Author: down&out

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New Bootleg: ‘The Bullet or The Bullet’

The latest text in our bootleg series, ‘The Bullet or The Bullet- Killer Cops Make Cop Killers’ Is taken from the “Thought Box” section from the Guerilla Funk Recordings website and is claimed by Paris. The text offers a sweeping critique of racist policing tactics in the U.S.A. and proposes a radical and armed response to the seemingly endless tole of murders against Black and Racialised people by the police. The text also proposes a critical engagement against liberal and pacifist trajectories which uphold the belief that non violence is a viable tactic in the face of an institutionally violent, racist, and heavily armed adversary. The second half of the text, offers some basic suggestions on how to engage with the police in situations of detention, arrest and search; although many of these suggestions may not be relevant outside of the specific context in which they were written, we have made the editorial decision to include them, both for the sake of not editing the original text and further because some sections may be useful in many contexts.

Quotes From the Text:

“We’ve voted. We’ve marched. We’ve trusted in the System. Joke’s on us. It’s all fun and games ’til somebody gets hurt…”

“I reject that. And many others do too. So what’s the proposed solution?

Armed resistance against unwarranted aggression.

It’s the elephant in the room and needs to be seriously considered by those of us who value our lives and the lives of our loved ones. Malcolm X said that selfdefense is common sense, and that’s a credo we should all stand by. Can’t take cops to court? How about court in the streets?
We’re dying anyway. And I’ve said it a thousand times
the only language America speaks and understands is
violence especially as it relates to people of color and
those on the lower rungs of the socioeconomic ladder.
Maybe we should talk.”

PDF HERE: Bullet

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‘Let. Me. Die. (Pandas, Technology, and the End of the World’

[UPDATED]

When one ‘lives’ eternally in a cage, when the possibility of mortality is piece by piece stolen and the terrifying reality of an ‘immortal humanity’
comes closer every day, when being kept barely alive by this world is the cost of existing at all, and when all possibility of realizing the tiniest freedoms, the possibility of actually living, is stolen on the premise of keeping you safe, there can be only one demand to make of this nightmarish reality…. LET. ME. DIE.

Let. Me. Die (Pandas Technology and the End of the World) is a new original text in our distro from Bellatrix Black- the text takes the imaginary character of the Panda and it’s fight against enforced reproductive futurority at the hands of humans as a theoretical base-point for understanding the totality of the horror we are all trapped inside of. With limited actual reference to pandas, it addresses questions of death vs “Immortality”, the impositions of technology and the brutal world it imposes, the war between those claiming to provide safety and those hoping to live dangerous, as well as a critique of the potential rise of Eco-Fascism or Techno-Fascism incubating inside the collapse of the current epoch.

Quotes From the Text:

“The maintenance of ‘life’ at the cost of living. Safe and protected from the dangers of the outside, is building tighter and tighter confinements as to what living means, the whole civilization becomes a ‘life support machine’ and in exchange we except to exist entirely comatose.”

“Individuals of this epoch must face the fact that nowhere is ‘safe’, and that anyone promising to provide safety is in fact only (re)producing captivity.”

“The technophiles and modern day prophets of climate change denial dream of emergent colonies on mars, humanist expansion with technological aid, new life born off planet but inside the same civilization[10]; whilst a haphazard brigade of similarly dreamy ideologues on the so called left[11] fight an increasingly meaningless discursive battle against extinction- preaching moderation and ‘ecology’ in the name of continuing the species.”

“To allow oneself to dream of a self after society is almost as dangerous as dreaming of a society after society- No Future is not merely an expectation or an understanding of the current reality; but also a direct threat towards it.”

PDF HERE: letmedie

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New Bootleg- ‘The Belly of the World: A Note on Black Women’s Labors’

The latest title to be added to our bootlegs series ‘The Belly of the World: A Note On Black Women’s Labors’ by Saidiya Hartman. Cited in the Afro-Pessimist trajectory, this text analyses the implications of chattel and racial slavery on the lives of Black Women historically and presently and the specificities of the experience of Black Womanhood (in the United States and beyond). Concerned particularly with  the difficulties of inscribing Black Women a place in the insurrectional and revolutionary histories/narratives of black people in the United States and beyond and in understanding their position as compared to the Black populous more generally; the text attempts to follow the traces of the lives and practices of struggle of Black Women through the centuries including and proceeding slavery.

Quotes from the text:

It has proven difficult, if not impossible, to assimilate black women’s domestic labors and reproductive capacities within narratives of the black worker, slave rebellion, maroonage, or black radicalism, even as this labor was critical to the creation of value, the realization of profit and the accumulation of capital. It has been no less complicated to imagine the future produced by such labors as anything other than monstrous. Certainly we know that enslaved women fled the plantation, albeit not in as great numbers as men; poisoned slaveholders; plotted resistance; dreamed of destroying the master and his house; utilized abortifacients rather than reproduce slaves; practiced infanticide rather than sentence their children to social death, the auction block, and the master’s bed; exercised autonomy in suicidal acts; gave birth to children as testament to an abiding knowledge of freedom contrary to every empirical index of the plantation; and yearned for radically different ways of being in the world.”

‘The sexuality and reproductive capacities of enslaved women were central to understanding the expanding legal conception of slavery and its inheritability. Slavery conscripted the womb, deciding the fate of the unborn and reproducing slave property by making the mark of the mother a death sentence for her child.”

PDF HERE: Bellyof

 

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‘Toward A Decolonial Feminism’ (New From Breakdown Editions)

We’re happy to add a new text to our online PDF archive and physical Distro; composed by Breakdown Editions ‘Toward a Decolonial Feminism’ by Maria Lugones is critical look at the identity categories and enforced process of “sexing” and/or “gendering” inherit to the process of colonization. Presenting a critique of existing feminist engagements which fail to acknowledge the ‘colonial difference’ and presenting a perspective towards undoing the processes of colonization that have brought us to this point, the text offers a thorough critique of the intersections between race, gender/sex, and experience of the colonized.

Quote From the Text:

“[. . . ] I propose the modern, colonial, gender system as a lens through which to theorize further the oppressive logic of colonial modernity, its use of hierarchical dichotomies and categorial logic. I want to emphasize categorial, dichotomous, hierarchical logic as central to modern, colonial, capitalist thinking about race, gender, and sexuality.”

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Back at it!

After a summer away, tabling at some events and moving around a lot, we’re back together and working on some new content- upcoming original content includes: ‘Let me Die- Pandas, Technology, and the End of the World’ (an esoteric critique of techno-civilization, computers, domestication, and reproductive futurority), ‘Identity is Crisis’ (A new text attempting to tie together anti civilization and insurrectional critiques of identity with materialist understandings of it), and ‘(B)Renzo(s) made me do it’ (A self critical look at drug use and insurrectional  praxis, poetry and stories from drug using/addicted individuals in the milieu), as well as a number of new editions to the ‘bootlegs series‘ and more Greek translations coming soon. 

 

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‘Bite the Hand that Feeds You’

The latest text brought out on our edition; ‘Bite the Hand that Feeds You’ is an illegalist and insurrectional assessment of prostitution written by people within the trade. Railing against, work, clients, civilization and society; the text is a brutal and effective punch in the face to liberal and stateist narratives around work and particularly work in the sex industry. Featuring practical tips on how to take revenge, and pictures of armed individuals ready to do so this text brings the fire!!!! Accredited to Caina Rizieri Ferrari of the Cagna Sciolta Gang 2k19.

Quotes from the Text:

“i won’t be able to call myself a survivor until every single trick has been killed. i won’t have no mercy and feel no guilt, but if you really need to tell yourself a story you can think about it this way: killing tricks is mere self defense, we’re fighting for our life.”

“i wasn’t born a woman, i wasn’t born a lesbian and i wasn’t born a whore, i’ve been exiled into a woman, into a lesbian and into a whore and from my exile i have embraced criminality, and from my exile i will annihilate the world that named me, gendered me, raped me, killed my friends.”

PDF HERE: bitethehandthatfeeds

 

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Για την πιο queer εξέγερση που έγινε ποτέ (μτφρ του Toward the queerest insurrection)

Το πρώτο ζην του ντίστρο στα ελληνικά. Η μετάφραση κλάπηκε από του σάιτ του Κενού Δικτύου και έγιναν ορισμένες μετατροπές. Η μετάφραση του Κενού Δικτύου είναι βασισμένη στο κείμενο που έχει ανέβει στο theanarchistlibrary(.)org

“Το queer είναι το αλλόκοτο, το ανώμαλο, το επικίνδυνο. Το queer αναφέρεται στο φύλο και τη σεξουαλικότητα, αλλά όχι μόνο. Είναι πολλά περισσότερα πράγματα. Είναι και οι επιθυμίες μας και το φαντασιακό μας και τόσα μα τόσα άλλα. Το queer είναι η συνοχή όλων όσων αντιπαρατίθενται στον ετεροσεξουαλικό καπιταλιστικό κόσμο. To queer είναι η απόλυτη απόρριψη του καθεστώτος του κανονικού.”

Το pdf εδώ: towardthequeerestinsurrection-gr

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‘Towards an Insurrectionary Antifascism’

First Online release of ‘Towards and Insurrectionary Antifasism’- Originally produced by ‘problematic distro’ in physical form, we are happy to share this text from a sibling distro in its first digital version.  The text, is a meandering critique of the current state of anti fascism (with particular reference to the scene in the UK), the historical failings of traditional antifascist analysis and the centricity of purely anti fascist critiques which fail to recognize the inherent facism contained within all states, police forces and institutions of domination, as well as attempting to attack both technology and the fascist outpourings of some anti tech positions such as those held by ITS and their apologists.

Quotes from the text:

“After what now seem like the riotous years following 2008, a low tide seems to have swept over the world, and a familiar pattern is reappearing. Some continue the campaign of attack which those insurrectionary days delivered, while many more become scene politicians, socialists, charity workers and many more still are caught between these alternatives, without the capacity for the former, and without the hopelessness required for the latter varieties of resignation. But ultimately this is due to the fact that the world which seemed to be threatening to burst open ten years ago, even if terribly briefly and partially, is now largely carrying on as normal. This new era of social peace finds itself aided cowardly or abetted ineffectually by the participation of anarchists.”

“I see you behind a mask, eyes shining as always but heading straight for men with tattooed arms flying national flags, in a big metal play-pen, you’re marching alongside the SWP, the RCG etc. The cops we could be running ragged on wild actions now close in on you and your chants grow fainter as theirs grow louder. And you stand there, a look of pained anger, disgust, impotence, as more bodies than you’ve ever seen at one of their marches swirl around huge screens blurting out racist poison. You wish you could storm the stage, cut the mic, tear the whole thing down. But you can’t and you don’t, you stand and watch as it starts to rain. Meanwhile immigration enforcement vans park on main roads again in Peck-ham and Whitechapel; buildings that would have made palatial squats become the rented pads of guardians; fibre-optic cables relay the latest fluctuations in price of the dollar and sterling; the areas around London get turned into construction sites for the latest mega-prison or high speed railway; A.I. and behavioural neuroscience dish out algorithmic and chemical analysis for the surveillance and commodification of our innermost feelings and needs; ATMs spit out money for city workers to spend in cocktail bars; replaced on time by G4S in the morning; boys from the elite universities burn £50 notes in front of homeless people; the police who murdered Rashan Charles and Edson Da Costa just a few months ago roll around London without obstruction; general hopelessness and desperation; often debt or loneliness induced; brings countless people to the deliverance of drugs, suicide and religious fanaticism. Everywhere a gnawing emptiness. There is no darkness; the floodlights and billboards blot out the stars at night.”

PDF HERE (NoBlogs changed the file size limit today so we can only give the Tarball sorry): Towards an Insurrectionary Antifascism.pdf.tar

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Collected Writings of the Prostitutes War Group (PWG)

A new Collection Release from D&O. The Collected Writings of the Prostitutes War Group is a series of text collected from a loose Ilegalist network of Prostitutes who wrote a series of texts and participated in a number of extortion’s, robberies, and clandestine activities which were published in the year of 2017.  The text includes the so called ‘Pro-festo’ of the group, one communique and two field action reports. The texts are presented in chronological order (rather than grouped by theme) and all the texts in this zine were taken directly from the PWG website  https://prostituteswargroup.wordpress.com. The front cover pic is taken from a music clip entitled ‘Rolex’ about a gang of women in UK who were drugging men at clubs and stealing expensive items such as Rolex watches, given the content of some of the action reports we found it appropriate.

Quote From The Text:

“We are the whores of the worst nightmare of the shitstem. PWG is an internationalist collective of anarchist revolutionary queer insurrectionist PROSTITUTES: rising up to realise our power, using our pro-fessional ILLEGALIST skills to sabotage our ideological enemies. We will disarm and ultimately destroy those who perpetuate the Social War against us – WAR that is inherent in the fascistic capitalistic Shitstems imposed on us. They try to render us powerless conformists, through their sick perversions of ‘Judeo- Xtian Morality’, ‘Law & Order’, and ‘Justice’ –that only serve to emotionally, spiritually and physically RAPE us.”

PDF HERE: wargroup

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‘A Disgrace Reserved for Prostitutes: Complicity & the Beloved Community’

A new zine in the ‘Bootlegs’ Collection, taken from the Lies Journal and written by Pluma Sumaq; this text offers deep reflections on prostitution and the sex industry and there intersections with race, class and gender identity; whilst attempting to bring forward critical engagements and critiques around Prostitution/Sex Work and the Sex Industry- and attempting to counter narratives brought from Liberal and White Feminist trajectories.

Quotes from the Text:

“Personally, I could never bring myself to buy into the rhetoric of empowerment through normalization that the mostly white middle-class sex worker rights movement was selling. To create a language around and an image of a “Sex Worker” that is normalized and free of stigma did not seem very revolutionary to me. To me it said, “accept us because we are just like you.” Well, what if we’re not like you? What then will you do to us? The campaign to push forward the picture of the fully autonomous and sovereign woman in prostitution contributes to the polarization of ‘The Prostitute’ into two cartoon figures —one of total empowerment and one of total degradation.”

“We have been taught to believe in a world that is good and bad, up and down, righteous and evil, and this serves us. It validates us when we are called to separate our vulnerability, and therefore our intimacy, from our work. It informs our logic that there is never any choice or agency in poverty, in being oppressed, in prostitution. We are manipulated into ignoring broken systems and are instead coerced into seeing broken people who will only choose survival if they are desperate enough, as if survival were some extreme option. But no one can say “prostitution has nothing to do with me.” It exists precisely because of the economic and misogynistic system we participate in every day.”

PDF HERE: Disgrace