The new boss turns out to be the same as the old boss…

Only smarter.  To remind everyone that I’m still around and not actually dead, I thought I’d repost sections from an editorial available at wikileaks looking into the actions of Mr Obama since the beginning of his presidency.  Although it’s a little old, it does it’s bit to skewer the notion that any politician can be a heralded a messiah without consequences.  Obama may be doing some things ‘right’ the eyes of millions, but his behaviour regarding powers obtained under the Bush administration betrays a certain something about what else we can expect.

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If the last eight years have taught anything, it is that no rational person would listen to or take seriously anything Dick Cheney and his Lowry-like followers have to say. That they’re motivated by everything other than the truth when criticizing Obama only bolsters that conclusion. But their ill motives and unbroken history of deceit doesn’t mean that they’re wrong in this case. And as much as one might prefer not to acknowledge it, it is becoming undeniably clear that — at least in the realm of civil liberties, executive power and core Constitutional rights — Lowry’s description of Obama’s “three-step maneuver” is basically accurate, and Cheney’s fear-mongering lament that Obama is undoing his Terrorism policies is basically false.

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Consider three key episodes from the last week just standing alone. On Friday, the Obama administration announced that it would no longer use the Bush-identified label “enemy combatants” as a ground for detaining Terrorist suspects, an announcement that generated headlines suggesting a significant change from the prior administration. But the following day, after reviewing the legal brief the administration filed (.pdf) setting forth its actual position regarding presidential powers of detention, here is how The New York Times’s William Glaberson accurately described what was really done:

The Obama administration said Friday that it would abandon the Bush administration’s term “enemy combatant” as it argues in court for the continued detention of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in a move that seemed intended to symbolically separate the new administration from Bush detention policies.

But in a much anticipated court filing, the Justice Department argued that the president has the authority to detain terrorism suspects there without criminal charges, much as the Bush administration had asserted. It provided a broad definition of those who can be held, which was not significantly different from the one used by the Bush administration.

Bush’s asserted power to detain as “enemy combatants” even those people who were detained outside of a traditional “battlefield” — rather than charge them with crimes — was one of the most controversial of the last eight years. Yet the Obama administration, when called upon to state their position, makes only the most cosmetic and inconsequential changes — designed to generate headlines misleadingly depicting a significant reversal (“Obama drops ‘enemy combatant’ label”) — while, in fact, retaining the crux of Bush’s extremist detention theory.

Or consider the new policies of transparency that Obama announced during his first week in office, ones that prompted lavish praise from most civil libertarians (including me). When it comes to a civil liberties restoration, few things are more important than drastically scaling back the Bush adminstration’s endless reliance on frivolous national-security-based “secrecy” claims as a weapon for hiding virtually everything the Government does. Excessive secrecy was the linchpin of most of the Bush abuses.

Last year, several privacy groups, including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, became alarmed at what appeared to be an emerging, new Draconian international treaty governing intellectual property, the so-called Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. As Wired’s Dave Kravets reported, the treaty as negotiated by the Bush administration — government summaries of which were leaked to and posted on Wikileaks — “would criminalize peer-to-peer file sharing, subject iPods to border searches and allow internet service providers to monitor their customers’ communications.”

Despite the fact that drafts of the treaty have been leaked; that the terms have nothing to do with national security; and that the agreement was being circulated among 27 different nations, the Bush administration — typically enough — rejected FOIA requests for documents pertaining to the treaty (.pdf) last January on multiple grounds, including “national security.” Based on Obama’s new pledges of transparency and new FOIA policies, EFF and others re-submitted the FOIA request last month. But in a March 10 letter (.pdf), they received a virtually identical response, this time from Obama’s Chief FOIA Officer in the Office of the Trade Representative:

There may or may not be legitimate reasons under the law to withhold drafts of this IP treaty, but the Bush-mimicking claim that doing so is justified “in the interest of national security” is, as Kravets wrote, “stunning.” And it’s hard to imagine many things more patently inconsistent with the fanfare over expanded “transparency” during Obama’s first week.

Finally, consider Obama’s headline-generating announcement earlier this week that he would “limit” the use of presidential signing statements, one of Bush’s principal instruments for literally ignoring the law. That announcement generated much celebration among Obama supporters, such as this poetic pronouncement by a front-page writer at Daily Kos:

All hail the U.S. Constitution. It seems to be coming back to life through some vigorous resuscitation.

Yet two days later — literally — Obama signed a $410 billion spending bill and appended to it a signing statement claiming that he had the Constitutional authority to ignore several of its oversight provisions. There is a very strong argument to make, grounded in clear Supreme Court precedent, that some of those provisions are actually unconstitutional, which would make the use of signing statements for those provisions probably proper. But at least some of those provisions which Obama declared invalid are, at worst, of arguable validity and, more accurately, grounded in strong judicial precedent regarding Congressional power. The broad powers Obama asserted for himself in that signing statement are clearly at odds with the pretty-worded policy he issued days earlier whereby he “promised to take a modest approach when using the statements”; to use them only to challenge provisions he notified Congress in advance he believes are unconstitutional; and to issue them “based only on interpretations of the Constitution that are well-founded.”

Those are episodes just from the last week. It’s to say nothing of the series of events that preceded last week that shocked many Bush critics and outraged virtually all civil libertarians, including the Obama administration’s embrace of the most radical version of the “state secrets” privilege; the claim that detainees in Bagram and other dark American prisons around the world have no rights of any kind to challenge their detention; the pressure exerted on Britain to keep evidence of torture concealed; and the extraordinary efforts undertaken to block judicial rulings on whether the Bush administration broke the law in how it spied on Americans. It’s true that there have been some bright spots — the release of some of the long-concealed OLC memos; the order that the CIA no longer interrogate detainees outside of the scope of the Army Field Manual; the indictment of the last “enemy combatant” on American soil; the directive that Guantanamo be closed and that the International Red Cross be given access to all detainees — but many of those steps are preliminary and symbolic and have become quickly overshadowed by the far more substantial embraces of Bush’s executive power theories.

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Read the rest here.

State sponsored terror in Greece

The last few days has seen many reports come in of violent actions against immigrants in Greece at the hands of ultra-nationalist organisations operating with what appears to be the consent of the Greek government.

As reported by Infoshop:

The rapid nazification of the Greek state took off last weekend with the violent evacuation and torching of the large Afghan immigrant settlement in Patras, shooting of immigrants in Omoinoia square and institutionalised torture of Pakistanis in the island of Simi.

The Greek state’s response to the December Uprising and the politicisation of immigrants across the country has solidified in a programme of nazification that includes open endorsement of neo-nazi vigilante combat groups, a series of the most repressive laws seen since the junta, and open attack against both the social antagonistic movement and immigrants across the country.

On early Saturday 11/7 morning armed nazi scum riding a car drove by the heavily policed Omonoia square in down town Athens and opened fire on bystander immigrants near the offices of the Golden Dawn neo-nazi party. Three wounded immigrants were taken to hospital and are out of danger. Later the same night nazi scum set fire on Palio Efetio, the Old Appeal Court opposite their offices which is being squatted by immigrants and is being vilified by the bourgeois press.

The same day, the Pakistani Community denounced yet another incident of institutionalised stripping and torture committed by the fascist greek police in the island of Simi. For 8 hours Wassim Sanjat, Mazhjar Ali and Mohamet Ali were tortured: cops tortured Wassim by “placing a gun on his head, beating him with a glob and iron stick on the soles of his feet (a torture loved by the junta called phallanga) and on his bottom and stripping him again and again. The other two persons were severely beaten. The Pakistani Community demands the immediate punishment of the torturers-policemen.

In the early hours of Sunday 12/7 strong riot police forces surrounded the big Afghan immigrant settlement in Patras, cordoning off the area. The riot policemen then moved to evacuate the thousands of asylum seekers using maximum force, while bulldozers moved in to demolish their houses.During the evacuation operations, the settlement was ‘mysteriously’ set on fire, and torched to the ground. The settlement is believed to have been housing more than 2,000 Afghans and has been repeatedly targeted by fascists receiving the solidarity of a wide spectrum of progressive social forces in the city of Patras. The Red Cross has condemned the evacuation and torching of the settlement as ‘terrorist’. The Communist Party (KKE) has condemned the attack as barbaric and the Coalition of Radical Left as ‘beastial’ and ‘criminal’. The evacuated immigrants are held in concentration centers of zero hygienic facilities, host to continuing greek police torture and brutality.

The nazification of the Greek state which is endorsing parastate groups to ‘clean and patrol’ areas comes in a climate of acute social antagonistic upheaval. Besides the continuing resistance locals of Grammaticos villages who rose against the construction of an open refuse dump in their area, erecting barricades and clashing with the police, last week saw a series of dynamic antifascist antiracist protest marches against State-nazi attacks against immigrants. At the same time, on the early hours of Saturday the house of the ex-Minister of Public Order (active during the December Uprising and Alexis Grigoropoulos assassination by the police) and ex-chief of the Greek Army, General Hinophotis, was bombed with a strong explosive device after prior warning call to the press. A few hours later earlier yet another armed attack against riot police forces occurred near the HQ of PASOK with no victims On the early morning Sunday, following the surge of State-fascist attacks the HQ camp of the riot police (MAT) in Athens came under attack by protesters which piled the riot policemen with stones leading to a half hour battle.

Additionally, the Greek state is making moves to shut down the Greek independent media:

A period of State widespread repression and brutality followed after the December 2008 Rebellion. Members of fascist parties of the right and the extreme right of the parliament have launched hacking attacks against the IMC of Athens. The former National Hellenic Telecommunications Organization sent a legal document for the National Network of Research and Technology, requesting the interruption of access of the Athens IMC in optic fiber network in five days. We ask you, if you can host the Internet sites of the IMC of Athens and Patras on your server.

A period of State widespread repression and brutality followed after December 2008 Rebellion. During and after the rebellion, the political party of extreme right wing LAOS (Popular Orthodox Party Alert) and the Greek state decided to press the IMC of Athens and Patras, on the grounds that they were used as centers for the coordination of Rebellion (no rebellions may, of course, be conducted via the Internet), deliberately ignoring the contribution of IMC to the counter-information.

Members of fascist parties of the right and the extreme right of the parliament have launched attacks against the IMC of Athens. The fascists tried to foist their propaganda about the government right through their blogs, and they are trying to block access to the site by attacks made by hackers. The statements of politicians at parliament and on television make the IMC as a major enemy of the state.

The most dangerous movement was the appeal sent to the Minister of Education by K. Velopoulos, a member of LAOS. He asked the Minister of Education if the IMC of Athens and Patras were housed in the Athens Polytechnic University (UPA) and demanded immediate action to stop these “dangerous” sites from “supporting terrorism” and so on.

The Secretary of Education, S. Taliadouros, readily agreed to Velopoulos that “these sites claim to be a threat to democracy” and asked the director of the UPA to close it. Ignoring the status of autonomy of Greek universities, all sorts of political and judicial pressures were put into practice on the university authorities to remove our IP address. We are aware that even if the university is up against the decisions of the ministry there are other ways in which they can close it.

A member of the extreme right party, LAOS, launched a new attack against the IMC of Athens. He asked a question in parliament saying that the Polytechnic University of Athens provides access to Independent Media Athens and that has nothing to do with research and education.

The former National Hellenic Telecommunications Organization sent a legal document for the National Network of Research and Technology, requesting the interruption of access of the Athens IMC in optic fiber network in five days. The Organization said it will use all legal means against the National Network of Research and Technology if it does not stop giving access to IMC of Athens.

The status of social freedoms of all Greek universities prohibits the entry and police intervention in the university to prevent the application of State authority and censorship in academic activities and policies as well as in the ideas that flourish in universities. The status was claimed and defended for years by the vast majority of people and the blood of many.

The only law that can be used by the State to break the civil liberties of the university and close the IMC of Athens is the anti-terrorism legislation (passed in 2001). Given the fact that young companions (some of them under age) were accused by the law during the Rebellion of December 2008 in Larissa (the first time it was applied to the demonstrators), shows this as a likely scenario.

For all these reasons we ask you if you can host the Internet sites of the IMC of Athens and Patras on your server. We must preserve them, especially when they are closed or are near to be closed, and to react against censorship and promote freedom of information.

The IMC of Athens and Patras (along with other European and IMC revolutionary Internet sites that are hosted on the same server) face a serious threat of prosecution. It is the responsibility of the whole movement and of all of our partners to get support of the world and protect our voice. We call all the companions of the world to be prepared because the next period is critical to the existence of the IMC in Greece.

With our warmest greetings of companionship!

IMC of Athens and Patras

Other stories worth reading can be found here and here.

Political Rhetoric and Immigration

Australia is confident Malaysia will treat asylum seekers appropriately, even though a report says corrupt officials have forced refugees into prostitution and slavery.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd met his Malaysian counterpart, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, in Kuala Lumpur on Monday night. The two nations agreed to stronger cooperation to combat people smuggling.

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But a US State Department report released last month put Malaysia on a blacklist of 16 nations judged to be the worst for people trafficking.

The report said corrupt Malaysian officials had sold Burmese refugees to people traffickers or forced them into prostitution or slave labour unless they paid for their freedom.

Typical.  What angers me the most is how eager Kevin Rudd and others like him have been to label illegal immigration as evil and people smugglers as the scum of the earth.  Of course, people trafficking is a different issue, as forcing people into prostitution and slavery is evil; an activity which it appears some Malaysian officials have been engaging in.  The difference?  Entering, or helping someone to enter a a country illegally is not immoral, but selling a person  into slavery, it so happens, is.

And it gets better:

Mr Smith said Malaysia wanted borders with integrity.

“Malaysia and both the prime minister and my counterpart made it very clear yesterday, privately and publicly, Malaysia doesn’t want to be regarded as a country which has lax immigration procedures or a country through which people can transit at their own whim.“

Oh my God!  How evil!  Traversing a country at their whim? Those criminals.  We should lock them up and throw away the key!

“Capitalism”

Capitalism, one of the last great sacred cows for many.  For some its a god, placed upon a pedestal and revered as the saviour of man.  To others it is the epitome of evil, to be combated at all costs.

‘Capitalism’ means different things to different people, depending on context and each person’s theoretical background.  Some people use it to mean a series of free exchanges between individuals uninfluenced by state or force, while other people refer to it as a system of workers exploitation and privilege for the few.

Mike Gogulski relates his thoughts on the subject:

With a single exception, attendees responded with words evoking free markets, individualism, free association, self-determination, respect for property, the ability to create and retain wealth, no interference in peaceful trade, ideological consistency, and so on.

I then told them that they are all absolutely right. And at the same time absolutely wrong.

I said: Capitalism is an exploitative system of privileges granted to wealthy interests to the detriment of the poor.

And that definition is also right, because it lives in the minds of billions.

Likewise, in the comments of the ‘About me’ section of my blog, Geoffrey Transom wrote:

You can dislike anarcho-capitalism all you like, but if you’re genuinely an anarchist, and the world progressesto[sic] anarchy, it will be anarcho-capitalist.

Markets are the only coercion-free way to enable mutually-beneficial exchange: there is no other mechanism. I think you are conflatingtheeffects[sic] of crony-capitalism (the US model since the mid-1800s) with actual, free, markets.

Acknowledging that there is a running disagreement about the meaning of the term capitalism is just the start.  What needs to be taken into account is the fact that billions of people regard the label ‘capitalism’ as exploitation and oppression.  Meanwhile there are thousands of proponents of  Capitalism out there who elaborate on their system as a corporate wonderland.  This group labels themselves ‘Capitalist’ and, even if ‘capitalism’ originally meant something else, it now applies to their ideology.

To all intents and purposes, the crony-capitalism described by Geoffrey Transom is Capitalism.

Some may argue that this also applies to the term ‘Anarchist’, in that many who like the idea of indiscriminate violence like to label themselves anarchists, so we must give up the term for some other derivative.  The fact that we do not give up the term ‘Anarchist’ to thugs, according to some, supports the argument that we should not give up the term ‘capitalist’ either.  Yet ‘Anarchist’ has been used as a chosen label for movements world-wide filled with passionate and intelligent individuals working for a better society.  Misuse of the term abounds only when it is applied as part description, part label to a group by a third party.  It’s intended to provoke an audience.

The difference lies in how the label is applied and for what purpose; the first group identify as Anarchist, while the second group have been identified by others as anarchist in rhetoric.  Such rhetoric has unfortunately continued in popular culture, meaning advocates of Anarchism are routinely forced to deal with a common cliché — but this cliché still this works in favour of Anarchists.  The word is exciting and fun.  It forces all kinds of responses from all kinds of people, ranging from shock horror to curiosity.  It has connotations with passion, humanism, the promise of revolt and even the promise of salvation, freedom and justice.  It is a rallying call.  In short, it is radical.

Ignoring the specific meaning of the term for a moment ‘capitalism’, or any replacement for the label ‘Anarchist’ for that manner, is boring.

It is also worth mentioning that the same argument that some would apply to Anarchist’ would apply more aptly to the term ‘free market’, which has been appropriated and misused as rhetoric by those arguing in favour of the current capitalist economic system.  The words are a description that encapsulate an idea.  With little clarification one can easily use the term ‘free market’ (or even ‘freed market’ as has become the fashion among some scenes) to mean the everyday interactions of individuals, unfettered by interference from an external third party.  Unlike the term ‘capitalism’, ‘free market’ implies more than one concept and has been misused as rhetoric rather than as a label or a noun given to a set of ideals concerning the realm of statist party-politics and economics.  In this sphere, it has been misapplied as oh so many ‘free markets’ are never, actually ‘free’.  ‘Capitalism’ does not contain the ‘free from external influence’ imputation that ‘free market’ does using the plain and ordinary meaning of the words.  As the current state of world economies show, economic systems that ascribe to the Capitalist label seem to depend on the state for existence.  In this the Marxists appear to be right.

This is the way in which I use these terms.  It is hardly a conflation, but more an emphasis in the distinction between ‘capitalism’ and the ‘free market’ as distinct and different concepts.  Conversely, I would submit to my critics that the use of ‘capitalism’ as synonymous with the ‘free market’ is the true conflation in terms.  When Konkin wrote that Anarcho-Capitalists conflate the productive class and the apathetic, apolitical capitalist class, he failed to notice that the problem can be traced back to the fundamental misuse of basic language.  After all, in the course of everyday life it would be the height of arrogance to redefine a word to mean something other than what it does, simply to fit my agenda, and to then insist upon all whom I come across that it is the world who truly operates on an incorrect premise.  Most people would ignore me, or call me crazy if I suddenly redefined the word ‘clam’ to mean ‘sandwich’, so why shouldn’t the same apply to ‘capitalism’?  It is arrogant to redefine ‘capitalism’ to mean the ‘free market’, incorporate it into a particular ideology and then insist that it is the rest of the world who is wrong — especially when in the minds of individuals everywhere, Capitalism is synonymous with a coercive system of privilege and exploitation.

And yet, in these times of economic uncertainty, there are those sounding the alarm that many of the world’s economies may give up on Capitalism, with America leading the way.  It may be a little crazy (even a little radical) of me to suggest the following, but maybe Capitalism should be cast off, slaughtered and thrown on the pit to be left to rot along with other dead, statist ideologies such as Stalinist Communism.  As radicals, we cannot advocate Capitalism.  We should be pouring scorn upon it along with the best scourn-pourers and offering our audiences the free market as a true alternative.  We must cast off Capitalism entirely; not merely cover it up and hide it away in what amounts to a superficial change, by slapping a new label on an old product.

Kevin Caron’s phrase “Free Market, Anti-Capitalism”  has become the battlecry for the new generation of Agorists, Mutualists and Individualist Anarchists for a reason.

Special thanks to Neverfox of Instead of  a Blog.