Keith Preston writes the blog Attack the System, which attempts to tie together both left and right anarchism in a Pan-secessionism against the empire. While I come from a radically different perspective than Keith, I find his critique of the way many left anarchists are militant shock troops of liberalism to be a serious and disturbing critique as well as the Nietzschean critique of modernity to be taken seriously and not softened as it has been in French post-structuralism.
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Why I Don’t Vote – an Indigenous Perspective Reply
From American Indian/Alaska Native Attack the System
By Vincent Rinehart
In the article The Quandary of American Indian Quasi Dual Citizenship at Last Real Indians, the argument is made for American Indian participation in the American political process. The reason given is that Indian policy and political policy in general is made through the American political process, and that these policies effect us, our children and our lands, and that we ought to have a voice in that system. I don’t seek to specifically refute or debate Ms. Hopkins points, but they are an More…
Next generation of “Jetsons”-style machines could create guns, illegal keys, narcotics — and even organs Reply
Salon runs an article on 3d printing
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salon.com
Dennis Draeger
3-D printing’s radical new world
This article originally appeared on AlterNet.
3D printing is a hot topic right now, especially with reports of this incredible technology entering the consumer marketplace. The prices are dropping as more companies attempt consumer-grade machines. Is it time to start looking forward to a time when we all have a Star Trek-like replicator at home to produce everything we want, when we want it?
Paul Craig Roberts: The Elite Are Digging Their Own Grave Reply
Infowars.com
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Alex welcomes long-time returning guest and contributing writer Dr. Paul Craig Roberts to discuss the impact of the Euro’s instability on world markets amidst looming fears of Greece’s departure. They’ll also touch on why governments feel compelled to blame events like 9/11, the Euro decline, and other manufactured crises on scapegoats.
Marriage: the Health of the State? Reply
Thaddeus Russell makes his case.
Not that I think homosexuals should have to fit anyone’s Ideal Procrustean Queer mould, but do they not signal their social conservatism to the degree that they embrace this ritual?
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Back in the days when there was an identifiable counter-cultural movement in the United States, feminists, gay activists, and much of the left identified the institution of marriage as the foundation of conservative American culture and therefore something to oppose, not seek. But now, with more and more gays gaining official permission to marry, the left is celebrating a right that it used to compare with the right to be imprisoned.
Those who consider themselves to be the descendants of the counter-cultural left are hailing President Barack Obama’s sudden embrace of gay marriage as a great victory not just for equality and civil rights but also for freedom. Yet historically, those who invented and promoted legal marriage did so with the explicit purpose of restraining the liberty of all of us. Were Emma Goldman, Allen Ginsberg, and the drag queens who threw bricks at the cops at the Stonewall Inn alive today, they might well say that Americans have all become “the Man.”
Federal Judge Cockblocks NDAA Reply
So says Glenn Greenwald. Nice job, Miss Forrest!
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A federal district judge today, the newly-appointed Katherine Forrest of the Southern District of New York, issued an amazing ruling: one which preliminarily enjoins enforcement of the highly controversial indefinite provisions of the National Defense Authorization Act, enacted by Congress and signed into law by President Obama last December. This afternoon’s ruling came as part of a lawsuit brought by seven dissident plaintiffs — including Chris Hedges, Dan Ellsberg, Noam Chomsky, and Brigitta Jonsdottir — alleging that the NDAA violates ”both their free speech and associational rights guaranteed by the First Amendment as well as due process rights guaranteed by the Fifth Amendment of the United States Constitution.”
The ruling was a sweeping victory for the plaintiffs, as it rejected each of the Obama DOJ’s three arguments: (1) because none of the plaintiffs has yet been indefinitely detained, they lack “standing” to challenge the statute; (2) even if they have standing, the lack of imminent enforcement against them renders injunctive relief unnecessary; and (3) the NDAA creates no new detention powers beyond what the 2001 AUMF already provides.
Half Say View of Obama Not Affected by Gay Marriage Decision 1
Obama’s proclamation of support for same sex marriage solidified his support among Democrats, young people and college graduates. In general, Republicans, older people and less educated people responded unfavorably to the President. In comparison, the opinion of blacks remains relatively unchanged. The White House likely did not make this move without predicting a positive response from the public; particularly in an election year.
Roughly half of Americans (52%) say Barack Obama’s expression of support for gay marriage did not affect their opinion of the president. A quarter (25%) say they feel less favorably toward Obama because of this while 19% feel more favorably.
‘Big brother’ lamp posts can hear, see and bark ‘Obey!’ at you Reply
From RT.com
America welcomes a new brand of smart street lightning systems: energy-efficient, long-lasting, complete with LED screens to show ads. They can also spy on citizens in a way George Orwell would not have imagined in his worst nightmare.
With a price tag of $3,000+ apiece, according to an ABC report, the street lights are now being rolled out in Detroit, Chicago and Pittsburgh, and may soon mushroom all across the country.
Part of the Intellistreets systems made by the company Illuminating Concepts, they have a number of “homeland security applications” attached.
Each has a microprocessor “essentially similar to an iPhone,” capable of wireless communication. Each can capture images and count people for the police through a digital camera, record conversations of passers-by and even give voice commands thanks to a built-in speaker.
“The Policeman is Your Friend”? Psh! Reply
Article by Kevin Carson. I rather like Sean Gabb’s offshoot from it…
American pigs, so far as I can tell, have always been more piggish than the English pigs. But our own have become much more brutal and trigger-happy over the past few decades. For example, Mark Duggan may have been a nasty creature no one should have had as a neighbour. That didn’t give the pigs the right to drag him unarmed from a mini-cab and “execute” him on the tarmac. Then there was the electrician from Brazil and that man in East London who was shot to death while in possession of a chair leg. Oh, and there was the newspaper seller they accidentally beat to death at a demonstration the other year. I don’t suppose anyone remembers Stephen Waldorf and Cherry Groce (approx. spelling)?
Lately, of course, they have begun to enforce politically correct laws and policies with the same enthusiasm as the religious police in Iran. Even otherwise, there is systematic persecution of airgunners, and of real shooters before victim disarmament became total, and the harassment of motorists.
These people are not some thin blue line who keep us from being murdered in our beds. They are a ruling class militia recruited from the dregs of society, who, in exchange for keeping the rest of us in a continual state of low-level anxiety, are allowed to enrich themselves through bribe-taking and petty theft, and to entertain themselves with casual violence against unfashionable ethnic minorities and the white working classes.
I say abolish them, and replace them with armed citizen militias.
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Disturbing news from Occupy circles about NYPD practices these days — I mean, in addition to all those other NYPD practices we were already disturbed about.
David Graeber, a prominent anarchist involved with Occupy since its beginning, recounts seeing a woman friend in New York a few weeks ago, her hand in a cast. A cop had grabbed her breast, she said.
When she raised a fuss and screamed about the groping, the cops dragged her out of sight and started working her over. “Stop resisting!” they continued to shout, as they repeatedly slammed her body into the concrete. At some point she told them she was reaching over to get her glasses, which had come off in the scuffle. In the reptilian police mind, this justified pinning her hands behind her back and bending one wrist until it snapped.
Those familiar with police riots versus anti-globalization demonstrations and the more recent Occupy demonstrations, or who follow Radley Balko and CopBlock, are aware that sexual assault’s the only thing unusual about this case. As Graeber says, “arbitrary violence is nothing new. The apparently systematic use of sexual assault against women protestors is new.”
Of course sexual assault itself is hardly new as a weapon of social control, in historical terms. It appears in the arsenals of most authoritarian regimes — large-scale, premeditated use of rape for ethnic cleansing by Serbian forces in Bosnia, Egyptian troops using “virginity inspections” to humiliate female demonstrators taken into custody, and so on.
But it’s new in the recent American context. Graeber notes he heard no complaints of sexual assault by the NYPD before March 17; but there were several on that day (one woman reported being grabbed by five different officers), and they’ve continued since then. It’s hard to avoid the conclusion that this is a newly adopted “unofficial policy” of the police rank-and-file — just like covering badge numbers.
What we’re witnessing is the reality behind that Officer Friendly mask. This is what happens when the state perceives the general population as a threat, and drops the pretense that The Policeman is Your Friend.
People in predominantly black and Hispanic inner city neighborhoods — where police hardly bother to hide the fact that they see the local population as an occupied enemy that must be cowed by superior force — have seen this ugly face for decades. But in recent months, the radical upsurge in police violence at Occupy demonstrations, combined with ubiquitous cell phone video, have introduced the naked face of power to many in the white middle class public for the first time.
Respecting the “Left” in “Left Libertarian”: C4SS and the Litz Affair Reply
I am a long-time and enthusiastic supporter of the Center for a Stateless Society. Its steadfast advocacy for a society free of privilege has been both heroic and unique. One of the aspects I find most compelling is the sense in which it has popularized left libertarian ideas in the wider leftist movement, including all kinds of anarchists, socialists, communists, anarcho-syndicalists, greens, and other radicals. Indeed, many of us have become involved with a wider circle of friends, comrades and collaborators than we ever could by clinging to more conventional libertarianism.
So the revelation that C4SS staff member Stacy Litz served as a police informant for months comes as quite a shock to all of us. She is responsible for snitching on several of her fellow libertarians to escape jail time. The extent to which she attempted to mitigate the harm of her actions is unclear. None of us know for certain what we would do in her situation, and we can all have compassion for the horrible dilemna in which this person was placed — even as we regret and condemn what she chose to do.
The Center released a statement reflecting the decision to non-judgmentally but resolutely remove Stacy from her position. The debate that brought about that decision was very contentious. Some members pushed to keep her, arguing that cutting anybody the state flips sends two messages: (A) if you make a mistake, you cannot rehabilitate yourself, and (B) the state has only to flip people to break our movement. Theories were advanced that we somehow throw this back in the government’s face and turn it into some kind of PR coup. We’re not going to let the state tell us who we can and can’t work with!
Several members, including me, felt that this position did not incorporate our interests as local activists. We work with radical left organizations that have very material experiences with informants and police harrassment. Seeing friends from these groups go to jail is not unheard of. William Gillis’s friend is getting railroaded. Here in Richmond we have a guy who was framed by the police because they got sick of his work with CopWatch. Occupy Richmond has been surrendering cell phones before entering planning meetings because local activists have been raided under suspicious conditions lately that imply surveillance is occurring. Security culture is on everybody’s lips — especially with Occupy raising stakes.
While I don’t want to speculate too obscenely, I’d say there are also people in C4SS who come from more of an LP or philosophical libertarian background (I’m one of them). While many of them understand the above concerns, others refused to take them seriously. I think that’s because this fight isn’t on the ground, shoulder to shoulder, in the streets for them. Instead, it’s abstract; it’s theoretical. For some of them, debating the libertarian ethics of this — was she really coerced? OK, let’s have a pedantic debate about coercion! — is the most material concern. That’s because they’re not wondering whether their activism will send the cops knocking down their door. This is all on the internet and is therefore inescapably ephemeral, as is the vaguely articulated strategy to turn this scenario around and use it against the government.
What people in the latter group need to realize is that the people in the former group have a lot at stake. When we are asked to abide a snitch in an organization that we promote to our activist friends — many of whom are skeptical of us, not because of who we are so much as the label we attach to ourselves in solidarity with other left libertarians — we can’t help but wonder if, at the end of the day, the Center for a Stateless Society is another bourgeoisie, privileged libertarian group that only uses the rhetoric of the Left to appeal to it, not to join forces with it in common cause.
If the Center wants to incorporate itself into the larger leftist activist movement resisting corporate capitalism, the police state, etc. then it must consider the gravity of the struggle that’s local and on the ground. It can’t ask members who are working in their local communities to compromise themselves. What I found really troubling was not that people disagreed with me on how to handle Stacy, but that those local interests that matter to activists like me were so easily dismissed. It implies that this disconnect I’ve experienced for years between my politics online and my life offline has not been resolved. It implies that this is still abstract and theoretical for some of my friends at the Center.
If we can’t reconcile our polemics with our actions then we cannot be effective and credible. I know my life has become much richer by working in my community and testing those ideas I have been exposed to by many of my online comrades. Let’s ensure that the Center does not make itself irrelevant to our struggles and allies at home while it continues to do very fine work in the media.
From Graduate School to Public Assistance Reply
Greg Johnson’s “New Right vs. Old Right” Reply
I have some major areas of disagreement with Johnson but this is an interesting discussion. Listen to the podcast or read the text.
