Dear AK Press Collective,

Are we supposed to feel grateful that you didn’t decide to ban us for unnamed, invisible “political disagreements” before your pronouncement of March 17, 2008?

Implicitly holding up yourselves and your project as the exemplars of anarchist morality in contrast to us and ours is the height of sectarian arrogance. Alleging that our magazine “runs the risk of putting Ramsey and others…in a potentially dangerous situation” is naive at best. As he does currently with PM Press, Ramsey was already known as the main vendor of AK Press books and parapher- nalia at public events. In addition he had a long stint on the editorial board of Tikkun, a social-democratic, soft-zionist periodical that has powerful enemies among right-wing politicians and lobbyists. These very public endeavors have made him a much more likely target for surveillance and/or scrutiny than any three paragraphs in the letters section of Anarchy. Even so, the much more dire threat to anyone’s immigration status comes from the PATRIOT Acts, not from a century-old, superseded anti-anarchist immigration law that has been used fewer times in the past 100 years than the number of ICE raids in the past 100 days.

Regardless of the extreme unlikelihood that we will get any response, we would be curious to know, just for the record, which statements concerning AK Press titles/authors that have been published in Anarchy in the past 15 years were:

• one-sided (meaning what? That we didn’t ask anyone for a pre-publication rebuttal?);
• malicious (meaning what? That our reviewers took seriously your stated objectives—to publish and distribute “radical” material; that you are anarchists, which “is refected” in the books you publish—and found certain titles/authors lacking such credentials?);
• demonstrably false (meaning what? That you and your allies knew them to be so blatantly untrue that any public rebuttal was unnecessary?).

Considering the plethora of items in the AK Press catalog that have only a tenuous (if any) connection to anarchist ideas and experi- ments, it would be hilarious indeed if our magazine were banned for “political disagreements,” while the works and images of such noted anarchists [sic!] as Che Guevara, Angela Davis, Alexander Cockburn (ad nauseum) are heavily advertised and promoted.

The printing of all letters in Anarchy regardless of content has been a policy of the magazine since its founding 28 years ago. The opinions and observations in those letters, however stellar or fawed, are solely those of the letter-writers, not the editors. If you had ever really read our magazine, you might have noticed that in every issue there is this statement: The views expressed in the articles, graphics, letters, etc published in Anarchy do not necessarily refect the views of C.A.L. Press or the editorial & production staff. The only “editorial decision” we make in regard to letters is to print them. Publication of a letter to the editor is not an endorsement of its content.

The “paranoia and divisiveness” you perceive in the anarchist milieu are the responsibility of us all, not just those involved in publishing Anarchy magazine. The seething problem of sectarianism is no stranger to the projects and people within the orbit of AK Press; Ramsey has publicly, and on several occasions, declared that he is sectarian and proud of it.

When you say you’ve “distributed Anarchy for over a decade” what exactly does that mean? A desultory effort to make its avail- ability known in your catalogs? We remember seeing one reference to the magazine in the past seven or eight years. If your reaction had been restricted to Anarchy’s availability through AK Press, we would not have cared; your collective will always make the most appropriate business decisions for the continued proftability of AK Press.

However, Ramsey was successful in banning Anarchy #65 at Bound Together Books and Bluestockings (and who knows where else?); those efforts are much more far-reaching and are certain to have an effect on the long-term viability of our project. His deci- sion to use his economic and political infuence around the country to punish our magazine is, from an anarchist perspective, an objectionable use of personal power. Ramsey and his allies made sure that Anarchy #65 would never be found at some of the most likely places where anarchists might pick it up. Not distributing Anarchy is one thing; being actively involved in suppressing it is something else altogether. Is that part of your anarchist morality?

Considering that your March 17, 2008 letter was the frst-ever offcial communication from you to us, your statement about a “relationship” is bizarre. Have you changed “The personal is political” into “The personal is economic”? The personal might be political, but that doesn’t mean that everything political should be taken personally.

In the weeks and months after #65 was printed, threats of intimidation and/or violence were directed at various people involved with Anarchy. A dire warning was even issued to one elderly veteran anarchist who is not involved in the production of the magazine, but who is a personal friend of ours. What does your anarchist morality say about that?

Morality is clearly a big issue for you in terms of arriving at what surely must have been (or perhaps not) a diffcult decision. So much so that the numerous unknown “political disagreements” that have bothered members of your collective over the years didn’t make you stop carrying our magazine; so much so that the “repeated” inferred transgressions that have been published in Anarchy over the years didn’t provoke your banning of the magazine. What does matter is the invocation of an obsolete federal immigration statute in a letter to the editors, neither written by nor endorsed by anyone in the production and editorial group. Disagreements between anarchists can be discussed, and resolutions are possible; morality doesn’t allow any such fexibility.

If all the forgoing examples are indicative of anarchist morality, you can keep it.