Banned Book Club: Anarchist Cookbook

Watched the American Anarchist documentary on Netflix released after the author's death and was moved by the irony of the situation.  Angry 19 year old pursues his bucket list objective of writing a book, thinking himself cleverly subversive in repackaging obscure but public knowledge in more incendiary easier access prose, book sells better than expected and despite his tirade against the oppressive power of private property he could use the royalties money, original publisher gets bought out and he sells his rights to acquirer, becomes a teacher focused on at risk youth, book starts to be connected with terrorist acts perpetrated by at risk youth, has lost publishing rights he would need to discontinue the book.  It is a tragically great story.

Plus lately I've been interested in people who seem to have done a public 180 on their thinking about a given topic (i.e. Neil Strauss: The Game-->The Truth, Tucker Max: I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell--> Mate, etc.).  

Prefatory note on Anarchism today-- By "today" he means 1970.  After brief delight at the cozily familiar anarchist "zine" feel (i.e. Days of War, Nights of Love), this chapter quickly deteriorated into Nixonian era current event name dropping and overly theoretical rants about Socialism, Marxism, and the parallels or lack thereof between WWII and Nam.  I had to bushwhack through persistent flashbacks to UofChicago core social science curriculum shot through with labyrinthine German 19th century exposition and the hope the professor wouldn't cold call on me to express my opinion on the topic.  It is too bad the author didn't want to be involved in updating this to make it more accessible to readers living after the soviet collapse.  Anarchy as I understand it is anti-hierarchy or more generally anti-authoritarian ways of organizing society.  Anarchy as he defines it is creating disruptive chaos in hopes of destabilizing the oppressive state and discontinuing the institution of private property which must be at fault because you feel alienated.  (OK, that might not be the most sympathetic interpretation of the thrust of his argument).  I'm not sure I'm on board with this particular creed, but it was helpful to work out for myself what my specific objections were.  

Chapter One: Drugs-- By now, I'm skimming and questioning whether what I am doing actually counts as "reading" to cross this banned book off my own bucket list.  Interesting acknowledgement of the paradox that drugs can numb would-be revolutionaries into complacency and should be avoided, but drugs can also lift some of the cultural constraints of one's world view and open up the possibility for exploring plausible alternatives to the status quo.  Ironic his view of utopia includes a transition into a time when no one is imprisoned for drug possession as it seems like that is what the decriminalization movement is starting to achieve.  The Pot scene has evolved dramatically since the 70's and Youtube would be a far more practical resource.  He seems to be afraid of needles.  I am not sure I have a large enough social circle to consume 15 pounds of bananas so I can render their skins into a psychedelic.  Not surprising for a 19 year old author, but curious there is very little discussion use of drugs for suicide beyond the standard cautions about overdosing, since suicide seemed to be another popular reason for banning books these days.

Chapter Two: Electronics, Sabotage, and Surveillance-- Completely skimmed this as feature-loaded smartphones and cameras have completely changed the surveillance landscape.  Shoplifting may also morph into various forms of fraud with the shift towards digital retail rather than high tailing it into a nearby mass transit hub.  I'm not sure how many pre 1964 Chevies are still in working order to hot wire (but if we got into a Season 1 of Walking Dead highway gridlock zombie apocalypse situation, that would be a handy skill to have... maybe Echo will take over the ignition for us soon).  It seems like a more developed Social Engineering section (i.e. tv series Lie to Me) could be useful and timeless to both the good guys and the baddies (although I guess we all think we are good guys).  

Chapter Three:  Natural, Nonlethal and Lethal Weapons-- I was only interested in what he had to say about air guns (apparently nothing unless they are the same as bolt action rifles) as I'm not entirely sure how deadly DH's trash panda deterrent would be if it fell into the wrong or unskilled hands.  Amusingly convenient to see that the "How to make tear gas in your basement" section is immediately followed by "Defense and medical treatment for gases."  Odd there isn't a first aid section following the knives and guns section.  

Chapter Four: Explosives and Booby Traps-- What a fun way to learn chemistry concepts.  At this point, my mind has completely wandered to the Warren Buffett documentary I watched last night and the concept of buying "cigar butts" or companies that are on the decline but if you time your purchase right, still have one good smoke left in them, as his wife summarized it.  I also got to thinking about the Drawdown book on carbon sequestration I'm concurrently reading and wondering what a great investor someone with deep macgyver-like understanding of materials science and how things work (like this applied chemistry chapter) could be at anticipating which old guard industries still have some "good smoke" of assets that would be of use to future industries.  

Postscript:  Was I the only intrigued by this Vera point system that determines whether you qualify for a summons or go to a jail until your court date?  It had me wondering about a lot of implicit race/sex/age/etc-isms built into the system and if there was a statistical basis for them.  Sure, prior record is a plausible indicator, but employment duration?  family ties?  duration in residence?  

So I think I've pretty much scratched my "banned book" subversive itch for the time being.  Hopefully I'm not on some watch list for this purchase.