Philosophy, Authority, Police and How It All Applies Today

I ran across this satirical cartoon on a favorite page I go to now and again and that I enjoy a good deal.

   Click on the picture for easier reading.

And it's good and funny and true but the thing I really took away, the thing that especially applies and applied to us today is what the author wrote at the end of the piece:

"Anarchism has always been a philosophy of mutual self aid, freedom, cooperation, dismantling illegitimate hierarchies, and moving towards open democratic structures in all aspects of life. Generally speaking, the people at the top of the illegitimate hierarchies, like people who command countries because they were born to the right family, or people who command workers because they have a piece of paper saying the own the factory, well...they do not care for this philosophy. And the police are on their side.

In fact, like the hover text says, everyone in this comic was arrested for what they are arguing for. Bakunin was arrested for trying to bring about democracy, Kropotkin for 'subversive political activity' (whatever that means, most likely just being an anarchist), Emma Goldman for 'illegally distributing information about birth control', and poor Proudhon was arrested for insulting Napoleon III, a rather silly thing to be arrested for and unfortunately for him that meant he had to look rather silly in the comic.

In every society, those in power will always call the people who are peacefully trying to change the system 'violent anarchists' and the people who violently enforce the system 'peace keepers'. Violence, to them, is having to give up their vacation home so someone else doesn't have to be homeless. Peace is having the police beat up and jail the homeless people who are sheltering there to stay out of the cold. To those whose privilege is built on mountains of injustice, merely asking for justice will be called violence, and violence to protect their privilege will be called justice.

Do not be fooled. The police do not enforce justice, they enforce privilege, property, wealth, and power.

Black Lives Matter."

If Your Pet Were Libertarian

The rest of the world sees this shutdown--and the Republicans--for what it is and they are

(click on picture for easier reading)

 

We need to stop the stupidity, at least, if not the insanity.

 

 

Contact your member of Congress: 

 

Contacting the Congress: A Citizen's Congressional Directory

 

Please.

 

 

THE quote on the Republican's Federal Government shutdown

Republicans conceived it, Republicans planned it and those same Republicans executed it, this government shutdown.

Now they're trying to get something---desperately, anything--out of it, nation be damned.  

Want proof?  Look no further:

GOP Rep.: 'We Have to Get Something Out of This, I Don't Know What That Even Is'

House Republicans who didn’t support tying government funding to ObamaCare now find themselves too committed to the strategy to back down, according to twin reports by David Drucker and Byron York of the Washington Examiner. Both writers said GOP leadership would likely seek to conflate budget negotiations with the raising of the debt ceiling in an effort to extract concessions to justify their efforts, even as they admitted they don’t know what those concessions are.

“We’re not going to be disrespected,” Marlin Stutzman (R-IN) told Drucker Tuesday night. “We have to get something out of this. And I don’t know what that even is.”

“This is not just about Obamacare anymore,” said Michael Grimm (R-NY).

What's crazy is that a) this is so true and that b) we can even here, let alone quote these people saying these things.

Additional link: 

Congressman Stutzman: He Has No Idea What the GOP Wants

 

 

 

Quote of the day--on the Federal Government shutdown

On Libertarians

Click on picture for better viewing.

And this would just be the beginning.

Link: http://www.gocomics.com/nonsequitur

Things going on this holiday weekend

Two pretty big items this weekend (with links below): Now it's Exxon-Mobil, ruining Yellowstone National Park, after BP screwed up the Gulf and second, we, the US, now have American soldiers on the ground in Somalia (that's HOW MANY wars?) and we're sending in drones. Happy 4th, everyone. Links: http://news.yahoo.com/teams-gauge-exxon-oil-spill-damage-mont-river-152649789.html; http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/02/world/africa/02somalia.html; http://search.yahoo.com/search;_ylt=Aud023eNfdsgxjNUTY1vg1ybvZx4?p=somalia+drones&toggle=1&cop=mss&ei=UTF-8&fr=yfp-t-701; http://news.yahoo.com/american-boots-hit-ground-somalia-drone-attacks-170751348.html

Quote of the day--on voting against your own best interests

...in light of what Bob Herbert calls "the most painful evidence imaginable of the failure of laissez-faire economics and the destructive force of the alliance of big business and government against the interests of ordinary Americans," the Tea Party movement wants to abolish government and expand even more the deregulated capitalism that has unsettled the lives of so many of its members. Ignorance prevails around both the movement's policy recommendations and its often racist protest against "the election of a "foreign born' - African-American to the presidency." Link to original post: http://www.truth-out.org/the-disappearing-intellectual-age-economic-darwinism61287