From reddit.com/r/Anarchism:

Why not take a few minutes and fifty-some cents and send mail to a comrade who is inside, suffering for their convictions? Remember to try to keep it light, at least mostly, and think about putting your letter on the back of some news articles, crosswords or other word-puzzles/games, to give them additional time-fillers.

Send Letters to Leah at:

Leah-Lynn Plante
#42611-086
FDC SeaTac PO Box 13900 Seattle, WA 98198

Send Letters to Matt at:
Matthew Kyle Duran #42565-086 FDC SeaTac P.O. Box 13900 Seattle, WA 98198

Send Letters to KteeO at:
Katherine Olejnik
#42592-086 FDC SeaTac, P.O. Box 13900 Seattle, WA 98198

In its 67th edition, El Libertario, an anarchist newspaper from Venezuela, predicted Hugo Chávez’s victory in yesterday’s election, and reflected on the consequences that such victory would entail for the country:

“Chávez’s victory will only be enabled by the oxygen provided by an opposition candidate ideal for his interests, a representative of Venezuela’s oligarchy who participated in the coup d’état back in 2002. Capriles gave Chávez the perfect scenario for revitalizing the polarization, with a discourse focused in the middle class and scarce connection with the popular sectors. Despite pretending an inclusive approach, it was never a secret that key decisions were always made by the high command of the country’s most reactionary and conservative party: Primero Justicia. And despite the evident disenchantment with the results of Chavez’s administration and the sustained increase of social conflict, held at bay by the charismatic expectations of the caudillo, in this scenario Capriles is unable to convince dissident Chavistas and wide sectors of the populace. The future would bring stronger statism in the communal sector, exclusion of more people from the benefits of public policies due to political reasons, and via a domino effect, the Bolivarian hegemony of provincial and city governments in the upcoming local elections.”

From the Markets Not Capitalism audiobook read by C4SS fellow Stephanie Murphy.

Cuba’s Yoani Sanchez: Detained for 30 hours for pissing off Raul Castro.

California’s Kevin Cogill: Sentenced to two months of house arrest for pissing off Cary Sherman.

Actor Daryl Hannah and Eleanor Fairchild have been arrested for “criminal tresspass” and “obstructing a passageway” during a protest against the Keystone XL pipeline.

Quoth a spokesman for TransCanada, the corporation building the pipeline: “It is unfortunate Ms Hannah and other out-of-state activists have chosen to break the law by illegally trespassing on private property.”

TransCanada claims to “own” the land because they got the state of Texas to forge a fraudulent new title to it using the pernicious doctrine of “eminent domain.”

The real owner/occupant of the land? Eleanor Fairchild.

Yeah, there’s some trespassing going on all right.

The latest Cato Unbound features my essay “From State to Society” on “privatization.” Among other things, I argue that this term doesn’t quite get at what radical libertarians want. Commentary by Leonard Gilroy and Dru Stevenson has been posted. A final comment, by Randal O’Toole, will be posted Tuesday.

Just sayin’ …

Who would have thought it? Printing guns is frowned upon. Even in the US.

Cody Wilson, a law student at the University of Texas at Austin, found this out last week when Stratasys, the company that made the uPrint SE 3D printer he was leasing, got wind of his plans to design a 3D-printable handgun and took back their equipment.

…

In a letter to Wilson, lawyers for Stratasys cited his lack of a federal firearms manufacturer’s licence as their reason for the repossession, adding that it does not knowingly allow its printers to be used for illegal purposes.

Our first peek at the iron fist (the velvet glove is already making the rounds)?

From the Markets Not Capitalism audiobook read by C4SS fellow Stephanie Murphy.

Translations for this article:

• Spanish, El Mercado Liberado.

Per ABC News:

Authorities are investigating the fatal shooting of a 32-year-old woman in the suburban San Diego area after she allegedly hit a Border Patrol agent with her car.

Naturally the “she should have known better” crowd is out in full force, blaming the victim, Valeria Alvarado. But the video attached to the story clarifies things a little bit.

The agent was “undercover.”

In other words, he was dressed as a mundane gun-waving thug — unaffiliated, or perhaps affiliated with a lesser unit like Otay or Varrio Chula Vista, possibly a carjacker or drug-crazed loon — rather than sporting the full colors of the Brown People Abduction Crew of America’s largest street gang, its “federal government.”

So, Valeria Alvarado defended herself, and Valeria Alvarado died. If the hooligan had bothered to put on a “raid jacket” before running wild in the street, she’d probably have put it in park, prostrated herself, and survived.

Just another gangland murder, but these perps have a better marketing department than MS13 or The Mexican Mafia.

Bill Moyers just released a new special report about the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC.   You can watch it here.  Because the report is primarily produced by liberals and progressives, it largely accepts the myth that ALEC is primarily promoting policies that decrease the scope of government.  However, it also illustrates the cronyism between corporations and politicians that ALEC facilitates, and left-libertarians should be able to recognize the authoritarianism and statism of many of the ALEC bills discussed.   I have previously written a C4SS op-ed about ALEC, as has Kevin Carson.

When it comes to understanding ALEC, I think Carson said it best:

ALEC’s proposals represent “free enterprise” in much the same way that a chain gang from one of their “private” prisons represents “free assembly.”

“[A]t what point,” asks Zen Anarchist at Everything Voluntary, “is somebody libertarian enough for your vote?”

I think Zen is asking the wrong question, at least to the extent that he’s addressing most non-voting libertarians.

We aren’t not voting for Gary Johnson because he’s “not libertarian enough.”

Even if he dropped his support for “humanitarian war,” stopped promoting the “Fair” Tax, and retracted/apologized for his call to conscript every business owner in the United States as an unpaid ICE agent, etc., voting for him (or for any other candidate) would not — in the opinion of non-voting libertarians — advance liberty.

Your mileage may vary, of course, and that’s fine — I understand the various arguments in favor of voting, and unlike some non-voting libertarians I don’t consider voting to be a moral failure as such — but my own position is that if we want to get rid of the state, one easy first step to take is to join the non-voting, non-consenting majority and get on with more important things than voting.

When “privatization” just means transferring the state’s coercion and use of taxes to private companies, it’s not a reduction in statism. Instead, it builds up perverse incentives and makes the state less transparent.  This can be seen quite clearly in the case of the for-profit prison industry.   It turns out that while for-profit prisons still receive our tax dollars and still lock peaceful people in cages, they’re not subject to Freedom of Information Act requests.

And while we’re on the subject, profiting from caging humans isn’t just for the prison operators.   An excellent report released this week documents how Wells Fargo is getting in on the authoritarian action.

According to The Sydney Morning Herald, the US Military has classified WikiLeaks an “enemy of the state”. This is the same legal category reserved for the al-Qaeda terrorist network and the Taliban insurgency. This classification carries some potential penalties for personnel:

Declassified US Air Force counter-intelligence documents, released under US freedom-of-information laws, reveal that military personnel who contact WikiLeaks or WikiLeaks supporters may be at risk of being charged with “communicating with the enemy”, a military crime that carries a maximum sentence of death.

Just so we’re clear, C4SS supports WikiLeaks and all “WikiLeaks” like projects. We not only host a WikiLeaks mirror site, but are currently raising funds to maintain a Tor relay node. Tor relay nodes help whistleblowers and journalists get their stories regarding corporate and government corruption into the right hands or into the open, safely and anonymously.

More than 281 million views, and recognized by The Guiness Book of World Records as the most liked YouTube video in history.

Top of the iTunes charts in 31 countries, and all over the Billboard Top 100 categories.

Nominated for best video in the upcoming MTV Europe Music Awards.

How could Psy possibly have accomplished all that without a state-enforced intellectual “property” monopoly? The answer, of course, is that there’s just no way he could have.

Oh, wait:

Psy has produced a video that is born to spawn and has further facilitated this by waiving his copyright.

Enjoy:

Legal scholars at NYU and Stanford have just released a new study titled Living Under Drones.   The study contains a wealth of useful information.  It debunks pro-war myths that the strikes only have minimal civilian casualties.  It illustrates how the strikes are illegal and potentially destructive to US security interests.  But most importantly, the study interviewed over a hundred Pakistanis directly impacted by the strikes, and detailed the horrible cost the bombings exact on individuals and communities.

I would urge you to read some personal stories  from victims of the drone war.

The Industrial Radical, the long-awaited periodical from the Molinari Institute (C4SS’s parent organization), is finally available! Details on the first issue here.

From the Markets Not Capitalism audiobook read by C4SS fellow Stephanie Murphy.

Apple turns down an app to track u.s. drone strikes in Afghanistan.

If only the drones were slim and rectangular with rounded corners! Then Apple would move heaven and earth to shut them down.

It occurs to me that Mitt Romney, Barack Obama and I do, in fact, have one extremely significant thing in common: All three of us want to run my life.