(Via Lew @ The LRC Blog.)

In which Chairman Ron does his bit to fill the coffers of the U.S. Department of the Treasury:

Like him or hate him, Dr. Ron Paul doesn’t just talk a big game about fiscal conservatism, he lives it. In 2008, his congressional office returned $58,000 to the Treasury. In 2009, his office returned $90,000. Now, according to an official press release, Dr. Ron Paul’s congressional office has just paid back $100,000.

—Ryan Jaroncyk, California Independent Voter Network (2010-03-01): Congressman Ron Paul returns a whopping $100,000 of his office budget to the US Treasury

… And that’s why I’m against fiscal conservatism. Why the fuck would I think it’s a good thing for the U.S. government to get back $100,000 more to spend on bailing out failed bankers or on hurting and killing innocent people? What I’d like most is for that money to get back into the hands of innocent working people (whether under the cover of Congressional featherbedding, or by any other means). But failing that, we’d still all be better off if Ron Paul took the $100,000, piled it up on the National Mall, and set it all on fire, rather than giving it back to the United States Treasury.

At a time when Wall St is running wild, the national debt is $14 trillion, and the federal government is running $1.4 trillion deficits, Dr. Ron Paul’s congressional office is running a surplus and paying back the American people.

No, he isn’t.

He’s paying the American government. The American people, if that means American people like you and me and our neighbors, will get back not one cent of it. Instead, the money will go directly into the operational budget of the government that oppresses and robs us.

Of course, none of this is to say that I like big government spending. But the problem with government spending is not the fact that money goes out of the Treasury; it’s that government spending is financed by expropriation from working people (whether through direct taxation or through the effects of the financial-political complex’s coercive money monopoly). And that government spending goes to fund more expropriation and more violence — in the form of government wars, government borders, government surveillance, forced development schemes and eminent domain seizures, police brutality, prisons, tax-men, hang-men, or the arming, training, and employment of government law-enforcers to inflict their myriad unjust laws on the rest of us without our consent. The problem, in short, is not government spending at all; it’s government violence. But just giving surplus money back to the government, without doing anything to constrain the violence that the state commits — going out of your way to help government balance its budgets and get leaner and meaner in the use of the resources that it has on hand — is as nice an example as you could want of exactly the kind of stupid conservative trap that limited-statism passes off as if it had something to do with freedom.

See also:

• GT 2007-12-13: On the dole
• GT 2008-03-06: On crutches and crowbars: toward a labor radical case against the minimum wage

(Found via New York City Anarchoblogs.)

For those of you in and around the capital of capital, here’s an upcoming event at Left Forum at Pace University in New York.

WHAT: What Does the Left Need to Know about Prison? panel with Vikki Law, Asha Bandele, Cleo Silvers, and Laura Whitehorn, moderated by Susie Day.

WHEN: Sunday, March 21, 3pm-5pm

WHERE: Left Forum, Pace University, One Pace Plaza, New York, NY 10038

What Does the Left Need to Know about Prison? (a panel at Left Forum)

Placated by TV-cop-show justice, worried about economic survival, most of the U.S. Left – like the U.S. mainstream – ignores the ongoing reality of prison in the lives of poor people and revolutionaries, alike. Yet prison in this country is the basis for the creation of new forms of increasing government/corporate control. The prison system has already played a critical role in ensuring that popular rebellions, like those of the mid-20th century, do not occur again. What do people who do support work for political and social prisoners have to teach us about building a more viable and oppositional Left?

Panelists: Vikki Law, Asha Bandele, Cleo Silvers, and Laura Whitehorn, moderated by Susie Day.

Asha Bandele: Journalist, editor-at-large of Essence magazine, mother, and author of The Prisoner’s Wife, her memoirs of her relationship with a New York State prisoner with whom she had a daughter. She is also the author of other books, including Daughter, a novel about the impact of police brutality. Asha continues her writing and work as a prison activist.

Laura Whitehorn: Political activist who was incarcerated for more than 14 years on political charges, Laura now does support work for U.S. political prisoners. At the request of Wonda Jones, daughter of former Panther, political prisoner, and prison activist Safiya Bukhari, Laura edited a compilation of Bukhari’s writings and speeches, just published by the Feminist Press.

Cleo Silvers: Former Black Panther Party member and South Bronx community worker, Cleo has worked for years as a union and labor organizer and has done extensive work on behalf of U.S. prisoners. She is currently a member of the Safiya Nuh Foundation for the Support of Political Prisoners.

Vikki Law: Writer, photographer, and mother. She is a co-founder of Books Through Bars-New York City, an organization that sends free radical literature and books to prisoners nationwide; editor of the ‘zine Tenacious: Writings from Women in Prison, and author of Resistance Behind Bars: The Struggles of Incarcerated Women (PM Press, 2009).

Susie Day: Assistant editor at Monthly Review, writes a regular satire column and has, since 1988, written about political prisoners and prisons.

at Left Forum

Pace University, One Pace Plaza
New York, NY 10038
Sunday, March 21st, 3 to 5 pm, W-504

—Vikki Law, Resistance Behind Bars (2010-03-08): What Does the Left Need to Know about Prison? (a panel at Left Forum)

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There’s a New Left in Town / Sarah Beninga
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Slovakia’s separation barrier to keep out Roma
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Ontario: Common Cause with who?

Keir Snow of Liberty and Solidarity wrote recently, in an article on their website(link), that Anarchism is a brand which has been sullied by the mainstream press and the establishment so much over the last century and a half that it is a waste of effort to ‘reclaim’ it. That the time and resources required to alleviate the damage that has been done to the name far out strips the resources available to anarchists in the UK. I disagree with him on a number of key points, I’ll leave aside the oddness of using market speak in political conversation and address his points.

‘Non-leftists’, he claims, when asked to describe what an anarchist is would describe an “insurrectionist, black-clad Molotov thrower”. An image that no doubt he feels would be informed by the summit hopping protests of the late twentieth and early twenty first. Is this however the case? I seriously don’t think so and I wonder if Keir has actually done any research on this or whether he is making a sweeping assumption viewed through lenses already informed by a leftist perspective? It would be interesting to see even the most basic of research on this carried out, even an afternoon out with a questionnaire would be enlightening.

In all my political activity over the last decade and a half I have always been up front about my politics as an anarchist and the only time I have ever had a reaction other than either positive or inquisitive has been from leftists, often even from anarchists who seem afraid of the word. Most people don’t have a preconceived idea of what anarchism is and if they do then they are normally more inquisitive than anything being as the person they are talking to, who has just referred to themselves as an anarchist, is a regular person who wears cardigans and eats cheese and everything.

Keir also claims that on the left anarchists are “widely viewed as being ultra-leftists opposed to organisation”. Whilst this may be true that a large section of the left propagates this misnomer I wonder on reasons for Keir’s use of this term ‘Ultra Left’. It is one often aimed at anarchists and other communists who are suspicious of trade unions in their role in the management of labour and are extremely doubtful of their revolutionary capacity, entrenched as they are in acting as a pressure valve for class tensions. It is not simply anarchists that are ultra left but council communists and autonomous Marxists. I for one am quite happy to be considered ultra left by a left wing that has failed the working class time and again and wasted countless years in the dead end of partyism and pitiful attempts at vanguardism.

The suggestion that to ‘reclaim’ the brand of anarchism would take a massive dedication of resources is also not accurate. If ‘anarchism’ were a company this would be so. Its not, it is a political ideology and a mode of social organisation. The ideology, and the form of organisation, are propagated and promoted through activity at a grass roots level in communities and workplaces. Not through high impact advertising campaigns. The parents fighting to save their school, or the workers on the picket line, don’t learn about anarchists and anarchism through glossy ads or TV commercials. They learn about it when they find out the woman who has gotten out of bed at 5a.m. to be with them at the picket is an anarchist or when the man helping them occupy their primary school happens to be an anarchist. That’s the kind of advertising ad execs have wet dreams over and that is exactly how the brand of anarchism is reclaimed.

He says that should we abandon the name then people fear that our politics would be watered down, diluted somehow. That is not the worry I have with avoiding using the name. The worry I have with disguising our politics is that at some point the people we are working with will find out we have been obfuscating the truth, that we have been lying. This will either make them think we are ashamed of our politics or, worse still, put us in the pigeon hole with politicians and all the other leftist sects who want something from them.

There is a worry as well about not being explicitly anarchist in our organisation. Organisations can easily be saturated with people whose political ideas diverge massively from the original ideology of the organisation. Is an anarchist organisation mostly made up of liberals and/or Trotskyists an anarchist organisation? Not if it has any form of real internal democracy as this will soon mean that the ideology of the organisation begins to reflect the make up of the organisation. We need only look at the ‘politics’ of the SWP and how they have changed over the years with their ‘recruit them all’ policy meaning the party has become suffuse with ‘well meaning liberals’ attracted by the radical rhetoric*. We can see similar with the Climate Camp which hid its anarchist roots so well that the anarchists involved in forming the camp are having to reclaim it from lentil munching Monbiot fans.

To conclude, anarchism and anarchy do not have to be reclaimed nor do they need a publicity campaign to reinvigorate the brand image. The actions we take in our communities and workplaces, putting our money where our mouth is, will do a far better job at dispelling myths and promoting our politics. Obfuscating our politics will only result in us being branded as dishonest or ashamed of our politics.

*Not to imply that the SWP has internal democracy but allowing the party to be swamped by all comers has inevitably leaddown the path of liberalism they are set upon.

Disclaimer-tastic: this is entirely my personal opinion and not necessarily that of any organisation I am a part of.

what the human species has been evolving toward is idiotic self-congratulation. indeed, probably the species has been evolving toward extinction in a narcissus mode: so impressed will we eventually be by ourselves that we will forget to move at all. the notion that particular political positions are the outcome of evolution is idiotic. but what's really confused is the idea that "liberalism" is "iconoclastic." dude are you kidding? these people believe in herds: liberalism is mammalian but pre-great ape.

and let me just refresh your tiny iconoclastic mind. let's say that al gore really was the culmination of the human genome. of course maybe the human genome is a boondoggle, a terrible dead end, like the stegosaurus genome. indeed, looking at it squarely: almost all species that have ever existed have evolved toward extinction. but wherever we're evolving to, if the liberal was more highly-evolved than the conservative, would that have any tendency to show that any of the positions were true? i want to hear your arguments, or at least your entertaining formulations, not your mere assertion of personal superiority to me, as edifying as that is for us both.

anyway, i'm vaguely hoping the piece is satirical. either way it's pretty funny!

On Saturday, March 20^th, I will be speaking at the Free State Project’s 2010 Liberty Forum in Nashua, New Hampshire. Liberty Forum runs from March 18-21; I’m honored to be on the same roster of speakers as Brad Spangler, Scott Bieser, Anthony Gregory, William Norman Grigg, Radley Balko, David Friedman, Angela Keaton, and Jason Talley. My own talk is scheduled for Saturday, March 20^th from 11:00am – 11:45am in the Amphiteater. Here’s what I’ll be talking about:

The Revolution Will Be Made Of People: Anarchy, Direct Action, and Free-Market Social Justice

Freedom is not a conservative idea. It is not a prop for corporate power and the political-economic statist quo. Libertarianism is, in fact, a revolutionary doctrine, which would undermine and overthrow every form of state coercion and authoritarian control. If we want liberty in our lifetimes, the realities of our politics need to live up to the promise our principles — we should be radicals, not reformists; anarchists, not smaller-governmentalists; defenders of real freed markets and private property, not apologists for corporate capitalism, halfway privatization or existing concentrations of wealth. Libertarianism should be a people’s movement and a liberation movement, and we should take our cues not from what’s politically polite, but from what works for a revolutionary people-power movement. Here’s how.

WHAT: The Revolution Will Be Made of People, speech and Q&A with Charles Johnson

WHEN: Saturday, March 20^th, 11:00am - 11:45am

WHERE: Liberty Forum 2010, Crowne Plaza Hotel, 2 Somerset Pkwy, Nashua, New Hampshire. (Details aqui.)

Many, many thanks are due to Tennyson McCalla for working to get this arranged and seeing the arrangements through.

See you in New Hampshire!

In what could be a legal test case, Nathan Michael Wilkie, 19, faces one charge of offensive behaviour after police arrested him while he was listening to music by underground rapper Kid Selzy on his car stereo.

Wilkie was parked outside a supermarket in Timboon, near Warrnambool, waiting for his mother, when he was arrested.

The Warrnambool Magistrates Court heard Wilkie was listening to rap with explicit lyrics such as “shut your f . . . . . . mouth bitch, f. . . motherf. . . . .”

The court was told the arresting officers found the music offensive and derogatory to females.

Mr Wilkie allegedly told officers: “You’re a joke, go do some real police work”.

The teenager is believed to be the first person charged under Australian law with offensive behaviour for listening to music.

Wilkie plans to plead not guilty when his case continues on June 11.

In a statement, Wilkie said he was thankful to have the support of Kid Selzy, who planned to attend the June hearing.

“As Selzy said, `I know what I mean and the people who buy it know what I mean, and that’s what really matters’,” Wilkie said.

“I have lost two of my best mates in the last couple of years in tragic circumstances and I feel that listening to his music relates to life.”

Kid Selzy, who gave his real name only as Jack, said he was astounded at the arrest. “It’s a joke that some kid’s been arrested for doing something that’s not illegal,” he said.

“It’s not illegal to have your windows down or to buy a CD. It seems to be a waste of taxpayers’ dollars. If profanity’s not your thing, don’t listen.”

And South Australian Attorney General Michael Atkinson, gets his Christian religious crazy on, yet again.

A GROUP that says video games and violence are like smoking and lung cancer has received tens of thousands of dollars in funding from SA Attorney-General and outspoken R18+ game critic Michael Atkinson.

An expert from the Australian Council on Children and the Media this week told a TV news program the link between violent games and youth violence was stronger than tobacco and cancer.

“It’s much greater than the effect of smoking on lung cancer,” psychologist Dr Wayne Warburton said.

It’s the strongest claim yet in the war of words over video game ratings which has heated up after a call for public input on the issue that drew 55,000 submissions.

A spokesman for Mr Atkinson told news.com.au his department provided an annual grant to the council under its trading name Young Media Australia.

The grant is to support a project called “Know Before You Go” that offers parents information about which films are suitable for children.

Relevance, you may ask?  Well this ties into the whole attitude of Australian instititutions towards censorship and expression.

As you may know, there are only 10 more ranting days left until Tyrannicide Day, which this secessionist republic of one celebrates every year on March 15^th, in commemoration of the nearby anniversaries of the assassinations of Gais Julius Caesar and Alexander II Nikolaevich, the self-styled Caesar over all the Russias. As in years past, (2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009), although my time for the celebrations may be limited by the weekend trip to San Francisco that I’ll be just getting back from.

In any case, I’m happy to receive word through diplomatic channels that this secessionist republic of one’s Ministry of Culture will not be alone in celebrating this international holiday. If you happen to be in the area of Asheville, North Carolina, the Firestorm Cafe & Books will be hosting a celebration on Monday, March 15^th in honor of the holiday. Plus, they’ve designed this awesome logo for their holiday event.^[1]

For those of you who are new to this holiday, I can tell you what Tyrannicide Day is all about. Lights please:

Today, March 15^th, commemorates the assassination of two tyrants. Today is the 2,051^st anniversary — give or take the relevant calendar adjustments — of the death of Gaius Julius Caesar, the military dictator who butchered his way through Gaul, set fire to Alexandria, and, through years of conquest, perfidy, and proscription, battered and broke every barricade that republican institutions had put in the way of military and executive power, until he finally had himself proclaimed dictator perpetuus, the King of Rome in everything but name. On March 15^th, 44 BCE, a group of republican conspirators, naming themselves the Liberatores, rose up and stabbed Caesar to death on the floor of the Senate. Meanwhile, Thursday, March 13^th, was also the 127^th anniversary (give or take the relevant calendar adjustments), of the death of Czar Alexander II Nikolaevitch, the self-styled Caesar of all the Russias. Alexander was killed by grenades thrown by a group of anarchist conspirators on March 13^th, 1881 C.E., in an act of propaganda by the deed. In honor of the events, the Ministry of Culture in this secessionist republic of one has proclaimed March 15^th Tyrannicide Day (observed), which is kind of like President’s Day, except cooler. Instead of another dull theo-nationalist hymn on the miraculous births of two of the canonized saints of the United States federal government, Tyrannicide Day gives us one day in which we can commemorate the deaths of two tyrants at the hands of their equals — men and women who defied the tyrants’ arbitrary claims to an unchecked authority that they had neither the wisdom, the virtue, nor the right to exercise. Men and women who saw themselves as exercising their equal right of self-defense, by striking down the would-be tyrants just like they would be entitled to strike down any other two-bit thug who tried to kill them, enslave them, or shake them down.

… There are in fact lots of good reasons to rule out tyrannicide as a political tactic — after all, these two famous cases each ended a tyrant but not the tyrannical regime; Alexander II was replaced by the even more brutal Alexander III, and Julius Caesar was replaced by his former running-dogs, one of whom would emerge from the abattoir that followed as Augustus Caesar, to begin the long Imperial nightmare in earnest. But it’s important to recognize that these are strategic failures, not moral ones, and what should be celebrated on the Ides of March is not the tyrannicide as a strategy, but rather tyrannicide as a moral fact. Putting a diadem on your head and wrapping yourself in the blood-dyed robes of the State confers neither the virtue, the knowledge, nor the right to rule over anyone, anywhere, for even one second, any more than you had naked and alone. Tyranny is nothing more and nothing less than organized crime executed with a pompous sense of entitlement and a specious justification; the right to self-defense applies every bit as much against the person of some self-proclaimed sovereign as it does against any other two-bit punk who might attack you on the street.

Every victory for human liberation in history — whether against the crowned heads of Europe, the cannibal-empires of modern Fascism and Bolshevism, or the age-old self-perpetuating oligarchies of race and sex — has had these moral insights at its core: the moral right to deal with the princes and potentates of the world as nothing more and nothing less than fellow human beings, to address them as such, to challenge them as such, and — if necessary — to resist them as such.

—GT 2008-03-15: Tyrannicide Day 2008

Anyway. How about you? How are you planning to celebrate Tyrannicide Day? Got any plans? A favorite tyrannicide to highlight for this year’s ceremonies? A party to throw? If you are or do, send some fraternal greetings my way; I’d be glad to hear how you plan to pass the holiday.

Just ten more days, y’all. Beware the State; celebrate the Ides of March!

1. ^[1] Which has the advantage of combining multiple visual puns with some remarkable skill, and which, for a dinosaur nerd like me, is like the funniest thing ever. ↩

krugman this morning, crowing as usual about his moral superiority to you:

Bill Clinton famously told a suffering constituent, “I feel your pain.” But the thing is, he did and does — while many other politicians clearly don’t. Or perhaps it would be fairer to say that the parties feel the pain of different people.

i don't think anyone actually feels your pain until you hurt them, which i suggest would be a reasonable procedure.

The constitution is broken. Either it authorizes this spendthrift maxarchist police state, or it fails to prevent it. Much of those four historic pieces of parchment are dead letter. The president rules by executive order and sends us into wars on his own authority. The second amendment has been eviscerated. The fourth amendment is a cruel joke. The tenth amendment died at least 150 years ago. No matter how you slice it, the constitution is not working out.

Articles of Confederation?

So what comes next? Do we revert to the Articles of Confederation? That was a constitution too! The fact is that parchment and ink will never protect you from theft, fraud, assault or death. And the Articles didn’t even protect us from the (current) constitution. So, no, we can’t evolve backwards.

Secede?

Secession may open a few cracks in the federal state’s iron cage, but beyond that we can expect the tyranny to continue, albeit on a smaller stage. After all, a state is just a small country with a … constitution! If it fails on a large scale, why would it work on a small scale? The facts of the matter remain unchanged. Why trade a tyrant 2000 miles away for one 200 miles away? It’s only a marginal improvement, if that.

Another Kind of Secession

“The only idea they have ever manifested as to what is a government of consent, is this – that it is one to which everybody must consent, or be shot.” – Lysander Spooner

There is another kind of secession though – personal secession. As individuals, we can secede from this forced union of souls. Do you yearn for fiscal restraint, accessibility and accountability from your government? Is government not providing the kind of mutual aid and healthcare you expect? This may be the best solution for you. You decide how much to spend on services formerly provided by government. If your new service providers aren’t accessible or accountable, take your business elsewhere! If you can’t find an acceptable service provider, join with like-minded folks to start your own – no need to lobby Congress for permission first.

Government Services Better Provided by Individuals

The services you expect from government can be, or are already being, provided (better) by individuals. Roads are built and maintained by individuals all the time, whether governments hire them or not. There is already a thriving private market for home and workplace security. Private and family schools have left government ones in the dust. Before government butted in, private mutual aid was not only common but indefinitely sustainable. Healthcare was affordable.

Call it the Statement of Principles

What should follow the constitution then? I propose an agreement among individuals. Call it the Statement of Principles. All signatories agree to not commit aggression and to honor any contracts they voluntarily make (i.e., natural law). The Statement of Principles might go something like this:

I solemnly promise to never commit aggression against a fellow human being, nor to voluntarily and knowingly support the commission of aggression against a fellow human being. I will honor to the letter any contracts that I enter into. Should I fail to honor this promise, I will make all appropriate efforts to reach a settlement with the aggrieved party. If we are unable to reach an agreement, I will voluntarily submit to arbitration by a judge and jury, if need be, that is mutually agreeable to both myself and the complaining party.

300 Million Checks and Balances

How is it enforced though? Where’s the provision for police, national defense, courts, hospitals, the FDA …? If the 3 branches of checks and balances in the constitution appealed to you, consider how 300 million checks and balances would be even better. Parties to any controversies can hire their own judges and juries to hear any disputes they can’t resolve themselves. Communities can voluntarily band together to purchase home security services cheaply, or provide it themselves. Habitual criminals can be locked out of civilized locales. We can work together locally to solve our problems without the artificial constraint of getting it approved by 546 double-dealers in the District of Columbia.

Photo credit: notionscapital. Photo license.