Brief reviews of some documentaries about Euromaidan and the Russian invasion of Ukraine

My review of Garry Kasparov's Winter is Coming

Ongoing commentary on the Russia-Ukraine war. No to military invasion of Ukraine: peace to the people, war on the rulers!

I read Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed. This review contains spoilers of everything; read the book first.

Frequently answered objections to voting abstention.

An incomplete review of a recent documentary about nonviolent vs American Christianity. It is confusing in the opening, good in the middle, and disappointing at the end.

On the double-lie of democracy and the criminalization of homelessness

Trying to answer the question 'Is rioting justified?' and the follow-up 'Is it okay if I disagree with the looting?'

Navigating American political discourse toward anarchism. "Whereas a 'small-government' conservative will insist that in the name of liberty, peace, and prosperity we need to submit to authority, live under constant threat of violence, and resign ourselves to owning nothing, a 'progressive' liberal will accept those conditions at face-value as the axioms of their dreamed-of society."

The official American Cynic voting guide to the 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidates

Note on the other cop running for the 2020 Democratic nomination

A review of Rutger Bregman's _Utopia for Realists_

The enthusiasm surrounding Bitcoin and other cryptocurrency technologies is often fueled by a market fundamentalism at odds with socialism. Still, the Bitcoin-led explosion in electronic currencies and its underlying blockchain technology have introduced new fields of opportunity and experimentation in egalitarian and libertarian economics.

Some comments on a bad article I found on the internet.

Some thoughts on the Gilets Jaunes protests going on in France.

A look at the interest rates charged by Kiva's microfinance field partners.

This is my attempt at an introduction to Marxian economics and materialist feminism. Most of the billions of people in the world today already do too much work, particularly women, especially in the so-called third-world or developing countries, and any scheme which promises to improve life by giving poor women _more_ work to do ought to be met and examined with the utmost suspicion.

A review of a friend's book and some thoughts on hell.

On the inverse relationship that seems to hold between the degree to which police are armed and the heroics of their actions.

Pessimistic quotes by four thinkers on the [in]ability of capitalism to put technology to good use.

My most charitable thoughts about a local church which hosted a massive memorial service for a police officer.

I recently discovered that Occupy the Farm won.

An anecdotal introduction to the continuum-forming typology of begging as a dialectical model for understanding the structure of late capitalist economy.

Here are some of the better introductions to the alt-right that I've found, just in case anybody wants to waste as much time as me reading about this stuff.

I wasted an entire month reading about and writing down some thoughts on the first forty days of President Trump's reign. "The king and Haman sat down to drink; but the city of Susa was thrown into confusion."

It feels like an alternate timeline of 20th-century Fascism where Mussolini has a barely-functioning vocabulary and Carl Schmitt is illiterate.

A hyperlinked transcription of James Huneker's "Ideas of Max Stirner" as it was published in the New York Times on April 20, 1907. Includes some introductory notes and my thoughts on Huneker's use of the term "Socialism".

Two new reports have been published this year on the state of the criminalization of homelessness in Colorado. Here are some of the highlights.

On the difference between democratic socialism and social democracy, the future of capitalism, and the socialist response to the Bernie Sanders presidential campaign.

On the centennial anniversary of Joe Hill's execution, his music, and the theology of his Marxian dialectics.

One of those fun internet quiz things.

Howard Zinn on Clinton

Dorothy Day is not a pearl to be offered as inspiration to the rich and their representatives; she was a dog and a pig whose works of love and mercy continue to bark at the greedy and trample under foot a society built on inequality.

Nadie es ilegal.

My account of a protest I attended in support of the April Baltimore uprising. We had only marched for a few blocks before Denver police began pepper spraying and arresting people. If you don't want to read all my words, you can skip to the 'Videos' section.

An overly simplified theory of the relationship between slavery, Mormon cooperatives, and capitalism with application to some interesting events in American history.

The first article in a series on the Charlie Hebdo murders takes a brief look at the history of the magazine and especially the social and political crises from which it emerged.

I've twice published incomplete draft articles in the past few weeks. Some tips for using this site's atom feeds.

Happy New Year

My review of Fred Clark's review of the Left Behind book series. (No, I have not read the entirety of either.)

In my previous commentary on the social unrest in Ferguson, MO, I suggested that the activities of riots were apocalyptic in their ability to shatter the illusion of legitimacy with which authority masks itself. In this essay I explore the limits of a few of those ideas including a clarification on the meaning of “false consciousness,” the question of (Tolstoyan) pacifism, and a generalization of the virtues of riots to disruptive peace.

The Supreme Court refused to review several cases this October, leaving district court rulings against same-sex marriage bans in effect.

My commentary on an aspect of the unrest in Ferguson from what I consider to be a Christian perspective. I examine two reactions to the shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO, and identify the liberal myths they reveal. I also make some theoretical speculations about the purpose of both the establishment calls for 'peaceful protest' and the practice of murderous policing. I conclude with a brief look at the benefits of looting.

My experience in Denver on May Day, and a pamphlet I made out of the Wikipedia article on the Haymarket massacre.

Cecily McMillan, an Occupy Wall Street protester, was recently convicted of felony assault on a police officer.

The contradictory concepts at the foundation of the C4L manifesto reflect, I think, the confused liberal notion of "private property." The term, which in an economic context refers to "private property in the means of production" and specifically the legal right of capital owners to appropriate the products that non-owners create with capital, is equivocated in individuals' minds to "private property" in the sense of being secure in ones' own possessions. By using the same term for very different concepts, the victims of private property (in the capitalist sense) come to associate the very means of their exploitation as being necessary to their security and happiness.

Yesterday the NATO 3 were sentenced, and I watched a documentary about Brandon Darby -- an FBI informant who got some kids arrested for making Molotov cocktails at the 2008 Republican National Convention.

A look at Utah's fight over Amendment 3 including its parallels to Loving v. Virginia and the Mormon Church's unenviable position as it once again finds itself clinging to an antiquated notion of marriage.

When police kill the homeless, they often do so with impunity. I've tagged this entry as a 'feature' due to the magnitude of its length more so than of its quality, but it does probe an important issue at the nexus of my libertarian and anti-capitalist motivations. It is my first (and rough) attempt at applying some ideas from the first volume of Agamben's Homer Sacer to the criminalization of homelessness (following Feldman's lead).

This post is just a collection of links to some of the media covering the protests which started in Denver on October 15, 2011, so I don't have to spam all of them to my linklog.

Another example of why libertarianism must necessarily imply socialism

"I was born here. I'm a patriot. And so we have to embrace science education." --Bill Nye's impeccable logic.

'This is the collapse of the Left. You couldn't have more distinguished people on that list. It's a collapse of the Left. They have in effect put a figurative ring in their nose, and they've said to the Democrats, because the Republicans are so bad, we collapse and we're going for the least worst.'

I enjoyed this talk by Michael Parenti, but think it could have benefited from a slightly more rigorous definition of socialism.

I am fasting for the duration of today in support of California prisoners who have now begun the 24th day of an indefinite hunger strike as they seek the fulfillment of their five core demands.

The liberal-progressives clamor for the restoration of a healthy capitalism so they might claim their rightful rung on the ladder of exploitation.

I watched Stein and Johnson debate. I liked Stein better. Here's the video of the debate from YouTube.

Remembering Saint Max on this All Saints' Day: A spooky explanation of why I don't vote from an individualist's perspective.

I'm completing my hike of the Appalachian Trail I started last summer.

The one where I use the word 'bourgeois' non-ironically.

I was sentenced last Friday for my crimes against the People of the State of Colorado.

Late last month, Rhode Island’s governor signed into law a bill which establishes a "Homeless Bill of Rights" in that state.

The fruits of my little crusade to preserve a video being suppressed from the internet by a small religious community in Arizona. A mini Streisand effect.

After I posted three links to a video of a Dateline episode featuring a small Arizona religious group, two of the three hosts received DMCA take-down notices from the group's lawyer and took down the video. So I pulled out my stenotype keyboard and made this quick transcript of the 40-minute program. Corrections welcome.

Shit libertarians say.

"Every physics student knows that the mind seems to move particles when looking through a microscope. This is called the Heisenberg Principle. Therefore we get the equation 'thoughts equal energy'."

As we remember Tiananmen Square today, there are some seriously neat protest movements happening on the ground in North America right now. The Quebec student strikes, Occupy Wall Street, Yo Soy 132. We will reclaim our space from capitalism square by square, park by park, street by street, house by house, mind by mind, and heart by heart. It is those clinging to their things while dwelling in their mansions who need authority and chains-of-command; those of us in the streets have no use for either.

I hate how people try to appeal to Jesus to support their own ideas of who should or should not be candidates for marriage. Jesus' teachings do not so easily lend themselves to those who would rule over their neighbors.

Barack Obama is to marriage as Ron Paul is to abortion.

Bombs are good if NATO drops them; otherwise they are terrorism.

I've updated my pamphlet with an account of my trial. The old version has been included in the first issue of the _People Not Profit_ publication.

Saw this recommendation on the internet.

One year ago today I began my three-month hike on the Appalachian Trail.

What a depressing Monday. The most positive comment I've read about yesterday's events was from a redditor, 'I don't know what to say, other than fuck the police, their time will come, and the people will rise.' I doubt it.

I appeared in criminal court for my jury trial, slept in a park, in the morning I received two guilty verdicts and a non-guilty verdict, loitered at the May Day demonstrations, then slept on the 16th Street Mall to protest Denver's proposed urban camping ban.

Some thoughts on the necessity of law.

Two headlines about UC police departments. First, the task force investigating last year's pepper spraying incident at UC Davis released its report condemning both the administration and the police department and calling the decision to use pepper spray on the peaceful students '`objectively unreasonable`'. Second, the EFF and UCLA reached a settlement in a case against the UC Berkeley Police Department and the FBI stemming from an illegal raid at a radical community center in August 2008. As part of the settlement the FBI and UCBPD acknowledge they broke the law and will pay $100,000 in damages.

Homosexuality is unnatural, like when two people with different colored skin get married. I know it can be confusing to keep track of what behavior is natural and what is unnatural (supernatural?), but it is all spelled out in the Manual of Natural Behavior for Respectable Mammals you should have received when you were born. If you've lost your copy, then the Family Research Council can help you out.

My experience at the Canadian border.

Dystopian visions of future freedom are no excuse for the nation-states of today.

Review of Larry Norman's Dylanesque protest song "The Great American Novel"

Where I present my prophet complex theory of Joseph Smith's epistemology and criticize the methods of LDS missionaries on the same basis.

There has been a black bloc presence at almost every occupy camp eviction and march in the country. Wearing all black with their faces covered, avoiding accountability through anonymity, armed and armoured, they're ready to beat people and destroy property. And they're getting paid overtime to do it.

An overview of the Stop Online Piracy Act and a claim that the entertainment industry's aggressive rent-seeking is more harmful than anyone's pirating.

On my arrest at the Occupy Denver encampment, trial, conviction, and ongoing fight against the criminalization of homelessness.

I spent five months, over two summers, hiking the Appalachian Trail, walking over a total of over 2,000 miles between Georgia and Maine. I hiked the entire distance in two pairs of Crocs (shoes). This page includes the trail reports I periodically made via email, an annotated interactive map, and other info.

An excerpt from G.K. Chesterton's account of meeting and losing patience with a philosophic anarchist.

An excerpt from Tolstoy's "The Kingdom of God is Within You"

A list of links pertaining to Mormon anarchism.

You can sleep in public in Boulder, but NOT if you use "shelter" like a blanket or tree.

On the repeal of Don't Ask Don't Tell

I don't like the DREAM Act

A poem by John Henry MacKay