Agency Archives
Agency: A Chronlogy
Through articles, interviews, press releases, and other content we’ve created a readily available archive of 10+ years of anarchist commentary and responses to timely issues.
The Agency Newswire serves as an important reminder that we are part of the public conversation and that anarchist voices are heard in a wide variety of forums. Below we share some of the highlights, year by year.
2012
In an event at New York’s CUNY Graduate Center, organized by a few of the soon-to-be Agency co-founders, CrimethInc. and journalist-activist Chris Hedges square off over the role of violence, and particularly the Black Bloc tactic, in Occupy Wall Street and public protests in general.
2013
2014
Agency inaugurates its series of press briefs with talking points and expert contacts on the gay marriage debate, released in the months leading up to the US Supreme Court’s decision affirming marriage equality. While the ruling was a victory in the fight against discrimination, we argue that gay marriage is not the new Civil Rights movement, and that the State has no right to grant privileges to one type of human relationship over another.
Agency responds to the police murder of Michael Brown and the failure to indict his murderer. “We don’t buy into attempts to blame the victim—or their community. We won’t allow the State to divide us into ‘good’ protesters and ‘bad’ protesters, or persuade us to do so ourselves. We won’t accept a political order that values private property above human life.” Further reading.
When anarchists are covered in the media, we are patronized, dismissed as extremists or eccentrics, or else framed ominously as “outside agitators.” This commentary digs deep into the ways the mainstream media concocts to dismiss anarchists and anarchism, and suggests some strategies for reclaiming our narrative.
Blogger Devon Douglas-Bowers interviews Agency co-founders Ryan and Jen about the collective’s strategy for making anarchism—as a worldview that promotes freedom, equality, and self-determination—a household concept.
2015
2016
The neo-fascist Trump campaign ignites a new wave of anarchist and anti-fascist protest and organizing. This does not go unnoticed in the mainstream media—or by Agency.
2017
Agency provides background and interview support for the production of the Global Uprisings short documentary “No More Presidents: Protesting the Trump Inauguration”.
An indictment from the US Attorney’s Office charges more than 200 defendants with eight felonies each, including rioting, incitement to riot, conspiracy to riot, four counts of destruction of property, and assault on a police officer. Agency works to keep the police misconduct on Inauguration Day and subsequent prosecutorial overreach before the public.
When neo-fascist provocateur and former Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos attempts an appearance at UC Berkeley, anarchists and antifa are there to greet him. Agency worked with journalists behind the scenes, shared resources, and facilitated interviews between anarchists and New York Times reporters.
Following the Berkeley story, Agency member Eric Laursen is quoted in a New York Times story about anarchist protests at the Trump inauguration and related protests around the country.
2018
Agency marks the dismissal of the last of the 234 prosecutions stemming from the Trump inauguration protests. The case was punctuated by a steady stream of state abuses of power, including attempts to criminalize association and radical organizing such as Black Blocs; police collaboration with right-wing groups and doxxing of defendants; and use of the racist and repressive DC Riot Act. In a staunch expression of solidarity, more than 130 defendants agreed to Points of Unity that included a refusal to cooperate against fellow co-defendants and a commitment to work together collectively to fight their charges, proving that collective resistance in the legal system works
Agency member scott crow is interviewed in USA Today about the response by anarchist and anti-fascist groups and the Black Lives Matter movement to Unite the Right’s brazen follow-up rally to its notorious 2017 Charlottesville rally, at which activist Heather Heyer was killed and many others received serious injuries.
Agency member scott crow is interviewed about antifa by Fox News provocateur Tucker Carlson.
2019
Profiling Anarchist Media Workers and Journalists
Agency interviews Natasha Lennard, columnist for The Intercept, published regularly in The Nation, Esquire, The New York Times, and The New Inquiry, among others.
Agency interviews Dan Arel, a freelance writer whose work is published in Truthout, The New Arab, Time, Huffington Post, AlterNet, Salon, and other outlets, also the author of “Parenting without God” (2014).
Emma Goldman (1869-1940) was one of the most influential anarchists of all time and an inspiration to radicals the world over. Agency gathers seven activists to discuss the legacy of “Red Emma” and why her anti-state, anti-capitalist message is more relevant and urgent than ever.
A year before the explosion of mutual aid projects across the world in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, Agency put out a short primer on mutual aid, featuring five areas of everyday life where people practice mutual aid all the time, whether they know it or not.
2020
Agency responds to Facebook’s deletion of profiles promoting the websites of crimethinc.com, itsgoingdown.org, and dozens of other projects, citing their anarchist politics as a justification. Our response openly opposes Facebook’s “both sides” narrative, which effectively aligns the social media platform with the Trump administration. Further reading.
Agency surveys the organizing principles and demands of African-American youth and social justice activists since the police murder of George Floyd and finds a striking parallel in anarchists’ decades-old demands for an end to these oppressive state institutions.
Agency assesses the explosion of new forms of surveillance at all levels of the state in response to Black Lives Matter protests, referred to by the Department of Justice as “domestic terrorism.”
As COVID-19 spreads, Agency’s Critical Voices page documents the growing role of mutual aid initiatives in responding to the pandemic.
Getting Antifa Right
- Al Jazeera, “What is Antifa?”
- Washington Times, “Peeved anarchists accuse Donald Trump of ‘scapegoating’ antifa, defend ‘militant unrest'”
- The Intercept, “Trump’s Threats to Antifa Are an Affront to Black Agency and a Risk to All Protest”
- SF Gate, “White House deletes bogus brick video accusing Antifa of planning for riots”
- Voice of America, “Anarchist Groups Tied to Riots in 4 US Cities”
- Al Jazeera, “Antifa and America’s revamped Red Scare”
Agency wraps up a year that saw some of the largest uprisings for racial justice in history and a powerful anarchist pushback against increasingly violent far-right groups.
2021
Agency’s Critical Voices page amplifies online media accounts of the far-right mob that stormed the Capitol Building on January 6, including right-wing influencers’ attempts to pin the attack on antifa and Black Lives Matter.
Understanding what the state is and how it operates is the first step in systematically challenging it. Agency supports the launch of Eric Laursen’s book, “The Operating System: An Anarchist Theory of the State,” with its first video production, “What Is The State?”
Despite governments’ efforts to suppress, co-opt, or just ignore May Day, people all over the world continue to celebrate May 1 as International Workers’ Day. Agency’s commentary highlights May Day’s anarchist roots and its persistence as a rallying point against capital and the state.
2022
Agency and CrimethInc. call out Elon Musk, the reactionary social media mogul, for his phony free-speech policy at X (formerly Twitter): banning the left while giving free rein to fascists.
Agency inaugurates a new livestream series, Finding Agency: video conversations between activists, organizers, scholars, journalists, and writers that illuminate and amplify anarchist and anti-authoritarian perspectives on current events. The series is launched with a wide-ranging interview with activist Daryl Lamont Jenkins about his campaign to expose the neo-fascist right.
2023
Agency amplifies calls for people of good conscience to stand in solidarity with the movement to stop construction of Cop City, a $109 million police training facility, and defend the Weelaunee Forest in Atlanta.
Beloved long-time social justice activist, anarchist, and owner of Oakland’s Angel Cakes bakery, Jen Angel dies on February 9, three days after suffering critical injuries in an apparent robbery. Agency helps lead media relations efforts to facilitate hundreds of media inquiries about her life and death after news of her injuries and passing inspires thousands to mourn, grieve, and seek more information.
- Jen Angel’s Caringbridge Page
- Democracy Now, “Jen Angel, Beloved Social Justice & Media Activist, Writer and Oakland Baker, Dies at 48”
- The Guardian, “‘Unsung hero’: the baker and activist whose death inspired calls for restorative justice”
- Yes! Magazine, “Food, Love, and Revolution: Jen Angel’s Legacy”
Why are restorative justice and transformative justice practices key nodes of advocacy for anarchists? Agency supplies talking points and a resource list for media on these critical issues following Jen’s death and an increase in media coverage related to prison abolition.
In partnership with the Institute for Anarchist Studies, Agency inaugurates an annual grant-making program to fund anarchist media projects that reflect the spirit of grassroots and do-it-yourself action that Jen worked to sustain.
Agency responds to the disturbing Georgia RICO indictment that attempts to criminalize not only dissent, but a specific set of ideas leading to dissent; anarchism, solidarity, mutual aid, and collectivism are specifically named in the indictment.
2024
On February 25, Air Force servicemember—and anarchist—Aaron Bushnell set himself on fire at the gates of the Israeli embassy in Washington, DC in an act of protest against US support for the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza. Agency’s Critical Voices highlights CrimethInc.’s compilation of reactions to Bushnell’s sacrifice and his protest against the Gaza atrocities.
