leftlibertarian.org

"Who ARE you?"

Besides the questionable grammar, is this THE question?

Think about your answer. What's the first thing you'll use to describe yourself?

Is it your job? Your "profession?" Your nationality? How about your political persuasion?

For me, all (except nationality) have change over the last 10 years - drastically. Who am I? Am I the same person from a decade ago, or someone different? Am I a different person than the one who started typing this post?

It seems to be so important right now because all kinds of unhealthy things arise from blithely assuming the truth of any single answer you can give. Answer "job" or "profession" and you're likely to be so attached to either that you view threats to them as personal threats. Answer "nationality", and you're starting down the Nationalist Socialist path. Answer "political persuasion", and even if you're anti-communist, you're starting down the path to totalitarianism.

I have no answer to this question, and I'm sure others have presented the issue more eloquently, but I really think more people need to grapple with the issue, just to recognize just how little they actually know about themselves, let alone the world. I always get those Greeks mixed up, so I'll just acknowledge that the sentiment is obviously not mine -

Wisdom lies in understanding how little you know.

The Democratic mandate doesn't include unlimited government, political correctness, or the Mommy State.

Much time has been spent in the past year or so debating the nature of the Green Party and whether it is “right-wing” or has “moved right” or not. (1) The Green Party of the 1980's was definitely on the left, being composed of ex-NDP people, anarchists and semi-anarchist environmentalists. The GP branch in my town is still like that. While some of the talk about the GP going right may well be motivated by NDP fears of losing votes, I think there is something to the criticism.

The leadership has attempted to sell the party to “small c conservatives” and distance itself from the left. Its economic policies, while not exactly right-wing by todays standards (more centrist, in fact) certainly aren't radical by any means. These policies are green-sounding enough to maintain the party's base, yet not too meaty to scare away conservatives. (But I will be the first to admit, that if the GP's policies were put into practice it would be a big step forward.)

The GP developed a radical critique of the way the environment was being treated. It also moved way to the left of the NDP on political policy, positing a grass-roots, decentralized vision in opposition to the present elective dictatorship that leaves the people voiceless outside of the quadrennial farce. I note that this radical vision does not get the promotion it used to, and seems to be reduced to plumping for a proportional ballot, a progressive demand, for sure, but a long way from direct democracy.

One thing the GP did not develop fully in its early days was a radical economic policy. But this was also the case for the rest of the left at the time, so the GP should not be singled out for blame. Into this vacuum has moved somewhat conservative elements mixing neoliberalism with Green communitarianism. The problem with the economic vision of the mainstream left in the '80s and '90's was being trapped into a false dichotomy, government ownership/control vs. “private” ownership. Since statism was no longer popular for obvious reasons, most mainstream leftists abandoned nationalization, and having nothing to replace it, adopted a modified and supposedly humanized version of neoliberalism.

The mainstream left (and the leadership of the GP) did not realize a third alternative to statism or corporate capitalism existed. This was cooperative socialism, a form of economy that empowers the people and the community rather than the state or corporations. Cooperative socialism emphasizes worker self-management, seeks to replace capitalism with worker or stakeholder cooperatives. It seeks to replace state services with client-run mutual aid societies. This is the new socialism that you see forming in Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina and with the Zapatistas of Chiapas

I would like to see the Green Party move back to being a party of the left. One way they could do so would be to adopt this new cooperative socialism as economic policy and let the NDP be the smiley face of neoliberalism.

1. For the latest critique of the GP see

http://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2006/12/elizabeth-may-catholic-grrl.html

Y’all,

About noon yesterday, I discovered that Yahoo no longer recognized my long-time userID (thomaslknapp), and that therefore my usual email address (thomaslknapp at yahoo.com) was no longer accessible. Following that, all Yahoo “groups” that I owned — and which had no co-owners whose Yahoo userIDs remained viable — “disappeared” as well. This includes the newsgroup through which my “day job,” Rational Review News Digest, is published.

At this point, I don’t know whether Yahoo is having a bellyache and everything will come back, or whether I’m under some kind of “cyber-attack.” If the latter, I have good reason to suspect that said attack is aimed at Steve Kubby’s presidential campaign, as at least one other staffer is having a similar experience.

In any case: If you need to reach me, use the address publisher at rationalreview dot com.

If you’re a Rational Review News Digest subscriber, don’t panic — the web edition is still up, and we have yesterday’s membership roster available to upload to a replacement group (although if this is permanent, we’ve lost an archive of our first 1,000+ email editions). If you aren’t receiving your email edition in the next few days, check this spot for instructions on how to get re-subscribed.

Finally, if you’re experiencing similar Yahoo problems, drop a comment or a line — I’d like to know what’s going on here.

Thanks for your patience.

Regards,
Kn@ppster

I'm just creating a new layout for my German website Der freie Markt. There are still two major bugs which I can't quite figure out how to solve, but apart from that I'm done. Comments are very welcome!

Tags: libertarianism, Der freie Markt

I don't like Capitalism, because I believe in free markets.
I don't like Socialism, because I believe in cooperation over conflict.
I don't like the State, because I believe in justice, peace, and security.

(via Reason Hit & Run)

See this quote by director David Lynch:

But at that time, I thought of myself as a libertarian. I believed in next to zero government. And I still would lean toward no government and not so many rules, except for traffic lights and things like this.

That's kind of reassuring for me. I've long been an admirer of Lynch's films. But when I found out that Lynch is said to be an admirer of Reagan -- that was back when I was still some sort of post-Left-collectivist-individualist m�lange type of anarchist -- I felt profoundly confused as to how I should interpret masterworks such as Blue Velvet or Mulholland Dr. I finally settled on not interpret them politically, which, I now believe, is the right way of accessing Lynch's work anyway. But still, it's reassuring.

Check out the whole interview for more details about Lynch's political views.

Tags: libertarianism, David Lynch, film

Pinochet demonstrators


Reflecting on the regime of former Chilean leader Augusto Pinochet, on this the occasion of his passing, I am moved to say that I’m glad I live the United States of America, where our government sets up the coups against other democratically-elected governments and establishes dictatorships for those countries... because it would pretty much suck to be on the receiving end of that.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061211/ap_on_re_as/chile_pinochet

Hey, Chileans! Let the memory of the dead shame themselves; save your protest for the living!

Sheldon Richman's latest TGIF column sums up many important aspects of the global warming debate and it emphasizes on points which have been neglected by many libertarians in the past:

Do we really want to concede up front that there are only statist solutions to the possible threat from climate change? That would betray a lack of confidence in the freedom philosophy and the market process.

Check it out.

Tags: libertarianism, free-market environmentalism, global warming

Incorrigible warhawks and hand-wringing sensible liberals both routinely dismiss calls for immediate withdrawal from Iraq with a wave of the hand and a grumble or two about the need for constructive suggestions. If pressed on the topic they will point out that after American soldiers withdraw things may get very, very bad in Iraq. The problem with this line of argument is that while that is true that things may get very, very bad, that could only support prolonging the occupation (whether indefinitely or for the duration of some elaborately orchestrated exit strategy) if not withdrawing would somehow make things less bad. If the presence of American soldiers is usually making things actively worse — the delusion of control notwithstanding — then the appeal is simply foolish.

But maybe the hand-wringers and the mouth-foamers have a point. If American soldiers weren’t in Iraq, then who would make sure that things like this get done?

(Via The Disillusioned Kid 2006-12-01.)