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Adventures with the Pie in Space 7:38 pm / 15 August 2013 by Roderick, at Austro-Athenian Empire

A recent Breaking Bad episode featured a fictional pitch for a Star Trek episode; now someone has animated it:

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ENEMY! OF! THE STATE!!! 7:22 pm / 15 August 2013 by Francois Tremblay, at The Prime Directive

Arthur Silber brings us a satire of the Obama administration’s belief that they can kill anyone, anywhere, for opposing American foreign policy. In this, they are admittedly no different from any other American administration, but their power is ever-increasing. Soon drones will be deployed against American citizens. How long will it take until Americans are declared “enemy combatants” and killed inside the US, as they are currently outside the US?

ENORD: I mentioned that I had a meeting with DO-DON’T recently. They reminded me how important my program is, and how important debates like this are to America, the greatest country in the history of the world! And they explained how they wanted to show all of you how transparent, open and serious this process is. The government’s expert panel of psychiatrists has been watching this program, and they tragically had to conclude that Johnny Mebbenuts satisfies all the criteria required for a finding that a person is a “lost cause.” Not just one or two of them, but all of them. If Mebbenuts continued to live, he’d be taking food out of your mouths, out of the mouths of your children! This crisis demands action. No one is happy about any of this, but the government wants only what is best for us, that is, those of us who are good, normal Americans. Your lives and well-being, and the lives of those you love including your children, are threatened by people who consistently demonstrate that they are Enemies of the State. And [his voice rises triumphantly] that’s the name of our new program segment: Enemy of the State! [On cue, the audience begins chanting: "Enemy of the State! Enemy of the State!" The chant grows louder and louder during the following.]

ENORD: I want to emphasize that all of this has been done in a completely open manner. You’ve seen all of it. You’ve heard Mebbenuts condemn himself with his own statements. No one made him say any of those things. He said what he truly and genuinely believes. He believes the worst of our government, the best government the world has ever seen! He believes the government is murdering people when it doesn’t have to! Can we have that — in America? [The audience screams: “NO!!!” Immediately followed by further, unanimous screams of: “Enemy of the State! ENEMY OF THE STATE!”


Filed under: Left Libertarian.org feed, Links
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Change You Can Believe In (Vol. V, Nos. 6–8). Wiretaps, Journalists and Drugs. 4:13 pm / 15 August 2013 by Rad Geek, at Rad Geek People's Daily

I know in the past I’ve been down on electoral politics and maverick candidates as a means to political change. But man, this guy sounds pretty awesome. I hope he runs for President in the next election, so we can have a chance to change this Administration’s increasingly repressive policies.

Barack Obama (2007)

. . . This Administration also puts forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we provide. I will provide our intelligence and law-enforcement agencies with the tools they need to track and take out the terrorists, without undermining our Constitution and our freedom. That means no more illegal wiretapping of American citizens, no more National Security letters to spy on American citizens who are not suspected of a crime. No more tracking citizens who do nothing more than protest a misguided war. No more ignoring the law when it is convenient. . . .

Here is a story for July. From Jennifer Epstein, at Politico.com:

White House opposes defense funding bill amendment.

The White House opposes an amendment to the defense funding bill that would restrict the National Security Agency’s ability to collect communications data, press secretary Jay Carney said in a statement Tuesday evening.

We oppose the current effort in the House to hastily dismantle one of our intelligence community’s counterterrorism tools, Carney said, referring to the amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act put forward by Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) and backed by Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), among others.

This blunt approach is not the product of an informed, open, or deliberative process, Carney said, with no hint to the irony of speaking about a secretive program in such terms. We urge the House to reject the Amash amendment, and instead move forward with an approach that appropriately takes into account the need for a reasoned review of what tools can best secure the nation.

— Jennifer Epstein, White House opposes defense funding bill amendment
Politico.com (July 23, 2013)

Of course the President opposes this attempt at a minor restriction on unbridled Executive power. He is the President.

And when you elect a progressive President, you’re going to find that the fact that he is President is always of much greater practical significance than the fact that he claims to be progressive.

Here’s a story for August. One of the things that the progressive President does with the NSA surveillance apparatus that he does not want to hastily dismantle is to target, monitor, and retaliate against dissident journalists.

Leaker Edward Snowden accused the National Security Agency of targeting reporters who wrote critically about the government after the 9/11 attacks and warned it was unforgivably reckless for journalists to use unencrypted email messages when discussing sensitive matters.

Snowden said in an interview with the New York Times Magazine published Tuesday that he came to trust Laura Poitras, the documentary filmmaker who, along with Guardian reporter Glenn Greenwald, helped report his disclosure of secret surveillance programs, because she herself had been targeted by the NSA.

“Laura and [Guardian reporter] Glenn [Greenwald] are among the few who reported fearlessly on controversial topics throughout this period, even in the face of withering personal criticism, and resulted in Laura specifically becoming targeted by the very programs involved in the recent disclosures,” Snowden said for the article, a profile of Poitras.

Snowden didn’t detail how Poitras was targeted by the NSA surveillance programs he disclosed, but suggested the agency tracked her emails and cautioned other journalists that they could be under surveillance.

— Jonathan Easley, NSA targeted journalists critical of government after 9/11
Qtd. by J.D. Tuccile, in Reason (August 14, 2013)

Another thing they do with that, as you may recall, is to use it to provide secret leads and evidence for the DEA to double down on the U.S. government’s insane war on drugs

A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration unit is funneling information from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps, informants and a massive database of telephone records to authorities across the nation to help them launch criminal investigations of Americans.

Although these cases rarely involve national security issues, documents reviewed by Reuters show that law enforcement agents have been directed to conceal how such investigations truly begin - not only from defense lawyers but also sometimes from prosecutors and judges.

The undated documents show that federal agents are trained to “recreate” the investigative trail to effectively cover up where the information originated, a practice that some experts say violates a defendant’s Constitutional right to a fair trial.

— John Shiffman and Kristina Cooke, U.S. directs agents to cover up program used to investigate Americans
Reuters news wire, quoted by Matt Welch at Reason (August 5, 2013)

… Which brings us back around to our story for June. From Jacob Sullum, at Reason:

Judging From Prosecutions, Obama is 80 Percent Worse Than Bush on Medical Marijuana

According to a new report from California NORML, over 335 defendants have been charged with federal crimes related to medical marijuana in states with medical marijuana laws. Despite Barack Obama’s promises of prosecutorial restraint in this area, 153 medical marijuana cases have been brought in the 4¼ years of the Obama administration, nearly as many as under the 8 years of the Bush administration (163). In other words, Obama is averaging 36 medical marijuana prosecutions a year, compared to 20 a year under his predecessor. And although Attorney General Eric Holder has repeatedly claimed the Justice Department is not targeting suppliers who comply with state law, the DOJ has targeted many facilities that were in full compliance with local laws and regulations.

The overwhelming majority of these cases, 259, involve California dispensaries. California NORML also counts at least 31 cases in Montana, 15 in Nevada, 12 in Michigan, 10 in Washington, six in Oregon, and two in Colorado. Nine out of 10 cases concluded so far have resulted in convictions, with 158 defendants receiving prison sentences totaling more than 480 years. About 50 are in federal prison right now, while others await sentencing or have been sentenced but have not begun serving their time yet.

— Jacob Sullum, Judging from Prosecutions, Obama Is 80 Percent Worse Than Bush on Medical Marijuana
Reason (June 14, 2013)

I had a joke that I used to run in these features that played off our Progressive Peace President’s 2008 campaign slogan, which was to close off these posts with some variation on The more things Change…. It seemed funny to me at the time. It’s not as funny to me anymore. Because in fact things have not stayed the same, at least not on this front. While campaigning as an alleged supporter of civil liberties — while promising to roll back the abuses of the Bush Administration’s war cabinet — while promising to dial down the rampant drug war and the criminalization of young men of color — and while making one grandstanding lie after another, Obama’s government has spent the last five years actively making the situation worse for civil liberties, and for drug war targets, than it was when he entered office. This Progressive administration’s wholehearted embrace of an authoritarian security state, and expansion of the very policies and programs that they had condemned in the Bush administration, has been aided and abetted by many professional-class Progressive voters and commentators, who have excused this Administration’s policies, vilified its critics, and pragmatically embraced its institutionalization of unchecked executive power. By any standard of individual liberty, social equality, or plain old humanitarian compassion, his record in office has been appalling, and those who promoted this Presidency as a means of improving political conditions ought to be embarrassed and apologetic in light of the practical outcome.

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The Picket Line — 16 August 2013 4:00 pm / 15 August 2013 by David Gross, at The Picket Line

War tax resistance in the Friends Journal in

In long-time Friends Journal editor (and war tax resister) Vinton Deming stepped down. The amount of coverage of war tax resistance in the Journal had been declining throughout the decade, and was no exception to this trend.

A note in the issue read:

In signing A Call to Noncooperation with the War in Yugoslavia, 55 opponents of the conflict expressed a commitment to refuse to pay taxes for the war. National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee in released the group’s declaration along with the list of signers. On releasing the call, Bill Ramsey, a Friend from St. Louis, Mo., and a signer, said, “We oppose this diversion of public money [from the Social Security surplus] to a new war, but most urgently we are refusing to pay for war on Yugoslavia because it is killing people in Kosovo, Serbia, and Montenegro. We are choosing to redirect our taxes to heal people.”

The issue included a letter-to-the-editor from Bill and Fran Taber announcing a particularly large war tax redirection:

A few weeks ago we received several phone calls from a Friend who, like us, has long been concerned about how to avoid paying taxes to support the military-industrial complex. Our friend had recently been in touch with an Olney Friends School graduate who was excited about new governance arrangements being worked out to allow the official control of the school to pass from Ohio Yearly Meeting to a board composed of alumni and friends of Olney. This enthusiasm and the school’s need for scholarship funds at this time of transition prompted our friend to ask us to be transmitters of an anonymous gift of $100,000 to the Friends of Olney, Inc., (the group responsible for the school beginning ).

Naturally we said we would be glad to do this. We soon received an express package containing an anonymous $100,000 check from our friend’s financial agency as well as the friend’s letter explaining how this gift was a way of placing money in a worthy cause rather than allowing it to go for destructive purposes.

After we had passed the check and the letter on to the new board, our friend suggested and we agreed that the publication of the letter which accompanied the check would be a good way to continue the ongoing Quaker exercise on how to avoid complicity in war, as well as showing one way to put excess money to good use. The letter follows.

Dear Friends of Olney — 

In the spirit of Isaiah’s prophetic calling that would have us turn our swords into plowshares and in concert with Creation’s own declarations of God’s transforming power as recorded and envisioned in the Bible, I have been led to transfer to you these funds in the amount of $100,000, that they might serve to support your new tenure at Olney School. It is my wish that this contribution be utilized to provide partial scholarship funding for ten or more students who might thereby be enabled to attend school there .

I offer this gift as one who has long wrestled with and refused payment of military taxes to our government, and has now resolved to cease paying such taxes in light of revelations through written and other sources that our nation has over many years been engaged in the development and testing of “doomsday weaponry” — acknowledged at a recent Pentagon news conference as likely to become a “growth industry.”

By way of sorting out my own personal response to such darkness, I have been endeavoring to turn my daily walk, personal and financial resources, and whatever presence and service I can offer, towards honoring that living Word which would have us dwell together in peace with all our neighbors and ourselves — “not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit saith the Lord.”

And in this regard, I have become particularly concerned with some of the problems that our families and children are experiencing, living as we are under the shadow of an increasingly mesmerizing, materializing, and mortifying “high-tech” way of life, dominated and fueled by our nation’s military-industrial complex, which President Eisenhower himself tried to forewarn us of more than 30 years ago.

It is my fervent prayer that we will all be moved by the Spirit and our own lives’ particular needs and concerns to invest ourselves in helping shepherd our young ones back into the fold of that “everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure” which David knew (Ⅱ Samuel 23:5) as his felt experience of God’s rainbow covenant (Gen. 9:12) “which I make between me and you and all living creatures that is with you for perpetual generations.”

Indeed, my own personal experience in recent years persuades me that as we covenant together to re-engage ourselves in more reverently-related interactive ways of living (as early Friends and many native cultures have and do) we will recover that love of life Way of experiential truth-seeking, together with our own “still small voice.” And hopefully, as we become more attentive to and enlivened through this wider context of God’s creation “in which we live and move and have our being,” we shall realize all the blessings it holds for our own health, balanced living, and well-being.

So I have great respect and hope for your Friends of Olney group and the new course you are charting and pray it will prove an exciting and successful adventure in community learning for all involved.

May the Spirit bless and abide with you!

Yours in good faith,

A Friend

The issue noted:

Lake Erie Yearly Meeting minuted support for David and Miyoko Inouye Bassett as conscientious objectors to the payment of military taxes. the Bassetts have refused to pay voluntarily the military portion of their federal taxes. They have actively worked for U.S. Peace Tax Fund legislation, resubmitted this year, that would allow a person to pay full taxes but direct that none of the money be used for military purposes. The couple worked for years as doctors in India with American Friends Service Committee.

Spencer Coxe attacked the Peace Tax Fund scheme in an op-ed in the issue:

The Peace Tax movement has dangerous implications

David Bassett’s article on the Peace Tax movement, which appeared a couple of years ago [see ♇ ] was of interest to me, for I had long been unclear (and uneasy) about the concept. As a Friend and a pacifist with a lifelong affinity to dissent and lost causes, my heart sympathized with the movement, but my head warned me it was in error. Even after reading David Bassett’s article, my head, which writes this essay, has prevailed.

The Peace Tax is meaningless in practical effect. Congress determines; and will continue to determine, the military budget. “Earmarking” one’s taxes for non-military purposes will have no influence whatsoever, except in the inconceivable event that so many subscribers signed up that there were not enough non-earmarked funds to satisfy what Congress considered military needs — at which point Congress would repeal the law. A large number of subscribers would be required to reach this point. A smaller number of determined lobbyists and agitators could persuade Congress to curb military expenditures, even though the protesters represented a minority of the electorate, just as the gun lobby is effective despite the rejection of its agenda by a majority.

A Peace Tax Fund is not only meaningless, but counterproductive and potentially dangerous. It would ease the conscience of pacifists by creating the illusion that they are influencing policy, but it would deflect attention from meaningful and essential activity aimed at a) electing sympathetic members of Congress and a sympathetic President and b) lobbying, demonstrating and agitating to persuade the executive and legislative branches to reorder the national agenda.

The movement has dangerous implications. It undermines representative democracy, the only viable system of government for a huge, diverse nation. Policy-making is entrusted to democratically elected representatives who can be (but often aren’t) held accountable to the electorate. On any issue, there are bound to be voters who disagree with a decision of Congress. Our social contract requires us to accept — with rare exceptions to be discussed below — decisions we dislike. To allow an end-run around this compact for one group invites other interests to demand equal treatment. The lumber baron can forbid the use of his taxes to extend national parks. Rightwing bigots will withhold their taxes from a school lunch program. Permitting individuals to allocate their taxes as they see fit would probably result in a government agenda worse than what we have now, and it would ultimately lead to chaos.

For several reasons the Peace Tax movement will have symbolic significance of little or no value. First, the movement will not generate publicity. It is so low-key and so “legal” that it will be disregarded. Second, unlike the tax-refuser, the peace-taxer courts no risk of prosecution or penalty. His or her act will not be seen as brave or noteworthy; it will evoke no admiration, no controversy, no reflection (in fact, it will be invisible). Third, since the earmarking will be sanctioned by statute, its use will cause the government no embarrassment and almost no inconvenience. By legally sanctioning the earmarking, Congress is effectively removing the movement’s symbolic significance, and channeling a potentially effective resistance movement into a harmless backwater.

Each of us should, as a general rule, abide by decisions of Congress. For today’s pacifist — as for last century’s abolitionist — the occasion will arise when an act of government is so repugnant to conscience that one must resort to civil disobedience. This point is reached when in one’s estimation the issue of conscience transcends the demands that society lays upon us.

The Peace Tax movement boils down to a feel-good means of salving the conscience of those of us distressed by militarism. It deflects us from hard work within the democratic process, and it absolves us from the penalties inflicted upon those who choose civil disobedience.

This long-overdue criticism of the Peace Tax Fund scheme would provoke a great deal of debate in the letters-to-the-editor column .

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i still have a dream, though, but i’m not telling you what it is 3:19 pm / 15 August 2013 by Captain Capitulation, at cheese it, the cops!

while i'm hanging myself, i want to say that i am so entirely tired of the 'i have a dream speech' that even little bits of it make me scream and flip the off switch. right. great speech. but you can't hear the same thing 18 billion times and still get anything out of it (the only exception is billie doing 'you go to my head'). over the last couple of decades, to be honest, i've been liable to use it in parody: the extreme preacherly emoting, the giant phrases of inspiration. oh you know, it's the last day of class for my preppies. i take this approach: IN THE WORDS OF THE GREAT NEGRO SPIRITUAL: FREE AT LAST, FREE AT LAST, THANK GOD ALMIGHTY WE ARE FREE AT LAST. alright, have a great break, and let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream. every american can produce the inflections at will. i figure it's possible that other people gave other speeches at the lincoln memorial that day; let's let them shine for a mo. 

 

knock the little jockeys 3:06 pm / 15 August 2013 by Captain Capitulation, at cheese it, the cops!

i'm sure eugene allen, the white house butler, buttled excellently, and was a dignified person and a sort-of friend to presidents, in that 'help' kind of way the races used to interact. he was also a jockey on the white house lawn. i wouldn't blame him for that, but i wouldn't make a movie about it either. you might imagine to yourself what malcolm x might say about this project.

 

i forgot how great that song is.

 

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what is our actual form of government? 1:27 pm / 15 August 2013 by Captain Capitulation, at cheese it, the cops!

an obvious entailment of the nsa situation is that, in fact, we have no idea who is running our government and hence, more or less, our lives. indeed, we have no idea what our actual form of government is or who holds the real power, like egyptians who were under the delusion that they'd elected their president. this should please liberals, for example, who regard the constitution as a ridiculous anachronism that keeps us from helping everyone through universal coercion. well, the constitution and the form of government it prescribes has been a joke for a long time, as anyone can now see thanks to snowden; certainly it has no resemblance whatever to the Thing currently running our lives: they leave some little institutions and phrases in place as a kind of show or historical re-enactment: that capitol, white house, supreme court in dc: it might as well be colonial williamsburg.

anyone who in fact controls a system of universal surveillance - i mean who has day-by-day management of the thing - can control anyone they please and make them do what they like. if keith anderson is in the mood, he's riding obama as in a performance of dressage. he controls who is in or out in the joint chiefs, the state department, justice, congress. he's in control of what limitations other branches of government impose on him. whoever or whatever the fisa rubber-stamp system is, it will end up doing precisely what he tells it to do. i'd recommend violent insurrection if it didn't seem entirely hopeless. so what i'd say is: just go limp, cultivate radical passivity: give up. this america thing was never going to work out anyway. people don't want to be free. and even if they do, they definitely don't want anyone else to be.

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Conflict Infrastructure 10:50 am / 15 August 2013 by Aragorn!, at Aragorn! blog

LBC Presents – a conversation about Conflict Infrastructure

A speaking tour with a cart full of books!

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In the 1990s the internecine conflict between (North American) anarchists was not red vs green or insurrectionary vs platformist, but those who believed that anarchists should develop infrastructure vs those who believed that anarchists should build a (national) organization. The debates raged but more than that people practiced this difference, something one could do day-to-day.

This conflict isn’t the main one today. By and large, anarchist practices that are day-to-day are dismissed by other anarchists for being charity (FNB for example), or sub-cultural (infoshops or show spaces). The valorized project is an occasional one, whether an insurrection or a bookfair: happening no more often than once a year in a specific location. The rest of the time is for waiting or writing or traveling to somewhere else.

In some ways this is entirely understandable. Paying rent on a space can easily become an onerous focus rather than a small byproduct of inspiration. Feeding people, giving away literature, and devoting energy to strangers is inspiring only to a specific kind of person and that kind of person isn’t exactly the revolutionary subject. (Quite the opposite in fact, since the kind of person who derives satisfaction from the work is usually not the subject of the work itself.) This criticism (of the anarchist project as a separation from anarchy itself) can be crippling and usually entails the most enthusiastic people leaving projects (and often leaving town) leaving the people who continue with the long term project work feeling like the host at a party when the cool kids depart.

Perhaps another approach is that of the role of the anarchist (in projects and in a broader social context). On the one hand the anarchist is an ephemeral character, anonymous and without a home in this world. On the other the anarchist is your neighbor and the human face of a possible world, one where personal responsibility and direct action aren’t opposites. Up till now these two faces of the anarchist have faced in different directions and one part of our question is how to reconcile them. Can the neighborhood anarchists embrace conflict? Can the exalted anarchist consider the germinations under foot?

We will talk about our experiments in conflict infrastructure and, if we are successful, re-transmit an old idea. For anarchism (by the name) to survive the new cold wind of this world, we have to build something to warm our bones. For the stories of anarchy (dramatic and small) to be told, there has to a circle of friends, comrades, lovers, and frenemies. Conflict is the left hand of anarchy but something like home is the right. Let us sit together and warm our hands on these topics.

Tentative schedule

September 30 Northern AZ
October 1 SW CO
2nd Denver CO
3rd KC
4th Somewhere between KC and Chicago
5th – 6th Chicago
7th – 11th Michigan
13th – 18th Texas
19th – 20th NOLA
21st Houston
23rd – 24th Phoenix AZ

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Liverpool ‘Pilgrimage’ Highlights ATOS Crimes 10:36 am / 15 August 2013 by Adam Ford, at Infantile Disorder

The 'shrine', before being taken into police custody This morning, a group of around fifty Merseyside activists gathered outside Liverpool's ATOS testing centre, as part of a 'pilgrimage' called by Merseyside People's Assembly to see the 'miracle workers'. While there was a light-hearted and even cheerful feel to proceedings, it highlighted an extremely serious issue. Fighting it will have to

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cheese it, the cops! 2013-08-15 08:34:43 8:34 am / 15 August 2013 by Captain Capitulation, at cheese it, the cops!

if you think the item below (skipping one) is fantastical, i want to point out that someone last year was reading the cia director's email, and they used it to end him. now you might just speculate that there might have been a little inter-agency rivalry going on. but the point is: put a bureaucracy in charge of universal secret surveillance and you have constituted a secret power that runs the country.

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