NLRB is no friend in Portland 9:49 pm / 27 September 2012 by John Jacobsen, at Seattle Free Press

Taken from Libcom, an article by Chris Agenda coming out against contractualism in the IWW, based on experience with a contract shop in Portland: During a two-month period I met with representatives from the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on three different issues. All of the issues were related to grievances of workers who were represented by [...]

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The Creationist Paradox 8:07 pm / 26 September 2012 by Francois Tremblay, at The Prime Directive


(from Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal)

It is a common belief in Christian apologetics that atheists somehow have no grounds for morality, or that only Christians can justify “absolute morality” or “absolute truth,” and that this is a decisive argument against atheism.

To this, there are many valid and fatal responses:

* One can argue that they simply assume that no secular philosophy can justify morality, which is an argument from ignorance.
* One can point out that when Christians are pressed on any moral rule in the Bible, they will immediately retreat to moral relativism (“that rule was only for those people at that specific time!”), thus proving that Christians don’t have an absolute morality.
* One can argue that even if true, it would only justify those assumptions of Christianity that make morality possible, not all of Christianity.
* One can point to the moral track record of Christianity, both in the Bible and in real life.

What I do want to talk about here, however, is a sort of paradox that arises from the refusal to acknowledge evolution.

As I’ve pointed out many times on this blog, morality resulted from the evolution of social structures and the necessity for hardwired rules to override the short-term interests of the individual. We know that sociopaths, who are born without hardwired moral rules, hurt others at will for their own short-term interest, without any guilt or realization of having done wrong.

Now, consider that Creationists constantly remind us that they refuse to believe in evolution not only on factual grounds but also on moral grounds; that if we teach school students they evolved from other animals, they’ll eschew moral values and become criminals.

This might seem as a contradiction of the fact that evolution is the basis of morality. But that’s the paradox: because they don’t accept evolution, they can’t understand where morality comes from, but because they don’t understand morality, they can’t accept evolution!

This is only a paradox in theory. In reality, people reject evolution first, because they are taught that believing in evolution is sinful. The moral issues come afterwards and, I think, mainly come into play as a way to explain how atheists can still appear to be moral. They’re really borrowing from the Christian worldview, doncha know.

A popular argument against the problem of evil is to point out that atheists have no standard on which to declare what is good and what is evil, thus “proving” that they are borrowing from the Christian worldview. This is the one argument they cannot stop using. They use it again and again, at every opportunity and at all opportunities.

So the question we must ask is, why do they hold on to it so much? What is the big secret they are hiding? Like 90% of religious tactics, it’s an act of projection, but also an act of personal insecurity.

They know that they are basically relying on a moral vacuum, that the Bible is not a reliable guide, and this is proven by how fast they go back to moral relativism whenever the Bible is challenged on any moral issue. Furthermore, they were indoctrinated to believe that without moral absolutes they would go apeshit and kill everyone. Therefore they are scared shitless of themselves, because they know they really have no moral absolutes and faith alone is keeping them from becoming monsters.

Their only viable solution, from a psychological perspective, is to project their failings on their opponents and preserve the illusion that their faith rests on a solid foundation. This is why it is absolutely essential that they keep maintaining the belief that the atheists are the ones who are relativists.


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“Porn is fiction! No one is influenced by it!” 8:37 pm / 25 September 2012 by Francois Tremblay, at The Prime Directive

Yea, because, as we all know, fictional stories don’t ever influence people. Riiiiight. Meghan Murphy demolishes this silly argument.

If the things we see on screen, or in the pages of a magazine, are “fantasy” and have no impact on the ways in which we view and understand the world around us, then please explain body image. Please explain why women are afraid to grow old, why so many of them diet obsessively, and why so many hate their bodies. And while you’re doing that, please explain how advertising works. HOW on EARTH is it possible for us to see things on TV and then want to buy them! Explain how we all suddenly learned that white teeth were mandatory or that cellulite was disgusting. This has absolutely nothing to do with images we see on film or in magazines or in ads, right? Right.

And if porn has no impact on people’s real lives or understanding of sex then please explain the massive popularity of the creepy Brazilian bikini wax, breast implants, and facials.What’s with the prevalence of the schoolgirl fantasy? Were young men always this infatuated with coercing their female partners in having anal sex? Because that strikes me as something relatively recent, in terms of sex-type trends. And, in fact, I feel that all these things have become normalized and popular as a direct result of porn culture.

Whether or not you think these things are bad or good or irrelevant, it is absolutely ridiculous to pretend that pornography doesn’t impact people and culture and lives. Movies impact people and culture and lives. So does advertising. So does television. People buy things because TV tells them to. True story. Razors are not a necessity. Neither is wrinkle cream.

The other problem is that, regarding the argument that it is wrong to impose condoms on porn actors because porn is fiction, the actual acts are very real, and the diseases transmitted on porn sets are very real. To fight against such basic workplace safety is women-hatred. Pornography is real, and it affects real people.


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The Chicago Teachers Strike and the Privatization of a Generation 2:36 pm / 25 September 2012 by John Jacobsen, at Seattle Free Press

CTU Delegates voted this week to end the 7 day long strike which had effectively shut down all of Chicago’s public schools. The decision comes after the latest round of negotiations between Chicago Public Schools and the Chicago Teachers Union succeeded in reaching a deal that negotiators felt they could recommend to the union’s embattled [...]

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The Story of Bottled Water (2010) 8:35 pm / 24 September 2012 by Francois Tremblay, at The Prime Directive


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Varieties of Proprietors: Lovers, Husbands, and Mother Hens 12:33 am / 24 September 2012 by Shawn P. Wilbur, at Two-Gun Mutualism & the Golden Rule

Le propriétaire qui épargne empêche les autres de jouir sans jouir lui-même ; pour lui, ni possession ni propriété. Comme l'avare, il couve son trésor il n'en use pas. Qu'il en repaisse ses yeux, qu'il le couche avec lui, qu'il s'endorme en l'embrassant : il aura beau faire, les écus n'engendrent pas les écus. Point de propriété entière sans jouissance, point de jouissance sans consommation, point de consommation sans perte de la propriété : telle est l'inflexible nécessité dans laquelle le jugement de Dieu a placé le propriétaire. Malédiction sur la propriété! 
Back in April 2010, in a post called "Amant ou mari," I made some initial comments on Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's comparison of possessors and proprietors with lovers and husbands. In What is Property? he said: "If I may venture the comparison: a lover is a possessor, a husband is a proprietor."At the time, I was primarily concerned with gathering clues to what Proudhon really meant by "possession" in his various works—but I was also just beginning to explore the sexually charged language that he sometimes used to discuss property (language which Tucker's translations sometimes obscured.) I have finally had a chance, in the context of my current work on Proudhon and feminism, to take another, closer look at this potential subtext and, while it is a commonplace that dirty minds can always find a dirty joke, it's hard to deny that there is a good deal in the works on property that begs to be read as double entendre. And the fact that, in several instances, the more libidinal reading actually makes more sense than Tucker's rather staid, economic interpretations suggests that perhaps I am not simply indulging my own bad passions.

Now, once you have set out on a search for double meanings, there is always plenty of potential material to be sifted through. Not every reference to "possession" need be taken "in the biblical sense," and many of a philosopher's references to "penetration" will be perfectly innocent. But there are moments when Proudhon doesn't leave much open to question:
The rent has become for the proprietor the token of his lechery, the instrument of his solitary pleasures. [The System of Economic Contradictions]
And, of course, there is the passage from What is Property? (quoted at the top of this post) where Proudhon literally depicts the proprietor (of a particular sort) sleeping with his money in his arms. Here is the full section.
The proprietor who consumes annihilates the products: it is far worse when he decides to save. The things that he has put aside pass into another world; they are never seen again, not even the caput mortuum [worthless remains], the manure. If there were means to journey to the moon, and the proprietors took a fancy to carry their savings there, after a while our whole terraqueous globe would be transported to its satellite.
The proprietor who saves prevents others from enjoying without enjoying himself; for him, neither possession, nor property. Like the miser he broods [literally, like a hen] over his treasure, but does not use it [use it up, or exploit it]. Let him feast his eyes on it, let him lie down with it, let him fall asleep embracing it: no matter, the coins will not beget coins. No complete property without enjoyment [jouissance, which has a range of meanings including “use,” “pleasure” and “orgasm”], no enjoyment without consumption [or consummation], no consumption without loss of property: such is the inflexible necessity [in the sense of inevitability] in which the judgment of God has placed the proprietor. A curse on property! 
[The translations are my own. Benjamin R. Tucker chose less provocative renderings, which generally capture the basic arguments, but tend to mute and muddle things a bit, consistently rendering "enjoyment" in terms of "coming into possession." This certainly hasn't helped clarify what Proudhon really meant by "possession," the keyword that English-speaking anarchists have tended to attach themselves to, a keyword that Proudhon admitted he had not really defined very well. Anyway...]

There are some interesting details here, at least one of which seems to have been obscured by a real translation error. Tucker apparently mistook fumier (manure, dung) for fumée (smoke), which would not have been as good a match for caput mortuum, and the mistake obscures a possible echo of Pierre Leroux's theory of the circulus, an anti-Malthusian theory of natural circulation which led Leroux (like others in those early days of experimentation with fertilizer) to sometimes be rather preoccupied with manure. I wouldn't have much doubt that this was indeed an indication of Leroux's influence, except that it is so early that it may well have been an anticipation of some of the same ideas. In any event, we have an interesting similarity between the works of the two authors, and a confirmation that Proudhon was concerned with the circulating side of what I've been calling "the larger antinomy" in terms that allow us to draw fairly straightforward connections to figures like Leroux and Joseph Déjacque. But the much more interesting detail, relatively unobscured in Tucker's translation but outside our "common sense" about the terms of Proudhon's work, is that there are at least three sorts of property-relations described in the second paragraph: alongside the lover/possessor and the husband/proprietor, we have another figure, a sort of mother hen (though also almost certainly a "he") who takes his property to bed, but without consummation, jouissance or issue.

Had it been Charles Fourier, instead of Proudhon, who had written this passage, we might expect to find a regular Series of Proprietors—perhaps twelve in all, plus a focal figure—like Fourier's Series of Cuckolds. As it is, the range of possible proprietary types threatens to multiply. We start with the Possessor, characterized by a simple relation of "fact" with his property, and the Proprietor, who has the right to his property. Then our Proprietors split into Enjoyers and Savers. But there are more possibilities. Let's look again at the other passage from What is Property?
In property we distinguish: 1) property pure and simple, the right of domain or seigniorial right over the thing, or, as they say, naked property; 2) possession. “Possession,” said Duranton, “is a matter of fact, and not of right.” Toullier: “Property is a right, a legal power; possession is a fact.” The tenant, the farmer, the general partner, the usufructuary, are possessors; the owner who rents or lends for use; the heir who only awaits the death of a usufructuary to enjoy, are proprietors. If I dare make this comparison, a lover is a possessor, and a husband is a proprietor.
Proudhon introduces some potential confusions in this particular passage, as at this point in his career he wanted to draw a fairly distinct line between Possessors and Proprietors, so while we have a mere Proprietor who waits impatiently to become an Enjoyer lined up among the Possessors, we do not have any instance of a simple Enjoyer, who consummates the joining of possession and legal ownership. This is, however, essentially the type of "true proprietor," which he invoked in his Theory of Property, and which seems to be implied by the formula for "complete property" in the other passage. There is, of course, another good reason why Proudhon resisted presenting any example of "complete property," since his argument was that consummated property was essentially property lost. But let's throw one more related quote, this time from Justice in the Revolution and in the Church, into the mix:
Every lover is idolatrous, and has lost possession of himself. 
Here we see that possession enjoyed may defeat the Possessor as completely as "complete property" undoes the Enjoyer as a Proprietor. But the problem seems to be essentially one we've long since identified: Proudhon, unlike Stirner, really does not have a way of talking about the form of property—ownness, the quality of the unique—which persists in its self-enjoyment, which never equals itself but still circulates through all the crises of self-possession, all les petites morts. Aside from rare moments, he doesn't seem to have understood that what destroys the despotic property of the Enjoyers-by-Proxy and sterile Savers, and shakes the self-possession of the Possessor was itself a form of property—or at least a character of the individual as proper to him—or her—as it flows across the persistent self, opening that self to evolution and progress, that it is the little deaths that prevent the stasis of real and final death.

But he seems to have been very close...

There is more that will eventually have to be said about these libidinous undercurrents in Proudhon's writings, and what they reveal about his negotiation and performance of masculinity. But for now perhaps it's most useful to focus on this new figure of the Saver, the "mother hen" whose embraces of his beloved are doomed to bring forth now new issue, and a clear contrast to the "true proprietor" of the later works. The property of the Saver is quite clearly the "putting aside" of Proudhon's "Celebration of Sunday," and an interruption of the universal circulus. But it is also apparently "another world" even for the would-be proprietor, held apart not only from the general mixing of the natural world, but from any sort of "labor-mixing," which all this sexy imagery might lead us to think about "in the biblical sense." Our Saver is pretty clearly a miser, like "The Cheapskate" of Han Ryner's tale, a figure of "avarice without an impulse toward gain, all wrapped up in the fear of loss." And perhaps we have found our way back onto familiar ground, where the fear of material loss drives our Saver-Miser to a deadly, sterile avoidance of mixing, and perhaps we are approaching a familiar solution, the "two-gun" "gift economy of property," by a new road and in the context of an expanded understanding of our basic antinomy. Although the circulating side of property remains somewhat elusive, the hints he have dug up in this particular examination suggest that we will find it, if we do, by engaging more closely with mixing, with consummation, and with the openings and crises of self-ownership and self-possession that seem to go along with the "complete property," while not neglecting the more stable, concentrating side of things.
We have [once again] understood that the opposition of two absolutes—either one of which, alone, would be unpardonably reprehensible, and both of which, together, would be rejected, if they worked separately—is the very cornerstone of social economy and public right: but it falls to us to govern it and to make it act according to the laws of logic.—PIERRE-JOSEPH PROUDHON, THE THEORY OF PROPERTY. (1864)
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Cheese it, it’s the statist supporters! 8:17 pm / 23 September 2012 by Francois Tremblay, at The Prime Directive

The author of a blog with the delightful name of Cheese it, the cops! asks a question which all Anarchists have to ponder, especially those who are in contact with the bizarre things statists say: why do some people hold to the bizarre belief that the government exists to help them?

perhaps it seems obvious that it is in the interests of poor people to have an extremely powerful and pervasive state; perhaps it seems obvious that it is in the interests of rich people to have a tiny powerless state. however, looking at the thing squarely, this is the opposite of obvious. it seems obvious because people keep repeating it or always conceive the terrain this way. but it’s just wackily false with regard to reality. who needs the state more: you know, robert rubin or rodney king? the idea that robert just wants to be left alone while rodney wants to be constantly entwined in police and welfare programs seems rather odd. or: which of these people needs to be left alone, and which coddled or beaten? when the state leaves robert rubin alone, he’ll be broke. when it leaves rodney king alone, he’ll have better brain scans.


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From the neo-Proudhonian blogosphere 7:32 pm / 22 September 2012 by Shawn P. Wilbur, at Two-Gun Mutualism & the Golden Rule

Over at Mutualism and Solutions to the Social Problem, Derek has posted a new essay: "A Letter to Communists and Capitalists of the Libertarian Form." And David at Blazing Truth has posted a "New Mutualist Manifesto." Both are ambitious attempts to pull together diverse elements from the mutualist tradition and contemporary theory. Give them a look.

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Jean Grave, The Adventures of Nono — Chapter V 6:31 pm / 22 September 2012 by Shawn P. Wilbur, at Two-Gun Mutualism & the Golden Rule


THE ADVENTURES OF NONO

by JEAN GRAVE
[continued from Chapter IV]
 

V

GLUTTONY PUNISHED

The castle that the children headed towards stood on a broad, well-sanded esplanade, cut through large lawns, some of which were planted with trees.
Under these trees those not at work harvesting fruit, or milking cows, had set some large, square tables, which, this evening, in honor of the new arrival, on been arrange end to end, but were ordinary set up apart from one another, covered with fine tablecloths, bearing plates and dishes embellished with simple designs in raw tones.
Chairs indicated the place of each guest.
The newcomers lined up their fruit in bowls of the same earthenware as the plates. There was a sample of almostall the fruits, not only apples, peaches, grapes, apricots, dates, oranges, bananas, but a host of others that Nono had never seen. Pastries of all shapes, thanks to the ingenuity of Labor, arranged in pretty bowls, alternated with the fruit. Flowers, in vases of various slender forms, added the brilliance of more vivid colors to the more subdued hues of the fruit.
Other children decanted the creamy milk in pretty stoneware jugs, with elegant shapes, in warm, harmonious tones. This flattered the eye, and a discrete perfume tickled the nostrils, making mouths water among even the least gluttonous.
When all the little ones had seen that the harvest was arranged on the tables, each seated themselves according to their tastes and preferences, sitting beside the comrade who, for the moment, attracted them the most.
Nono was among those of his new friends that we would say were the closest. Across from him were Gretchen, Fritz, Lola, Wynnie, Beppo, Pat, and Stella. It seemed that every name in the world was represented there.
And not far from him, Nono could see some little black faces, and yellow faces with slanted eyes.
All laughed, chattered, as little Mab had said, without worrying about what corner of the earth they came from.
The bowls were passed around the table, each choosing from them according to their like; some taking from all, while others stuffed themselves with the sort that was, for the moment, the object of their preference. But the distribution was managed very cordially, the most voracious knowing that there would always be enough to fully satisfy it.
“Hey! I will serve you,” said Mab, picking up a cup. “What do you prefer: peaches, or grapes?”
“No,” said Hans, “here are the bananas that I picked for you.”
And each put their preferred fruit on Nono’s plate.
“I want to taste them all,” said Nono. And he began to peel a banana, Hans having shown him that he must remove the peel.
But from the first bite, he had to stop.
“Don’t you like it?” asked Hans, a bit disappointed; for he expected some exclamations of pleasure.
“Yes,” said Nono, “it is not bad; however, I think it prefer the grape; and he bit into the bunch that Mab had put on his plate. Mais but after eating a few, he had to admit defeat. Setting the cluster on his plate, he pushed it away slowly, regarding with say eyes the bowls of fruit, as diverse and as appetizing as they had seemed to him, before seating himself at the table, not being able to eat his fill, and that now his bulging stomach refused to take in.
“Well! What’s wrong?” said Mab and Hans, his neighbors on the right and left, seeing him stop eating and push away his plate.
“I am not hungry!” he said, in a tone that could not have been sadder if he had announced the loss of half of his family.
“You are not hungry!” said Mab, “for such beautiful fruit!”
Nono shook his head.
“Are you sick?” asked Hans.
“Are you sad?” added Mab.
Biquette and Sacha had rise and now, standing around Nono, they also asked what was wrong.
Ashamed and embarrassed, Nono eventually let slip that, already stuffed with the bees’ honey, and with the raspberries and strawberries given by the beetles, his appetite had led him to stuff himself still more with cherries while he picked them. His distended stomach refused to swallow anything.
“Drink a little milk,” said Sacha. “That will settle your stomach. Then you can eat that fine peach.”
Nono tried toswallow a few drops, but the milk would not go down either.
Casting a last covetous look at the succulent fruit that excited his regrets, the young gourmand had to be content to watch his friends eat, while they, reassured, they went back to gobbling the fruit of their preferences, promising himself to be wiser in the future, and to moderate his appetite.
He had to tell them about his adventures with the bees and beetles, the mention he made of his meal in the woodshaving aroused their curiosity.
When everyone was full, they began to clear the tables, taking the table cloths back to the linen room, the dishes to the kitchen, where machines invented by Labor washed and dried plates and bowls, so that they only had to be arrange in the sideboards that adorned the kitchen, situated in a building not far from the castle, hidden by a curtain of trees, shrubs and flowers; the tables and chairs were put away in some nearby sheds.
When all was in order, the childrenspread throughout the garden, discussing the games they would play. Most of the girls wanted to play mom or schoolmistress, vague memories of their games before arriving in Autonomy, the young men at leap-frog, at tag; and after discussing it well, they ended by organizing themselves in groups according to their preferences.
But, little by little, some of them broke away from the groups of which they were a part, attracted by others nearby, which seemed to suit them better; some boys let themselves be attracted by the pleasures of playing with dolls; some girls, among the most impish, hitched up their petticoats, and played fearlessly at leapfrog
Gradually the groups were mixed, others came to play at blind man’s bluff, at hide and seek, at pigeon-vole, and various other games.
Nono, who had started by playing tag with Hans, Mab, Biquette and Sacha, found himself in the end in a game of blind man’s bluff, with around twenty other boys and girls, and already counted among them a half-dozen friends of both sexes, named Gretchen, May, Pat, Beppo, Coralie, a pretty little mulatto fromGuadeloupe, and Doudou, a solid black Congolese.
Mab and Hans were part of a group occupied with resolving some riddles that each posed in his turn. Biquette and Sacha jumped rope.
Those who were tired from playing, came and sat on the lawn, where, étendus sur les marches, they watched their fellows play.
The sun had set a moment before, darkness fell slowly, but the evening was mild, the stars lit up one by one in the heavens, as little by little the roars of the players were extinguished.
Solidaria appeared on the top of the front steps:
“My children,” she said, we have a surprise today. A troupe of gymnasiarchs has just offered to show us a performance of their exercises this evening. It is a question of preparing everything to receive them well. Where do you want the show to take place? In the theater or outside?
“Outside, outside,” said the children, who had rushed up, and who felt the charm of that evening.
“Well, then, to work. Here is Labor who will help you.”
And the children clapped their hands with enthusiasm and jumped for joy.

[to be continued in Chapter VI]

[Working translation by Shawn P. Wilbur]

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Those Small Acts 9:24 am / 22 September 2012 by Larry Gambone, at Porcupine blog

Many revolutionaries look down their noses at the small steps we take to change our lives. These acts include growing our own food, buying locally, buying fair trade products, riding a bicycle instead of a car, etc. On their own, divorced from the greater liberatory movement, they would seem feeble, feel-good actions. However, few ever believed, say, growing your own food was The Revolution. Everyone I have ever met who engages in these small acts is also involved in the larger picture, those movements for peace, environmental sanity and liberty.

The small act links us to the liberated future, allows us, in a minor way, to live the life we wish to lead, only now. The little movements are also a transmission belt to the larger movements. You may start out only interested in growing organic food in your back yard, but if you take your little act seriously, inexorably you will be drawn to a criticism of the entire system. You will begin to ask why corporate agriculture uses pesticides and artificial fertilizers and why the state has encouraged these practices. You will begin to question a system that eliminates local farm land while importing vegetables from China. Encouraging the small act leads people toward the greater movement.
 
The criticism of small acts is a moralistic one, and not at all dialectical. It fails to see the holistic nature of the movements great and small, and it fails to see that a person's thoughts work as processes, that they are not static.