Life, Love, and Liberty

Antiwar.com is a superb resource for keeping up with news on the war and peace front. Recently, a news story showed that an immensely destructive trend was continuing.

The increase comes as the U.S. Marine Corps is preparing to order thousands of its troops to active duty in the first involuntary recall since the early days of the war.

No more than 2,500 Marines will be recalled at any one time, but there is no cap on the total number who may be forced back into service in the coming years as the military helps fight the war on terror. The call-ups will begin in the next few months, and most of the Marines are expected to serve in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Involuntary military service or any kind of forced labor is slavery. For wars allegely conducted in defense of “freedom”, a lot of liberty destroying measures are employed to wage them. A widespread draft hasn’t hit yet but these backdoor measures don’t point in a positive direction. If conscription comes to pass than activists should be prepared to work against it. Public opinion will hopefully serve as a deterrent from this happening.

Not much of a general movie review but a discussion on a particular comment made in the film. For a good general review, check out this one by James Garfield.

AK Press has done a great service in reissuing this documentary for our viewing pleasure. Its strongest suit is the immense variety of footage from protests to interviews with famous radical figures. Particularly interesting are the multiple scenes with late anarchist Karl Hess. The parallels he makes between political figures or factions seen as separate are intriguing. In discussing his post-Republican study of the American anarchists, he makes two provocative comparisons involving Emma Goldman. She is said to embody what Hess thought the Republicans always stood for and the best of Ayn Rand with a better appreciation of the social aspects of existence. On the surface, this connection between socialist Goldman and capitalist Rand seems off yet is actually quite sensible upon deeper examination. Both were controversial female writers who display individualist themes in their work. Rand portrays independent heroines in both We the Living and Atlas Shrugged. In We the Living, the female protagonist Kira defies the norms of her family by vowing to become an engineer.

“But Kira! What will you do?” Maria Petrovona gasped.
“I’ll be an engineer.”
“Frankly,” said Victor, annoyed, “I do not believe that engineering is a profession for women.”
Pg.33, Signet edition 1959

This theme of a woman wanting to do what’s traditionally considered a man’s job reappears in Atlas Shrugged with railroad titan Dagny Taggert. Goldman’s individualist streak was evident in her attraction to Friedrich Nietzsche and Max Stirner. Her pamphlet The Individual, Society, and the State contains tributes to individualism like the following.

The individual is the true reality in life. A cosmos in himself, he does not exist for the State, nor for that abstraction called “society,” or the “nation,” which is only a collection of individuals. Man, the individual, has always been and, necessarily is the sole source and motive power of evolution and progress. Civilization has been a continuous struggle of the individual or of groups of individuals against the State and even against “society,” that is, against the majority subdued and hypnotized by the State and State worship.

One of her contributions to treating women as free individuals included promotion of birth control despite legal restrictions.

Brad Spangler lets us know that a Movement of the Libertarian Left activism oriented site has gone public.

I previously mentioned that I’d have a couple of new projects to announce soon. The first of those announcements is the welcome message at a new MLL activism oriented site I’ve put together — MLL Online. There are still some rough edges and it is meant to supplement rather than replace the Left Libertarian Yahoo! Group (an indispensable resource).

Give it a look!

Credit to Brad Spangler for tagging me with a literary meme. Being a voracious reader, providing some answers would be a pleasure.

One book that changed your life.
William Blum’s history of U.S. foreign policy titled Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War 2 opened my eyes to crimes committed by the American state in the international arena.

-One book that you have read more than once.
Joseph Heller’s classic Catch-22.

-One book that you would want on a desert island.
Mikhail Tal’s famous autobiography The Life and Games of Mikhail Tal.

-One book that made you laugh.
Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris.

-One book that made you cry.
Still waiting for the right one to come along.

-One book you wish had been written.
Samuel Edward Konkin’s intended masterpiece “Agorism“.

-One book you wish never had been written.
Anything by Ann Coulter.

-One book you are currently reading.
Ceremonial Chemistry: The Ritual Persecution of Drugs, Addicts, and Pushers by Thomas Szasz.

-One book you have been meaning to read.
Good News by Edward Abbey.

-Now tag five people

Arthur Silber

Chris Matthew Sciabarra

Lady Aster

Jake Freeman

Sheldon Richman

Just wanted to thank Lady Aster for listing me under her favorite links. I encourage others to check out her blog since she writes some very interesting pieces. Especially give the following a look:

For Her Own Good

Not Your Kind of World

Advice on Fighting Criminalisations