ANews Podcast 351 – 2.9.24

From ANews Podcast

Welcome to this week’s podcast. This podcast is on anarchist activity, ideas, and comments from the previous week on anarchistnews.org

What’s New
w/ chisel & THE VINDICATED

TOTW: Anarcho-prototyping
w/ Vail, Petra, M and Alex

Music & Samples:
Delta 5 – Now That You’ve Gone
The Cribs – Mirror Kissers
Harp Flashback

There are 14 Comments

i enjoyed the totw discussion even though i am old enough to be your spinster uncle, and i did not come to anarchy by way of youth rebellion or punk aesthetic. in fact I'm beginning to really dislike that story, mostly because so many stop with the circle A aesthetic and seem to never crack a book.... sigh.

yet, of course, we can't help that we come by particular paths. i am glad my way to anarchy was not merely aesthetic or subcultural tho, whew!

the story of the Beats and, to a lesser degree hippies, is a bit deeper & nuanced than what was mentioned in the totw. Gary Snyder & Diane di Prima come to mind as beat anarchists. if you are interested in the monastery my recommendation is to check out Thomas Merton. (or Alan Watts or, in a zen mode Robert Aitken).

the people later called hippies, who were doing free stores and feeding people in the park, saw the writing on the wall (and the heroin) and held a funeral for hippies in 1967, before the Summer of Love. just to say, some of the freaks were not unaware of how the mainstream co-opts.

cheers & thx 4 the lovely discussion!

thanks for the clarification! i pieced my sense of it together from conversations with people active around then in varying capacities (e.g. my dad was a long haired rebel against god in the deep south but had no politics i can discern, a prof was big in the liberal activist circuit, etc etc) but i don't know that any of them on their own really had a great sense of what was going on outside their bubbles, which is understandable. we all work with what we have, or have chosen to remember. i'll check out those names you mention

Hey brah, you forgot William Burroughs, did his aesthetic offend your moral standards!

bitch, that's a whole new conversation

Lol, I mean, the guy was totally an anti-State poet. Dr Benway was a classic.
--Former wild boy, now wild boomer ;)

My boyfriend and I regularly shout "BENWAY!" at each other a la Roy Scheider's delivery in Cronenberg's Naked Lunch adaptation

Thank you and good point! That era of surrealists bleeding into the Beat gen is of particular interest and I think Penelope Rosemont wrote a really nice remembrance of Diane DiPrima as all three (surrealist, anarchist and Beat).

Also think I need to investigate Kenneth Rexroth based on what I've seen Ken Knabb put forth about his politics?

Glad you enjoyed the discussion

for sure, the Chicago Surrealists are worth looking into.
i grew up in the Bay Area so my focus is that history, the Diggers, the food conspiracy, kaliflower house, the Cocketts ... there was a lot going on.

alas, the scene was, as you all pointed out, ripe for recuperation & co-optation, and if a group was poc, armed counterinsurgency. once the aesthetic of long hair and bare feet went mainstream almost all the radical aspects went away or deep underground.

I haven't felt this engaged in an anarchist podcasts since Aragorn! passed, and I was almost beginning to feel he took it with him. Thanks for bringing this isolated anarchist into your conversation

Did someone point a chatgpt bot at this podcast episode to give us kind positive feedback or are people actually enjoying this episode? Bc yall are never this nice. Thanks though!

anon troll is aware empty praise or empty insults often get taken down and they sometimes try both just to mess around. so discarding those 2 comments, the rest is genuine.

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