Very cool. Link to the actual archive: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lbc2ic?cc=lbc2ic;page=index;c=lbc2ic
From slavery-era and post-Reconstruction miscegenation laws to the religion-fueled popular movements to ban same-sex marriage to the recent Obergefell decision which reflects a successful conservative redirection of the queer liberation movement into simply "marriage equality" and a movement to preserve marriage as a privilege and means to regulate public welfare, the entire pathetic history of marriage in America is one long case study in the failure of democracy.
For anyone interested, I can lend my endorsement to this document as both a decent overview of anarchist perspectives on marriage equality as well as a good list of further resources on the issue.
Walworth residents resist immigration raid. Also covered by Vice: http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/immigration-raid-police-fight-822
An article about the Denver Anarchist Black Cross in Denver's Westword (2013)
This cop probably thought he was cleaning up the creek by cracking down on rock stacking... but that was his mistake, because rock stacking is an art form performed and enjoyed by everybody in Boulder, rich and homeless alike. Hence the quick reaction from city council in this case. Now if that cop had harassed a homeless person for using a blanket at night[1] , then there would have been no outrage and city council would have backed up the cop.
"Since 2000, more than 27,000 migrants and refugees have died attempting the perilous journey to Europe. With an unprecedented number of people breaking through its heavily barricaded borders in 2014, the EU continues to fortify its frontiers."
A synthesis of news reports and other sources which provides a complete high-level view of the Texas FLDS raids and trials.
"In the late 1800’s, the Mormon pioneers, exiled to the Utah territory, implemented one of the largest experiments in cooperative living that the United States has ever known. They wanted to create a society with no rich and no poor."
This documentary includes footage from almost every vantage point (and impressively edited together) during the Oka crisis in 1990 which I had never heard of before (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oka_Crisis).
Two more documentaries on the standoff:
- Acts of Defiance (http://www.nfb.ca/film/acts_of_defiance/)
- Rocks at Whiskey Trench (https://www.nfb.ca/playlists/alanis-obomsawin-retrospective/viewing/rocks_at_whiskey_trench)
Good footage and an accurate portrayal of what it is to thru hike. Somewhat cheesy narration.
Dyer Lum argues that the motivational force behind the Edmunds Anti-Polygamy Act is to crush the cooperative economy set up by Mormons in Utah.
"The spirit of Caesar, rendered powerless in religious systems, castrated of divine right in forms of political government, is entrenching itself in the economic system of the age. British and German empires, Spanish and Italian kingdoms, French and American republics, are but dead forms; the animating soul in each is the same. A common (economic) feeling has made them all akin. Statecraft exists for the furtherance of economic interests; forms of government are recognized as of secondary importance to "vested interests." Harrington's apothegm: 'Empire follows the balance of property,' is no longer disputable."
This is exceptional news! Despite the very clear video evidence it took eight months to file charges, and I don't think it would have happened at all if it weren't for the Ferguson riots and "Black Lives Matter" protesters (in addition to all of the Albuquerque protests and the Department of Justice investigation).
I have my doubts that the charges will stick, though. A District Court justice has to decide that there is enough evidence for murder at a preliminary hearing (where the charges may be downgraded or dropped). But still a better chance of going to trial for something than the ol' grand jury shenanigans.
Even if either officer goes to trial on any charge, I don't expect a conviction. When Kelly Thomas (an unarmed homeless man in Fullerton, CA) was beaten to death by police (captured on both video and audio recording devices) two cops were charged with involuntary manslaughter and one with murder. But after the first trial found two of the cops not guilty, the DA dropped the charges for the third cop.
People who work get bored when they don’t work.
People who don’t work never get bored.
Classic story.
"Beneath its superficial rationalism, then, the New Atheism amounts to little more than an intellectual defense of empire and a smokescreen for the injustices of global capitalism. It is a parochial universalism whose potency lies in its capacity to appear simultaneously iconoclastic, dissenting, and disinterested, while channeling vulgar prejudices, promoting imperial projects, and dressing up banal truisms as deep insights."
"Our moral standing is reduced to what we “support.” We are good or bad people, in the eyes of whichever circle we choose, based on whether we hold the correct opinions or not, “support” the appropriate causes or not. When we seek to create moral and political change, we are always working on the level of opinions — using persuasion to get someone to switch their “support” over to our cause."