Who Owns Who?

Posted on March 6, 2009

I was just thinking about immigration and border control – the endless debate over whether a government should have the right to control who crosses its borders. And it occurred to me that the fundamental difference between an Anarchist approach and an Authoritarian one comes down to a fundamental divide over the relationship between people and government, and more specifically a divide that can be framed as a question of ownership.

If Government (and I use the word Government instead of the word State deliberately in order to include non-statist forms of governance) own the people, then it is completely proper for Government to dictate who can do what, where, when, and how. Further, all forms of authoritarianism, from a mild liberal “democracy” to the most authoritarian fascism, are all legitimate because in essence they’re only different methods for the Government to manage its property.

If, on the other hand, “We the People” own the government then border controls and all other forms of coercive control that typify the modern State are illegal and illegitimate.

It’s really that simple.

Thoughts?

Patriotism: A Menace To Liberty

Posted on February 18, 2009

One of my favorite essays from the inimical Emma Goldman.  This one is from Emma Goldman’s Anarchism and Other Essays. Second Revised Edition. New York & London: Mother Earth Publishing Association, 1911. pp. 133-150.

WHAT is patriotism? Is it love of one’s birthplace, the place of childhood’s recollections and hopes, dreams and aspirations? Is it the place where, in childlike naivete, we would watch the fleeting clouds, and wonder why we, too, could not run so swiftly? The place where we would count the milliard glittering stars, terror-stricken lest each one “an eye should be,” piercing the very depths of our little souls? Is it the place where we would listen to the music of the birds, and long to have wings to fly, even as they, to distant lands? Or the place where we would sit at mother’s knee, enraptured by wonderful tales of great deeds and conquests? In short, is it love for the spot, every inch representing dear and precious recollections of a happy, joyous, and playful childhood?

If that were patriotism, few American men of today could be called upon to be patriotic, since the place of play has been turned into factory, mill, and mine, while deafening sounds of machinery have replaced the music of the birds. Nor can we longer hear the tales of great deeds, for the stories our mothers tell today are but those of sorrow, tears, and grief.

What, then, is patriotism? “Patriotism, sir, is the last resort of scoundrels,” said Dr. Johnson. Leo Tolstoy, the greatest anti-patriot of our times, defines patriotism as the principle that will justify the training of wholesale murderers; a trade that requires better equipment for the exercise of man-killing than the making of such necessities of life as shoes, clothing, and houses; a trade that guarantees better returns and greater glory than that of the average workingman.

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Howard Zinn on Anarchism and life after Nation-States

Posted on February 12, 2009

By ZIGA VODOVNIK
Via Counterpunch

Howard Zinn, 85, is a Professor Emeritus of political science at Boston University. He was born in Brooklyn, NY, in 1922 to a poor immigrant family. He realized early in his youth that the promise of the “American Dream“, that will come true to all hard-working and diligent people, is just that – a promise and a dream. During World War II he joined US Air Force and served as a bombardier in the “European Theatre“. This proved to be a formative experience that only strengthened his convictions that there is no such thing as a just war. It also revealed, once again, the real face of the socio-economic order, where the suffering and sacrifice of the ordinary people is always used only to higher the profits of the privileged few.

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