The organization of American society is an interlocking system of semi-monopolies notoriously venal, an electorate notoriously unenlightened, misled by a mass media notoriously phony.
— Paul Goodman
Check out the Paul Goodman Essay Contest. (CHT Joel Schlosberg.)
Check out this story, which reveals that the maximum fine for not answering the census has risen from $100 to $5000, but also notes that the higher amount can be charged only as a result of a trial.
I continue to think that noncompliance with the census is likely to be a fairly safe form of resistance for most people; but one should of course keep all relevant data in mind.
A reader tipped me off that Noam Chomsky has agreed to answer the top-rated questions submitted via this reddit page; the reader suggested that I condense my “Chomsky’s Augustinian Anarchism” gripes into a question.
So I did. Here’s my question for Chomsky:
Although as an anarchist you favour a stateless society in the long run, you’ve argued that it would be a mistake to work for the elimination of the state in the short run, and that indeed we should be trying to strengthen the state right now, because it’s needed as a check on the power of large corporations.
Yet the tendency of a lot of anarchist research – your own research most definitely included, though I would also mention in particular Kevin Carson’s – has been to show that the power of large corporations derives primarily from state privilege (which, together with the fact that powerful governments tend to get captured by concentrated private interests at the expense of the dispersed public, would seem to imply that the most likely beneficiary of a more powerful state is going to be the same corporate elite we’re trying to oppose).
If business power both derives from the state and is so good at capturing the state, why isn’t abolishing the state a better strategy for defeating business power than enhancing the state’s power would be?
Users can vote comments upward or downward on the list; so if you’d like to see Chomsky answer the above question, go here and try to boost it up the list. (Or ask one of your own, of course!)
Copenhagen Mayor Ritt Bjerregaard sent postcards to city hotels warning summit guests not to patronize Danish sex workers during the upcoming conference. Now, the prostitutes have struck back, offering free sex to anyone who produces one of the warnings.
What does it say about me as a crusty cynic that my first thought on reading this story is to picture summit guests paying off Mayor Bjerregaard and saying, “Thank you for getting us the free sex”?
No, I’m not saying I think it’s a likely hypothesis – just that it’s the first thing I thought of.
“Do you or your organization directly or indirectly advocate, advise, teach or practice the duty or necessity of controlling, seizing or overthrowing the government of the United States, the state of South Carolina or any political division thereof?”
If so, fill out a “Subversive Agent Form,” listing your organisation’s core beliefs and the names of all your members, and send it along with $5 to the South Carolina secretary of state.
I am not making this up. I can’t tell whether this form is genuine, but the enabling legislation certainly is. (CHT Kevin Carson.)
Charles Johnson is both inviting participants and raising money for the Southern Nevada branch of ALL to have a presence at the Bay Area Anarchist Bookfair next month. This is an outreach-to-the-antistatist-left event, to complement the outreach-to-the-antistatist-right event we’ll be involved in a month later.
I wish I could go, but I’ll be in Prague. But – want to go to San Francisco and hang out with anarchists? Or want to donate for this worthy cause? Details here.