Iraq - by cynically manipulating people's grief, by packaging it for TV specials sponsored by corporations selling detergent and running shoes, is to cheapen and devalue grief, to drain it of meaning. What we are seeing now is a vulgar display of the business of grief, the commerce of grief, the pillaging of even the most private human feelings for political purpose. It is a terrible, violent thing for a State to do to its people." - Arundhati Roy, from the CD "Nationalism of one kind or another was the cause of most of the genocide of the twentieth century. Flags are bits of colored cloth that governments use first to shrink-wrap people's brains and then as ceremonial shrouds to bury the dead." - Arundhati Roy, from the CD Arundhati Roy is an outspoken critic of globalization and American influence. She has authored four books, including The God of Small Things, which won the Booker Prize. In 2002 she was awarded the Prize for Cultural Freedom by the Lannan foundation.
Liberal activism often embraces non-violent resistance in reponse to state-sponsored terrorism at home and abroad. In this emotional critique, Churchill urges activists to support any and all tactics in order to stop the tyranny of the state. Churchill argues that the terrorist attack of 9/11 disrupted U.S. global capitalism more radically than any peaceful protest the Left has been able to organize. Recorded at a packed and fired up AK Press warehouse in Oakland.
The Bay Area is rich in local radicals, and most of them have taken a turn at the microphone of the Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair. Here's an all-star collection from the speakers' corner of the bookfair: Jello Biafra, spoken word artist and ex-frontman for punk band Dead Kennedys; Beat poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti; author Christian Parenti (Lockdown America); author and punk rocker Craig O'Hara (The Philosophy of Punk); anti-prison activist and author Ruth Wilson Gilmore (Golden Gulag); and Emma Goldman Papers Project curator Barry Pateman cut loose on anarchism, art, prisons, politics and more, in a relaxed setting.
In this collection of recent talks, maverick commentator Alexander Cockburn defiles subjects ranging from Colombia to the American presidency to the Missile Defense System. Whether he's skewering the fallacies of the war on drugs or illuminating the dark crevices of secret government, his erudite and extemporaneous style warms the hearts of even the stodgiest cynics of the left.
More than 17 years after the firefight at Oglala Village on Pine Ridge Reservation in 1975, Leonard Peltier continues to sit in a cage in a federal prison. Not for anything anyone, including his prosectutor at any point in the last 15 years has been prepared to say they actually believe he did, but rather as a symbol of the arbitrary ability of the Federal Government of the United States to repress the legitimate aspirations of the indigenous peoples within its claimed boundaries, for liberation. And why, despite still 'owning' some of the most valuable land in America (most of the uranium reserves, 20% of the oil and natural gas, water rights throughout the arid West et al) do the remaining 2 million Native inhabitants live in conditions of poverty commonly found only in the Third World--a life expectancy averaging under 50 for both men and women; 60% unemployment; a per capita income on the Pine Ridge Reservation of $2000 a year... Welcome to Counterinsurgency, American style. State financed, highly illegal methods of framing, blaming and murdering activists has quite a history. From anti-labor Pinkerton thugs and the Palmer raids on anarchists, to infiltration of the anti-globalization movement, Churchill traces the ugly history of the FBI and US state repression. In this keynote lecture, Churchill weaves together the themes for which he has become hailed as an activist and scholar--genocide, repression, and resistance--and amply demonstrates why the fate of Leonard Peltier, current state of Native America, and the long, sordid history of the state clampdown on dissent have ramifications across the globe.
When tens of thousands of demonstrators shut down the WTO meetings in Seattle, it heralded not only an awareness of the new global capitalist order, but the start of a movement to effectively challenge it. Some of today's leading scholars and activists present not only an in-depth and accessible analysis of the new economic world we are forced to inhabit, but how we can, and are, fighting back in a myriad of ways. This double CD ranges over the changing politics of globalization, neoliberalism and world trade, colonialism and debt, militarism and policing, native and indigenous rights and struggles, frankenfood and genetic engineering, capitalism and the fairy-tale economic boom -- and the leading alternatives to and struggles against a system which puts profits over people, unregulated growth over sustainability and money over morals. Join Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Ward Churchill, Alexander Cockburn, Vandana Shiva, Christian Parenti, Robin Hahnel, Michael Albert, Craig O'Hara, Normon Solomon, Chris Crass, and members of the Biotic Baking Brigade and the Acme Collective of the Black Bloc as they break down, and take apart, the new world order.
In this, his first spoken word CD, Christian focuses on the states' use of repression through the prison industrial complex, federal and local law enforcement agencies and most recently, the Patriot Act. These tools of the state, Christian convincingly argues are employed to quiet social and labor unrest in an attempt to ultimately legitimize "western democracy".
79 spoken word peices (ranging from a few seconds to a minute or so) and soundbites to be used to djs, music makers and everyone else, to mix into their music. Tracks from a whole galaxy of folks you'll want to sample, including Howard Zinn, Angela Davis, Assata Shakur, David Gilbert, Arundhati Roy, Noam Chomsky, Emma Goldman, Christian Parenti, Earth Liberation Front, Judi Bari, Geronimo Pratt, Alexander Cockburn, Ward Churchill, Weather Underground, Cherrie Moraga, Malcolm X, Raul Garcia, Ramsey Muniz, Martin Luther King, and many many more. Superb. "The Vinyl Projec t is a tool for DJs, musicians, MCs, activists and most of all the people. The soundbites on this record include chilling voices on repression and glimmering declarations of resistance. The Vinyl Project collective hopes these sounds will nourish your beats, noise, melodies and community." Lovingly created by the fine folks at Freedom Archives, with DJ Slo-Mo.
Recorded live at the San Francisco anti-war teach-in on the day the U.S. Govt/corps started air strikes against Afghanistan (10/7/01), here's 70 minutes of inspiring, incisive speeches linking U.S. militarism to other globalization issues. Brief, smart, and in plain speech, each track forms part of a larger coherant, rational argument for opposing the war and the consolidation of the power of global capital that it's meant to secure. Singer Utah Phillips ; Eyad Kishawi of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Commitee ; activist Van Jones on the opposition of third world people ; journalist Alexander Cockburn on hopeful signs ; Proffesor Joel Beinen on the geopolitical history of the Middle East and U.S. Govt/Corp involvement there ; journalist Christian Parenti on civil liberties. Arm yourself with facts as well as analysis, and start "turning the active minority into the anti-war majority." {from the cdr}
AK AUDIO PAMPHLET SERIES
Recorded at the AK Press warehouse, on July 26th 2002, Churchill lays out his current thinking on such topics...
Recorded at a packed, and fired up AK Press warehouse on September 9th 2000, this is perhaps the finest 70 minutes of Cockburn you'll ever find recorded. More than just a litany of the (almost endless) failings, hypocrisies and scumbaggery of Al Gore, this is a brilliant attack on the Democracts, the two-party system, and the status quo they both endorse. Sheer genius.
A critical examination
of ten years of successful anarchist and community organizing (in Edinburgh,
Scotland), culminating with the anti-poll tax movement - the largest mass
movement in British history (one half of the adult population didn't pay the
poll tax); and what lessons one can draw from that, in terms of anarchism,
organizing, vanguards,and organization.
Barry Pateman, editor at the Emma Goldman Papers, and archivist at the Kate Sharpley Library, gives a brilliant lecture on Emma Goldman, her life, anarchism, activism, relationship to the contemporary anarchist movement, and her consummate relevance today.