out of step

Labor Day - "We Shall Overcome"

2009-09-07T08:13:00.001-07:00

Are we "alongside night" yet?

2009-06-14T08:37:00.000-07:00

Very, very nice! J. Neil Schulman is now offering his 1979 classic libertarian sci-fi novel Alongside Night as an absolutely FREE downloadable PDF. Pass it on! (Read it first, though, if you haven't already...)

David Carradine, R.I.P. (1936 - 2009)

2009-06-04T07:47:00.000-07:00

"Sherlock Holmes": The Official Trailer

2009-05-29T15:58:00.001-07:00

I don't care what the stuffy Sherlock Holmes buffs think. As a revisionist-loving Sherlockian of more than 40 years, I think this trailer for the new Guy Ritchie movie looks like a whole lotta fun. And the film will probably result in tens of thousands of new Conan Doyle readers by year's end.

Memorial Day 2009

2009-05-24T11:38:00.001-07:00

The naughty side of Sherlock Holmes

2009-05-14T00:37:00.000-07:00

The cover of this 1950s paperback edition of Conan Doyle's The Hound of the Baskervilles is sooooooo odd, so '50s, so pulp, and so, well, naughty, that it's one of my favorites.

And now...a brief commercial break

2009-05-02T14:07:00.000-07:00

A few diligent readers have asked, "Where the hell are you?" And I apologize to those who've checked here lately time and again to find, well, nuttin' much new. I've tried to post something at least once a week, but alas...

I've been busy with a new online venture. I recently decided to take my 20 years of business, sales, and marketing know-how and gradually offer it in the form of digital products. These eBooks, audios, whatever, will be designed to help people launch and build their own businesses -- i.e., to smash wage-slavery one job at a time. I've worked as little and freely as possible since I left the corporate world in 1994. And I think it's time I shared some of what I've learned with other freedom-seekers.

So...if you're interested in my adventures beyond this blog, you might wanna grab a FREE copy of my first eBook in this business effort. You've gotta jump through a couple of anti-spam hoops to get the book, but it'll just take a minute. And I think you'll enjoy yourself.

You'll find the eBook available for download right here.

Oh, before I forget. This is definitely NOT the end of the out of step blog. In fact, I intend to amp up my work here considerably over the next few weeks. So stay tuned.

Happy May Day!

2009-05-01T00:02:00.000-07:00

DVD review: DOC SAVAGE

2009-04-22T16:16:00.000-07:00

A month ago, I mentioned that one of my guilty pleasures is the 1975 George Pal movie Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze, and that it’s now available on DVD from Warner Brothers through The Warner Archive Collection. This is an on-demand service, and the DVDs are bare-bones but “studio quality.” The price may seem a tad high, but if you really love something, what’s twenty bucks, fer crissakes?

Anyway, I ordered my copy and promised at the time that I’d report back on the DVD.

Well, it is bare-bones. The packaging is minimal, but the DVD comes in a keep-case. As for the disk itself, it includes a promo for the Warner Archive Collection, the original movie trailer, and the film. I’m delighted. The trailer is in pretty crappy shape, full of blobs, hairs, bumps, etc. That’s no surprise. But the movie looks great to me. It’s presented in widescreen, and the print seems very clean and sharp, even on my 46-inch flatscreen. Now, I watched the movie on my Blu-ray player, and that’s supposed to amp up the picture quality a bit, so that may have something to do with it. But regardless, the print looks terrific.

As for the film itself, Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze remains a prize. While awaiting the arrival of the DVD, I re-read the first Doc Savage novel, written by Lester Dent in 1932. This is the story that the movie adapts. And you know something? Even with all the campiness, the movie is awfully faithful to its source material. Ron Ely still seems to me the perfect Doc, and the rest of the cast is spot-on, too.

So, Doc Savage buffs. If you’ve never before seen this little gem, take advantage of this. Buy the movie and treasure it. Last summer, I learned at Comic-Con that a new Doc Savage movie is planned. But in the meantime, this is the real deal.

RIP J. G. Ballard, 1930-2009

2009-04-21T07:38:00.000-07:00

Happy Easter!

2009-04-12T16:13:00.001-07:00

Literary one-hit wonders

2009-04-04T08:37:00.000-07:00

Gee, I love lists. Here's a good one of literary one-hit wonders, authors whose fame is based on a single novel. Harper Lee, Margaret Mitchell, J.D. Salinger... Love it.

Coming this Christmas

2009-03-30T14:55:00.001-07:00

RIP Burt Blumert (1929-2009)

2009-03-30T11:23:00.000-07:00

Burt Blumert died this morning from cancer. He had just turned 80 last month.

I knew Burt only peripherally. He was president of the Center for Libertarian Studies, which he founded with the great Murray Rothbard in 1975. He was chairman of the Ludwig von Mises Institute. And he was publisher of the Journal of Libertarian Studies, the Austrian Economics Newsletter, the Rothbard-Rockwell Report, and LewRockwell.com. Of course, over the years, I’ve written for LewRockwell.com. And over the past 15 years, Debbie and I attended many of Burt’s “weekends” in both San Mateo, CA, and even Arlington, VA — for the old John Randolph Club, the Triple-R, and LRC. He was always welcoming, always friendly. And though I only saw him on those special weekends, he always greeted me like an old friend, as he did everyone.

I’ll miss Burt.

[Photo: Burt, Lew Rockwell, David Gordon, and Murray Rothbard]

Things I miss about the 1960s

2009-03-26T13:05:00.000-07:00

Classic private eye literature like this.

Doc Savage is here!

2009-03-23T11:29:00.000-07:00

George Pal's Doc Savage: The Man of Bronze (1975) always disappoints fans of the Lester Dent stories. But I love it. And I'm a big Doc Savage fan. Sure, the movie's silly. But the casting was great; Ron Ely brought back the old pulp image of Doc and played his role perfectly.

I saw Doc Savage at least three times in the theaters during its brief original run. I rented it on VHS a couple of times. I've seen it on TV a few times.

But no DVD release, at least here in the U.S. I understand it's been released as a "full-frame" DVD in Germany. And I've seen a few bootlegs online. But nothing official.

Well, the closest thing to an official Doc Savage DVD release is now available from Warner Brothers through The Warner Archive Collection. This is an on-demand service where you can order custom-made DVDs of WB films otherwise unavailable. Each DVD is $19.95 -- not bad for a movie you're just dying to own. Warners says they're "studio quality," but I don't know what that means. Are they widescreen or pan-and-scan? What condition are these films in?

That all remains to be seen. Since no retail release date has been offered for Doc Savage, I just may order this from the Archive. Then we'll all know.

I'll keep you posted.

Hollywood always loves The State

2009-03-21T22:47:00.000-07:00

I just caught last year’s Death Race on DVD. It’s a grimmer, less satiric remake of Roger Corman’s Death Race 2000 from the 1970s, but that doesn’t mean it’s less fun. I’m a fan of Jason Statham, who stars in the film, and I’m also a big fan of cars tricked out with enormous weaponry. So this new Death Race is a keeper.

One annoying bit, though. The opening crawl sets the stage, explaining that in the near-future, “private corporations now run the correctional facilities — for profit.” And, of course, they make that profit by sacrificing criminals in automotive death races.

God forbid that anyone could imagine that The State — the most blood-drenched, inhumane institution in mankind’s history — would ever run such horrific prisons (which it already does) or host such death races. No way. It’s gotta be private business, Hollywood’s traditional boogeyman.

C’mon, guys…wake up!

"Who let the dogs out?"

2009-03-21T14:49:00.001-07:00

Yeah, a few people complain about dogs on our local beaches. But this video shows one of the reasons I love living in Pismo Beach.

Gratuitous bouncing for a Sunday morning

2009-03-15T12:15:00.001-07:00

A thought after watching WATCHMEN

2009-03-14T14:02:00.000-07:00

Yes, I did see Watchmen this past week. And yes, I did like it. Very much.

My fondness for the graphic novel — and I’m one of those who first read it in comic book form back in the mid-’80s — is tied tightly to my love of Steve Ditko. After all, three of the Watchmen characters are based on heroes from Ditko’s run at Charlton Comics in the 1960s. Rorschach is an amped up (but not by much) The Question. Night Owl is based on Ditko’s version of the Blue Beetle. And Doctor Manhattan is pulled from Captain Atom.

So besides enjoying Watchmen the movie as a fine adaptation of the book, my imagination was stretched. I thought how cool it would be to see movie adaptations of the original Ditko source material. Why not a Question movie — or TV series? Why not a Blue Beetle movie?

Just a thought...

Songs of freedom, songs of revelation...

2009-03-08T15:11:00.001-07:00

I’ve always done a pretty decent job keeping track of Jefferson Starship — in whatever configuration it’s taken. These past dozen or more years, though, have been particularly challenging. [Note: When I say “Jefferson Starship,” I’m referring to any music produced under the auspices of the great Paul Kantner.]

In the 1970s, I saw the “classic” band — Kantner, Slick, Balin, Freiberg, et a1. — play live a half-dozen times. And in the past few years, I’ve seen Kantner’s continually morphing group perform everywhere from House of Blues in Hollywood (1995), to Knott’s Berry Farm (1998), to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo (2000), to seaside at Avila Beach (2005) — featuring, in various rotations, Marty Balin, Darby Gould, Diana Mangano, Jack Casady, Prairie Prince, David Freiberg, and bunches of others, but always with Kantner, the heart of the group.

I’ve kept up with Jefferson Starship’s sparse CD output over recent years, too — all the live CDs from independent labels and their fantastic 1998 studio release, Windows of Heaven.

But somehow, Jefferson’s Tree of Liberty, a new studio CD released last September, had slipped right past me. I found a lone copy last weekend while skimming through the music bins at Borders. The shame is I lost six months that I could have spent listening to and savoring it. But what the hell…

This CD is a folk collection, mostly acoustic covers, making it unlike any earlier album from the Jefferson Family. And it’s the most politically radical product to come from these people since maybe Airplane’s Volunteers in 1969, the sticker on the outside of the CD reading, “In the spirit of Jefferson Airplane, a clarion call of social conscience.” In fact, Jefferson’s Tree of Liberty opens with the first chords of “We Can Be Together/Volunteers” before launching into the Weavers’ “Wasn’t That a Time.” It raised a lump in my throat when I first heard it. These songs are anthems to rebellion, and I think they arrive at a very good time.

There are 18 tracks listed on this CD, only one of them a full original, Kantner’s “On the Threshold of Fire.” (There’s an Easter egg hidden on the album, too — a Sunfighter outtake from 1971 called “Surprise, Surprise,” featuring Grace Slick.) Even the covers, though, are not quite covers, each of them given such a unique spin that JS might arguably lay claim to them as their own. For example, John Lennon’s “Imagine” and Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” are cleverly blended together here and sung beautifully by newcomer Cathy Richardson. Likewise, Phil Ochs’ iconic “I Ain’t Marching Anymore,” again with Richardson, boasts a new verse and a whole new “sound” for the song.

There are songs here by Woody Guthrie, Dino Valenti, Richard Farina, Richard Thompson, and Bob Dylan (this new version of “The Chimes of Freedom” is one of the most rousing I’ve ever heard). Plus there are some traditional old Irish and Spanish tunes. There’s a LOT more, too much to stuff into this little review. Just listen for yourself.

More than forty years after Surrealistic Pillow, it astounds me that so much vital music can still come from this group of musicians. Jefferson’s Tree of Liberty is one of the best new CDs I’ve heard in this decade.

"C for Cookie"

2009-03-03T07:35:00.001-08:00

"Chimes Of Freedom" - Jefferson Starship

2009-03-02T12:11:00.001-08:00

Philip Jose Farmer RIP (1918-2009)

2009-02-25T15:07:00.001-08:00

"It Just Doesn't Matter"

2009-02-23T08:46:00.001-08:00

The odd case of Jerry "Moneylove" Gillies

2009-02-17T16:25:00.000-08:00

For the past, oh, 15 years or so, I’ve occasionally wondered, whatever happened to Jerry Gillies?

I’m a longtime self-help junky. For more than two decades, I’ve gobbled up hundreds of business books and audiotapes (and CDs) — Napoleon Hill, Earl Nightingale, Tony Robbins, I’ve read or heard ’em all.

One of my favorites was always Jerry Gillies, who wrote a terrific book on prosperity consciousness called Moneylove back in the late 1970s. Gillies followed that up with a wonderful set of tapes for Nightingale-Conant in 1988, a kind of audio “sequel” to the book, again titled Moneylove. I devoured Jerry’s material at the time, met him at a seminar in the early ’90s, and then lost track of him. Actually, Gillies seemed to drop off the face of the planet. He wrote no new books. No new audio products appeared. Internet searches revealed nothing.

In the past ten years, I’ve probably re-read Moneylove twice and listened to that six-pack of tapes at least a half-dozen times. I still think those two items are among the best prosperity, how-to-deal-with-money products I’ve ever come across. I recommend them both highly, if you can find them (both are out of print; I recently saw a tattered paperback copy of the book for sale online with a $45 price tag).

So what indeed ever happened to Jerry Gillies?

Well, this past weekend, I stumbled across Jerry’s new blog. I was thrilled to have finally located him. But I was startled to learn that just last August, Gillies was paroled from Folsom State Prison after 12 years of incarceration! His crime? Attempting to hijack a motorhome in 1996! A real WTF moment for me. Here’s Jerry:

“I had originally been sentenced to 18 months in federal prison for an investment scheme involving underwriting bonds in Europe. It had paid off successfully for eight years, when something went wrong — I still don't know what, but the bottom line was all the money was supposed to come back through one of the most respected banks in England, Barings, and you may remember they had one of the biggest bank busts in history in 1995. I then went a little crazy as the date approached for me to report to federal prison. I decided I needed to avoid prison — I was panicking — by stealing a motorhome and becoming a fugitive, since I had almost no money, having lost it all in the overseas investment.”

There’s much more to this crazyass story. And if you’ve ever read Moneylove or heard Jerry Gillies speak, you’re gonna want to check out his blog and read all about it. (And also learn about his current efforts to get back on his financial feet.)

But I want to end this by making one very important point: nothing Jerry Gillies did, from ripping off investors to stealing a motorhome, negates the positive and valuable messages of his books and audio sessions. That’d be like disregarding the brilliance of Atlas Shrugged because Ayn Rand was, at times, well, a tad kooky.

I’m keeping positive thoughts about Jerry Gillies and wish him well. And I’ll probably be reading Moneylove again in the next week or two.

"Eliza Dushku Show" premieres tonight

2009-02-13T14:57:00.001-08:00

Joss Whedon's new sci-fi TV series The Eliza Dushku Show (aka Dollhouse) debuts on Fox tonight. It's his first series since Firefly in 2002-2003. Reviews so far are mixed. They say it's missing the customary Whedon humor. Regardless, I will definitely be watching.

Did I mention that it stars Eliza Dushku?

Happy birthday, Abe!

2009-02-12T09:16:00.001-08:00

The famous "Mr. Lincoln" malfunction at Disney's Hall of Presidents -- priceless.

Pessimism vs. optimism

2009-02-09T08:02:00.000-08:00

Wendy McElroy examines the cases for pessimism and optimism during these troubled economic times and decides that liberty can survive either approach.

Happy birthday, my dear Watson

2009-02-04T00:02:00.000-08:00

Nigel Bruce, the most beloved movie Watson of all time, was born on this day in 1895. He died in 1953. Somewhere, the game's still afoot!

The day the music died...

2009-02-03T14:10:00.001-08:00

Buddy Holly died 50 years ago today (with the Big Bopper and Richie Valens). Rave on, Buddy!

"It's not news, it's fark"

2009-02-01T11:49:00.000-08:00

Drew Curtis is my new hero. He’s the CEO of Fark.com and author of It’s Not News, It’s Fark: How Mass Media Tries to Pass Off Crap as News. What inspired the book and accompanying website? Listen:

“Initially, I noticed that a story about German condom sizes being too large would reappear occasionally. Then I noticed other stories that reappeared on a regular basis, like Seasonal Articles that come out every year (“There Will Be Traffic on the 4th of July,” “People Procrastinate When Filing Their Taxes,” and the inevitable combo article of “Where To Get Your Halloween Candy X-Rayed — By the Way, It’s a Hoax”). Then I noticed other patterns like Media Fearmongering, Out of Context Celebrity Comment, and so on. But the kicker was noticing that when actual news does occur, all these types of stories vanish completely. Until the event ends, and then media returns to its old ways.”

Most “news,” Curtis says, is negative, trivial, manufactured, and unactionable. So he’s on a low-information diet. He saves a lot of time by NOT reading a newspaper and by NOT watching TV news. And he’s a happier guy because of it. His attitude is first-rate.

But Curtis doesn’t stay ignorant of the “important” stuff. He counts on friends to alert him to things that might affect him personally or affect his business. His advice:

“Take two weeks off. Don’t watch any news, don’t read any news, don’t listen to any radio talk shows. Then tune back in. Did you miss anything? Nope. It’s the same old crap, different days. That’s what I’m talking about in my book — the media patterns that are used to fill space. It’s 95% or more of the content of any given news show.”

A dose of Bill Hicks

2009-01-31T16:11:00.001-08:00

"Be seeing you!"

2009-01-24T12:50:00.000-08:00

Broken Sea Audio Productions has finally posted the first episode of its full-cast dramatization, The Prisoner. It’s terrific. The podcast is actually an adaptation of the DC Comics mini-series sequel by Dean Motter and Mark Askwith from a decade or more ago, not the original TV program. Here’s a quick description of the set-up:

“Alice Drake wants out. Out of her career as an intelligence field officer. Out of her unhappy marriage. A long solo sea voyage seems like the perfect escape. But she doesn’t know about the obsession that has gripped her ex-husband Thomas, another MI6 operative. He’s been editing the memoirs of an old man who claims he was once the chairman of a top secret colony of spies. Now he’s intrigued enough to use Alice as an unwilling scout, sending her yacht to an island that doesn’t exist.”

The podcast, produced by Gareth Preston, is dedicated to the memory of Patrick McGoohan, who died just last week.

Meet the new boss...

2009-01-20T16:13:00.001-08:00

Obama cult runs amuck

2009-01-19T13:41:00.000-08:00

This Obama candle was spotted in the Mission District in San Francisco. This, friends, scares the hell out of me. (Hat tip to boingboing.net)

Defending ALONGSIDE NIGHT

2009-01-18T13:29:00.000-08:00

In the past week or so, I’ve heard a couple of young anarchists offer comments on J. Neil Schulman’s 1980 agorist novel Alongside Night. Neither were disparaging, but both remarked that the book is “just okay,” “coulda been a lot better,” and that a truly great agorist novel is still to be written. I agree with them on the last point. But overall, my gut reaction is to defend Schulman’s book enthusiastically, to come out punching.

You see, when I first read Alongside Night some 28 years ago, it re-radicalized me. I’d been in the libertarian movement since high school, but I’d grown discouraged, first with the watered-down anti-statism of the Libertarian Party and then with the lack of oomph in the movement itself. While seeking philosophical renewal at a libertarian conference, I met Samuel Edward Konkin III for the first time and left with an armload of goodies, including Sam’s New Libertarian Manifesto, back issues of New Libertarian magazine, plus Neil Schulman’s Alongside Night. I loved Konkin’s stuff, but Neil’s novel really put it all together for me. And as a longtime reader and fan of Robert A. Heinlein, I appreciated what Neil had done with his book; Alongside Night is the sci-fi agorist “juvenile” RAH himself would have written if he’d been called to do so.

Granted, Neil Schulman and I haven’t been working out of the same playbook for more than a decade. But I think Alongside Night still stands as the Atlas Shrugged of agorism, the first and (so far) only novel to detail the revolution SEK3 talked about. It’s radical, it tells a good story, and it’s the perfect little book to pass on to friends when they greet your ideas with creased brows.

I’ve probably read Alongside Night a dozen times since the early ’80s. Each time, it recharges me. If you haven’t yet read it, let me recommend it to you.

Never a number (1928-2009)

2009-01-15T00:01:00.000-08:00

Nixon's the one!

2009-01-14T11:08:00.001-08:00

Today on LewRockwell.com, Jeff Tucker writes about Oliver Stone’s Nixon (1995), one of my favorite political films. I recommend that movie highly, but would suggest as a companion piece Secret Honor (1984), Robert Altman’s movie adaptation of the play by Donald Freed and Arnold M. Stone. I saw Philip Baker Hall’s extraordinary performance as Nixon on stage in Los Angeles a year before Altman captured it on film, and I think the movie is indispensable. All fans of political drama should see Secret Honor.

Refuse to be afraid!

2009-01-12T14:56:00.000-08:00

My friend Brian Richardson, whom I've known for -- oh my gawd! -- going on 40 years, has always had a special gift for cutting through the crapola, as my dear grandmother used to say. And his skill is laser-sharp in his latest, brilliant blog post, which is not to be missed. Here's a taste:

"Refuse to be afraid. It's hardest to keep your fears under control when so many forces are trying so hard to alarm you. No doubt they have fearful purposes of their own, but they feed on our fear. Refuse to be afraid. It's the first step on beyond the paralysis of fear, the first step toward freeing yourself and following your dreams."

"Committing a nuisance"

2009-01-11T09:29:00.000-08:00

OK, City of San Diego, I give up. What constitutes "committing a nuisance"? And whatever a "nuisance" is, what makes it permissible at the street curb but nowhere else?

Look who's on the Grassy Knoll!

2009-01-08T15:34:00.000-08:00

A new Japanese trailer for this spring's much-anticipated movie adaptation of Watchmen shows that the Comedian fired the fatal shot that killed JFK. Jeepers!

Anarchy 101

2009-01-06T16:50:00.000-08:00

What this movement needs is a good “short course” on anarchism.

But wait, we’ve finally got one! In the past couple of weeks, two slim volumes have been released that — bundled together — provide as good an Anarchy 101 course as we could hope for.

The first book is Anarchism for Beginners, the latest addition to the For Beginners documentary comic book series. This is an English translation of a book first published in Spanish five years ago in Argentina. Written by Marcos Mayer and illustrated by Héctor Alberto Sanguiliano (aka Sanyú), it provides a good, quick, 170 heavily cartooned page overview of anarchism, touching almost all the bases but limiting its examination of individualist anarchism to just Max Stirner, ignoring Spooner, Tucker, De Cleyre, and the rest. Of course, no mention is made at all of Rothbard and the radical market anarchists, but that’s not particularly surprising. Even with these shortcomings, Anarchism for Beginners is a handy little history lesson and a non-intimidating philosophical introduction to anti-statism that’s perfect for any young (or middle-aged, or even old) radical seeking knowledge.

The second volume is, as Brad Spangler’s already reported elsewhere, the most essential libertarian book of 2009 — and we’re only six days into the year. It’s Samuel Edward Konkin III’s An Agorist Primer, published posthumously just this month by Victor Koman at KoPubCo.

A lot of us have waited two decades for the release of this slender tome, written and ready (but not financed, alas) for publication way back in 1986. And although the delay is unfortunate, it proves to have been worth it. Clocking in at just over 100 pages, An Agorist Primer offers not only a simple-but-thorough explanation of what agorism is, it also builds a rock-solid case for it. Sure, I’m biased. Yes, I’ve been in the agorist “camp” of Libertarian Leftists for almost 30 years. Granted, SEK3 was my philosophic plumb-line for a long, long time. But trust me, Konkin’s well-structured argument for a free society of the open marketplace (“as near to untainted by theft, assault, and fraud as can be humanly attained”) is compelling. And he shows convincingly that such a society is absolutely achievable and sustainable.

Sam’s book truly is a primer; he strips down heavy-duty economic theory and libertarian philosophy without diminishing either of them. An Agorist Primer may be a quick walk through the basics, but it never shortchanges the reader. And best of all, it’s awfully entertaining.

We lost a terrific libertarian thinker and writer when SEK3 died five years ago. But this little treasure stands ultimately as a testament to the vitality he brought to modern libertarianism — or, as Sam himself used to call it, This Movement of Ours.

Mad Max rides again!

2009-01-03T08:29:00.000-08:00

There's nothing quite like launching into a new year with some post-apocalyptic fun! Those talented folks at Broken Sea Audio have added a new, one-hour full-cast audio drama to the legend of the Road Warrior -- Mad Max: Tomorrow's Road. You can find the MP3 download right here, but be warned: it's not for the kids or the faint of heart. (The music by Ray Gun Girls, incidentally, is terrific!)

Also of note: there's an ad at the tail end of Tomorrow's Road for an upcoming Broken Sea Audio production of an all-new, 21st century The Prisoner! Can't wait!

THE SPIRIT: No Sale

2008-12-25T13:01:00.001-08:00

Until this morning, I'd intended to take a break from the in-laws on this Christmas day and visit the local theater complex to see Frank Miller's The Spirit. Alas, the dreadful reviews have finally overwhelmed even me, the biggest of Miller and Will Eisner fans. This one will be viewed on DVD sometime in the next 3-4 months. I may even wait for its debut on HBO next fall. Hell, maybe I'll never even see it at all.

Refocus on the comics, Frank. Please.

Here comes Lysanta!

2008-12-25T01:00:00.000-08:00

Thanks, BK!

Have a Sci-Fi Christmas, Part 4

2008-12-24T01:00:00.001-08:00

Have a Sci-Fi Christmas, Part 3

2008-12-23T01:00:00.000-08:00

Have a Sci-Fi Christmas, Part 2

2008-12-22T08:11:00.000-08:00

Have a Sci-Fi Christmas, Part 1

2008-12-21T08:02:00.000-08:00

RIP Janet Van Dyne (The Wasp)

2008-12-20T13:16:00.000-08:00

When my friend Ray told me that Janet Van Dyne, aka The Wasp, was recently killed in the course of the foolish and unnecessary Secret Invasion "mega-event," I felt like I'd taken a brutal body blow. Jan was not only the finest leader the Avengers ever had, for 45 years, she was one of the hottest babes in the entire Marvel Universe. Damn you, Marvel Comics!

RIP Majel Barrett Roddenberry (1932-2008)

2008-12-18T16:04:00.000-08:00

Just say no...to movie remakes

2008-12-15T11:50:00.000-08:00

It seems my buddy Tom Novak expects me to expose myself to the Day the Earth Stood Still remake and save him the heartache of having to do so. Alas, Tom, I will not be reporting here on TDTESS while it’s in theaters; my review will come, if indeed it ever does come, sometime after it’s gone to DVD or cable.

Generally, I avoid remakes. Sure, once in a very great while, a remake does the original proud; Phil Kaufman’s 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers immediately comes to mind. But more often than not, today’s remakes spring from movies that were so perfect the first time, there’s no need to re-do them at all. Groaners from the past few years include unnecessary new versions of The Manchurian Candidate, King Kong (1976 and 2005), Cape Fear, Breathless, The Ladykillers, Halloween, Psycho, and Planet of the Apes. And there are reports that we should expect do-overs of the sci-fi classics Robocop and Escape from New York. Why God oh why?

So, no, Tom, don’t expect a report on Keanu Reeves’ spin on Klaatu anytime soon. I’d much rather pop the 1951 masterpiece into my Blu-Ray and enjoy myself.

Welcome back, Frank!

2008-12-14T16:05:00.000-08:00

I’ve really gotta wonder — why all the griping about Punisher: War Zone, the newest effort to launch a Punisher movie franchise? Not only do the mainstream critics hate it, as I’d expect, the online geekboys are piling on the shit as well. But as a longtime fan of the Punisher in most of his comic book versions, and a fan of 2004’s movie with Thomas Jane, I have to say that War Zone is just about everything I’ve wanted in a Punisher film. It’s over-the-top, it’s unrealistic (as it should be, right?), and it’s a veritable merry-go-round of blood-drenched kickass mayhem. The movie’s got Ray Stevenson doing a fine turn as Frank Castle, and it’s moved Frank to Manhattan (where he belongs), and it’s got hundreds and hundreds of mobsters and street punks ineffectually throwing themselves at Frank, and it’s got Dominic West playing Jigsaw fer crissakes. It’s got it all, and it’s all wrapped up into a balls-to-the-wall gangbuster of an action movie.

Unfortunately, Punisher: War Zone is tanking at the box office. But there is, after all, a long life promised in the DVD world. However, if you’re a fan of the character, you might want to run out immediately and see this new take on the Punisher while it’s still on the Big Screen.

Illinois politics in the Good Old Days

2008-12-12T15:50:00.000-08:00

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley at the 1968 Democratic National Convention.

RIP Bettie Page (1923-2008)

2008-12-12T14:54:00.000-08:00

Note to the art world: it's a business

2008-12-09T12:13:00.000-08:00

Marketing genius Denny Hatch has a solution for the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles, which is now in very deep financial doo-doo. His solution is freakin’ brilliant: stop being sanctimonious, treat your museum like a business, and do whatcha gotta do, no matter how “distasteful.” Denny shares his ideas this morning in his Common Sense web-letter. Take a look:

The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles is broke, and a lot of folks are in high dudgeon.

Its profligate and irresponsible director, Jeremy Strick, classically trained and hired in 1999 out of the Art Institute of Chicago, has burned through $44 million of the museum’s endowment, leaving it with a paltry $6 million.

This is a major scandal.

Museum management is dithering over how to quickly raise the $25 million needed to keep the doors open and some of its programs going. Do they merge with another museum? Do they hit up some big donors? Do they hire Carl Bloom Associates to launch a direct mail campaign?

Uh-uh. No time.

The sentence that follows this one will be the most blasphemous concept that could ever be promulgated in the eyes of the ego-driven elitists who run art museums.

To get on its feet, MOCA needs only to sell two paintings from its permanent collection; fire the director; put some responsible, competent people on its board; suck it up and start over.

Sell two paintings out of its permanent collection?

AAAaaaaaahhhhhhheeeeeeee!!!!

Read the whole article here.

Will DOLLHOUSE be a stinker?

2008-12-08T15:37:00.000-08:00

Word on the Internet is that Joss Whedon's new sci-fi TV series Dollhouse, set to debut on Fox next month, has "bad vibes" written all over it. But it looked good to me when I saw trailers at the Whedon/cast panel last July at Comic-Con. Besides, it stars Eliza Dushku, so how bad could it possibly be?

Just in time for Christmas...

2008-12-08T15:06:00.000-08:00

Old friend Vic Koman has finally published the late Samuel Edward Konkin III's An Agorist Primer. Many of us have been waiting for this book for more than 20 years. This first edition is in hardcover, it's reasonably priced, and it's the perfect gift for every Libertarian Leftist on your holiday gift-giving list!

Better safe than sorry

2008-12-08T14:47:00.000-08:00

Barack Obama said yesterday that gun-owning Americans needn't stock up on guns and ammo before he's sworn in next month.

I say, better safe than sorry.

Nipomo CA, 1934

2008-12-02T16:11:00.000-08:00

I live just 135 miles south of Salinas, California, real Depression-era John Steinbeck country. But in 1934, right here in my own backyard, literally a mile or so away, the great photographer Dorothea Lange shot this classic photograph of a migrant mother and her kids for Life magazine. I get goosebumps just thinking about it.

"Queen of the Black Coast"

2008-12-01T14:07:00.000-08:00

BrokenSea Audio has just completed its 7-part audio dramatization of Robert E. Howard’s classic 1934 novella “The Queen of the Black Coast,” and it’s excellent. This story is seminal to the Conan saga, and I recommend it highly to any fans of fantasy, sword and sorcery, Howard, Conan, and radio-style drama. And the downloads are free!

Reaching out to traditional leftists

2008-12-01T11:26:00.000-08:00

Today at LewRockwell.com, comrade Anthony Gregory advises right-libertarians to wise up, drop their hypocrises, and reach out to the Left. Anthony's article is a pretty solid guide even for self-proclaimed Libertarian Leftists, who are often challenged by the difficulty of pulling more traditional lefties into the libertarian camp.

"No problem" at Dunn's River, Jamaica

2008-11-26T16:27:00.001-08:00

No one over fifty, in my shape anyway, should climb up 900 feet of waterfalls, over rocks and through racing water. But two weeks ago, I did at Dunn’s River in Jamaica. I don’t know how many tourists the river guides take up the falls each day, but the whole experience is damn foolishness, that’s for sure. The photo of Deb and me was shot after we were soaking wet but shortly before I took a series of missteps on grassy boulders, into underwater holes, and was practically dragged up the last thirty feet of the falls.

An observation: the only requirement for being allowed to climb the falls was, besides payment, the wearing of water shoes or rubber-soled sandals. No helmets, no padding, no paperwork. And not a handrail in sight. This kind of nonsense simply isn’t allowed in the litigious, safety-conscious U.S.

When empires bite the dust

2008-11-23T13:06:00.001-08:00

I mentioned a few days ago that we’d been away on a trip. One of our stops was at the Mayan ruins at Tulum, on the east coast of the Yucatan Peninsula in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico. Tulum was occupied, they say, from around 1200 A.D. until contact was made with the Spanish in the early 16th century. And one empire was essentially smashed by the other.

The archeological site is fantastic. The area’s gorgeous, with the ruins sitting about 40 feet above the Caribbean Sea. Iguanas are accommodating and pose for pictures.

Of course, I’ve long been fascinated with fallen empires. It’ll be interesting to see what Wall Street looks like in a couple hundred years.

Death from the skies!

2008-11-19T20:10:00.000-08:00

This is the meal Debbie and I were served on our Continental Airlines flight Monday from Houston to San Francisco. Remarkably, this "pizza" looks exactly like the "cheeseburger" we were served nine days earlier on our Continental flight from SF to Houston. Yum!

007 is alive and well

2008-11-19T19:52:00.001-08:00

Deb and I have been gone for almost two weeks (more on that later). But while blowing through Houston last Sunday, visiting our friends Kevin and Jo, we made time to see Quantum of Solace during its big opening weekend. Loved it, loved it, loved it. I’m still convinced that Daniel Craig is the best 007 since Connery, that Judi Dench is brilliant as M, and that together, these two are magic. A few quickie thoughts about the movie.

First, this is not your daddy’s God & Country James Bond. This new, relaunched series is both anti-establishment and anti-imperialist. Bravo!

Second, Quantum’s nod to Goldfinger (you know the scene I’m talking about) was both staggering and inspired. Genius.

Finally, if Quantum is the new, 21st century version of Smersh or SPECTRE, that’s very cool. I’m dying to see where this plot thread goes.

Night and Fog and the State

2008-11-11T21:02:00.000-08:00

“Even a peaceful landscape…even a meadow in harvest, with crows circling overhead and grass fires…even a road where cars and peasants and couples pass…even a resort village with a steeple and country fair…can lead to a concentration camp.” So begins the narration of the most devastating documentary film ever made.

Before Hollywood determined it takes at least three hours to effectively grapple with the Holocaust — a Schindler’s List or a Pianist, for example — long before, some four decades and more, there was Alain Renais’ 31-minute Night and Fog.

I first saw and was shattered by this remarkable short movie while in college in 1975. I’ve just seen Night and Fog a second time, because Criterion recently released a new digital restoration of it on DVD. And 28 years later, Renais’ film remains for me not only a chilling record of Hitler’s "final solution" but the most powerful cinematic indictment of the State I’ve ever seen.

[Read entire essay here]

Toward a libertarian theory of class

2008-11-06T13:42:00.001-08:00

Roderick T. Long’s “Toward a Libertarian Theory of Class,” which first appeared in Social Philosophy & Policy (Summer 1998), is finally available for download as a two-part PDF — here and here.

I think this is a seminal work in the ongoing struggle to build a hardcore radical Libertarian Left movement from three disparate strands — libertarian capitalism, libertarian socialism, and what Long calls “libertarian populism.” If you consider yourself a Libertarian Leftist, you should really read this. If you consider yourself a serious Libertarian Left activist, you should really study this thoroughly and add it to your intellectual arsenal.

Wolf Blitzer visits Tatooine

2008-11-05T13:42:00.000-08:00

As I watched Wolf Blitzer on CNN last night, I kept thinking, "Help me, Obiwan Kenobi, you're my only hope..." Besides the showy "Wow!" Factor, what function did this new election coverage technology serve?

Heady post-election thoughts

2008-11-05T07:38:00.000-08:00

Late last night, I realized that Barack Obama will not only be the first black U.S. president, he will also be the first president in my lifetime who's younger than me! Holy crap!

My apologies to Naomi Wolf

2008-11-04T15:13:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago, I didn’t have much good to say here about Naomi Wolf’s new Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries. I called the book “a mixed and largely uninspired bag of left-centrist polemic against the usual suspects (Bush, Cheney, et al.), battle cry rhetoric, and sketchy advice on writing press releases, arranging town hall meetings, launching blogs, petitioning our masters and, of course, getting out the vote (especially after we dump that pesky ol’ Electoral College).” And of Wolf herself, I wrote that she’s “neither an out-of-the-box thinker nor particularly radical.”

Now I’m regretting that review. Not because I don’t stand by my assessment of the book, but because I was way too hard on Naomi Wolf, whose humility, insight, and integrity really shine in her podcast interview last week on “The Lew Rockwell Show.” This podcast is absolutely riveting. Wolf spends as much time asking Lew questions as he does questioning her. It’s a real give-and-take, a sharing of common ground that, I suspect, surprised Wolf. And it certainly seems to have delighted Lew, who in the course of 51 minutes opens Wolf’s “progressive” eyes to the realities of the State, the Federal Reserve, government schools, and so much more. More than once in the discussion, Wolf’s conventional left-center beliefs are obviously shaken and she confesses, “You’re so right. I’d never made that connection before.”

This extraordinary podcast is something you’ll want to download right here and copy onto CDs for your “progressive” friends and family. It’s a revelation. And I’ll look forward to seeing how some of Naomi Wolf’s “light bulb” moments during this interview are reflected in her future interviews and writings.

Election Day 2008

2008-11-04T00:04:00.000-08:00

Still another guilty pleasure

2008-11-03T13:58:00.000-08:00

Any list of the all-time worst movies based on comic book heroes will inevitably include the made-for-TV Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD, first broadcast on Fox in 1998. Written by David S. Goyer and directed by Rod Hardy, the movie starred David Hasselhoff as Fury, Lisa Rinna as Val, and even had a guy playing a cryogenically suspended Baron Von Strucker. Visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb.com) and you’ll see that the film has earned a 3.3 user rating (from a possible 10) and comments like “It couldn’t have sucked harder.” The movie definitely has a bad rep.

So here’s the deal: Best Buy now exclusively offers Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD on DVD. And I couldn’t be more pleased.

Granted, the movie’s not great. But after years of having kept my mouth shut, I’ve gotta finally come clean and confess that the Hasselhoff Nick Fury is a guilty pleasure of mine. Hasselhoff may not be today’s Fury (that’d be Samuel L. Jackson, of course), but he sure is the pre-Steranko Fury of 1965-66. Most of his lines sound like they were lifted straight out of the old Strange Tales stories. And Lisa Rinna isn’t much of an actress (although she’s been playing one for two decades), but she’s killer hot. Plus, even though the story’s pretty pedestrian (like most of those original stories from Strange Tales, incidentally), Hydra’s there, the SHIELD logo’s there, the latex jumpsuits are there, and the helicarrier’s there (and it looks damn good).

I watched Nick Fury: Agent of SHIELD when it first aired ten years ago. I’ve seen it two or three times on cable since then. And I just picked up a DVD copy at Best Buy.

Guess what I’ll be doing tomorrow night, instead of watching election returns?

Halloween 1938

2008-10-31T18:56:00.001-07:00

"But Whom Will You Root For?"

2008-10-28T14:33:00.000-07:00

Written shortly before Election Day 2004, this essay of mine applies equally well to my feelings during the election now upon us:

Our lunch conversation, as usual, had wandered finally to the upcoming presidential race.

“All right,” said my exasperated friend Ron, a conservative Republican. “I guess I’m resigned to the fact that you won’t vote at all in November. But you’re a politics junkie! Surely you’ll be rooting for someone!”

And it dawned on me that, yes, despite 32 years of persistent nonvoting, I’ve usually rooted for one of the major presidential candidates, always seeing one potential master as slightly less odious than the other. Likewise, for purely strategic reasons in the struggle for liberty, there’s typically been a reason to cast, if not a vote, then a hip-hip-hooray for one lying nitwit over another.

You can continue reading this essay right here.

Award goes to Milla, apocalyptic goddess

2008-10-23T16:37:00.000-07:00

I caught up with Spike TV's 2008 Scream Awards last night (which I'd recorded Tuesday), and was delighted to see big, big awards go to The Dark Knight and Iron Man. It was especially good to see the directors of both those movies actually in attendance; just goes to show they take geekdom seriously.

One of the biggest moments for me, though, was Milla Jovovich -- my favorite kick-ass action lady -- winning "Best Actress in a Science Fiction Movie or TV Show" for reprising her role as Alice in Resident Evil: Extinction. Milla was all giggly, goofy, barely coherent, and adorable, as usual. Bliss.

India loosens ban on smoking in movies

2008-10-21T16:08:00.000-07:00

ICONIC FIGURES CAN BE SHOWN
SMOKING; HEALTH MINISTRY NODS

New Delhi, Oct. 20 — (IANS) India’s multibillion rupee film industry, which has been fuming over a ban on smoking scenes in films, now has reason to smile. The health ministry is ready to allow the depiction of iconic characters with their favourite poison stick.

So British statesman Winston Churchill and fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, who cannot be imagined without their cigars and pipes, can now be shown smoking in new films — though with a warning.

“Characters like Churchill and Sherlock Holmes can smoke on screen. People know about them and their on-screen smoking won’t influence the audience behaviour much,” a senior health ministry official told IANS.

“This will be made public next month,” the official added.

The health ministry had banned smoking in films but director Mahesh Bhatt moved court against the government decision. The case has been pending in the Delhi High Court for the last two years. The Delhi High Court is going to hear the case in the third week of November.

Earlier, the ministry was completely against any smoking scenes in any movie. It had said all old movies with such scenes would have to be accompanied with a note saying the habit is injurious to health, and new films with such depictions could not be made at all.

Go ahead -- I dare ya!

2008-10-20T13:15:00.000-07:00

"Death to the Party!"

2008-10-19T16:40:00.000-07:00

For those libertarians still clinging to the electoral process, I present here “Death to the Party!”, a polemic written by Victor Koman and published in pamphlet form by “Ultra Faction MLL [Movement of the Libertarian Left]” in the 1980s. I don’t know whether Victor subscribes to these opinions today, but I find this little essay still on target.

Those of you who still love Liberty and Freedom, listen! Those of you not poisoned by the dope of Power, hear me! Those of you not yet shipwrecked by the Sirens of statism, read this! That most evil of temptors, the State itself, is seducing you in the dark alley which is the Party. Do not be deceived and led into dishonor.

The Party is the State. How can anything be more plain or more obvious? The rotting corpse of government has burst forth, spewing out a new breed of maggots to infect us and spread the disease of slavery, plunder and murder. For a Party exists only to put people into power. Don’t be hoodwinked by lies about “education.” Einstein needed no Party to get his ideas to the world. Nor did Spooner, nor Rand, nor Paine, nor any man or woman with the truth. Truth needs no Party.

The idea of Libertarianism is Liberty. The idea of the Party is Government. The only “education” requiring a Party is “education” in Statism. Ask a Cambodian, if you can find one.

And what will you learn from such an education? The philosophy of Atilla. The metaphysics of Stalin. The biology of Leviathan.

He who serves the Party serves the State. She who supports the Party supports the Statist quo. They who defend the Party defend those who would hunt us down and kill us.

By groveling before the altar of the almighty Vote, you are not turning the sword of the State against itself — you are sharpening its blade! By drawing others into political Sodomy, you are not disarming the guns of the State — you are providing them with fresh bullets! And by wasting your time learning to plot and betray, compromise and backstab, you are not bleeding the State — the State is bleeding you!

Those of you who claim to defend Liberty, tell me this: if the system you oppose is corrupt and evil, how can you change it by joining it, by saying “This is a place I belong, a system I endorse,” by embracing it? Do you not become as evil and corrupt?

Can you change the Mafia by becoming a Don or even the Capo? Can you stop the NKVD by becoming its head axeman? Can you reform the Gestapo by becoming an agent willing to “work within the system”? Can you stop destruction by becoming the destroyer?

I SAY NO! I say that to help the Party is to lock chains around the necks of Libertarians everywhere and lead us to death. I say that the Party is as foul and corrupt as the State to which it toadies. I say that the smallest quantum of aid or solace to the Party is open, blatant support of everything Libertarians find hideous and repugnant.

The Party is Death.

The Party must die.

Long live Freedom!

For sirius transhumanists

2008-10-18T16:23:00.000-07:00

Former Mondo 2000 editor R.U. Sirius, under the auspices of Humanity Plus (aka the World Transhumanist Association) is editing a new web-based quarterly magazine called h+. The magazine “covers the scientific, technological, and cultural developments that are challenging and overcoming human limitations." Highly recommended for my futurist and sci-fi geek friends. The first issue is available as a free PDF right here.

Corporate capitalism explained

2008-10-16T11:58:00.001-07:00

"That's how democracy works"

2008-10-16T11:12:00.000-07:00

“I’m really starting to hate those protesters. I’m tired of their shit. They need to take it up at the ballot box if they don’t like it.”

“You’ve already beaten them at the ballot box, remember? They won a referendum, and before they could get it implemented you got another referendum on the ballot and overturned them. That’s why they’re holding signs and throwing water balloons.”

“Well, that’s how democracy works.”

The Army of the Republic
by Stuart Archer Cohen
(St. Martin’s Press, 2008)

"Our Enemy, The Party" Redux

2008-10-16T08:32:00.001-07:00

SEK3's "Our Enemy, The Party" has now been turned into a nice, new, trifold brochure. Download it here. Thanks, Keith!

Voting and YOU!

2008-10-14T16:17:00.001-07:00

"Our Enemy, The Party"

2008-10-13T14:44:00.000-07:00

Old friend and longtime comrade Jack Shimek writes, “I'm looking for an MLL pamphlet called: ‘Our Enemy, the Party’ — didn't you do an update of that pamphlet? I can't seem to find it anywhere.”

Well, I did update a few of the late Samuel Edward Konkin III’s old Movement of the Libertarian Left pamphlets a few years back; you can find links to them along the right side of this blog and at Agorism.info. But alas, Sam’s classic handout “Our Enemy, The Party” wasn’t among them. What’s worse, a quick online search indicates that the text is nowhere to be found on the Internet. Since Election Day approaches rapidly, and there are still plenty of unimaginative “libertarians” out there who consider the vote sacred, I offer here the full text of MLL Issue Pamphlet #5, “Our Enemy, The Party,” written by SEK3 and published in 1980 (later reissued by Sam in 1987):

Introduction

In 1935, proto-libertarian Albert J. Nock wrote his seminal analysis of the nature of government and society: Our Enemy, The State. During the Dark Ages of Libertarianism (between the Fall of Benjamin Tucker [1908] to the rise of Murray Rothbard [1965-70] the leading libertarian thinkers have warned freedom-seekers against participation in the political process, that is, against vote-chasing and power-seeking. Nock, his disciple Frank Chodorov, H.L. Mencken, Isabel Patterson, Rose Wilder Lane, Leonard Read, and Robert LeFevre all sought to enlighten, instruct, and possibly sound the alarm. Chodorov and LeFevre were both instrumental in organizing activist libertarians — Chodorov’s Intercollegiate Society of Individualists (ISI) in the 1950s and LeFevre’s Libertarian Alliance in the 1960s. All warned against supporting any politician under any circumstances.

Now, in 1980, the blight of politician libertarianism, that absurd oxymoron based on abolishing rule by the State but accepting rule by a political party — partyarchy — has crested. Our current leading thinker and essayist admits all partyarch activity to date is deceit and failure. But still the concept lives on. This self-destructive “heresy” will probably linger on until the State is finally abolished from Man’s mind, but it can be reduced to an insignificant minority of no influence in the immediate future by vigorous activism and refutation. To this end, to save us another twenty years in the Dark Ages for Liberty, this pamphlet is written.

Our Enemy, The State

For those still pursuing the hopeless utopia of “limited” government (minarchy), there is little of substance to be said. In a nutshell, the State is the monopolization of coercion — initiatory violence. Any defensive acts are incidental to its essence. To a libertarian, such coercion is the only social immorality. (Personal immorality is the individual’s problem.) Hence the State is the institutional monopolization of immorality, evil, altruism, irrationality, and/or whatever you call it in your belief system.

Having got this far, one must ask if one is cursed with obeying this monster until it agrees to limit and abolish itself, remaining in complicity with its plunder and murder (taxation and war), or if one should break with it immediately (taking care of obvious threats to one’s life) and thenceforward living statelessly. The gradualist, conservative, “philosophical anarchist” makes the first choice; the rest select the moral course. But yet another choice faces the would-be consistent libertarian: having chosen abolitionism over gradualism, one must choose the mechanism by which one obtains the free society. Is it to be the political means or the economic means — Power or Market?

The Case For Consistency

Can means inconsistent with an end ever achieve that end? Can violence obtain peace, can slavery obtain freedom, can plunder protect against theft? The statist who pursues war, conscription and taxation answers yes. The libertarian responds no. Then why will an abolitionist anarchist pursue political means to abolish the political process? The end of the libertarian is a voluntary society where the market has replaced the government, where economics functions without politics. The purpose of politics is the maintenance, extension and controlling of the State — power. The market lies not on the road to power but on the road away.

Consistency to a libertarian means not some floating abstraction of non-contradicting philosophy but a consistency of theory with reality, of ideology and practice, of what ought to be and what is done. Complying with laws and procedure is necessary for the political route; one’s psychology becomes attuned to parliamentarianism, procedure and compromise, coalitions and betrayals, glad-handing and back-stabbing, elation at the ephemeral approval of others rather than one’s own achievements. Thus is one conditioned for living successfully in the State.

Pursuing the market anarchy directly through counter-economics, one’s psychology becomes attuned to supply-demand calculations, risk-taking, commerce with those of similar self-interest — hence inherently trustworthy, to salesmanship, and to elation at personal achievement (profit) and the self-correcting negative feelings accompanying loss. Thus is one self-programmed for living successfully — in a marketplace.

The consistent, or counter-economic, libertarian — agorist — suffers none of the frustrations arising from the self-contradictions of the political libertarian — partyarch. The State loses by each free transaction committed in defiance or evasion of its laws, regulations and taxes; the State gains by every compliance with, acceptance of, and payment to its institutions. Thus does agorism create anarchy and partyarchy preserve the State.

Our Enemy, The Party

Any “Libertarian” Party is immoral, inconsistent, unhistorical (see revisionist accounts of similar parties in the past: the Philosophic Radicals, the Liberty Party, the Free Soilers, and many others), psychologically frustrating and thoroughly counter-productive. Worst of all, such an LP may be the savior of the State.

Assume, as is the case in 1980, that a majority of vote-eligible citizens (in the U.S. as it happens) are poised not to vote. And as the counter-economy grows and the State’s sanction recedes, the tax-starved monster teeters on desertion of its unpaid enforcers and thus final collapse. The Higher Circle of the State stand to lose their power, privilege and centuries of ill-gotten gain. When suddenly the “L”P springs to the rescue.

Those who would send the taxman away now pay to keep their voting privilege and their record clean to run for office. Those who would violate laws and evade regulations now maintain the system to do away with it at a later, more expedient time. And those who would dodge or defend against the State’s enforcers “accept the result of a democratic election.”

Consider the fate of a heroic agorist who, at an earlier time of trust of “fellow libertarians” incautiously had spoken of her activities to be used as example to others, is turned in for her black marketeering by a libertarian who feels “the time is not right for revolution.”

She is arrested by Libertarians working their way through the system to reform it — as police. She is locked up…by a Libertarian working his way through the system to reform it — as a turnkey. She is tried…by a Libertarian working his way through the system — as a judge. And she is executed…by a Libertarian working his way through the system to reform it — as an executioner. So ends up partyarchy at its logical conclusion.

The Rôle of Activism

The agorist — consistent libertarian — has many alternatives to wasting time helping preserve the State and its system through politics. Undoubtedly there are rewards for some (though not all) for the political path where the Power Elite shower rewards on those who most successfully co-opt opposition and harness revolutionary fervor to maintain at least some of the State and its privilege. But the agorist can be amply rewarded in the counter-economy in both the material and personal sense for entrepreneurial activities. And there is a vital rôle for agorist activists — for that much-acclaimed cadre.

There are tens of millions of counter-economists in North America, and even more in the world at large. Few understand or have even heard of a philosophy of living that is consistent, moral and would free these true marketeers of residual guilt laid on them by the court intellectuals. Enlighten and interconnect these millions and one will have a fully conscious, efficacious and expanding society imbedded within the malfunctioning statist one, collapsing from wars, terrorism, runaway inflation, and stultifying bureaucracy. And soon it shall be the society.

That is the goal of the revolutionary agorist cadre of counter-economic practitioners and libertarian theorists. And the Movement of the Libertarian Left is working to build that alliance. Join us. Or seek the free society in your own, consistent way.

But give no aid to Our Enemy, The Party.

Hamburger Fatty Melt

2008-10-08T13:02:00.000-07:00

I can't be accused of following a very healthy diet. But I do know that this culinary creation -- a four-ounce hamburger patty stuck between two grilled cheese sandwiches -- can probably kill you. Sure looks delicious, though. Yum.

(Thanks to the folks at Serious Eats.)

Oliver Stone is overanxious

2008-10-08T11:59:00.000-07:00

I'm a very big fan of Oliver Stone's two great political films, JFK and Nixon. But I'm not overly optimistic about his new W., slated for limited release next week. Despite some terrific casting -- Josh Brolin as Dubya, Elizabeth Banks as Laura Bush, and Richard Dreyfuss as Dick Cheney -- I think it's way too early for a good docudrama about this presidency. Critic Todd McCarthy seems to agree. In his review in Variety, McCarthy says Stone's movie "feels like a rough draft of a film it might behoove him to remake in 10 or 15 years. ... It's questionable how wide a public will pony up to immerse itself in a story that still lacks an ending."

I'll be in line to see W. anyway.

Note to Leo: shut the f**k up

2008-10-02T15:32:00.000-07:00

Actors Leonardo DiCaprio, Forest Whitaker, and Dustin Hoffman have joined Google to get out the vote via an obnoxious YouTube video, which I refuse to link to. (If you must, go find it yourself. I won't make it easy for you.) Says DiCaprio in the video, "If you're not going to vote, I don't even know what to say to you anymore."

Well I know what to say to you, Leo. Shut your mouth, leave us alone, and don't poke your pointy little head above ground again unless it's to make a movie.

The power elite shows its hand

2008-10-02T14:51:00.000-07:00

Lemme tell ya, this week’s Wall Street bailout soap opera has done wonders for my credibility with friends and family. Before, when I’d even mention the term “power elite,” many would just chuckle and roll their eyes. Today, not so much. After all, without power elite theory, how else do you explain the lockstep support for pork-ridden, failure-guaranteed bailouts by both Republican and Democrat leaders, the Wall Street Journal, the foremost think tanks, every major metropolitan newspaper, all broadcast media, academics, corporate suckfish, and howling political pundits of both Right and Left — at a time when 75 percent of Americans recognize The Lie and vehemently oppose such bailouts?

Yes, indeed. The power elite, the puppet masters, the higher order, the shadow government, whatever the hell you want to call these bastards, have really shown their hand this week as they whine, cry, then rail against a public that “just doesn’t understand the fine workings of the economy and the urgency of this crisis.”

Sure, there will be a bailout. Because our rulers want it. And whatever they want, they get by one means or another.

But to win this particular battle, the elites have had to step into the light, where everybody recognizes them, even my conspiracy-phobic friends. And that’s something our shadowy masters hate to do. It scares the piss out of them.

Well, good.

Young minds, well washed for The State, part two

2008-10-01T16:00:00.001-07:00

Young minds, well washed for The State

2008-10-01T15:36:00.001-07:00

Buy a piece of Left Libertarian history

2008-09-28T15:09:00.000-07:00

OK, the first 2008 presidential debate is behind us, and Election Day is just a few weeks away. So it’s time to officially launch CounterCampaign ’08. And what better way to do so than to get your mitts on one of these few remaining original “Vote for Nobody” buttons? Longtime comrade Vic Koman has just a few buttons remaining from the original CounterCampiagn ’76 stock, manufactured when Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter were trading punches for the throne. Vic says these buttons are “in very fine condition, though some have lost a portion of the sheen on their metal backings.” Heck, they’re only $3.20 apiece. I’ve proudly worn my “Vote for Nobody” button every election season for more than 25 years. And you can buy a piece of this wearable and oh-so-relevant Libertarian Leftist history for yourself right here.

Tired ideas for would-be radicals

2008-09-25T19:14:00.000-07:00

Naomi Wolf’s Give Me Liberty: A Handbook for American Revolutionaries follows up last year’s The End of America, her belated warning of a “fascist shift” in the U.S. For radical libertarians, The End of America was pretty pedestrian, revelatory only to readers who never graze much beyond the bestseller list.

Nevertheless, I couldn’t resist grabbing Wolf’s new political handbook, since I’m always on the lookout for a modern how-to to rival Saul Alinsky’s 1971 classic Rules for Radicals. But unlike the late Alinsky, Wolf is neither an out-of-the-box thinker nor particularly radical. So Give Me Liberty is a mixed and largely uninspired bag of left-centrist polemic against the usual suspects (Bush, Cheney, et al.), battle cry rhetoric, and sketchy advice on writing press releases, arranging town hall meetings, launching blogs, petitioning our masters and, of course, getting out the vote (especially after we dump that pesky ol’ Electoral College). Early on in the book, Wolf writes that she was recently startled to discover that the Declaration of Independence is a radical document that exhorts the right to revolution. Egad! Too bad her definition of revolution is limited to working the system and playing electoral politics. “There are concrete laws we must pass to restore liberty,” Wolf writes. When she discusses the Bill of Rights, her only comment on the Second Amendment is that it “protects the right to own guns, at least in certain circumstances.” Now that’s revolutionary thinking. Not.

In the book’s “user’s guide,” Wolf is joined by other activists — what she calls her “citizens’ council” — including Trevor “Oyate” and Raymond D. Powell from Ron Paul’s camp, neither of whom have much to say. In her introduction to this section, Wolf explains, “We compiled a wish list at the end for laws, entities, and practices that we need to brainstorm about, create, enact, or build.” All of the items on that wish list, not surprisingly, are about making political elections fairer, more inclusive, and even making election fraud a “major felony.” One of Wolf’s cohorts, broadcaster-activist Curtis Ellis, suggests “making voting mandatory, with fines for not voting. When you renew your auto registration or file your taxes, you should have to show that you voted in elections.” Thanks, Curtis. You’ve just offered us one more good reason to avoid vehicle registration and evade taxes.

Give Me Liberty is of little use to Libertarian Leftists. There’s still a valuable activists’ how-to that needs to be written. Maybe one of these days, I’ll write the damn thing myself.

Organizing the disorganized

2008-09-22T13:06:00.000-07:00

Sometimes, “preaching to the choir,” as so many of us lefties do on these blogs, isn’t a bad thing. As historian-activist Howard Zinn said in a 2004 interview:

“There is value in people speaking to people who already agree with them but who don’t act on the principles that they believe in. And one of the reasons you have rallies and demonstrations — and you know that the people who are going to come to those rallies and demonstrations are people that already agree with the thrust of those demonstrations — is the idea of bringing the choir together to encourage people, inspire people, activate, motivate people. So it’s not a terrible thing to preach to the choir.”

But whether we’re preaching to the choir or focusing on outreach, recruitment, or direct action, we Libertarian Leftists definitely need to pull our shit together. And the Alliance of the Libertarian Left’s ad hoc global organizing committee offers the info and resources you need to galvanize radicals in your area to action. “Are you looking for other like-minded people in your neck of the woods to start an ALL local? Do you already have a core group to start a local, but need help getting things off the ground? Need web space for your new group? Want advice on organizing or actions that you can take in your community? Just ask…”

And by the way, this committee has one of the niftiest logos I’ve ever seen.

WilsonFest 2008

2008-09-21T09:01:00.000-07:00

It’s been WilsonFest 2008 around here this past week. Brian Wilson’s new collection, That Lucky Old Sun, has played endlessly, and now I’ve added Smile and even Pet Sounds to the mix.

The new CD, like 2004’s long long long delayed (what, 38 years?) Smile, is really a suite of tunes hard to separate. You’re tempted to skip to track eight and listen right now to “Mexican Girl,” but it just wouldn’t be right. These songs work best listened to in context, not individually. For example, this bit from “Midnight’s Another Day” really nails my life of just two years ago:

When there’s no morning without “u”
There’s only darkness the whole day through
Took the diamond from my soul
And turned it back into coal

But it doesn’t work fully for me without this stanza from “Going Home,” two cuts and a few minutes later:

I heard my sound and found my smile
Living in love, yeah yeah yeah, it’s been a while

That Lucky Old Sun isn’t as ambitious or even as addictive as Smile. But it’s still joyous, a terrific follow-up, and a much-appreciated report from Brian on where his life is at the moment. It’s like oxygen to the brain.

The ruins of Empire

2008-09-16T14:01:00.000-07:00

While everybody else is posting photos of the Hurricane Ike devastation on the Texas coast, the folks at Environmental Graffiti are offering up creepy shots of this railway station in Abkhazia, northwestern Georgia, abandoned almost two decades since the collapse of the USSR. This railway was, in its prime, a busy passenger line between Abkhazia and Russia. I find these pictures both eerie and fascinating.

To preserve and protect...

2008-09-14T20:02:00.000-07:00

Hat tip to Wendy.

Gregory Mcdonald RIP

2008-09-11T10:46:00.000-07:00

Author Gregory Mcdonald died from cancer last Sunday. He was 71.

Besides writing for newspapers, Mcdonald wrote the Fletch series of crime thrillers. If your only experiences with Fletch are the horrible two movies starring Chevy Chase, do yourself a very big favor and get hold of Mcdonald’s first three books, all published in the ’70s — Fletch; Confess, Fletch (which introduced another series character, Flynn); and Fletch’s Fortune. Over the past thirty years, I’ve read each of those novels at least five times. They are all massively entertaining, and they taught me a lot about writing.

Mcdonald wrote eight other novels in the Fletch series, two of them about Fletch’s son. Unfortunately, none of them are as good as the original three.

I’ll miss Gregory Mcdonald.

Beyond Galt's Gulch, there's Macrolife

2008-09-04T23:44:00.000-07:00

Macrolife, by George Zebrowski, is utterly mind-boggling science fiction. Its scope is certainly epic, spanning one hundred billion years, so I suppose it qualifies as space opera. Maybe Space Opera Plus. And I think it offers exciting ideas for radical libertarians, freedom-seeking secessionists, and anarcho-transhumanists to mull over.

First published thirty years ago, the book is a heady mix. It’s a novel, yes, but it’s also a future history, a polemic, and a call to action. More than anything else, it’s a far-reaching meditation on the ultimate survival of humankind. You don’t dash through this book and then toss it aside. After I finished reading Macrolife, I didn’t slip it back on a shelf. It sits bedside, where I plan to take a sip from time to time.

The novel’s premise is compelling. Its author contends that our species must reach out to the stars in order to endure. Zebrowski writes in an afterword to this latest edition (2006):

“[E]ven in the near term, across the next millennium, our failure to become a space-faring world may well be suicidal when we consider what we can do for our world from the high ground of the solar system: energy and resources, planetary management, and most important the ability to prevent the world-ending catastrophe of an asteroid strike. This last threat will happen; it is not a question of if but when. Today we are utterly helpless before such a danger and would know of it only when it was already happening.”

But Zebrowski argues that merely vacating Earth and populating other planets — or “dirtworlds” — is only a short-term solution. Limited resources, he says, assure the consistent failure of planet-based civilizations. Likewise, the proposed “space cylinder” habitats of Gerard O’Neill, which assume construction from scratch, lack long-term vision. With a nod to futurist Dandridge M. Cole, Zebrowski suggests that hollowed-out asteroids serve us as nomadic “societal containers,” or macrolife, “a mobile … organism comprised of human and human-derived intelligences. It’s an organism because it reproduces, with its human and other elements, moves and reacts on the scale of the Galaxy.” These “mobile utopias” will be larger inside “than the surface of a planet. And larger still within its minds.” In the Big Picture, macrolife is an open-ended, expanding union of organic, cybernetic, and machine intelligences, spreading itself through the galaxies.

Macrolife suggests futures beyond this planet, beyond Old World cultures, beyond governments, beyond authoritarian institutions. It’s utopian but acknowledges the dangers of utopianism. It’s worth reading, worth study, and worth serious discussion.