Monthly Archives: May 2014

Time For White Male Thick Libertarianism? 1

by • Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Men and Women, Political Correctness/Totalitarian Humanism

By Christopher Cantwell

I spend a good deal of time on this blog talking about the State. Previously I’ve sort of mocked people who tell me “government isn’t the only oppressor you know!” because while it certainly isn’t the only, it certainly is the most dangerous, the most pervasive, and that which enables all others. While feminists and people who are very concerned about race tell me that a myriad of “privilege” exists in the world which must be “checked” to solve “oppression” I have mocked them as being off base.

Perhaps I was wrong about this. I may need to reconsider. Of course, not to jump on the misandrist anti-white bandwagon, but rather to combat it as an important issue of liberty. Perhaps white men need their own “thick” libertarianism.

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Against the State: Lew Rockwell interviewed by Tom Woods Reply

by • Anarchism/Anti-State

This is an excellent introduction to the basic anarchist positions.

LewRockwell.Com

TomWoods.Com

Listen to the podcast

ROCKWELL:  Tom Woods had me on his show to talk about my book, Against the State: An Anarcho-Capitalist Manifesto.  This is just the first installment of a couple of appearances, which I thank Tom very much for.  And I hope you’ll find it interesting.

WOODS:  What a thrill and a privilege it is to be joined today by Lew Rockwell.  Of course, you know Lew from LewRockwell.com, the indispensible website, but he’s also the founder and chairman of the Mises Institute, the heroic Mises Institute, former chief of staff to Ron Paul and all-around great guy.

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SWAT team threatened after grenade injures toddler in drug raid Reply

by • Police State/Civil Liberties

CNN.Com

CNN) — Members of a northeast Georgia SWAT team are “devastated” after a drug raid in which a flash-bang grenade landed in a 1-year-old’s playpen, seriously injuring the child, the Habersham County sheriff said Friday.

The police officers involved have been called baby killers and received threats following the incident, Sheriff Joey Terrell said.

“All I can say is pray for the baby, his family and for us,” he told CNN.

The SWAT team, made up of six or seven officers from the sheriff’s department and the Cornelia Police Department, entered the Cornelia residence Wednesday before 3 a.m.

A confidential informant hours earlier had purchased methamphetamine at the house, the sheriff says. The informant told police that there were men standing guard outside the home, and it was unclear whether they were armed, according to CNN affiliate WGCL.

Because the suspected drug dealer, Wanis Thonetheva, had a previous weapons charge, officers were issued a “no-knock warrant” for the residence, Terrell said.

Wanis Thonetheva is being held without bond.
Wanis Thonetheva is being held without bond.

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Euroskepticism and Its Discontents Reply

by • Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy, Economics/Class Relations, Electoralism/Democratism, Left and Right

The European elections saw gains by the far right, far left, libertarians, and radical populists. The common thread was opposition to the budding continental empire of the EU and its dominance by the neoliberal plutocracy. The Europeans need the message of anarcho-pluralism and pan-secessionism as much as Americans do. This looks like a job for the national-anarchists.

By Justin Raimondo

Antiwar.Com

The conventional wisdom is nearly always wrong, and rarely so wrong as when it comes to the EU elections, the results of which are being trumpeted as the triumph of the “far right.” The more alarmist among these uniformly pro-EU commentators are even claiming neo-fascism in Europe is on the march. Well, they’re at least half right: something is on the march. They just don’t know what it is.

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Ralph Nader: “The left is seized by fear and the right is driven by brass” Reply

by • Activism, American Decline, Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy, Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Economics/Class Relations, Education, Electoralism/Democratism, Left and Right, Strategy

This is the most interesting development I’ve seen in mainstream U.S. politics since the Ron Paul phenomenon. Hopefully, it will have a similar effect. The Ron Paul campaign not only spearheaded massive growth in the mainstream libertarian movement, but served as a “gateway drug” that led many of these new libertarians to a more serious form of anarchism. Now, let’s hope Nader’s ideas create a lot of the new enthusiasts for a left/right convergence against the system, and serve as a “gateway drug” to new forms of radicalism that challenge the left/right model.

An interview with Nader by David Daley.

Salon.Com

Ralph Nader: "The left is seized by fear and the right is driven by brass"Ralph Nader (Credit: AP/Evan Vucci)

Say what you will about Ralph Nader — and most of you probably have — the man is tireless and persistent.

Now 80, Nader has a new book with the triumphant title of “Unstoppable: The Emerging Left-Right Alliance to Dismantle the Corporate State.” And even if you’re not convinced that alliance is emerging, let alone unstoppable, Nader beats on, a relentless, articulate and sometimes very lonely critic of big business, media mediocrity and politicians who put corporate interests ahead of the public interest. Which means most of them.

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Book review: ‘Unstoppable’ by Ralph Nader, on building a left-right alliance Reply

by • Activism, American Decline, Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy, Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Economics/Class Relations, Electoralism/Democratism, Left and Right, Strategy

By Timothy Noah

The Washington Post

Ralph Nader wants liberals and conservatives to work together. In his new book, “Unstoppable,” he cites many instances in which such cooperation ought to be possible, at least theoretically. But the book’s greater value may lie in the opportunity to contemplate, almost half a century after he first stepped onto the national stage, where Nader himself fits on the ideological spectrum.

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Ralph Nader pitches left-right alliances Reply

by • Activism, American Decline, Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Economics/Class Relations, Electoralism/Democratism, Left and Right, Strategy

By Kristen East

The Washington Times

Ralph Nader is at it again, this time on a mission that he says will bring America’s liberals and conservatives together in the fight against corporate overreach and government secrecy.

Building on a new book he has published, the longtime activist, author and political gadfly, now 80, on Tuesday hosted what he promised would be the first in a series of policy events exploring issues where the left and right can come together to fight voter disillusionment and what he says in the growing political clout of big corporations. There were more attendees than chairs at the event, held at the Carnegie Institute of Washington downtown.

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The Destructive Momentum of Militaristic Ideology Reply

by • Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy, Military

By Ralph Nader

Counterpunch.Org

Memorial Day – the origins of which stem from Decoration Day in 1868 which recognized the Union soldiers who had perished – is a day of lost opportunities. No, I’m not referring to consumers missing out on store sales and the advertising hoopla by television marketeers who have ravaged that special day in their unseemly pursuit of profits. Rather, I am speaking of additional ways of commemorating Memorial Day that provide much-needed context of the sacrifices for present and future generations.

 

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The Largest Employers in Each State: MAP Reply

by • Economics/Class Relations

Broadview.Net

Largest Employers in Each State MAP

We at Broadview Networks are not only dedicated hosted phone providers, we’re also enthusiasts of all things business.  Whether we’re watching Bill Gates give a TED talk or reading about the oil boom in North Dakota, we love it all.  An article from last year looking at the largest employers in America sparked our interest on the topic and we decided to take a deeper look.  Wal-Mart has been on the top of that list for a couple years with a total workforce of nearly 2.2 million people, but were they the largest employers in each individual state?  Using CareerOneStop, a database sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor, we researched who the largest employers in each state were.  The results were very surprising with only 2 companies from the Top 10 Largest Employers in America were represented, in IBM and Wal-Mart.  There were some shocking exclusions as well, with no McDonald’s, Yum! Brands, or UPS on the list.  Instead, we saw quite a few major state universities, health systems/hospitals, and military bases.  To make it more visual, we decided to create a map with each state as the company’s logo.

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The Real Origins of the Religious Right 2

by • Culture Wars/Current Controversies, Religion and Philosophy

By Randall Balmer

One of the most durable myths in recent history is that the religious right, the coalition of conservative evangelicals and fundamentalists, emerged as a political movement in response to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling legalizing abortion. The tale goes something like this: Evangelicals, who had been politically quiescent for decades, were so morally outraged by Roe that they resolved to organize in order to overturn it.

This myth of origins is oft repeated by the movement’s leaders. In his 2005 book, Jerry Falwell, the firebrand fundamentalist preacher, recounts his distress upon reading about the ruling in the Jan. 23, 1973, edition of the Lynchburg News: “I sat there staring at the Roe v. Wade story,” Falwell writes, “growing more and more fearful of the consequences of the Supreme Court’s act and wondering why so few voices had been raised against it.” Evangelicals, he decided, needed to organize.

Some of these anti-Roe crusaders even went so far as to call themselves “new abolitionists,” invoking their antebellum predecessors who had fought to eradicate slavery.

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Taking Reparations Seriously 1

by • Economics/Class Relations, Race and Ethnicity

By Noah Millman

Family of slaves in Georgia, circa 1850. Wikimedia Commons.

Family of slaves in Georgia, circa 1850. Wikimedia Commons.

I finally got around to reading Ta-Nehisi Coates’s case for reparations on the plane down to New Orleans (where I am now, working on a film; blogging may be even more sporadic than usual this summer). I’ve been eager to do so since I heard about it, both because I admire Coates as a writer and because I have always felt the discourse around reparations to be somewhat odd, skipping past the actual case presented and advancing immediately to a meta-analysis of why someone would make such an argument. And that oddness has very much extended to the reception of the Coates’s piece.

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Obama: ‘I Believe in American Exceptionalism with Every Fiber of My Being’ Reply

by • Anti-Imperialism/Foreign Policy

By Jon Queally

CommonDreams.Org

President Barack Obama arrives to deliver the commencement address to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point’s Class of 2014, Wednesday, May 28, 2014, in West Point, N.Y. (Photo: AP)In a speech rife with incongruities and contradictions, President Obama set out his vision and defense of U.S. foreign policy on Wednesday at the West Point Military Academy in New York.

In the speech, Obama announced that he believes “in American exceptionalism with every fiber of my being” and spoke repeatedly about “American leadership” and “American strength.”

Progressives and foreign policy experts on the left, however, were quick to criticize the president’s speech from various angles via their Twitter accounts with many noting that for all his grand rhetoric on the nation’s special place in the world, the United States under his leadership has done little to inspire and much to undermine such a role. From assaults on human rights and the flouting of international law to serves its own interests, many critics charge, the United States continues to export militarism while undermining efforts to create a more just and peaceful world.

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How Ukip is turning left on the economy 2

by • Economics/Class Relations, Left and Right

By George Eaton

New Statesman

Farage is courting the working class with a new populist programme.
Nigel Farage arrives to speak at Ukip public meeting at Old Basing Village Hall on April 9, 2014 in Basingstoke. Photograph: Getty Images.

For most of its existence, Ukip has positioned itself well to the right of the Conservative Party on the economy, advocating a radically smaller state, significantly lower taxes and a major programme of deregulation (albeit not in the area of immigration). But as the party rises to greater prominence, it is beginning to moderate its stance.

In a piece for the Daily Express on Friday, Nigel Farage echoed Labour’s criticisms of zero-hour contracts and called for larger employers to sign “a tough code of conduct as to how they are applied.” While stating that he has no “truck with militant trade unionism”, he also took aim at “over-mighty corporations” who “refuse to accept any social obligation towards loyal employees”.

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 This intervention is part of a pattern of economic populism from Ukip. As Alex Wickham of Guido Fawkes notes, the party campaigned during the recent Wythenshawe by-election to “protect your benefits” and has declared its opposition to the bedroom tax. Farage has also abandoned Ukip’s previous policy of a flat tax of 31 per cent, arguing that higher earners should pay at least 40 per centThese stances will antagonise the party’s sizeable libertarian wing but they are politically astute. Far from craving a laissez-faire approach, most of the party’s supporters favour an expanded state and higher public spending. Polling by YouGov shows that 78 per cent support the nationalisation of the energy companies and 73 per cent back the renationalisation of the railways. Rather than a “code of conduct” for employers, 57 per cent simply want zero-hour contracts to be banned. Rather than a flat tax, the same number support the reintroduction of the 50p rate.

 

Robert Stark interviews Charles Lincoln on Economics Reply

by • Economics/Class Relations

The Stark Truth

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Robert: I’m joined here with Charles Lincoln. We are going to be discussing some of his economic views.

Charles: Thanks, Robert. Always good to talk.

Robert: So on one of our previous shows we touched on economics and how our economy is based on credit as opposed to real capital. You talk about issues such as big government and socialism but what about your economic views are different from the tea party and libertarian crowd.

Charles: Well, I do not favor corporations. I guess that’s the place to start. When you think Republican, when you think conservative, you think big business, you think major corporations, and you think corporations against the government, and my position is very simple. More…

Neither Progressive nor Conservative: The Anti-Modernism of G. K. Chesterton 2

by • Economics/Class Relations, Left and Right, Religion and Philosophy, Science and Technology

By Keith Preston

AlternativeRight.Com

Gilbert Keith Chesterton (1874-1936) bears the distinction of being a writer who resisted virtually all of the dominant trends of his era. He lived during the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, precisely the time that modernity was fully consolidating itself within Western civilization more than a century after the apex of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. Chesterton began his writing career as a young man and as the twentieth century was just beginning. As much as any other writer from his era, he predicted the horrors that century would entail.

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Who Owns America? Reply

by • Economics/Class Relations, Left and Right

It looks like Ralph might have been reading ATS.

By Ralph Nader

The American Conservative

illustration by Michael Hogue

illustration by Michael Hogue

There was a time in the Depression of the 1930s when conservative thought sprang from the dire concrete reality of that terrible era, not from abstractions.

They did not use the word “conservative” very often, preferring to call themselves “decentralists” or “agrarians.” Eclectic in background, they were columnists, poets, historians, literary figures, economists, theologians, and civic advocates. In 1936, Herbert Agar, a prominent author, foreign correspondent, and columnist for the Louisville Courier-Journal and Alan Tate, poet and social commentator, brought a selection of their writings together in a now nearly forgotten book: Who Owns America? A New Declaration of Independence.

In his 1999 foreword to the reissued edition, historian Edward S. Shapiro called Who Owns America? “one of the most significant conservative books published in the United States during the 1930s” for its “message of demographic, political, and economic decentralization and the widespread ownership of property” in opposition “to the growth of corporate farming, the decay of the small town, and the expansion of centralized political and economic authority.”

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End Mass Incarceration Now Reply

by • Law/Justice, Police State/Civil Liberties

Abbie Hoffman used to call the New York Times “the voice of the ruling class.” When the voice of the ruling class admits there’s a problem, it must be serious.

New York Times Editorial Board

For more than a decade, researchers across multiple disciplines have been issuing reports on the widespread societal and economic damage caused by America’s now-40-year experiment in locking up vast numbers of its citizens. If there is any remaining disagreement about the destructiveness of this experiment, it mirrors the so-called debate over climate change.

In both cases, overwhelming evidence shows a crisis that threatens society as a whole. In both cases, those who study the problem have called for immediate correction.

Several recent reports provide some of the most comprehensive and compelling proof yet that the United States “has gone past the point where the numbers of people in prison can be justified by social benefits,” and that mass incarceration itself is “a source of injustice.”

That is the central conclusion of a two-year, 444-page study prepared by the research arm of the National Academy of Sciences at the request of the Justice Department and others. The report highlights many well-known statistics: Since the early 1970s, the nation’s prison population has quadrupled to 2.2 million, making it the world’s biggest. That is five to 10 times the incarceration rate in other democracies.

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