On Thursday, February 13, longtime anarchist Aragorn! passed away. A tireless polemicist, Aragorn! established and maintained a great deal of anarchist infrastructure, much of which he never sought credit for. Here, we’ll explore the ways that his legacy challenges us and conclude with remembrances from comrades who shared some of his journey.
We recommend this in conjunction with the lengthy interview we have published with Aragorn!, “A Hell of a Mistress, the Beautiful Idea.”
What He Did
Tracing Aragorn!’s work across the years, we can start with early zines such as Oppression Song and ATR (“After the Revolution”), the latter of which he collaborated on with sometime Inside Front contributor and Catharsis roadie Eric Boehme. Emerging from the vegan straightedge hardcore scene, he published reviews in Maximum RocknRoll and HeartattaCk; he contributed to and later helped to edit Anarchy: A Journal of Desire Armed and Green Anarchy, the flagships of “post-left” theory and green anarchist agitation, respectively. He founded the anarchist news outlet anarchistnews.org, just one aspect of the larger platform anarchyplanet.org, which included online forums, an anarchist review project called The Anvil, and the introductory page Anarchy 101.
Aragorn! helped start Ardent Press, which expanded into the publishing and distribution project Little Black Cart. He helped launch a variety of journals, including Attentat and Black Seed. He was involved in a wide array of podcasts, from the early TCN Radio to the more recent Anews podcast, Anarchy Bang, and the Brilliant. He hosted countless websites for other anarchist projects from a broad range of perspectives.
