Radical collective book lost in Metafilter November 6, 2008 9:25 PM   Subscribe

Can you help me track down a radical book mentioned on some part of Metafilter? My search skills are weak, apparently. I would really appreciate it.

Hopefully MetaTalk is the right venue for this, it seemed a little incestuous for AskMe.

As best I can remember the book was mentioned deep into one of the long political threads of the last several months, possibly around the Democratic convention time. It was linked out to from a comment, and I foolishly didn't bookmark the link, and I clean out my history too regularly to find it there.

The book is published by a collective/commune, and is long, about 400 pages, with a lot of information on topics from community organizing to "black box"(?) and other 'secret' organizational techniques. The collective is selling it for $10. I believe the collective that published it is based in the Pacific Northwest.
Can anyone point me to either the thread where it was mentioned, or the collective's site?
posted by foodmapper to MetaFilter-Related at 9:25 PM (15 comments total) 5 users marked this as a favorite

"Rules for Radicals"?
posted by cashman at 10:16 PM on November 6, 2008


Sorry, that's not it. It's published directly by the collective, and pretty recently too, if I'm remembering right. But thanks for trying on my behalf.
posted by foodmapper at 10:35 PM on November 6, 2008


Is it something from Crimethinc, perhaps?
posted by palmcorder_yajna at 11:27 PM on November 6, 2008


It's probably something by Crimethinc. If you can't find the book on their site, try searching through the catalog at AK Press.
posted by nerdcore at 1:40 AM on November 7, 2008


I remember the Crimethinc book too. This was the comment that mentioned it.
posted by davar at 1:49 AM on November 7, 2008


I'll say again that it's an awesome book. "Recipes for Disaster" is the title. With your order you get some really cool posters and tres nifty stickers, including a sheet of the eternally popular 'This Phone Is Tapped.'

Happy hacking!
posted by kaibutsu at 1:58 AM on November 7, 2008


Some would say this isn't the best climate to release a book giving people instructions on how to commit acts of terrorism. What's your reply?

This book does not provide any information on how to commit acts of terrorism. It does not offer any advice on how to gun down civilians, nor how to blow them up with smart bombs; it includes no information about how to destroy the ozone layer or clearcut forests; it doesn't even give any insight into how one might brainwash children in schools, exploit blue collar workers, or bore white collar workers to death. It does, however, offer a humble starting place from which those acts of terrorism can be contested. I would say that this is exactly the climate in which such a book is needed.
posted by anotherpanacea at 3:46 AM on November 7, 2008 [5 favorites]


Sweet. I've always wanted to learn how to turn a bicycle into a record player.
posted by octobersurprise at 6:32 AM on November 7, 2008


Thanks everyone! It is the Crimethinc book!
posted by foodmapper at 8:10 AM on November 7, 2008


"Non-monogamous Relationships" will help us through this time of economic collapse. Because nothing puts a wife/girlfriend in the mood for a threesome like losing your job.
posted by dgaicun at 9:03 AM on November 8, 2008


"Top-secret anarchist tactics" = "Three-colour stickers", apparently. Fight the man unadorned surfaces!
posted by turgid dahlia at 7:36 PM on November 9, 2008


"Top-secret anarchist tactics" = "Three-colour stickers", apparently. Fight the man unadorned surfaces!

Crimethinc are kind of a joke in the radical subculture- it's like if somebody told you they liked punk rock and you said "Oh, cool, who do you like?" and they said "I totally love My Chemical Romance and Hawthorne Heights."

...and then you die a little inside.
posted by Pope Guilty at 5:32 AM on November 10, 2008


I think that very much depends on which aspect of the "radical subculture" you're referring to. There are plenty of people who hear the word "CrimethInc." and giggle smugly at their visions of trust fund kids in dumpsters...and then there are those who have actually read their more recent work, which is some of the most vital theory coming out of the anarchist movement today.

The first group's loss, really.
posted by streetdreams at 9:08 AM on November 11, 2008


Links to non-useless Crimethinc material or it didn't happen. Unless they've completely retracted everything they published before about 2006, the last time I paid any attention to them, they're privileged, bourgeois trustafarians who think poverty is a fun adventure and stealinig from Barnes and Noble constitutes a revolutionary act.
posted by Pope Guilty at 4:39 PM on November 11, 2008


trust fund kids in dumpsters

I'm imagining them standing knee-deep in liquid waste, the vile ooze soaking into their D&G white pleated slacks, tears of victory running down their faces and bouncing from their Burberry overcoats. And then I imagine some kind of sexy alien vixen eating their faces off, and also I drive past in a Maserati.
posted by turgid dahlia at 2:12 PM on November 13, 2008


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