Choose Responsibility on Colbert

Yeah, I've been busy as hell with midterms and so forth lately, so it's been a long time since I've posted anything and I probably won't be posting much now that I'm done with midterms anyway. I'm spending way too much time reading music blogs and listening to music.

Anyway, check this out. Not only is it funny but McCardell does a really good job championing his cause.

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
John McCardell
comedycentral.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor Mark Sanford

Choose Responsibility and the drinking age debate

It has been a long time since I last posted on this blog. Life has been busy. Anyway, here's a great 60 Minutes segment on Choose Responsibility, a nonprofit dedicated to opening the debate about the national drinking age, and this debate, which I think has finally been "opened" (whatever that means).


Watch CBS Videos Online

Afghani government: exists for little more than the enrichment of those who run it?

"The state built on the ruins of the Taliban regime now often seems to exist for little more than the enrichment of those who run it." - The New York Times

Spot the Santa impostor!

This may be a little late for Christmas, but observe the two communists, the libertarian-leaning Kropotkin (above) and authoritarian-leaning Marx (below), both Santa Claus lookalikes, and see if you can spot the impostor!

I think Kropotkin resembles Santa much more closely. And since Santa is equivalent to virtue, Kropotkin (and by implication his anarcho-communism) more closely resembles virtue than Marx (and by implication his Marxism).

So there we have it. Anarcho-communism is better than Marxism! QED. I'll be taking donations for my intellectual acrobatics all day.

Protests in San Francisco

I was in San Francisco yesterday when I ran into some fellow anarchists staging a protest against police violence. According to one of the guys I spoke with, there were about 300 people who walked down Mission Street, eventually ending up in Union Square, where police arrested a few people for smashing some windows at Macy's. *Note: It is actually not clear that anyone smashed windows. This is only what I heard from one person, and others contend that no windows were smashed.* Many of the police I saw were decked out in riot gear with batons. No tear gas, fortunately. It seemed like a pretty standard black bloc protest. Here's a story from Indybay, a Bay Area independent media website.

The insurrection in Greece has entered its second week. There was a solidarity march and general assembly in San Francisco on Saturday, December 20th. Protesters marched to New College, the Mission Police station and then up Market to Powell Street. The protest ended in Union Square. There were 5 arrests as police in riot gear moved in after protesters entered the Westfield Shopping Center.

Breaking News From 12/20:
7:11pm The protest officially ended at the Christmas tree next to the ice rink with an announcement that 5 people had been arrested. Riot police continued to line up in front of Macys screening all of those going in even after the protest had dispersed
6:56pm: About 25 protesters ran past 3rd Street and turned onto Geary St., while hundreds of cops in riot gear marched and drove behind them. The cops blocked Geary at Grant and arrested at least one person. Protesters then went up Grant to Post and into Union Square.
6:29pm: The march moved quickly down Market Street to the Powell St. area. Some of the protesters appear to have gone into the Westfield Shopping Center. At least one person was arrested. Crowd outside of mall mostly surrounded by police, but there are also hundreds of shoppers outside the mall while the protesters are holding banners and playing music on a sound system. After arrest crowd pounded on police van chanting "let them go."
5:00pm:The crowd stopped outside of the police station on Mission at 17th Street for speeches about the situation in Greece and about police brutality.
4:35pm: Crowd moves up 22nd to Valencia and stops at New College where two banners are dropped reading "Burn the Banks Smash The State" and "Solidarity With Greek Uprising"
4:15pm: About 200 people marched down Mission Street from 24th Street. Chants included "Repression? No thanks! We'll burn your fucking banks!".

My thoughts? To begin, smashing windows does nothing of value. If anything, it is counterproductive. Property destruction is what makes people associate anarchy with "chaos and destruction" and the state with "safety and stability". We need to avoid property destruction and look toward other forms of protest, ones that resonate with normal working-class people and encourage them to join in. The best kind of protest is one that attracts people on the side of the street to join in the protest themselves, and I doubt that this protest did that.

That being said, I definitely support the actions of the protesters and applaud them for their work. Despite my criticisms, they have done good work.

All eyes on Greece

The anarchist movement in Greece is growing. It's fairly large right now, probably bigger than in any other country in the world. Many sectors of the population are being radicalized, and some mainstream pundits are worried that the government will fall. If there is any hope for the global anarchist movement, it lies in Greece. All eyes on Greece.

A roundup of some good articles about the current situation:

International Herald Tribune (Dec. 9)
Al-Jazeera (Dec. 10)
Associated Press (Dec. 10)
Democracy Now! (Dec. 11)
Associated Press (Dec. 11)
Telegraph (Dec. 11)

Fucking media bias, again

Another biased mainstream newspaper article that fails to give voice to the anarchist point of view. And it's not as if this is a subject that only tangentially concerns anarchists; this is about anarchists! I'm talking, of course, about the one-sided The New York Times reporting of the recent anti-government protests in Greece. The Times gives voice to all the pro-state folks, but they don't give one word to those protesting.