Anarchoblogs in English

• Sheriff Joe's War: Now More War-ry! Radley Balko, Hit & Run (2010-07-16). The Arizona Republic: In a stretch of barren desert alongside Interstate 8 near Gila Bend that has become a corridor for human and drug smuggling, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and about 100 men staged a crime-suppression operation Thursday. Arpaio brought with him a belt-fed .50-caliber machine gun that can... (Linked Friday 2010-07-16.)

• Cory Doctorow: Technology Can Be a Force for Liberation. Michel Bauwens, P2P Foundation (2010-07-15). Introduction to the Persian edition of the science fiction novel Little Brother, by Cory Doctorow, London, June 2008 Available for free download via http://www.archive.org/details/LilBroPersian, under the “Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0″ Creative Commons license. Cory Doctorow: I wrote this book because I believe that technology can be a force for liberation. Not... (Linked Friday 2010-07-16.)

• “Free Market Capitalism” is an Oxymoron. Kevin Carson, Center for a Stateless Society (2010-07-17). It’s pretty much standard for the chattering classes — both liberal and conservative — to refer to something called “our free market system,” also known as “free market capitalism.”  To the extent that the right-wingers at Fox and CNBC or on the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal advocate... (Linked Saturday 2010-07-17.)

• Why Misogynists Make Great Informants: How Gender Violence on the Left Enables State Violence in Radical Movements. inciteblog, INCITE! Blog (2010-07-15). Originally published in make/shift magazine Some people may have seen this article already, which has been making its rounds on Facebook and the blogosphere, but INCITE! blog editors loved it so much that we wanted to share it here. The piece was originally published in make/shift magazine’s Spring/Summer 2010 issue... (Linked Saturday 2010-07-17.)

• “The New Abortion Providers” and the Old Political Dilemmas. Christine C., Our Bodies Our Blog (2010-07-16). The New York Times has published online an extensive article about “The New Abortion Providers” (it will appear in print in Sunday’s Magazine), which I highly recommend reading. Such detailed reporting from a mainstream publication on the struggles of individual medical students and doctors to make abortion an accepted, integrated... (Linked Saturday 2010-07-17.)

• Matt Buchanan on the Droid X. Daring Fireball (2010-07-17). I linked this article because it contained the best slashing-review line I've read all day: "The software — a discordant melange of the not-so-fresh Android 2.1 and various bits of the Blur 'social networking' interface from Motorola’s lower-end Android phones — is the shudder-inducing poster child for the horrors that can occur when most hardware companies try to make software. It’s ugly, scattershot, and confusing. It feels almost malicious." (Linked Saturday 2010-07-17.)

• Joseph Déjacque and "The Circulus in Universality" Out of the Libertarian Labyrinth (2010-07-17). "Now then the absence of orders is the true order. The law and the sword is only the order of bandits, the code of theft and murder that presides at the division of the spoils, at the massacre of the victims. It is on that bloody pivot that the civilized world turns. Anarchy is its antipode, and that antipode is the axis of the humanispherean world." (Linked Saturday 2010-07-17.)

• Take me to the river... Shawn P. Wilbur, Out of the Libertarian Labyrinth (2010-07-18). Let's say we gather the usual suspects, down by the river, in the State of Nature, or thereabouts, for some a bit of property theory and a few "good draughts." John Locke says everybody can appropriate some river-water, as long as what they make their own "property" leaves "a whole... (Linked Sunday 2010-07-18.)

• 1996. xkcd.com (2010-07-18). Oh, TI-85, how I remember our time together, coding blackjack games in an indecipherable "programming language" when I was supposed to be paying attention in class... (Linked Sunday 2010-07-18.)

• Seattle's Finest. Daily Brickbats (2010-07-19). Seattle prosecutors are reportedly looking at criminal charges against two local police officers. The two were caught on videotape kicking and stomping a Latino man as other officers watched. They'd stopped the man as a potential robbery suspect but left him go a sort time later after determining he was... (Linked Monday 2010-07-19.)

• New Zealand becomes a game-changer. Software patents no longer allowed « Icrontic Tech. tech.icrontic.com (2010-07-19). Brian Ambrozy (primesuspect) Today a New Zealand government minister announced that software should not be patentable. July 15, 2010 4:55 PM ET in News, intellectual property, law, patents, software Today the New Zealand government’s office announced that Commerce Minister Simon Power instructed the Intellectual Property Office of New Zealand (IPONZ) to... (Linked Monday 2010-07-19.)

• feministhulk: HULK TRY TO WRITE POETRY ABOUT LOVE FOR SMASHING PATRIARCHY. WHAT RHYME WITH "HEGEMONY?" Twitter / feministhulk (2010-07-19). feministhulk: HULK TRY TO WRITE POETRY ABOUT LOVE FOR SMASHING PATRIARCHY. WHAT RHYME WITH "HEGEMONY?" (Linked Monday 2010-07-19.)

Let’s say we gather the usual suspects, down by the river, in the State of Nature, or thereabouts, for a bit of property theory and a few “good draughts.” John Locke says everybody can appropriate some river-water, as long as what they make their own “…

Continue reading at Out of the Libertarian Labyrinth …

The Circulus in Universality (1858)Joseph Déjacque IThe circulus in universality is the destruction of every religion, of all arbitrariness, be it elysian or tartarean, heavenly or infernal. The movement in the infinite is infinite progress. This bein…

Continue reading at Out of the Libertarian Labyrinth …

[Here is one of three essays from a pamphlet on nationalism, by Pierre Leroux's son, Joseph.]DOCTRINE DE L’HUMANITÉYOUR NATIONALITIES  Extract from a letter published in the the arbitrator, a journal of the friends of peace, appearing in London …

Continue reading at Out of the Libertarian Labyrinth …

• Operation Revelation. Jesse Walker, Jesse Walker: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2010-03-05). Here's the intro to a press release from the sheriff of Bossier Parish, Louisiana: Bossier Sheriff Larry Deen has unveiled a new emergency operations plan that will be a continuation of public safety in Bossier Parish should disaster ever strike here at home. The plan, known as Operation Exodus, will... (Linked Friday 2010-03-05.)
• apophenia » Blog Archive » ChatRoulette, from my perspective. www.zephoria.org (2010-03-06). "[...] I love the way that it mixes things up. For most users of all ages – but especially teens – the Internet today is about socializing with people you already know. But I used to love the randomness of the Internet. I can’t tell you how formative it was for me to grow up talking to all sorts of random people online. So I feel pretty depressed every time I watch people flip out about the dangers of talking to strangers. Strangers helped me become who I was. Strangers taught me about a different world than what I knew in my small town. Strangers allowed me to see from a different perspective. Strangers introduced me to academia, gender theory, Ivy League colleges, the politics of war, etc. So I hate how we vilify all strangers as inherently bad. Did I meet some sketchballs on the Internet when I was a teen? DEFINITELY. They were weird; I moved on. And it used to be a lot harder to move on when everything was attached to an email that was paid for. So I actually think that the ChatRoulette version allows you to move on with greater ease, less guilt, and far more comfortably." (Linked Saturday 2010-03-06.)
• Two-Gun Mutualism and the Golden Rule - Part 3. Shawn P. Wilbur, Out of the Libertarian Labyrinth (2010-03-03). “TWO-GUN” MUTUALISMand theGOLDEN RULE[continued] ARMED AND DANGEROUS Perhaps this has all taken a strangely martial turn, given mutualism’s generally peaceful reputation. Isn’t the core of mutualism the Golden Rule: “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you?” Yes, indeed. But there’s nothing simple about fulfilling the Golden Rule. The... (Linked Saturday 2010-03-06.)
• Raspberry Cliché Jesse Walker, Jesse Walker: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2010-03-07). Last night Hollywood held its most rigidly predictable exercise in conventional wisdom: the Golden Raspberry Awards, a.k.a. the Razzies, established to honor the worst films of the year. Sandra Bullock showed up to collect her Worst Actress and Worst Screen Couple prizes for All About Steve, then razzed the crowd... (Linked Sunday 2010-03-07.)

“TWO-GUN” MUTUALISMand theGOLDEN RULE[continued] ARMED AND DANGEROUS Perhaps this has all taken a strangely martial turn, given mutualism’s generally peaceful reputation. Isn’t the core of mutualism the Golden Rule: “Do unto others …

Continue reading at Out of the Libertarian Labyrinth …

• Ex-New Orleans Cop Pleads Guilty To Massive Cover Up In Post-Katrina Shootings | TPMMuckraker. tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com (2010-02-26). "A veteran New Orleans police officer pleaded guilty yesterday to orchestrating an elaborate cover-up of a shooting in the days after Katrina in which police gunned down six unarmed city residents, killing two and seriously wounding four. ..." (Linked Friday 2010-02-26.)
• Cutting Up Your Credit Cards. Jesse Walker, Jesse Walker: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2010-02-25). "The banks and credit card companies have spent 50 years building a proprietary, locked-down system that handles roughly $2 trillion in credit card transactions and another $1.3 trillion in debit card transactions every year," Daniel Roth writes in Wired. But now "an army of engineers and entrepreneurs is rushing in,... (Linked Friday 2010-02-26.)
• Health Care and Radical Monopoly | The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty. Google Alerts - http://www.thefreemanonline.org/featured/scratching-by-how-government-creates-poverty-as-we-know-it/ (2010-02-24). The Freeman Online. Published by the Foundation for Economic Education .... in “ Scratching By: How the Government Creates Poverty as We Know It” (The ... (Linked Saturday 2010-02-27.)
• "Two-Gun" Mutualism? - Part 1. Shawn P. Wilbur, Out of the Libertarian Labyrinth (2010-02-27). “TWO-GUN” MUTUALISMand theGOLDEN RULEThus one remains in perplexity and uncertainty, equally attracted and repulsed by two opposite attractors. Yes, the sympathies of our era are equally lively, equally energetic, whether it is a question of liberty or equality, of individuality or association. The faith in society is complete, but the... (Linked Saturday 2010-02-27.)
• Two-Gun Mutualism? - Part 2. Shawn P. Wilbur, Out of the Libertarian Labyrinth (2010-02-27). “TWO-GUN” MUTUALISMand theGOLDEN RULE[continued]INDIVIDUALISM vs SOCIALISMIt is clear that, in all of this writing, it is necessary to understand by socialism, socialism as we define it in this work itself, which is as the exaggeration of the idea of association, or of society. For a number of years, we have... (Linked Saturday 2010-02-27.)

“TWO-GUN” MUTUALISMand theGOLDEN RULE[continued]INDIVIDUALISM vs SOCIALISMIt is clear that, in all of this writing, it is necessary to understand by socialism, socialism as we define it in this work itself, which is as the exaggeration of the idea …

Continue reading at Out of the Libertarian Labyrinth …

“TWO-GUN” MUTUALISMand theGOLDEN RULEThus one remains in perplexity and uncertainty, equally attracted and repulsed by two opposite attractors. Yes, the sympathies of our era are equally lively, equally energetic, whether it is a question of libert…

Continue reading at Out of the Libertarian Labyrinth …

Nobody who knows me or my work will be surprised if I admit to working primarily on a large — and sometimes over-large — scale. There are obvious disadvantages to the approach: I have certainly not published as much as I might have, in any of the various fields where I've gained some expertise, and much of the writing I have done has been in the form of theoretical "feelers" and thought experiments scattered in a wide variety of forums. The more definitive statements that I have started have been slow to develop. The logistics of serious interdisciplinary study are a monster, in any case. Keeping all the balls in the air at once is not always possible, so one is forced to constantly revisit and relearn in order to incorporate old insights into new approaches. The upside to all of that is that, if you stick with it, you can gradually pull together some pretty good stuff. But the moments of pulling-together can be rather traumatic, as the obvious hazard of trying to think about damn-near-everything is that sometimes you're going to discover that everything you know is at least a tad-bit wrong.

I've been going through one of those traumatic consolidations recently, as the lessons of my increasingly precarious life as a retail wage-worker and those of my increasingly intense exploration of some very early anarchist and proto-anarchist writings have set off ripples across what I thought I knew about libertarian social theory large enough to capsize quite a bit of stuff.

It's funny how things combine, and how changing one's position in the social scheme can revolutionize one's perspective. Certain realizations are probably only possible when the wolf is not (or not quite) at the door; others don't come until it is. Different kinds of clarity arise from different situations, and the resulting contrasts are useful, if not always nice to deal with.

A certain degree of personal and political messiness has accompanied the most recent set of epiphanies. Having worked for much of the last ten years in the twilight zone between mainstream social anarchism and what we've come to call left-libertarian market anarchism, I now find myself somewhat adrift — in large part because my encounter with the first, and largely forgotten, stage of anarchist history suggest that the two factions with which I have been associated, where most of my friends and allies still labor away, are, perhaps, unfortunate mutilations of something much more comprehensive and promising.

This is, of course, a fight I have been picking (albeit somewhat quietly) for some time. In "Unexpected dangers of the free market?,"and in the various posts collected in the two issues of LeftLiberty, I raised the question of "one-sidedness" (or "simplism," as the Fourier-influenced have put it). Proudhon, I said, "seems to call consistently for an analysis more "two-sided" than anything we have been able to put together in a divided anarchist movement. Maybe it's time to realize his ambitions." In the year+ since that comment, I've been working to provide the background texts necessary to grapple with "two-sidedness" in this context — the first step in recognizing a number of "funny things" that have happened on our way to anarchism in its current forms. One of the most important of those texts is Pierre Leroux's "Individualism and Socialism," which I recently posted in translation. [Part 1, Part 2]

What's the "funny thing" there? Nothing but the possibility of essentially having ended the "individualism" vs. "socialism" debates in the same moment as coining the terms.

If you haven't read the piece, and have any interest in following the next phases of my work on mutualism — a more direct and definitive sort of work, explicitly "Out of the Libertarian Labyrinth," if perhaps into a whole new set of libertarian difficulties — I encourage you to take a look.

Next up: Genealogical thoughts