Since Bellamy was here at the start of The Brilliant project it is great to check in where he is at regarding the things we are talking and thinking about. Obviously Bellamy and I have been having similar experiences in the Anarchist Space over the past few years. This episode is about some dissimilar experiences and what is next with each of us and our respective media projects. (564 ..read more

Ultimately I am not a nihilist but this might be a de jure vs de facto kind of distinction that people hate hearing people drone on about. No matter how we land on this question the little thing I wrote nearly 20 years ago on the question did force it to be an ongoing concern of mine. The question about whether there is a difference between belief in the good (ie anarchy) and christianity is more important now than ever. Additionally, who does faith in ongoing social change (in a good way) benefit? But the truth is that there have been better, more pithy, less chained critics of activists and ..read more

Among the people I met in the Berkeley Anarchist Study Group (aka BASTARD) are people I should have met more generally. I’m referring to the reading group this way because I have found that in the last 20 years the number of places where you might meet an (anarchist) interesting person has shrank dramatically. Luckily 10 years ago I was at the reading group. Maybe I’m not giving the hardcore/metal scene enough credit but there seems to be slim pickings anytime I dip into that world nowadays. Carrie (the interview subject of this episode) is an incredibly interesting person who I never would ha ..read more

I was a big supporter of Green Anarchy back in the day. Even today I host a remembrance site for them, am close friends with the old editorial team (except for the Z who has feelings), and am part of the Black Seed editorial group that was deeply inspired by GA. This conversation is between the GA team and I and concerns Black Seed #7 which they review and we discuss. This conversation is very much “in the weeds.” We go through the project article by article. We frame out Black Seed by context, order, and authorship. You can get access to Black Seed via LBC email us at thebrilliant@t ..read more

Duane and I have known each other for a number of years. (At least 12!) He was one of the first people who found the first http://irc.anarchyplanet.org IRC server (which in fact used SILC) and joined the merry band that started The Anarchist Library. He was doxxed by a rival group, was lost, then found, and wrote a book for LBC called After Post-Anarchism. This was nearly 10 years ago and since then Duane finished his PhD, started teaching, and then landed in my hometown. This wide ranging conversation happened in a coffee house (terrible sound) but is an interesting snapshot in where the ..read more

I have mentioned the influence of Dreamtime Village on me quite a few times. I only visited there once before this interview but it really something. It involved an aborted attempt at a midwest anarchist network (I was living at the Trumbelplex in Detroit at the time). It was at least a dozen of us, enough for a dance party, enough for some embarrasing photos, not enough to make a network happen. Dreamtime may have been amazing but it was not exactly a laboratory of the anarchies. It hosted anarchists but may have been more accurately been described as a permacultural art space. The prime m ..read more

Ian is an old friend that used to go by different names. I was passing through the midwest on the way to the GSABF and got to visit. Our conversation passes through NVC (non-violent communications), the Intentional Community scene, and a tiny bit of the recent history of Bay Area radicalism (the hilarity house). (466 ..read more

Angela Nagle’s book was released at exactly the right time, with a perfect title, and great marketing. It is a leftist take on the Trump era, it is exactly on point about the intersection of a bunch of shitty tendencies, and speaks of them with surprising fluency. That said, this book is a lie. It is a dissertation about women and the Internet. It is more-or-less from a hard leftist position. It’s reach far exceeds its grasp. chisel and I discuss all of this and more. Here is a link to the book. http://www.zero-books.net/books/kill-all-normies Contact us at thebrilliant@thebrilliant ..read more

I put together a book. It is not a book about me. It is about a dozen other people who are, in some way, the audience and content of the book. It was a real challenge putting it together as the interview subjects did not conform to the framing I eventually put on the book. Most of the conversations were about people, biographies, and local challenges. The book is about an epic fight for Turtle Island that is invisible to most people. It is about memory, family, and the future of a livable planet. It is also about anarchism. The original thesis of this book went something like this: The dif ..read more

I made a promise to Nick the last time I was in Victoria BC. I said I would meaningfully engage (I might have even promised a review) of his book (co-authored with carla bergman who I don’t know) Joyful Miltancy. There are a lot of reasons to believe that I would be hostile to this book, which we obviously discuss in some detail in this conversation, as it is a IAS/AK press joint but there are also reasons I would not be. One, I like Nick and he has been generous with me. Two, the talking point of this book is that it is about recovering from “activist burnout” which, aside from the words them ..read more