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Tyrannicide Day 2007 (posted 15 March 2007)

Happy Tyrannicide Day (observed)!

Today, March 15th, commemorates the assassination of two tyrants. Gaius Julius Caesar, the butcher of Gaul and the dictator-for-life who had conquered, burned, and proscribed his way to becoming the King of Rome in everything but name, was stabbed to death on the floor of the Senate, by a group of republican conspirators known as the Liberatores, on March 15th, 44 BCE (2,050 years ago today, give or take the relevant calendar adjustments). Czar Alexander II Nikolaevitch, the self-styled Caesar of all the Russias, died in an explosion set off as an act of propaganda by the deed by a group of anarchist conspirators on March 13th, 1881 CE (126 years ago Tuesday, give or take the relevant calendar adjustments).

There are lots of reasons to avoid tyrannicide as a political tactic — after all, these two famous cases each ended a tyrant but not the tyrannical regime; Alexander II was replaced by the even more brutal Alexander III, and Julius Caesar was replaced by his former running-dogs, one of whom would emerge from the abattoir that followed as Augustus Caesar, to begin the long Imperial nightmare in earnest. But it’s important to recognize that these are strategic failures, not moral ones, and what should be celebrated on the Ides of March is not the tyrannicide as a strategy, but rather tyrannicide as a moral fact. Putting a diadem on your head and wrapping yourself in the blood-dyed robes of the State confers neither the virtue, the knowledge, nor the right to rule over anyone, anywhere, for even one second, any more than you had naked and alone. Tyranny is nothing more and nothing less than organized crime executed with a pompous sense of entitlement and a specious justification; the right to self-defense applies every bit as much against the person of some self-proclaimed sovereign as it does against any other two-bit punk who might attack you on the street. Every victory for human liberation in history — whether against the crowned heads of Europe, the cannibal-empires of modern Fascism and Bolshevism, or the age-old self-perpetuating oligarchies of race and sex — has had this insight at its core: the moral right to deal with the princes and potentates of the world as nothing more and nothing less than fellow human beings, to address them as such, to challenge them as such, and — if necessary — to resist them as such.

In honor of the event, the Ministry of Culture of this secessionist republic of one would like to offer a commemorative reading. This is from Act IV, Scene III of Friedrich von Schiller’s play Wilhelm Tell (1805). According to the legends from which Schiller drew his story, in 1307 William Tell, a renowned archer and patriot from the canton of Uri, assassinated Gessler, the brutal governor who ruled the canton on behalf of the Holy Roman Emperor in Austria. The assassination sparked an uprising in which the people of Uri and the surrounding cantons tore down the Hapsburg forts, and drove the Austrian forces out of what then became the free and independent Swiss Confederacy. How far the legends reflect historical events and how far they are inventions of early modern Swiss nationalists is a matter of debate; but if true, they record one of the most successful tyrannicides known to history.

(GESSLER and RUDOLF DER HARRAS on horseback.)

GESSLER: Say, what you will, I am the Emp’ror’s servant And must give thought, to how I best can please him. He hath not sent me to this land, to flatter The people and be soft to them — He wants Obedience, the issue is, shall farmers Be master in the land or shall the Emp’ror.

ARMGARD: Now is the moment! Now I’ll bring it up!

(Approaches timidly.)

GESSLER: I have not had the hat put up as jest In Altorf, nor was it to test the hearts O’ th’ people, these I’ve known for quite some time. I have had it put up, that they might learn To bend their necks to me, which they hold high — I had the inconvenient thing set up Upon their path, where they would have to pass, That they would meet it with their eyes, and it Would bring to mind their lord, whom they forget.

RUDOLF DER HARRAS: And yet the people do have certain rights —

GESSLER: To ponder these, there is just now no time! — Far reaching projects are at work and growing, The Imperial house would grow, and what the father Hath gloriously begun, the son will end. This little people is to us a stone I’ th’ way — this way or that, they must submit.

(They want to pass on. The woman throws herself down before the GOVERNOR.)

ARMGARD: Kind-heartedness, Lord Governor! Mercy! Mercy!

GESSLER: Why stand you on the public highway in My way — Stand back!

ARMGARD: My husband lies in prison, The wretched orphans cry for bread — Have pity, Severest Lord, on our great misery.

RUDOLF DER HARRAS: Who are you? And who is your man?

ARMGARD: A poor Wild hay man, gracious Lord, from Rigiberg, Who over the abyss mows down the grass Which freely grows from jagged rocky walls, To which the cattle do not dare to climb —

RUDOLF DER HARRAS (to the GOVERNOR): By God, a miserable and wretched life! I beg you, set him free, the wretched man, However heavy his offense may be, His ghastly trade is punishment enough.

(To the woman.)

You shall have justice — Yonder in the castle Bring your petition — Here is not the place.

ARMGARD: No, no I will not budge from out this place, Until the Gov’rnor hath returned my husband! Six months already lies he in the tower And waits the sentence of the judge in vain.

GESSLER: Woman, would you use force with me, away.

ARMGARD: I ask for justice, Gov’rner! Thou art judge I’ th’ country in the Emp’ror’s stead and God’s. Perform thy duty! As thou hop’st for justice Yourself from Heaven, so show it to us.

GESSLER: Hence, drive this brazen people from mine eyes.

ARMGARD (Seizes the reins of his horse.): No, no, there’s nothing more for me to lose. — Thou com’st not, Gov’rnor from this place, ‘til thou Hast rendered justice to me — Knit thy brows, And roll thine eyes, just as thou wilt — We are In such unbounded misery, that we Care not about thine anger —

GESSLER: Woman, hence, Or else my horse will trample over thee.

ARMGARD: So let it trample over me — there —

*(She pulls her children to the ground and throws herself with them in his way.) *

Here I lie With all my children — Let the wretched orphans Be trodden under by thy horses’ hooves, It will not be the worst, that thou hast done

RUDOLF DER HARRAS: Woman, are you mad?

ARMGARD (vehemently continuing): Thou hast for some time Trampled the Emperor’s land beneath thy feet! — O I am but a woman! Were I man, I would know something better, than to lie Here in the dust —

(He hears the previous music again upon the crest of the way, but muffled.)

GESSLER: Where are my servants? Have them carry her away from here, or I’ll Forget myself and do what I will rue.

RUDOLF DER HARRAS: The servants can not pass therethrough, O Lord, The hollow way is blocked up by a marriage.

GESSLER: An all too gentle ruler am I to This people still — their tongues are still. too free, They have not yet been tamed, as they should be — Yet this shall all be changed, I promise it, I will yet break this stubborn mood of theirs, The brazen spirit of freedom I will bend. Throughout these canton lands I’ll promulgate A new decree — I will —

(An arrow pierces through him, he puts his hand on his heart and starts to fall. With feeble voice.)

God grant me mercy!

RUDOLF DER HARRAS: Lord God what is this? Whither came it?

ARMGARD (starting up): Murder! Murder! He totters, sinks! He’s hit!

The arrow’s hit the center of his heart!

RUDOLF DER HARRAS (springs from his horse): What horrible occurrence — God — Lord knight — Call on the mercy of your God — For you Are now a man of death —

GESSLER: That is Tell’s shot

(Is slid down from his horse into the arms of RUDOLF DER HARRAS and is laid upon the bench.)

TELL (appears above on the top of the rocks): Thou ken’st the archer, seek not for another! Free are our huts, the innocent are safe ‘Fore thee, thou wilt no longer harm the land.

(Disappears from the heights.)

(People rush in.)

STUSSI (in front): What is the matter? What hath happened here?

ARMGARD: The Gov’rnor hath been shot through by an arrow.

PEOPLE (rushing in): Who hath been shot?

(Meanwhile the foremost of the wedding train come on the stage, the hindmost are still on the heights, and the music continues.)

RUDOLF DER HARRAS: He’s bleeding fast to death. Go forth, get help! Pursue the murderer! — Unhappy man, so must it end with thee, And yet thou would’st not listen to my warning!

STUSSI: By God! here lies he pale and without life!

MANY VOICES: Who’s done the deed?

RUDOLF DER HARRAS: Hath madness seized these people, That they make music for a murder? Silence.

(Music suddenly breaks off, still more people come in.)

Lord Gov’rnor, speak now, if you can — Have you No more to trust to me?

(Gessler gives a sign with his hand, which he repeats with vehemence, when it is not understood at once.)

Where shall I go? — To Kussnacht? — I can’t understand you — O Be not impatient — Leave all thought of earth, Think now, to reconcile yourself with Heaven.

(The whole marriage party stands around the dying man with an unfeeling horror.)

STUSSI: Behold, how pale he grows — Now enters death Into his heart — his eyes have now grown dim.

ARMGARD (lifts up a child): See, children, how a maniac expires!

RUDOLF DER HARRAS: O insane women, have you then no feeling, That you must feast your eyes upon his horror? — Help — Lend your hand — Will no one stand by me, To draw the painful arrow from his breast?

WOMEN (step back): We touch the man, whom God himself hath struck!

RUDOLF DER HARRAS: Curse on you and damnation!

(Draws his sword.)

STUSSI (seizes him by the arm): Dare it, Lord! Your rule is at an end. The tyrant of The country is now fallen. We’ll endure No further violence. We are free men.

ALL (tumultuously): The land is free.

RUDOLF DER HARRAS: And is it come to this? Fear and obedience so quickly end? (To the men in arms, who are thronging in.) You see the horrifying act of murder, The which hath happened here help is in vain — ‘Tis useless, to pursue the murderer. We’re pressed by other worries — On, to Kussnacht, That we may save the Emp’ror’s fortresses! For in this moment are dissolved alike All bonds of order and all ties of duty, And no man’s loyalty is to be trusted.

(Whilst he exits with the men in arms, six BROTHERS OF MERCY appear.)

ARMGARD: Make room! Make room! Here come the Brothers o’ Mercy.

STUSSI: The victim lies — The ravens now descend.

BROTHERS OF MERCY (form a half-circle around the dead man and sing in deep tones): With hasty step death comes to man, It hath no respite to him given, It strikes him midway in his span, Forth from life’s fullness is he driven, If he’s prepared or not, to die, He must stand ‘fore his Judge on high!

(Whilst the last lines are repeated, the curtain falls.)

—Friedrich von Schiller (1805): Wilhelm Tell, translated by William F. Wertz, Jr.

Thus always to tyrants. Beware the State; celebrate the Ides of March!

Past celebrations

Resistance is futile (posted 5 April 2006)

Here’s the latest communiqué from 14th of 32, sometimes known as Representative Ron Paul:

In the immortal words of Locutus of Borg, ...

Freedom is irrelevant. Assimilation is inevitable.

The recent immigration protests in Los Angeles have brought the issue to the forefront, provoking strong reactions from millions of Americans. The protesters’ cause of open borders is not well served when they drape themselves in Mexican flags and chant slogans in Spanish. If anything, their protests underscore the Balkanization of America caused by widespread illegal immigration. How much longer can we maintain huge unassimilated subgroups within America, filled with millions of people who don’t speak English or participate fully in American life?

—14th of 32 (2006-04-04): The Immigration Question

Clearly, therefore, we need to keep shooting immigrants, mercilessly and unrelentingly:

We must reject amnesty for illegal immigrants in any form. We cannot continue to reward lawbreakers and expect things to get better. If we reward millions who came here illegally, surely millions more will follow suit. Ten years from now we will be in the same position, with a whole new generation of lawbreakers seeking amnesty. … We need to allocate far more resources, both in terms of money and manpower, to securing our borders and coastlines here at home. This is the most critical task before us, both in terms of immigration problems and the threat of foreign terrorists. Unless and until we secure our borders, illegal immigration and the problems associated with it will only increase.

—14th of 32 (2006-04-04): The Immigration Question

And also to ensure that everybody (except, of course, for Americans) has to go through years of paperwork and long waits to earn precious American citizenship. Just, you know, to be fair:

Amnesty also insults legal immigrants, who face years of paperwork and long waits to earn precious American citizenship.

—14th of 32 (2006-04-04): The Immigration Question

It’s a good thing that there are principled libertarian lawmakers like Ron Paul to stand up against the right of landowners to invite Mexicans onto their property without a permission slip from the government, and to demand that laws for discriminating against workers or tenants on the basis of nationality be respected.

I mean, Jesus, if we don’t keep shooting immigrants who won’t assimilate, we might actually end up with more than one language commonly spoken in this country. ¡Que desastre! You don’t want to end up like Switzerland, do you?

Patents kill, part II (posted 20 October 2005)

I said it before, and I’ll say it again: patents kill people.

In contrast to previous flu pandemics in 1918, 1957 and 1968, the world now has an armoury of antiviral drugs to help contain an outbreak, if the H5N1 virus circulating in birds mutates and starts to spread easily between people.

Yet Switzerland’s Roche Holding AG <ROG.VX>, which makes the best of the products, Tamiflu, finds itself on the defensive as critics demand it allow production of generic versions, in a row echoing past patent controversies over AIDS.

Patents will not stand in the way of producing the drug for mankind, the company’s chief executive, Franz Humer, insisted in an interview with Reuters on Thursday.

But just how far his company will go in issuing licences to generic producers is not yet clear.

Roche says it can satisfy current levels of demand for a normal flu season and deliver on stockpiling orders it has received from governments around the world.

That is not good enough for the likes of U.S. Senator Charles Schumer, who called this week for the Swiss group to license production of Tamiflu to five U.S. drug companies within the next 30 days.

The World Health Organisation, meanwhile, says there are not nearly enough supplies of Tamiflu and other antivirals, such as GlaxoSmithKline Plc’s <GSK.L> less popular inhaled drug Relenza.

The drugs, while not a cure, reduce the severity of influenza and may slow the spread of a pandemic, which experts fear could kill millions.

Roche and the broader pharmaceuticals industry need to get the balance right between ensuring access to potentially life-saving treatments and protecting intellectual property rights that are essential for innovation.

—Reuters 2005-10-20: Drug industry tries to avert bird flu PR disaster

Now, mealy-mouthed moderate rhetoric about balance is extremely popular in the intllectual enclosure debate — both with the intellectual protectionists and with liberal reformers such as Larry Lessig. I think that’s a serious misstep by the would-be reformers—if you give an inch to the enclosure movement you’ve effectively conceded that they have a perfect right to take a mile. And this is the mad end of the balance rhetoric: once you concede that the intellectual enclosers have a legitimate proprietary interest in forcing other people not to peacefully trade in drugs matching their formula, you have given them the means to insist that we have to figure out the right balance between the violent protection of their monopoly and efficient production of antivirals that could halt a global pandemic in its tracks. But balances imply trade-offs; in this case, the trade-off between your life and monopoly profits for patent-holders.

To hell with that. This is not the time, the place, or the issue for moderation or for balance or for half-way liberal reformism. Compromise is an understandable political move, when considering the sort of legislation you’re willing to provisionally support; but in matters of life and death (and make no mistake, that’s what patent protectionism is) it is neither useful, nor desirable, nor intellectually legitimate. We are talking about grave and gathering threats to people’s lives here; can we get a little righteous indignation, please? Can we get a little principled radicalism instead of oh-so-moderate calls for balance?

The good news is that if you and a few million of your fellow citizens die in a global bird flu pandemic, you can rest assured that you will have caused a PR disaster for the intellectual protectionists. They apparently aren’t going to suffer any moral qualms if they consign millions, especially among the world’s most vulnerable people, to their deaths in the pursuit of monopoly profits. But it may be bad for their business image. I am sure this would comfort you. If not for the fact that you were dead.

Further reading

Struggle Over European Abortion Politics (posted 3 June 2002)

Yesterday the Beeb featured an online fact sheet compiled from an Alan Guttmacher Institute survey of the status of abortion across Europe. The survey is interesting, but paints an overly rosy picture of the status of reproductive choice in Europe.

With a few exceptions, nearly all the countries in the map are given green status for reproductive choice, meaning that abortion is permitted on request. However, this needs some serious qualifications. Countries which are counted as abortion on demand can still have extensive regulations and red tape banning abortions after a certain period of time, mandating waiting periods and government-specified counselling, and similar standard measures from the anti-choice Right’s toolbox for chipping away at access to abortion. By the standards of this survey, every one of the 50 United States counts as green—whether they rank as an A or an F in NARAL’s rankings of abortion access. The only way for a nation to not be counted as being in the most liberal category vis-a-vis abortion is to return to the state of affairs in the pre-Roe United States. For example, Greece has had on demand abortion laws for the first trimester since 1986, but illegal abortions remain prevalent because of lack of public awareness and extensive delays and red tape imposed by government regulations. Turkey is listed as on demand even though a woman must have the consent of her male partner to be able to legally obtain an abortion (!). Worse, Latvia is inexplicably listed as an on demand country, because abortions can be approved for any reason—never mind that every abortion in this liberalized state must be approved by a committee of bureaucrats.

Unfortunately, Alan Guttmacher Institute’s report, as most of their reports, is fundamentally a document on family planning rather than women’s right to choose. Just who holds the reins of power over a woman’s body is irrelevant in this survey; what is relevant is whether or not someone has the right to authorize an abortion. What they are talking about, all in all, is a doctor’s rights to perform abortions, not a woman’s rights to choose whether or not to have an abortion. To those of us who fight for abortion rights on the basis of pro-choice feminism, however, we have to worry just as much about the arbitrary veto power over a woman’s body that is given to a husband or a committee bureaucrat, as we do about blanket bans in countries such as Ireland or Malta.

However, while the report is overly rosy about the state of choice in Europe, not all is gloom and doom. There have been key victories across Europe, and many signs of hope:

  • France: in 2001, the French government liberalized abortion laws by extending the period of time in which a woman may have an abortion from 10 weeks of pregnancy to 12 weeks (this brings it up to the standard of the US, where Roe categorically protects the right to abortion in the first trimester).

  • Ireland: a referendum to tighten Ireland’s ban on abortion, which is already one of the harshest laws in Europe was narrowly defeated in spite of heavy lobbying by the Catholic Church and the ruling party in favor of the amendment. This was merely holding the line rather than an advance to take back choice, but the failure of slippery-slope anti-choice arguments, and the lopsided vote in urban districts (61% of Dublin voters rejected the amendment), augurs well for future progress in Ireland.

  • Poland: after the fall of Communism, the influence of the Catholic Church caused Poland to pass some of the toughest anti-abortion laws in Europe in the 1990s, and doctors in some hospitals began to use the anti-choice climate in the government to stonewall and illegally refuse some abortions which were still permitted under Polish law. However, the 2001 victory of the pro-choice Democratic Left Party (mostly former Communists) and the public debate over abortion may begin to roll back the tide of anti-abortion legislation in Poland.

  • Portugal: also saddled with intensely anti-choice laws, a referendum in 1998 only upheld Portugal’s present anti-abortion restrictions by the razor-thin margin of 51% to 49%. The President of Portugal, Jorge Sampaio, favors liberalizing abortion laws and has indicated he will work to hold another referendum on the issue.

  • Switzerland: Switzerland was also a member of the worst abortion laws in Europe club, until the the Swiss Parliament finally voted to legalize first trimester abortions in 2001. Right-wingers attempted to delay and possibly derail the passage of the law by forcing it to go to a referendum. However, the tactic failed: just yesterday, Swiss voters blew away Switzerland’s abortion restrictions in a landslide, with 82% rejecting an opposing referendum which would have made Switzerlands laws even tougher (banning abortions even in the case of rape), and 72% of Swiss voters supporting the decriminalization of abortion in the first trimester. The new law will go into effect in October.

  • The European Union: as EU legislation reduces border restrictions between European countries more and more, it is becoming harder and harder for anti-choice governments to control European women’s efforts to secure abortions. For example, despite Ireland’s blanket ban on abortions, nearly 7,000 Irish women receive abortions each year by crossing the Irish Sea to clinics in the UK. EU immigration protections prevent the Irish government from stopping these women from leaving the country.

  • The High Seas: Women on Waves, founded in May 1999 by Dutch clinician Rebecca Gomperts, sails to countries where abortion is illegal (in particular, Ireland) to provide legal counseling and reproductive health services while in port, and delivery of professional, safe, and legal abortion services offshore outside territorial waters.

The situation in Europe offers no room at all for complacency, but a lot of room for hopeful struggle. We will win this one if we fight for it.

For further reading:

Corporate Elites Meet & Greet, New York Times Makes Shit Up (posted 30 January 2002)

For the most part, the New York Times’ story on the World Economic Forum beginning its proceedings in New York is just a gooey report on the men who had the air of money and power hobnobbing inside the Waldorf-Astoria, … like the start of summer camp. Now I really wonder if this sort of fluff reporting on a serious conference of the global economic and political elite is necessary. But, more to the point, the Times has decided to creatively reinvent history:

That has not prevented critics from painting the Forum in the darkest colors. The World Economic Forum will celebrate war in Afghanistan and the Middle East, attacks on civil liberties, and corporate tax cuts, proclaimed a group called A.N.S.W.E.R. (Act Now to Stop War and End Racism) in its call for demonstrations which will get under way in earnest with marches on Saturday.

At the New York W.E.F. summit, the world’s richest C.E.O.s will collaborate with the world’s most powerful politicians to set the global economic agenda, declared another group, Students for Global Justice.

Whether the protests reach the violence of last year’s meeting in Davos remains to be seen. Some of the opposition groups acknowledge that a clash with New York’s finest in the aftermath of Sept. 11 would not sit well with the public.

Now, it’s a bit irresponsible to spending only two dismissive paragraphs on the fact that there are, in fact, people who have serious problems with what goes at the WEF, while spending the rest of the front-page story gushing about how elite and idealistic it all is (for more responsible coverage, I suggest the Times’ recent in-depth article on anarchism, buried in the New York Region section). What concerns me a bit more, however, is that they are simply making shit up when they say that the protests at Davos last year had any violence to be reached.

In reality, last year’s protests in Davos featured 250 activists staging a peaceful march. In 2000, the worst violence was a few windows being broken at a McDonald’s. In 2001, the worst violence was snowballs being tossed at police barricades.

Well, I should take that back. There was violence at the 2001 protest. See, the Davos local authorities decided to ban any exercise of the right to peaceful public assembly, so protestors were met by over 1,000 Swiss security agents armed with batons and tear gas guns. The demonstrators’ peaceful march was turned back with police barricades and water cannons. But this isn’t exactly the sort of violence that the Times story was claiming had happened.

This is, unfortunately, part of a general press smear campaign against the globalization movement, which has invented protestor violence out of thin air in protests in Seattle, DC, Los Angeles, and Philadelphia… at all of these there was plenty of police violence against demonstrators but the virtually none initiated by protestors. In Seattle and DC, heavy tear gas bombardments were used; in Los Angeles I watched mounted cops stage dragoon attacks with batons on protestors who had done nothing other than run away from rampaging peace officers. And yet the New York Daily News compared protestors to the terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center and threatened them, You have a right to free speech, but try to disrupt this town, and you’ll get your anti-globalization butts kicked. Capish?

Sidebar: I’ve noticed that they’ve been awfully cagey about just how many women are at the invite-only WEF meeting; one article lumped in women amidst everyone else in the overwhelming minority at the WEF (third world leaders, human rights activists, union leaders, etc.). The Times’ editorial column said it was some 3,000 Davos Men, and a sprinkling of Davos Women. For all their apologia, it’s really hard to shade just how reactionary in constitution their Good Ol’ Boys meeting is.

For further reading