Oh yeah, We made a book

The Institute for Experimental Freedom (IEF) is proud to release the little book: Politics is not a Banana: The Journal of Vulgar Discourse, What are you Doing After the Orgy or Insurrection or Whatever?

From the introduction:

The insurrection has not transformed our rotting teeth into pure indestructible diamond grills. The orgy only spreads our combined STDs, unless we cover our filthy used bodies in saran wrap—which is pretty cool. Whatever; we made more than $6.50 plus tips but then blew it all on wine, cigarettes, rope, and ceiling hooks. The insurrection gives us this opportunity though, to forget, to practice, and even to run up on some doctor and force his medicalizing ass to nurse our irrevocable rot; to re-imagine our relationships with our stupid dying bodies. It makes us become attentive to the force of our little deaths and the inexhaustible desire we can embody.

The book is a collection of texts, images, and design sensibilities which combine insurrectional theory, critical theory, and post-structuralist inquiries about power and subjectivization with experimental fiction, flarf poetry, Brechtian pornography, and Swiss-influenced post-ironic typographic design.

Following a strange popularity of the '07 printing of Politics is Not a Banana 7x7 journal, the IEF put out a call for submissions for another issue. Contributions were overwhelming, and resulted in our decision to print this beautiful magenta 4.25x6 book/textual war-machine.

Contributions range from the IEF's own Liam Sionnach and Maxamillion Stihl, to new English translations from the collectively written French journal Tiqqun, to a lesser known French group “The Enlightened Avant-Garde” (aka The Movement for the Apocalypse of Montpelier) to Parser's Magazine's Robert Farr flarf poetry to Wax Poetic's own Idris Intifada.

Distributors and Bookstores Get in touch for wholesale prices or use the order form at the bottom of the post.

Politics is Not a Banana is currently available in the US at:

Firestorm cafe and books in Asheville, NC

Internationalist Books in Chapel Hill, NC

Blue Stockings in NYC

Book Thug Nation in Brooklyn, NY

Spoonbill and Sugartown in Brooklyn, NY

The Cream City Collective via Burntbookmobile, in Milwaukee, WI

Sporeprint Infoshop in Columbus, OH

City Light Books in San Francisco, CA

Modern Times Books in San Francisco, CA

Needles and Pens in San Francisco, CA

Bound Together Books in San Francisco, CA

Online Distributors:

Little Black Cart

Last Earth Distro

(this post will be kept up, and updated as new locations come in)

Order the damn book!!!!!1!

Politics is Not a Banana | What are you doing?...

1 x book at $7 retail + priority mail $10.95 10 x books at $5 wholesale + priority mail $53.95 25 x books at $5 wholesale + priority mail $138.95 50 x books at $5 wholesale + priority mail $276.95

Email for media mail options

Also, who likes reading books online and printing terrible bootlegs?
[aka: readable Politics is Not a Banana | What are you doing...? PDF on issuu]

Oh and by the way, in part because our absurd negligence, and in part because of riseup.net's low file space, some contributors may not have received a copy of PNB in mail, please email us if you contributed and have not received a book. We'll totally make it up to you, if you know what I mean.

Get Paid | Wil' Out | Push the University to Crisis

Here's a recent post on infoshop which touched us in the most charming lumpen-bourgeoisie ways. Although ruining the University financially through a sort of self-abolition of the student is quite a good start, we'd like to point out there are other means with which to elaborate this practice, and other ways which a university is occupied.

From infoshop news

Bankrupt the System, Exploit The University

The recent student struggles in California to transform their universities have been inspiring examples of what people can do when they come together, and begin to collectively believe in the future rather than fearing the threats issued in the present. Social wars need money, as Alfredo Bonanno (a 74-year old anarchist recently arrested in Greece for bank robbery) can attest to, and the university has put the gun in your hands. All you need to do is pull the trigger. Max out your credit cards, max out your student loans. Bankrupt the system that is bankrupting us!

All my life, I've been washing dishes, delivering pizza, bagging groceries, and hustling to make enough to pay rent. I've always been a working class, Joe "The Plumber" Wurzelbacher kinda guy. You betcha!

In the past, I've dumpster dived, telling myself it was because I wanted to. But really, I would've preferred to eat the fresh food in the store. I did it because I didn't want to waste away my entire life in that hot, wet, greasy dishwashing room. I did it to be able to save up money so I could quit my job and travel before I became a shriveled up old prune with arthritis, whose only way to see the world was using an RV, something that I would probably never be able to afford.

Anyway, I got into some shit with the law, you know the deal. The cops love to make their quotas. It was military, prison, or college and some time on probation for me. I applied to college solely to save my own ass, not for some stupid degree that I can present to a potential boss for the "opportunity" to spend the next decade kissing his ass.

College is a social structure full of the privileges the state gives to the middle class. No one ever explained this dope ass scam to me before! My parents didn't go to college, they didn't know what the deal was. No wonder you middle class students are so content, I'd think to myself. No wonder you didn't want a revolution.

Well, now that some of you do, or at least you know there needs to be some serious changes because the system is breaking down, it's up to you to pull those triggers.

This is a call for all students to take full advantage of the benefits the middle class is offered through the university. To bet on the future and not on the present: to take out as much money in student loans and credit cards as you can, with no intention to pay it back.

read more...

We're only partially responsible for the Apocaplyse

New text Regarding Social War and Climate Change: Introduction to The Apocalypse

The Institute for Experimental Freedom's European appendages and friends are pleased to announce the completed layout for a new text in preparation for the Cop15 summit in Copenhagen, Denmark. Introduction to The Apocalypse gives a concise and critical analysis of the current ecological catastrophe, the climate change movement and its limitations, and the real existing potential for an immediate reversal of the future. Copy and distribute freely.

(8.5x11) Letter imposed for print PDF

(A4) Imposed for print PDF

(A4) Readable PDF

From the introduction:

“All of us secretly desire for this world to end. The future lasts forever. Or at least, it used to. The grand illusion of Western civilisation has always been the myth of progress, namely that the flow of history would beneficently extend into an infinite future. To our parents, civilisation offered houses in the suburbs, computers, and automobiles. And civilisation delivered. To the children of these workers, civilisation offered life on the moon, artificial intelligence, endless peace. All of which have failed to emerge. While our parents cling to the belief that someday the mortgage will be repaid and they can retire in happiness, their lost children know this is a lie. This world offers nothing to us: no meaningful work, no rest, no future – only fear. Over and over again, we find ourselves conditioned like rats by the images of not just our own death, but of total destruction. From the collapse of the World Trade Centre to the alien invasion, from the spectre of nuclear war to the hole in the ozone layer – and now the melting glaciers – these images ingrain themselves in our very being. These images are nothing more than modern projections of the deep-set fantasy of all religions: the apocalypse.

Today, catastrophic climate change is the image of the apocalypse. Nothing has escaped the touch of humanity, from the deepest oceans to the atmosphere itself. There is little doubt that carbon emissions caused by human activity may bring about the end of the world as we know it. It’s just a matter of listening to the ticking of the doomsday clock as it counts down to a climactic apocalypse. Never before in recorded history has the question of the earth’s survival been so starkly posed, and never before has such news been greeted with such indifference.

What is to be done in the face of a crisis so large it dwarfs the imagination? We are left with nothing but a sense of impending doom, a strange depression that keeps us oscillating between hysterical hedonism and sad loneliness, and in the end both responses are merely the two faces of the selfsame despair. Those self-appointed to “save” us from this crisis – the governments, scientists, activists –seem incapable of anything but sloganeering: clean development, carbon markets, sustainable development, climate justice, ecological reparations, green capitalism. We know in our heart of hearts that these fantasies give any sensible person as much cold comfort as a stiff drink. Confronted with the real possibility of the apocalypse, the world becomes inverted: to continue as if everything is normal in the present moment is the most refined act of nihilism.

This generalised delirium, formerly confined to only a handful of activists, has spread over the last few years to the population at large, and even the state seems a sincere believer in catastrophic climate change. Observe the reaction of the nation-states who, while in endless summits to “solve” the climate crisis, such as the COP15, continue to build airport after airport, highway after highway, giving industries the remit to emit ever-more carbon. The nation-states continue to act as if everything is normal, while at the same time lying through their gritted teeth that “we are solving the climate crisis.” No-one today, even the children, believe them. Their summits and pledges are mere fiddling while Rome burns. The absurd plots hatched by scientists to avert this coming apocalypse, from putting mirrors into space to pumping water from the bottom of the ocean, have only the virtue of being at least mildly entertaining. There is a distinct air of madness about our rulers, a madness that reminds us only too much of the monarchs of the ancien regime shortly before their beheading. Yet, what can a single person do? The despair felt when confronted by the reality of climate change is an honest appraisal of a disaster where there is no easy escape. Let us hold this despair close, let it nurture us. Honesty is always the best policy for survival.”