Commentary
IP is a Hurdle to Self-Direction
Perhaps the most rewarding experience of education is self-direction. Here, the individual fully enjoys his or her own labor. Whatever one’s interests are, self-direction is achieved on one’s own terms. Self-directed education promotes initiative, creativity, co-operative/mutual labor and healthy academic competition in one’s field to cultivate a learning network. This is the very basis of the…
Gaza: Israel’s Chickens Come Home to Roost
One fact that gets little attention in the debate over Israel’s attack on Gaza is Israel’s role in the rise of Hamas. That’s right. Never mind that the rockets fired out of Gaza are amateurish things that could be crafted from hobby shop supplies, causing barely one percent as many casualties as Israeli reprisals. Never mind…
Reading Rainbow Soars Free
The extraordinary success of Reading Rainbow‘s Kickstarter campaign — with a record-breaking hundred thousand donors chipping in over $5 million for distributing Reading Rainbow‘s literacy material as widely as possible to children, particularly those in greatest financial need — demonstrates how crowdfunding may shape up as something more than what The New Republic dubs “the world’s No. 1 solver of…
Fracking: Poster Child for the Corporate Welfare State
Just about every week another story comes to my attention confirming the complete and total government-dependency of fracking — beloved of so many self-proclaimed “free market” advocates on the libertarian right. Something about eminent domain to build the pipelines, or liability caps for spills, or regulatory approval of unsafe pipelines superseding tort liability for negligence, and…
“Economic Patriotism”: The Last Refuge of a Tax Scoundrel
In mid-July, US Treasury Secretary Jack Lew proposed that Congress prohibit US-based companies from moving offshore in search of more favorable tax climates, citing an ostensible need for a “new sense of economic patriotism.” The resort to “patriotism” theater stands out as the most egregious aspect of legislation whose retroactive status would blatantly violate the…
ISIS: Yes, Mr. Blair, You Did Build This
Last month, in a tone which might best be called unlikely insistence, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair reassured the public that “we” — the UK and United States — “have to liberate ourselves from the notion that we caused” the destabilization of Iraq by the ISIS insurgency. Well, actually you did. Let’s go back…
Where’s Eric Garner’s Amargosa?
In the city of Amargosa in Brazil, citizens took to the streets after a stray bullet fire by a local police officer struck and killed a one-year-old girl. But they didn’t stay in the streets. They quickly took the police station, freeing prisoners, jacking state-owned weaponry and burning the station and police vehicles to the ground. In the end,…
The “Makers” and “Takers” — Not Who You Think
The old “53% vs. 47%” meme that got so much attention in the 2012 election resurfaced this week when it came out that Colorado gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez apparently first coined it at a 2010 Rotary Club speech. The 47% who pay no income tax, he said back then, are “dependent on the largesse of…
The Question is, Why Would ANYONE Trust the Government?
The drastic long-term drop in Americans’ trust for government since the 1950s periodically evokes pearl-clutching on the center-left. Liberal radio talk show host Leslie Marshall recently tweeted, as apparent cause for concern, a Pew Research poll finding the percentage of the public that trusts government to “do the right thing” most of the time or “pretty…
Cyber War: The Enemy is You
Bloomberg reports that “Wall Street’s biggest trade group has proposed a government-industry cyber war council,” led by a “senior White House official” and composed of representatives from the finance industry and no fewer than eight US federal agencies. The aforementioned “trade group,” the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, has already brought in former National…
Last Nail in the Coffin for the New Deal Labor Accord?
Although it was overshadowed by reaction to Monday’s ruling on Hobby Lobby’s health insurance coverage of contraception, the Supreme Court made a ruling the same day that otherwise would have received more attention in its own right. Harris vs. Quinn at first glance covers only very narrow ground. It involves the rights of home health…
Whose Land is It Anyway?
When the demolition of abandoned warehouses at the José Estelita Docks started in the city of Recife, Brazil, the ongoing mobilization since 2012 by the #OcupeEstelita movement proved its worth. On May 21, when real estate developer Moura Dubeux’s bulldozers got in position during the night to demolish the old sugar warehouses, several individuals, mobilized…
Culture War as State Hobby
The Supreme Court recently closed its term with a ruling in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, concerning the government’s mandate for employer provided insurance to cover contraception. Voting 5-4 that closely held corporations could be exempt from the mandate if it violates the sincerely held religious beliefs of the owners, the decision has generated a lot…
How the Nanny State Kills
Since Katiele and her daughter made the news, we’ve had a little debate on the legalization of medical marijuana in Brazil. Katiele struggles to treat her daughter’s epilepsy with CBD (Cannabidiol), a substance extracted from marijuana. One could ask what’s Anvisa — Brazil’s equivalent to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — position on the matter. How…
American Anarchism
On July 2nd, 1776, the Declaration of Independence was signed, officially breaking ties between the American colonies and the British empire. It is the idealism behind this document and American independence that folks across the United States will celebrate this 4th of July. The 4th is the central holiday of the summer season and liberty is…
Collective Punishment and Israeli State Terror
The abduction and murder of three Israeli teenagers is a contemptible crime. But the Israeli government’s response has been to engage in a violent crime spree of its own. When someone commits a violent crime against another person, the perpetrator should be held accountable. Not the perpetrator’s family or roommates, not those of the same…
A Mountain Justice Summer
The temperate, deciduous, mountain rain-forests of Central and Southern Appalachia are recognized as a biodiversity hotspot of global significance. In Eastern Kentucky stands Pine Mountain, among the most beautiful and biologically diverse mountains in the region — equipped with gentle views, waterfalls, endemic flora and fauna and undisturbed forests. In June the mountain was also home…
Defend the Embassy Yourself, Mr. President
Just three years after winding down its presence in Iraq, the United States is sending troops back in. In response to the gains made by jihadist group ISIS in its recent offensive, US president Barack Obama is sending 275 troops to Iraq to “provide support and security for US personnel and the US Embassy in…
Dissecting Hobby Lobby
I’m neither a Christian, nor religious in any of the other ways that one might be. I find contraception, abortion and all kinds of sexual activities between consenting adults to be completely unobjectionable and well within the rights of any individual who chooses one or all of these things. Nevertheless, as a free market anarchist…
Worker Exclusion Zones
Knowing Brazilian law is my trade, but I still get scared when I learn about the powers the Brazilian state possesses. During the World Cup, the government established so-called “trade exclusion zones” in FIFA’s benefit, in a law called the “FIFA Act.” Article 11 of the act establishes that the government guarantees “to FIFA and…
Anarchy and Democracy
Fighting Fascism
Markets Not Capitalism
The Anatomy of Escape
Organization Theory