autonomous alternatives to the statist quo in English
Some friends created a site to celebrate Noam Chomsky's 80th birthday.
I don't talk much about Chomsky because I don't think anyone who reads anything I would write is unaware of him. Also, because it's hard to think of what to say about someone who goes so far beyond being an influence or a mentor or a role model. So I went to the site and put this there.
Very often, in fiction, institutions of societal judgment, institutions which shape the future and help to define the past — our own history — are portrayed in a favorable light, shown to impartially facilitate the victory of truth over falsehood, of bravery over cowardice, of mercy over vengeance and of reason over brute impulse.
Would that such images reflected reality.
For every “revolutionary” decision handed down by Courts Supreme and by Tribunals Most High — which merely reflect and elucidate, rather than alter or discover, the fundamental nature of that which ought be justice — those same bodies deliver a torrent of support and endorsement for the present system and for that pile of unjust historical deadweight called “precedent” but which, in the words of Kevin Carson, might better be called “the subsidy of history”.
These august incarnations of unquestionable, unaccountable power are dressed up in the finest of robes, placed on the highest of perches and set above all other men, so that they may — to the half-blind, numbed, unthinking bulk of humanity — discover truth, lay blame where it belongs and issue a judgment most holy, and one which contributes positively to the betterment of humankind.
In reality these Holiests of Holies sit not in service of truth over falsehood but in service, rather, to whatever they can get away with to appease and gratify those who own and dominate not only the judges themselves but also the entire society which pretends to or actually does submit to their judgment. And they arrogate unto themselves the power to kill, not in the service of law or truth or virtue, but to the service of those who employ them, as tools, and do so as they have for generation after generation, century after century. The power to kill, on a whim. The power to kill, especially, when a litigant’s ideas threaten the very basis of their own unaccountable, comfortable, profitable and entirely traditional, family-values-right-down-to-that-time-my-gangster-uncle-murdered-a-hobo-who-dirtied-his-shoe-and-ain’t-that-just-the-way-it-is-and-by-god-we-gotta-get-together-and-protect-ourselves foundational power ethic, their perception of and re(ta)l(i)ation to reality.
The statist dreams that the judges will be the best of society in that they are selected and trained by the best of society’s methods. But when the judgement over what those methods ought to be and how those (s)elections ought be carried out is left up to a bunch of people who are highly skilled only in becoming elected officials and playing the statist system to the maximum advantage — rather than to those who must all directly pay the costs and suffer the problems of the system but yet remain able to change it quickly and directly since they are part of it — well, what do you expect? They do not serve truth or justice or virtue over all other things. When they serve those concepts at all, they do so only if — and, often, because — our masters have agreed to stop trying to kill us if we disagree.
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[Version en espanol despues del ingles]Oaxaca, 28th November 2008Compañeras and compañeros of all the organisations, collectives and individuals of Oaxaca and the World, of the Other Campaign, of National and International Human Rights Organisations, to the communication media, to the…
The recent arrest of Tory MP Damien Green is illuminating both in its alleged execution and in the indignant response from MPs of all colours (though mostly Tory and Lib-Dem it has to be said). It's alleged that Green was the recipient of some interesting government documents, that naturally uk.gov didn't want us to see, which eventually ended up being reported. That Green chooses to embarrass
Victoria must pay tethered teen $30,000
Friday, November 28, 2008
VICTORIA - Willow Kinloch has been granted half of the $60,000 she won in a lawsuit after being tethered in Victoria police cells, with the payment of the rest hinging on an appeal of her case by the City of Victoria.
The city had applied for a stay, or suspension, of payment until the appeal is heard, perhaps sometime next spring. But Justice Mary Saunders of the B.C. Court of Appeal ruled Thursday that Kinloch is entitled to $30,000 now.
Kinloch’s case dates to 2005 when she was 15. A B.C. Supreme Court jury came up with the award earlier this year following a decision that officers had violated Kinloch’s charter rights.
Kinloch had been picked up by police in the downtown area for being drunk and was taken to police cells.
She spent about an hour screaming and banging on the walls before two officers tried to take her home to the apartment she shared with her mother.
The apartment intercom was broken and officers wouldn’t let Kinloch yell up to a window, so she was brought back to the police station. She did not want to return to a cell, and police described her as uncooperative. She ended up being bound at the ankles, tethered and left in the cell for four hours.
Kinloch is now in Thailand.
Here’s to hoping Ms. Kinloch is safe, given the unrest in Thailand at the moment.
See also:
The further education of Willow Kinloch
Victoria, BC citizenry to pay $60,000 to brutalized teen (includes video)
While the image of Britain as a tolerant country that welcomed migrants is a debatable one, if you read the right-wing press you might be forgiven for thinking that any welcome that did exist had disappeared altogether, and in terms of its migration regime it most definitely has. Despite increasingly draconian laws however, there are [...]
