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My latest commentary, To Occupy and Rise, is now online at Center for a Stateless Society.

Against visions of a bleak and stagnant future, the occupiers assert the optimism that a better world can be made in the streets. They have not resigned themselves to an order where the young are presented with a foreseeable future of some combination of debt, economic dependency, and being paid little to endure constant disrespect, an order that tells the old to accept broken promises and be glad to just keep putting in hours until they can’t work anymore. The occupiers have not accepted that living in modern society means shutting up about how it functions.

For the latest updates on the Wall Street occupation and similar movements check Twitter #occupywallst.

I took some pictures during my brief stay at Liberty Plaza on September 19, which are viewable at my Google+ profile

As the tenth anniversary of the September 11 attacks approached, I thought I should write something about it. But then I was hesitant to do so. What more could I say that hasn’t already been said? And if I was going to write it as a news commentary, how would I put my thoughts on the event into such a format?

As someone who was 16 when the attacks were made, I would have to say that the entire politically-involved period of my life has been colored by the post-9/11 period it took place in. Since I was too young to be aware of the Soviet collapse, I would consider September 11, 2001 the defining historical event of my lifetime.

As someone who studies history, I’d like to think about what September 11 will mean in the long run. So that’s the standpoint I took in my 9/11 commentary, which is available for reading at Center for a Stateless Society.

It’s not uncommon to hear that “everything changed” on September 11, 2001. While it is not true that policies that came after September 11 were always different from what was done before, the tragic attacks on that day did lead to major changes. As we remember the events of ten years ago, we should also reflect on how to build a better world.

(Read the rest: What is a Post-9/11 World?)

It is good that people remember September 11, but thinking about September 11 is better than just remembering. As difficult as it might be to think about so many lives destroyed, people who could be neighbors, people dead because they were in the way of a murderous act of political violence, we do no service to the dead or to the living by keeping our minds away from the task.

My commentaries for the month of August are both up at Center for a Stateless Society.

In Justice Without the State, I respond to a question raised by E.D. Kain at the Forbes Blog.

Kain describes his reservations about anarchism and wonders “what would replace our criminal justice system in a stateless society?” As an anarchist — one who believes in maximizing individual liberty and wants no person to rule over another — I’d answer hopefully nothing…

The criminal enterprises of the state should not be replaced, but instead displaced, by cooperative alternatives. This may seem like nitpicking, but to me it emphasizes the differences between authoritarian and anarchic functions.

And since I’ve been in Disaster Mode, I naturally did a commentary called Hurricane Reality. It started with considering whether or not the news was over-hyped, and went on to exploring anarchist solutions to disaster preparedness and response.

As flooding and power outages still affect people, many are saying that Hurricane Irene was overhyped by the media. Some, like Howard Kurtz in his article A Hurricane of Hype focus on the minimal damage to New York City, as if this were a superhero movie where bad things strike Manhattan first…

There are probably already commentaries claiming that the disaster shows how important government action is. Certainly, the individuals helping stranded people can be commended by those of us who think the institutions they labor under are not optimal. But there really is no reason why government services would work better than any non-government services.

My latest commentary at Center for a Stateless Society is about the ATF’s Operation Fast and Furious and the Drug War.

ATF agents watched as large quantities of weapons were brought out of a Phoenix gun store by a suspected supplier for a Mexican drug cartel. They allowed well over a thousand weapons to pass this way.

One would have to ask if this is just a noteworthy example of bureaucratic incompetence or something more sinister. I’d say it’s a toss-up between the two.

Read the rest: Incompetence at Best

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

When South Sudan became independent, it separated from a genocidal, repressive Sudanese government. But not all is to be celebrated. Political independence is only as valuable as the individual liberty it promotes.

Read the rest: South Sudan and the Sovereignty of the Individual.

In a class I took for my master’s degree in history at the City College of New York, students were assigned to complete a digital history project. I chose to do a project on the Modern School movement in America, using a WordPress platform. The class is finished, but I can always make changes to the site. Suggestions are welcome.

The project website is: TheModernSchools.wordpress.com.

My latest Center for a Stateless Society commentary, Domestic Terrorism and the Lulz, is about a government report on anarchists.

LulzSec hackers have released a government report entitled “Anarchist Movement.” This “strategic report” was marked for official use only and was issued by the Missouri Information Analysis Center, a government organ that has previously drawn criticism for warning cops to be suspicious of things like Ron Paul bumper stickers. MIAC is one of several fusion centers, organizations intended to facilitate the sharing of information gathered about people in America between federal, state, and local government agencies.

I was curious to see what law enforcers would have to say about anarchists. While some of the information in the report is factually correct, the quality of the research is not impressive.

It appears that the report under discussion was actually released a while ago but was put into the spotlight again due to Lulzsec.

I’ve been meaning to share some info about books I’ve read lately, especially after the responses from Thinking Liberty fans to our recent book recommendation contest.

I haven’t read every page of all of these, and obviously my agreement with them varies, but they are all interesting.

Gary Chartier, The Conscience of an Anarchist
I now have a go-to book for introducing anarchism, and this is it.

Jan Tomasz Gross, Polish Society Under German Occupation: The Generalgouvernement, 1939-1944
Part history and part sociology, this study of Polish society under German occupation offers a number of insights on occupation, insurgency, and underground society.

Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin
Excellent description of mass murder under Hitler and Stalin.

Shaul Mishal and Avraham Sela, The Palestinian Hamas: Vision, Violence, Coexistence
This well-written examination of Hamas includes discussion on how social connections and social power were used to amass political power behind a radical ideology.

Sven Lindqvist, Exterminate All the Brutes: One Man’s Odyssey into the Heart of Darkness and the Origins of European Genocide
Compelling narrative of the author’s travels and thoughts as he attempts to comprehend genocide by Europeans.

Carol Anderson, Eyes Off the Prize: The United Nations and the African-American Struggle for Human Rights
A critical view of civil rights politics in the US.

Samuel Moyn, The Last Utopia: Human Rights in History
Moyn argues that an ideology of Human Rights became in the 1970s the last utopian program as other utopias failed to deliver.

Edward Said, The Question of Palestine
Somewhat dated, but certainly relevant introduction to Palestinian grievances.

Segev, Tom. One Palestine Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate
Detailed work that conveys the excitement of empire and nation building without glorifying it.

Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited
Detailed analysis of how Palestinians became refugees.

Michael Oren, Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East
Well-written political and military history.

Itamar Rabinovich, The War for Lebanon, 1970-1985
Can be dry, but describes conflicts within Lebanon and how the country became a center of regional conflict.

Jackson Spielvogel, Hitler and Nazi Germany
Good textbook overview of Nazi Germany. New editions are expensive, but they do claim to have integrated recent scholarship in several areas.

Mark Mazower, Dark Continent: Europe’s Twentieth Century
Discusses the troubles of Europe in the Twentieth Century (I’ve only read the first two chapters as of this post).

David Crew (editor), Nazism and German Society, 1933-1945
The essays authored by Bartov, Mallman and Paul, Kershaw, and Browning are excellent writings that challenge some common views of the Nazi order. I expect that the essays that I haven’t read are also worthwhile.

Detlev Peukert, Inside Nazi Germany: Conformity, Opposition, and Racism in Everyday Life
I’ve as yet only read the chapter “Young people: mobilisation and refusal,” which is a fascinating examination of how the Nazis gained and lost power among German youth.

Mark Mazower, Hitler’s Empire: How the Nazis Ruled Europe.
Well-written 600 pages of how Nazi Germany conquered and ruled. Contains a detailed index.

Peter Carlson, Roughneck: The Life and Times of “Big Bill” Haywood.
Exciting biography of the larger-than-life union organizer.

Joseph R. Conlin, Big Bill Haywood and the Radical Union Movement.
Contains less detail on Haywood’s life than Carlson’s book, but more analysis of related labor issues.

Penny A. Weiss and Loretta Kensinger (editors), Feminist interpretations of Emma Goldman.
A number of essays examining Emma Goldman in feminist contexts.

And a couple of books that looked interesting and I intend to read:

Peter Gelderloos, Anarchy Works

John M. Hart, Anarchism and the Mexican Working Class, 1860-1931.

George Woodcock, Anarchism: A History of Libertarian Ideas and Movements

If you didn’t catch it when it went up last week, my latest commentary at Center for a Stateless Society addressed remarks made by Massachusetts State Representative Ryan Fattman.

Massachusetts State Representative Ryan Fattman drew criticism for remarks he made regarding the state’s participation in the federal “Secure Communities” program. According to the Worcester Telegram & Gazette, Fattman was asked if he was concerned that the program might make a woman without legal immigration status hesitant to report to the police that she was raped and beaten as she walked down the street. His response? “My thought is that if someone is here illegally, they should be afraid to come forward.”

Read the rest: Putting the Nation Before the Human