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

Here's Libertarianism for you

If you've been following the news lately, you may have, likely have heard the story about the people who've been exposed to and some even killed by, having received medication from what we now hear is a "compound pharmacy":

‘High risk’ drug making is at center of meningitis inquiry

Federal officials are investigating practices at New England Compounding Center in Framingham, a compounding pharmacy that has been linked to an outbreak of fungal meningitis. The outbreak has been blamed in 24 deaths.

Inside its sprawling red brick offices, New England Compounding Center engaged in the most hazardous type of pharmacy drug making. The company bought unsterilized powders and turned them into liquid steroids and other medicine supposedly pristine enough to inject into a patient.

It’s called “high-risk compounding,” and doing this safely, industry specialists say, requires elaborate and expensive manufacturing processes, sensitive tests for sterility and potency, and exacting attention to detail.

At the center of the federal and state investigation into New England Compounding, whose steroids were contaminated with a fungus that led to an outbreak of meningitis that has killed 24 people nationally, is whether the company violated these procedures.

My point?

My point is, this is yet one more example, like the BP oil blowout and spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the 2008 financial collapse that nearly took down the nation's and world's economies, that we need at least some government oversight and--gasp--regulations.

Without government and without that oversight and without regulations the Libertarians and so many Republicans and Right Wingers and "Conservatives" abhor, we--the people--are left exposed to the greed of we-don't-know-who.

No, thanks.

Leave me out, please.

I'll take some regulation, thank you.

Links: http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/healthcare/PA-lacks-patient-protection-against-sterile-compounding-errors.html

http://bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/2012/10/25/framingham-pharmacy-engaged-high-risk-compounding-higher-chance-contamination/BxwAtkfmCg9rW7EsJqv7HM/story.html

http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/healthcare/PA-lacks-patient-protection-against-sterile-compounding-errors.html

http://www.npr.org/2012/10/25/163641002/after-meningitis-deaths-a-look-at-drug-safety

On Libertarians

Click on picture for better viewing.

And this would just be the beginning.

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

One more (last?) question about Saturday night on the Plaza

Who thought it was a good idea to run the kids off, out of Westport, anyway?

Since when do you think sweeping something like that, "under the rug", so to speak, is going to solve anything?

Why should anyone be surprised they moved to the Plaza?

Who was the rocket scientist who thought that up?

And who, if anyone, thought that simply running them off was going to be the big solution to that problem?

Here we go again

This just off the news wire:

Hostages taken, at least 6 wounded in NY state


How soon 'til we learn, folks?


Link to story:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/hostage_shooting


An update: 4:42 pm Central Time

Police: 14 killed in NY immigrant center shooting

Link:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/hostage_shooting