"The Last of the Masters" (aka "Protection Agency") is a science fiction novelette by Philip K. Dick. The original manuscript of the story was received by the Scott Meredith Literary Agency on July 15, 1953,^[1] and the story was published by the Hanro Corporation in the final issue of Orbit Science Fiction in 1954. It has since been reprinted in several Philip K. Dick story collections, beginning with The Golden Man in 1980.

"The Last of the Masters" depicts a society 200 years after a global anarchist revolution has toppled the national governments of the world (the exact year is unstated). Civilization has stagnated due to the loss of scientific knowledge and industry during the now-legendary revolt. Elsewhere, the last state, governing a highly centralized and efficient society, conceals itself from the Anarchist League, a global militia preventing the recreation of any government. When three agents of the League are sent to investigate rumors of the microstate's existence, the government arranges for them to be killed, leading to the death of one and the capture of another. Tensions rapidly escalate after the agents of the state realize that the third has escaped. Assuming he will report the state's existence, the government mobilizes for total war. In actuality, the surviving anarchist elects to attempt his comrades' rescue and assassinate the head of state: the last surviving "government robot".

The primary theme of the story is the conflict between anarchism and statism, the political and ethical dimensions of which are explored through the characters' dialogue. Though the attention the story received was limited prior to the author's death in 1982, it has since seen greater circulation in Philip K. Dick story collections, and has been reviewed and analyzed for its postmodern critique of technology and its political implications. (read more...)

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Credit: Carlos Latuff

Katie Sierra in the Land of the Free by political cartoonist Carlos Latuff. The Katie Sierra suspension controversy occurred in 2001 when anarcho-pacifist Sierra faced harassment for opposing the 2001 War in Afghanistan; anarcho-pacifists reject violence and militarism, and seek non-violent social revolution.

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• ...that just three years after it was founded, the Spanish labor union Solidaridad Obrera (pictured) morphed into the Confederación Nacional del Trabajo?
• ...that Paul Feyerabend's theory of epistemological anarchism in the philosophy of science led him to be labeled the "worst enemy of science" by his detractors?
• ...that Nationalism and Culture, the magnum opus of German anarchist Rudolf Rocker, was lauded by three Nobel Prize laureates?
• ...that during the Spanish Civil War Solidaridad Obrera, published by an anarchist labor union, was Spain's highest-circulation newspaper?
• ...that prior to the emergence of anarcho-pacifism at the outbreak of World War II, there was a general agreement among anarchists that violence was inevitable?

“ My second reason for not repeating EMMA GOLDMANN’S words is, that I, as an anarchist, have no right to advise another to do anything involving a risk to himself; nor would I give a fillip for an action done by the advice of some one else, unless it is accompanied by a well-argued, well-settled conviction on the part of the person acting, that it really is the best thing to do. Anarchism, to me, means not only the denial of authority, not only a new economy, but a revision of the principles of morality. It means the development of the individual as well as the assertion of the individual. IT means self-responsibility, and not leader worship. I say it is your business to decide whether you will starve and freeze in sight of food and clothing, outside of jail, or commit some overt act against the institution of property and take your place beside TIMMERMANN and GOLDMANN. And in saying this I mean to cast no reflection whatever upon Miss Goldmann for doing otherwise. She and I hold many differing views on both Economy and Morals; and that she is honest in hers she has proven better than I have proven mine. Miss Goldmann is a communist; I am an individualist. She wishes to destroy the right of property, I wish to assert it. I make my war upon privilege and authority, whereby the right of property, the true right in that which is proper to the individual, is annihilated. She believes that co-operation would entirely supplant competition; I hold that competition in one form or another will always exist, and that it is highly desirable it should. But whether she or I be right, or both of us be wrong, of one thing I am sure; the spirit which animates EMMA GOLDMAN is the only one which will emancipate the slave from his slavery, the tyrant from his tyranny — the spirit which is willing to dare and suffer. ” —Voltairine de Cleyre, In Defense of Emma Goldmann and the Right of Expropriation, December 16, 1893.

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• 1901 - First issue of the revived Jewish anarchist newspaper Arbeter Fraint
• 1984 - Louise Crowley dies, Seattle, Wa. Avid kite-maker, anarchist activist, produced the Seattle Group Bulletin.

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