Apocalypse of the Anarchists, Part One: Primitivist Podcasts Killed the Green Radio Star

15 posts / 0 new
Last post
anon (not verified)
Apocalypse of the Anarchists, Part One: Primitivist Podcasts Killed the Green Radio Star

Sometimes something is so obvious it becomes obscure. Such is the case with the current trend in “primitivist” podcasting and other mass “alternative” infotainment. Why, you might ask, would a self-declared “primal” anarchist – embrace high technology to disseminate their opinions and philosophical/social ideas. There is nothing primitive about podcasting, or radio shows, or industrial publishing. Trees still die, electricity is squandered, mass quantities of water wasted, in the promotion of shopworn radical tropes. Why not topple an irradiating cell phone tower instead of producing an hour long Internet broadcast, or burn out a nest of bothersome techno-bureaucrats in lieu of posting a colorful PowerPoint presentation on YouTube? A call-in talk show consisting of reading mass society newspapers and reviewing one’s own work? Surely, a true anarchist warrior would be out in the field, replacing useless Earth First! Hippies (more concerned with “social justice” clichés than actually defending the wild), getting ones hands dirty. Apparently, the Monkeywrench Gang has retired. They covet their pensions more than the call to arms against the Megamachine. Yet they still have time to format fancy magazines and sell them at a premium to skinny jeans anarchists.

John Zerzan is the “grand old man” of green anarchy. Nearly eighty, he hosts a weekly talk show on the University of Oregon radio station, and has been doing so for years. Originally a classic liberal from the sixties “counterculture revolution,” he has since converted to a cozy academic, anthropologically-centered “primitivism,” publishing a dozen or so books along the way. Books with lots of footnotes. John is enamored of his references. You’ll find long lists of them in the appendices of his screeds “against civilization.” Most of these referenced texts were written by university-funded academics, artist-philosophers, scientists and industry society functionaries. John is a former government employee himself, an ex-social worker. Nothing more frightening than an ex-hippie leftist on the war path, angry but safe in his office chair in an air-conditioned domicile. Sometimes his co-host is an old street agitator who uses the moniker “Kathan.” She sounds like she threw more than a few rocks at cops in the past. Or “pigs,” as John still calls the boys in blue. Tired leftism morphs into exhausted anarchism. Rarely does he interview forest defenders or in-the-field fighters. Perhaps they are too busy in court turning on their fellow activists. Let’s ask the obvious: hasn’t anyone ever whispered in his ear “hey John, baby, this is a tad hypocritical.” Maybe his radio engineer and university functionary Carl could get on that. You don’t stop the madness of industrialism by reading the New York Times Magazine. Despite whatever activism he may have done, whatever actions he may have been involved with in the past, this is not an excuse for kissing the feet of the FCC. The government monitors every radio broadcast, does it not? If John’s show were a threat, he would be silenced. The most interesting thing about Anarchy Radio is its history of attracting lunatics to call in. The Sandy Hook shooter was on the line with John some years back. Maybe Alex Jones can deny the radio show’s anarchist credentials. I doubt anyone would sue over that.

There’s an error-ridden recording posted semi-regularly on YouTube called “Uncivilized Podcast,” hosted by anonymous white guys from the Midwest (or is it Bernie’s socialist Vermont). They don’t have down the basics of broadcasting, misstating guest’s names (recently deceased hero of anticiv, convicted murderer Ted Kaczynski, becomes “John”) and speaking in halting fashion as if some hunter-gatherer were poking them with a spear every few seconds (likely a function of recording in separate locations and cutting it all together, an annoying technological faux pas apparent to all listeners). Truly, this podcast is uncivilized, but not in its intent. They interview the usual suspects – academics and recently published authors – with a cute high school amateurism that borders on a comical Hollywood-style appeal to be liked, really liked. It would be entertaining – like a bad standup comedian is somehow entertaining – if the whole thing were not so earnest. Zerzan level “I am right and you are wrong” earnestness (when he’s not walking it back, like he did recently with his classic essay “The Case Against Art”). In fact, they just interviewed the grand old man of liberalism – er, anarcho-primitivism. It was the usual fawning endorsement. The format of the show is stilted, indeed machine-like, and the ideas the same old same old. Has no concerned female partner, Starbucks coffee cup in hand, not nudged these guys and cringed, “Is this anarchy?” Decidedly not, they would be summarily banned by Googletube for stating anything against commerce, civilization or even defending the wyld. Let dry academia do the talking. After all, mass media is for selling things. Books and website subscriptions and such. This is merely another example of controlled opposition, anarchy style, and Uncle John Zerzan must be proud.

Speaking of selling things -

Kevin Tucker needs no introduction. He is the Kanye West of “primal anarchy,” a successful publisher, podcaster, best-selling author (okay, in his niche) and gentle giant of the green activist belt in the Midwest (Missouri to be more accurate). Not unlike that other Missouri gadfly, Jesse James, he is an outlaw of the post-civil war frontier (in this case, the civil war of the 60’s hippie revolution). Starting with his brazenly-titled Species Traitor zine, he was destined for martyrdom as a deviant mind criminal of the new anarchism. Sadly, he settled into quaint mid-Western domesticity with the distaff co-host of his occasional podcast, Mrs. Tucker. It’s like Mr. and Mrs. Smith without all the guns, or glamor, or fine apparel. Or entertainment. Just the same angry accusations and exhausted rhetoric that Zerzan made famous years ago, only with glossier magazines. Perhaps, in the dim past, before his publishing empire with Black and Green Review and his books, his podcast and his domesticity, he toppled a few windmills in the field. Like a certain Social Security recipient in a snug university radio station studio, he has settled. No more being a traitor to the species (whatever that meant, since industrial society is a machine state of being for cyborg thinkers, not the natural state of the species), he has travelled a road much taken, ardently criticizing other anthropological tourists (his book on ethno-botany and murder related to tribal cultures of South America, The Cull of Personality) and setting up shop as a technological entrepreneur wearing a green anarchy t-shirt. You might say he is colonizing the movement, suburban mall style. Welcome to Green Amazon, where KT’s biography (like Kanye he wears a hoodie in his photo) and list of publications invites a comfortable shopping experience. The mass society controllers’ snicker, unworried about the antics of a writer who threatens absolutely no one with his domesticated brand of “anarchy.” Just shut up and buy his shit. At least there aren’t as many footnotes.

Like an angry off-Broadway writer/actor who trades in his well-intended social politics for main stage stardom, or a “citizen journalist” who becomes too big and famous for his own broadcasting britches, these alleged radicals of green anarchy have embraced the death kiss of mass media. Monsters of the Googlesphere and industrial academia aside, it’s not as much about selling one’s soul as it is sitting down to a nice warm meal of electronic complacency. Feel-good anarchy, if you will, with a side of mushy complicity. Like a mad bomber reduced to prison creature comforts, the revolutionary takes a reluctant seat at the enemy’s table. Even if it’s the kid’s corner. Better a warm microphone than a cold tree sit any day.

But it accomplishes nothing in the end, this placating of the Megamachine. Industrial society marches on, burning itself to the ground even in paradise, and the mass murderers responsible recline in their McMansion armchairs, crystal glass of expensive Scotch in hand, smiling at the apocalypse outside their triple-paned windows. It only comforts them to know that the controlled opposition, so-called radicals of the green variety, are buying into the whole Clownworld carnival, one podcast at a time, and paying their taxes like good citizens. Bombs rain on the Middle East and Ukraine, mothers lose sons, forests are decimated, mountain-tops are mined, heavy metals extracted from our mother earth, and the mouthpieces of complacency keep on broadcasting.

- Stormson

Primal off-green anarchist, sub rosa-primitivist, anti-civ reject, all-around badass former suburbanite and citizen journalist emeritus.

anon (not verified)
while i support the general

while i support the general crankiness of this post, and i think you pick fine targets, the tired, no, *exhausted* trope of "if you're so anti-civ why are you wearing glasses/printing books/making a podcast" was boring and stupid probably before you were born.

people use the tools they have. to say that people lived better lives before civilization (or whatever) is not to say that we can operate outside of it at this point.

keep your knives, i say, but sharpen them.

Uncivilized Pod... (not verified)
I am sorry to hear that you

I am sorry to hear that you are unsatisfied with the Uncivilized Podcast!

Urban Scout (not verified)
Wow

Not even an honorable mention? Wow I feel so seen. Thank you.

anon (not verified)
You ruuUuule STORMSON!

You ruuUuule STORMSON!

anon (not verified)
Why is Anews legitimizing

Why is Anews legitimizing this mean-spirited, substance-less, author-should-just-get-a-blog rant by publishing it? This is some cop-level shit.

I realize some of thecollective had/have beef with some of the mentioned personalities, but damn have some publishing standards at least.

anon (not verified)
Typo: *fed-level shit.

Typo: *fed-level shit.

anon (not verified)
It was a shallow

It was a shallow contradictory argument all the "green gurus" proprosed concerning anti-civ when they couldn't just admit that their sustainability model would require the death of 3/4 or 6 billion humans. That lingering modern anthropocentric humanist tendency is hard to shake off if you don't want to be labelled a fascist huh?

anon (not verified)
Tell us you've never read or

Tell us you've never read or actually listened to John Zerzan without telling us you've never read or actually listened to John Zerzan.

He has addressed this in print and for every cringe caller that has called in with this "gotcha".

Touch grass, civilized scum!

anon (not verified)
I've read JZ and I touch

I've read JZ and I touch plastic and steel you uncivilized fascist!

anon (not verified)
You < > "plastic and steel" <

You < > "plastic and steel" < > industrial civilization < > fascism < > industrial civilization < > "plastic and steel" < > You

"whY doNt antI-cIV aNArcHISts cArE abOuT 6 bILliOn hUMAns liKE Me!?!"

Touch grass, loser troll.

anon (not verified)
'''sustainability model'''

reddit is thataway

lumpy (not verified)
... hey so "stormson", what

... hey so "stormson", what slur do you use for the pigs? or do you prefer a respectful tone or ... what?

maybe you should sound like you throw more rocks? don't get me started on what i think you sound like

anon (not verified)
IMmA aNti-SieVe who uses

IMmA aNti-SieVe who uses metal spoon on MY industrial cornflakes and tech-sucked milk from domEsticAted (m)animals nyuk nyuk nyuk

anon (not verified)
You'd think with all the time

You'd think with all the time you spend trolling anews you'd have figured out how to thread your replies AND how to not look like a TOTAL LOSER with your attempts at sarcasm.

You are very bad at this, you pro-civ bootlicker.

Add new comment

Filtered HTML

  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Allowed HTML tags: <a> <em> <strong> <cite> <code> <ul> <ol> <li> <dl> <dt> <dd>
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.

Plain text

  • No HTML tags allowed.
  • Web page addresses and e-mail addresses turn into links automatically.
  • Lines and paragraphs break automatically.
CAPTCHA
This question is for testing whether or not you are a human visitor and to prevent automated spam submissions.
x
)
c
k
q
j
$
M
Enter the code without spaces.