EXPECT RESISTANCE Crimethinc 2007

I don't get it - you're ok with them making money from the sale of the physical version of this book -- so what are you protesting? As far as I know they're not selling eBooks or anything..

psshh Martin... Everybody knows you can't dismantle the masters house with the masters tools. nyuk nyuk

And as for you anonymous uploader, crimethinc did enough work WRITING the fuckin book. They expressly ENCOURAGE you to do just as you have done and am sure they'd be happy about it (provided it's a quality scan) or did you not scan the anti-copyright page?

I guess everybody's gotta have an agenda.

At any rate. I'm thrilled that someone's scanned this and put it online for greater accessibility. I pull my hair out scanning 40 page zines so I have to commend your patience. Thanks for that.

-p

The distinction here, I think, is not Crimethinc's ability to do Anarchist outreach or help further our general cause of state smashing, but that their methods of participation in Capitalism give them an unfairly loud voice WITHIN the radical community.

While many of us don't have a problem with "exchange" or the "market" in general terms, we take issue with CERTAIN WAYS of participating in exchange economies.

While Crimethinc is technically in support of anti-copyright, they're not behaving in the spirit of freedom of information. While they possess perfect original PDFs of their books and magazines, they refuse to upload or them on (a paltry ten second task).

There was a big debate about this back in November on a couple sites.

CrimethInc's justification was:

1. They believed preserving the artistic integrity of the physical book reading "experience" was more important than idealism.

2. They needed to make money and felt that if people could fully preview the informational content of their books BEFORE buying them then fewer people would.

For some of us #2 was the whole friggin point! If you can't make money off of your actual commodities and/or donations from those who appreciate your ideas then your ideas don't deserve to be backed by a huge pile of money.

I more or less support Crimethinc, but like the other who objected, I'm wary of the power and influence their money has granted them OVER the radical movement. As the above torrent says, if that money was unjustly earned then (i.e. by effectively keeping secrets thanks to the present culture of copy-hostile Capitalism) then some of the power they exert is "unjustly acquired."

Well said anarchas. I'm with you - and thanks again!

This is really infuriating. You totally misrepresent the reasons the CrimethInc. group that published Expect Resistance did not put it on the internet. I'm thrilled you've done the work to put it here, but seriously, fuck you for going on a one-person crusade to defame other anarchists. After a twelve hour day of working on community projects, supporting my imprisoned friends, and facing potentially serious police repression, the very last thing I need is to discover this kind of slander online from someone who has zero accountability to my community as far as I can tell.

I'm really angry and hurt. If you want to discuss this openly an honestly, email rollingthunder [at] crimethinc.com and ask for the email to be forwarded to me, so we can have a mature conversation about this and hopefully come out of it comrades with mutual respect. I have a lot of frustrations with the internet, not least that it tends to promote interactions like this one. I hope to hear from you soon, and maybe we can get things off on a better foot.

I'm making an effort here to get a real dialogue off the ground rather than the essentially anonymous shit-talking that has taken place up to now, and I hope that's what you want, too. yours, in intense frustration, b

Just so everyone knows, some days have passed and no email has arrived from "anarchas" about this. The allegation that anyone involved with CrimethInc. said something to the effect that "preserving the artistic integrity of the physical book reading 'experience' [is] more important than idealism" is totally off base, as a quick visit to the forums at crimethinc.com/blog will demonstrate. There is no single "CrimethInc. position" on this issue--there are many people involved, with many different perspectives--but I'd say the vast majority of us have serious reservations about the internet generally and don't appreciate this kind of bullying from someone not involved in our efforts.

Sometimes a person who hasn't been involved in things very long feels they need to cut their teeth by rebelling against the groups that were initially inspiring to them. Until "anarchas" is willing to communicate about this in a constructive manner, rather than posting innuendo on random websites, that's how I'm interpreting this.

...And sometimes longtime activists get seriously annoyed by something their comrades are doing and, when talk is exhausted, turn to direct action -- albeit in a form that abides by and uphold anarchist ethics.

It's also sort of petulant to expect someone to revist a torrent page every few days almost a month after it went live.

I appreciate the re-opening of dialogue though, I'll try to pass the word onto the others who responded and took offense with the Crimethinkers represented in that thread and the infoshop one.

An email is coming your way, biofilo.

I heartily invite the rest of you to check out the threads the old debate took place in and judge for yourselves whether

//preserving the artistic integrity of the physical book reading 'experience' was more important than idealism//

is a misrepresentation. I think it's spot on.

Kinda like Abbie Hoffman walking out of the bookstore with his complimentary five fingered discount Stel This Book

It's kind of funny to see anarchists get grumpy about the free culture/free info movement. Especially such passionately iconoclastic anarchists as CrimethInc-ers. It's ok though, radicals have had really backwards ideas many times in the past. As long as we can keep pirating their stuff without too much trouble, I don't see any reason to make a big deal of it.

This is quite complicated as on one hand the authors need the money for future projects and by downloading this you are taking that away but... P2P sharing is anarchism in practice so i have mixed views.