Anarchoblogs

May 15, 2008

Rad Geek — No, seriously, I could swear the water in this pot is getting a little hotter… (#3)

&lt;div class="illustration"&gt; &lt;img src="http://radgeek.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/05/dc_capitol_police_350px.jpg" alt="" /&gt; &lt;/div&gt; &lt;p&gt;Posturing macho &lt;a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2008/05/12/no_seriously/"&gt;&lt;q&gt;warrior&lt;/q&gt;&lt;/a&gt; cops in &lt;a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2008/04/28/is_it/"&gt;Chicago&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2008/05/06/no_seriously/"&gt;Miami&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2008/05/06/no_seriously/"&gt;Palm Beach County&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2008/05/06/no_seriously/"&gt;Montana&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2008/05/06/no_seriously/"&gt;Johnson City, Tennessee&lt;/a&gt; are all now starting to carry AR-15 or M4 assault rifles with them on &lt;em&gt;ordinary street patrols&lt;/em&gt;, for all those &lt;q&gt;tactical&lt;/q&gt; situations that they expect to find themselves in.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Throughout the 1990s, Washington, D.C. had more of its residents killed by police officers than any other city in the United States. &lt;a href="http://www.washingtontimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080509/METRO/996294229/1004"&gt;Now the D.C. metropolitan police department has ordered 500 AR-15 assault rifles&lt;/a&gt;, which they will begin issuing to inner-city patrol cops to start carrying on the streets this summer. I guess so they can more effectively &lt;a href="http://www.wjla.com/news/stories/0508/515994.html"&gt;shoot 14 year old black bike-thieving suspects in the back of the head&lt;/a&gt;.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Do you feel safer now?&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p class="linkroll"&gt;(Via &lt;a rel="via" href="http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/020922.html"&gt;Manuel Lora 2008-05-10&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt; &lt;h3&gt;See also:&lt;/h3&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2008/05/12/no_seriously/"&gt;GT 2008-05-12: No, seriously, I could swear the water in this pot is getting a little hotter…. (#2)&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2008/05/06/no_seriously/"&gt;GT 2008-05-06: No, seriously, I could swear the water in this pot is getting a little hotter….&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2008/04/28/is_it/"&gt;GT 2008-04-28: Is it just me or is the water in this pot getting a little hotter?&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; </content>

May 15, 2008 11:25 PM

Left Thought — The Orgone Biophysical Research Lab

May 15, 2008 09:55 PM

Left Thought — If you're going to San Francisco....

May 15, 2008 09:42 PM

Nada Cascadia — union divisions - battle for afscme's future

for many of us within afscme there has been a battle behind the scenes for months over afscme president mcentee's personal endorsement of senator clinton. yesterday, this battle became even more public with an article on huffingtonpost.com here.

while i agree with some of what the author said, i am not convinced that race is a primary factor in these divisions within afscme. i am proudly one of clinton's white, hard-working americans, i just voted for obama in oregon's primary, and i am one of the members who pushed the issue of whether oregon should break with afscme international and endorse obama. there is no question that mcentee's early endorsement of clinton has caused a rift within afscme, and in states such as oregon where obama has been polling among our members at an average rate of 2 to 1 over clinton, the rank and file members have become increasingly pissed off at afscme international and mcentee--even those members who are supporting clinton or mccain.

to me, the fundamental issue here is not about race, but about whether unions and their political endorsements are democratically driven or not. no one was surprised that mcentee pushed through the early endorsement of senator clinton, his longtime friend. for him, i imagine it was an issue of loyalty to the clintons, combined with a desire to end his career once again having personal access to the white house and another clinton administration (mcentee's endorsement of bill clinton was highly successful and earned him special access). some have joked that mcentee just couldn't wait to take another ride on air force one. but that clashes with the fundamental reality that we pretend that afscme is a member-driven organization, and in oregon certainly--and in many other states across the country--afscme members are overwhelmingly supporting obama. in oregon, we have sent official letters and made phone calls to mcentee and the afscme executive board, requesting that they not campaign for clinton in our state, but those requests have not been honored. and thus we have a situation where our oregon afscme money and staff resources are being spent to support the candidate that our members have chosen--senator obama--while afscme international has spent tons of money on their personal candidate--senator clinton--to counter our efforts, while also personally attacking oregon afscme's leadership.

afscme international's efforts in oregon will fail, however, because obama will clearly be the democratic nominee. in the longer term, however, we will never forget the way that mcentee forced his personal choice on our union and our members, and the sharks are circling to take him out. and his "yes men" on the executive board need to be worried for their positions as well. a new generation of afscme leaders are rising, and one thing is crystal clear to us: afscme will be a member-driven democratic organization. top-down unionism died in the 20th century, some of the afscme leadership just don't realize it yet.

May 15, 2008 04:02 PM

Anthropik — Senate sends oil-reserve bill to president (AP)

A Shell gas station customer selects regular gas for $4.539 a gallon at a Shell gas station in San Mateo, Calif., Wednesday, May 14, 2008. Gas prices roared above $3.75 a gallon Wednesday, while oil prices fell after an Energy Department report gave a mixed picture of the nation's petroleum reserves. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)AP - The Senate late Wednesday approved and sent to the White House legislation directing President Bush to temporarily halt oil shipments into the government's emergency reserve, hoping to lower energy prices.


May 15, 2008 04:45 AM

Anthropik — Greenpeace says Japanese whalers stealing meat (AFP)

AFP - Greenpeace said Thursday that it had uncovered an embezzlement ring within Japan's "scientific" whaling hunt, with crew allegedly selling stolen meat on the black market.


May 15, 2008 04:29 AM

Anthropik — Pollution Particles Impair Blood Vessel Function (HealthDay)

HealthDay - WEDNESDAY, May 14 (HealthDay News) -- Just a few hours of exposure to particulate matter air pollution can increase blood pressure and harm blood vessel function within 24 hours, a new study finds.

May 15, 2008 03:46 AM

Rad Geek — Well, thank God #9: Income Taxi edition

&lt;p&gt;Fellow citizens, you can rest easier tonight knowing that the Miami-Dade County Consumer Services Department is out there protecting the people of their fair city from a grave and gathering danger &amp;#8212; the danger of Miamians getting a lift from somebody other than a permanent, full-time, government-licensed taxi service:&lt;/p&gt; &lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. &amp;#8212;&lt;/strong&gt; A man who said he thought he was just helping a woman in need is accused of running an illegal taxi service.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Miami-Dade County&amp;#8217;s Consumer Services Department has slapped Rosco O&amp;#8217;Neil with $2,000 worth of fines, but O&amp;#8217;Neil claims he is falsely accused.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;q&gt;I ain&amp;#8217;t running nothing illegal,&lt;/q&gt; O’Neil said.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The 78-year-old said he was walking into a Winn-Dixie to get some groceries when he was approached by a woman who said she needed a ride.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;q&gt;She asked me, &lt;q&gt;Do I do a service?&lt;/q&gt;&lt;/q&gt; O&amp;#8217;Neil said. &lt;q&gt;I told her no. She said, &lt;q&gt;I need help getting home.&lt;/q&gt;&lt;/q&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;O&amp;#8217;Neil told the woman if she was still there when he finished his shopping, he would give her a ride. She was, so he did.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&amp;#8212;&lt;a href="http://www.local10.com/news/16210168/detail.html?taf=mia"&gt;Local10 Miami (2008-05-09): Man Accused Of Providing Illegal Taxi Service&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#8217;s the reward O&amp;#8217;Neil got for daring to commit this heinous act of human kindness:&lt;/p&gt; &lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;As it turned out, the woman was an undercover employee with the consumer services department targeting people providing illegal taxi services.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;q&gt;She said the reason she targeted him (is because) she saw him sitting in his car for a few minutes,&lt;/q&gt; said Ellen Novodeletsky, O&amp;#8217;Neil&amp;#8217;s attorney.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;After O&amp;#8217;Neil dropped off the woman, police surrounded him, issued him two citations and impounded his minivan. On top of the fees, it cost O&amp;#8217;Neil an additional $400 to retrieve his minivan from the impound lot.&lt;/strong&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;There are no prior complaints that O&amp;#8217;Neil was providing illegal transportation for a fee.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;q&gt;It&amp;#8217;s not entrapment because she didn&amp;#8217;t expect him to provide her transportation,&lt;/q&gt; said Sonya Perez, a spokeswoman for the consumer services department.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;O&amp;#8217;Neil claims he was just being kind and providing a ride to a lady in need.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;q&gt;There&amp;#8217;s all kinds of possibilities, but the fact of this particular case, what our enforcement officers witnessed &amp;#8212; because we had several on the scene, plus a Miami-Dade police officer &amp;#8212; and all the information came back the same, that this was a business transaction,&lt;/q&gt; Perez said.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;O&amp;#8217;Neil said he never even discussed money until the woman insisted upon it.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;q&gt;She asked me, &lt;q&gt;How much you charging?&lt;/q&gt;&lt;/q&gt; O&amp;#8217;Neil said. &lt;q&gt;I said, &lt;q&gt;Anything you give me.&lt;/q&gt; She said, &lt;q&gt;No, I need a price.&lt;/q&gt;&lt;/q&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&amp;#8212;&lt;a href="http://www.local10.com/news/16210168/detail.html?taf=mia"&gt;Local10 Miami (2008-05-09): Man Accused Of Providing Illegal Taxi Service&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;Well, thank God, says I. The last thing that the dedicated public servants of the Miami-Dade County Consumer Services Department should permit is for consumers to actually get services. Some might say that they ought to let consenting adults alone, to make their own decisions about whether to get the transportation they need by calling a full-time professional taxi service, or by making arrangements with friends, or just by finding a nice old man who is willing to help you out that day on an informal basis, in return for a little bit of money for the gas and the time. That the county government has no business at all trying to force people into a particular business model of highly formalized, full-time professional transit businesses, if they would rather make other arrangements on their own time and on their own dime. But, really, since we already have a bipartisan caucus of legislators, regulators, and professional bureaucrats running behind us all, yelling &lt;a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2005/10/27/well_thank"&gt;&lt;q&gt;You&amp;#8217;ll put an eye out with that!&lt;/q&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2006/02/23/well_thank"&gt;&lt;q&gt;Don&amp;#8217;t drink that; it&amp;#8217;ll stunt your growth!&lt;/q&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, &lt;a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2007/09/19/well_thank"&gt;&lt;q&gt;You&amp;#8217;re not going &lt;em&gt;out&lt;/em&gt; like that, are you?&lt;/q&gt;&lt;/a&gt;, and &lt;a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2008/01/16/well_thank/"&gt;&lt;q&gt;You keep your mouth clean, son, or I’ll wash it out for you with soap!&lt;/q&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &amp;#8212; well, what could be more natural than for them to add a shout of &lt;strong&gt;&lt;q&gt;Don&amp;#8217;t you get in a car with that stranger!&lt;/q&gt;&lt;/strong&gt; to the chorus?&lt;/p&gt; &lt;h3&gt;See also:&lt;/h3&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2007/09/15/free_riders/"&gt;GT 2007-09-15: Free Riders&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2008/01/16/well_thank/"&gt;GT 2008-01-16: Well, thank God #8: Civil Tongue edition&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2007/09/19/well_thank/"&gt;GT 2007-09-19: Well, thank God #7: sagging and the new sumptuary laws&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2006/08/31/well_thank/"&gt;GT 2006-08-31: Well, thank God #6: Raed Jarrar and ostensive definitions&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2006/07/18/well_thank/"&gt;GT 2006-07-18: Well, thank God #5: the Director&amp;#8217;s Guild triumphs over insurgent customers&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2006/06/27/well_thank/"&gt;GT 2006-06-27: Well, thank God #4: Unauthorized Erections edition&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2006/02/23/well_thank/"&gt;GT 2006-02-23: Well, thank God #3: National Caffeine Awareness Month&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2005/12/05/well_thank/"&gt;GT 2005-12-05: Well, thank God #2: We Are The Champions edition&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2005/10/27/well_thank/"&gt;GT 2005-10-27: Well, thank God: The Bluest Eye edition&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; </content>

May 15, 2008 03:26 AM

C!borg5 — Relato da conferência The Philosophy of Computer Games 2008

&lt;span xmlns=""&gt;&lt;p&gt;Yara Mitsuishi foi a primeira aparecer no meu GReader com comentários sobre o encontro:&lt;br /&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;I am back after a "wunderful" week in Geistland. The conference couldn't be more intellectually exciting. Three days full of interesting discussions over ethics, perception in virtual environments and "magic circle". The time of ludo/fictio dichotomies in gamestudies is definetely in the past, and I was happy to see diverse (methodological and epistemological) approaches from all fronts. There was a lot going on during these days, so I'll just outline some of my thoughts in a general overview.&lt;/em&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;/p&gt;&lt;p style="text-align: right;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size:8;"&gt;&lt;span style="font-size:78%;"&gt;[&lt;a style="font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.gamecode.ca/?p=266"&gt;via gameCODE&lt;/a&gt;]&lt;/span&gt;&lt;em&gt;&lt;br /&gt; &lt;/em&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;/p&gt;&lt;/span&gt;&lt;div class="feedflare"&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/ciborgs?a=XHJOGH"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/ciborgs?i=XHJOGH" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/ciborgs?a=oar3CH"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/ciborgs?i=oar3CH" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/ciborgs?a=yaZx7H"&gt;&lt;img src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/ciborgs?i=yaZx7H" border="0"&gt;&lt;/img&gt;&lt;/a&gt; &lt;/div&gt;</content>

May 15, 2008 02:26 AM

Anthropik — US lists polar bears as threatened (AFP)

One of many polar bear alert warning signs posted inside the town of Churchill, Canada. The US government Wednesday listed polar bears as an endangered species, warning that melting of Arctic sea ice was threatening their habitat.(AFP/File/Paul J. Richards)AFP - The US government Wednesday listed polar bears as a threatened species owing to a drastic reduction in Arctic sea ice, but insisted the step did not mark a policy shift to attack global warming.


May 15, 2008 01:47 AM

Anthropik — US lists polar bear as threatened species (AP)

In this Oct. 24, 2007 file photo, Uluu, a 27-year-old polar bear, eats treats as she plays with a pumpkin jack-o'-lantern at the San Francisco Zoo. The Interior Department has decided to protect the polar bear as a threatened species because of the decline in Arctic sea ice from global warming, officials said Wednesday. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)AP - The Interior Department declared the polar bear a threatened species Wednesday because of the loss of Arctic sea ice but also cautioned the decision should not be viewed as a path to address global warming.


May 15, 2008 01:06 AM

Anthropik — Peruvian ‘Switzerland’ melting under climate change (AFP)

AFP - Peru's Cordillera Blanca, a snow-topped northern mountain range sometimes called the "Peruvian Switzerland," is slowly disappearing because of climate change, a key issue on the table of a Latin America-EU summit being held in Lima this week.


May 15, 2008 12:48 AM

May 14, 2008

Anthropik — US lists polar bear as threatened species (AP)

In this Oct. 24, 2007 file photo, Uluu, a 27-year-old polar bear, eats treats as she plays with a pumpkin jack-o'-lantern at the San Francisco Zoo. The Interior Department has decided to protect the polar bear as a threatened species because of the decline in Arctic sea ice from global warming, officials said Wednesday. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma, File)AP - The Interior Department declared the polar bear a threatened species Wednesday because of the loss of Arctic sea ice but also cautioned the decision should not be viewed as a path to address global warming.


May 14, 2008 11:59 PM

Anthropik — Polar bears listed as U.S. threatened species (Reuters)

Polar bear cub Wilbaer stands next to his mother Coprinna in their enclosure at the Wilhelma zoo in Stuttgart during his first appearance April 16, 2008. (Alex Grimm/Reuters)Reuters - Polar bears were listed on Wednesday as threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act because their sea ice habitat is melting away.


May 14, 2008 11:47 PM

Anthropik — Pollution Particles Impair Blood Vessel Function (HealthDay)

HealthDay - WEDNESDAY, May 14 (HealthDay News) -- Just a few hours of exposure to particulate matter air pollution can increase blood pressure and harm blood vessel function within 24 hours, a new study finds.

May 14, 2008 11:01 PM

Left Thought — Both black and white workers sacrificed for U.S. Imperialism

May 14, 2008 10:44 PM

Rad Geek — Voyage of the S.S. St. Louis

&lt;div class="illustration"&gt; &lt;img src="http://radgeek.com/gt/2008/05/stlouis.jpg" alt="" title="S.S. St. Louis" /&gt; &lt;/div&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_St._Louis"&gt;Everything old is new again.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Please bear the following facts in mind.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;If you and your family are trying to escape the Chinese government&amp;#8217;s coercive &lt;q&gt;population control&lt;/q&gt; policies &amp;#8212; if, for example, you are a man, and your wife has been forced into an abortion by threats or violence from the government, and even if you, yourself, have been threatened with government-forced sterilization; or if you are a woman, and you have been forced into an abortion by the government, but you don&amp;#8217;t want to be forced to live apart from your life partner &amp;#8212; if, that is, either you or your life partner has been held down, under threat of violence, and had your reproductive organs cut into, against your will, by order of the State, and it&amp;#8217;s perfectly likely to happen to you again if you go on living in China &amp;#8212; well, then, I&amp;#8217;m sorry, but &lt;a href="http://www.salon.com/mwt/broadsheet/2008/05/10/china/"&gt;that just isn&amp;#8217;t a good enough reason for the United States government to consider you and your family Officially Persecuted by the Chinese government&lt;/a&gt;, and thus not enough for them to get out of your way and leave you alone to live your life peacefully within the borders that the U.S. government claims the right to fortify. They are especially unlikely to consider your persecution important enough to merit asylum if the Chinese government, as part of those same &lt;q&gt;population control&lt;/q&gt; policies, refuses to write down a legal record of your marriage to the man or woman that you wed years ago and have lived with ever since. In fact a panel of comfortable American judges will sneer down at you, from their politico-moral high ground, that &lt;q&gt;legal marriage reflects a sanctity and long-term commitment that other forms of cohabitation simply do not.&lt;/q&gt; Your actual, real-life marriage doesn&amp;#8217;t count, because the government that is persecuting you won&amp;#8217;t recognize it. Your suffering and the violation of your body, or your spouse&amp;#8217;s body, by a violent government, don&amp;#8217;t matter to this government, because it won&amp;#8217;t count them as real persecution. So instead of leaving you alone, this government will roust you up out of your new home, and march you out at bayonet-point, and ship you out of the country, back to the tormentors in China who you risked everything to escape.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;If you are a woman from the Republic of Guinea, and, when you were a child, you were held down and had your clitoris cut out with a knife, without anesthesia, and if, after being forced to suffer this painful and traumatizing mutilation of your body, you make a deliberate decision to get out of the country, perhaps because it hurt you, and perhaps because the effects still hurt you, and perhaps because you didn&amp;#8217;t want it and now you just can&amp;#8217;t stand to live in the place where it was done to you, and perhaps because you don&amp;#8217;t want your daughters to be forced into the same thing &amp;#8212; well, I&amp;#8217;m sorry, but &lt;a href="http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/immigration/2008/05/court-of-appeal.html"&gt;according to the United States Department of Homeland Security and the United States Department of Justice [&lt;span xml:lang="la"&gt;sic&lt;/span&gt;], that just isn&amp;#8217;t a good enough reason to consider you Officially Persecuted in Guinea&lt;/a&gt;, and thus not enough reason for them to get out of your way and leave you alone to live your life peacefully within the borders that the U.S. government claims the right to fortify. Because, hey, you&amp;#8217;re damaged goods now and you don&amp;#8217;t have any clitorises left for them to cut out. Your suffering and the violation of your body, by certain violent members of your community, don&amp;#8217;t matter to them, because it won&amp;#8217;t count them as real persecution. So instead of leaving you alone, this government will roust you up out of your new home, and march you out at bayonet-point, and ship you out of the country, back to the tormentors in Guinea who you risked everything to escape.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;If you and your family are from Iraq, and, because of the crushing poverty and the tremendous danger to your life and limb which you face &amp;#8212; due to the United States government&amp;#8217;s own war and bombing and occupation in Iraq; or due to threats from the government-backed and freelance ethnic-cleansing death squads, which have flourished under that occupation; or due to the crossfire in the endless battles between the United States government&amp;#8217;s occupying forces and Iraqi insurgents &amp;#8212; if, because of all that, &lt;a href="http://www.warnewsradio.org/2008/04/18/scattered-dreams/"&gt;you are one of the 2.5 million Iraqis who have fled the country&lt;/a&gt; in order to try to find a new home (either temporarily or permanently) where you can live your life free of fear and starvation and unspeakable daily violence, and now you find yourself stuck &amp;#8212; like 2.4 million of your fellow Iraqis &amp;#8212; in some hellhole refugee camp or urban ghetto in neighboring countries like Syria or Jordan, where conditions are awful, where you are surrounded by suffering, where you cannot legally work for pay and have little or nothing to do other than take hand-outs and fill out paperwork for UNHCR, while you watch your life savings drain away in the effort to keep yourself alive for a few more months while you wait, and wait, and wait, and if you don&amp;#8217;t happen to be one of the 500 people per year who are eligible for &lt;q&gt;Special Immigration Visas&lt;/q&gt; in return for collaborating with the U.S. government&amp;#8217;s occupying forces in Iraq, and you don&amp;#8217;t happen to be one of the quota of only a few thousand Iraqi refugees that the U.S. government has agreed to &lt;q&gt;accept&lt;/q&gt; each year &amp;#8212; well, then, I&amp;#8217;m sorry, but &lt;a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2178067/"&gt;according the United States government that just isn&amp;#8217;t a good enough reason&lt;/a&gt; to get out of your way and leave you alone to travel to the United States and live your life peacefully within the borders that the United States government claims the right to fortify. Your suffering, and the danger to your life or the lives of your loved ones, by any one of the countless armies and armed factions rampaging through Iraq, don&amp;#8217;t matter enough to them for them to reconsider their immigration quota policy. So this government will keep you penned up in your hellhole ghetto, where you can die for all they care, or, if you somehow get to America, this government will march you out at bayonet-point, and ship you out of the country, back to the ghetto conditions or to the tormentors in Iraq who you risked everything to escape.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;This is life, such as it is, under government immigration controls. It is life as it always will be, as long as politicians and bureaucrats have the power to pick and choose whose reasons for wanting to cross an arbitrary line on a map are good enough, and whose are not.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;But it is criminal that there is even one single refugee in this world who cannot &lt;em&gt;immediately&lt;/em&gt; find asylum and a chance to make a new life and a new home for herself in a new country.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;It is inexcusable that, in the name of the ethno-political system of &lt;a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2007/12/17/international_apartheid/"&gt;international apartheid&lt;/a&gt;, the governments of the world continue to collaborate in violence against women, in forced starvation, and in ethnic cleansing, by forcing peaceful women and men into refugee ghettoes or, worse, by forcing peaceful women and men back into the maws of the very governments or violent factions who intend to devour them.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;It is obscene that a bunch of politicians and unaccountable bureaucrats from the United Nations or the U.S. government would be invested with the power to sit in judgment, from their comfortable offices, on the most marginalized, the most exploited, and the most oppressed people in the world, so that they put all their conventional prejudices and political blinders to work in picking and choosing whose suffering should count as real, in the eyes of the governments of the world, or whose suffering, if acknowledged as real by the government, is important enough to let them into a tiny quota that the government will &lt;q&gt;allow&lt;/q&gt; to cross an arbitrary line on a map.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;The &lt;a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_St._Louis"&gt;S.S. St. Louis&lt;/a&gt; still sails the seas today, a ghost ship with ghost passengers, without rest and without safe harbor. It will haunt the world forever, as long as this system of international apartheid is enforced.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;And all for what? To avoid the voluntary co-mingling of people from different countries? To ensure that the people of the world hear only one language, live and work with people of only one nationality, remain segregated, either by penning them up in their government-appointed &lt;q&gt;place&lt;/q&gt; or else by making sure you can monitor all their movements according to a government-created system of passbooks and minders? The idea would be laughable if not for all the ghosts&amp;#8212;the ghosts of millions upon millions of real, living, irreplaceable and unique individual people, who were turned back, ruined, persecuted, mutilated, tortured, starved, and murdered for the sake of that idea.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;There is another way. A way in which the living can finally live, and the dead can finally rest, in peace. But that other can only become a reality when people are free to move from one place to another, and their reasons, their suffering, and their lives cannot be measured and found wanting by entitled strangers with the power to turn them back and force them back to the tormenters that they risked everything to escape. It can, that is to say, only become a reality with the immediate, unconditional, and complete abolition of all government border controls, and with universal amnesty for all currently undocumented immigrants.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;There’s no room for compromise or moderation in the politics of immigration when real people’s bodies and real people&amp;#8217;s lives are hanging in the balance. As they are all over the world today.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;h3&gt;See also:&lt;/h3&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;The &lt;a href="http://www.collateralrepairproject.org/"&gt;Collateral Repair Project&lt;/a&gt; is a grassroots project providing direct aid to Iraqi civilians who live as refugees within Iraq and in surrounding countries. &lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2005/02/02/free-rodi-alvarado-and-all-political-prisoners/"&gt;Rad Geek @ &lt;cite class=&amp;#8221;journal&gt;feministe&lt;/cite&gt; (2005-02-02): Free Rodi Alvarado and all political prisoners!&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://www.feministe.us/blog/archives/2006/05/19/when-immigration-goes-hard-line/#comment-46274"&gt;Rad Geek, comments on &lt;cite class="journal"&gt;feministe&lt;/cite&gt; (2006-05-19): When Immigration Goes Hard-Line&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2008/01/31/bordercrats_against/"&gt;GT 2008-01-31: Bordercrats Against Joy and Plenty&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2007/12/17/international_apartheid/"&gt;GT 2007-12-17: International apartheid in Roswell&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2007/11/12/sin_fronteras/"&gt;GT 2007-11-12: Sin Fronteras&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; </content>

May 14, 2008 09:26 PM

Anthropik — Groups say Amazon vulnerable after resignation (AP)

Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva speaks during a press conference after meeting with Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, unseen, at the presidential palace in Brasilia, Wednesday, May 14, 2008. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres)AP - Marina Silva brought impeccable credentials to her post as Brazil's environment minister: The daughter of a poor Amazon rubber tapper, she was a colleague of slain rain forest defender Chico Mendes.


May 14, 2008 08:53 PM

Left Thought — "Pull My Daisy", written and narrated by Jack Kerouac

May 14, 2008 07:57 PM

Orthodox Anarchist — Jewish identity not an either-or proposition

I just sat through an hour and a half of infuriating dialogue on Jewish identity (which I will publish to The Telegraph later this evening) that has only further concretized my belief that Jewish leadership is completely out of touch with the greater Jewish public.

Jews and Judaism are moving forward, but many of the panelists in this discussion seem obsessed with keeping us still, or worse yet, moving us backwards.

With rare exception, few of the statements expressed by the panelist seemed to convey an understanding of where we, as the next generation, stand in relationship to our Jewish identities.

They are certainly capable of parsing the data. They have no trouble spotting the trends. But the conclusions they have drawn from this data border on lunacy.

Many of them spoke as if Jewish identity is a monolith and that you’re either with them or against them. With few exceptions, they spoke about fluid identity like it’s a disease. They spoke about individuals expressing their Jewishness in their own way as ignorance and self-aggrandizement. They spoke about Western Liberal values as if they’re anti-Jewish (as opposed to a new paradigm in which to be Jewish). Worse yet, they exposed their contempt for those outside their purview, by claiming that if you are not a Jewish nationalist and if you are not committed to traditional Jewish institutions, then you are uneducated, you are naive, and you have been corrupted by the goyishe world.

In every generation we receive higher revelations of Torah, vis-a-vis the higher revelations of morality that unfold in each new age. And yet, it seems that, in the eyes of these individuals, progress threatens the continuity of the Jewish tradition. There is no acknowledgement that progress — responding and adapting to new paradigms in thought — is itself a Jewish tradition.

They cry that we are disappearing, that Jews aren’t interested in Judaism. Yet they project the impression that the Jewish tradition itself contradicts the values of modern Jewish people. Worse so, they suggest that to feel affection for and solidarity with the non-Jewish world is to abandon our commitment to our own people.

In that regard, they view Jewish social justice ventures that address non-Jewish problems (one of the fastest growing sectors in Jewish communal life) as only a means of moving Jews back towards particularism and tribalism. They do not recognize the value of that service work in-and-of-itself or the concept of service as a Jewish value itself, other than as a means to this end. They do not acknowledge our obligation to love all of G-d’s creation nor our tradition’s imperative to care for the downtrodden whether Jew or non-Jew. They do not see our commitment to the greater world as the logical extension of our tradition, but rather a recipe for our self-destruction.

They pat themselves on the back for their purported forward-thinkingness in bringing young Jewish leadership into the fold, in creating a space for these purportedly “new” forms of Jewish expression, yet they appear only to be co-opting these initiatives with the goal of advancing their unchanging agenda. Indeed, for every dollar they spend on new Jewish initiatives, they spend 10 to fortify the old guard.

I stepped to the microphone and asked (paraphrasing), “Rather than repackaging and rebranding the same old Judaism, what are Jewish institutions doing to make themselves relevant to future generations? If we have new moral revelations in every generation, why are tolerating the panelists’ characterization of Western Liberalism being as anti-Jewish?”

What I have concluded from this panel — and from the utter isolation I felt in response to my challenge to the panelists, as embodied by their avoidance of these questions and the contemptuous looks I drew from the audience members — is that it is not we who have abandoned the organized Jewish community. Rather, it is the organized Jewish community which has abandoned us.

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May 14, 2008 04:54 PM

Pattrice Jones — Truth vs Sincerity

This is a quote from a 1961 Iris Murdoch essay. I find it very provocative and wonder what other people think. clipped from www.thevalve.org A simple-minded faith in science, together with the assumption that we are all rational and totally free, engenders a dangerous lack of curiosity about the real world, a failure to appreciate [...]

May 14, 2008 01:13 PM

Left Thought — And Clinton wins West Virginia

May 14, 2008 01:11 AM

May 13, 2008

ChuckO — Immigration authorities arrest 300 in Iowa; time to get rid of ICE

As an anti-border anarchist, my thoughts go out today to the Iowa families who had family members arrested by fascist immigration authorities at a meat-packing plant. I’m no fan of meat-packing plants, but this draconian harassment of working people has to stop. It’s time to get rid of “La Migra”, all borders, and all nation-states. [...]

May 13, 2008 07:30 PM

Left Thought — Some of what I did at NYU in '98-'99, and at Earlham in '99

May 13, 2008 06:32 PM

ChuckO — Kansas City, stop giving out money to the rich

The Kansas City Business Journal is reporting that the Tax Increment Financing Commission of Kansas City is considering TIF proposals for new symphony offices and a rehabbed shopping center. The proposal for the symphony offices is more disturbing, because it would use TIF money to renovate a historic building in the Crossroads District. The renovation [...]

May 13, 2008 06:28 PM

ChuckO — Reverend Wright is (mostly) right

I’ve been following the hilarious Reverend Wright controversy and am hoping to write about this at greater length. CounterPunch today has another interesting take on the Reverend Wright controversy: The Problem with Rev. Wright … There are Too Few Like Him. Based on the soundbites I’ve heard from Reverend Wright so far, I can’t say [...]

May 13, 2008 06:14 PM

Anarchist6[zero]6

Indycycle Launches Bristol Indymedia has launched it's new indycycle system; Bristol Indymedia is please to announce the launch of our Indycycle service. Indycycle a website similar to the ideas of Freecycle. Indycycle is a way of people re-cycling things they no longer need to people who may have a user for it. For example if you had an old bike you did not need, rather then throw it out to

May 13, 2008 04:19 PM

infoshop blogs — My Ethics are anti-capitalist: vegetarianism

People still ask me why I’m vegetarian. I like to tell the stories of when I was a young child discovering my reasons to become one in a family where no one had directly opened my eyes to the possibility. And then explain that I am not fundamentally opposed to eating meat.

No, I tell them, because if I was, I would have to start pickets near fox dens and rally against lions and wolves. Further, and many see this as a stretch, I think we have to respect all life whether or not we can prove that plants have any degree of consciousness, feeling, or suffering. My vegetarianism comes out of an animal rights consciousness directly born out of my anti-capitalism, so that just as humans should not be exploited and tortured and conquered neither should animals or the Earth.

Animals not noble savages

Now I am smart enough to know not to fetishize animal societies and behaviors, which is often used to prove human nature is basically good or basically bad. Some species live incredibly non-authoritarian collective lifestyles, and others live based upon some pretty (I do argue) unethical behaviors. There are species that exist through matriarchy and through patriarchy, and others whose societies are neither or can be either.

Many social mammals especially are known to live through patriarchy, at least as far as human researchers have come to understand. Gorillas, kangaroos, and lions are among the many whose communities are led by alpha males. Many whales have matriarchal societies, where young males exist, but become solitary after a certain age.

A number of scientists claim to have observed rape among a number of species, including chimpanzees and lions, and other violence that we would consider criminal, like torture, unprovoked beatings, and infanticide. It is important to note that in most of the species that I have ever heard of, these types of acts have not been witnessed, but that they exist proves that some animals are just as capable of brutality and malice as humans. Many more species have much more often been witnessed in acts of altruism, loyalty, collectivism, and solidarity. Animal societies, it is clear, should not necessarily operate as a model for our societies, either in positive ways or negative ones.

But that entire species, and thousands of them, necessitate the consumption of other animal life, usually through the killing of prey, is indisputable. And while I subscribe to an interpretation of ethics that universalizes much of those I hold, this last fact proves to me that the killing and eating of another animal cannot be unethical.

Plants

And briefly, on that other point, I wish that I could offer you the facts of a case I read about as a child. In a book about female scientists, I read of a mid-20th Century scientist (named either Baxter or Stockman, but as a Ninja Turtles fan at the time, I’m not sure which) who conducted a study possibly proving consciousness, fear and the ability to identify specific humans amongst plants. Now, this may seem out there to our feeble minds, but it shouldn’t really.

After all, there are untold numbers of spiritualities, faiths, and religions that insist that their followers respect all of nature, biotic and abiotic, and philosophers who have spent lifetimes trying to figure out life (though usually they stuck to humans or animals as a whole). With all our intellect and technology, humans still haven’t figured out exactly what life is, and what constitutes an individual life form. We have no way of adequately researching the consciousness of another being, particularly one which we cannot even fathom the intricacies of.

In any event, whether or not this theory has any basis, life is life and it should all be respected. That goes for plants and fungi, and capitalism certainly exploits and abuses them too. But just as many animals cannot live without meat, we humans cannot live without something living or formerly living to eat. It is certainly not equally unethical to eat plants than to eat meat. So, with some consciousness and respect for forms of life that we still don’t really understand, this leads to no dilemma over whether to eat plant life or not.

Anti-capitalist vegetarianism

I do not claim to know if humans need to eat meat or not. There are strong arguments are both sides, though I lean to believe there is nothing intrinsically wrong with the consumption of animal life by human animals. I do not stand to blame someone who, using rudimentary tools, kills and consumes a non-human animal.

That is not, however, how meat is produced structurally exploitative societies. We mass produce genetically altered species, torture and brutalize them, enforcing a life based upon what we believe will produce the most value from each individual. We devastate local environments and species to introduce invasive mutants that we then abuse and slaughter in a centuries-old holocaust that has created more pain and suffering than even any by humans against other humans. This is not right.

I am not sure that it is completely wrong to breed animals at all, something humans have been doing for thousands of years. But for most of our existence cultivating certain species, we at least treated them with great degrees of respect and admiration. They were led lives that were at least far less harsh than each exploitative society has successively made them, and capitalism has brought out the worst treatment of animals that could ever exist, certainly on scales no past period can compare with.

The effects of vegetarianism

Vegetarianism, I firmly believe, has led to a reduction in the suffering of animals. The larger the number of vegetarians and vegans, the more potential market is chopped off for animal exploiting industries, leading to fewer animals being bred, tortured and slaughtered. In this way, it doesn’t necessarily challenge the system structurally, but it certainly does limit its size.

There is much dispute about whether it betters the conditions of the animals under the control of meat producers. Most labeling has been proven to be illusory veils, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, letting some consumer purchase highly abused animals for higher prices and in (falsely) good conscience. Not all meat, egg, and dairy producers lie about positive conditions, however, and even that thin number of those who don’t could be called a victory.

The jury is out on whether or not it makes humans completely healthier, though there are plenty to try to prove either argument. But it does cut down on many diseases and chronic problems for me and many others individually, and so it becomes a positive personal choice as well. I likely do not need to worry about many of the diseases that have taken my ancestors. But this is not why I am a vegetarian at all.

So, there you have it. Why go vegetarian? Because animals suffer. But while we need not debate if humans should eat animals, we should all agree that their exploitation under capitalism brings about a level of suffering no animal has wrought on another.

May 13, 2008 03:51 PM

Rad Geek — Gosh that&#8217;s tough

&lt;p&gt;In a footnote on &lt;a href="http://echidneofthesnakes.blogspot.com/2008_05_01_archive.html#7333654884651968742"&gt;a generally appalling post&lt;/a&gt;, devoted entirely to abusing anyone who might have the temerity to hold the doing-worse-than-nothing Democratic Congressional majority in general &amp;#8212; or Nancy Pelosi in particular &amp;#8212; to account on matters of principle (a post which makes itself completely impossible to reply to with anything other than more abuse and facile sarcasm, because the post does not, at any point, identify any particular person or action that is being targeted, and so offers no basis for serious discussion), &lt;a href="http://echidneofthesnakes.blogspot.com/2008_05_01_archive.html#7333654884651968742"&gt;Anthony McCarthy has this to add&lt;/a&gt;:&lt;/p&gt; &lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;Volunteering in a political campaign, seeing what they go through, I’m sick and tired of hearing people run down our [&lt;span xml:lang="la"&gt;sic&lt;/span&gt;] politicians. They are just about all dedicated to pubic service. Few moderate to liberal Democrats serving in elective office at the national level couldn’t be enjoying a much more comfortable and profitable life pursuing a wealth-making career. With considerably fewer headaches. You think it’s such a bed of roses, try getting yourself elected. Try dodging the bullets and balancing the pressure groups. &lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;It must be so hard on them.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is out there trying to dodge metaphorical bullets. If she doesn&amp;#8217;t make it past those metaphorical bullets, then, sometime in early 2009, she&amp;#8217;ll be demoted to a mere Representative, or might even have to look for a new well-paying white-collar job. Meanwhile, near Mosul, a woman and a child failed to dodge some actual bullets, when U.S. soldiers opened fire on their car.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;They died.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A woman, a child and two gunmen were killed by U.S. forces conducting a military operation targeting al Qaeda in northern Iraq, the military said on Sunday.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;It said U.S. forces fired on a car carrying suspected militants that refused to stop near the northern city of Mosul on Saturday.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&amp;#8230; Iraqi and U.S. troops launched a major offensive in northern Iraq on Saturday against al Qaeda militants in the region.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;&amp;#8212;&lt;a href="http://uk.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUKL1126759120080511"&gt;Dean Yates and Sami Aboudi, Reuters (2008-05-11): Two civilians killed in U.S. operation in N.Iraq&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;Those non-metaphorical bullets were paid for by the United States government. The reason that they keep getting paid for is that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi keeps on voting for the government to keep paying for it, and &lt;a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16057734/"&gt;has used her considerable power and influence&lt;/a&gt;, both under parliamentary rules and through back-room party politics, to make sure that her fellow Democrats in Congress also go on voting to keep paying for it. (She is about to do her damnedest, along with her other political cronies, &lt;a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121036735381881501.html?mod=googlenews_wsj"&gt;to do this &lt;em&gt;yet again&lt;/em&gt;, and is trying to figure out how to ramrod the bill through Congress as quickly as possible&lt;/a&gt;.)&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;This war would be &lt;em&gt;over&lt;/em&gt; if Pelosi didn&amp;#8217;t choose to spend the past year and a half safeguarding her political career at the cost of perpetuating a murderous and disastrous occupation, which &lt;em&gt;she herself recognizes as a bloody failure&lt;/em&gt;. The reason for this disgusting policy, forcing me and millions of other antiwar Americans to pay hundreds of billions of dollars over this past year and a half, for a war now almost universally recognized as a catastrophic mistake and an unrelenting failure, is that doing anything different is widely thought, among Democratic power-brokers like Pelosi, to be &lt;q&gt;political suicide.&lt;/q&gt; (That&amp;#8217;s the melodramatic metaphor that politicians and their enablers like to use to describe an act that will probably cause you to lose some measure of political power that you&amp;#8217;d otherwise have some hope of seizing and holding onto. Thus it is endlessly used to justify, or excuse, politicians who sacrifice the very things that they supposedly wanted the power in order to achieve for the sake of the power itself. Thus, by rhetorically equating a hold on political power with life itself, power is treated as if it were an end-in-itself rather than what it is, a mere means to further ends, which are always more important.)&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Let me tell you a story about something that happened less than 40 years ago. On April 9, 1970, the New York Assembly passed a new abortion law, which repealed almost all government restrictions on a woman&amp;#8217;s right to choose abortion. The vote was extremely close. In fact, it was so close that the final round of floor voting resulted in a 74-to-74 tie. Without a tie-breaking vote, the repeal bill would be defeated, and the New York state government would go on coercing women in the name of forced pregnancy. But just before the clerk could declare the bill officially defeated, an upstate Assemblyman named George M. Michaels got up and took the microphone. He was a Democrat representing a conservative district, and while he was personally pro-choice, he knew that most of his constituents were anti-abortion, and would be outraged by a vote for the abortion bill. Here is what he did.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;div class="figure"&gt; &lt;object style="width:425px; height:355px" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="http://www.youtube.com/v/YBVSmuWL0Mk"&gt; &lt;param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/YBVSmuWL0Mk" /&gt; &lt;param name="wmode" value="transparent" /&gt; &lt;blockquote&gt; &lt;p&gt;&lt;strong&gt;George Michaels (voice shaking):&lt;/strong&gt; I fully appreciate that this is the termination of my political career&amp;#8230;. But Mr Speaker, what&amp;#8217;s the use of getting elected, or re-elected, if you don&amp;#8217;t stand for something? &amp;#8230; I therefore request you, Mr. Speaker, to change my negative vote to an affirmative vote.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;/blockquote&gt; &lt;/object&gt; &lt;/div&gt; &lt;p&gt;So the bill passed. Abortion was completely decriminalized. But Michaels was right: it &lt;em&gt;was&lt;/em&gt; the termination of his political career. He was running for re-election that year, and within weeks of the vote &lt;a href="http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F1061EF8395A157493C2AB178FD85F448785F9"&gt;his political party formally announced that they were abandoning him&lt;/a&gt;. Two months later, &lt;a href="http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F40C10FF3E5D137B93C6AB178DD85F448785F9"&gt;Michaels was defeated in the Democratic Party primary&lt;/a&gt;. George Michaels&amp;#8217;s political career was over. But abortion is still legal in the state of New York.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;It&amp;#8217;s one of the most admirable and important things an elected politician has ever done in the United States. And it was a deliberate act of political suicide.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;p&gt;Those who would never think of doing something like that, who dismiss the very idea of &lt;q&gt;political suicide&lt;/q&gt; out of hand, with a shudder or a sneer, and who make self-pitying pleas about how much it would cost them to take some kind of stand &amp;#8212; which is to say, sanctimonious excuses for clinging to power, no matter how much they sacrifice and betray in order to keep it &amp;#8212; are worth less than nothing as political allies.&lt;/p&gt; &lt;h3&gt;Further reading:&lt;/h3&gt; &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2008/03/25/and_now/"&gt;GT 2008-03-25: And now they bring up you.&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2008/02/17/in_ten/"&gt;GT 2008-02-17: In ten words or fewer: brass tacks edition&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;&lt;a href="http://radgeek.com/gt/2007/12/16/reformist_overtures/"&gt;GT 2007-12-16: Reformist overtures&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt; </content>

May 13, 2008 03:19 PM

Left Thought — Baudelaire cut up #2

May 13, 2008 10:34 AM

Left Thought — A Baudelaire cut-up

May 13, 2008 10:18 AM

Left Thought — New Art

May 13, 2008 09:48 AM

Left Thought — "Principles underlying the German Autonomen movement"

May 13, 2008 07:16 AM

Left Thought — George W. Bush after the inauguration

May 13, 2008 07:11 AM

Left Thought — A good Welsh boy

May 13, 2008 05:32 AM