CrimethInc.#Reception amongst anarchists

Activities by CrimethInc. cells have toured with hardcore anarcho-punk musical ensembles.{{cite web|url=http://media.www.dailycampus.com/media/storage/paper340/news/2002/10/08/Focus/Punk-Show.Rocks.Student.Union-292057.shtml |archive-url=https://archive.today/20110708221434/http://media.www.dailycampus.com/media/storage/paper340/news/2002/10/08/Focus/Punk-Show.Rocks.Student.Union-292057.shtml |url-status=dead |archive-date=2011-07-08 |title=Punk show rocks Student Union |access-date=2008-07-24 |last=Patterson |first=Jesse |work=The Daily Campus |date=2002-10-08 }} In 2002, a cell in Olympia, Washington staged a five-day film festival with skill-sharing workshops and screenings.{{cite news |first=Ross |last=Raihala |title=The heArt and Film Festival |work=The Olympian |date=2002-12-12}} Cells have also supported various large-scale campaigns with publicity work, including "Unabomber for President" and the "Don't Just (Not) Vote" election campaigns as well as the protests against the Free Trade Area of the Americas of 2003 in Miami, Florida.Days of War, Nights of Love (2001), Crimethinc.Workers Collective, p. 221 {{ISBN|0-9709101-0-X}}{{cite book |last=Andersen |first=Mark |title=All the Power : Revolution Without Illusion |publisher=Punk Planet Books |year=2004 |isbn=978-1-888451-72-6 |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/allpowerrevoluti00ande }} Individuals adopting the CrimethInc. nom de guerre have included convicted Earth Liberation Front arsonists,{{cite news |title=3 plead guilty in attempts at arson |work=The Sacramento Bee |date=2005-10-15}} as well as hacktivists who successfully attacked the websites of DARE, the Republican National Committee, and sites related to U.S. President George W. Bush's 2004 re-election campaign.{{cite magazine|url=https://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2004/08/64602 |title=Hackers Take Aim at GOP |magazine=Wired |access-date=2008-02-22 |last=Schachtman |first=Noah |date=2004-08-17 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090111015944/http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2004/08/64602 |archive-date=2009-01-11 }}{{cite news |first=Brian |last=Deagon |title=GOP Sites Hit By Denial Of Service Attack; Hard To Tell Who Culprits Are |work=Investor's Business Daily |date=2004-10-22}} These activities have earned the collective irregular attention from the mainstream news media.

• {{cite news |first=Chris |last=Whitehead |title=How do you say 'dese, dem, dose' in Chinese?; The Mayor's Office of |url=https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-5858110.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181119081101/https://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-5858110.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=2018-11-19 |publisher=Chicago Sun-Times |date=2007-04-13 |access-date=2007-07-08 }}
• {{cite news |first=Sarah |last=Childress |title='Hacktivists' Log On |url=http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_kmnew/is_200408/ai_n6835339 |publisher=Newsweek |date=August 2004 |access-date=2007-07-08}}
• {{cite news |first=Irene |last=Sege |title=Pay phones may appear to be gathering dust, but some still use them |url=http://www.boston.com/lifestyle/articles/2008/03/10/busy_signals/ |work=The Boston Globe |publisher=The New York Times Company |date=2008-03-10 |access-date=2008-03-16}} Several CrimethInc. cells have worked in collaboration with other anti-capitalists and anarchists to promote Steal Something From Work Day every April 15, which coincides with the United States Tax Day, to protest exploitation in the workplace.{{cite web|last=Bryant|first=Miranda|title='Stick it to corporate America': why we are so willing to steal from work|website=The Guardian|date=March 5, 2019|access-date=December 4, 2022|url=https://www.theguardian.com/money/2019/mar/05/stick-it-to-corporate-america-why-we-are-so-willing-to-steal-from-work}}

The creation of propaganda has been described as the collective's core function.{{cite magazine|last=Power |first=Matthew |date=March 2008 |title=Mississippi Drift |magazine=Harper's Magazine |pages=54–63 |url=http://www.crimethinc.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/crimethinc_in_harpers.pdf |access-date=2008-03-10 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080511151948/http://www.crimethinc.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/crimethinc_in_harpers.pdf |archive-date=2008-05-11 }} Among their best-known publications are the books Days of War, Nights of Love, Expect Resistance, Evasion, Recipes for Disaster: An Anarchist Cookbook, the pamphlets To Change Everything: an Anarchist Appeal (available in paper, PDF and video form), and Fighting For Our Lives (with 650,000 copies printed by 2010),{{cite web |url=https://crimethinc.com/2010/12/12/fighting-for-our-lives-5th-printing |title=Fighting for Our Lives 5th Printing |work=CrimethInc. |date=2010-12-12 }} the hardcore punk/political zine Inside Front, and the music of hardcore punk bands. Several websites are maintained by individual cells, including Crimethinc.com, operated by the Far East Cell, which hosts propaganda, excerpts from available publications, and a blog of the activities of other cells. CrimethInc. is connected to publishing collectives/organizations with similar ideas, notably the Curious George Brigade, which has written a number of publications including Anarchy in the Age of Dinosaurs. In 2005, they began publishing a half-gloss journal, Rolling Thunder, with the byline "An Anarchist Journal of Dangerous Living", which released its eighth issue in 2009. CrimethInc. texts have received wide coverage in the anarchist media and in academic publications,

• {{Cite journal |last=Clark |first=Dylan |year=2004 |title=The Raw and the Rotten: Punk Cuisine |journal=Ethnology |volume=43|issue=1 |pages=19–31 |doi=10.2307/3773853 |jstor=3773853 }}
• {{Cite book |last=Doy |first=Gen |title=Picturing the Self |url=https://archive.org/details/picturingselfcha0000doyg |url-access=registration |publisher=I. B. Tauris |location=London |year=2004 |isbn=1-85043-413-1}}
• {{Cite journal |last=Edwards |first=Ferne |author2=Mercer, David |date=November 2007 |title=Gleaning from Gluttony: an Australian youth subculture confronts the ethics of waste |journal=Australian Geographer |volume=38 |issue=3 |pages=279–296 |publisher=Routledge |doi=10.1080/00049180701639174 |bibcode=2007AuGeo..38..279E |s2cid=143263389 }}
• {{Cite journal |last1=Dunne |first1=Stephen |first2=Eleni |last2=Karamali |first3=Stevphen |last3=Shukaitis |year=2005 |title=Inscribing Organized Resistance |journal=Ephemera |volume=5 |issue=4 |pages=562–567 |issn=1473-2866}}{{cite journal |last=Nicholas |first=Lucy |date=Spring 2007 |title=Approaches to Gender, Power and Authority in Contemporary Anarcho-punk: Poststructuralist Anarchism? |journal=ESharp |issue=9 |issn=1742-4542 |url=http://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_41219_en.pdf |access-date=2008-04-07 }} and have been used as reading materials for university courses on anarchism.{{cite journal |last=Conger |first=Chloe |url=http://daily.stanford.edu/article/2002/4/29/studentLeadsCourseOnAnarchy |archive-url=https://archive.today/20070429184048/http://daily.stanford.edu/article/2002/4/29/studentLeadsCourseOnAnarchy |url-status=dead |archive-date=2007-04-29 |title=Student leads course on anarchy |access-date=2008-07-24 |journal=The Stanford Daily |date=2002-04-29}}

CrimethInc. also distributes documentaries such as {{vanchor|Breaking the Spell}} (anti-free-trade) and PickAxe (anti-logging).{{cite book|author=Rebekah Cordova|title=DIY Punk as Education: From Mis?education to Educative Healing|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=xAcoDwAAQBAJ&pg=PA34|year=2016|publisher=IAP|isbn=978-1-68123-577-6|page=34}}

In 2021, the collective's downtown Olympia publishing location burned in a fire.{{Cite web| last = Vinson| first = Ty| title = Donors Contribute More Than $130,000 to Olympia Businesses Affected by Downtown Fire| work = The Daily Chronicle| accessdate = 2021-12-23| date = 2021-12-20| url = https://www.chronline.com/stories/donors-contribute-more-than-130000-to-olympia-businesses-affected-by-downtown-fire,281217}}

In 2022, Elon Musk banned its Twitter account at the behest of right-wing influencer Andy Ngo. CrimethInc accused Musk of purchasing Twitter "to silence opposition".{{cite web |last1=Diamond |first1=Jonny |title=Elon Musk listens to professional troll Andy Ngo and bans anarchist publisher from Twitter. |url=https://lithub.com/elon-musk-listens-to-professional-troll-andy-ngo-and-bans-anarchist-publisher-from-twitter/ |website=Literary Hub |access-date=24 April 2024 |date=1 December 2022}}

{{quotebox|

|align=right

|width=15%

|title=Convergence locations

|quote={{ulist|

| Des Moines, Iowa (2002)

| Louisville, Kentucky (2003)

| Des Moines, Iowa (2004)

| Bloomington, Indiana (2005)

| Winona, Minnesota (2006)

| Athens, Ohio (2007)

| Milwaukee, Wisconsin (2008)

| Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (2009)

}}}}

Since the summer of 2002, CrimethInc. has hosted annual conventions, termed "convergences", open to anyone. Typically featuring the performances of traveling theatrical troupes, musicians, direct-action and mutual-aid workshops from individual participants, the few-days-long camping trips have attracted coverage in newspaper articles, initiated multiple Reclaim the Streets actions, mobilized large Critical Mass events, and catalyzed many other activities.

The 2007 convergence in Athens, Ohio, saw an impromptu street party which resulted in arrests on minor charges.

{{cite web

|url=https://www.athensmessenger.com/news/anarchist-answers-to-riot-charge/article_c3e000d9-93b2-5248-b16e-ff2867b0d4e3.html

|title=Anarchist answers to riot charge

|work=Athens Messenger

|access-date=2008-02-22

|last=Goussetis

|first=Elizabeth

|date=2007-07-31

}}

The Athens News characterized the convergence as "a sort of networking, resume-swapping opportunity for would-be radicals, free-thinkers, Levellers, Diggers, Neo-Luddites, and other assorted malcontents."{{cite web|url=https://www.athensnews.com/news/local/good-going-you-left-town-for-the-summer-and-missed/article_fbdcc78d-64dd-5cff-b2e0-8d368406181a.html |title=Good going; you left town for the summer and missed everything |publisher=The Athens News |access-date=2008-02-25 |last=Phillips |first=Jim |date=2007-09-04 }} It is typical of these gatherings to require that all attendees have something to contribute to the momentum: whether it is bringing food or equipment to share, leading a discussion group, or providing materials with which to write to political prisoners. There has been a pattern of promoting convergences as festivals, reminiscent of barnstorming flying circuses and travelling sideshows.{{cite web|url=http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=2007073009151431 |title=Athens, Ohio: Police attack Crimethinc conference |work=Infoshop News |publisher=Infoshop.org |access-date=2008-04-28 |date=2007-07-30 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110523102836/http://www.infoshop.org/inews/article.php?story=2007073009151431 |archive-date=2011-05-23 }}

Harper's journalist Matthew Power described the 2006 convergence in Winona, Minnesota as follows:

{{blockquote|text=Several hundred young anarchists from around the country had train-hopped and hitchhiked there to attend the annual event known as the CrimethInc Convergence...Grimy and feral-looking, the CrimethInc kids squatted in small groups around a clearing...[they] were in the middle of several days of self-organized workshops, seminars, and discussions, ranging from the mutualist banking theories of the nineteenth-century anarchist philosopher Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, to an introductory practicum on lock-picking, to a class on making one's own menstrual pads ... CrimethInc's adherents had come together there because they wanted to live their lives as some sort of solution. They saw 'the revolution' not as a final product but as an ongoing process; they wanted not just to destroy the capitalist system but to create something livable in its place.|sign=Matthew Power|source=Harper's Magazine, March 2008}}

These convergences have been hosted by different groups within the collective each time, typically based on the initiative of local enthusiasts. Every year a different set of policy requests is released from locals in the field, typically encouraging a sober, consensus-based space in which no financial transactions are made. The one firm rule has been "No police informants," a regulation which has been ignored by the FBI. Information gathered by FBI informants at CrimethInc. convergences (in 2004, 2005, and 2008) contributed to the convictions of Eric McDavid and his associates, as well as 2008 Republican National Convention protester Matthew DePalma.{{cite web |last=Walsh |first=James |date=2009-03-10 |url=http://www.startribune.com/local/stpaul/41070787.html?elr=KArks:DCiUtEia_nDaycUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aUU |title=RNC protester gets prison for possessing Molotov cocktails |website=Star Tribune |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110607063219/http://www.startribune.com/local/stpaul/41070787.html?elr=KArks%3ADCiUtEia_nDaycUiD3aPc%3A_Yyc%3AaUU |archive-date=2011-06-07}}{{cite web |url=https://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/Conventions/story?id=5718900&page=1 |title=Michigan Man Accused of RNC Molotov Cocktail Plot |author=ABC News |work=ABC News}}{{cite web |url=http://static.kovr.viacomlocalnetworks.com/~kovr/affidavit.pdf |archive-date=2007-01-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070111192140/http://static.kovr.viacomlocalnetworks.com/~kovr/affidavit.pdf |title=Confidential Source "Anna"-issued affidavit |access-date=2008-07-21 |format=.pdf |work=United States District Court Eastern District of California}}

In 2010, CrimethInc. announced the We Are Everywhere campaign of national tours and events in lieu of the traditional convergence.{{cite web |url=http://www.crimethinc.com/blog/2010/06/03/august-2010-we-are-everywhere/ |title=August 2010: We Are Everywhere - CrimethInc. Far East Blog |date=3 June 2010 }} In 2015, CrimethInc. embarked on the similar To Change Everything two-month tour of the United States.{{cite web |url=http://www.crimethinc.com/blog/2015/06/15/to-change-everything-us-tour/ |title=To Change Everything US Tour |publisher=CrimeThInc. Ex-Workers Collective |access-date=2015-10-22 |date=2015-06-15}}{{cite web |url=http://www.eastoregonian.com/eo/local-news/20150930/anarchy-comes-to-the-pendleton-art-center |title=Anarchists come to the Pendleton arts centre |publisher=East Oregonian |access-date=2015-10-22 |date=2015-09-30}}

CrimethInc. is associated with the North American anarcho-punk scene because of its long relationship with notable musicians in the genre and its publishing of Inside Front, a "journal of hardcore punk and anarchist action". CrimethInc. releases include LP's, CD's, and 7-inch vinyl records from North American and European anarcho-punk, hardcore, and anti-folk bands. Academic Stacy Thompson has described CrimethInc. as "exemplary of a more contemporary and nuanced approach" to the possible forms anarcho-punk could take to resist commodification through aesthetic expression. However, Thompson does not consider the aesthetic choices of the collective to be substantially different from the anarcho- and crust punk bands released by fellow anarcho-punk collective Profane Existence in the mid-to-late 90s.{{cite book|last=Thompson|first=Stacy|title=Punk Productions: Unfinished Business|publisher=SUNY Press|year=2004|isbn=0-7914-6187-4|location=Albany|pages=109}}

{{blockquote

|text=Crimethought is not any ideology or value system or lifestyle, but rather a way of challenging all ideologies and value systems and lifestyles—and, for the advanced agent, a way of making all ideologies, value systems, and lifestyles challenging.

|sign =Crimethinc.com{{cite web |url=http://www.crimethinc.com/texts/pastfeatures/purged.php |title=All Traveler Kids Purged From CrimethInc. Membership |access-date=2008-01-20 |work=Crimethinc.com|date=22 July 2002 }}}}

CrimethInc as a loose association represents a variety of political views; the CrimethInc. Their frequently-asked questions page asserts that it has "no platform or ideology except that which could be generalized from the similarities between the beliefs and goals of the individuals who choose to be involved—and that is constantly in flux." "CrimethInc." is an anonymous tag, a means of constructing dynamic networks of support and communication within the anarchist movement, and as such anyone can publish under the name or create a poster using the logo; each agent or group of agents operate autonomously.{{cite book |last=Sims |first=Francwa |title=The Anacostia Diaries as It Is |year=2006 |publisher=Lulu Enterprises Incorporated |isbn=1-4116-1888-2}} As well as the traditional anarchist opposition to the state and capitalism, agents have at times advocated a straight edge lifestyle, the total supersession of gender roles, violent insurrection against the state,{{cite web |url=http://www.crimethinc.com/texts/atoz/antig8.php |title=Let Me Light My Cigarette on Your Burning Blockade |access-date=2007-10-31 |work=Crimethinc.com|date=30 June 2003 }} and the refusal of work.{{cite web |url=http://www.crimethinc.com/texts/insidefront/permanentvacation.php |title=How I Spent My Permanent Vacation |access-date=2008-01-13 |last=D. |first=Brian |work=Crimethinc.com|date=January 1996 }}

CrimethInc. is influenced by the Situationist International,{{cite journal |last=Lang |first=Daniel |date=May 2007 |title="Give Us the Dumpsters -Or- Give Us Life": Res Derilictae and the Trash of Free Trade |journal=Cultural Recycling |volume=3 |issue=1 |publisher=Other Voices |url=http://www.othervoices.org/3.1/dlang/index.php}} and has been described by scholar Martin Puchner as "inheritors of the political avant-garde",Puchner, Martin (2005). Poetry of the Revolution: Marx, Manifestos and the Avant-Gardes. Princeton University Press, Princeton and Oxford. 320pp., {{ISBN|978-0-691-12260-1}}. For their part, the authors of the book criticized the "exclusive, anti-subjective" nature of history as "paralyzing", advocating in its place a non-superstitious myth.Days of War, Nights of Love (2001), {{ISBN|0-9709101-0-X}}, p. 111–114 The collective has expressed a strident anti-copyright stance and advocacy of the appropriation of texts and ideas of others, which has attracted criticism from academic philosopher George MacDonald Ross as an endorsement of plagiarism.{{cite conference|first=George |last=MacDonald Ross |title=Plagiarism really is a crime:a counterblast against anarchists and postmodernists (and others) |book-title=Plagiarism: Prevention, Practice and Policies 2004 Conference |date=2004-05-10 |url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/228450982 |access-date=2008-04-07 |format=PDF }} CrimethInc.'s N©! free license is known as an example of copyleft. It grants rights to individuals and none to corporations.{{cite book|last=Keats|first=Jonathon|title=Virtual Words: Language on the Edge of Science and Technology|url=https://archive.org/details/virtualwordslang0000keat|url-access=registration|year=2010|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=978-0-19-975290-4|page=[https://archive.org/details/virtualwordslang0000keat/page/65 65]}}

The active participants of CrimethInc. characterize it as a mindset and a way of life first and foremost, rather than as an organization per se. Its main goal is to inspire people to take more active control of their own lives, becoming producers of culture and history instead of passive consumers.{{cite book |author=Summerisle |title=Times of Hate, Times of Joy, Lost Highway, Volume 1 |year=2005 |isbn=978-1-4116-6506-4 |publisher=Lulu |location=Morrisville, NC}}{{cite web |url=http://www.crimethinc.com/about/ |title=About CWC: Index |work=Crimethinc.com |access-date=2008-01-10}} Those who subscribe to the CrimethInc. philosophy advocates radical ways of living one's life to the end of eliminating the perceived inequities and tyrannies within society. Contributors to publications are generally not credited in respect of anonymity asserted by participants to be one of the organization's primary values. The name "CrimethInc." itself is a satirical self-criticism about the hypocrisy of revolutionary propaganda and other "margin-walking between contradictions",{{cite web |url=http://www.crimethinc.com/about/faq.html |title=Frequently Asked Questions |access-date=2007-10-31 |work=Crimethinc.com}} and a direct reference to the concept of "thoughtcrime" developed in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four.

{{reflist}}

{{refbegin}}

• {{cite news|author1=Anu Bonobo|title=CrimethIncs Overflowing Cup of Anarchist Elixir|url=http://www.fifthestate.org/archive/378-summer-2008/crimethincs-overflowing-cup-anarchist-elixir/|access-date=November 30, 2015|work=Fifth Estate|issue=378|date=Summer 2008}}
• {{cite web|url=http://www.lasthours.org.uk/reviews/rolling-thunder-5/|title=Rolling Thunder #5|date=September 24, 2008|first=Fred |last=Goodsell|work=Last Hours|access-date=March 10, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120217164450/http://www.lasthours.org.uk/reviews/rolling-thunder-5/|archive-date=February 17, 2012|url-status=dead}}
• {{Cite news |last1=Perez |first1=Erica |title=Anarchists' gathering surprisingly organized |work=The Dispatch and The Rock Island Argus |page=G8 |date=2008-07-27 |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-dispatch-anarchists-gathering-surpr/139359776/ |location=Moline, Illinois |df=mdy-all }}

{{refend}}

{{wikiquote}}

{{sister sites|wikt=no|n=no|q=no|b=no|v=no}}

• {{official website}}

{{anarchism}}

{{Anarchism US footer}}

{{good article}}

{{authority control}}

{{Portal bar|Anarchism}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Crimethinc.}}

Category:1990s establishments in the United States

Category:Anarchist organizations in the United States

Category:Anarchist publishing companies

Category:Anarcho-punk

Category:Anti-capitalism

Category:Anti-consumerist groups

Category:Anti-corporate activism

Category:Anarchist collectives

Category:Critics of work and the work ethic

Category:Culture jamming

Category:DIY culture

Category:Post-left anarchism

Category:Publishing collectives

Category:Hacktivists

Category:Publications established in the 1990s

Category:Organizations established in 1996