“Yes” netting 44.7% of the tally undermines a 300-year consensus and the devolution of substantial political power to Scotland is already conceded. Such a near-tie is far more problematic for an existing political system struggling to maintain its legitimacy than for a new one trying to find its feet. And the concerns raised in advance of the referendum persist.

With the burden of proof shifted onto them, the social-contract arguments for existing states were drawn out from the shadows of handwaving and dimly-remembered civics classes.

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Con il suo 44,7%, il “Sì” rimette in discussione un consenso che durava da trecento anni. La devoluzione di una fetta sostanziale del potere politico alla Scozia è già una concessione. Questo quasi pareggio è più problematico per un sistema politico, come quello inglese, che si sforza di mantenere la sua legittimità, che per un sistema nuovo che cerca di affermarsi. Le preoccupazioni della vigilia rimangono intatte.

Con l’onere della prova a loro carico, chi giustificava l’esistenza degli stati sulla base di un presunto contratto sociale esce dall’ombra dei discorsi vacui e delle quasi dimenticate nozioni di educazione civica. Il culmine lo ha raggiunto il ministro degli esteri spagnolo José Manuel García Margallo, che ha contrastato le teorie indipendentiste dei catalani dicendo: “Ogni singolo spagnolo è proprietario di ogni singolo centimetro quadrato di questo paese.” Per sostenere la legittimità dell’unione anglo-scozzese è stato più volte ricordato l’accordo firmato con il parlamento scozzese tre secoli fa, facendo notare così come raramente i moderni territori politici siano unicamente il frutto di una conquista militare.

Molto dell’impeto dietro il “sì” veniva dal desiderio di liberare la Scozia dalle armi atomiche. Questo non risolveva il problema pratico di come operare una difesa militare convenzionale, ma ovviava in gran parte la solita domanda: “e la difesa?” Gli unionisti, poi, sono arrivati ad agitare l’immagine di una Scozia tramutata in una nuova Svizzera, come se questa fosse una brutta cosa.

Una parte molto più grande dei commenti è stata dedicata al problema dell’incertezza economica in caso di indipendenza. Critici come Paul Krugman hanno sostenuto validamente che, siccome l’economia scozzese attualmente dipende dal sistema finanziario globale con tutta la sua instabilità, l’indipendenza politica avrebbe ridotto le sue possibilità di assorbire i danni provocati da crisi economiche più ampie, verso le quali sarebbe rimasta vulnerabile.

La questione ha diviso l’élite economica, con la British Petroleum (BP) prevedibilmente dalla parte del “no” mentre i settori più globali erano a favore del “sì”. Il grosso delle terre scozzesi, intanto, resta nelle mani di una élite: il 50% è di proprietà di 432 famiglie appena. Le singole proprietà immobiliari stanno già passando dalle mani delle vecchie famiglie aristocratiche a quelle di un gruppetto di speculatori globali.

Con il calo dei proventi di petrolio e gas, l’economia scozzese è stata colpita particolarmente dalla deindustrializzazione. Ma man mano che la tecnologia post-industriale diventa la norma, una base economica diversa diventa sempre più percorribile. I servizi chiave possono essere liberati dalle costrizioni geografiche; il referendum ha ricevuto gran parte dell’impeto dal fatto che la Scozia avrebbe avuto una scelta limitatissima tra il Regno Unito e l’Unione Europea. Ma una concorrenza piena tra valute, per dirne una, non dovrebbe limitarsi all’alternativa tra l’euro e la sterlina. E un decentramento portato al livello dei singoli clan tradizionali non sarebbe più un ricordo romantico, ma una realtà di tutti i giorni.

Il sole sta tramontando sull’impero.

Traduzione di Enrico Sanna.

Durante tutto questo tempo, il governo degli Stati Uniti hanno portato avanti macchinazioni statuali e massacri nel mondo arabo. Nel suo messaggio, Obama ha detto: “Il nostro obiettivo è chiaro: Schiacciare e poi distruggere Isi[s] con una strategia antiterroristica totale e prolungata.” La prossima guerra con i droni è alle porte, e così anche la morte certa per altri innocenti. Già ora il governo americano in quella regione è responsabile della morte di centinaia di migliaia di persone, di un numero ancora più alto di profughi, e infine della distruzione totale su grande scala. I nuovi attacchi non si limitano all’Iraq. Nonostante l’opposizione della nazione dell’anno scorso, quando fu preso di mira il regime di Bashar al Assad, le bombe cadranno anche in Siria. Alla fine sono riusciti ad avere la loro maledetta guerra.

Isis rappresenta un regime terribile. Assoggetta e stupra le donne, uccide i bambini e decapita i prigionieri. Ma più interventismo non è la risposta. Questa nuova campagna militare non farà altro che inasprire, non placare, la loro ferocia.

Un video drammatico pubblicato su Huffington Post mostra un bambino siriano seppellito vivo sotto un edificio bombardato. La telecamera inquadra un gruppo di soccorritori che scavano freneticamente tra le macerie, tra il ferro contorto, per salvare il bambino. Le grida del bambino superano il chiasso della folla. Alla fine i soccorritori hanno successo e il bambino, terrorizzato, viene estratto vivo da sotto le rovine. Le urla di giubilo della folla significano ad un tempo gioia e dolore.

Gli attacchi con i droni ordinati da Barack Obama ricreeranno questa scena ogni giorno, senza sosta, fino alla fine degli attacchi.

Gli attacchi dei droni sono atti di terrorismo. La campagna contro il terrorismo è essa stessa una campagna di terrore senza fine. Gli Stati Uniti sono in uno stato di guerra permanente: la più grande forza repressiva al mondo. Ogni bomba significa un mondo meno sicuro, meno tranquillo. Per gli Stati Uniti, e ovviamente per chi vive entro i suoi confini, ogni bomba significa più solitudine, più isolamento dal resto del mondo.

Gli attacchi militari producono obiettivi politici nel breve termine, utili solo ai falchi di guerra. Le speranze di pace richiedono una strategia di lungo termine. Dove esiste il mercato esiste pace. Dove esiste pace esiste libertà. Va da sé che più libertà esiste nel mondo e meno oppressivi sono i regimi. Io non voglio l’Isis, non più di quanto non lo vogliano gli altri, ma la risposta non è il massacro di decine di migliaia di persone. Questa è la stessa mentalità imperialista che ha creato un tale regime brutale in primo luogo. Lo stato nazione, con questi massacri, è esso stesso un regime oppressivo, e non merita altro che di essere sconfitto con la libertà.

Traduzione di Enrico Sanna.

“Yes” netting 44.7% of the tally undermines a 300-year consensus and the devolution of substantial political power to Scotland is already conceded. Such a near-tie is far more problematic for an existing political system struggling to maintain its legitimacy than for a new one trying to find its feet. And the concerns raised in advance of the referendum persist.

With the burden of proof shifted onto them, the social-contract arguments for existing states were drawn out from the shadows of handwaving and dimly-remembered civics classes. This culminated in the astonishing rationale against Catalan independence expounded by Spain’s Foreign Minister Jose Manuel Garcia-Margallo: “Each and every Spaniard is the owner of each and every square centimeter of the country.” The formation of the Scottish-English union via agreement of the Scottish parliament was frequently invoked as a source of its legitimacy three centuries later, underscoring how rarely modern political territories are not solely the result of conquest.

With much of the impetus of the “yes” side stemming from a desire to get nuclear weapons out of Scotland, even with the practicalities of operating a domestic conventional military unresolved, the textbook objection of “but what about defense?” was largely obviated. Naysayers even seriously presented the prospect of Scotland becoming the new Switzerland as if that were a bad thing.

Far more of the commentary was devoted to economic uncertainty in the case of independence. Critics such as Paul Krugman raised the valid point that since Scotland’s economy currently relies on the global financial system, with all its instability, political independence would have reduced its leeway to absorb the damage from wider economic crises to which it would have still been vulnerable.

The question split the economic elite, with British Petroleum predictably backing “no” and the more global sectors favoring “yes.” Meanwhile, ownership of the bulk of Scotland’s land itself remains with the elite, fully half in the hands of a mere 432 families. Ownership of individual estates has already been shifting away from old-money aristocratic families to a global pool of speculators.

The Scottish economy, with its diminishing oil and gas revenue, has been hit particularly hard by deindustrialization. But as post-industrial technology rapidly becomes the norm, an economic base is increasingly viable. Key services can be unbundled from geography; the referendum received much of its impetus from the effects of the most limited competition of Scotland being able to pick and choose between the UK and the EU. And full competition of currencies, for one, will go far beyond the choice between the pound and the euro. Decentralization to a point matching the level of the traditional Scottish clan system will no longer be a romanticized memory, but everyday reality.

The sun is setting on the imperial state.

Translations for this article:

• Italian, La Scozia Conquista il Regno Unito.

For all this time the United States government has carried on national engineering and acts of mass murder in the Arab territory. In his speech, Obama stated: “Our objective is clear: We will degrade and ultimately destroy ISI[S] through a comprehensive and sustained counter-terrorism strategy.” The next great drone war is upon us — sure to kill even more innocents. The United States government is already responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands in the region, with even more displaced and property destruction on a grand scale to boot. The new strikes are not limited to Iraq either. Bombs will fall on Syria despite a national outcry against the administration this time last year when it targeted the Bashar al-Assad regime. They got their damn war after all.

ISIS is a terrifying regime. The group subjugates and rapes women, kills children and beheads prisoners. But more interventionism is not the answer. This new military campaign will only exacerbate their power, not curtail it.

A heart wrenching video on Huffington Post shows a Syrian baby entombed in a bombed building.  The camera is focused on a group of rescue workers frantically digging through debris, laden with twisted metal, to rescue the child. The scream of the infant is distinguishable over the noise of the crowd. At the video’s end the rescue workers are successful and the terrified child is pulled from the rubble alive. The sound of jubilation in the crowd is as joyful as it is agonizing.

The up and coming drone strikes ordered by Barack Obama will recreate this situation every day, day in and day out, for as long as it is sustained.

Drone strikes are acts of terror. The campaign against terrorism is itself a never-ending campaign of terror. The United States is a permanent wartime state — the world’s greatest agent of repression. With each bomb, the world becomes less secure and less safe. With each bomb, the United States, and by default those of us living within its borders, become more alone and isolated in the world.

Military strikes meet short-term political goals for the war hawks, but the enhancement of liberty is a long-term strategy. Where there are markets there is peace. Where there is peace there is liberty. The more liberty in the world, by very definition, the less oppressive regimes. I don’t want ISIS around anymore than anyone else, but the slaughter of tens of thousands is not the answer — it is the very imperialist mentality that created such a violent regime in the first place. The nation-state, for engaging in such slaughter, is itself an oppressive regime — it deserves nothing less than to be vanquished in liberty.

Translations for this article:

• Italian, Barack Obama Terrorista.

Kevin Carson discusses the role of the commons in market anarchism.

Kevin Carson discusses how Obama doesn’t want to defeat ISIS too badly.

Cory Massimino discusses individualist anarchism and hierarchy.

Kevin Carson discusses a book on new forms of worker organization.

Mel Gurtov discusses America’s return to Iraq.

Corey Robin discusses Labor Day readings.

Rizwan Zulfiqar Bhutta discusses lessons in counter-terrorism.

Ron Jacobs discusses the rational unreason of imperial war.

Conor Friedersdorf discusses what going to war with Syria would really mean for the U.S.

Robert Murphy discusses why we need to scrap the empire to have a free society at home.

Ezra Klein discusses the DNC’s braindead attack on Rand Paul.

Lew Rockwell discusses why libertarians are winning.

Lucy Steigerwald discusses why we don’t need a police czar.

Anthony Gregory discusses class theory in the first part of a series.

Tariq Ali discusses current Pakistani politics.

Benjamin W. Powell discusses market regulation of secondhand smoke.

Nathan Goodman discusses the labor politics of prisons.

Rick Sterling discusses myths about the conflict in Syria.

Dave Lindorff discusses the re-invasion of Iraq.

Belen Fernandez discusses Patrick Cockburn’s new book on ISIS.

Thom Holterman discusses Gary Chartier’s book on anarchy and legal order.

Lucy Steigerwald discusses why reassessing WW2 is a good idea.

Justin Raimondo discusses anti-interventionism and its discontents.

Rachel Burger discusses incest and the state.

Sheldon Richman discusses whether freedom requires empire.

Sheldon Richman discusses the crisis in Ukraine.

Jeff Sparrow discusses wars conducted in the name of humanitarianism.

Vassily Ivanchuk beats Alexey  Shirov

Vassily Ivanchuk beats Gary Kasparov.

This framing of the immigration issue is entirely wrong. It rests on the assumption that an inflow of “illegal” immigrants is a bad thing. The notion stems from a belief in the morality of nation-states and border control. If we abandon this idea, we can see that the real immigration problem pertains to border enforcement. It’s also related to miserable conditions in other countries. This horrific context is what leads many people to immigrate.

It’s definitely a problem when force is initiated against people simply crossing an imaginary line on a map. That’s one aspect of the real immigration problem. Another is the aforementioned miserable conditions. These consist of poverty and violence. Both of which contribute to people choosing to immigrate. If they lived in a better context, they may not feel the need to do so. This is not to say there is a moral issue with their choice to immigrate though.

This violence is partially the fault of U.S. foreign policy. The U.S. recognition of the coup government in Honduras is one example. Another is the past terrorist wars waged by Reagan in Central America. This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to violence unleashed by U.S. foreign policy. It’s the most relevant though.

A just resolution of the problems surrounding immigration would involve ending imperialist U.S. violence around the world. It would also involve opening the borders. These are the positions consistent with radical libertarianism and anarchism. In contrast, the present framing of the issues by politicians is non-libertarian or non-anarchist. The latter statist take is morally grotesque.

One way to go about helping this solution along is to pressure politicians to declare safe havens in areas under their control. Another related approach is to have non-governmental institutions harbor or help refugees from other countries. One could also donate to organizations that push for illegal immigrants to receive legal defense in court like the ACLU.

All of these options are important for furthering freedom of immigration. This principle of freedom of movement follows naturally from the non-aggression principle. Let’s work to implement the above solutions! All we have to lose is our chains. The time to act is now.

This sense of the “inferiority” of the other is a crucial part of empire. It’s what makes it so provincial. One is basically insular in adopting this attitude towards the colonially dominated. This contradicts the outward seeking internationalism of empire – albeit one marked by conquest and domination. The practitioners of empire are outward looking in the sense of seeing people external to themselves to be conquered. This is hardly a humane internationalism, but a perverse form of it nonetheless.

It’s important for friends of liberty to not be sucked into support for this type of internationalism. One should avoid falling for the imperialist canard about bringing human rights and democracy to the people of the world. Something that masks the exploitative interests of the imperial government in question. It’s unfortunate that even some libertarians and anarchists have fallen for the promises of the imperial state.

Some have even fallen for the liberatory promises of the American state. The American provincial imperial state has been rampaging throughout the world for some time now. It’s thus no surprise that it has developed defenders over time. It’s disheartening that some libertarians and anarchists have made excuses for the most imperialist and nationalistic state in the world. One can only hope they eventually renounce their apologia for it.

People residing in the territory controlled by the U.S. government should focus some of their efforts on opposing the provincial empire of the U.S. This involves doing away with the contradictions of provincial internationalism and embracing anarchistic internationalism. The kind that seeks equal relations among the individuals populating the world. An internationalism that doesn’t embrace conquest or aggressive violence as the way to interact with others in the world. This is the ideal that internationalism aims at. One can start making it a reality by conversing with other people and encouraging them to join in opposition.

Anthony Papa discusses the stories of drug war prisoners.

Timothy Karr discusses crony capitalists in Congress.

Kevin Carson discusses so called “free trade” agreements.

Jesse Walker discusses why the U.S. should stay out of Iraq.

Andrew Levine discusses imperial stupidity.

Sheldon Richman discusses the effects of imperialism in the Middle East.

Justin Raimondo discusses how the U.S. government is intervening again in Iraq.

Patrick Cockburn discusses how U.S. attacks will hurt but not defeat jihadists.

The ninth part of George H. Smith’s series on Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine.

Eric Alterman discusses the revisionism of neocons on Iraq.

Robert Parry discusses the surge in Iraq.

Seumas Milne discusses how more U.S. bombs and drones will only add to Iraq’s horror.

Shireen T. Hunter discusses the real culprits in Iraq.

Dahlia S. Wasfi discusses trusting Iraqis with Iraq.

Rob Urie discusses Iraq and the persistence of American hegemony.

Lawrence Davidson discusses the mess in Iraq.

David Swanson discusses the Democratic Party push to bomb Iraq again.

Pepe Escobar discusses the jihadists in Iraq.

Renee Parsons discusses the current situation in Iraq.

John Eskow discusses sending boots to Iraq.

Cory Massimino discusses why Hilary Clinton is a terrorist.

Ariel Dorfman discusses a tale of torture.

Missy Comley Beattie discusses Iraq.

David Gordon reviews Lew Rockwell’s new book on anarcho-capitalism. I am not an ancap, but I find the review interesting.

Eric Margolis discusses the coming American defeat in Iraq.

Ronald Bailey reviews Nicholas Wade’s, A Troublesome Inheritance: Genes, Race, and Human History.

Nebojsa Malic discusses a new forum designed to stop a new Cold War.

Alexander Alekhine defeats K. Iskaov.

Alexander Alekhine beats Fred Dewhirst Yates.

The danger lies in forgetting the evil of imperialism due to a greater inclusion of people participating in imperial violence. A more diverse band of killers for government is still a band of killers for government. Diversity is a useful value, but it isn’t the only value. This is especially true when we’re discussing the subject of militarism. Miliaristic force is among the worst evils known to humankind and remains so even with a greater variety of people involved. It’s imperative not to lose sight of this.

It’s also important not to lose sight of how militarism reinforces the notion of the other. A phenomenon that is especially deadly for marginalized individuals like LGBT people. An example of this is the fear of a Helot uprising in militaristic Sparta. It helped keep militarism going in that society. Homophobia itself is based on a fear of the other. It may not be inherently tied to militarism or empire, but it definitely has that trait in common.

Militarism tends to lead to the demonizing of the other, because it embraces an “us vs them” logic – one nation-group or group against another. It often leads to the total destruction of an enemy. There is no regard for civilian life. The inclusion of gay and lesbian individuals in this practice of “us vs them” war would be ironic. This is due to the status of gays and lesbians as marginalized people in American society.

Let us work towards abolishing homophobia, empire and militarism. A trinity of evils that deserves to be consigned to the dustbin of history. We anarchists can lead the way on this issue. It’s time to get started!