New book on archetypes in spirituality
Whitewashing the bribers
David Boaz (whom I used to really admire - I have an autographed copy of Libertarianism) writes his latest essay advancing the old Cato Institute line that institutional analysis need only go so far as to frame up politicians, letting the other players in the politics itself go blameless:
People invest money to make money. In a free economy they invest in building homes and factories, inventing new products, finding oil, and other economic activities. That kind of investment benefits us all -- it's a positive-sum game, as economists say. People get rich by producing what other people want. But you can also invest in Washington. You can organize an interest group, or hire a lobbyist, and try to get some taxpayers' money routed to you. That's what the farm lobbies, AARP, industry associations, and teachers unions do. And that kind of investment is zero-sum -- money is taken from some people and given to others, but no new wealth is created. If you want to drill an oil well, you hire petroleum engineers. If you want to drill for money in Washington, you hire a lobbyist. And more people have been doing that.
And if you want to kill somebody, you hire a hitman. That doesn't make it ok that people hire them, just because the service is available for purchase. This apologism for the corporate influence in - nay, the perpetuation of - state capitalism is the very portrait of the vulgar libertarian approach. Selling influence is bad. But buying influence is mere economic survival. Politicians should be more principled, but businessmen looking for a buck can be forgiven for looking at the short term gains of rigging the game.
As I see it, the left libertarian approach balances the issue. The problem is indeed the centralized, all-powerful state; on that, I agree with Boaz. But he's only addressing the influence supply side - what about the demand for influence? Is this demand soley a function of undesired government regulation and meddling? Or does big business play a vital role in the continuation of the corporate welfare state? And if we seek to dismantle that state, how can we hope to ignore such a powerful factor in the equation?
Quote of the day
From Jim Bovard:
Credo for the New American Patriotism I believe: That politicians are more honest than they seem; That government is more competent than it appears; That government is benevolent, regardless of how much it wastes or how many people it harms; That citizens must trust the government, regardless of how often it lies; That democracy is a panacea, regardless of how often it fails; That freedom is whatever the president says it is, pending revision.
Awesome. Can't wait to read his forthcoming book, Attention Deficit Democracy.
Quote of the day
Genuine libertarianism is very much left wing. It's revolutionary. The long and tragic alliance of libertarians with the right against the spectre of state socialism is coming to a close, as it served no purpose after the fall of the Soviet Union and so-called "conservatives" have subsequently taken to letting their true big-government-on-steroids colors fly.
While I would agree with this, I think when the term "left" is used we should be clear about what we mean, since leftism is so frequently associated with state socialism. I'm 100% for reclaiming the revolution, but we need to help redefine it, too. And in his post Brad basically sets out how to do this: leadership. Left libertarianism needs to be the left once more.
Tom Hamilton's American Babies
Check them out. This is a side project of Tom Hamilton of Brothers Past (I've written about them here). There's two downloads on there for what I can only hope will be a forthcoming studio release. Looks like Aaron Magner from the Disco Biscuits is playing keys for them, too. Very different than his or Tom's other work - I encourage you to listen to it.
Quote of the Day
Kevin Carson writes:
I'm really sick of the "left" wing of the neoliberal corporate establishment giving us a slightly kindler and gentler version of the same imperialism and police statism. As Chomsky wrote somewhere else, there was probably a "liberal" wing of the Nazi Party that only wanted to kill half the Jews.
Exactly.
I love 24, but...
Top 5 things you say when you forget your lines on the set of Fox's 24 (a list some coworkers and I came up with):
- We don't have time!!!
- I understand how you must feel, but I need you to concentrate...
- I'll open a socket. (note: As a computer professional, that makes no sense whatsoever)
- I'll set up a protocol. (note: what the hell does that even mean? By season 4 I was damn sure the writers were just making up cool words to use)
- (...don't say anything, just hang up the phone - because the first unbreakable rule of 24 is that you never, ever, never ever ever say "bye" when you want to end a call)
Don't get me wrong, 24 rocks my world, but... it's a strange experience to glorify the state's worst tendencies. Let's just say I don't consider Jack Bauer a nice guy. It's kinda of like watching Star Wars and rooting for the Empire.
This post is dedicated to Brett and Alli. :-)
A joke for the nerds out there
This is funny. Yes, it is. Even if you don't get it, just chuckle like the rest of us. You learned how to fit in in High School, so just go ahead and play along.
Quote of the day
Any non-aggressive option that people freely choose and is found by them to meet their needs is by definition a market solution.
Discuss.
Bring It Back
- I finally had occasion to import all my old Blogger posts into this WordPress incarnation of the blog. Check the archives for the old shit.
- I'll continue to keep the blogger site accessible, just for giggles. I also fixed all the broken links, so it should look decent. I'm actually working on a WordPress template that takes cues from my old Blogger template, but doesn't look so dumb.
- Bring It Back is the name of the new album coming out soon from one of my favorite bands, Mates of State.
Sunday Reading: Summarizing Jeremy's Corner of the Blogosphere
So I got up at 11 AM this morning (after staying up till 2AM watching 24 with Tasha - remind me to blog about that show) and spent most of the day so far catching up on my feeds (via OneFeed). I get bogged down in the sheer amount of feeds I read, simply because it's hard for me to prioritize among feeds I want to follow. Some are of higher interest than others. Sometimes - especially lately - I don't have time to check them. So often my days off are spent feeling the pulse of my favorite places on the internet.
I just posted on some stuff on BoingBoing I thought was interesting - since most of it is usually fluff. But there's some cool stuff on the blogs I read, too - stuff I think my readers would be interested in. I've noticed a trend in the articles I've been reading lately. There's some great articles centering on the theme of questioning commonly accepted beliefs.
My left libertarian friends have some especially insightful posts. Brad Spangler talks about the statist errors of the popular anti-immigration movement:
Sunday Boing-Boing Reading
Here's some stuff from Boing Boing I found interesting:
- An interesting and inspiring story about a deaf geek who tweaks his cochlear implants to better hear music
- An experiment in data mining Amazon.com's publicly available wish lists for subversive readers
- MRI analysis yields clues on branding and lie detection
- How click fraud is messing things up for the commercialization of the internet
Let Social Memory Complex sort through the stupid stuff for you!
Matrix Ping Pong
This is pretty hot.
Security as Voluntary Cooperation
This essay by Adem Kupi illustrates the security situation we face as free, sovereign individuals:
The current growing ratio of noise to signal is putting pressure on the world to become more skeptical, which will put pressure on societies to shift away from guaranteeing security. They just won't be able to do it effectively. The idea of managing anything larger than a local area will become preposterous. Our current states will collapse, or kill us all in the process of trying to hold themselves together. When it becomes clear that the rulers will only be ruling a pile of rubble if they continue, they will be forced to retreat.
We are shifting from corporate states that feign security and promote instability to societies where individuals are completely invested in outcomes and decisions which reflect the best information humanly possible (instead of simply politically possible). The more independent we become, the less we'll be able to take each other for granted, and the more united we'll probably end up being.
Surveillance: Open Source vs. Monopoly
The ACLU is arming likely police targets with cameras.
How fitting: after all, Mr. Law and Order, if you're not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about!
Now if we could just find a way to videotape the NSA...
