The non-hierarchical, consensus-based, mission-driven collective remains and pervades activist organizing bodies of every level. We love them, apparently. Yet I’ve seen the most collective energy drained to nothing when any one of those elements (the hierarchy, the consensus, the mission) is implicitly or explicitly challenged, and often from within. Someone is in some way not…

Reason Science Editor Ron Bailey (“Overpopulation Scaremongering Never Gets Old,” June 19) takes Eugene Linden to task for blaming Lesotho’s poverty on overpopulation. “That’s far too simple a story,” Bailey says — whereupon he hands his beer to Linden and demonstrates how a real pro oversimplifies things. Lesotho couldn’t be overpopulated, Bailey says, because it’s got…

To be a radical is often to feel hunted and vulnerable, but it can also be the pinnacle of what it means to be held in a beautiful way that the world represses. Much of how our radicalism feels is a question of with what we are engaging in our search for freedom, empathy, and…

Conservatives say that we need the right to bear arms so we can defend ourselves against tyrannical government. I agree. But NRA spokeswoman and conservative talk radio host Dana Loesch does not seem to agree. After the Women’s March celebrated Assata Shakur’s birthday on Twitter, Loesch condemned them, writing, “You celebrate cop killers.” I’m not…

University of Southern California medical school dean Rohit Varma reacted to revelations that his predecessor, Carmen Puliafito, a widely respected ophthalmologist, had regularly consumed hard drugs, by describing Puliafito’s alleged conduct as “horrible” and “despicable.” Puliafito is on leave from his position as a USC faculty member and isn’t being allowed to see patients. It…

Anarchism, for me, is less about “end goals” and more about a particular ethic and outlook. It should reject the idea of “final” states of existence altogether and instead emphasize the importance of a never-ending discovery process in producing a better world. This process is much to the contrary of Communism, which declares what the…

When considering the role that Copyright Law plays in perpetuating Knowledge-Oligarchies and stifling the seamless diffusion of knowledge, it is clear that it also perpetuates a form of ‘Neo-Colonialism’. Copyright is a “legal right that created by the law of a country that grants the creator of an original work exclusive rights for its use…

At Slate Star Codex (“Considerations on Cost Disease,” Feb. 9), Scott Alexander has a long, long, LONG article speculating on possible causes for the “cost disease — that is, the escalating unit costs and prices in certain economic sectors relative to their outputs.

Last week, President Trump announced intentions to roll back the Obama administration’s opening of relations between the U.S. and Cuba. Trump called for stricter enforcement of the ban on Americans visiting Cuba as tourists, as well as doing business with Cuba’s Armed Forces Business Enterprises Group.

At a recent press conference, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said: “If you want to collect a drug debt you can’t file a lawsuit in court.” This was an attempt to justify his May 12th memo instructing federal prosecutors to pursue the strongest possible sentences for drug offenders, including non-violent ones.

Richard Spencer is at the center of controversy again after his recent tweet denying that the Holodomor was an intentional genocide. This time, the controversy is not so much with the public at large (who have largely never heard the word), but within in his own white nationalist swamp.

It’s difficult to know everything that goes on behind bars but trans activists and prisoners remind us that prison is often particularly cruel for them. Notable activist CeCe McDonald has spoken out on the way she was hyper-sexualized by guards and staff while serving time in a men’s prison. Others experience similar issues, like prison rape. Sometimes, when dealing with sexual assault, trans prisoners are put into solitary confinement.

In January 2010, Chelsea Manning began changing the world, and she never stopped. As a private in the US army, she saw the evil, the corruption, and the criminality of the institution she had enlisted to serve. To ignore this and do nothing would have only corrupted her, and so she did what she knew she had to do to expose it. Through the then little-known publisher Wikileaks, she released this vital information to the world, for all to see and judge.

The Flint water crisis is back in the national news. Over 8,000 Flint residents now face tax liens on their homes for unpaid water bills after May 19th, and are faced with the possibility of losing their homes if they don’t pay the total amount in arrears. This follows last month’s mass water cutoffs for residences with unpaid bills.

In Wisconsin, buzz has been building over a “Campus Free Speech Act” which creates harsh penalties for interrupting, protesting, or otherwise disrupting speakers invited onto colleges campuses. Meanwhile last week, 61-year-old Code Pink protester Desiree Fairooz was convicted and sentenced to a year in prison for laughing.

Speaking at the American Heart Association on April 19th, New York City mayor Bill de Blasio unveiled anti-smoking policies going “up against a multi-billion-dollar industry.” This might seem an adversarial showdown between public advocacy and entrenched power straight out of a Hollywood movie — say, “Erin Brockovich” or “Spotlight.”

Let’s face it — the libertarian movement’s flirtations with paleoconservatives over the years have put us in the situation we are in today. Alt-righters and other self-proclaimed fascists, white nationalists, and racial separatists feel that they can use the libertarian movement as an effective recruiting ground: despite their willingness to crush individual liberties in order to…

President Trump’s budget proposal would increase military spending $54 billion, not quite a 10 percent increase over the current level.  According to Quartz, the increase alone is more than all but two countries — China and Saudi Arabia — spend on their militaries. (China spends $145 billion, Saudi Arabia $57 billion, Russia $47 billion, and Iran $16 billion,…

In the wake of several IWW-backed labor strikes in the US and the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, the US was thrown into a frenzy over fears of the red menace. Thus began the first Red Scare. The homes of suspected anarchists, socialists, social democrats, communists, and other radical leftists were raided and at least 500…

Uber, the controversial corporate employer masquerading as a “ride-sharing” service, has recently stirred up more controversy with new revelations about its Greyball program for circumventing enforcement of local taxicab monopolies. Greyball maintains a database of likely local government officials. This database is populated by users who frequently open and close the Uber app near government buildings,…