#forbidden-knowledge #politics #project June 15, 2026
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- Against Prisons (Catherine Baker, 1996) 1
- Another Critique of Insurrectionalism (2014) 2
- De-Arrest Primer (2024) 3
- Destroying White Nationalism (Antifa International) 4
- For the love of winning: An open letter to Extinction Rebellion (John Jordan, 2019) 5
- The Gaza Ghetto Uprising (Adi Callai, 2024) 6
- I Don't Bash Back, I Shoot First (2012) 7
- If We Go, We Go On Fire: On Grief and Social War (Ignatius, 2024) 8
- Insurrectionary Anarchy: Organizing for Attack! (2003) 9
- It's Safer in the Front: Taking the Offensive against Tyranny (CrimethInc, 2025) 10
- It's Vacant, Take It! (Homes Not Jails, 2013) 11
- Now (The Invisible Committee, 2017) 12
- Our Enemies in Yellow: A Reportback from Dallas (Ramon Byrne, 2025) 13
- The Satanic Death-Cult is Real (Sophie Lewis, 2019) 14
- To Change Everything (CrimethInc, 2015) 15
- Towards the Queerest Insurrection (Mary Nardini gang, 2014) 16
- War in the Streets: Tactical Lessons from the Global Civil War, Vol. 1 17
- We Don't Need "Safety" — We Need to Escalate! (Fire Ant Movement Defense, 2024) 18
- send me a PDF
- Why Riot? (Phillip Neel, 2014) 19
§ About ^
These zines were presented by the state as evidence in the Prairieland trial. (Visit Support Prairieland Defendants for zines about the case.) Des was sentenced to 30 years in prison just because he moved a box of them from one place to another.
While the entire prosecution is clearly a steaming pile of politically motivated fascist bullshit, the charges against people whose only connection to the inciting incident was association with the participants --- and whose only crime was being an anarchist --- are particularly galling.
The sentences these political prisoners have received are downright farcical. The fash want to make an example of them; the judge even admitted he sentenced them with the goal of suppressing their political views.
We're in the midst of another red and black scare. The state calls us "terrorists" because projection is the only trick fascists know. They would like us to be scared to read dissident literature, to share our minds, and to stand up to their campaign of senseless violence and cruelty.
They aren't as powerful as they seem. They're afraid of zines.
And if you can spend the rest of your life in prison for reading, you don't have anything to lose by fighting back.
§ Sources ^
You can order a pack of physical zines to support the Prairieland defendants from Firestorm Books. Their list of fifteen was my starting point (I've only added another four to that total so far). It's difficult to get information about what was presented at the trial since it was held in a secretive kangaroo court.
A few zines are visible in a grainy photo in the criminal complaint filed against Des, including one Firestorm didn't list (Another Critique of Insurrectionalism). I found a few more by searching notes taken in court by supporters: Destroying White Nationalism, I Don't Bash Back I Shoot First (mentioned several times), and Why Riot?.
The defendants' participation in the Emma Goldman Book Club was discussed quite a bit.
Elizabeth was sentenced to 50 years in federal prison ... all because, as she put it: "They didn't like my book club." Her laugh doesn't quite reach her eyes.
There are photos of their library online, but it will massively expand the size of this project so I haven't added them yet.
You are strongly encouraged to start your own Emma Goldman Book Club and/or Prairieland Zine Library.
§ Process ^
For each zine, I used a pre-existing copy whenever possible. It was easy to find print-ready PDFs, but for some I couldn't find a PDF appropriate for reading onscreen; for these I used ZineLibrary.org's zine de-imposer to generate a reading copy.
HTML versions were usually not available anywhere except The Anarchist Library, but the quality was acceptable, so these I just tweaked a little so they'll cooperate with cell phones and dark mode. When I couldn't get the HTML from TAL, I made it by hacking up the HTML from a webpage. When all I had was a PDF, I first used pdftohtml, but I was unhappy with the results and started rebuilding them completely. I've finished manually re-creating De-Arrest Primer and It's Vacant, Take It!; War in the Streets is still pdftohtml output.
I couldn't find any PDF versions of We Don't Need "Safety". Pandoc's defaults were bad and I didn't feel like messing with LaTeX, so that one doesn't have a PDF. If you have one, or know of other zines I should add, email me.
§ Addendum: Song Did Nothing Wrong ^
I see a lot of people who are outraged by this sham trial... except for the charges against Champagne Song.
There is nothing wrong with shooting your gun to defend your friends from a maniac threatening to murder them, especially when you point it toward the ground so as to miss and frighten them off, deliver only an accidental ricochet to the shoulder, and fail to kill or seriously injure the assailant.
As horrific as the outcome of this case has been so far, we should be glad Song was there or people might be dead. It's easy to armchair quarterback after the fact, but we should be clear that the real problem is the concentration camp they were protesting and its bloodthirsty guards.
§ ACAB ^
BE GAY DO CRIME
CHINGA LA MIGRA
ANARCHY MEANS ATTACK