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What your five dollars can do to help the Center for a Stateless Society go on the offensive.

Rivas, Nicaragua - Ravished by violent drug trafficking organisations flush with prohibition profits, Central America is now one of the deadliest places on Earth, with Honduras experiencing even more murders per capita than Iraq. That's led some politicians to start talking about something they never would have considered just a decade ago, at least publicly: breaking with the militarised, literal war on drugs favoured by the United States in favour of decriminalisation - and perhaps even outright legalisation. But contrary to what one might assume, it's not the "anti-American" leftists leading the charge, but the reliably pro-American heads of the region's center-right governments.

Read the rest at Al Jazeera.

Earlier this month, I caught an overnight bus from my home in Medellín, Colombia to a small town called Gigante in southern Colombia. I was cold and scared. I was heading to a place I’d never been before to meet people I’d never met before.

About 20 minutes from the town by taxi, the Spanish-Italian multinational corporation Emgesa, in collaboration with the Colombian national government, is building a dam. This is the usual dirty political deal. Emgesa has its profits guaranteed by law, the electricity is to be sold abroad, screw the environment and 1500 poor campesino families are expected to give up their lives’ work for pennies on the dollar.

This is the tragedy. They are planning to flood 8,500 hectares (21,000 acres) of incredibly fertile land on which these families have made their living and fed untold thousands in the region. Also within the flood area are riparian and other forests. This is the Amazon region. The lung of the world. A center of great biodiversity.

This is not an isolated atrocity. The Colombian government is considering another 32 dams, many of them on the same Magdalena river, many of them by the same multinational. The magnitude of the ecological crisis this presents, the enormity of the human cost imposed by the richest on the poorest and the blatant corruption at work here … please do not let it go unanswered.

And so, in the outskirts of Gigante, a small band of farmers is nonviolently resisting both the Spanish-Italian multinational Emgesa and the Colombian government. They’ve organized with the help of a college professor from the nearby city of Neiva. Despite government cutoff of bank financing and business licenses, they continue to work the land. Despite Emgesa’s purchases of the largest land holdings, they have prevented the removal of workers who depend on their jobs and have no safety net.

I wanted to meet and interview these people. They are heroes. Their resistance is particularly inspiring because they aren’t especially well-educated and they have a deep respect for the earth. (They don’t know who Gandhi or Martin Luther King are!) These are simple people with backbones of titanium. Thanks to the below video, I found out about them.

On my first trip I only managed to see a small part of the valley. It is gorgeous. And peaceful. The air is pure. Insect life is abundant. It’s so green there that, despite being at a lower elevation than the town, it is cooler than the town. The farmers mostly grow cacao. I felt really good there.

I interviewed several of the farmers. They are holding up admirably under difficult conditions. Many people have already moved on. Out of desperation, some have accepted small sums of money for their homes and lands. Many have reportedly already run through those funds. People do not have enough to eat.

I’m working on editing the first few hours of video now. I hope you will join me in supporting these good people. Their fight in defense of our Earth’s lung is our fight, too. No matter your opinion on global warming, we need to support the Amazon’s inhabitants against privileged first-world corporations. It’s not a level playing field unless we give them all our support.

This is a good fight. These are committed people. They have a good cause and they are fighting it the right way. I’m all in.

The resistance is celebrating the Festival of the Sun (Inti Raymi in Quechua) June 19-26th. A large delegation of indigenous people are joining the farmers. The resistance invites people to accompany them in this celebration, no matter where you are from. They have already had accompaniment from Germany, Italy and Spain. They are of the opinion that the presence of people from first-world countries protects them. So please visit if you can. I am available to assist you.

In July they’re planning to (again) shut down work on the dam by blocking the road to the construction site. The presence of people with cameras rolling will be especially critical for this event. I hope to attend.

On the last day of my trip, I was filming an interview near the construction site in which a farmer alleges that Emgesa damaged a critical bridge resulting in extreme hardship for the community. We were detained by someone claiming to be a Colombian army captain. I was compelled to delete the video. Here is a video I recorded shortly after the incident. I was unable to recover the deleted video but will film it again on my next trip.

My first trip cost me $250 USD. Almost all of this went towards transportation (buses, colectivos, moto-taxis, etc.) I stayed in a cheap hotel but next time I should be able to keep costs down by staying with the farmers in their homes (they’ve invited me and prefer this option). If you support my work and would like someone from the United States who has studied and practiced Gandhian nonviolence to accompany the farmers, please send me some funds. Here are some good reasons to financially support this work:

1. I am your eyes on the ground. You can experience the situation visually with my videos, photos and stories. If nothing else, you can live vicariously through my lenses. And so can millions of others who care about the global poor, the environment, the Amazon and justice.
2. As an obvious gringo (tall, white, blue eyes and brown hair), I’m an effective witness and perhaps even shield for the farmers against corporate and government violence. (This is what they have told me.) The Colombian government, army and police know that they owe much of their continued power on US government aid and training. I am a US citizen. The farmers told me they especially need foreign accompaniment for the July paro (work shutdown).
3. I speak Spanish fluently. I first visited Colombia 18 years ago and have lived here (with a 16-month break) for more than 11 years now. I can understand different regional accents. I’m very familiar with the culture, customs, food, etc.
4. I can serve as guide and translator for others (English speakers) who wish to accompany the farmers.
5. I’ll credit you at the end of all of my videos about this situation.
6. I am a student of satyagraha (Gandhian nonviolence) and practice it both in my daily life and in activism situations. I am opposed to globalization, colonialism and capitalism. The farmers can benefit from my experience and studies. (I want to learn from them, too. They’re going to teach me how to work the Earth and I’ll share with them my knowledge of English and satyagraha.)
7. This is an incredibly cheap and direct way to fund effective resistance to globalization and 21st century colonialism.
8. I live an overnight bus ride away from Gigante. I can catch a bus to Neiva, a colectivo to Gigante and a moto-taxi to anywhere in the valley in 15 hours or less at a cost of $90.000 COP ($49 USD). That’s cheap.
9. I’m not asking to be paid, only to have my expenses covered: transportation, lodging (should be covered by campesinos invitations), food, water (I should compensate the campesinos for any food and water they share with me) and electricity to charge computer, camera and phone batteries. I’m a frugal vegetarian with a primitivist streak, so I’m easy to please.

I can also receive Bitcoin, though it’s not easy for me to spend on these trips. Checks are impractical. Shoot me an email with any questions: me@georgedonnelly.com.

Interesting article: Are Co-ops the Answer? (CHT Dan Clore.)

A delightful passage from the always charming Joseph Addison.

With the 2012 U.S. presidential election coming up, here are some helpful rules for discussion that I have gleaned from liberals online:

1. Don't criticize Barack Obama over anything that's happening in America, because it turns out all real domestic power lies in the hands of the House of Representatives, not the president.
2. Don't criticize Barack Obama's foreign policy because that will only depress his base and help Mitt Romney, who would probably be just as belligerent (unless you believe the Democratic Party). And my god, have you seen Romney's domestic policies (editor's note: obviously, ignore point #1 when speaking of Republicans)?
3. Don't criticize Barack Obama.

Hope this helps clear things up. Now get out there and start bashing the GOP while ignoring your own complicity in a system fueled by mass murder and incarceration!

I got discouraged with the whole liberty community thing last fall. So I took an 8-month break. You probably didn’t notice and don’t care. That’s quite alright!

Why did I get discouraged?

• Sometimes I feel like I’m doing my thing all by myself over here. It gets lonely and frustrating.
• I was being ridiculed by fellow libertarians for trying on new ideas that threaten libertarian orthodoxy. I consider this anti-intellectual behavior and incredibly disappointing.
• When a certain person decided to launch baseless, repeated and nasty public attacks on my character, some people that I respected quite a lot chose to defend him. Some criticized me for pointing out the elephant in the room and a few even praised him! This sucked.
• I was still recovering from the Allentown US Marshal attack.
• We Won’t Fly left me feeling burned out and unable to top myself.
• An important project fell through when a fellow libertarian I value failed to deliver something I paid for.
• I felt like crap at PorcFest 2011 (which I spent a lot of money to attend) because (1) a certain craven person got another very nasty person to insult me publicly from the registration table and (2) when I called them on it, I got the thousand-yard stare from an open-carrying Free State Project insider (I was open carrying, too). I got the sense that he was thinking of drawing on me.

What did I do over my “bummer” break?

• I lost 40 pounds.
• I experimented with a vegan diet and loved it. I consider myself a vegetarian now.
• I spent a lot of time with my son.
• I took up Aikido. It rocks.
• I took up Zen meditation. It is incredibly powerful.
• I studied leadership.
• I overcame a lot of fears.
• I took up hiking. I can’t get enough of it.
• I read a ton of books.
• I started a business.

And I realized that I am a leader. I don’t care if you disagree. Oh, and I have a special vocation to bring liberty and goodwill to the world. Go ahead and laugh. It’s corny but it’s true. I’m also 41 years old. I don’t have time to screw around. It’s time for me to get as serious as possible without unduly risking another Allentown.

So that’s why I’m getting back to work on libertarian stuff. It’s my mission. And there are many more people in the liberty community that I really like than those who disappoint me. You guys are really cool!

What did I learn?

• I have to be blind, deaf and dumb to the negative.
• I’m on a mission. This is between me and the universe. It’s not about anyone else. I’m taking this to the wall whether I have someone next to me or not. Think Julian Heicklen.
• A relentless focus on the voluntaryist imperative of self-improvement is the best policy. I’ve got to live it.
• Be ready to die at any time. Expect it. Look forward to the opportunity for a great death. This doesn’t mean I want to die. It just means I have to constantly put myself into challenging situations in order to continue growing and avoid rotting. Otherwise I’ll never be up to the challenge of taking a run at my mission.

What now? Here’s what I’m working on:

• A way overdue pamphlet about the courts and jury nullification. (Sorry Nate!)
• Blogging useful stuff daily here. What should I write about?
• I’m bringing Agora I/O back. The next conference is September 21-23 this year.
• I’m bringing Shield Mutual (mutual aid project) back but with a different twist.
• I’m working on an idea called the Peace League. The League is a group of people, highly trained in satyagraha (Gandhian nonviolence), who freely associate and form groups to go into places of conflict and nonviolently assist the combatants in reaching a sustainable resolution. It would take inspiration from Buddha, Jesus, St Francis of Assisi, Tolstoy, Gandhi, MLK, Rusesabagina and so many others. When people call for the US army to handle a humanitarian disaster or to intervene (think Kony 2012 or Darfur), we go instead. It’s like the opposite of an army.
• I’m working on an environmental and human rights activism project here in Colombia that involves a Spanish-Italian multinational and a small band of campesinos. I’ve got hours of video that I will edit and publish soon. I was even already detained! (See tomorrow’s post for the video and story.)

For my three faithful readers, thanks so much for bearing with me during the break. I promise great things to come!

Read the Wikipedia page on the United Fruit Company, with particular attention to the sections titled “History in Central America” and “Banana massacre.”

Now read this article about the United Fruit Company on Reason.com. (CHT Sheldon.)

You may notice a certain … incompleteness in the latter’s account.

There is a reason Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta characterized Mitt Romney’s criticism of the Afghanistan withdraw timetable as just “campaign rhetoric.” By Romney’s own admission, the substance of his strategy would still be the same.

Like all big government programs, the interventionists never retreat. The war drudges on, the cronies line their pockets, and more troops will be in Afghanistan by the end of the 2014 withdraw date than when Obama’s presidency began, according to ThinkProgress.

Going into the general election, the war issues has been essentially neutralized as Obama has been in near lock-step with the Bush administration’s “long-term commitments.” The war machine will likely get another pass this election season, giving leverage for military Keynesians to lobby for higher taxes and more direct central planning.

Received to-day via the North American Anarchist Studies Network e-mail list. Feel free to distribute widely.

From: Michael Loadenthal
Subject: CFP: “Challenging the rhetoric of non-State actors, political violence, and ‘terrorism’”
Date: 28 May 2012 11:49am

Affinities: A Journal of Radical Theory, Culture, and Action
www.affinitiesjournal.org

Call for papers for Issue #6: “Challenging the rhetoric of non-State actors, political violence and ‘terrorism’”

Affinities, a journal of contemporary radical politics, is now accepting submission proposals from individuals or collectives interested in contributing to a special edition focused on non-State actors, political violence and ‘terrorism.’ The purpose of this special edition of Affinities is to reengage critical anti-authoritarian scholarship with themes that challenge Statist attempts to control discourses around violence. Who is a terrorist? What is terrorism? When does resistance become violence? How does one label direct action movements? This special issue seeks to create space for an evolving discourse beyond the ‘violence versus non-violence,’ debate. How can we move stagnant conversations about tactical efficacy, the ethics of non-violence, the strategy of economic sabotage and direct action forward?

Submissions are warmly invited for this special issue as it our intent to open up a space for reflection, critique and revolutionary analysis. Submissions can come from any and all ‘disciplines’ including but not limited to: anarchist studies, critical theory, Marxist studies, Queer theory/LGBT studies, public anthropology, cultural studies, terrorism studies, security studies, peace studies, conflict analysis or others. We also accept nonpeer reviewed submissions from artists, activists, journalists and others outside of the academy.

Possible topics for submission include (but are not limited to):

• Effective challenges to statist monopolization of discourses involving violence, terrorism, and the ethics of state vs. non-state violence
• Anti-statists and their relationships to nationalist (liberation?) movements
• What is militant non-violence and can it be effective?
• Anarchist and other perspectives or critiques of violence in the Palestinian intifada, the Chechen jihad, the Angry Brigade, the Occupy movement…
• How can radical communities respond to State terrorism and/or non-State violence?
• What role can horizontal direct action movements have in mediating conflict?

To see previous issues of Affinities, or for more information on the journal, please visit www.affinitiesjournal.org. To propose a paper, please submit an abstract (500 words max.) no later than June 30, 2012, to Michael.Loadenthal@gmail.com. Authors whose abstracts are accepted for the special issue will be contacted by mid-July, with final articles to be due mid-October.

Please direct inquiries & abstracts to the issue editor: Michael Loadenthal (Michael.Loadenthal@gmail.com)