tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-61134682007-08-01T17:21:10.468-06:00Joe LicentiaBlogger229125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113468.post-31649286579986182007-08-01T17:20:00.000-06:002007-08-01T17:21:10.497-06:00

Immigration 101 - Myth vs Reality

Joe Licentiatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113468.post-1121579175658937852007-07-27T13:37:00.000-06:002007-07-27T11:35:08.310-06:00

The American empire is probably going to last more than 10-20 years, unless the US does so badly in Iraq that it can only win with a draft. If a draft is imposed the most likely result is that it will cause a national revolt which will force the US to reduce its troops in Iraq, end the draft, and rely on EU & other nations troops to suppress the insurgency. That would be the beginning of the end

Joe Licentiatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113468.post-1167535732273353482007-01-01T17:55:00.000-07:002007-01-01T17:57:40.033-07:00

Hussein is dead. He got what he deserved, even though he clearly didn't have anything near a fair trial. Hussein's US backers get off scott free, of course. See Juan Cole's Top Ten Ways the US Enabled Saddam Hussein. US corporate media mostly skirted around the fact that the US was supporting Hussein during the crime he was convicted of and continued to support him for years afterward. The

Joe Licentiatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113468.post-1167535628777690062006-12-30T20:26:00.000-07:002006-12-30T20:27:08.790-07:00

what to say to rapists to get them to stop raping

Joe Licentiatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113468.post-1150763355025599522006-06-19T18:11:00.000-06:002006-06-19T18:29:15.053-06:00

Alternative libertaire faced with an unusual repression Defend Libertarian Centre for Studies and Investigation in Morocco

Joe Licentiatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113468.post-1149367247798111342006-06-03T14:33:00.000-06:002006-06-03T14:40:47.873-06:00

The US government's investigation has cleared itself of a massacre in Ishaqi. Which is not surprising, they are investigating themselves after all obviously they're going to either whitewash their wrong doing ("it was just some rogue soldiers, honest") or deny wrongdoing entirely. We don't allow the mafia to investigate itself, so why should we allow the government to investigate itself?

Joe Licentiatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113468.post-1147838309456850422006-05-16T21:15:00.000-06:002006-05-16T21:58:29.476-06:00

CU-Boulder's show investigation into Ward Churchill has finished, coming up with the expected verdict: accusing Churchill of academic fraud & so on. The whole thing is illegitimate because it's really motivated by Churchill's politics, not any "academic fraud." These allegations were all made years ago, yet there was no investigation of them until the flair up over his political writings about

Joe Licentiatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113468.post-1121580979229674572006-04-20T21:44:00.000-06:002006-04-20T21:44:35.840-06:00

There is no such thing as "reverse racism" because racism = prejudice + power. Since Whites have power and People of Color do not it isn't possible for PoC to be racist towards whites. PoC may be prejudiced against whites but that's not racism. There's a big difference between the two: White racism against PoC actively harms and oppresses PoC (examples include police brutality, discrimination,

Joe Licentiatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113468.post-1145590017375000432006-04-20T21:12:00.000-06:002006-04-20T21:26:57.426-06:00

Ibrahim al-Jaafari's decision to step down as Iraq's Prime Minister shows the power the US has over the Iraqi government. If the US doesn't like Iraq's Prime Minister, they can have him dismissed. In reality Iraq is a US puppet government, not a sovereign democracy like Bush & the democrats would have us believe.

Joe Licentiatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113468.post-1121579067052474512006-04-19T19:58:00.000-06:002006-04-19T20:00:33.973-06:00

There have been very few geniune conflicts about states rights. Most so-called states rights conflicts are really conflicts over one issue or another. When a faction is out of power on a national level it uses 'states rights' as a cover to fight against the other factions attempts to implement its agenda. The pro-slavery faction didn't have a problem with federal authority when they were in power

Joe Licentiatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113468.post-1145134464094834382006-04-15T14:28:00.000-06:002006-04-15T14:54:24.170-06:00

If Rumsfeld resigns, as a number of military officers are now advocating, it would reduce opposition to Bush and boost his poll numbers by making it seem like he's made a significant break with the past. There wouldn't be any significant change in policy (the new guy would still be implementing Bush's militarism), but it would create the illusion that there's a change and thereby improve Bush's

Joe Licentiatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113468.post-1144899458003622142006-04-12T21:19:00.000-06:002006-04-12T21:37:38.086-06:00

Italy's elections were tied. The center-left technically won, but by such a tiny margin that the election was basically tied. If every voter in Italy flipped a coin, you'd get results like this. Obviously, not everyone in Italy decided randomly but it's very interesting that the collective decision of Italian voters so closely resembles a coin flip. In this, Italy is part of a pattern within

Joe Licentiatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113468.post-1121578838065068472006-04-06T16:43:00.000-06:002006-04-06T16:44:36.633-06:00

Race doesn't exist biologically because different societies have different racial systems and because race changes over time at a rate much faster than biological evolution. For example, Latin America has races that don't exist in the US like Mestizos and Mullatos. When Mestizos or Mullatos come to the US they're usually considered Native American or Black. What are multiple different races in

Joe Licentiatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113468.post-1139971385165362842006-02-14T19:22:00.000-07:002006-02-14T19:43:05.230-07:00

There's a shortage of public defenders in New Orleans. Notice how there's never a shortage of prosecutors, only of public defenders? There's plenty of funds to put people in jail, but the government so often seems to have difficulty finding funds to give poor people a fair defense. Rich people can afford good lawyers, but poor people get screwed. Partly as a result of this disparity, the

Joe Licentiatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113468.post-1121581379951674512006-02-01T21:33:00.000-07:002006-02-01T21:34:30.043-07:00

The separation of "the consumption and distribution of resources" from other aspects of life is basically a capitalist thing. Pre-capitalist societies generally weren't divided in such a way. The idea of "economics" is largely arbitrary when looking at non-capitalist societies. What counts as a "resource"? If I give someone a massage for free then that's not considered part of the economy,

Joe Licentiatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113468.post-1121580941817058672006-01-21T17:48:00.000-07:002006-01-21T18:03:59.836-07:00

Most military interventions against other countries justified on "humanitarian" grounds actually kill more people than they save. In Kosovo NATO ranted and raved about how Yugoslavia was murdering hundreds of thousands of Kosovo Albanians, that there were mass graves all over the place, etc. Afterwards, NATO's own investigation was unable to find evidence to support those claims. It turned out

Joe Licentiatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113468.post-1111129737384772702006-01-20T17:04:00.000-07:002006-01-20T17:04:35.866-07:00

Organizing an anarchist society on a global highly interconnected scale isn't all that different from doing it on a smaller scale. One has worker assemblies, community assemblies, etc. and they all coordinate with each other by forming confederations using spokescouncils. There would probably be regional confederations, and confederations of those confederations for issues that extend beyond

Joe Licentiatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113468.post-1121581767208462562006-01-16T21:52:00.000-07:002006-01-16T21:55:53.960-07:00

States are hierarchical, that means some people have to be on the bottom and others on the top. Everyone can't be on the top because then there would be no one to be on the bottom. The whole idea of making the people the state, of making a truly democratic state, is contradictory: if the people are capable of running things then we can just dispence with the state alltogether and let the people

Joe Licentiatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113468.post-1120462182270904462005-07-04T01:22:00.000-06:002005-07-04T01:29:42.273-06:00

4th of July Mythology

Joe Licentiatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113468.post-1120010939244171052005-06-28T20:06:00.000-06:002005-06-28T20:08:59.266-06:00

The decision by the Supreme Court supporting the seizure of personal property for "development" purposes ("Primitive accumulation") is a classic example of class warfare and how the Supreme Court generally acts in the interests of business. Governments can directly steal anything working people own and give them to the wealthy & their corporations; effectively legalizing robbery if the robber

Joe Licentiatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113468.post-1119335703228473572005-06-21T17:15:00.000-06:002005-06-21T17:15:32.846-06:00

The changing media coverage of the Downing Street Memos provides further evidence in favor of the propaganda model. The media is reflecting the views of the rich & powerful, emphasising and ignoring facts that conform with or contradict their views. Initially, the memo was ignored. The first memo was ocassionally mentioned in coverage of the British elections, but that's it. The low level of

Joe Licentiatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113468.post-1114729173645096002005-04-30T16:21:00.000-06:002005-04-30T16:20:30.713-06:00

David Horowitz's War on Rational Discourse

Joe Licentiatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113468.post-1114729142075523272005-04-30T16:09:00.000-06:002005-04-30T16:09:48.896-06:00

The national security archive has obtained more photos of US soldiers in caskets. A gallery with the rest of the photos can be found here (requires Flash). The Bush administration hates to release information that might make it look bad, so it took a lawsuit to force them to release these photos. Dead Iraqis are obviously much more important and a much greater tragedy but this is still

Joe Licentiatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113468.post-1113951404938370222005-04-28T11:56:00.000-06:002005-04-28T17:00:13.223-06:00

Does the Resistance Target Civilians?: "brutal and horrific attacks on Iraqi civilians have been carried out by some forces claiming to be a part of the resistance. But there is strong evidence from US government and independent intelligence data suggesting that this phenomenon has been wildly exaggerated and torn out of context, creating a false public perception that serves to prop up domestic

Joe Licentiatag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6113468.post-1113949266426527632005-04-19T16:21:00.000-06:002005-04-19T16:21:35.776-06:00

Another Reason not to Snitch: Billy Cottrell was sentenced to 8 years in prison for eco-sabotage even though he snitched on his fellow ELFers. Snitching doesn't pay!

Joe Licentia