In 1970 a small group of West German revolutionaries decided to go underground, set up safe houses, and learn the skills of the urban guerilla. They were the Red Army Faction. Seven years later, almost all of the original combatants were in prison or dead, yet, through their example, they had inspired a militant and illegal support movement, comrades willing to take up arms in defense of the prisoners. 1977 was to be a year of reckoning. Through daring attacks and devastating errors, the West German guerilla brought their society to the brink, mounting one of the most desperate and incredible campaigns of asymmetrical warfare ever waged in postwar Europe. That they failed is no excuse to not learn their story, to see who they were and what they fought for—and, most tragically, to bear witness to the lengths the state would go to silence them. This pamphlet is our very modest introduction to this story.

This book uses a cross-disciplinary approach to examine the creation, development, ideology, and practice of the Marxist terrorist group 17N. Were the members of 17N individuals with high moral principles, as they claimed, who did their best to protect the civilians who happened to be within their field of operations? Or were they simply violent guerillas who prioritized successful assassinations of their targets at any cost? The textual analysis of this book addresses these questions and studies 17N from inception to the time when its members were arrested, providing a uniquely thorough examination of the organization manifestos and its correlation to the group's ideology and actual practices. 17N's Philosophy of Terror: An Analysis of the 17 November Revolutionary Organization first outlines the political and ideological framework of 17? and then describes their terrorist strategy and tactics. The authors consider these operations in the context of the manifestos that followed the terrorist acts, and conclude the work by addressing the events following the apprehension of 17N members—the trial, the verdicts, the appeal trial, and the conclusion of appeal trial.

This work by Bartolomeo Vanzetti, edited and with a detailed introduction by Jon Curley, features a never-before-published short story by this famous anarchist and victim of legal persecution, xenophobia, and condemnation for his radical politics. That fact that Vanzetti, an Italian immigrant, learned to write in English while jailed for a capital crime is remarkable enough. What is even more astonishing is that he chose to use his new language skills to write creatively, inventing a parable about worker exploitation and environmental disaster that is as relevant today as it was almost one hundred years ago when this prisoner took up his pen. “Events and Victims” allows Vanzetti a new literary and historical voice, an important document that narrates the very injustice that its author suffered and fought. In a time of assault on immigrants, dissidents, radicals, and the environment, “Events and Victims” is as timely as ever.

Bang. The door to your cell is shut. You have survived the arrest, you are mad that you weren't more careful, you worry that they will get others too, you wonder what will happen to your group and whether a lawyer has been called yet--of course you show none of this. The weapon, the fake papers, your own clothes, all gone. The prison garb and the shoes they've thrown at you are too big--maybe because they want to play silly games with you, maybe because they really blow ''terrorists'' out of proportion in their minds--and the control over your own appearance taken out of your hands. You look around, trying to get an understanding of where you'll spend the next few years of your life. Prison Round Trip was first published in German in 2003 as ''Einmal Knast und zurck.'' The essay's author, Klaus Viehmann, had been released from prison ten years earlier, after completing a 15-year sentence for his involvement in urban guerilla activities in Germany in the 1970s. The essay was subsequently reprinted in various forums. It is a reflection on prison life and on how to keep one's sanity and political integrity within the hostile and oppressive prison environment; ''survival strategies'' are its central theme.

Inform yourself! Inform on your neighbor! Follow Special Agent Christian White on a cheerfully creepy tour of declassified government surveillance documents. White probes the redacted (blacked-out) texts of the FBI’s notorious Counterintelligence Programs, searching for the words erased in the name of the Freedom of Information Act. Learn fun techniques for the infiltration of activist groups, how to earn benefits and a pension as an agent provocateur, and how to, in the words of J. Edgar Hoover, “expose, disrupt, misdirect, discredit or otherwise neutralize” your neighbors! These are our tax dollars at work, folks; we might as well enjoy it. This script has been performed by writer/activist L.M. Bogad in theatres, galleries, labor halls, and community centers for the past twelve years. The pamphlet also includes a preface by Guillermo Gómez-Peña, and a companion essay by Bogad about the history of domestic surveillance/harassment, and a “how to” for would-be performers of the script. Back by popular demand, this new Second Edition adds photos of the original COINTELPRO documents used in the show. There are also many updates to the script: more information, more character development, and more and better jokes, all in the darkly humorous style of the original.

When the socialist politician Salvador Allende dramatically won Chile’s presidential election in 1970, a powerful cultural movement accompanied him to power. Folk singers emerged at the forefront, proving that music could help forge the birth of a new society. As the CIA actively funded opposition media against Allende during his campaign, the New Chilean Song Movement rose to prominence, viscerally persuading voters with its music. Víctor Jara, a central protagonist at the time, became an icon in Chile, Latin America, and beyond for his revolutionary lyrics and life. Inti-Illimani, Quilapayún, and other musicians contributed by singing before audiences of workers outside factories or campesinos in Chile’s rural countryside. A short cultural history, “Venceremos“ charts the development of the movement from the years before Allende’s victorious campaign to the brutal U.S.-backed military coup on September 11, 1973, that overthrew his presidency and imposed the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet. Featuring interviews from key figures and lyrical analysis, “Venceremos“ gives insight into how the New Chilean Song Movement’s revolutionary anthems came to be. From the early folkloric documentation of Violeta Parra in Chile’s countryside to “Venceremos,“ the triumphant anthem of Allende’s Popular Unity Coalition, the music of Chile’s Nueva Canción was shaped by the larger history occurring all around it. Within the songs, all the hopes, dreams and apprehensions of the nation were reflected. At the same time, as its influence grew, the cultural movement claimed its own principal space as catalyst of not only Chile’s musical but its political future as well. So dangerous were its creations that the Pinochet dictatorship censored and attempted to destroy them. Most tragically, Víctor Jara’s life was taken in the bloody repression that immediately followed the coup.

Heart X-rays is a twenty-first-century beat epic poem that ranges across landscapes and voices, with appearances by Banksy, Pussy Riot, hip-hop, the down and out, the up and coming, heartbreak and joybreak, while exploring the mystery we call the human heart. Now in its second printing, Heart X-rays offers poetry that strikes a cord today with non-traditional style and timeless poetic craft. If indeed poetry can offer an RX, a prescription to the bloody joyful teary-eyed American paradox, it is one that calls forth all the voices that have not yet been heard, that harbors an innocence that reaches into the very heart of our own excellence. A collaborative work between two poets and working-class activists, Heart X-rays is a poetic memory of today written in the alphabet of a future.