'Anarchist Cookbook' author urges publisher to stop printing book

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Houston Chronicle

'Anarchist Cookbook' author urges publisher to stop printing book
| December 17, 2013 | Updated: December 17, 2013 1:26pm

The teen who commited suicide after critically wounding a 17-year-old classmate inside a Colorado high school last week had been reading "The Anarchist Cookbook" in the days leading up to the shooting, according to NBC news.

The book was first published in 1971 in response to counter-culture opposition to the Vietnam War, says author William Powell, who was 19 at the time.

But the book should no longer be published, the Powell told NBC news during an interview after the latest shooting.

"The Anarchist Cookbook' should go quietly and immediately out of print," said Powell to NBC, addng, "it is no longer responsible or defensible to keep it in print."


Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/article/Anarchist-Cookbook-author-urges-publisher-to-5072159.php?cmpid=hpts

[shenmue]

1. I used to have a copy

I gave it to a friend. No, I didn't blow stuff up. It was just very interesting to read.

[ramapo]

8. It was interesting

Don't know what happened to my copy. It probably went out in the trash with Steal this Book.

Maybe I'll download the pdf for a trip down memory lane.

[1000words]

2. The genie is out of the bottle, though

Most of the information included in the book is readily available elsewhere, ceasing publication would have a minimal effect.

[jberryhill]

3. Not much of a "genie" in that book, really

Unless "Anarchist" means "person who likes to be featured on Tosh.0's lead-in segment".

[1000words]

7. LOL ... good point.

With regards to the Darwin awards, ceasing publication would be a significant blow.

[7962]

9. Ha! Darwin awards are always such a read!

[mike_c]

4. ahh, that brings back memories of my misspent youth....

Scanned PDF's are available online, of course. It's the Anarchist's Cookbook, after all. Oh, and I just downloaded it onto my office computer just to give the NSA something to do.

on edit: If you too want to set off alarms somewhere, the Cookbook can be downloaded from http://ge.tt/40AyPpM/v/0. This is the original, not any of the later versions.

[Ace Acme]

12. Can't take it out of print

Tracking who buys it on Amazon or downloads it from a NSA-hosted website just provides too damn much good intelligence.

Honey pot tactics and all that.

[1000words]

13. Didn't think of that ...

I'd say you are onto something.

[jtuck004]

17. These files are not available until tomorrow, because the owner has reached the

daily traffic limit

I think I still have a hard copy or two around somewhere, along with the other like-minded texts....

[Archae]

5. In the mid 70's my chemistry teacher read that book...

He called it a recipe book for blowing yourself up.

[dookers]

6. Had a copy

Horribly written and most of the information in it is terribly out of date. My buddy who has EOD experience told me that half of the stuff in it doesn't work and the other half is likely to injure you.

[Gothmog]

10. Back in 1973 my high school debate squad had a copy

One of my debate partners made a form of explosive described in this book without killing himself. He did damage an irrigation culvert with his experiment

[Mojo Electro]

11. I remember having one of those.

If I remember right, most of it was total nonsense and would never actually work.

[jberryhill]

14. yep

IIRC it also had instructions for getting high from nutmeg.

[Daemonaquila]

19. Yup.

I got a copy in my teens. It was weak sauce. I learned how to make much more interesting things that go boom from reading science experiment manuals and kids' activity books from around 1950-1960.

[DeSwiss]

15. Those who forget the past.......

...etc., etc., etc. But then the movie ''Taxi Driver'' made another guy shoot a President. And much earlier ''Birth of a Nation'' caused the reformation of the KKK and started a swarm of lynchings all across America. There are no end to the triggers out there. We've made so many of them.

What we need is to concentrate on getting rid of the dynamite. You make that with callousness, healthcare bankruptcy, tax-breaks for the rich, quantitative easing, austerity and unemployment, under-employment, forever-in-debt, illegal foreclosures, immoral foreclosures, and more and more poverty.

- You mix enough of it together and it'll explode. A trigger all by itself won't shoot anything. It's in the powder.

K&R

[Aristus]

16. Stephen King did the same thing.

He asked his publisher to stop printing his school-shooting early novel, Rage, published under his pseudonym Richard Bachman, when school shootings really took off in the '90's.

Don't think it did much good, though. School shootings are a weekly occurrence now. And nothing can stop that.

[Daemonaquila]

18. Only "indefensible" because it's not very good.

The AC is at best an interesting piece of history, not practical advice for the most part. It's just as silly to call for pulling out of print as it is to call for banning video games. It isn't, never was, and never will be the problem.

[marshall]

20. It took him 42 years to realize this?

Human nature is exactly the same.

[AmericanErrorist]

21. He's been saying this for a while now

He lost the copyright at the initial publication, and then became a pacifist.

[idwiyo]

22. Just ordered a copy for myself. I bet it's avalable for download too, somewhere.