ANARCHIST HISTORY:

HISTORY OF THE BC COUNTER CULTURE:

As they say in Conan the Barbarian, "in the dreaming West" a new anarchist history site is up and about "to tread the jewelled ruling class beneath its sandaled feet". The History of the BC Counter Culture is the latest effort of long time anarchist activist Larry Gambone, and it aims to collect what might be termed the "prehistory" of the anarchist movement in the Canadian province of BC. Already featuring 'Comox Project 1965', 'Coops and Communes', 'Demos and Riots', IWW and Alternative Unions' and 'Odds and Ends'. Larry is on the lookout for more material from those early days. Go to the site to see how you can contribute. At least in Canada the revival of anarchism in the sixties (and to some degree the late 50s) dates pretty much to the counter-culture of that time. This was nowhere truer than in BC. In Saskatchewan, where Molly had the misfortune of growing up, anarchism's revival was far more a product of the New Left. Those, however, who came to anarchism via the counter-culture quite often went on to be amongst the most productive and useful members of the anarchist community, and it was they who passed the torch on to the new anarchists who came out of the punk subculture. And let me say the torch burned far brighter when they handed it on than in did in the dark days of the 50s. Vancouver, and BC in general, later went on to become the epicentre of the growing new anarchism in the 70s and 80s. The movement today is far larger, both in terms of numbers and in terms of geographic extent, but the early pioneers of the movement in BC have some great history and good stories to tell. Check it out, and help with your own stories if you have any.

While your at it have a look at some of the other sites that Larry either manages or contributes to:

The Porkupine Blog

Red Lion Press

Any Time Now Zine

Vancouver Yippie (another history site-mm)

Nanaimo Anarchist Network

Anarchism Canada (a list site)

There are also a number of texts by Larry Gambone in this site's 'Texts' section, and other of his writings can be found in such places as the Anarchist Archives or the Spunk Press library (see Molly's Links section)