Issue #35 October 2020

Advanced Abstention. Democracy, Anarchism and Anti-Vote Candidates

· · ·

The Chariot of the State. Almanach du Père Peinard, 1897. (Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France)
The assassination of President Carnot. (Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France)

The attraction of the abstentionist candidate survived the turmoil. In March, 1896, Le Libertaire included an abstentionist manifesto and instructions for how to use it as a poster without having to pay for a stamp. Themes of the illegitimacy of authority and the farce of universal suffrage stayed substantially the same as the phantom candidate J. Bardin’s 1884 manifesto and the one used in Bordeaux in 1883.

The 1896 abstentionist manifesto in Le Libertaire. (Source: Bibliothèque nationale de France)
#35

October 2020

Introduction

The Octopus and the Machine

by Samuel Ludford

An Examination of Bullshit

by Elliott R. Crozat

Advanced Abstention. Democracy, Anarchism and Anti-Vote Candidates

by Trent Portigal

Angelic Progress — Walter Benjamin and Liberal Destruction

by Riley Clare Valentine