Here’s to a Shameless 2011!

Again, it’s been a while, so let’s make this a good one.

Round here, the past few weeks have mostly been about taking stock, cleaning up, and preparing. I’ve got talks coming up in February and March (more on which, soon), new work to start on for the new year, and some outstanding obligations that I need to get on top of and get cleared out. I have an article on Tucker’s Four Monopolies which is in the works; I’ve also been chasing a couple of fascinating rabbit-holes — like the seven days or so that this 3 character correction to Wikipedia has led me to spend digging through archives, gathering sources, and putting up new material online. (For a quick overview of some of the results, see the gradually accumulating collection of information at From the Margins: C. L. James and at the Fair Use Blog. James — who was tirelessly prolific and incredibly erudite — was once an intellecutal heavy in the movement; but he’s now almost entirely forgotten, by both Anarchists and the mainstream. But he deserves better than that; and if the Internet is good for anything, it is good platform for some diligent un-forgetting of marginalized figures. If any of y’all, or anyone you know, has good access to archives of the Alarm, by the way, be sure to let me know. I am informed that James wrote some labor-songs for the Knights of Labor, and I’m avidly seeking the chance to find some samples.)

And you? You know the deal. What have you been up to since the New Year? Write anything? Leave a link and a short description for your post in the comments. Or fire away about anything else you might want to talk about.

• Bureaucrats Keep Us Safe? The Freeman | Ideas On Liberty (2011-01-19). The State Vs. Feeding the Homeless (Cont’d) (Linked Wednesday 2011-01-19.)

• The Hillary Revolution. Jesse Walker, Jesse Walker: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2011-01-18). Brendan O'Neill makes a good point about Tunisia: Western governments…helped to keep Ben Ali in power for 23 years. Cheered as a loyal ally in Africa, a keen supporter of the !!!@@e2;20ac;2dc;war on terror', Tunisia under Ben Ali was backed by both Washington and Paris (the former colonial power). Ben… (Linked Wednesday 2011-01-19.)

• Being Smart With Your Smartphone, Police Search Edition. Brian Doherty, Brian Doherty: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2011-01-19). Ryan Radia of the Competitive Enterprise Institute has a thorough explanation over at Ars Technica of the current state of the law and technology when it comes to police searching your phones when they've arrested you. Some highlights: Last week, California's Supreme Court reached a controversial 5-2 decision in People v…. (Linked Wednesday 2011-01-19.)

• Why am I so mean? Stephen Smith, Market Urbanism (2011-01-17). In the past week I've been asked twice why, essentially, I have to be so mean: Steven [sic!], I'm struck by how well you couple true insight with meaningless insults that undermine your credibility to those who don't share your point of view. Stephen– I like your work here quite… (Linked Wednesday 2011-01-19.)

• Sexting Prosecutor Wants Immunity. Radley Balko, Radley Balko: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2011-01-18). You have to at least admire his chutzpah. The former Wisconsin district attorney who resigned amid a sexting scandal says he's immune from a lawsuit filed by a crime victim who claims she was sexually harassed by him. Ken Kratz says he was a public official at the time of… (Linked Wednesday 2011-01-19.)

(Via Sheldon Richman.)

From Zachary A. Goldfarb’s recent article for the Washington Post (2010-12-30) on that Left-wing radical Obama and his revolutionary socialist administration:

The president's recently departed budget director is joining Citigroup.

The New York Federal Reserve Bank's derivatives expert is joining Goldman Sachs.

And numerous investigators from the Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission are joining Wall Street's top law firms.

The vast overhaul of financial regulations and the renewed intensity of investigations into white-collar crime has been a boon for regulators, prosecutors and financial policymakers looking to cash in on their government experience and contacts.

In recent months, prominent officials from the White House, Justice Department, SEC, banking regulators and other agencies, both federal and state, have been walking through the proverbial revolving door to join Goldman, Citi, other financial companies and top law firms in Washington and New York.

— Zachary A. Goldfarb (2010-12-30), Regulators are finding opportunities at firms looking for government experience, in the Washington Post

You might think that I am going to say that all this poses a conflict of interest for the regulators. (Certainly, that’s how the Washington Post puts it.) But I’m not going to say that. That’s the conventional way of talking about it, when it comes up, but the conventional way of talking about it is nonsense. There is no conflict, unless you believe some very unrealistic things about the interests of government (even a progressive government) and its politically-appointed regulators.

I don’t: there is no conflict; they were already all in this together. This is nothing more than business- and politics-as-usual, and the state-capitalist system is functioning exactly as designed.

See also:

• GT 2008-03-19: Small enough to fail

From Tom H. Hastings, The Invisible King, at truthout (2011-01-17):

You watch. Over the weekend and on Monday, the Hallmarked memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. will be sanitized and blackwashed until he is no more than a sentimental husk hoping that little children of all races will one day be able to play together. Then you’ll see shots of just that, as if to indicate, “Well, thanks, that’s all done, nice historical figure. Bye.” One of these years, they will probably launch the USS Martin Luther King Jr., a spanking new destroyer, or perhaps they will name a class of drone aircraft the “MLK Ground Dominators.”

But I am sure that if Dr. King were alive today, he would agree with all of my political objectives, including especially the most violent parts of my foreign policy agenda and all of my most accommodating moral compromises with the political status quo.

As a historical note on the rest of the article, King, SNCC, and other activists in the Freedom Movement certainly innovated and developed the understanding of nonviolent resistance beyond what Gandhi had done. But I don’t think it’s quite fair to Gandhi to say that he volunteered to help the British or stood aside without objection during Britain’s wars. Perhaps this is a fair summary of his attitude toward the Boer War, the Bambatha uprising, and World War I. But Gandhi’s thought was evolving throughout his life, too, and he later said that it was what he saw during the Bambatha war that really brought home the horrors of war and the need for a different approach. It is, in any case, not at all an accurate description of Gandhi’s attitude during World War II. It was in the midst of World War II that he drafted the Quit India resolution and called for non-cooperation with the British war effort. He also routinely criticized the Allied war effort as trying to defeat the Nazis by becoming as ruthless as they were. As a result, he spent 1942-1944 in prison, along with most of the rest of the Indian National Congress leadership, specifically for criticizing and calling for resistance against the War.

• The Eurie Stamps Investigation Goes Into Lockdown. Radley Balko, Radley Balko: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2011-01-17). Last week, Framingham, Massachusetts, District Court Judge Douglas Stoddart imposed a seal on the search warrants and return sheets for the raid in which police shot and killed 68-year-old Eurie Stamps. Stamps wasn't a suspect in the drug raid, and he was unarmed when he was shot. By impounding the… (Linked Tuesday 2011-01-18.)

• Poet Who Fought Femicide in Juarez Becomes Latest Victim – New America Media. newamericamedia.org (2011-01-18). Ni una más. (Linked Tuesday 2011-01-18.)

• Some drugs are more equal than others. Thoreau, Unqualified Offerings (2011-01-13). By Thoreau As a helpful guide to our readers, I have prepared a detailed classification scheme for illegal drugs: Class Ia:  The drugs that you used when you were young and wild.  Not as potent as today's drugs, and nothing to get judgmental about.  Sometimes worth getting a bit nostalgic… (Linked Tuesday 2011-01-18.)