TOTW: The Hammer

"Cleansing of the Temple", where Jesus expels the "den of thieves" from their temple.

Repression strikes.

Sense of control is now a sense of escape

Inconsolable
all we love dies.

A love that endures
after the last remains
of its object have dissolved.

Lust and impulse condemned to routine

Long after the forests are cleared
and its defenders rounded up
long after the squats are evicted
after the presses are smashed
& the books are burnt.

Bring down the hammer
A bludgeon to my shrines
Bring down the hammer
To the corpse of my worship

Sites of sacrifice
offerings of freedom
(of worship, of exchange, of assembly, of association, of thought, of expression, of movement...)
as a way of life.

Witch-hunts slander
our hallowed places
as dens of iniquity.


Comfort is the gateway to submission
What is contentment?
Another word for stagnation

Retreat
a life in exile
attenuation.

After all occupations,
assemblies, marches,
barricades, attacks...

Every single thing up to this point was a waste
Every single thing we have ever built now lies in ruins

What do anarchists do when
their places of worship & gathering,
their objects of love,
are destroyed?

Now it is the time to begin
Now it is the time to truly begin

* * *

Lyrics from "The Hammer" by Thou

Listen to the conversation here!

There are 17 Comments

Sound like a bunch of flip flop wearing nerds. @news should be featuring TRUE anarchist bands from Louisiana like Eyehategod, with revolutionary songs such as Kill Your Boss, Shop Lift, and Hit a Girl.

I can agree with the Eyehategod part, they pulled a lot of dope shit over the years. But perhaps due to the band being antagonistic to Muhrikah to the bone, Mike D. appeared to be into the hammer & sickle. So not sure if anarchists, but who really cares anyways?

Io fyuckoing carew! Nio fiockoinf waty is tyhey ciommuies, ! I idenmtufy asd a fyuckinbg huillbuilly fuivking nihiolisdt, NOIT a fyuxkimg Lreftyist commoe !, I AM NIOT A FYUCKOING LEWFTYIST FUICKUNG OKAYU!.,? ,imnma hillbikl.y nihiolidst, a a pre-Marxcisdt fyucjkinf nuianced daseinb prewceeduing wersterng fuoclking IDfPoiloticds!.,!

Great to see anarchistnews continuing the decades long tradition of anarchists writing terrible poetry.

Which brokerage house do anarchists find most useful?

What is Thou trying to say with this song? My interpretation -
In moments of loss and retreat we should take lessons from both the effective strategies and inspiring moments, and the false steps and internal clashes with opportunists during historical and contemporary revolts and struggles. Don't fetishize past movements or try to emulate them to the letter or you will get stuck in a church-like worship of a beautiful but painful defeat. Analyze and regroup. Bear the torch but only to burn down the existent.

It's a sick tune, shanks for sharing, thecollective.

if you place importance on the place
for meeting
or... worship??!?
(not something i've experienced in
anarchists i've met)
then you willingly
accept the yoke of slavery
freedom is burning what you love

Hammerstroke upon hammerstroke. Until the last day of living
— Henrik Ibsen

"Religion, morality, conduct, behavior, spiritual matters, culture, art, and science will also be put to the test and get its turn under the hammer. " - Johan Hellum in the anarchist journal Hammerslag from 1911 based out of Seattle, Washington.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/johan-hellum-hammerslag

I had to look up the word, but apparently hammerslag is "the coating of oxide formed on heated iron, which is removed by hammering the metal when cold."

-M.C. HAMMER

Forest defenders? More like forest defendants, amirite? Nechayev would rejoice at this batch of activists who may yet be radicalized by the experience of being in jail and turned into hardened revolutionists!

Sometimes my mum makes me walk all the way upstairs to microwave my own tendies so I know a thing or two about what prison is like! She's such a bitch!

Add new comment