Rad Geek People's Daily

So I’m happy to say that Markets Not Capitalism is now available for sale on the shelves of my favorite bookstore, The Gnu’s Room, here in Auburn. The Gnu’s Room has also very generously agreed to host a local author reading / discussion / book-signing / market anarchist hootenanny this Wednesday, November 30^th. I’ll be there to do a brief talk and a reading; and Roderick Long will be there to do much the same. Books will be sold, books will be signed, discussion to be had, caffeine to be consumed. Come on down! Invite yr friends!

Here’s the schedule:

Here’s the event description from The Gnu’s Room:

Co-Editor Charles Johnson and major contributor Roderick Long to the book Markets Not Capitalism (2011) will be at The Gnu's Room for a discussion of the topics addressed in the book. The economic crisis needs fresh new responses, which emphasize the ways in which poverty and economic inequality have resulted from collusion between government and big business, which has enriched a few corporate giants at the expense of the rest of us. Rather than turning back to politics, the authors argue that working people must begin to free themselves of the mistakes of the past, and work together to take back control over their own lives and livelihoods through individual freedom, mutual exchange, and nonviolent grassroots social activism.

A real headline and byline from a Sunday Review in last month’s New York Times:

For once, Thomas L. Friedman’s automated Thoroughly Conventional Opinion Generator actually spits out a question we’ve all been asking, from time to time.

(Via @notjessewalker, who actually is Jesse Walker.)

Mic check.

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Here’s a recent letter I wrote to the OA News in reply to the unpleasant Good Morning I got a couple weeks ago from their Oct. 10, 2011 isssue. When I picked up the morning paper, I was greeted with the following big-bold-black-letter headline on the top story:

ILLEGALS FEAR KIDS WILL BE STRANDED.

Well, that’s a fine how-do-you-do. The headline, racist-ass slur and all, was actually what the OA News chose to introduce this really heartbreaking AP story, which is actually a very important story about real human beings and their families, not bullshit ethno-legal statuses — and the human suffering that the state government’s recent apartheid bill^[1] is causing — the kind of suffering that dehumanizing and authoritarian slurs like Illegals serves systematically to distract from and obliterate. Anyway, I would have put this up sooner, but publishing schedules at the Opelika-Auburn News Opinion/Letters page seem to have been a bit chaotic over the past few weeks; however, my guess is that at this point they are not likely to include the letter. They did include another letter on the same topic.

10 October 2011

Editor, Opelika-Auburn News:

I read the top story in Monday's OA News ("Illegals fear kids will be stranded," 10/10/2011) with mixed feelings. I'm glad you chose to highlight this important, heart-breaking issue. No child should be separated from her parents over a piece of government paper, and no parent should have to live with the fear that any traffic stop or chance encounter with police could separate them from their children. Political borders are not worth tearing apart families or throwing children into terrifying emergencies. When Scott Beason says "such concerns weren't raised when legislators were considering the bill," I'm sure he is telling the truth – I don't doubt he never stopped to ask how his sadistic "Papers, Please" law might affect undocumented families, or their children. And I don't doubt his colleagues in the state-house didn't think to mention it to him. But their short-sightedness is a shame on them. It's not a reason to act as if the problem does not exist.

However, while I think this is an vital issue for the OA News to discuss, I was saddened, and embarrassed, to see the top headline in my hometown paper refer to human beings with the dehumanizing and racially-charged slur "Illegals." Actions may be legal or illegal, but people are not. Call them immigrants, undocumented families, parents without papers, our coworkers and neighbors. But they are not "illegals." The i-word reduces human beings to their political status, and silences the real issues in the debate – whether existing immigration laws are even remotely fair or just in the first place. The i-word is offensive and divisive, and doesn't belong in a newspaper headline any more than the n-word or any other ethnic slur. No human being is illegal.

Sincerely,
etc.

I wasn’t able to get it in the original draft of the letter — because of a 300-word limit — but now that I’m under no such constraints of length, I will also add that I’d hoped to close off the letter with a rhetorical question, wondering whether the OA News would publish a story with a headline describing the SNCC students as Illegal Customers or Harriet Tubman as an Illegal Freedwoman.

If you’re interested in asking them the same, or letting them know how you feel about racist-ass slurs in headlines, you can get in touch with the editor at:

Letters to the Editor
Opelika-Auburn News
P.O. Drawer 2208
Opelika, AL 36803

Or by e-mail to the Op-Ed page editor at jmcadory@oanow.com.^[2]

See also.

• GT 2006-09-04: Freedom Movement Celebrity Deathmatch
• GT 2007-12-17: International Apartheid in Roswell

1. ^[1]Cf. GT 2007-12-17: International Apartheid in Roswell↩
2. ^[2]Please keep in mind that the editor reading these letters is the op-ed page editor, not — as far as I know — the person who chose the front-page headline.↩

Mic check.

You know the deal. Join us here. What have you been up to this week? 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.