• Sustainable counter-media — Radix Media on Kickstarter. Shawn P. Wilbur, Out of the Libertarian Labyrinth (2010-11-14). Radix Media, a Portland-based radical offset printing and design operation, has launched a modest $5000 Kickstarter campaign, to upgrade their presses and invest in booklet-making equipment. They describe the project as representing the difference between continuing the project, and making it sustainable. Sustainable operation is the goal that so few… (Linked Tuesday 2010-11-16.)

• WillUsingThePrefixCyberMakeMeLookLikeAnIdiot.com. willusingtheprefixcybermakemelooklikeanidiot.com (2010-11-16). (Linked Tuesday 2010-11-16.)

• The Robber Barons. Sheldon Richman, Free Association (2010-11-07). I’m finally reading Matthew Josephson’s The Robber Barons, a book I never felt I needed to read. That was a bad decision. I’m only a couple of chapters in, but I can tell this is a book worth reading because it will shed some needed light on the alleged golden… (Linked Tuesday 2010-11-16.)

• Show Us on the Airline Passenger Where He Touched You. cherylcline, der Blaustrumpf (2010-11-16). I've been meaning to write about the parallels between state violence and sexual violence for some time, but it's really something to see the two overlap so neatly as they do with the newly introduced TSA backscatter x-ray machines.  In case you're unfamiliar with them, the machines are capable of… (Linked Wednesday 2010-11-17.)

• Lifelong Welfare Case to Hold Lavish Wedding at Public Expense. Jesse Walker, Jesse Walker: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2010-11-16). Details here. (Linked Wednesday 2010-11-17.)

I think we have a winner.

It’s a bit early to call it, especially in such a competitive field, but right now I am really leaning towards this contribution from David Brooks:

He'd do it because this is the beating center of American life — the place where the trajectory of American politics is being determined.

— David Brooks, Midwest at Dusk, New York Times (November 4, 2010)

Keep in mind what an impressive achievement is just to be the stupidest sentence in a single Op-Ed column by a commentator who apparently cannot find the Midwest U.S. on a map.^[1] But while most of the column is just dumb, the notion that the beating center of American life is simply identical with, or even has a good goddamn to do with, the trajectory of American politics (meaning the state-by-state results of seasonal U.S. elections) or whether or not the U.S. will remain a predominant power (!) is not only stupid, but immensely narrow-minded and pernicious, and a pretty good one-sentence illustration of everything that is wrong with David Brooks, as a commentator and as a human being.

(Via William Easterly, via Jesse Walker 2010-11-05.)

See also:

• GT 2010-10-06: Team sport

1. ^[1]… that region of America that starts in central New York and Pennsylvania and then stretches out through Ohio and Indiana before spreading out to include Wisconsin and Arkansas. Dude, really?↩

The Rally to Elevate Tone of Voice Over Substance. On ALLiance (2010-11-16):

So Jon Stewart had his rally the other day. From what I can tell, it was a great promotional event for his TV show and a great party for a lot of college-educated people. Don't get me wrong; I love Jon Stewart, love the Daily Show, and I love the…

As Jeremy puts it: “I suppose only a loudmouth boor would point out that these policies kill, maim, imprison, plunder, and deceive people everyday – but really, we should keep our voices down! For the country!”

The problem with the National Discourse is not extremism or severity, but thoughtlessness, and the Discourse is thoughtless because it has been Nationalized — i.e., corralled by the limits of state policy and electoral politics, and subordinated to the ends of a thoughtless power-play between entrenched political parties. Thoughtlessness can take the form of blowhard shouting; or it can take the form of blowhard mealy-mouthed “moderation” and compromise for the sake of political comity. The last is, right now, the primary rhetorical function of liberal discourse — to portentiously utter conventional wisdom, half-hearted excuses, and Beltway political nostrums, in Sensible, modulated tones, so as to establish a perimeter of acceptable opinion which falls roughly within the range of opinions among Barack Obama’s political advisors, with Sarah Palin or John Boehner as the only recognized outliers.

Fuck that noise. Real thoughtfulness means principled thoughts, and having principled thoughts means being willing to accept, and insist on, radical thoughts when they are called for. Hopelessly confused moderation is simply the political etiquette of the status quo, and a dare-I-say immensely privileged refusal to seriously confront the problem of the entrenched power and daily violence of the endlessly self-excusing corporate liberal state. Radical thoughtfulness has no special reason to accept those excuses or defer to the conventional idiocy that limns the boundaries of political liberal and political conservative discourse alike. The only way out is a discourse that is not nationalized, but humanized; and human discourse requires some real talk about what the imperial state — its armies, its wars, its laws, its police, its checkpoints, its borders, its political lies — is doing to real people every single day in their real lives, while bellowing blowhards argue about Reviews of Strategy, Comprehensive Reform, Border Security, Economic Recovery, National Security, National Priorities, and the rest of the utterly dehumanized talking-point discourse that characterizes politics in all of its nationalized forms. Sometimes that will look like rudeness. Sometimes it will involve calling a politician a liar — and a killer to boot. And all for the better: who are these assholes, that they would deserve anything more polite? Radical thoughtfulness requires, above all else, a will to honesty. And honestly, the truth right now isn’t very pretty.

• feministhulk: HULK NOT NEED MASTER’S TOOLS TO DISMANTLE MASTER’S HOUSE! RIP OFF BOARDS W/ BIG GREEN FISTS, USE FOR ACCESSIBILITY RAMPS. Twitter / feministhulk (2010-11-11). feministhulk: HULK NOT NEED MASTER’S TOOLS TO DISMANTLE MASTER’S HOUSE! RIP OFF BOARDS W/ BIG GREEN FISTS, USE FOR ACCESSIBILITY RAMPS. (Linked Sunday 2010-11-14.)

• Event: !!!@@e2;20ac;2dc;The Production of Security' justino, DFW Alliance of the Libertarian Left (2010-11-09). What: A long-time of associate of Frederic Bastiat, Gustave De Molinari (1819-1912) was a fellow classical liberal from the French school of economics that was the predominant "laissez-faire" thought of the time. Molinari's The Production of Security (1849) was the first full-length work to propose the previously unexamined topic of… (Linked Sunday 2010-11-14.)

• On the Day of Mehserle's Sentencing: A Feminist Vow. kloncke, flip flopping joy (2010-11-07). hey y'all, it's such an honor to offer this cross-posted piece (originally on my blog, Kloncke,) in the webspace of a thinker, writer, and creator who's most inspired me in my own artistic/political practice.  and in a community that continues to hearten and amaze me.  thanks bfp, maia, blackamazon, Wheelchair… (Linked Tuesday 2010-11-09.)