I’m alternately amused and exasperated by the constant refrain of calls to “Vote Harder!” from Progressive Democrats (the kind of people who use the #UniteBlue hashtag on Twitter). During the 2008 campaign Barack Obama made the most left-populist noises of any Democratic candidate in generations, and won by a landslide almost as big as LBJ’s…

The Problem of Structure What would the constitution of a free nation look like? In trying to answer that question we immediately think in terms of a Bill of Rights, restrictions on governmental power, and so forth. And any constitution worth having would certainly include those things. But if a constitution is to be more…

Na segunda, dia 13 de janeiro, dois policiais de Fullerton, na Califórnia, acusados do espancamento até a morte de Kelly Thomas foram inocentados e o promotor anunciou sua decisão de não processar um terceiro policial envolvido. As milhões de pessoas que acompanhavam o deenrolar dos fatos encararam o veredito com incredulidade: como alguém que tinha…

Göran Hugo Olssons nya dokumentär Concerning Violence undersöker kolonialism I Afrika, med massvis med material från svenska nyhetsarkiv, och genom att knyta ihop filmen med Frantz Fanons bok Jordens fördömda från 1961. Utdrag från boken läses up av Lauryn Hill, vars berättande förmedlar Fanons idéer på ett fängslande sätt. Jag såg nyligen filmen på Sundance…

“As Apple prepares to defend itself against a multi-billion dollar patent infringement claim in Europe,” reports Apple Insider, “the company has aligned with rival Google in asking the U.S. Supreme Court to allow stiffer penalties for patent trolls who bring frivolous lawsuits.” Well, it’s about time. But the problem with Apple’s position is that there’s…

In an interview with Fox News curmudgeon Bill O’Reilly, US president Barack Obama insists that the Internal Revenue Service’s “flagging” and harassment of Tea Party and other dissident political groups was the result of “boneheaded decisions” but “not even a smidgen of corruption.” While the American political right is having a good guffaw about that,…

C4SS has teamed up with the Distro of the Libertarian Left. The Distro produces and distribute zines and booklets on anarchism, market anarchist theory, counter-economics, and other movements for liberation. For every copy of Ernest Lesigne’s “Socialism Without Statism” that you purchase through the Distro, C4SS will receive a percentage. Support C4SS with Ernest Lesigne’s “Socialism Without Statism“. $1.00 for the first copy….

Recently, a rebuttal of my previous article “Anarcho-Capitalism is Impossible” was brought to my attention. The author, Christopher Cantwell, made some points that are worth addressing and my own thoughts on the matter have shifted somewhat over time. Therefore, I think it would be worth revisiting the topic with fresh eyes. In his introductory paragraphs,…

C4SS has teamed up with the Distro of the Libertarian Left. The Distro produces and distribute zines and booklets on anarchism, market anarchist theory, counter-economics, and other movements for liberation. For every copy of Barbara Sostaita & Judith Ayers’s “Liberty Beyond White Privilege” that you purchase through the Distro, C4SS will receive a percentage. Support C4SS with Barbara Sostaita & Judith Ayers’s “Liberty…

In the 19th and early 20th century, anarchism was in many ways making strides into mainstream culture and thought. It was not through theory that this occurred, but rather through immediate expressions of one’s autonomy. This revolutionary method was known as direct action. Direct action emphasizes the right or duty of each individual to insist on the…

So Congress is set to pass another gargantuan ($100 billion per year) “farm bill.” And of course, the 500-pound gorilla is the “food stamp” portion of the bill, which is set to be cut by a whopping 1%, while the overall measure increases “farm bill” spending by 37% over that of its predecessor bill over…

When the basic premise of the drug war is that we do not own our own bodies, the recurring theme of police sexual assault in the media over the last several months seem less like freak occurrence and more like an expected, perhaps its inevitable outcome. Last year there was the police rape of a New Mexico…

Remember when “Honest Bob” Murray of Murray Industries whined about a “War on Coal”? Most people in “Honest Bob’s” situation would’ve had the sense to keep their pie holes shut, considering he was responsible for the negligent homicide of the coal miners who died in one of his death traps just a few years earlier…

Jeffrey St. Clair and Alexander Cockburn discuss the terrorist character of the late Ariel Sharon. Binoy Kampmark discusses the march to war with Iran. Andrew Levine discusses what will happen for Obama upon the unraveling of Iraq. Alfred McCoy discusses the surveillance state. Kevin Carson discusses the worship of authority. Jose Martinez discusses Wal-Mart racism….

If I understand Princeton historian Sean Wilentz correctly, progressives ought not to be grateful to Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, and Glenn Greenwald for exposing government spying because they are not card-carrying progressives. (“Would You Feel Differently About Snowden, Greenwald, and Assange If You Knew What They Really Thought?”) Apparently they have either hung out with…

Sono quasi dieci anni che in Messico si combatte una guerra. La miscela composta da leggi antidroga e diffusione della droga in America ha promosso la nascita di cartelli fuorilegge che, come le bande dell’era proibizionista, usano la violenza per imporre il loro controllo sul traffico di droga. Nel 2006 la situazione fu esacerbata dalla…

Recently Ezra Klein pointed out (“What liberals get wrong about single payer,” Washington Post, January 13) that single-payer healthcare wouldn’t solve the problem of America having the most expensive healthcare system in the world. American health insurance premiums aren’t so high because of the overhead cost or profit of insurance companies, but because of the…

Qualche tempo fa la cantautrice Ani DiFranco ha dovuto cancellare il suo “Righteous Retreat in the Big Easy”, un ritrovo di autori di canzoni ospitato nella Nottoway Plantation and Resort, una ex piantagione di schiavi in Luisiana. La scelta del luogo aveva provocato un meritato scontento, costringendo la DiFranco alla ritirata. La cantante ha poi…

The Jacobin recently published a good piece by Peter Frase titled “The Left and the State.” In it he discusses a recent attack on Glenn Greenwald, Edward Snowden, and Julian Assange. This attack was published in the well known liberal magazine, The New Republic. He makes use of another good piece by libertarian, Will Wilkinson….

In his 1815 Principles of Politics, French liberal author Benjamin Constant defended the monarch’s “right to dissolve representative assemblies.” Constant’s position might seem surprising. Wasn’t securing the independence of parliaments from the royal will one of liberalism’s hard-won victories? His reasoning ran as follows. The “tendency of assemblies to multiply indefinitely the number of laws” is the inevitable…