Direct Action: Memoirs of an Urban Guerrilla is a book written by the Canadian anarchist Ann Hansen after she had been incarcerated for eight years for the bombing of the Litton Industries about the urban guerrilla Direct Action (also known as Squamish Five and Vancouver Five). In the book, Hansen concedes tactical mistakes, but maintains the necessity of militant opposition to capitalist states.
It was published in the US by the anarchist book publisher AK Press on January 1, 2001 and simultaneously in Canada by Between the Lines Books. An audio release on CD was released by the left-wing Canadian record label G7 Welcoming Committee Records on October 14, 2003 under the name Direct Action: Reflections on Armed Resistance and the Squamish Five.
Famous quotes containing the words direct, memoirs and/or urban:
“One should never direct people towards happiness, because happiness too is an idol of the market-place. One should direct them towards mutual affection. A beast gnawing at its prey can be happy too, but only human beings can feel affection for each other, and this is the highest achievement they can aspire to.”
—Alexander Solzhenitsyn (b. 1918)
“There are people who can write their memoirs with a reasonable amount of honesty, and there are people who simply cannot take themselves seriously enough. I think I might be the first to admit that the sort of reticence which prevents a man from exploiting his own personality is really an inverted sort of egotism.”
—Raymond Chandler (1888–1959)
“Commercial jazz, soap opera, pulp fiction, comic strips, the movies set the images, mannerisms, standards, and aims of the urban masses. In one way or another, everyone is equal before these cultural machines; like technology itself, the mass media are nearly universal in their incidence and appeal. They are a kind of common denominator, a kind of scheme for pre-scheduled, mass emotions.”
—C. Wright Mills (1916–62)