Animal Farm

Profiles in Pork

"One doesn’t have to sign up for law enforcement work as a Hail Mary way to avoid poverty, or the gulag . . . or the gas chamber. So, what sort of person chooses to become a law enforcer – and remains one – when it is still possible to avoid such a dirty occupation? An occupation that, as a matter of routine, puts one in the position of rousting – and caging – people who’ve done nothing that can be characterized as causing harm to others (or their property)? Who have merely run afoul of 'the law'? There seem to be four general types." Continue reading →

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What can you buy from the IRS for $50,000?

"Well, that depends very much on who you are. For the same amount of protection money, you will get very different results. Companies with expensive international law firms on retainer have an irritating tendency to take their fights to Tax Court. Much better to go after soft & clawless prey who will roll over and beg for mercy because they’ve been psychologically conditioned with a visceral reflex against doing anything as 'drastic' as renouncing citizenship to protect themselves & their families." Continue reading →

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BEARCAT Bread And Circuses, Or Why I Ripped Up My Ticket

"We had eaten up the lie of hope that 'working within the system' is actually possible. I am ripping up my lifetime ticket to the circus that came with my birth certificate and social security number. Never again will I stoop to enter a government building. Never again will I grant credence to the idea that a government worker has rightful authority over me. Never again will I take precious hours out of my short life to grant legitimacy to this farcical freak show, when I could be spending that time trading with crypto-currency in the agora—the free market—in which we do not contract with or pay tribute to ring-leaders. It's anarchy or bust, baby. It always has been." Continue reading →

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NSA shares raw intelligence including Americans’ data with Israel

"Details of the intelligence-sharing agreement are laid out in a memorandum of understanding between the NSA and its Israeli counterpart that shows the US government handed over intercepted communications likely to contain phone calls and emails of American citizens. The agreement places no legally binding limits on the use of the data by the Israelis. The disclosure that the NSA agreed to provide raw intelligence data to a foreign country contrasts with assurances from the Obama administration that there are rigorous safeguards to protect the privacyof US citizens caught in the dragnet. The deal was reached in principle in March 2009, according to the undated memorandum." Continue reading →

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Bloggers expose lavish lifestyles of Putin loyalists

"Bloggers who oppose Russian President Vladimir Putin are targeting top lawmakers loyal to the Kremlin with scandalous revelations about their luxury apartments and jet-setting lifestyles which run counter to their patriotic rhetoric. Top lawmakers and officials are obliged to declare property and income annually in a corruption-busting initiative proposed by Dmitry Medvedev under his presidency, but bloggers and investigative reporters have highlighted their undeclared wealth and assets." Continue reading →

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Koch Has No Power to Coerce Anybody; That’s Why He Needs Government

"So the actual pattern we see is the Koch brothers and their pet think tanks actively encouraging a near-totalitarian level of state intervention to suppress all the mechanisms of civil society — investigative journalism by a free and independent press, a vigorous system of civil liability, etc. — that would help keep business honest and hold it accountable. The corporate Pharisees of our day strain at a gnat using 'free market' rhetoric to attack welfare for the poor, but swallow a camel when it comes to welfare for corporations. They claim to favor 'economic freedom' and 'free trade,' while putting the entire world under the totalitarian lockdown of draconian 'intellectual property' law." Continue reading →

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Capitalism: A Hate Story

"In Year 1 of Obama, two fat cats named Michael Moore and Harvey Weinstein released a movie. Their magnum opus was 'Capitalism: A Love Story'. The unsubtly sarcastic point after the colon was that capitalism was an unmitigated bag of evil. And to reaffirm the faith of capitalism-haters in the evils of capitalism, here was a movie put out by a bunch of corporations owned by millionaires. The traditional image of the anti-capitalist as a ragamuffin who dies of consumption in his garret has always been at odds with the real image of the anti-capitalist as a rich man or the son of a rich man. The man of the people is rather often stuck at the bottom of the top of the pole." Continue reading →

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Turkish protester’s tear-gas death sparks angry new demonstrations in Istanbul

"Turkish police fired tear gas and plastic bullets at thousands of people who gathered in Istanbul Tuesday to protest the death of a 22-year-old demonstrator in southern Turkey. Between 2,000 and 3,000 people rallied on the outskirts of Taksim Square, scene of unprecedented mass anti-government protests in June, and shouted slogans including 'Taksim will be the graveyard of fascism', an AFP journalist witnessed. Police prevented the protesters from entering the square, before pushing them back using tear gas and plastic bullets. Ahmet Atakan died in hospital Monday night after being hit in the head by a tear gas canister during clashes between police and around 150 protesters." Continue reading →

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Israel closes probe into Palestinian activist’s tear-gas death

"Israel’s army has decided to close an investigation into the killing of a Palestinian activist during a West Bank demonstration in 2009, an Israeli rights group said Tuesday. According to B’Tselem, the military’s prosecutor general had decided to close the case for lack of evidence. Bassem Abu Rahmeh, 30, who was struck in the chest by a tear-gas canister on April 17, 2009 at a protest in the village of Bilin, and died of his wounds. The army had decided to open an investigation into Abu Rahmeh’s death in 2010 after a team of international experts found its forces had fired the tear gas in violation of regulations." Continue reading →

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Humanitarian Murder: It’s a Gas

"The true humanitarian position on any question of war is to reject it entirely: war is nothing more than the creation of the collective state, not the individual constituents thereof. US military involvement in Syria will do nothing more than complicate matters not just in Syria, but also the entire region. Indeed, the same politicians who speak so proudly of 'democracy' have no problem imposing it upon others (through death and destruction), but when it comes to their own countrymen, it is but a whisper. Today, only 9% of Americans support any intervention in Syria, and this number is low for good reason: Americans simply do not trust their government anymore." Continue reading →

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