“On June 3rd, 2011 Manchester, NH area-activists armed with cameras, two-way radios and police scanners patrolled the streets in four cars and MARV. Their mission – accountability, a trait that seemingly absent among the ranks of those working for the Manchester police department.”
For more:
http://copblock.org/manchcopblock
http://copblock.org/manchpd
http://libertyontour.com/freestatefriendshiptour
My latest commentary is online at Center for a Stateless Society.
A report in the Guardian reveals that Britain’s Ministry of Defense has trained, and continues to train, the Saudi force that helped suppress demonstrations in Bahrain earlier this year… As usual, those who rule are more concerned with maintaining the “stability” of their power than they are with the people on the receiving end of that power.
Read the rest: Exporting Thuggery.
I received the following from a comrade traveling in Spain.
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May 25, 2011 at 4:16am
With this mail we want to animate others to organize more sit-ins outside of Barcelona, around the world, which will be organized by you. We propose not to target on the Spanish embassies in your countries, also because the Spanish press practically does not cover those actions.
Our proposal is that you join in with your local struggle, to occupy the central places of your city while following the model of organization used during the Arab revolutions (and Spaniards), which means connecting with groups and local organizations and organize a sit-in in the main squares, to work in commissions and to write up your own documents (manifest, calls, proposals, minutes of meetings, etc). To make it public, spread it, use the internet networks to expand your message and to self-manage.
What is happening in different Spanish cities is not accidental nor specific of our society, we fight to recover our dignity, our freedom and our social rights, for direct democracy where we can participate in the course of our lives. We are a spontaneous and independent network, we don’t need leaders thus we offer that you will organize independently, according to what is possible and relevant in your area.
We would like that everywhere people will take the streets, but in each place people will think themselves on the local alternatives to the capitalist and cruel world to which our governments are ‘leading’ us and the whole planet.
For us the borders do not exist, the network is ours and the street also! Another world is possible now!
More concretely, we propose to you that you squat in your city during the next days of THURSDAY AND FRIDAY 26 AND 27 OF MAY to take advantage of the international days of mobilization against the G8 against the world-wide oligarchy, we invite you to take the street and to establish si-ins in sufficiently big places which will receive a consequent infrastructure that allow you to work and to mobilize in the best conditions. These two days and their nights could be the beginning of a long global struggle of the Indignados, please add your sit-in to the world-wide map of: http://www.thetechnoant.info/campmap/
We use the social networks to coordinate and to maintain informed. We encourage you to create an international commission to communicate with us, to share materials and strategies of organization in the Web n-1.cc to look for the group https://n-1.cc/pg/groups/104127/take-the-square-international and open a space with your location. In that link you will find a guide. In the chat (http://ur1.ca/48ogs) you can contact with us and others sit-ins simultaneously or to contact us by e-mail comisiointernacional@gmail.com.
Our content commissions is working on a document which formulate the very elaborated agreements which are agreed on in the general assembly. The document is available on web http://acampadabcn.wordpress.com/
Take the street! Real Democracy Now!
Hugs, International Networks of the International Commission of the Barcelona Camp
Barcelona Information:
#acampadabcn
http://acampadabcn.wordpress.com/
e-mail general: acampadabcn@yahoo.es
Internacional commission – Barcelona Camp:
https://n-1.cc/pg/groups/103405/akbcn_int/
e-mail international commission: comisiointernacional@gmail.com
Internacional coordination:
Map: http://www.thetechnoant.info/campmap/
e-lists: https://lists.takethesquare.net/mailman/listinfo/cominterm
https://n-1.cc/pg/groups/104127/take-the-square-international/
Chat irc.freenode.net # takethesquare http://ur1.ca/48ogs
I posted my immediate reaction to Osama bin Laden’s death at Center for a Stateless Society:
Osama bin Laden plotted and ordered the killing of innocent people to further his authoritarian political agenda. And finally he was killed. Thus always to tyrants.
But those of us who harbor no sympathy for bin Laden shouldn’t be blinded by patriotic or victory euphoria. The death of bin Laden does not solve the problems that enabled his rise to fame.
Read the rest: Good Riddance to Bin Laden — Now Get Rid of the Blinders.
Had time not been of the essence I might have done a few things differently, but I stand behind the article as it is. I might have expanded on the section examining the evidence that bin Laden had at one point been supported by the US Government. I also would have been more careful to distinguish generic “non-state armed forces” from the military units of a stateless society.
I am sympathetic towards those who question the veracity of reports concerning bin Laden’s death. However, I think the government’s obsession with controlling information and making people disappear is more likely the cause of sketchy details than any intent to deceive. I am more inclined to question whether the timing of the strike had anything to do with the US presidential campaign cycle, but there are numerous other explanations for why it took place at the time it did.
Some other good articles:
Killing of bin Laden: What are the consequences?
What next after bin Laden death?
The death of Osama and the return to reality
[UPDATE: Below are some more good articles.]
JSOC: The Black Ops Force That Took Down Bin Laden
After Osama: Stop feeding the beast
It looks like some will try to insist that torture and secret prisons were necessary to find a globally infamous criminal in a fortified compound in a populous area near a Pakistani military base. If that claim wasn’t absurd enough, here’s some commentary on this: The Osama bin Laden Trail Shows Waterboarding Didn’t Work
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.
Agora IO, the online agorist un-conference, was really cool! Presenters logged into a site that let them broadcast live audio and video, and anyone watching could type questions or comments into a chat room the presenter could view.
It was the first time I did anything like this (I think it was only the second time I’d even used a webcam). I definitely hope to participate in more events like it. Had I realized that the archived recording would begin automatically I would have been better prepared, at least added some exaggerated drama to the necessary typing.
The actual talk went well. I had two pages of brief notes on topics I’d never discussed in a speech before, so a lot of it was made up as I went along. With the audience participation it proved very thought-provoking.
Thanks a lot to George Donnelly for all the work he put in to make Agora IO such a success.
My talk is embedded below. You can view all the talks (except for one it seems) at the Agora IO archives.
