Happy Tyrannicide Day (observed)!

Today, March 15^th, commemorates the assassination of two notorious tyrants. On the Ides of March in 2010 CE, we mark the 2,053^rd anniversary — give or take the relevant calendar adjustments — of the striking down of Gaius Julius Caesar — the military dictator who rose to power by butchering his way through Gaul, by boasting of enslaving millions of war captives, by setting fire to Alexandria, and, through years of conquest, perfidy and proscription, battering and breaking through every restraint that Roman politics and civil society had placed in the way of unilateral 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 Liberators — rose up and ended his reign of terror by stabbing Caesar to death on the floor of the Senate. By the coincidence of fate, only two days before, on March 13^th, is also the anniversary (129^th this year, give or take the relevant calendar adjustments) of the assassination of Czar Alexander II Nikolaevitch, the self-styled Caesar and Autocrat of All the Russias. A group of anarchist conspirators, acting in self-defense against the ongoing repression and violence of the autocratic state, put an end to the Czar’s reign by throwing grenades underneath his carriage on March 13^th, 1881 CE, in an act of propaganda by the deed. In honor of the coinciding events, the Ministry of Culture in this secessionist republic of one, together with fellow republics and federations of the free world, is happy to proclaim the 15^{th of March Tyrannicide Day (observed), a commemoration of the death of two tyrants at the hands of people rising up in the conviction of their own equal freedom to defend themselves from violence and oppression, even the violence and oppression exercised by men in the name of the State and its fraudulent claims to authority. It’s a two-for-one historical holiday, 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.}

It is worth remembering in these days that the State has always tried to pass off attacks against its own commanding and military forces (Czars, Kings, soldiers in the field, etc.) as acts of terrorism. That is, in fact, what almost every so-called act of terrorism attributed to 19^th century anarchists happened to be: direct attacks on the commanders of the State’s repressive forces. The linguistic bait-and-switch is a way of trying to get moral sympathy on the cheap, in which the combat deaths of trained fighters and commanders are fraudulently passed off, by a professionalized armed faction sanctimoniously playing the victim, as if they were just so many innocent bystanders killed out of the blue. Tyrannicide Day is a day to expose this for the cynical lie that it is.

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; 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.

How did you celebrate Tyrannicide Day? (Personally, I got back into town from San Francisco, got down to sorting my books from the Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair, and gave my wife a Tyrannicide Day gift that I picked up for her while I was out — a copy of the The Tragic Procession: Alexander Berkman and Russian Prisoner Aid, just barely cooled from the presses from the Kate Sharpley Library.) And you? Done anything online or off for this festive season? Give a shout-out in the comments.

Thus always to tyrants. And many happy returns!

Beware the State. Celebrate the Ides of March!

Other Celebrations

• texts for nothing 2010-03-15
• Barbarianchick 2010-03-14
• Strike the Root 2010-03-07
• Firestorm Cafe & Books in Asheville

See also:

• GT 2007-11-23: The present anarchy of our commerce features a Tyrannicide Day commemorative t-shirt from the Rad Geek People’s Clothing Collective storefront
• GT 2008-03-15: Tyrannicide Day 2008: The fifth annual celebration, with an oration, a mention of the coincide with the International Day to End Police Brutality, and a commemorative translation and singing of the most famous of the outlaw corridos, the ballad of Gregorio Cortez.
• GT 2007-03-15: Tyrannicide Day 2007: The fourth annual celebration, with an oration and a commemorative reading from Schiller’s Wilhelm Tell, a dramatic retelling of the legendary Swiss tyrannicide which, if genuinely historical, was perhaps the most strategically successful tyrannicide in history.
• GT 2006-03-15: Tyrannicide Day ceremonies for 2006: the third annual celebration, with some thoughts on equality and a commemorative reading from The Tragedy [sic] of Julius Caesar.
• GT 2005-03-15: Happy Tyrannicide Day (observed)!: the second annual celebration, and some thoughts on tyrannicide and terrorism
• GT 2004-03-15: Happy Tyrannicide Day (observed)!: the first annual celebration. It’s like President’s Day, only cooler.
• Professor Wilkes: Tyrannicide Not Terrorism

Recently, I told a self-confessed socialist that I opposed ‘nationalism’.  Her draw dropped.

The same day I somehow found myself in an argument with a person who can only be described as ultra-nationalist over the topic of refugees and asylum seekers.  I told him ‘nationalism’ was absurd and I rejected it.  His draw dropped and he stared at me for a good 10 seconds.

Such comments seem to shock people, particularly when I inform them I don’t regard myself as ‘Australian’.  However, most people are then pushed to ask whether or not identify as some other nationality.  I tell them my ethnic/cultural heritage and then tell them that I don’t identify with any of these either.  I have no interest in joining one team or another, and this is what seems so shocking to people.

‘Citizenship’, for me, is just a legal document that has no real meaning except that it is a hoop erected by the State for me to jump through in order to do certain things.  It’s necessary in this regard only.

‘Australia day’ is ‘invasion day’, because that’s what it was.  I have no interest in perpetuating ‘Australia Day’ as a celebration of the ‘founding of the nation’ and a collective celebration of ‘Australianism’, when that ‘Australianism’ was founded upon the blood and bones of the indigenous inhabitants of this continent.

My understanding of ‘Self’ is all important in this.  It’s how I identify and clearly my understanding differs from the vast majority of people or I wouldn’t shock them when I mention it.  But why does mine differ other peoples?

We create a particular stereotype by defining ourselves by what we are not.  We then draw arbitrary lines to divide ‘us from them’ in order reinforce that stereotype and perpetuate it.   But little do we realise that what this creates is a bunch of ideas and nothing more, because these ideas are abstract and not based on in reality.  What makes a thing or a person the ‘other’ is make-believe.

However the damage is done. We have created an idea of what we ought to be, or what we ought to do to be ‘Australian‘.  Governments are the catalyst in this process as they mould it, expanded it and promote it because they profit from it.  It allows them to inspire us to band together, to play as a team for the good of the nation, to go fight and die for some concept of this shared, national identity.

Once a particular way of ‘being’ is created, a pressure is exerted upon every individual to conform to that vast collection of memes; to be Australian.  But in reality, that stereotype is false.  It doesn’t exist.  Remove ‘what we are not’ and parts of ‘what we are’, are removed with them.

It’s this that I oppose because the individual tries to be something.  They are trying to ‘be Australia’ when the entire concept of what an ‘Australian’ is doesn’t exist.  Ask anyone to define what, exactly, is ‘Australian’ and then compare it to reality and you find that it’s indefinable.  Thongs, shorts, shrimp on the bare-e, green and gold and singlets may be the ‘average Australian’ to many — and many people try to ‘be’ this, because it is what they think being ‘Australian’ is.  But all it takes is to look around you at the people who pass you in the street to see just how wrong it is.  Even the idea of Australian’s being ‘layed back’ and ‘larrikins’ is a farce.  They may be personality traits for some, but I know many who are highly strung, humourless and depressed.

So then, the individual in pursuit of that identity of ‘Australian’, over compensates.  They alter their behaviour to conform to what they believe is ‘Australian’, when really it doesn’t exist.  A person with black skin may see being ‘white’ as a requirement for being Australian and so bleach their skin to gain acceptance.  In the statement, ‘I am Australian’, the ‘Australian’ part is meaningless and the statement becomes, merely, ‘I am.’  Anything after that is bullshit.  This same thinking can be extrapolated to all sorts of thought processes that designate ‘us’ and ‘them’, and ultimately ends in destroying the ‘other’ or an individual fundamentally changing their ‘Self’ to gain acceptance.

Nationalism then, is simply a weapon for Governments who can increase their control by propagating this idea that somehow ‘our team’ is better and/or under threat from ‘their team’.

However, the biggest issue at hand then, is how to square with ‘positive’ nationalist movements which help to re-establish a marginalised or suppressed identity, such as indigenous peoples from around the world.  After all, these movements are positive in that they create a sense of solidarity among minorities and help them talk back to the privileged majority.  Nationalism re-establishes the oppressed as a cohesive unit and says, ‘we exist and you won’t walk over us.’  How could an anti-nationalist, such as myself, recognise, support and even work with nationalist movements such as these that seek to protect and established an oppressed minority as equals?

To be sure, there seems to be a contradiction.  But, I think, it needs to be recognised that such nationalist movements are positive and present a benefit to those they try to help.  That should be supported, but there is a limit on that support, as nationalism as a theory is not an ends in itself.  As a matter of course, nationalism requires the individual to bend and change the Self in order to accommodate it.  A person will over-compensate in order to gain acceptance and prove that they are more, to use previous examples, ‘Australian’ than you or the other, and I believe this is where the limit lies.  Acceptance is a powerful tool and weapon.  When a movement changes from re-establishing and fighting for the fair treatment and safety of a minority, to being one where the granting or removal of acceptance becomes contingent on the individual trying to ‘be‘ something more than themselves (eg, more hardcore than you), than support should be withdrawn.  Equally, when those movements call for the hatred or destruction of the other, support should be withdrawn.

No support should be given to any movement, organisation or theory from a point where it demands that a person hates their Self and attempts to destroy their Self for acceptance or where it demands that a person hate and destroy their friends, loved ones and supporters on the basis that they belong to ‘the Other’.

Soon South Australian’s everywhere will go to the polls.  It’s election season and politicians are out kissing babies and visiting places they would normally avoid like the plague to score cheap votes.  Signs have been erected at bus stops urging people to ‘Vote4You’ and all those annoying posters have been put up on street lamps around the place, with the particular candidate in a suit, sporting the faux grin, looking confident and, most importantly, competent.

And it’s that slogan, ‘Vote4You’ that’s the object of my current distaste.  You’ll see it around the place, on the static posters as bus stops and on buses, or you’ll see it on TV with the people jumping and pulling rebellious rock and roll-esque poses in order to connect with the young people of South Australia.  And just think about it for a moment; Vote–4–you.

Really?

Because last time I checked, I wasn’t the one going into parliament to vote on things such as whether or not the State government can attack freedom of association by first targeting unpopular groups such as the Bikies.  And let’s face it, we don’t get much choice in the matter.  Mike Rann has run the state with an iron fist since coming into parliament.  With an excellent Public Relations team preserving his public image, keeping the papers quiet, keep journalists on their toes so their too busy to be assignment with real issues and then allowing them just enough time, in a controlled environment, for Rann to get a final rebuttal to some opposing argument on a key issue.

Add into this the obscene focus on rebuilding the State’s hospital in front of the UniSA CityWest Campus, which has been the cause of so much mud-slinging between the two major parties, and it makes me sick into my own scorn — bottom line, lot’s of money is going to be spent either way.

Which brings me Isobel Redmond, who has just about as much charisma as Rann, zero.  She makes a point of walking Hindley Street late on Saturday nights to meet and greet all the youngsters out there and talk to them about her policies.  She even went so far as to be visiting Tea Tree Plaza to do the same to young people while they shop and suck their boost juice.

Rann has now promised ‘police-trained security guards’ for trains to improve the use of public transport.  They are to be armed with guns, batons and pepper spray.  Because placing armed, trained ‘officers of the law’ on public transport in a confined space is not going to get anyone killed, at all.

Yeah, that’s really going to go down well.  And I’m saying this as someone living in the Salisbury/Elizabeth area.

Which brings me to my point.  These people don’t care.  They’re focussing on getting re-elected so they can continue to enforce their particular brand of morality of morality on the rest of us.  Sometimes that morality comes in the form of Trevor Grace, other time’s it’s Rann kissing a baby somewhere in a city park.

So I end this by saying, simply, that I do not accept any of these candidates as my leader.  I do not want a leader and refuse to legitimise their positions.  In fact, our political leaders are no different to the Gang of 49, the Bikies Rann loves to hate and the ‘NewBoys’ street gang.  Only difference is that they wear less tattoos, more suits and employ a media management team.

So, when it comes time to perform my ‘encouraged’ democratic duty I will truly Vote4Me and by not casting a ballot.

Because only I can.

(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.