“The statement that women are oppressed is frequently met with the claim that men are oppressed too. We hear that oppressing is oppressive to those who oppress as well as to those they oppress. Some men cite as evidence of their oppression their much-advertised inability to cry. It is tough, we are told, to be masculine. When the stresses and frustrations of being a man are cited as evidence that oppressors are oppressed by their oppressing, the word ‘oppression’ is being stretched to meaninglessness; it is treated as though its scope includes any and all human experience of limitation or suffering, no matter the cause, degree or consequence. Once such usage has been put over on us, then if we ever deny that any person or group is oppressed, we seem to imply that we think they never suffer and have no feelings. . . . Thus we are silenced before we begin: the name of our situation drained of meaning and our guilt mechanisms tripped.” ~Marilyn Frye, “Oppression,” in THE POLITICS OF REALITY (1983), p. 1.

Bitcoin, you’re drunk. Go home.

Your heavy metal album cover ^H^H^H White Russian propaganda poster for the day. http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/195ln6x5n6aevjpg/ku-xlarge.jpg From: http://io9.com/anti-communist-propaganda-is-more-awesome-than-any-horr-1460028336

Auburn folks: Remember, this evening at the Auburn Unitarian Universalist Fellowship on Thach. All are welcome!

So what does this tell you about the “procedures”?

In addition to other festivities, I should mention that to-day is the second anniversary of the publication of Markets Not Capitalism. http://radgeek.com/gt/2011/10/14/markets-not-capitalism-1st-ed/ Many happy returns and many grateful thanks to my co-editor Gary Chartier, to all the contributors who made the book what it is, to Stevphen Shukaitis, Minor Compositions, and the Autonomedia Collective for helping recover a vital conversation within the Anarchist tradition and doing so much to help start so many fascinating new ones, to Stephanie Murphy for her amazing work in preparing the audio book, to Alan Furth for his amazing, ongoing work in preparing a Spanish translation, and to all the contributors, readers, reviewers, interlocutors and everyone else who’s made this such a fascinating exchange.

So this is unpopular among my circle of friends, but I am actually going to mark the day today by saying that I really quite enjoy the graphic novel of V FOR VENDETTA, and while it has some major artistic flaws, I don’t think that the movie is totally awful, either.

“If Congress were to shut down the government’s collection of phone records, which it has been secretly doing since 2006, “we wouldn’t be able to see the patterns that the NSA’s programs provide us,” said Patrick Kelley, acting general counsel of the FBI. Kelley added that the FBI would not be able to weed out significant phone data if it did not have the NSA’s massive data bank to tap into, and would lose valuable time if it had to instead seek the data from individual phone companies.” http://washington.cbslocal.com/2013/11/04/nsa-fbi-lawyers-personal-data-and-phone-records-must-be-kept-by-government/ Good. The FBI should not be able to do anything, and as long as it exists, it should lose as much valuable time as possible. Abolish the FBI.

“[T]he ongoing showcase presented by the world of advocates and nonprofits promotes a comprehensive immigration bill and applauds bipartisan compromises that have a harmful impact on migrants and our human rights movement. These advocates ignore the devastation this bill threatens and instead, they frame it as “common sense reform.” Why are trusted advocates reinforcing the President’s narrative that he is helpless in making humanitarian interventions in a system that sits squarely under the executive branch? . . . The strategies coming from our organic leadership are about defending and gaining human rights, often locally, and promoting truth and political education that address real root issues. . . . Our strategies are not about passing an anti-immigrant bill so we have something to call a victory – and it is frustrating to see others do so in our name. . . . It’s disheartening. CIR is built on dishonest messaging, and a strong pledge to the Democratic Party — not our community.” ~Luis Serrano (Via Nathan Goodman.)

Abolish DHS. Seriously. And I don’t just mean abolishing the classification of agencies under DHS. I mean every single agency under DHS ought to be completely abolished. Of course it should. Wha legitimate use do any of them serve? Which of them is not a gruesome spectacle of centralized abusive power and nascent paramilitary authoritarian rule? Que se vayan todos.