Chaz Bufe

Charles Bufe, better known as Chaz Bufe, is a contemporary American anarchist author. Bufe primarily writes on the problems faced by the modern anarchist movement (as in his pamphlet "Listen, Anarchist!"), and also on atheism, music theory and intentional community.

Life

Chaz Bufe is principally known as an anarchist publisher, distributor and occasional author. Originally from Arizona, he was influenced by the anarchist magazine The Match! published by Fred Woodworth in Tucson, AZ. In the early 1980s, he moved to the San Francisco Bay Area to enroll in the music department at the University of California (Berkeley), from which he received a master's degree in January 1985. He became a member of the anarchist Bound Together Bookstore Collective in San Francisco. He also acted as the East Bay distributor of Processed World, a magazine which claimed to be written by and for "dissident office workers." It described itself as anti-authoritarian, but became controversial for its alleged lack of internal democracy and overreactions to criticism. After failing to persuade Bound Together to ban a publication by Processed World critic Bob Black, Bufe resigned from the collective, later writing "Listen, Anarchist!" an attack on his political enemies. Anarchists Brian Kane and Lawrence Jarach replied with their own pamphlet, "Hold Your Tongue, Demagogue."

After receiving his degree, Bufe founded See Sharp Press in 1984^[1] and then relocated to Tucson, Arizona. Some See Sharp publications are reprints of classical anarchist texts. Others are by Bufe himself, mostly music instruction/reference works and atheist titles, including a critique of Alcoholics Anonymous^[2] and two pamphlets on ideas about a future anarchist or utopian society. One was "A Future Worth Living: Thoughts on Getting There" (1998), which reveals the influence of the German New Age commune ZEGG. Bufe returned to the utopian theme in Design Your Own Utopia (2004), co-authored by "Doctress Neutopia" (Libby Hubbard, from the ZEGG commune) which mostly consisted of a questionnaire addressed to would-be utopians. Bob Black wrote critical reviews of these pamphlets ("Bufe Goof," available at www.inspiracy.com, and "Views from Nowhere," available at www.theanarchylibrary.com).

Bufe has written several hundred aphorisms under the pseudonym "Robert Tefton" which appear in an anthology he edited, "The Heretics's Handbook of Quotations" (self-published in 1998, and in an expanded edition in 2001). Its model is The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce. Bufe has released a volume, The Devil's Dictionaries consisting of quotations by Bierce and himself. The latter book has been referenced by IslamOnline, recommended by Cape Cod Times^[3] and he has been called "the Ambrose Bierce of our time" from AlterNet.^[4][5] Bufe is also a musician, and author of An Understandable Guide to Music Theory, now in its third edition.^[6] He translated the only English-language collection of the writings of Ricardo Flores Magón – Flores Magón Dreams of Freedom: A Ricardo Flores Magón Reader – and translated the Spanish language book Cuban Anarchism: The History of a Movement by Frank Fernández (writer) into English as well as Venezuela: Revolution as Spectacle, by Rafael Uzcategui.

Publications

• Fabbri, Luigi; Charles Bufe (1987). Bourgeois influences on anarchism. San Francisco: Acrata. OCLC 40358389. 
• Bufe, Charles (1987). Astrology : fraud or superstition?. San Francisco: See Sharp Press. OCLC 22929767. 
• Bufe, Charles (1987). Listen, Anarchist!. Tucson, Arizona: The Match!. OCLC 22807295. 
• Bufe, Charles (1988). Alcoholics Anonymous: Cult or Cure?. See Sharp Press. ISBN 978-1884365126. 
• Bufe, Chaz (1994). An Understandable Guide to Music Theory. San Francisco: See Sharp Press. ISBN 1-884365-00-0. 
• Bierce, Ambrose; Chaz Bufe (1995). The Devil's Dictionaries. San Francisco: See Sharp Press. ISBN 1-884365-06-X. 
• Haldeman-Julius, E; Charles Bufe (1993). The Meaning of atheism. Tucson, Arizona: See Sharp Press. OCLC 55749463. 
• Bufe, Charles (1998). A future worth living : thoughts on getting there. Tucson, Arizona: See Sharp Press. OCLC 46823347. 
• Bufe, Charles (2000). 20 reasons to abandon Christianity. Tucson, Arizona: See Sharp Press. OCLC 45056549. 
• Fernandez, Frank (2001). Cuban Anarchism. San Francisco: See Sharp Press. ISBN 1-884365-19-1. 
• Bufe, Charles; Doctress Neutopia (2002). Design your own utopia. Tucson, Arizona: See Sharp Press. OCLC 52101028. 
• Bufe, Charles (2003). Anarchism : what it is & what it isn't. Tucson, Arizona: See Sharp Press. OCLC 56972828. 
• Bufe, Charles (2004). You call this freedom?. Tucson, Arizona: See Sharp Press. OCLC 54442735. 
• Magón, Ricardo Flores (2005). Chaz Bufe; Mitchell Cowen Vertor, eds. Dreams of Freedom: A Ricardo Flores Magón Reader. Stirling: AK Press. ISBN 978-1-904859-24-6. 
• Bufe, Chaz (2006). God's hit list : abominations and death penalties in the Bible. Tucson, Arizona: See Sharp Press. OCLC 70855645. 

Criticism

"Listen Anarchist!" was concerned in part with the conflict (1984-1985) between anarchist writer Bob Black and the San Francisco magazine "Processed World", for which Bufe was the East Bay distributor. As a member of the Bound Together anarchist bookstore collective in San Francisco, Bufe sought to ban from the store "The Baby and the Bathwater" (1985), Black's book-length version of the conflict. Bufe was opposed by, among others, Lawrence Jarach, who was later the co-author (with Brian Kane) of "Hold Your Tongue Demagogue: Turning a Deaf Ear to Bufe-oonery,"^[7] a rejoinder to "Listen, Anarchist!". When the collective decided to continue to carry both Black's book and "Processed World," Bufe resigned from it.

Bufe's "A Future Worth Living" and "Design Your Own Utopia" were critically reviewed by Bob Black in "Bufe Goof" and "Views From Nowhere", respectively.^[8][9]

References

External links

• Bufe's See Sharp Press.