Allen’s Revolutionary Musings

photo of Dylan Spoelstra at Occupy Wall Street protest by Lawrence Schwartzwald

Following the on-going Occupy Wall Street movement, (a national movement now, it’s not just going to dissipate,”conveniently go away”), we thought it timely to post something we’ve been meaning to post for several weeks now, but hadn’t quite gotten around to – another fugitive Ginsberg interview (this one, courtesy of “Phil Blank”) – Allen on “Anarchism and Revolution”, circa 1994, from issue number one of Drunken Boat (note the Rimbaudian echo), an over-sized anarchist journal, edited by Max Blechman (City Lights published in 1999, Revolutionary Romanticism: A Drunken Boat Anthology). Allen is asked (and answers) six questions – “What has your involvement with anarchist-related movements been?”, “What was your work with (Abbie) Hoffman (that was) centered around the Yippies.?”, “What is your opinion of contemporary (circa 1994) anarchist movements..?”, “How far do you go with this delicate equipoise of means and ends?”,”Who would you model as having a coherent understanding and sound implementation of (such) means and ends..?” and “What revolutionary aspirations do you consider contingent for sustainable change..?” – Nearly two decades on, but some valuable nuggets here. Thanks, Phil, for passing this one on, and thanks too to Lawrence Schwartzwald for letting us use his photo.

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