In anarchist and left discourse, nothing is more contested, more hated, than the notion of power. For the most part power is regarded as the main threat to freedom, horizontality, autonomy, non-conformity, and multiplicity. But what if it is precisely what we need to protect these? What if we already have that power but are threatened and persuaded out of it? What if force, lies, and violence are what threaten our freedom, diversity, self-determination, and most of all our communities? What might clarify what Hannah Arendt called the opposition between power and violence?

Fred Dewey is a writer, organizer, teacher, and book editor, publisher, and designer. His The School of Public Life (doormats, 2015) examines the U.S. history of freedom and slavery, chronicles his (successful) struggle to help get grass roots, neighborhood councils in Los Angeles city law, and discusses Southern examples of politics in the Montgomery bus boycott, and of culture, through the historic Black Mountain College. His recent pamphlet, From an Apparent Contradiction in Arendt to a Working Group Method (re: public, 2016), examines why the thinker Hannah Arendt is important. He's led public reading groups on Arendt's work in Berlin, London, Oslo, and Los Angeles and splits his time between WNC, L.A., and Europe. He directed Beyond Baroque Literary/Arts Center in L.A. from 1996 to 2010.