Brainpolice has an excellent essay that attacks the underlying premises of libertarian defenses of corporate personhood: "A problem I often run into is that some people appear to act as if property is primary or axoimatic at the expense of life and liberty. But a coherant theory of rights does not place property above life and liberty, property is contextual to respecting the right to life and liberty. Property rights does not grant one a legitimate right to violate someone else's right to life and liberty, and it is a grave error to conceptualize literally everything, such as personhood and responsibility, as a property right. The idea that personhood is a property right to be bought and sold is part of the very basis for slavery of all kinds, and you cannot argue for a notion of "voluntary slavery" without destroying the inalienability of rights. Trying to turn literally everything into a propertarian question is to nonsensically expand the concept of property to absurdity."
Kevin Carson addresses the long term systemic changes that need to happen for our society to become sustainable and a few ideas on how to reach them.
Glenn Greenwald addresses some troubling but familiar moves by the Obama administration to hold onto unjust executive power.
The thinning of mainstream journalism has left authorities free to trample rights without accountability.
Who enables the massive governmental spending on violent policies? Which key organization promotes the growing concentration of power in corporations? What entity pumped out more free money for big banks and connected businesses than any other bank or country in the world?
On March 19, 2009 the Richmond Left Libertarian Alliance invites you to participate in a demonstration that aims to tie our corporate militarism to the economic meltdown of the past months. We will assemble first at the Virginia Employment Commission at 4:30 PM to demonstrate solidarity with those suffering from the economic downturn. At 5:00 PM we will march to Kanawha Plaza (8th and Canal) to stage a protest against endless war and economic privilege right in front of the Richmond office that helps makes it all possible.
How many of you have cited work done by Kevin Carson in discussing left libertarianism with others? Well, we all know Kevin has done some truly groundbreaking work on economics, organization theory, and much more. The amazing thing is that he's done all this on his own dime in his spare moments. Now think about how much more he and other rigorous anarchists and libertarians could do if they were paid for their work!
You have the opportunity to do that now. Go to the Center for a Stateless Society and help out with their fundraising drive. The money goes directly to supporting research that we all can use to better make the case for market anarchism.
I've gotten you guys all wrong. When I read Rothbard and Mises, I saw two intelligent gentlemen doing politics and economics. My takeaway from their work was along the lines of, "Here are some more ideas with which to approach the problems of the world."
Apparently, I read them all wrong. The Austrian economists provided a model designed to eliminate all conflict from the human experience. They were actually evangelists for a new order of private property as a cleansing, redemptive force to bring peace on earth and goodwill to all men. All you have to do is apply their theories, and nobody would ever be hungry again; no people would ever be displaced again; supreme justice would rule and all misery would be vanquished. War and fighting would be swept from the earth because people would finally understand the sublime universal truthfulness of "this is mine, that is yours". Austrian economics is gospel, not theory.
At least, one would think this by reading the comments here.
It's not that high quality newspapers are being driven out of business by low quality blogs; it's that newspaper quality has been diminishing for years, and blogs can do for free what newspapers want to charge for. If you want to save your newspaper, start doing original, community oriented, non-corporate-shill reporting instead of cutting journalistic corners.
Wearing my Obama skeptic shirt to the BioDiesel show last night spawned one disappointing conversation. I kept trying to explain my postion: Obama's not radical or leftist enough, he's perpetuating a failed economic system through these bailouts and investment projects, we need to reconsider the premises or our system rather than patch it up. Eventually I had to clarify my anarchist principles, and I wish I could have read this Proudhon passage verbatim to the guy:
To be GOVERNED is to be watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured, commanded, by creatures who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so. To be GOVERNED is to be at every operation, at every transaction noted, registered, counted, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, prevented, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be place[d] under contribution, drilled, fleeced, exploited, monopolized, extorted from, squeezed, hoaxed, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, vilified, harassed, hunted down, abused, clubbed, disarmed, bound, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, derided, outraged, dishonored. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality.
P. J. Proudhon, General Idea of the Revolution in the Nineteenth Century, translated by John Beverly Robinson (London: Freedom Press, 1923), pp. 293-294.
I'm not against Obama per se. I simply don't want to be governed.
Read more...
I haven't forgotten about those who have asked for a better explanation of the Law of One which I mention every once in a while. An introduction is still forthcoming, I promise. But until then, perhaps this excerpt from the source material may help the reader grasp the spirit of this work.
Questioner: For the general development of the reader of this book, could you state some of the practices or exercises to perform to produce an acceleration toward the Law of One?
Answer: ....Exercise One. This is the most nearly centered and useable within your illusion complex. The moment contains love. That is the lesson/goal of this illusion or density. The exercise is to consciously see that love in awareness and understanding distortions. The first attempt is the cornerstone. Upon this choosing rests the remainder of the life-experience of an entity. The second seeking of love within the moment begins the addition. The third seeking empowers the second, the fourth powering or doubling the third. As with the previous type of empowerment, there will be some loss of power due to flaws within the seeking in the distortion of insincerity. However, the conscious statement of self to self of the desire to seek love is so central an act of will that, as before, the loss of power due to this friction is inconsequential.
Read more...
I'd heard this story of "whiteness" before, but this is a pretty powerful presentation of the concept. Stoked to check out the associated documentary! Just goes to show you that there's lots of true conspiracies around right out in the open.
I know it's been a while. Sorry. Anyway, this is great:
Jesse Helms and his ilk inject a bit of fresh blood into art which, for a moment, can imagine itself an insurrectionary force. The sad irony is that Helms really believes art can change the world. The NEA liberals think that all art should be permitted because, after all, it's only art.
- from the TAZ show, Feb 6 1993
Watch the whole thing here, it's a hoot.
Massive derivatives serve as financial amplifiers that can turn bad economic events into disasters.
ACORN takes a cue from anarchists to coordinate radical resistance against home foreclosures. As Brad Spangler puts it, the real property rights do not align with the titles in this case, and a government privileged cartel is benefiting at the expense of innocent people.
