Love & Rage Archive

From the study section of the Bring the Ruckus website:

Love and Rage and Strategy

This is a summary of my take on L&R in terms of the 4 points we set out at our last meeting. It's only my take; we can amend these points here.

I. Politics

This is reprinted from anarkismo.net from a post there dated 17 Apr 2007. It was originally published in Northeastern Anarchist #3 Fall 2001.

A history of North American anarchist group Love & Rage by Wayne Price - NEFAC

A new wave of radicalization is spreading around the world. Federations of anarchists are being organized in the U.S and Canada, and in other countries. The ‘platformist’? current within international anarchism, with its emphasis on the need for anarchists to organize themselves, is having worldwide effects. In these conditions, it is not surprising that there should be an interest in the last major attempt to build an anarchist federation in North America: the Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation (L&R). Founded in 1989, it lasted to 1998, almost ten years, with branches in Mexico (Amor y Rabia) and in English-speaking Canada.

This is reprinted from a posting on the A-infos website. It is from the Northeastern Anarchist #6.

The Demise of Love & Rage: What Happened?

by WEB, Open City Collective (NEFAC-NYC)

The following article is a revised version of an unpublished paper originally written in November 1998. Although two of the three groups mentioned are now defunct, the issues raised in the Love and Rage factional struggle are still quite relevant to the anarchist movement today.

This afterword to After Winter Must Come Spring: A Self-Critical Evaluation of the Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation by the Fire by Night Organizing Committee was unfortunately not included in one of the two versions of the document that have appeared in print. It appears here in it's original version.

Afterword

How the internal documents of a defunct anarchist group can change your revolutionary life

by Suzy Subways

In the 1990s, the Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation helped build strong, radical groups like Anti-Racist Action and SLAM, movements for queer liberation, reproductive freedom and more. Yet when activists disrupted the WTO in Seattle, LnR had been dead for a year and a half, leaving our mistakes to be repeated, our lessons forgotten. That's what spurred my old comrade Roy San Filippo to put together a book of LnR's writings, A New World in Our Hearts (AK Press, 2003). Although 19 of the 20 pieces are by men-meaning vital insights from women are missing-the book revives valuable debates cut short by LnR's split in 1998.

This is the announcement of the end of Love & Rage that appeared in the final issue of the newspaper.

After more than 8 years of hard work, the Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation voted to dissolve itself during a brief conference at Hunter College in New York City on Saturday, May 23, 1998. Some participants in the conference spent the rest of the weekend laying the foundation for a new provisional organization, the Fire By Night Organizing Committee. Members of the another faction at the conference also announced their intention to launch a journal and a new organization. Neither of those projects has a name yet.

by Sarah Jane Smith

From Arsenal Magazine: http://www.azone.org/arsenalmag/arsenal3_feat.html

The Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation broke up in 1998. The Fire by Night Organizing Committee formed from the feuds that broke it up. This was the only formal organization that emerged directly from Love and Rage at that time, although it is not the only political direction that came out of its end.

Anarchist organizations in the US hold many theories about anarchism and revolution. Love and Rage was one piece of this in its eight year existence. The organization took seriously the development of a strategy for revolution. During this process, some members decided that some basic tenets of anarchism were untenable.

For further information contact:
Suzy (New York City): [phone number removed]
Connie (San Francisco): [phone number removed]

After more than 8 years of hard work, the Love and Rage Revolutionary Anarchist Federation voted to dissolve itself during a brief conference at Hunter College in New York City on Saturday, May 23, 1998. Some participants in the conference spent the rest of the weekend laying the foundation for a new provisional organization, the Fire By Night Organizing Committee. Members of the another faction at the conference also announced their intention to launch a journal and a new organization. Neither of those projects has a name yet.

by Paul Glavin

This article originally appeared in the Spring 2000 issue of Arsenal: A Magazine of Anarchist Strategy and Culture. (http://www.azone.org/arsenalmag)

For close to ten years Love and Rage, in one form or another, existed as an organized expression of revolutionary anarchism, representing many of the best and worst aspects of the left. The Love and Rage project involved hundreds of people over many years who took the role of revolutionary opposition seriously while confronting forms of domination in their own work and daily lives. Those involved were committed to ideas and education, to democratic process and organization, to street militancy, and towards the end, to long-term community organizing.