ovo

It doesn’t happen often, but it happens more than never.  Sometimes people in power use legal means to remove some of their own power, or share their power with others and thus diminish their own power.

Wikipedia: Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus (519 BC – 430 BC?) was an ancient Roman aristocrat and political figure, serving as consul in 460 BC and Roman dictator in 458 BC and 439 BC. Cincinnatus was regarded by the Romans, especially the aristocratic patrician class, as one of the heroes of early Rome and as a model of Roman virtue and simplicity. A persistent opponent of the plebeians, when his son was convicted in absentia and condemned to death, Cincinnatus was forced to live in humble circumstances, working on his own small farm, until he was called to serve Rome as dictator, an office which he immediately resigned after completing his task of defeating the Aequians. His immediate resignation of his absolute authority with the end of the crisis has often been cited as an example of outstanding leadership, service to the greater good, civic virtue, and modesty.

Wikipedia: Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletianus [...] was Roman Emperor from 20 November 284 to 1 May 305. [...] Diocletian appointed fellow-officer Maximian his Augustus, his senior co-emperor, in 285. He delegated further on 1 March 293, appointing Galerius and Constantius as Caesars, junior co-emperors. Under this “Tetrarchy”, or “rule of four”, each emperor would rule over a quarter-division of the empire. [...] Diocletian retired to his homeland, Dalmatia. He moved into the expansive palace he had built on the Adriatic near the administrative center of Salona. [...] Galerius assumed the consular fasces in 308 with Diocletian as his colleague. In the autumn of 308, Galerius again conferred with Diocletian at Carnuntum (Petronell-Carnuntum, Austria). Diocletian and Maximian were both present on November 11, 308, to see Galerius appoint Licinius to be Augustus in place of Severus, who had died at the hands of Maxentius. He ordered Maximian, who had attempted to return to power after his retirement, to step down permanently. At Carnuntum people begged Diocletian to return to the throne, to resolve the conflicts that had arisen through Constantine’s rise to power and Maxentius’ usurpation. Diocletian’s reply: “If you could show the cabbage that I planted with my own hands to your emperor, he definitely wouldn’t dare suggest that I replace the peace and happiness of this place with the storms of a never-satisfied greed.”

Wikipedia: Peter Kropotkin was born in Moscow. His father, Prince Alexei Petrovich Kropotkin, owned large tracts of land and nearly 1200 “souls” (male serfs) in three provinces. [...] “[U]nder the influence of republican teachings” he dropped his princely title at the age of twelve, and “even rebuked his friends, when they so referred to him.”

Wikipedia: Mikhail Alexandrovich Bakunin [...] was a well-known Russian revolutionary and theorist of collectivist anarchism born in the Russian Empire to a family of Russian nobles.

Wikipedia: Pierre-Joseph Proudhon [...] was a French politician, mutualist philosopher and socialist. He was a member of the French Parliament, and he was the first to call himself an anarchist.

Wikipedia: Richard Milhous Nixon [...] was the 37th President of the United States (1969–1974) and is the only president to resign the office.

About John Robbins: The only son of the founder of the Baskin-Robbins ice cream empire, John Robbins was groomed to follow in his father’s footsteps, but chose to walk away from Baskin-Robbins and the immense wealth it represented to “…pursue the deeper American Dream…the dream of a society at peace with its conscience because it respects and lives in harmony with all life forms. A dream of a society that is truly healthy, practicing a wise and compassionate stewardship of a balanced ecosystem.”

Wikipedia: At least four of the fifteen post-Civil War Constitutional amendments were ratified specifically to extend voting rights to different groups of citizens. [...] Abolition of property qualifications for white men, 1812-1860; Non-white men, 1870; Women, 1920; Native Americans, 1924; Residents of the District of Columbia, 1961; Poor, 1964; Racial minorities in certain states, 1965; Adults between 18 and 21, 1971.

Wikipedia: Solidarity was the first non-Communist-controlled trade union in a Warsaw Pact country. In the 1980s it constituted a broad anti-bureaucratic social movement. The government attempted to destroy the union during the period of martial law in the early 1980s and several years of repression, but in the end it had to start negotiating with the union. The Round Table Talks between the government and the Solidarity-led opposition led to semi-free elections in 1989. By the end of August a Solidarity-led coalition government was formed and in December 1990 Wałęsa was elected President of Poland.

Wikipedia: Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev [...] was the second last General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, serving from 1985 until 1991, and the last head of state of the USSR, serving from 1988 until its collapse in 1991. [...] Gorbachev’s attempts at reform as well as summit conferences with United States President Ronald Reagan and his reorientation of Soviet strategic aims contributed to the end of the Cold War, ended the political supremacy of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) and led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

Michael Meyer, The Picnic that Brought Down the Berlin Wall: in Hungary itself, a new generation of reform-minded communists had taken charge. Almost overnight, they wrote a U.S.-style constitution and began speaking openly of a free press, free markets and free elections. Emboldened, a small group of local Sopron activists decided to celebrate the new spirit. Their modest aim: put up some tents, hire a brass band and let the beer and good vibes flow. One of the organizers came up with an especially inspired idea – to briefly open a gate through the barbed-wire frontier to Austria, allowing people to casually stroll back and forth across the border for the first time in four decades. They called it the Pan-European Picnic. Because anything involving the border was a matter of extreme sensitivity, their request for a permit came to the attention of Hungary’s young prime minister, Miklos Nemeth, the man behind so many of the Gorbachev-like changes taking place. Immediately, a light bulb went off in his head. [...] Nemeth hoped to unleash a flood. He believed that a mass escape of East Germans from Hungary would pose an existential threat to the regime of Erich Honecker, the dictatorial boss of the German Democratic Republic. He also believed that if Honecker fell, it would bring down the Berlin Wall – and with it the entire communist bloc. Amid the chaos, he could realize his true goal. Hungary too would gain its freedom.

This book has been called a “Manual of terror” by Max Geltman, writing in National Review (July 22, 1971). I find this phrase aptly descriptive, but not in the same sense that Mr. Geltman would have us believe.

This “cookbook” consists of three basic parts: an introduction by Professor Bergman entitled “Anarchism today,” and two much longer sections by William Powell on drug and explosive manufacturing.

If ever there were an example of Orwellian doublespeak, this is it! “Anarchism Today” is basically an interpretation of the philosophic roots of anarchism, awkwardly coupled with sketchy references to current events. Almost all of the intellectuals discussed are from the Nineteenth Century; and there is virtually no mention of the writings from 1930 to present. This may be expected from someone who appears to have briefly studied the topic while at college during the 1920’s, and thereafter relied only on superficial newspaper accounts. Bergman should have been aware of Albert Jay Nock, for example, and anarchists today are certainly aware of Murray Rothbard, Karl Hess, etc.

Bergman considers Nihilism to be a form of Anarchism, and Anarchism a form of radical revolutionism. He interprets Marxism in an anarchistic light, and correctly suggests that Communist governments today are feudal / reactionary. However, his emphasis on the Marxist element in anarchist intellectual tradition is clearly one-sided. A more through and fair analysis can be found in Native American Anarchism (1932) by Eunice Minette Schuster.

Bergman’s emphasis on the Nihilistic and destructive aspects of Anarchism I find disturbing. This emphasis seems to arise from the axiom that the State is all, so to oppose the State is to oppose everything. Anarchists do not have to propose a concrete alternative because that would be authoritarian.

The rest of this book consists mainly of drug and explosive recipes relayed to us by William Powell. His motivation for doing so is supposedly to allow the “silent majority” access to information which he claims only the radical groups now possess. The idea of a “silent majority” comes from classical Greek literature and in that context referred to the dead who are the real majority. If you follow the steps outlined in these recipes, you may soon join them! the Library Journal (March 15, 1971) puts it this way:

“Much of it is so sketchy as to be harmless, but there are a number of booby traps still for the nitwit who wishes to try them. There are drug making recipes…that may make one very ill…there are also a number of stunts which could backfire on the idiot who tries them.”

Let’s get down to specifics.

Ed Rosenthal told me that he had spent a lot of time trying to track down the rumors of pot growing in New York sewers. Well, I just may have stumbled on the origin of the “New York White” rumors. Despite what Powell may think, plants are not as adaptable as alligators and need light to grow. Another choice quote: “…strangely enough, insects ignore marijuana and do no harm.” Strange indeed.

The DEA has a Precursor Control Program watch list. This means that if you buy large quantities of the common precursors to illegal chemicals, the Federal Government may take an interest in your activities. Several of the chemicals on this list are used in Mr. Powell’s LSD recipe, such as Acetonitrile, Trifluoroacetic Anhydride, Dimethylformamide, and Diethylamine. Benzene is also on the list, and my also arouse the interest of the EPA because it is a known cancer-causing agent.

Much the same can be said of many of his other recipes, and in some cases the precursors are as hard to get as he final product. For instance, his recipe for DMT starts out with indole, which is quite hard to get. Much better methods using L-Tryptophan (available in most health-food stores) are covered in “Synthesis” (1973 – present).

Powell suggests ground up nutmeg for a psychedelic experience. Nutmeg has a poor dose/toxicity ratio! However, the oil extract of Nutmeg, containing myristicin, can be used in the synthesis of MMDA – a better and mellower high than MDA. See Journal of Psychedelic Drugs (Vol. 8, #4, October-December 1976).

On page 58 of Powell’s cookbook, Nalline is described as “…a freak – a drug someone forgot to make illegal.” Perhaps they forgot because Nalorphine is a powerful narcotic antagonist, which tents to produce violent convulsive reactions in morphine addicts. (See the Merck Index.)

For more information on drugs, see “The clandestine Drug Laboratory Situation in the U.S.”, Journal of Forensic Sciences (January 1983, p. 18- 31.) This article, obligingly written by the DEA chief, reports that none of the 17 labs busted the previous year were successful in producing what was intended to be produced. The busted chemists were relying on recipes from popular “underground” drug manufacturing books. It was noted that such books contain errors which prevent the manufacture of the desired chemicals, while at the same time drawing the attention of government authorities because of the precursors recommended.

Let’s now examine his recommendations for manufacturing explosives:

His methods for producing Mercury Fulminate is incomplete and dangerous. Between steps 2 and 3, the solution should be cooled. Do not breathe the fumes. See A Dictionary of Applied Chemistry by Sir Edward Thorpe.

Powell’s recipe entitled “How to Make TNT” is also quite dangerous and incomplete. In step 1, mixing sulfuric acid and nitric acid will likely result in fulmination and red toxic fumes. Also the crude method he describes does not cover the removal of the Ortho-Dinitro groups. If this were not done, the TNT would be extremely unstable. However, they can be removed with great ease by heating the crude material with aqueous sodium sulfite. See Chemistry of Explosives by George Wright, University of Toronto, in Organic Chemistry (p. 974).

The description of picric acid does not sufficiently emphasize its unstable nature. For example, storing it in a cracked glass container may cause it to explode. See “Thorpe’s”. However, on page 120 he describes two relatively safer and easily obtainable chemicals (potassium bichromate and potassium permanganate) as very sensitive, unstable, and too hazardous to work with.

He does have a couple of pages on general safety precautions, but the language suggests that they have been lifted from a military manual. Also, he uses the German spelling for some chemicals. If you attempt to order chemicals from an American company using German spelling, your order would likely be looked at with suspicion.

The Anarchist Cookbook was originally published in 1971; the review by the Library Journal, which exposed these dangerous errors, came shortly thereafter. I wonder why it has gone through 26 printings without these errors being corrected. My theory is that Mr. Powell is not an anarchist, but in reality is spreading disinformation to potential enemies of the government. At the time of original publication, Mr. Powell was an unknown 21-year-old college freshman. Where did he get access to this “information?” He says, from radical friends on both the left and right.

The Minuteman Manual is listed in the bibliography. The original Minutemen were colonial American revolutionaries. In the ’60’s there was a radical offshoot of the John Birch Society called the Minutemen; they have since been disbanded by the FBI. It is not likely that the 1960’s Minutemen would have handed out their manual to a long-haired 21-year-old college freshman. Also, the John Birch Society and the Minutemen are opposed to the United Nations, and Powell’s father was a powerful bureaucrat in the UN propaganda ministry (see Newsweek, April 12, 1971.) Things are getting curiouser and curiouser!

This same William Powell has also written a book entitled Saudi Arabia and its Royal Family (1982). It consists of interviews with members of the Saudi royal family and other observations gathered while teaching at the University of Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It does not seem likely that the Saudi royal family would give such generous treatment to a real anarchist. Reading the Saudi book, I came across some interesting quotes (p. 17):

“Were something or someone to cut the flow of oil from the Arabian Gulf, the result would be truly apocalyptic or the United States, Western Europe, Japan, and much of the developing world…In a worst case scenario, all gasoline available would go to essential services such as the military, the police and fire departments, and the transportation of foodstuffs. Most nonessential businesses and industries would close. Unemployment would skyrocket.”

“All major cities would, in all probability, have to be placed under martial law. Curfews would be enforced at gunpoint…Inflation would metamorphose…into a lethal epidemic. We would enter a wheelbarrow economy like that of Germany prior to Hitler’s rise to power.”

I could go on, but I think you get the idea. While his pessimistic analysis does not take full account of the market’s ability to conserve and switch to alternate fuels, I think a more important point is that Powell seems to believe that government is as essential as the transportation of foodstuffs, and that it can help solve the fuel crisis through the draconian methods he describes. If governments were to run out of gas tomorrow, anarchists would be dancing in celebration.

(Mr. Powell’s talk of martial law is not fantasy. Executive Order #11490, signed by Richard Nixon in October 1969, allows the president to assume dictatorial powers after declaring a “national emergency.”)

It just doesn’t add up, unless an alternative theory is developed to explain these anomalies. My attempts to get the other side of the story from the publisher were met with a stone wall of silence. My suggestion is that much of Powell’s disinformation and influence may have come from the Trilateral Commission and / or the CIA. A U.S. Air Force combat controllers group studying theory would seem to dovetail with the National Review article which presented The Anarchist Cookbook at face valued and even included a patronizing reference to “the boys at Harvard.” It is well known that W.F. Buckley, the National Review editor, is a Yale graduate and once served the CIA in Mexico. (E. Howard Hunt, of Watergate fame, was CIA paymaster in Mexico City at the same time Buckley served.)

I would like to quote Mr. Powell from the April 12, 1971 issue of Newsweek: “My book places power in the hands of the individual, where it belongs. The right calls it communist, the leftists call it profiteering, the liberals call it Neo-Nazi.”

And this reviewer calls it bullshit!

Toronto Anarchist Gathering, Nadzrealizem versus Anarhizm, spray paint stencil art, Grey Area. Printed on two continents.

OVO is a collection of new works in the public domain edited and published by Trevor Blake. New issues are in progress. Past issues include…

OVO 18 Money (April 2008)
OVO 17 The Dreadlock Recollections (January 2007)
OVO 16 AntiChrist (January 2006)
OVO 15 Sperm (February 2005)
OVO 14 Suffering (March 1992)
OVO 13 Travel (January 1992)
OVO 12 Science (November 1991)
OVO 11 Control (September 1991)
OVO 10 Mayhem (July 1991)
OVO 9 (July 1991)
OVO 8 (May 1991)
OVO 7 Information (October 1989)
OVO 6 (Infinite)
OVO 5 (November 1988)
OVO 4 (May 1988)
OVO 3 (November 1987)
OVO 2 (July 1987)
OVO 1 (1987)

… and may be downloaded here.

A photograph which purports to show Republican militiamen shooting at the statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus at Cerro de los Ángeles near Madrid, Spain during the Spanish Civil War. The photograph was given wide distribution by the Nationalists during the war. [Been looking for this image for 10+ years. I think it's fake, but still... ]

File:SpanishLeftistsShootStatueOfChrist.jpg – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Wolfi Landstreicher is the current nom de plume of a contemporary anarchist involved in theoretical and practical activity [formerly: Feral Faun]

Wolfi Landstreicher – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

bolo’ bolo is based upon the book of the same name which lays out P.M.’s ideal society based upon sub-communities, each autonomous, with an economy fueled by trade.

bolo’ bolo: Eine Welt Ohne Geld | Board Game | BoardGameGeek

A very curious game from Switzerland, designed by “PM” from its novel ‘Tripura Transfer’ published in Switzerland and Germany.

Demono | Board Game | BoardGameGeek

Kategorie: Gesellschaftsspiel

Infos zu Bolo Bolo

A decidedly odd card game developed by the enigmatic Swiss anarchist known only as “P.M.”, author of the utopian work Bolo’Bolo: Substructing the Planetary Work Machine among others.

User Review | Demono | BoardGameGeek

I’m guessing the queers and anarchists who disrupted this Church service are miffed at being called liberals.

RightMichigan.com || Michigan liberals attack Lansing congregation in the middle of Sunday worship