Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair
Dan Clore
http://www.egroups.com/group/smygo
March 19, 2001
San Francisco Bay Guardian
Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair
Nessie says check it out on Sat/24
By nessie (mailto:nes...@sfbg.com )
If all you know about anarchism is what the corporate
propaganda mill has shoveled down your throat, you probably
think it means wearing black, breaking windows, and not
being organized. This is not true. Some of the best
organized people on this planet are anarchists. My personal
favorites are the people who run Bound Together Anarchist
Collective Book Store on Haight Street in San Francisco.
Since 1976 they've been running a thriving business without
even a hint of a boss. There are usually somewhere between
15 and 20 of them. Some of them were there when the store
started up. Some hadn't been born yet. They all have equal
say in how the place is run.
Bound Together Books is part of a federation called the
Network of Bay Area Worker Collectives, NoBAWC (pronounced
"no-boss") for short. There are currently 32 member
collectives. The smallest has six employees. The largest has
over a hundred. Businesses include a school (Institute of
Social Ecology), a pizza parlor (The Cheese Board), a bakery
(Arizmendi), a major local grocery (Rainbow), and a
publishing house (AK Press). Bound Together is run by
volunteers. Everybody else in NoBAWC makes their living
working as part of a collective. They make good wages and
have excellent benefits. They are living proof that working
people need neither capitalists nor commissars to tell them
how to take care of business.
In fact the worker self-owned, worker self-managed workplace
is the most efficient structure ever devised for the job. In
part this is because just cutting the boss out of the
equation means a lot more money for everyone else; in part
this is because the people who actually do the work have a
far better idea of what it actually entails than any boss
ever could. The boss only knows what people tell him and
everyone lies to their boss. As the old anarchist proverb
says, "If you want to know how many widgets to order for
next month, don't ask the boss. Ask the widgeteer."
Anarchy doesn't mean out of control. It means out of their
control. It's the best place to be. Want to learn more?
You're in luck. This coming Saturday, Bound Together Books
presents:
Sixth Annual Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair
(http://www.infoshop.org/bookfair.html )
Saturday, March 24th, 2001, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
County Fair Building, in Golden Gate Park
9th Ave. and Lincoln Way
Approximately 60 anarchist groups and alternative book and
magazine publishers will be represented at tables selling
and distributing materials and examples of their work. There
will be a café, films, spoken word presentations, a panel
discussion, and a gallery exhibit. The food at the café will
be cheap, healthy, and delicious. Admission is free. A
splendid time will be had by all. Be there or be square.
For more info call Bound Together, (415) 431-8355, or e-mail
mailto:akp...@akpress.org
Be sure to check out the exhibit "Texas Death Row:
Executions in the Modern Era," official portraits (mug
shots) of all offenders executed by the state of Texas since
1982, when the death penalty was reinstated after an 18-year
hiatus. As of Feb. 15, 2001, 243 individuals have been
executed by the state of Texas. The exhibit accompanies the
book Texas Death Row: Executions in the Modern Era, which
presents photos and factual data from the files of the Texas
Department of Criminal Justice regarding the first 222
offenders executed in Texas since 1982. You can read an
interview
(http://www.auschron.com/issues/dispatch/2000-10-20/pols_feature2.html
with Bill Crawford, one of the people who compiled the
book and exhibit.
If the speakers (see below) and the food and the vendors
don't interest you, you can still have an excellent time
just hanging out. The crowd itself is extremely amusing.
Typically three or four thousand people show up. People of
every age, race, trade, gender, and persuasion will be
there. A more diverse bunch seldom assembles. Anarchists may
have their faults, but not knowing how to have, and share, a
good time isn't one of them. Come and meet some. Find out
for yourself how wrong the corporate media is.
If you want to get a head start, there will be an Anarchist
Cafe on Friday, March 23, starting at 7:00 p.m. at 225
Potrero Ave. This is a benefit for both the Anarchist Book
Fair and S.F. Food Not Bombs. A $5 donation is requested,
but no one will be turned away for lack of funds. There will
be a vegan feast and performers and DJs galore. Come eat,
dance, and celebrate community! This is a drug and alcohol
free space. But who needs drugs and alcohol when there's
people like this to hang out with? Not me, that's for sure.
If any of you want to meet me in person, here's your chance.
I'll be there, hanging out. You can't miss me. I'll be
dressed in black. Feel free to just walk up and introduce
yourself.
Speakers this year include:
Paul Krassner – cofounder of Yippie!, editor of The Realist,
author of Psychedelic Trips for the Mind; Confessions of a
Raving, Unconfined Nut!
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz – author of Red Dirt: Growing up Okie
and Indians of the Americas: Human Rights and Self
Determination. Red Dirt is an exquisite rendering of her
childhood in rural Oklahoma, from the Dust Bowl days to the
end of the Eisenhower era. Dunbar-Ortiz brings to life one
of the least understood groups in U.S. history: poor rural
whites.
Elizabeth Martinez – author of Five Hundred Years of Chicano
History in Pictures and (with Angela Davis) De Colores Means
All of Us: Latina Views for a Multi-Colored Century.
M.A. Jaimes-Guerrero – a leading Native American scholar,
writer, and researcher. Her most recent work examines the
ethical and legal questions raised by the Human Genome
Diversity Project and its implications for indigenous
peoples. She is an editor and contributor to The State of
Native North America: Genocide, Colonization, and Resistance
and author of Native Womanism: Blueprint for a Global
Revolution.
Ruthie Gilmore – a leader in the No Prisons Movement and an
Assistant Professor of Geography at the University of
California at Berkeley. She was catapulted into thinking
about the politics of race, crime, and prison in 1969, when
her cousin was murdered and his wife subsequently arrested
in the context of the FBI Cointelpro war against the Black
Panthers. Gilmore's research led her to challenge the
conventional wisdom that economically depressed areas can't
resist prison-produced benefits. Her study of the town of
Corcoran, where two new prisons were built between 1988 and
1998, demonstrated that the population below the poverty
level nearly doubled while the town barely grew.
Michelle Tea – author of The Passionate Mistakes and
Intricate Corruption of One Girl in America and Valencia
(http://www.sfbg.com/lit/april00/dike.html ). She is
cofounder of Sister Spit, the traveling girl-poetry road
show.
Read Boogie Dykes
(http://www.sfbg.com/SFLife/35/18/lead.html ) by Michelle
Tea and a profile
(http://www.sfbg.com/goldies00/michelle.html ) of her.
Cindy Milstein – a faculty member at the Institute for
Social Ecology. She is a board member of the Institute for
Anarchist Studies, a nonprofit organization that provides
grants to radical writers, and an organizer of the annual
Renewing the Anarchist Tradition conference, which attempts
to create a scholarly space for a new generation of
libertarian left theorists. Milstein also writes for
antiauthoritarian periodicals, including a regular column in
Arsenal magazine.
Chris Crass (http://www.infoshop.org/rants/crass.html ) – an
anarchist organizer with the Direct Action Network in San
Francisco and a student at SFSU majoring in "Race, Class,
Gender and Power Studies". Chris will be moderating a panel
discussion on anarchism, race, and organizing.
The nessie files runs alternate Mondays.
To discuss this column in altcity, our virtual community,
click here: http://www.altcity.com/login.asp
--
Dan Clore
mailto:cl...@columbia-center.org
Lord Weÿrdgliffe:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/
Necronomicon Page:
http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/necpage.htm
News for Anarchists & Activists:
http://www.egroups.com/group/smygo
TiTo
<cl...@columbia-center.org> maravilló a la audiencia con su gran
sabiduría al emitir este trascendental pronunciamiento:
>News for Anarchists & Activists:
>http://www.egroups.com/group/smygo
[snip]
>Sixth Annual Bay Area Anarchist Book Fair
>(http://www.infoshop.org/bookfair.html )
>
>Saturday, March 24th, 2001, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.
>
>County Fair Building, in Golden Gate Park
>
>9th Ave. and Lincoln Way
I wish i was there.
Reposted in Spanish (part) for latinamerican groups.
[snip]
TiTo