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We are pleased to now be shipping out fresh copies of Off the Map from the new sixth printing. As with previous printings, this edition has a new color ink on the inside covers, a delightful Eggplant Purple, aka Pantone 512. Otherwise, the book is identical to the last printing—in other words, a tiny, boisterous bit of narrative resplendence.
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We are pleased to present one of the first inside reports from participants in the upheavals that shook Greece after the police murder of 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos in the anarchist neighborhood of Exarchia on December 6.
This is only the first set of answers to come in from our Greek comrades. We hope shortly to receive further perspectives from other elements of the Greek uprising, so we can provide a comprehensive background on the context and dynamics of the revolt. If you or someone you know is situated to give your own answers to these questions, please email them to us at rollingthunder@crimethinc.com.
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From December 6, when police murdered 15-year-old Alexandros Grigoropoulos in downtown Athens, to the time of this writing, Greece has seen unprecedented rioting. Anarchists and students, supported and often joined by significant swaths of the population, have clashed with police, destroyed corporate and government property, and occupied government buildings, trade union offices, and media outlets, not to mention the usual universities. By December 12, police had used over 4600 capsules of tear gas, and were seeking more from Israel and Germany—an ominous pair of nations, when it comes to repression.
What’s going on in Greece? Is it simply a matter of disenfranchised youth protesting a discouraging job market, or is there something more afoot?
Photos, questions, and a preliminary analysis after the jump.
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Our beautiful town of Salem may be covered in ice, and our toes might be colder than a banker’s smile, but on Monday we strapped chains to our tires and have managed to make it to the post office each day this week, and plan on continuing to do so. We know there are a bunch of you out there who might need to get some stuff for winter gifts, and if you have to bite that bullet, might as well spread some anarchist joy while doing it. All orders shipped via Priority Mail should get to their destination by the 25th as long as the orders are submitted to us by 3PM Pacific time on Saturday the 20th. Of course, the USPS doesn’t guarantee that, so the earlier you submit your order, the better. We will make sure that every Priority Mail order received before 5PM will go out on the same day—after 5PM and it will go out the next day. A couple suggestions: we find that Off the Map makes a perfect gift for just about anybody, and you can get 6 copies via Priority for $14, or for more experienced activists, it’s hard to beat a copy of Expect Resistance, of which you can get 10 copies shipped Priority for $60. Or you could just take a stand and not buy anything out of stupid, ritualistic obligation—that’s more than OK with us.
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After a busy summer of touring the midwest and performing outside both the Democratic and Republican National Conventions—which was only possible thanks to the donation of a van from a Really Really Free Market (thanks Winona!) when their original vegetable-oil-powered truck died—anarcho-punk maniacs From the Depths are finally preparing to record an album. They are also in the process of booking a tour to the West coast and back, and are still seeking contacts for a few of the dates (marked with asterisks). Here are the tour dates; anyone interested in helping should email booking@fromthedepths.info.
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We’re excited to announce that we’ve printed up our two most recent posters to the tune of 20k copies each and both the Iraq Anti-Enlistment and Crisis is Business as Usual posters are immediately available in all of their two-color, jumbo-sized glory. Of course, all paid orders get one copy of each poster for free, and they are also available in bundles of 25 copies for a paltry $2. Additionally we have added them to the Poster Mix Kit which now includes 4 (or 5) copies of six different posters for a total of 25 for $2, which is pretty sweet. Unlike our other four posters which we keep in print perpetually, these will be limited to a single printing of 20k copies due to their topically ephemeral nature.
We mailed out the last Rolling Thunder #4 yesterday, and as such, the complete PDF is now available for free download.
Download Rolling Thunder #4 PDF [10MB]
The centerpiece of the fourth Rolling Thunder is a full-color photoessay chronicling the popular uprising during which the people of Oaxaca, Mexico wrested control of their city from the government for a period of months. Continuing that theme, other feature articles cover the defense and eviction of South Central Farm in Los Angeles, the Really Really Free Market as a model for reclaiming public space from capitalism and bureaucracy, the resurgence of squatting in Buffalo of all places, the university occupation movement in France, and the ins and outs of urban exploration. The remainder of the issue includes a comprehensive guide to supporting prisoners and defendants, the lyrics to “The Big Rock Candy Mountain” as interpreted by acclaimed comic artist Nate Powell, a gallery of ready-to-use stencils, and plenty of the edgy artwork and poignant prose you’ve come to expect.
Following the trend of the last few years, the USPS is raising shipping prices yet again on January 18, 2009—just six short weeks away. US Priority Mail prices are going up 55¢ for anything but the smallest packages, an increase of 6%. But the huge increase is for international orders: a dramatic increase of 7%-10% to the already exorbitant shipping costs, adding several extra dollars to most shipments. So, if you were planning to make an order internationaly or in the US via Priority Mail, be sure to place it sooner than later. FYI, Media Mail prices in the US will remain unchanged until May 2009. USPS rate change info here.
Here’s a new poster on the economic crisis, perfect for wheatpasting in neighborhoods with a lot of foreclosures.
Everybody knows that you’ve got to have money to make money, and never is that more true than in a speculation-driven economy. As the stock market reached unprecedented heights, its connection to the nuts and bolts of the economy became more and more illusory, making a “correction” inevitable–and profitable, for some. Gambling on the correction became a money-making scheme in its own right, and continues now after the collapse, without regard for the fact that such late-game betting assures that the recession will be all the more severe. Institutional investors can afford to play this game because, for them, a collapse of the stock market just means an opportunity to gamble on bonds or currency or whatever other financial product which might benefit from the disappearance of trillions of dollars in artificial value.
But if the value lost in the stock market is artificial, the consequences for human beings are very real. The ranks of the unemployed are rising by the hundreds of thousands every month. Inflated prices for consumers goods will largely stay inflated, even as earnings decline and homes are repossessed. And while the ultra-wealthy will ride out the recession in a riot of luxury and consumption, everyone else will be faced with a new, harsh reality—one in which the means of subsistence are increasing hard to achieve.
So for all the media’s obsession with stunned stockbrokers and disgraced corporate tycoons, their suffering is distinctly abstract: paper losses to be pondered during a long and comfortable early retirement. The rest of us will be forced to wonder why the most basic needs of our lives—food, shelter, medicine—are tied to the whims of a marketplace designed for collapse.
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Just a note to anyone who was hoping to one day get their hands on a copy of Rolling Thunder #3 and/or #4, we are down to about our last 50 copies of each, and there is no way they will last through the end of the year—so, if you want one, order it now, before they are gone forever. Currently they are part of the Rolling Thunder Bundle that include issues #3-#6 for $10, a bargain that will disappear once these two issues sell out.
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An analysis of the political climate following the election of 2008; a plea for anarchists to maintain vibrant networks and confrontational organizing even as Obama takes office; a discussion of what it takes for such networks and organizing to succeed; and a brief review of actions around the election, with a glimpse of what is to come.
Featuring a revision of our earlier Obama poster, and a PDF [6.2 MB] of a paper used to satirize corporate media the day after the election . . .
We recently received, and have begun mailing out, fresh copies from the second printing of Expect Resistance. In our endless quest for perfection, we’ve made several minor changes to this printing, resulting in a hard-fought, solid advance towards the definitive edition: 1) shifted the margins around just a smidge to allow more space on the inside margin, and more centering of text that appears on image backgrounds, 2) Switched the color of the red ink on the inside to a slightly darker tone to facilitate easier reading (from Pantone 193 to 187), 3) adjusted some images to print better, partricularly images that were printing too dark, 4) a couple design adjustments that no one will even notice, and 5) fixed a typo. All that said, there is no new content, so if you bought the first printing, don’t feel slighted—and if you’ve been waiting to check the book out, now is a great time to get a crisp copy hot off the press.
The British magazine Last Hours recently presented a glowing review of the fifth issue of Rolling Thunder, which we present here:
Rolling Thunder #5
September 24th, 2008 · review by Tom FictionI first encountered CrimethInc. some years ago as I sat in a cramped living room chatting with friends. On the coffee table lay a truly battered and well thumbed copy of Days of War, Nights of Love (CrimethInc.’s flagship publication). I was a young punk kid lightly politicised by the threat of war in Iraq but with no real knowledge of radical culture. Anarchy was just a word printed on the sleeves of my parents old punk records. The text and images I found in those faded pages offered something new and engaging that I had never experienced.
The short of it is this: We’ve lowered the minimum order to qualify for UPS Ground shipping to a measly $10, down from $40, to encourage people to use it. We are also officially recommending it over all other shipping methods for U.S. orders.
Here is the long of it: Of the many things we’ve learned doing mailorder these past eight years, two principles are continually made evident: 1) The United States Postal Service is cheap, and 2) The United States Postal Service is kind of crappy. Those two go hand-in-hand and that’s why we’ll keep offering their service—if the most important thing is low cost, then the USPS is for you.
However, at this point, we’ve officially got to make a few disclosures about the USPS Media Mail service: 1) They will try their hardest to mutilate your package; it will be dropped, crushed, impaled, kicked, and left out in the rain, 2) Sometimes they will put extra effort into it and will basically destroy everything inside it, but still deliver the useless contents, 3) For extra fun, sometimes they just destroy the entire package and then deliver (and, this isn’t a joke) only the shipping label, not attached to anything, and 4) On special occasions they will just send your package into a black hole. But mistakes happen, right? Yes, but with the USPS there is no recourse: for all of the above problems there is nothing we or you can do about it. No refunds, no real tracking, nothing—you are just shit out of luck, but hey, at least you saved a few dollars on shipping, right?
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Last call for counter-election organizing! With the election only a couple weeks away, anarchists and other critics of representational politics should already have the ball rolling on plans to shatter the illusion of acquiescence and emphasize the possibility of more egalitarian, participatory alternatives.
As our final belated contribution to this effort, we present these two posters. Please print these out and put them up fast!
Obama: “One and One Million” [684k]
McCain: “McCain for Prisoner of War” [76k]
