Yeah, I wrote about the British royal wedding. But events that are in the media should be commented on.

Interestingly enough, a Salon article by David Sirota describes what the wedding coverage reveals about the US mainstream media. A Reuters poll reported that “65 percent of Americans have no interest in Prince William’s pending marriage and only a small minority are paying attention,” yet “U.S. media outlets are devoting exponentially more coverage to the royal wedding than the British themselves.”

At least the whole thing reminded me that I should reread Common Sense again soon, and I can say that I Brought the Paine on this issue. Some good stuff from Paine:

England, since the conquest, hath known some few good monarchs, but groaned beneath a much larger number of bad ones, yet no man in his senses can say that their claim under William the Conqueror is a very honorable one. A French bastard landing with an armed banditti, and establishing himself king of England against the consent of the natives, is in plain terms a very paltry rascally original. It certainly hath no divinity in it…

But it is not so much the absurdity as the evil of hereditary succession which concerns mankind. Did it ensure a race of good and wise men it would have the seal of divine authority, but as it opens a door to the foolish, the wicked; and the improper, it hath in it the nature of oppression. Men who look upon themselves born to reign, and others to obey, soon grow insolent; selected from the rest of mankind their minds are early poisoned by importance; and the world they act in differs so materially from the world at large, that they have but little opportunity of knowing its true interests, and when they succeed to the government are frequently the most ignorant and unfit of any throughout the dominions…

Of more worth is one honest man to society, and in the sight of God, than all the crowned ruffians that ever lived.

And the Sex Pistols should get some play.

My latest commentary is available at Center for a Stateless Society.

As the British royal wedding fades out of the news cycle, it’s important to take a look at the freedoms that were trampled to make it a perfect day for royalty.

In the days leading up to the wedding, numerous squats and social centers were raided, and their inhabitants detained, by large squads of police. In addition, a member of the Love Police street theater group was detained for conspiracy to cause a public nuisance and breach of the peace.

Read the rest: A Pretty Picture Painted With Prison Bars

My contribution to the 2011 APEE Topics in Free-Market Anti-Capitalism panel is now available for download from my archives page:

Capitalism, Free Enterprise, and Progress: Partners or Adversaries?

The paper disentangles the concepts of capitalism, free enterprise, and progress in the context of the early Industrial Revolution. While a lot more could be written about the topic, the paper manages to address multiple issues that such an exploration would raise.

I was able to present most of the information from the paper during my allotted time. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much time for questions, but the panel did not seem to be received negatively.

I thank Roderick Long for inviting me onto the panel, and thank everyone I interacted with at APEE for the conversation.

My latest Center for a Stateless Society commentary, posted Friday night, examines the marginalization of sex workers in light of the ongoing story about murder victims found in Long Island.

However the story of disappearance and bodies in a swamp turns out, hopefully the victims will at least be afforded the dignity of presentation as people, not mere props. Raising the dignity of the individual, making room for them in a caring society, goes a long way in expanding their freedom to live. When society’s prejudice and state regulations make a person into an unperson, there is a shorter distance to go for a murderer to make her a dead person.

Read the rest: People Disposed Of.

Now it all makes sense.

Rebecca Black wakes somewhat too perfectly in the early scenes of her viral video, “Friday.” Her eyes open exactly as the clock beside her bed flashes seven. She wears full make-up. Rare for a teen, she isn’t tired, longs not for any receding dreams.

Her cultural debt is less to Molly Ringwald in Sixteen Candles than Vicki the robot girl from Small Wonder, we realize, as in a voice controlled by Auto-Tune she enumerates the banalities of an anti-existence: “Gotta be fresh, gotta go downstairs, gotta have my bowl, gotta have cereal… gotta get down to the bus stop.”

Read the rest, Arms So Freezy: Rebecca Black’s “Friday” As Radical Text. (Via Reddit Anarchism)

The NYC Anarchist Book Fair is a good time with good folks. Stop by and see me at the Alliance of the Libertarian Left table.

The 5th Annual NYC Anarchist Book Fair will be held Saturday, April 9th 2011* at Judson Memorial Church, 55 Washington Square South, between 11am and 7pm.

More info

I unfortunately expect I won’t be able to make this. But it looks cool.

`THE OTHER TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL… The Fifth Annual NYC Anarchist Film Festival`

The Fifth Annual NYC Anarchist Film Festival will be held in Honor of Brad Will, an anarchist journalist activist who was murdered by a Mexican paramilitary sniper in 2007 while filming a protest in Oaxaca Mexico.

This film festival will take place FRIDAY APRIL 8, 2011 from 3:00PM -7:00 at the 6th Street Community Center 638 East 6th St. Between Ave B & C and from 8:00PM-MIDNIGHT at 56 Walker St. between Church St. & Broadway.

This film festival is a community forum that will celebrate domestic and international resistance to State repression & terror from Egypt to Wisconsin. It shows people around the world resisting economic exploitation, police state terrorism, war, corporate destruction of our planet as people fight for dignity, freedom of speech, collective bargaining, ecological sanity, and the survival of the human imagination at a time of increasing State repression, as `civilization` collapses around us.

This film festival was not previously publicized due to security considerations such as FBI intimidation and use of informants and infiltrators to disrupt activism & anarchist organizing in NYC.

Our featured speaker this year is Pam Africa, Minister of Confrontation for the MOVE Organization and the Coordinator of the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Supporting collectives include: the Insurrectionary Anarchist Media Collective (IAMC), the Tribeca Collective, INN World Report, the Women`s Press Collective & various brave, committed, generous filmmakers, journalists & artists in our fair city and around the world.

For program details, check Friday for final selection: see: www.nycanarchistfilmfestival.com