The Clash have a song, “Know Your Rights,” which begins “[t]his is a public service announcement.” I consider this a public service announcement about knowing your right wing.
Little Black Cart is the publishing arm of that grand stupidity known as post-left anarchism, a scattershot @ tendency that encompasses everything from John Zerzan’s anarcho-primitivism and Bob Black’s anti-work tirades to Anarchy! A Journal of Desire Armed. LBC published Atassa: Readings in Eco-Extremism covering the writings and actions of Individuals Tending Towards the Wild (ITS) which is not being received very well by the rest of the @ milieu. It seems that most @s consider ITS, its eco-extremism, and its murder of fellow anarchists a kind of eco-fascism. When regular @s confronted post-left LBC @s at the Seattle Bookfair, fisticuffs erupted. The regular @s ripped up the book, so the LBC post-left @s started punching people.
With post-left @ nihilism deliberately dancing on the edge of fascism while thumbing their noses at the rest of the @ milieu, with LBC attempting to emulate their ITS role models in attacking fellow @s, with red/brown crossover politics all the rage these days, it’s time to reconsider whether the post-left is really post-left or just plain old fascist.
Here’s a link to the specific incident.
Here’s a link to the ITS praise of ISIS, neo-Nazis, and its publisher while again threatening @s.
Here’s a link covering eco-fascism.
Here’s a link about the ITS murder of anarchists.
Here’s a link analyzing post-left anarchism’s flirtations with fascism by Alexander Reid Ross.
With a followup article on all things Stirner, post-left, and nihilist by Alexander Reid Ross.
An anti-civ critique of Atassa, ITS, and their @ critics.
MORE DRAMA IN ANARCHYLAND/ANARKISTAN:
(thanks to Shelly Collingwood)
Original notice from LA @ Book Fair to LBC
Paul Z. Simons/São Paulo says boycott LA @ Book Fair
LA @ Book Fair statement on Saturday’s events
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What's Left? 
Stephanie McGarrah
18 hrs ·
Here is my report back from LA! Enjoy.
This past Saturday, October 28th, I went down to table for Little Black Cart. We went despite being “dis-invited” by the LAABF collective. As soon as we turned a corner and saw the park it was being held at, we almost immediately turned around, questioning whether or not we should bother setting up a table. The organizers had chosen to hold their book fair at Leimert Park, a residential area with very little foot traffic. My partner and I pulled in to park and scope things out. There were very few tables there, mostly populated by Marxist groups with their boring political tracts.
The park was full of people there for a spiritual service complete with amplified preaching and uplifting gospel music. I had no idea where workshops were being held, and was told by the person who turned out to be a collective member, had flaked on the Russian revolution re-enactment. We joked that this was the only reason we came before going back to our car to decide whether or not we should table. We came to the decision that we were going to set up our table, at least for a couple hours, so we started pulling out our tables and merchandise, along with a new LBC banner that we hung on the table. As we began to put books on the table, the collective members had clearly noticed us and started to walk over to us. We were told to leave, but we said “nah, we feel like staying.”
At this point it wasn’t just the collective members that had walked over to confront us, they had brought their security team (members of an organization called Redneck Revolt). As they stood across from us blabbering on about how we needed to leave, a wingnut had begun shouting about how “all these white people need to leave” “we have enough wickedness and perversion in our community” and other homophobic statements about gays being a culture of death. This man, who I will call Samurai Jack because he was wearing a Kasa, was loud but harmless (at least while we were there). It made me wonder though how many other book fairs would allow somebody to stand around screaming racist and homophobic remarks. For all there talk about LBC being there went against the collectives desire for a “safe space,” it certainly didn’t feel like one, and it wasn’t because of us.
At one point, another person from the park came up to Samurai Jack and tried to calm him down. He then walked over to the table, expressing interest in the confrontation that was unfolding. Amusingly, he sided with us and couldn’t understand the collective’s reasons for booting us by reminding them that people are tabling with all sorts of ideas, why aren’t people allowed to make up their own mind about what we had to say? The collective was seething, but only stood nodding because they wouldn’t dare want to look racist by telling this black man just chilling in the park to leave. Eventually, we reached an impasse. We weren’t backing down, they didn’t want us there, and that was that. In the end, we got a lecture from one of the security members about disrespecting the collective, and breaking their “rules” before they moved the table next to us in an effort to make the point that we were not part of their book fair.
It quickly became clear that the collective had much bigger problems to deal with, when Samurai Jack got reinforcements from other people coming and going. There were people obviously incensed that a bunch of white folks (some wearing bullet proof vests!) had interrupted their daily religious service, and were selling in their neighborhood. One of the points made was that here are all these outsiders coming in to sell their shit, but do they come and spend their money in the community? Of course not. We will all leave, and the park will continue to be home for the homeless, addicted and otherwise suffering poor that have nowhere else to go. I don’t think the collective could have picked a worse place, and this became quite clear when things started to escalate. Samurai Jack was no longer the loudest protester. A man with a large African flag walked up to us angry as hell, demanding to speak to the leader. Of course we sent him to the self-appointed leader, one of the first collective members to confront us for tabling. We could hear him from across the park screaming at him.
Out of nowhere more and more militants showed up to tell all of us “white people to get the fuck out of our park.” A nice member of security, again I’m assuming a member of redneck revolt (are you being held hostage bro?) approached us to let us know they were receiving threats, and we might want to think about leaving. Not long after this warning, a woman I call Rambo stormed through (apparently intoxicated). She was the most aggressive of the neighborhood people who had come to violently expel us. I thought about how if the collective had really wanted us to leave, they would have done what she did. On a solo rampage, she walked up to a table and flipped it over, not batting an eyelash. Needless to say, it had escalated quickly. It was time to go.
A member of security, that had seemed to try to distance himself from the collective, came over and to help us when the table right next to us (they were some people from Oakland with the Prison Workers Association(?), went flying. She had come up from behind, none of us had seen it coming. It was pure luck that our table wasn’t the one she flipped. Rambo was in full Hulk mode. As she walked past me, I said something out loud and she snapped around and screamed “SHUT UP HOE!” I was cracking up. I had almost said “nobody’s talking to you bitch!” but luckily restrained myself before the words came tumbling out of my mouth.
Overall things could have been a lot worse. While shit definitely got hairy a few times, we thought the whole situation was hilarious while it played out, especially since the collective had tried to kick us out themselves. The future politicians that made up the collective will hopefully not be hosting the LA @ book fair in the future.
There has been a lot of rumors and speculation floating around regarding some of the event, I will try to clear up some things but maybe others familiar with that particular neighborhood know more:
1. At first because they were so well organized, seemingly popping up out of nowhere, we thought it might be the NBPP (New Black Panther Party). There was also a man in a uniform, and a man wearing a panthers shirt. But I am wondering now if they were Black Hebrew Israelites, as others have suggested. I cannot say with certainty if all the people who showed up to push us out were acting together.
2. There were plenty of people at the park simply interested in what the hell was going on, and who we (both the book fair and LBC) were. We gave them copies of Black Seed, and not a single one opened it and felt an image was racist at all (its not, and the fact that people would see that in the picture says more about themselves than anything). You would think from some peoples discussions that everybody there was of one mind and wanted the book fair gone, obviously this wasn’t the case. After we bounced, we could see the place was in utter chaos as those in the park began fighting amongst themselves over what they had just witnessed. It was truly all against wall.
3. There is no evidence that anarchist was interpreted as antichrist by the couple of people (Samurai Jack and another woman who had either come down to the park to help kick us out, or was simply in the park when we all showed up) who may have been attending the service that was happening and was just another way of saying evil.
4. The assertion made by the collective that LBC’s presence helped create this tension by presenting “eco-fascist” is absolutely ludicrous. The only people to blame are themselves. This has been beaten to death, but its worth mentioning again.