Daniel McGowan: What the Government Shutdown Really Means for Federal Prisoners

Last week, USA Today ran a hit piece on federal prisoners with the tabloid headline, “Government shutdown: Federal inmates feast on Cornish hens, steak as prison guards labor without pay.” Not to be outdone, The Washington Post followed this up with their own shameful story under the headline, “‘I been eatin like a boss’: Federal […]

NPR, “How One Inmate Changed The Prison System From The Inside”

The prison revolutionary who had described himself as a “revolutionary anarchist” was now working within the system. He was accepting invitations to visit college campuses and tell his story and talk about prison. And he focused on the chance to do a new kind of civil rights work on behalf of tenants. “The battlefield has […]

Wired, “Anonymous’ Barrett Brown Is Free—and Ready to Pick New Fights”

Of all those books, he found particular inspiration in the autobiography of Emma Goldman, the anarcho-communist agitator who served two prison terms in the 1890s and 1910s, and was eventually deported to Soviet Russia by J. Edgar Hoover’s Justice Department. Her life, he says, serves as a reminder that a mere single prison stint doesn’t […]

TeleSur, “New ‘App’ Offers Anarchist Alternative to Calling 911”

A project of the Better Angels collective, a self-described “friendly group of anarchist techies committed to feminist, anti-racist, and anti-capitalist struggle” the Buoy system allows people to create a variety of customized support networks which, in the case of an emergency, can be notified through a single text of your location and situation. Continue Reading

The New Yorker, “‘Rectify’ is a Quiet Marvel”

Several of the best episodes are one-offs, featuring characters we never meet again. In one, Daniel drifts into the orbit of an antique dealer named Lezlie, a Pan-like anarchist, who invites anyone who is not a gentrifying yuppie—the class he regards as ruining Paulie—to party at his ramshackle house. In another, Daniel gets a ride […]

Mass Incarceration and Bipartisan Unity: An Anarchist Perspective

As momentum builds behind the 2016 U.S. Presidential election, I begin to wonder how much time and energy will be pulled away from the revolutionary anti-racist work of the #BlackLivesMatter movement and funnel instead into the fervent campaigning of Democratic candidates. Within the horrific, seemingly endless loss of Black lives, there has erupted a new […]