Shadow Ticket Group Crawling Read. Chap 2.

[Corbeau Castrum]

There's a book I've been meaning to check out on the history of this anarchist "propaganda of the deed" in France in the 1890s (Death to the Bourgeois Society: The Propagandists of the Deed, edited by Mitchell Abidor, https://pmpress.org/index.php?l=product_detail&p=732).

This makes me think about the Weather Underground and their own bombings. The question, always, is whether this stuff is ever effective, or if it alienates potential supporters of the movement. Bill Ayers always asserts that it's ridiculous to suggest that the WU bombings alienated anyone, but I'm not so sure either way. What do you folks think? Is there anything positive that comes out of propaganda of the deed? Or does it only serve to offer justification for state forces to crack down upon resistance?

I'm also thinking about Walz calling for "peaceful" protests in Minnesota. On the one hand, I don't think it's really his place as state governor to be actively calling for violent resistance (I'd much rather it be strategic and grassroots and organized if it emerges). At the same time, is he not more or less letting the frosty folks waltz in and abduct young children? If you have access to state power, should you not use it some capacity? Or would a standoff between local Minnesota state forces and the feds necessarily produce the kind of confrontation Trump and Miller have been desperately seeking?

Contradictions, contradictions, we are never short of them.

Best,
Cormac

On Saturday, January 24th, 2026 at 13:59, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:

> 
> 
> Bombing is a constant violence in many--most?--of Pynchon's works...
> GR ro be too obvious but also in the Traverse family thread thru many
> novels...
> 
> P. 13.....starting with "There's the problem,'a bomb squad old-timer nods
> ,,,,,"typical Italo whizbang", etc....
> love the way it ends with "a local genius who can read this pavement like a
> golf green"...
> 
> original meanings of anarchism, self-organized fully equal, fully
> democratic events and states is one of the
> largely hidden great positives in Pynchon's oeuvre. part of his vision of
> life and history, I say....
> 
> Anarchism, defined mostly by a few Russians and others, was defined as a
> non-violent way of acting, way of resisting.
> The radical-minded in Czar-Authoritarian Russia were faced with the
> nihilists [see The Possessed orThe Demons, same book]
> arguing and trying for violent action because no other way, they said....as
> Franz Fanon argued in the 60s
> ...[this is a constant paradigm in most histories of "revolution", of
> course] ...and all of this is a major theme in OBAO the movie...
> 
> Anarchism came to America too...Many Italian immigrants, among maybe equal
> numbers of other immigrants---self-organizsing and
> I'm not looking up any ratios.....but the most salient point is two italian
> immigrants and 'anarchists' , Sacco and Vanzetti did NOT it seems bomb
> anywhere
> but someone did when S & V were involved in some direct action and
> BOOM!.....the media of the time made anarchism change its meaning into the
> oppostie,
> "bomb-throwing anarchists" and anarchy had a new meaning.....chaos.....
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l