Showing posts with label Antistatism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Antistatism. Show all posts

4 December 2021

Is Twitter losing a fight with the state?

 

Social networks are fighting a lost battle against states, the new online column Lordre has argued.

A detailed post at the new blog sided with Russian President Vladimir Putin's assessment that social networking websites sought to usurp some state responsibilities and that their attempts were "fleeting".

Going into more detail than Putin, the Lordre blog identified safety and access to information as key areas of responsibility that social networks seek to replace government in managing.

States are aware of the threat of monopolization of information and culture and are pushing back. To quote the blog, "The European Union currently has the Digital Markets Act (DMA) on the cards, which apparently will prevent a tech company from trapping users in an operating system or bundle of apps that solely favours its own services (and by extension news feeds) over any other firm's."

More severe confrontation exists with states in Africa. The blog argued, "Social media companies are uniquely confrontational towards governments, lately seeing themselves as authorities on par with some governments."

The deletion of government communications deemed to be violent (even if the government is at war) represent "an ineffective and failed usurpation of the state's responsibilities, since a state can still commit or allow violence whether Twitter deletes posts about it or not."

Despite their rebellious appearance, social networks are just "weak outfits", vulnerable to being "forcibly broken up due to laws, taken offline or bankrupted by fines at any moment the state truly loses patience with them."

The new Lordre blog has taken over the website lordre.net, formerly an unofficial Mont Order website.

- ClubOfInfo

Read More »

20 January 2019

Utopistics: is it time for an alternative social system?

The Blog


Can and will there be an alternative world-system? In social science, this is what the emerging field of utopistics is for.


Use the video below to get a brief breakdown of what utopistics is about...




... or, continue reading


Utopistics is a necessary field, because of the crisis-ridden nature of our present economic system and the fact it is constructed of injustices and exploitation. Part of world-systems analysis or world-systems theory (a theory of International Relations from Immanuel Wallerstein), utopistics focuses on paradoxes and choices that will lead to the transformation of present world political and economic relations.

Current reigning economic and political theories focus overwhelmingly either on a nationalist-protectionist settlement of perceived faults and injustices in the global economy or - conversely - the neoliberal model of hyper-capitalist globalization and US political dominance. Anti-systemic movements are movements of minorities, anti-imperialists and the political left, aimed at securing a non-capitalist economic model. While their grievances against injustices and exploitation are clear, such movements are perceived to not offer a clearly defined alternative to the current neoliberal economic consensus. It is this alternative that utopistic study could produce.

It appears that parties of the political left give little heed to the works of sociologists at present and derive their ideas mainly from other prominent economists, such as Mariana Mazzucato in the case of the UK's Labour Party.


The clubof.info Blog


Enter your email address:


Delivered by FeedBurner
Read More »

16 February 2018

Mont Order Questions and Google Searches Answered by L'Ordre (@LOrdreNet)


14/02/2018, 20:45

The following are emailed questions and Google searches by internet users trying to find out more about the Mont Order group. Now you get the answers from L'Ordre (using the handle @LOrdreNet on Twitter), a close friend of the Mont Order group. The following answers were jotted down here in the United Kingdom on Wednesday evening, aiming to satisfy your curiosity about the Mont Order once and for all.

Google: "mont order"

The Mont Order has a couple of different meanings. The first is the older one, referring to an alleged group from the dawn of time that supposedly knew the future. Conspiracy theorists have posted quite a few bits of sensational information about that group. I don't know anything more about it than they do, but it is interesting. The second meaning of the Mont Order's name is the group I've been active in since a small cooperative publishing effort I tried in 2013. So the digital group is maybe only 5 years old and quite small. It convened for the first time via online video conference in February 2015, that's 3 years ago. Since that time it has expanded quite a lot on social media and has strong relationship to a number of alternate media websites where we hope to influence world opinion. It is done out of hope. I hope we can create effective contributions to the dissident sphere in the US, UK and other Western countries and have a constructive impact on popular opinion, particularly skepticism with regard to the state and its narratives. One of the best descriptions of the Mont Order would be that it is a product and information sharing society. As creators, we share our products. As readers and analysts, we share information.

Google: "mont order society"

Yes, sometimes the Mont Order is referred to as the Mont Order society. Of course, that isn't some kind of longer official name of the group. It is a good description, though. As I said, we are a product and information sharing society. We are like a "society" or "association", but I view it all more as a list of contacts. I hope we can all be closely aligned, but in practice that is not always the case. I do believe that whatever collective sharing of stories does occur through the shared accounts, whether on Twitter or elsewhere, has a definite positive impacts on our collective reach, influence and credibility. Such activity has only grown so far, although I am pessimistic about the long-term prospects of an association being gathered and run on social media. You might say it is the norm now for societies to digitize themselves and become online forums, but I think something more enduring is needed. For the foreseeable future, our "society" will continue to survive by dispersing its influence through several independent media outlets, despite growing pressure on such outlets by hostile governments and corporations seeking dominance in the information space. I hope we and our friends win on this information front, but history often has other plans than what we desire. I am constantly thinking about other fronts that can be used to meet the needs of dissidents but it is far too early to talk about them and no-one else is yet talking about them, either.

Google: "mont order secret society"



Sure, some online work-spaces of the Mont Order are locked down for members only. The group itself is clearly not secret, so the description of "secret society" would seem to be inaccurate, unless there is another group using our name that does not reveal itself.

"Learn"

You can learn all you need to about the Mont Order by using the subscription links available and reading information pages held at the Mont unofficial information site lordre.net and sympathetic websites. Also just search using Google to see if your query has already been answered.

"I subscribe to the Facebook group and read the articles as they are published. Would like to understand more about Mont Order and it's (sic) people"

There is really not much more to show. We do have work-spaces for members only, but you would need to be a member to see them. The subject matter of the Mont Order is obscure for most people. The only significant barrier to learning about us is not knowing we exist in the first place. Once you break that barrier, you can pretty easily find everything you want to find.

"I’m someone whose (sic) very intrigued by your work! And i would like to learn more if you would grant me the opportunity"

To really learn more, the best way would be to just join the Order. A Mont Order online course at openlearning.com even exists for this purpose. Following the whole process would not only allow you to really learn who we are and what we do, but also allow you to influence us and help decide the course of our actions. We are very open to anyone who can demonstrate a keen ability to decipher world events, with particular interest in politics and technology. But to be accepted as a member, you really need to have some product or privilege you want to share with us. That is really what glues the group together. If you have a book or a blog that aligns with ours, that is absolutely what we are looking for.
Read More »

23 August 2016

When will all copyright get terminated?

The Blog


Efforts to reform copyright in an age of easy and convenient digital sharing could well "kill" copyright altogether, writes Kevin Carson.


Responding to an Electronic Freedom Foundation (EFF) lawsuit in a post for the Center for a Stateless Society (C4SS) on 21 August, Carson offered the following commentary.

The EFF lawsuit states, "Section 1201 of the [US] Digital Millennial Copyright Act (DMCA)... is a violation of free speech rights under the First Amendment" since it "criminalizes not only the circumvention of Digital Rights Management (DRM), but criminalizes the sharing of information about how to do it".

Quoting Zag Rogoff at Defective by Design, Carson states the success of the EFF lawsuit would "amount to obliterating the “DRM Curtain” model of capitalism in the information field".

"It would put an end to the centerpieces of copyright culture today — DMCA takedowns, “three strikes” laws cutting off ISP services to illegal downloaders, and domain seizures of file-sharing sites", the C4SS writer elaborates.
The model of proprietary digital capitalism we’re familiar with — the central model of global corporate rent extraction — is absolutely dependent on police state measures like criminalizing the circumvention of DRM, the takedown (without due process of any kind) of allegedly infringing content online, and government seizure of Internet domains and web hosting servers without due process. Without them, it would simply collapse. 
But fortunately, that model of capitalism is doomed regardless of the outcome of EFF’s lawsuit (and I wish it well!). Even as it is, circumvention technologies have advanced so rapidly that DRM-cracked versions of new movies and songs typically show up on torrent sites the same day they’re released, and Millennials accept it file-sharing as a simple fact of life. This culture of circumvention is now spreading into academic publishing with SciHub. How long before it spreads to proprietary spare parts and diagnostic software?
Full post: Why “Reforming” Copyright Will Kill It

The analysis offered by Carson agrees with his overall thesis that intellectual property of any kind is untenable in the long term, as information and other types of production are easier to circulate and harder to control. All this is thanks to a revolution in the way we all communicate, with the aid of the internet and the diffusion of skills and technologies.


The clubof.info Blog

Read More »

16 August 2016

Mont society includes Kevin Carson

The Blog


The Mont Order society includes Center for a Stateless Society (C4SS) writer Kevin Carson on its lists as of 14 August. Writings by Carson are henceforth a key part of the feeds promoted by several Mont services and pages.


Kevin Carson's "free market anti-capitalism", the mission of the Center for a Stateless Society, combines hopes for popular social and technological liberation as captured in books such as The Homebrew Industrial Revolution.

Among the demands advised by the anti-statist commentator is the view that artificial scarcity, intellectual property and mandatory high overhead enforced by states to benefit monopoly capitalism must all be abolished. The state colludes with capitalists, liberals and the "vulgar libertarians" of the political right to create an environment in which a leaner, more efficient economy cannot develop.

Of course, such abolition need not be imposed from above. The people in general can circumvent corporate monopolies, in much the way pirated software is shared and movies uploaded to online services such as Putlocker.

It isn't hard. Thanks to the widespread adoption of personal technologies, apps, and internet sites, everyone's lives are connected. Creators are connected without the need for owners and masters.


Even better, the costs for success in media have declined so substantially that, starting in this "immaterial" realm people can already reject and build alternatives against large brands. Networked organizations can outmaneuver hierarchic ones, and even the costs of physical production are declining so rapidly that eventually a real-world economic revolution in manufacture and delivery of goods will take place.

With the lies and pillars of modern industrial civilization being gnawed at by the "smart rats" once described as such by Julian Assange, governments in the West will descend further into crisis. As they rot away, they will be replaced by a stateless, tolerant and anti-authoritarian culture.

While not all Mont Order friends are likely to endorse such ideas, they boost the existing counter-state dissident credentials of the Mont Order in a Western context.

Visit Kevin Carson's articles at the Center for a Stateless Society


The clubof.info Blog

Read More »

2 August 2016

Garrison Center takes WikiLeaks side

The Blog


Director of the Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism Thomas Knapp took the side of WikiLeaks, in a recent small disagreement over Twitter between WikiLeaks and NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.


Penning a tweet on 28 July, Edward Snowden had commented WikiLeaks should be more vigilant at withholding damaging information when leaking sensitive material relating to world events. "Their hostility to even modest curation is a mistake", Snowden wrote.

WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange had in the past talked of WikiLeaks' curation in terms such as his remark "It disturbs me that we are redacting at all" (When Google Met WikiLeaks). Assange has believed control of information, for good or ill, should be completely stripped from states or large publishing houses and restored to the public.

Edward Snowden, by contrast, has tended to rely more on large publishers such as the Guardian and famous journalist Glenn Greenwald to carefully redact anything damaging. Snowden himself was the arbiter of what data would be harmful and what would legitimately benefit the public during his own leak of the NSA's PRISM mass surveillance programs.

The Garrison Center director, for his part, rejected the idea that any curation is necessary. Siding with WikiLeaks, Knapp pointed out that any type of redaction manifests state-like power to pull the wool over the public's eyes. He wrote on 29 July, "They [Snowden and friends]’re merely parceling out the information THEY’VE decided it’s OK for the public to have. But the the NSA and the US State Department do the same thing. Snowden and friends differ from those organizations merely on content selection criteria, not on the principles involved."

Knapp declared continued support to Edward Snowden as an exile persecuted by the US regime, but concluded, "Wikileaks is right and Snowden is wrong here".


The clubof.info Blog


Enter your email address:


Delivered by FeedBurner
Read More »

29 July 2016

India fails to contain truth on Kashmir

The Blog


Writing on recent Indian regime crackdown actions against Kashmiris, the Kashmir Times executive editor wrote "sooner or later the narratives will emerge" to expose the suffering and yearning for freedom.


India has sought to impose a media blackout to prevent Kashmiris and the wider world from being aware of the extent of repression.

However, images of children blinded by pellet guns used by Indian forces, together with other abuses, have circulated easily despite curfews and bans on print publications. Social media understandably played a key role in making people aware.

The editor wrote of the Indian government and its regional authorities in Kashmir, "Their aim is to make the narrative disappear". This effort will fail, the editor predicts, because stories will still "emerge to haunt, often with a dash of bitterness and sometimes peppered with rumours."

In addition, "stories have been told and re-told at individual and community levels", and the editor concludes, "Now, like then, when gory stories of boys dragged out of their homes and shot at point-blank range, tales of random arrests, crackdowns and molestations, of children blinded by pellet guns who have gone missing, abound, yet another unbridgeable chasm has opened, defying resolution of the churning that is Kashmir."


The clubof.info Blog

Read More »

15 July 2016

Israel tries to drag Facebook into war?

The Blog


From the Garrison Center on 11 July 2016, reacting to a recent news story from 10 July 2016:


"On July 10, [Shurat HaDin, Israel Law Center] filed a federal lawsuit on alleged behalf of the families of five Americans (one American tourist and four Israeli-American dual citizens) killed in attacks which the suit blames on Hamas, the Islamist organization governing Palestine’s Gaza Strip area. Facebook, the suit alleges, assists Hamas (in violation of the US Anti-Terrorism Act) in “recruiting, radicalizing, and instructing terrorists, raising funds, creating fear and carrying out attacks.”

"The suit seeks to punish Facebook to the tune of $1 billion for failure to censor public communications of which the Israeli government disapproves."

From Garrison Center Director Thomas Knapp's analysis and remarks on the story:


"As I previously mentioned, Shurat Hadin characterizes itself as a non-governmental organization. In reality, it seems to at the very least serve as a front for, and quite possibly to function as a de facto litigation arm of, the Israeli state...

"The US government has no business involving itself in the conflict between Israel and Hamas — nor should the  US courts allow Shurat HaDin to turn Facebook and other US firms into collateral damage in that conflict."


The clubof.info Blog

Read More »

12 July 2016

Colonial-Era Debt and Free Banking

Vishal Wilde


The injustice of developing countries having to pay back extortionate rates of interest that emanate from sovereign debt with colonial-era roots is often rightly made due to the oppressive nature of imperialistic regimes of the time. However, one may wonder why such colonial-era debt cannot be feasibly defaulted upon? The standard argument suggests that this would ruin the country’s credit rating, lead to capital flight, devastate the country’s currency and, thereby, lead to economic and financial ruin. I argue, however, that this scenario only applies in the context of the monetary monopoly that is coercively imposed by most governments the world over through taxation laws, legal tender legislation, trade laws and financial market legislation. Under a Free Banking regime where agents would have an authentic choice of multiple monies, it may even be feasible to default on such unjust debt.

Let us consider the scenario under which a developing country was to default in its colonial-era debt. Standard arguments go along the lines of it ruining the country’s credit rating and thereby making it infeasible for them to borrow from international financial markets for the foreseeable future. This would most likely precipitate capital flight, make the country’s money (relatively) worthless for repaying debts or even internal trade and, thereby, lead to a devastating socio-economic calamity for the country’s inhabitants. Therefore, developing countries’ governments who are subject to such debts are presumed to have ‘no control’ over the status quo. This is nonsense, when examined more closely.

Firstly, these developing countries still often only accept taxes paid in their own monies that are issued by their central banks (thereby imposing a monetary monopoly). This means that the benefits of having access to and utilising multiple monies (whether they be trade benefits through having an access to a variety of exchange rates or credit market benefits through improving creditworthiness, for example) cannot be realised. This is often also reinforced through legal tender legislation (which varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction in its rigidity and meaning) that can act to inhibit or even prevent the feasibility of conducting trade in multiple monies.

Imagine a system where agents actually had access to multiple monies; where they could trade, borrow, save, invest and so on in order to optimise the specificity of their individual, heterogeneous preferences accordingly. In such a scenario, developing countries’ governments could feasibly default on debt payments that have colonialist roots and, though the governments’ creditworthiness would be called into question by international financial markets, the inhabitants of that country could simply switch to other monies and continue with life rather normally even in the event of the collapse of that government’s own, issued money. Since the inhabitants would also be able to conduct trade normally and reap the trade and credit market benefits associated with having multiple monies, indigenous currencies could also be feasibly issued. Thus, it is not just in the interest of the creditor nation-states that these debt repayments are made but also in the interest of the debtor nation-states since these governments have an interest in maintaining their coercively imposed monetary monopoly regimes.

Thus, in brief, truly Free Banking that enables a genuine choice of multiple monies could feasibly allow peoples to overcome historical injustices and thereby alleviate poverty, inequality and the socially-divisive animosity that the colonialist-era plays, to this day, in perpetuating. In this sense, the historical institution of state-imposed, legally-enforced, Central Banking as opposed to freely-chosen Free Banking works to perpetuate the injustices that linger from colonialist eras. The fault lies not just with developed countries’ governments but also with developing countries’ ones, leading to animosity between various peoples and acting as a major obstacle to securing peace, prosperity and cooperation.

By Vishal Wilde. Originally at C4SS.org



Enter your email address:


Delivered by FeedBurner
Read More »

8 July 2016

Brexit will be "An Exit To Nowhere"

Ryan Calhoun


Elites will never be stripped of their privilege by the method of their ascension. The impoverished will never stop being robbed of their potential by handing it over to new elites. The decision by the majority of voting British citizens to leave the European Union has been seen as a mandate against unaccountable technocratic governors in the EU. Objections to this technocracy are not always pretty though. In place of a centralized system of control in Europe, those who voted to leave the EU wish for the tools of power to be shifted back to Britain.

No matter their intentions, and really no matter which side of the vote British citizens found themselves on, very little has changed for the control people have over their own lives. The nationalists wish to take back control of “their borders”. The economic isolationists want control of “their trade”. The Remain voters wish to sustain “their” unity with Europe. No matter the reason, the commonality here is one mass collective illusion. It is the illusion of democratic control and representation. Despite all evidence to the contrary people think this system exists in order to support them, and that a referendum is the best way to assert control.

Democracy has divested common people of control. It has made the individual’s decision making orders of magnitude from mattering. Your participation in the voting process is inconsequential. It may be one of the most inconsequential activities a normal person can engage in. But even if it wasn’t, even if the direction of your vote counted in the re-shuffling of the deck, it will never be you holding the cards. A resentment of technocracy has merely led to a reversion to an earlier model of false representation of your interests. The same institutions that will now decide the fate of borders and trade had previously negotiated away that control, and your opinion on it could not have mattered less.

Now those who had felt so disenfranchised hope to divest others of control, namely the immigrants they begrudgingly deal with now as neighbors. But the logic that denies the right to an open system of migration and residency for immigrants is also an attack on the freedom of natives. National borders advertised as “theirs”, as a tool of sovereignty for the people who call Britain home, is in fact the opposite. It is the tool of British elites. Those with the most political sway in Britain will now get to decide who citizens can communicate with, who they can employ, who they can live with, which countries they are permitted to travel to. It is also the tool of foreign elites, who will carve up trade agreements based on national boundaries rather than on the true will of the individuals. The right to a referendum on this matter is a right to a whispered suggestion in a sea of other whispered suggestions. Will these suggestions enhance your power? No. They merely change some terms of negotiations between the world’s most powerful economic and political interests.

The right to self-determine begins and ends with you. Any domestic ruler of yours telling you otherwise is selling your birthright back to you as a democratic privilege at 1/64,000,000th the value. If you wish to look for the true spirit of sovereign behavior and self-directed action look to your immigrant peers. Look to those who saw the conditions of their homeland they were told represented them, that defined them, that gave power to them. They left. They willed a better life for themselves regardless of borders. The European Union facilitates this behavior for those citizens of member nations, but it too is merely granting technocratic authorization on a matter they have no concern over. Those who cross borders legally and those who cross illegally have an equal moral right to self determination. The EU has acted inclusive of European travel and trade, but that same loathsome bureaucracy prevents you from networking with anyone unpermitted to cross its borders. While nationalist and federalist economic policies ensure the individual citizen’s disempowerment and impoverishment the same power structure is also trapping refugees into encampments rife with human rights violations. The EU is using its unjust and sweeping power to financially strong arm other nations into obedience with its migration policies. What of the sovereignty of people in these countries? Doctors Without Borders recently refused further funding from the EU in their efforts to ensure the health and safety of refugees, objecting to this form of bribery to aid human rights violations. Here is their grievance, from a press release:

“Last week the European Commission unveiled a new proposal to replicate the EU-Turkey logic across more than 16 countries in Africa and the Middle East. These deals would impose trade and development aid cuts on countries that do not stem migration to Europe or facilitate forcible returns, rewarding those that do. Among these potential partners are Somalia, Eritrea, Sudan and Afghanistan – four of the top ten refugee generating countries.”

Put aside your nationalism. Put aside your false hopes for democratic resolutions. These are false idols. These representatives of your identity you think you have chosen were decided for you by people you have never known, for reasons beyond your interests or understanding. It is time to not reject globalism, but to make it own up to the name. The power to communicate, to network and trade, to travel and connect has never been greater. It should be you that benefits and not some fraudulent system of representatives and delegates. Nations, federations, trading zones carved up by multinationals and political opportunists have grown stronger by keeping the world divided. The Leave Campaign merely shifted the balance. It is time to dismantle it. It is time to demand no less than full access to the social, economic, and technological capacities stolen from you and sold back to capitalist and democratic institutions which have no place in a truly global age. It has kept you down. It has kept the people of your nation and of Europe down. It has nearly destroyed regions of the world and created refugees out of people who wanted nothing more than their home and their communities to prosper as you do. Brexit is over. Let’s start talking about a true exit from this nightmare.

Originally published 28 June, Center for a Stateless Society

Read More »

17 June 2016

Democracies kill with your tacit consent

The Blog


Most theories of government taught today suggest that by paying taxes and merely living in a country, a citizen gives tacit consent for the state to do whatever is needed, including for their "national security".


This argument is even extended to warfare and assassinations. "Democratically elected" politicians are more than capable of killing millions of innocent people in wars, and are likely to be even more arrogant about it, reminding us that they won democratic elections.

Politicians like Tony Blair and George W. Bush viewed themselves as "legitimate" rulers, and viewed others like Saddam Hussein as "illegitimate". Nevertheless, their actions arguably killed more innocent people than the Iraqi dictator. Their crimes are rendered even more offensive by the fact they would like to cite "democracy" as an argument for shifting the blame away from their own bloody and arbitrary hands onto their people.

Writing at the Center for a Stateless Society (C4SS) on 10 June, Tommy Raskin counters the view that voters really approve of the actions of even a "democratic" government. He states, "many citizens do not vote for government action but are forced to facilitate it nonetheless. Citizens who endorse losing candidates, for example, still have political obligations. So do the millions of citizens who choose not to vote".

Noting that when the state does something good, it is merely a gift, because it goes out to people who never requested it or specifically donated funds for it but were instead taxed, Raskin concludes that "Simply living under a democratic government does not count as requesting government action". While Raskin's article does not specifically address the bloody conflicts and genocidal actions by western democracies, the anti-statist's comments are useful in uncoupling the people from their rulers when it comes to understanding who should be held accountable.


The clubof.info Blog

Read More »

7 June 2016

Game over! America can't be great again

The Blog


A return to the "golden era" promised by Donald Trump when he says he will "make America great again" is not historically possible. The world has changed, and it hasn't changed to America's advantage.


Furthermore, all Trump's opponents, including Hillary Clinton, are no different than him in longing for a return to America's past glory days. America's stature in the world, in the eyes of ally and enemy alike, has degenerated and cannot be recovered

Such facts are recently articulatated by global top social historian Immanuel Wallerstein. Wallerstein's commentary appeared at his website on 1 June 2016, and argued the top social scientist's judgment again that America has already long lost its crown as a hegemonic superpower. As asserted in the commentary:
Life in the United States is not as good as it once was. Trump has used as his slogan “make America great again.” The “again” refers to the golden era. And Sanders also seems to refer to a previously golden era in which jobs were not exported to the global South. Even Clinton now seems to look back at something lost.
Looking at escalating gun violence in America (mainly confined to Black ghettos and ignored by the national media, insofar as middle class whites aren't the victims), Wallerstein speaks of a cycle of social instability in the US that will only increase in coming years. Such violence may reach non-Black areas of US society soon on a large scale, causing a vicious circle of insecurity that panics everyone and feeds back on itself, leading to increasing numbers of people leaving America and fewer migrants entering. It also feeds into another pattern of force, already inflamed to levels that made the US government tremble recently.

Wallerstein writes of a "very small band of deeply anti-state militias, who call themselves the Citizens for Constitutional Freedom (CCF)".

Unsurprisingly, the regime considers such ranchers and militiamen to be a greater "threat" than foreign terrorists, although these alleged "domestic terrorists" largely seek only to reclaim the original Republic formed by George Washington. And the biggest way the regime acknowledges the magnitude and prestige of this threat is by negotiating with them, rather than simply killing them as it does with other enemies.

Although the regime has in fact used force against homegrown militias if "negotiations fail", it has set itself on a grave path by doing so. Alluding to various standoffs between militias and the government, Wallerstein believes, "This more extreme version of action may soon spread. It is not a question of moving to the right but of moving towards more violent protest, towards a civil war".

With the paranoid regime ignoring increasing gun crime expanding beyond ghettos and threatening to inflame community tensions, together with anti-Federal militias taking matters into their own hands to restore order, the country's future as a failed state seems frighteningly certain.

It is not that left-wing sociologist Wallerstein means to endorse right-leaning militia forces like the CCF by ideology, but that he sees them playing an essential historic role in the demise of the US regime and ending its global oppression starting at home. Of that demise, Wallerstein promises we can "make the world a better place for everyone... only if we stop longing to go back to a golden era, which was not so golden for most of the world."


The clubof.info Blog

Read More »

3 June 2016

Soldiers don't fight for your freedoms

The Blog


We owe "our freedoms" to the government and the soldiers and thugs it commands around killing people (including its own people). So will say your government, various prostituted scribblers in the press, and self-justifying murderers who otherwise can't bear to look in their bloodied mirror.


Constantly repeated in the media, post-9/11 in particular, is this view that the threat to Americans' "freedom" always emanated from foreign rulers - Hitler, Saddam, etc. Even more absurd is the idea that Middle Eastern terrorists are a new threat to freedom in the US, although they have made no real or imagined moves to overturn the US Constitution or seize power in the US.

In the meantime, the US government robs people of their freedoms, spying on them all and treating them all as the enemy. Even the people working for the US government are not exempt, being kept on a controversial "insider threat" database for having the slightest dissenting views from the regime.

One think tank contributor argues that in fact the threat to one's Constitutional liberties (in the US in any case) has always been the government itself.

Kevin Carson at the Center for a Stateless Society pointed out in a recent short article that "Our civil liberties are fundamentally protections, not against foreign countries, but against the government that claims to represent us right here at home." He rejected Charles Province's 1970 poem "The Soldier", often used in Memorial Day ceremonies, as "cringingly stupid" for crediting members of the US Military rather than dissidents and campaigners for winning people's freedoms.

Carson corrects the record for Americans, writing, "it’s the dissidents, the hell-raisers, the dirty flag-burning hippies, the folks with bad attitudes towards authority in general, who have given us our rights throughout history, by fighting for them".

So no, soldiers don't fight for your freedoms - unless you are talking about some ex-soldiers like Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden, who know who the real enemy is.


The clubof.info Blog

Read More »

27 May 2016

Intellectual property, secrecy, and death

The Blog


Known for likening the use of patents to exploitation, murder and terrorism, C4SS writer Kevin Carson points out that Monsanto is hiding behind intellectual property to conceal its responsibility for deaths. Desperate to prevent consumers knowing about deadly ingredients in its herbicides, the company needs secrecy.


Most opponents of Monsanto's Roundup chemical product believe glyphosate is carcinogenic - a claim refuted in various scientific studies. The scientific community believes glyphosate is safe, although this says nothing for the safety of Roundup itself, which still accompanies a high rate of cancer among workers.

As reasoned by Kevin Carson at the Center for a Stateless Society website:
legally, Monsanto is required to make public only the active ingredient — glyphosate — itself. In fact the “inert ingredients” are all trade secrets, legally protected by so-called “intellectual property.”
Carson also writes, "the existence of legally protected trade secrets is a weapon against the health and welfare of the public, depriving them of any knowledge of the nature of toxic chemicals they may be exposed to". He compares this with the behavior of companies and governments surrounding shale gas production, writing that in this industry various proprietary ingredients are "also kept secret from the potentially affected public by “intellectual property.”"

In this analysis, libertarian "free market" advocates such as Ronald Bailey at Reason who defend Monsanto's freedom from the apparent cruelties of consumer rights, labeling and transparency are acting hypocritically. While supposedly triumphing individual rights, such libertarians are effectively cheer-leading the state while it crucifies individuals, blindfolding them and refusing them any right to know what is harming their health.

Carson writes such immoral rules do not constitute a "libertarian legal order", where, "given the prevalence of cancer like non-Hodgkin lymphoma among agricultural workers exposed to Roundup, there would long ago have been lawsuits in which Monsanto was compelled to disclose the full list of ingredients in Roundup".

Whether or not glyphosate is the danger, Roundup and the quantities it is used in should be suspected for as long as the apparent connection to cancer still exists.


The clubof.info Blog

Read More »

Memorial Day for the military's victims

The Blog


Writing ahead of Memorial Day in the US, Garrison Center director Thomas Knapp asked Americans to think about the victims of the US government's violence too.


Noting that modern states "murdered more than 260 million human beings in the 20th century alone", the author reminds us to remember not only people who died for governments but the far vaster number killed by them for dumb reasons.

Noting the terror inspired by the US military around the world now, Knapp concluded in his post:
We occasionally see a flag-draped coffin, or encounter an amputee on the street, but our concerns with, for example, terrorism, simply aren’t in the same league as the reasonable fears of those around the world living with American planes and drones constantly overhead or American troops on their streetcorners. 
This Memorial Day, let’s set aside a moment to think about them.
The 260 million figure offered by Knapp excludes soldiers killed in action in the wars of the 20th Century, and is six times greater than the number of dead troops in those wars. It includes victims of genocides committed around the world by untenable regimes.

In the current century, the greatest civilian losses in wars are caused directly by the US government and its allies in the Middle East and other poor regions. The greatest example now is the war in Syria, waged by the US government as part of its strategy to overthrow foreign governments and replace them with "friendly" regimes.


The clubof.info Blog

Read More »

24 May 2016

Tech leads to anti-statism: 2015 at TED

The Blog


A fascinating TED talk recently re-posted by the Center for a Stateless Society relates weakening governments with accelerating social change and popular liberation by technology.


Originally from 2015, the TED talk by William Gillis equates the state with control, and control with building perfect defenses and security measures. All of these become impossible because the spectrum of disobedience, disruption and vandalism by people increases through technology and popular access to it (just ask hackers).

"The more means by which people can act the easier attack becomes and the harder defense becomes" the speaker argued. Using a Star Wars (image courtesy) reference that would be enjoyed by fans of the sci-fi series, Gillis states, "It’s a simple matter of complexity. The attacker only needs to choose one line of attack, the defender needs to secure against all of them. This isn’t just true of small thermal exhaust ports, it’s true in our software ecosystems today and any other system with many dimensions of movement."

The thermal exhaust port is a weakness in the Empire's deadly Death Star battle station featured in Star Wars. In the film, rebel hero Luke Skywalker destroys the planet-killing weapon by firing a proton torpedo through the thermal exhaust port, causing a chain reaction that destroys the Death Star.

Edward Snowden could perhaps be likened to Luke Skywalker, one man able to bring the colossal machine of tyranny down by being in the right place, at the right time, with the right technologies. Advanced technology, Gillis believes, adds concrete facts to support a form of anarchism and super individualism that previously had only been possible in theory.

In his conclusion, Gillis identified the idea of a stateless society with the posthuman society predicted by transhumanism, stating "transhumanism represents yet another arm of anarchism: a focus on expanding freedom in physical terms and a critique of timid retreat to some stultifying “human nature.""

According to Gillis and others at Human Iterations, we need a "social singularity" thinking about a post-state society filled with superempowered individuals equipped with the ultimate personal technologies, who no longer need governments to take care of themselves. It is hard to deny such a conclusion, as "The arc of human history is an arc bent by our creativity and inquiry towards more options, more ways of existing and acting."


The clubof.info Blog

Read More »

20 May 2016

Would a world government create war?

The Blog


Any "world government" created out of the current international system would be faced with civil war instantly, an article posted to Aral Bereux's site Dystopian News noted.


Hypothesizing that humans are still slaves to their violent instincts and territorial behavior, a short post to the site puts forward a gloomy assessment of what might happen if a powerful organization tried to make humanity clean its act up and unite under a single authority.

Unstable states faced with disintegration are suggested as examples of what would immediately happen to a world government attempting to secure its authority and legitimacy in the same fashion as existing governments.




Asking the question, "Do You Want to Live in a Stateless World?", however, could be beside the point. Most political scientists agree that states are now confused, stressed by supranational influences, and failing to provide security (and jobs) for their subjects on the greatest scale seen in modern history.

Books such as Wallerstein's Utopistics show the reason for the apparent tragedy of state erosion is not a conspiracy or because a group of people "want" it to happen, but because the historical social system (international capitalism regulated and enforced by nation-states) is at the end of its lifespan and faced with economic contradictions, migration, and new technologies.


The clubof.info Blog

Read More »

17 May 2016

Mont Order-related research available

The Blog


Research into the writings of Jean-Paul Marat in 1774  and their possible reapplication in the modern world has been made available at Dissident Voice and other websites and pages of the Mont Order society.


Quoting Marat's 1774 book The Chains of Slavery at length, the L'Ordre essay relates strongly the origins of the Mont Order's legendary name in the chaos of the French Revolution. As such, it is an attempt to guide the Order and keep its overall philosophy in concert with its origins and associations.

Some conspiracy theorists believe the Mont Order and the Montagnards who created the French Republic and executed Louis XVI before apparently disappearing into the chaos are one and the same.

Theories aside, the L'Ordre essay is an authentic Mont Order document at the Dissident Voice publication, and does express great interest in the revolutionary rhetoric responsible for inspiring the French Revolution. It calls for this to be reapplied in the modern world, with western democracies having gone astray and failed to accomplish what the French and American Revolutions hoped to do.

Jean-Paul Marat was a French physician, journalist and key influence on the "Mountain", who became a martyr of then-new liberal nationalist ideas following his assassination in 1793. Marat lived with a debilitating skin disease, often in exile and hiding in sewers to escape persecution during his political life, while he ran the dissident newspaper The People's Friend.

In its conclusion, the Mont Order essay asks the Order's members to emulate Marat. "Being strongly related to the Mont Order association's own name and hopes, Marat is an ideal role model", L'Ordre argues. Dissidents should therefore be encouraged to be powerful, awe-inspiring individuals who "act bravely against the unproven government and international system" and in Marat's words, "bring the ax to their root" when it comes to dealing with injustices.

Notable differences between the Mont Order and the French Revolutionary thinkers include a lack of interest in patriotic nationalism, with this being archaic in a high-tech modern environment with everyone connected through the internet.


The clubof.info Blog

Read More »

10 May 2016

Millennials hate capitalism and greed

The Blog


In a May 1st article appearing at the Center for a Stateless Society website, anti-statist writer Kevin Carson explains why Millennials tend to respond positively to the term "socialism" in poll results. Capitalism gets a much more negative reaction.


This is especially relevant now as people wonder why the "democratic socialist" Bernie Sanders was able to go toe-to-toe with corporate backed Hillary Clinton for Democratic Party nomination as President of the United States. It happened despite many Americans (likely older generations) despising anything called "socialism" and assuming it to be solely the work of North Korea or Joseph Stalin.

Carson explained that the Millennial generation is distressed by the greed and oppression brought about by modern corporate capitalism. Many young people are familiar with the ideas of academics who try to explain just how disfiguring and tyrannical current capitalism is. Rampant capitalism is is actually coercing even the capitalists' favorite bogeyman - the regulatory state - just for its own profit.

Alluding to sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein's theory (read all our coverage of Wallerstein) of the expansion of capitalism across the world, Carson writes that Millennials have got it right if they associate capitalism with greed and power rather than freedom:
Historical capitalism began five or six centuries ago, not with free markets, but with the conquest of the free towns by the absolute states and the mass expropriation of peasants from their traditional rights to the land by the landed oligarchy, and continued with the colonial conquest of most of the world outside Europe. Since then capital has continued to rely heavily on the state to socialize its operating costs, erect barriers to competition, and enforce illegitimate title to all the land and natural resources engrossed in previous centuries. This history of conquest, robbery and enslavement is in the basic genetic code of contemporary corporate capitalism.
Some writers have tried to explain away Millennials' positive views of socialism with the condescending assertion they are "confused" about dictionary definitions. Carson dismissed this assertion as "dumb" and devoid of any comprehension of history.


The clubof.info Blog

Read More »

15 April 2016

Anti-encryption to destroy Silicon Valley

The Blog


What will happen if a recent draft anti-encryption bill gets passed in the US? No less than the evisceration of America's tech industry.


Prepared by US Senators Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein, the "bill to require the provision of data in an intelligible format..." demands US tech companies create vulnerabilities to allow encryption to be easily broken. Commenting that the idea seems to work off delusions that only law-abiding American companies could possibly encrypt anything, Garrison Center Director Thomas L. Knapp believes "this bill is custom-made to destroy the US tech industry".

According to the Garrison Center analysis of April 12, such efforts are doomed to relocate all credible companies specializing in encryption offshore. The law will stimulate foreign developers to race ahead in providing encryption services in other countries where they are safe from the authoritarian meddling of the US regime. Not only would this improve the standing of other countries and diminish the US regime in terms of liberty, but it would likely cause the US economy to tank.

It will get a lot worse for the US if this bill becomes a reality. As well as undermining the faith of US consumers in their own tech industry and forcing them to look to foreign companies for privacy protections, the bill is utterly useless as kind of defense against terrorism. Effective encryption is simply a mathematical certainty at this point, and will continue to be abundantly available to everyone from terrorists to essentially any regular citizen trying to avoid surveillance.

However, the US regime will never accept the reality that there is anything it can't control, the analysis continues. According to Knapp, "Nothing’s more important to a politician than believing he or she is in control".

The US regime is so infatuated with the idea of full-spectrum dominance over its own people that it will be unable to resist meddling in the tech industry. It will happen even if this bad course causes the US economy to tank, as industry flees abroad.


The clubof.info Blog

Read More »

Featured

“Blue Wave” or Not, Expect Business as Usual After the Midterms

“What I want you to do,” US president told a South Carolina rally audience in August, ” is pretend, please, that I’m on the ballot” when it’...

Follow Me on Twitter