T.A.Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism - Hakim Bey

The book describes the socio-political tactic of creating temporary spaces that elude formal structures of control. The essay uses various examples from history and philosophy, all of which suggest that the best way to create a non-hierarchical system of social relationships is to concentrate on the present and on releasing one's own mind from the controlling mechanisms that have been imposed on it.

In the formation of a TAZ, Bey argues, information becomes a key tool that sneaks into the cracks of formal procedures. A new territory of the moment is created that is on the boundary line of established regions. Any attempt at permanence that goes beyond the moment deteriorates to a structured system that inevitably stifles individual creativity. It is this chance at creativity that is real empowerment.

Bey later expanded the concept beyond the "temporary," saying "we've had to consider the fact that not all existing autonomous zones are 'temporary.' Some are ... more-or-less 'permanent.'" Hence, the concept of the Permanent Autonomous Zone.

Survival Pending Revolution: The History of the Black Panther Party - Paul Alkebulan

 

The Black Panther Party (BPP) seized the attention of America in the frenetic days of the late 1960s when a series of assassinations, discontent with the Vietnam War, and impatience with lingering racial discrimination roiled the United States, particularly its cities. The BPP inspired dread among the American body politic while receiving support from many urban black youths. The images of angry and armed young black radicals in the streets of U.S. cities seemed a stunning reversal and repudiation of the accommodationist and assimilationist black goals associated with Martin Luther King’s movement, as well as an unprecedented defiance of the civil power.

 

Although many have written about the BPP in memoirs and polemics, Survival Pending Revolution contributes to a new generation of objective, analytical BPP studies that are sorely needed. Alkebulan displays the entire movement’s history: its lofty and even idealistic goals and its in-your-face rhetoric, its strategies, tactics, and the internal divisions and ego clashes, drawing upon public records as well as the memories of both leaders and foot soldiers, to attempt a description that both understands the inner workings of the BPP and its role in the greater society.

 

 

Murdered by Capitalism: A Memoir of 150 Years of Life and Death on the American Left - John Ross

 

To hear Ross, who has covered Mexico for Noticias Aliadas (Lima), Texas Observer, San Francisco Bay Guardian and "other screwball publications," tell it, the American Left is dead and buried. Fittingly, he sets his history/dialogue in a graveyard populated by the ghosts of its heroes. Here lies E.B. Schnaubelt, Emma Goldman, Lucy Parsons, Sacco and Vanzetti and a host of others whose radical lifestyles and actions left their mark on those Communists, anarchists and revolutionaries who saw America in more utopian terms than the capitalists they fought. Soaked by alcohol and salved by drugs, Ross, who has made a life out of dissent, converses with the dead (and dying from memory), lamenting the Left's losses, its infighting, its failures and the occasional victory. But Ross stumbles in his rhetorical excesses and in his efforts to tie together so many disparate rebels and outlaws—from Goldman and Fidel to the Weathermen and Civil Rights leaders.

Living for the City: Migration, Education, and the Rise of the Black Panther Party in Oakland - Donna Jean Murch

 

In this nuanced and groundbreaking history, Donna Murch argues that the Black Panther Party (BPP) started with a study group. Drawing on oral history and untapped archival sources, she explains how a relatively small city with a recent history of African American settlement produced such compelling and influential forms of Black Power politics.

During an era of expansion and political struggle in California's system of public higher education, black southern migrants formed the BPP. In the early 1960s, attending Merritt College and other public universities radicalized Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, and many of the young people who joined the Panthers' rank and file. In the face of social crisis and police violence, the most disfranchised sectors of the East Bay's African American community--young, poor, and migrant--challenged the legitimacy of state authorities and of an older generation of black leadership. By excavating this hidden history, Living for the City broadens the scholarship of the Black Power movement by documenting the contributions of black students and youth who created new forms of organization, grassroots mobilization, and political literacy.

The Yippie Manifesto - Jerry Rubin

"We will be presumed guilty until proven innocent.
Our privacy will vanish. Big Brother will spy on all of us and dominate our lives.
Every cop will become a law until himself.
The courts will become automatic transmission belts sending us to detention camps and prisons.
People will be arrested for what they write and say.
Congress will impose censorship on the mass media, unless the media first censors itself, which is more likely.
To be young will be a crime.
In response, we must never become cynical, or lose our capacity for anger. We must stay on the offensive and be aggressive: AMERICA: IF YOU INJURE ONE, YOU MUST FIGHT ALL.
If our opposition is united, the repression may backfire and fail. The government may find the costs too heavy.
Don’t think, “They can never get ME.”
They can.
You are either on the side of the cops or on the side of human beings.

YIPPIE!" 

Black Mask & Up Against the Wall Motherfucker: The Incomplete Works of Ron Hahne, Ben Morea, and the Black Mask Group

Chronicling the history of two New York City provocateur groups—Black Mask and Up Against the Wall, Motherfucker—this account complies the complete 10 issues of the newspaper Black Mask; numerous leaflets, articles, and flyers generated by Black Mask; the Up Against the Wall Motherfucker Magazine; and Free Press and Rolling Stone reports on Up Against the Wall, Motherfucker. Founded in the mid-1960s, the Black Mask group melded the ideas and inspiration of Dada with the anarchism of the Spanish Revolution, and this volume demonstrates how they heavily influenced the art, politics, and culture of the decade as they briefly shut down the Museum of Modern Art, protested Wall Street, battled at Students for a Democratic Society conferences, and defended the shooting of Andy Warhol. This history then details how in 1968 Black Mask reorganized as Up Against the Wall, Motherfucker, which combined the confrontational theater and tactics of Black Mask with a much more aggressive approach in dealing with the police and authorities. A lengthy interview with founder Ben Morea provides context and color to this fascinating documentary legacy.

Huey P. Newton - Selected Works I

Huey Percy Newton (February 17, 1942 – August 22, 1989) was an American political and urban activist who, along with Bobby Seale, co-founded the Black Panther Party for Self Defense.

[MORE. Eng.]

*

Huey Percy Newton (Monroe, 1942 – Oakland, 1989) fue un político y revolucionario estadounidense, cofundador y líder inspirador de los Panteras Negras.

[MÁS. Esp.]

-Essays From the Minister of Defense

-The Genius of Huey P. Newton

- Huey Newton Talks to the Movement