Life, Love, and Liberty

Comrades: Two Important Messages

Natasha — Fri, 09 May 2008 19:45:50 +0000

LabourStart informed me of two important things today.

And I quote:

ZIMBABWE: UNION LEADERS ARRESTED

Unions around the world are condemning the arrests yesterday of Lovemore Motombo and Wellington Chibebe, respectively President and General Secretary of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU). The two trade union leaders were charged with “inciting people to rise against the government and reporting falsehoods about people being killed” in speeches given on May Day.

The International Trade Union Confederation’s statement is here:

http://www.ituc-csi.org/spip.php?article2107

The IUF is calling for messages of protest to be sent to the Mugabe regime:

http://www.iuf.org/den5018

And the Education International is concerned about rising violence directed against teachers in Zimbabwe, noting that many teachers in rural areas are being killed, maimed, tortured and abused. Read more here:

http://www.ei-ie.org/en/news/show.php?id=771&theme=rights&country=zimbabwe

I haven’t been following the recent events in Zimbabwe, but I know a repressive action when I see one. And these arrests are most definitely a cause for concern. I urge people to investigate the incidents.

You should also consider this message:

BURMA: UNIONS APPEAL FOR HELP FOLLOWING CYCLONE

Unions have begun to raise money to support the Burmese people following the catastrophic cyclone which hit the country several days ago. Here are links you can follow to donate in your country.

USA:
http://blog.aflcio.org/2008/05/06/help-provide-relief-to-burmese-workers/

UK:
http://www.tuc.org.uk/international/tuc-14740-f0.cfm

Australia:
http://www.apheda.org.au/news/1210217214_29405.html

If your national trade union center is raising money, let us know and we’ll publish the link on LabourStart.

Show these folks that mutual aid can work!

And Now: A Musical Interlude

Natasha — Fri, 09 May 2008 01:28:09 +0000

You might be tired of hearing about pain, death, and evil by now. And if you’re not, then there’s no need to worry. I’ll have plenty to say on those topics in the future.

In the meantime, you should go listen to the sweet sounds of The Jackson Five. My favorite song is “I Want You Back”.

This is Why I Am a Feminist

Natasha — Mon, 05 May 2008 04:04:51 +0000

The depraved thoughts of a defense attorney in Irvine, California provide a great lesson in misogyny and anti-sex puritanical attitudes. To quote Charles Johnson:

Last month, in Irvine, California, Officer David Alex Park, stalker and rapist, was acquitted by a jury of eleven men and one woman. He was acquitted, not because he is anything other than a stalker and a rapist—which he as much as admitted in open court, and which was proven well enough anyway by phone records, license plate requests, and DNA evidence. He was acquitted because he is a cop, and the woman that he harassed and sexually extorted danced at a strip club, and so the jury concluded that she made him do it, and besides, if she strips for a living, she must have been asking for it anyway.

You might think that I am exaggerating the defense’s position for polemical effect. No, I’m not. Here’s defense attorney Jim Stokke: She got what she wanted, … She’s an overtly sexual person. And in cross-examination of Lucy, the survivor: You do the dancing to get men to do what you what them to do, … And the same thing happened out there on that highway [in Laguna Beach]. You wanted [Park] to take some sex!

Let’s review what should be rather obvious points to any decent human being:

1. Women are not the property of men.

2. The expression of a woman’s sexuality is hers to make decisions about.

3. You should not act on the premise that a woman flaunting her sexuality is inviting anyone to lay coercive claim over her.

Is it really that hard to understand this?

Towards An Individualist Egoistic Therapy

Natasha — Fri, 25 Apr 2008 16:18:42 +0000

In reading this, I ask that people please understand the horror of what I went through. I was literally locked up, and at the mercy of doctors complicit in a psycharistic-state alliance. All I wanted was to go home, and I had to spend nearly all of a day waiting for them to approve my transfer to the hospital that my psycharistist is connected to. If I had not been working with him, then they may have held me for a longer period of time.

I’ve prefaced it with two quotes.

“The smallest minority on earth is the individual. Those who deny individual rights cannot claim to be defenders of minorities.”

~ Ayn Rand

“Of all social theories Anarchism alone steadfastly proclaims that society exists for man, not man for society. The sole legitimate purpose of society is to serve the needs and advance the aspiration of the individual. Only by doing so can it justify its existence and be an aid to progress and culture.

The political parties and men savagely scrambling for power will scorn me as hopelessly out of tune with our time. I cheerfully admit the charge. I find comfort in the assurance that their hysteria lacks enduring quality. Their hosanna is but of the hour.

Man’s yearning for liberation from all authority and power will never be soothed by their cracked song. Man’s quest for freedom from every shackle is eternal. It must and will go on.”

~ Emma Goldman

I now know the meaning of confinement much more acutely. I now know the state’s destructive power much more personally. And I have had my convictions against coercion and anti-individualist ethics strengthened.

There is no justification for a therapy based on guns — metaphorically, of course — and bondage. In the future, I refuse to deal with any therapist or social worker who refuses to renounce their monstrous “right” to have me civilly committed. Whether they know it or not, they are my enemies. They are the people who accept the fundamental ideas that are destroying America and other parts of the world. They prop up the legitimacy of the creeds of morally mandatory self-sacrifice, the nationalization of human beings, and the exercise of coercive domination in the name of benevolence and charity.

Don’t you see the connection between the mentality that can justify the military draft, and the mentality that can justify coercive commitment? Both of them are based on the fundamental conceptual premise that man does not belong to him or herself, but to the society that he or she happens to live in. And it doesn’t change a damn thing when you dress it up in the language of helping the person being coerced. There is no equal power balance between the psycharistist and the person on the receiving end, so the talk of consent is all a sham. Most likely designed to help monsters sleep at night.

And they are monsters. Never forget it, and don’t let a Christian sense of “love thy neighbor” make you feel guilt for being profoundly angry at them.

In light of what they help make possible, they have earned it. And the path forward for the world is away from their anti-individualist ethics. The world needs an intellectual revolution in favor of the supremacy of individual rights and individual thought. The friend of liberty and individual rights is simultaneously the foe of the racially motivated lynch mob, the tyrannical employer who mandates intrusive drug testing, and the vice cop who helps destroy the life of a sex worker. And this promotion of individual self-determination should make no distinctions between private or public tyranny.

When the peoples of the world become consistent friends of liberty, then I will dance and make merry, until I can do so no more. Please consider joining us today! Not for my sake, but for your own.

(I threw in that point about opposing both private and public tyranny, because I want the libertarians to see that the oppression of employees by private employers should be met by us with a demand for social justice. In other words: the libertarian philosophy should be connected to a wider philosophical totality concerned with individual self-realization, rather than just starting from the premise that the state must be opposed)

Where I’ve Been and What’s to Come

Natasha — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 01:45:59 +0000

Well, my updates haven’t been daily lately — and I didn’t have enough quotes to keep up the quote of the day feature. I do want to get back to that eventually, but I’ve been suffering a major depression. I even had a suicide attempt that got me involuntarily confined to a mental hospital for a good part of a day.

Needless to say, I wasn’t very pleased. I’ll have a beautiful and passionate denunciation of involuntary commitment written soon. I am hoping it will make me feel happier, because I absolutely adore passionate writing!

Spreading the Anti-Drug War Message

Natasha — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 16:50:58 +0000

Alix Lakehurst of Chicago was kind enough to quote me in one of her recent posts.

Thanks! Alix.

By the way, I’ll be revising and potentially expanding my comment on there in a future post.

Sex Worker Outreach Project Writing in the Works

Natasha — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 01:35:20 +0000

Tell me what you think, folks! It’s not done yet, but I am looking to finish it sometime this weekend or next week.

Sex workers face violence from multiple directions. They not only end up dealing with abusive clients, but they also have to worry about the violence of the state being brought to bear against them. Every year, the violence against sex workers is spoken out against, and this year was no different. The annual International Day to End Violence Against Sex Workers took place last December 17^th. This report was written to bring you the scoop on what went down last year.

First off, I want to thank all the following organizations for being sponsors. The respective groups were:

SWOP (Sex Workers Outreach Project)
Desiree Alliance
SWANK (Sex Workers Action New York)
Scarlet Alliance
Stella
ESPU (Erotic Service Provider’s Union)
SWIRL (Sex Worker’s Internet Radio Lounge)
Spread
PONY (Prostitutes of New York)
Venus Envy
Charis
Star Light Ministries
Lady Monster
SWAN (Sex Worker’s Advocacy Network)

SWAN is a coalition of groups from Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and Central Asia. It includes:

Aksion Plus, Albania, www.aksionplus.net
HESED, Bulgaria, www.hesed.bg
Bliss Without Risk, Czech Republic, http://www.rozkosbezrizika.cz/01_htm/100_ENGLISH.htm
MPEE, Hungary, www.prostitualtak.hu
Kovcheg, Kazakhstan, fsz@mail.ru
Tais Plus, Kyrgyzstan, gkurmanova@yandex.ru
Dia+Logos, Latvia, dialogs@diacentrs.lv
I Can Live, Lithuania, www.galiugyventi.lt
HOPS, Macedonia, www.hops.org.mk
Tada, Poland, www.tada.pl
ARAS-Romanian Association Against AIDS, Romania, www.arasnet.ro
Humanitarian Action, Russia, www.humanitarianaction.org
Siberian Initiative, Russia, http://www.sibin.ru
Jazas. Serbia, www.jazas.net
Odyseus, Slovakia, www.ozodyseus.sk
All Ukrainian Association on Harm Reduction, Ukraine, www.uhra.org.ua

(I was able to copy and paste the above list from the SWAN press release on December 17th)

The events that took place that day occurred in multiple venues. They were not only limited to the United States of America – my current country of residence. And one of them even occurred online – the Sex Worker’s Outreach Project held an online conference.

Voltairine De Cleyre: A Woman to Emulate

Natasha — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 22:55:54 +0000

The essays of Voltairine De Cleyre are wonderfully absorbing, and I have added her to the list of writers whose style I would love to emulate. She combines rigorous logic with some of the most beautiful sentimental and emotional writing that I have ever been privileged enough to read.

Go forth and read Sex Slavery.