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[mattd]

Any laskar jihad terrorist out in the aussi bush can light more than a
little C4.Can also smuggle fruit fly interstate.
The horror...the horror.
AUSTRALIAN ANARCHIST HISTORY
DAVID ANDRADE 1859 - 1928
In May 1886, David Andrade, his brother Will Andrade and a few others formed
Australia9s first Anarchist group - The Melbourne Anarchist Club. David
Andrade was a regular contributor to the club9s journal Honesty. David and
his brother Will were booksellers, they had a newsagency in Brunswick. In
1890, they moved to Liberty Hall in Russell St, Melbourne and set up
Australia9s first anarchist bookshop and vegetarian restaurant.
Andrade was a writer, publisher, distributor, organiser, activist and
propagandist. Publications he wrote include Money - A Study of the Currency
Question 1887, An Anarchist Plan of Campaign 1888 and in 1892 he published
the novel, the Melbourne Riots and how Harry Holdfast and his friends
emancipated "the workers". David Andrade was a major participant in the
Melbourne Anarchist Club split in 1888, which revolved around the question
of "forcible reclamation and defence of liberty" - violence. David Andrade,
a pacifist, rejected the idea of the use of violence.
David Andrade, a man with incredible amounts of energy, became secretary of
the Unemployed Workers Association in Richmond in the early 18909s and in
1893 took up a selection of 10 acres in the Dandenong Ranges at Kallista,
where he cleared the land, built a house and worked as a storekeeper and
mailman. His second son, who was named Proudhon, was born on the selection
in 1893. Andrade and his family were burnt out in the fires of 1898. The
fires destroyed everything he had built up over his lifetime.
Seventeen years after he began his Anarchist Odyssey, the pressures became
too much to bear and David Andrade was admitted to the Yarra Bend asylum in
1903 and spent the next 25 years in various asylums, dying in the Ballarat
Mental Asylum in 1928. His two sons died in 1909 and 1913. Andrade, in
P.D. Gardner9s words, "was caught up with the various means by which the
idea could be turned into practice".
I9m deeply indebted to Mountain Echoes No.21 by P.D. Gardner for the
information for this article.
FIVE YEARS OF MOUNTAIN ECHOES (1-60) IS NOW AVAILABLE FROM NGARAK PRESS.
Write to Ngarak Press, PO Box 18 Ensay 3895 Australia or email Ngarak Press
at ngarak at bigpond.com for your copy of Five Years of Mountain Echoes.
BOOK REVIEW
ANARCHISM ARGUMENTS FOR AND AGAINST, Albert MELTZER, AK Press 7th Edition
2000. ISBN 1873176570
Albert Meltzer, a class struggle anarchist for over 60 years, first
published Anarchism Arguments for and Against in 1981. The booklet was
reissued five times between the time it was first published in 1981 and his
death in 1996. The 7th Edition is pocket size, 96 page, blockbuster, that
like the original, oscillates between brilliance and the mundane.
After an introduction by Sturat Christie on the life and times of Albert
Meltzer, Albert opens his account by giving a potted description of the
modern Anarchist Movement. In this introductory section, Meltzer leaves out
more than he puts in. The rest of the book is split into two distinct
sections, arguments for and against Anarchism. In the first section, he
examines the Inalienable Tenets of Anarchism, the class struggle,
organisation and Anarchism, the role of an Anarchist in an Authoritarian
Society and Bringing about the New Society.
His arguments about what anarchism is, are easy to understand, but patchy in
parts. His tendency to wander off in the midst of an argument to berate who
he considers are his anarchist enemies, diminishes his arguments about
anarchism. The strength of the book lies in the second part. In this part,
Objections to Anarchism, he clearly refutes the arguments of all those
political and social movements that have tried to confine anarchism to the
historical cyber bin. Sixty years of militant activity have clearly
sharpened Meltzer9s intellect to a point where he is able to shrivel the
arguments of all those elements in society that oppose Anarchism in a few
sharp sentences. Objections to Anarchism begins with Meltzer9s ideas on
Leadership and ends with the Reduction of Anarchism to Marginalisation. In
between, he lucidly and simply, overturns the objections of Marxists,
Capitalists, Fascists, Social-Democrats, Trade Union officials, sections of
the Feminist movement and tackles the mythical Average Persons Objection to
Anarchism.
Anarchism - Arguments for and Against is available for $10.70 (Australian)
from Anarres Books. Write to them at PO Box 150 East Brunswick 3057
Melbourne Australia or if you are cyber savvy email your order to
mailorder at anarres.org.au. Want Anarres latest catalogue? Write to them or
have a look at their web site www.anarres.org.au.