Quando anti-racistas usaram a bandeira confederada

When Anti-Racists Adopted the Confederate Battle Flag, por Jesse Walker:

This is my favorite picture of a Confederate flag:


That was the emblem of the Southern Student Organizing Committee, a New Left group founded in 1964. At a time when the activists most likely to be waving a Confederate banner were affiliated with the Ku Klux Klan, SSOC decided to adopt—and adapt—the battle flag for the other side of the civil rights struggle. The group did most of its organizing among southern whites, and it went out of its way to draw on regional iconography (...)

But not everyone in the movement thought the emblem was a good idea. "Explaining to their white counterparts that the battleflag had only one meaning to them," Michel writes, several "black activists stressed that no matter how SSOC altered the flag's image, African Americans forever would see it as a symbol of racial oppression." SSOC was predominantly white, but it wanted to become the biracial alliance implied by those clasped hands. And so it dropped both the emblem and the name New Rebel at the end of 1964. (...)

By that time, SSOC wasn't the only New Left group playing with Confederate signifiers. The Young Patriots were a Chicago-based organization made up mostly of working-class whites who had migrated to the city from the Appalachians; the Patriots joined the Black Panthers and the Young Lords (a Panther-like Puerto Rican group) in an partnership called the Rainbow Coalition. (This was unrelated to Jesse Jackson's outfit, which was launched much later.) "In a decade when symbolism mattered like never before, most Left groups chose their radical dress code—whether the dignified suits of civil rights leaders or the sleek leather jackets of the Panthers—to consciously send a message," Amy Sonnie and James Tracy write in Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels, and Black Power. "For better or worse, the Patriots adopted the Confederate flag as a symbol of southern poor people's revolt against the owning class."

A história do "politicamente correto"

What the Hell Does 'Politically Correct' Mean?: A Short History, por Jesse Walker (Reason Hit and Run):

Amanda Taub's Vox piece denying the existence of political correctness does get one thing right: The phrase political correctness "has no actual fixed or specific meaning." What it does have, though Taub doesn't explore this, is a history of meanings: a series of ways different people have deployed the term, often for radically different purposes.(...)

[F]or our purposes the story begins in the middle of the 20th century, as various Marxist-Leninist sects developed a distinctive cant. One of the terms they liked to use was "politically correct," as in "What is needed now is a politically correct, class-conscious and militant leadership, which will lead an armed struggle to abolish the whole system of exploitation of man by man in Indonesia and establish a workers state!" It was a phrase for the sort of radical who was deeply interested in establishing and enforcing the "correct line," to borrow another term of the day. If you were the sort of radical who was not interested in establishing and enforcing the correct line, you were bound to start mocking this way of talking, and by the end of the '60s the mockers were flinging the phrase back at the drones. In 1969, for example, when Dana Beal of the White Panther Party defended the counterculture against its critics on the straight left, he argued that freely experimenting was more important than trying "to be perfectly politically 'correct.'" A year later, in the seminal feminist anthology Sisterhood is Powerful, Robin Morgan derided male editors who had "the best intentions of being politically 'correct'" but couldn't resist butting in with their own ideas. In the new usage, which soon superceded the old Leninist lingo pretty much entirely, "politically correct" was an unkind term for leftists who acted as though good politics were simply a matter of mastering the right jargon.(...)

In '80s issues of magazines like Mother Jones or Ms., "politically correct" could describe a consumer good or a lifestyle choice. The tone here was usually lightly self-mocking, as you'd expect when words once associated with a shifting Maoist party line were now being applied to an exercise book or a fake fur. But some people did use it earnestly, perhaps because they weren't in on the joke, perhaps because they just thought the term was too good to go to waste. (...)

My favorite mid-'80s manifestation of the phrase has to be this ad that Mother Jones ran in 1985—mostly because I'm not entirely sure if it's being partly ironic or completely sincere. It's clearly one of the funniest things anyone wrote that year, but I'll be damned if I know whether the person who produced it knew that:

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A direita e a esquerda da New Age / Pensamento Positivo

Jesse Walker: "The long American spiritual tradition that gave us Marianne Williamson—and Donald Trump"

Já agora, o texto (embora só de raspão fale no assunto) faz-me pensar que nestas primárias Democratas há uma espécie de bloco pós-hippie - Sanders, Williamson e Gabbard (esta última mais por nascimento do que por escolha).

Censura em versão Parceria Público-Privada

Prodding private companies into censorship by proxy is a dangerous government tradition, por Jesse Walker (Los Angeles Times, via Reason):

When YouTube, Facebook or Twitter cracks down on some form of expression — conspiracy theories, radical rants, terrorist propaganda — some of the targets inevitably complain that their freedom of speech is under attack. (This feeling of victimhood may be what sent Nasim Aghdam to YouTube headquarters, gun in hand.) There is a strong retort to this: These are private platforms with a right to decide what they publish. It is no more a violation of the 1st Amendment for YouTube to muzzle a channel (...) than it is for this newspaper to refuse to run a column calling for Minnesota to invade Wisconsin.

But what if a private platform suppresses speech because it’s afraid the government might otherwise step in?

Just as one effective end-run around the 4th Amendment is to ask private companies for data they slurped up on their own, the 1st Amendment can be sidestepped when officials pressure the private sector into self-censorship. The end result can be rules more restrictive than the companies would impose on their own — and more intrusive than the government could get away with if it tried to impose them directly.

Debate sobre a anarquia - James Scott, David Friedman e Robert Ellickson

[Via Jesse Walker]

A opinião de David Friedman (filho de Milton) sobre a discussão - Two Visions of Anarchy–My Exchange With James Scott

Ainda a "classe trabalhadora" norte-americana - recordações dos anos 70 (II)

Na mesma altura, tanto as greves selvagens como o "populismo" de direita e de esquerda estavam na moda, e por vezes protagonizados pelas mesmas pessoas. Como Jesse Walker refere aqui, nas primárias Democráticas de 1972, em Detroit, Michigan, grande parte dos votantes (aparentemente os mais "classe trabalhadora") estavam indecisos entre George McGovern e George Wallace (o candidato conotado com a juventude radical anti-guerra versus o candidato dos conservadores sulistas).

Um artigo mais completo sobre a evolução da "classe trabalhadora" nos anos 70 (ou pelo menos de um operário de Detroit é Introduction to Stayin' Alive: The 1970s and the LastDays of the Working Class[pdf], por Jefferson Cowie:

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Cidades ilegais

Illegal Cities, por Robert Nelson (Reason):

Since 1950 the population of the world has increased from 2.5 billion to 6.1 billion. Many of these newcomers earn less than $1 a day--far below the U.S. poverty standard--and live in sprawling megacities such as Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, Mumbai (formerly Bombay) in India, and Nairobi in Kenya. They are frequently beset by bad governments and corrupt officials. How do they survive?

Investigative reporter Robert Neuwirth gives the answer in his fascinating book Shadow Cities. About a fifth of Rio de Janeiro's residents, half of Mumbai's, and two-thirds of Nairobi's live as urban squatters, a category that includes an estimated 1 billion people around the world. They don't hold title to the land on which they live; they are loosely if at all regulated; they do not pay taxes; they seldom receive postal delivery, water, sewers, roads, or other public services; and, in general, they live with a minimal legal order.

Anarchist political theorists have long dreamed of such a society; some of their ideas are today being put to the test. As Neuwirth reports, squatter anarchy can work surprisingly well. In the favela squatter settlements of Rio, law and order is privately maintained by local drug lords, and there is hardly any crime, comparing favorably in this regard with most Rio neighborhoods served by the city police. The housing is built one small step at a time. Although the exterior appearance is typically ramshackle at first, the interiors are surprisingly neat and comfortable, and after a few decades the outsides are often attractive as well. (...)

Neuwirth studied life in squatter settlements by living in four of them for a few months each. The physical conditions of life were most difficult in the Kibera settlement of 500,000 in Nairobi. Nevertheless, a strong sense of neighborhood community was present. Neuwirth reports that "many women...developed communal self-help networks" and "churches are a growth industry"; it sometimes seemed that "everyone in Kibera belongs to one church or another." Business dealings based "on trust" worked almost as reliably as those based on legal contracts. One Kibera resident who became a multimillionaire businessman chose to remain there because he liked the friendly and unpretentious people so much.(...)

[Via Jesse Walker: When the Olympics Crush a Community - In defense of the favelas]

Como são os jihiadistas europeus?

Who Are the European Jihadists?, por Jesse Walker (Reason):

...the political scientist Olivier Roy delivered a fascinating talk at a conference sponsored by the German counterpart to the FBI. Drawing on data about Europeans who join jihadist groups, Roy argues that they're primarily driven not by theology, nor by deprived backgrounds, but by a particular sort of youthful alienation. (...)

They come from a wide range of sociological backgrounds, but the majority are "second generation Muslims born in Europe, [and] the others are converts; almost none came as a young adult or as a teenager to Europe from the Middle East." Many of them "have a past of petty delinquency and drug dealing" followed by "a sudden and rapid 'return' to religion (or conversion), immediately followed by political radicalisation. There is a clear 'breaking point,' often linked with a personal crisis (jail for instance)." (...)

almost all of them [were] radicalised to the dismay of their parents and relatives (a huge difference if we compare with Palestinian radicals). Most parents not only disapprove of their children's radicalisation, but actively try to bring them back or even to have them arrested by the police. This pattern is found as well among parents of converts (a fact we can expect), but also among Muslim parents (Abaaoud in Belgium). In this sense the radicals do not express an anger shared by their milieus or by the Muslim "community."

It is a peer phenomenon: they radicalise in the framework of a small network of friends, whatever the concrete circumstances of their meeting may be (neighbourhood, jail, internet, or sports clubs). This puts them often at odds with the traditional view of family and women in Islam. These groups are often mixed in gender terms, and the women play often a far more important role than they themselves claim (Boumediene in the Charlie Hebdo killers' team). They intermarry between themselves, without the parents' consent. In this sense they are closer to the ultra-left groups of the 1970s.

Sinais que o seu filho pode vir a ser um terrorista

Is Your Kid a Terrorist? Watch for the Warning Signs!, por Jesse Walker (Reason):

Keeping Children and Young People Safe from Radicalisation and Extremism: Advice for Parents and Carers lists some of the warning signs that you—yes, you!—might have an extremist under your roof.

Some of these signs, the authors note, "could describe general teenage behaviour." So if your kid has been "losing interest in previous activities and friendships" or "switching screens when you come near," you needn't fret unless it's happening "together with other signs." On the other hand, the "following signs are more specific to radicalisation":

• "Owning mobile phones or devices you haven't given them"
• "Showing a mistrust of mainstream media reports and belief in conspiracy theories"
• "Appearing angry about government policies, especially foreign policy"

A origem dos rumores sobre Obama "nascido no Quénia"?

The Secret Origins of Birtherism:

On February 28, 2008, UCLA Law Professor Eugene Volokh posted to The Volokh Conspiracy a short item where he stated that he was certain that John McCain was a natural-born citizen. At the time, there was some minor debate over whether McCain’s well-established birth in Panama affected his Presidential eligibility. In the comments thread to this post, one commenter, Dave N, posited this legal scenario:

Let’s change the hypothetical (just for grins and giggles).

Barack Obama’s father was a citizen of Kenya. What would Senator Obama’s citizenship status (and Presidential eligibility) be if:

1) He had been born in Kenya, but taken by his mother to the United States immediately after birth and then spent the rest of his life as he has subsequently lived it?

2) He was born in a third country, and like my first hypothetical, immediately taken to the United States? Does that change the analysis?

3) Would these results change if Senator Obama had been raised in a foreign country for any length of time before his mother returned with him to the United States?

That was posted at The Volokh Conspiracy at 2:02 a.m. on February 29, 2008. Just over 24 hours later, FARS was sharing at FreeRepublic what he had “been told today” about Obama having been born overseas, but taken by his mother to the United States immediately after birth. All the details subsequently expressed in FARS’ version of the rumor are there in Dave’s legal hypothetical. And as a rumor, it shows no signs of having existed prior to February 29.

Thus, before it was a rumor that gave birth to a fringe movement, dozens of attempted lawsuits, and Donald Trump’s political career, Birtherism was borne out of nothing more than a legal hypothetical. No family confessions, no stories out of Africa, no investigative reporting, no Hillary Clinton campaign sabotage. Just a mere thought exercise about citizenship law, turned into a malicious rumor by an anti-Muslim blogger.

That is how Birtherism was conceived.

[Via Jesse Walker, Reason]

O que é a alt-right?

Ultimamente tem-se começado a falar da alt-right, sobretudo a respeito da candidatura de Donald Trump. Mas o que é esse movimento?

Dois artigo sobre o assunto:

An Establishment Conservative's Guide To The Alt-Right, pelos "alt-rightistas" Milo Yiannopoulos e Allum Bokhari

Hillary Clinton to Give Alt-Right Recruitment Speech, pelo "libertarian" Jesse Walker

A "solitária" na prisão

The Rise, Fall, and Rise Again of Solitary Confinement, por Jesse Walker:

Jean Casella and James Ridgeway have published an interesting history of solitary confinement at Longreads (*). Established in late-18th-century America by jailers who saw it as "a kinder and more effective alternative to more viscerally cruel punishments," solitary grew increasingly popular in the antebellum reform era of the mid 19th century. But the practice attracted harsh criticism as its psychological effects became clear, and by the 20th century it was far less common. Its comeback began with the U.S. Penitentiary in Marion, Illinois, which opened in 1963, developed a "Long-Term Control Unit" where prisoners were held in isolation, and in 1983 became the country's first "supermax" prison, where solitary confinement is the norm.

Uma coisa que me ocorre é se a "solitária" será um castigo tão duro assim - pelo menos se as prisões forem como aparece nos filmes, eu desconfio que iria querer estar sempre na "solitária".

O Estado Islâmico contra o "politicamente correto"

ISIS Condemns Political Correctness, por Jesse Walker:

The latest issue of Dabiq, the ISIS propaganda magazine, mocks Westerners for being too P.C. (...)

And so, the magazine declares,

if it were the Muslims, instead of the Crusaders, who had fought the Japanese and Vietnamese or invaded the lands of the Native Americans, there would have been no regrets in killing and enslaving those therein. And since those mujahidin would have done so bound by the Law, they would have been thorough and without some "politically correct" need to apologize years later.

I'm not sure when the phrase "politically correct" entered the ISIS lexicon, but this isn't the only time the concept has come up in the English-language edition of the magazine. Another article in the same issue scoffs at pundits who profess not to know why ISIS hates them, declaring that such "analysts and journalists" say this only "to keep themselves from becoming a target for saying something that the masses deem to be 'politically incorrect.'"

By the way: If you wanted more details about how the Islamic State claims it would have fought the Japanese, the Vietnamese, and the Native Americans, the magazine is glad to oblige. The Japanese "would have been forcefully converted to Islam from their pagan ways—and if they stubbornly declined, perhaps another nuke would change their mind." The Vietnamese would "be offered Islam or beds of napalm." If ISIS had battled the Native Americans, the conquerers "would have taken their surviving women and children as slaves, raising the children as model Muslims and impregnating their women to produce a new generation of mujahidin." Also, Jews "would face a slaughter that would make the Holocaust sound like a bedtime story," and the African slave trade "would have continued, supporting a strong economy," because God thinks it's fine "to sell captured pagan humans."

Já agora, nesta altura do campeonato ainda há alguém que se autodefina como "politicamente correto"?

Um jornalista conservador na prisão com o Black Lives Matter

What Happens When a Breitbart Reporter Goes to Jail, por Jesse Walker (Reason):

Lee Stranahan of the right-wing website Breitbart was arrested Saturday night while covering a protest against police abuses in Baton Rouge. (...) Stranahan—a writer not generally predisposed to side with protesters—subsequently declared on Twitter that he "not only [believes] my imprisonment was unconstitutional but I believe the other protesters['] was as well."

Now Stranahan has published a nearly 3,500-word account of his detention. While it's safe to say that he hasn't been converted to the Black Lives Matter cause, he also writes without malice about the people he was detained with:

We had a lot of time to kill, and I had some great conversations. I quickly learned that the issue here in Baton Rouge for these people was not ideologically driven. Over and over, they told me the issue was not about Democrat or Republican but about the way law enforcement handles things in both Baton Rouge and the state of Louisiana in general, which has one of the largest incarceration rates in Western civilization. These protesters did not have the agenda of overthrowing capitalism that many of the top leaders of Black Lives Matter have; they want police abuse to end, and they see the Alton Sterling case as emblematic of that problem. (...)

I'm pretty sure this is the first time any article in Breitbart has included the phrase "thank God for the National Lawyers Guild"—that being the leftist organization that eventually got the group out of jail. "Do I wish there was a conservative, pro-liberty legal group out there that I could've called?" Stranahan writes. "You're darn right I do, but there was no such group involved in what was going on in Baton Rouge."

Hillary Clinton e os extra-terrestres

Hillary and the Extraterrestrials, por Jesse Walker:

Every now and then an interviewer will ask her about sky saucers, and she'll reply with an apparently earnest pledge to open the government's files on the subject, sometimes adding that we can't say for sure whether we're alone in the universe. Now The New York Times has put together a detailed story on her interest in extraterrestrials (...)

It's easy to mock this, but I've decided it's actually one of the few things I like about Hillary Clinton. I've got three reasons:

1. At least she wants to be transparent about something. I'd rather she pardon Snowden, end the Leak Scare, stop the war on whistleblowers, and battle Washington's overclassification epidemic. But a smidge is better than nada.

2. Almost every aspect of Clinton's public persona feels like it was designed by a committee of PR professionals after they spent a year asking focus groups what they'd like to see in a firm-but-caring suburban grandmother. Her interest in something vaguely weird and disreputable is one of the few signs she's not a pod person.

3. If she is a pod person, this is our chance to find out.

Merle Haggard (1937-2016)

Merle Haggard, RIP, por Jesse Walker (Reason):

Haggard's most famous record—or infamous, in some circles—is "Okie from Muskogee," the Silent Majority's great culture-war anthem of 1969. At the time, people took it as a song for hardhats who hated hippies: Spiro Agnew mashed up with the Grand Ol' Opry. Years later, it became common to claim the tune was intended as a joke. When a man who smokes pot starts a song with the words "We don't smoke marijuana in Muskogee," you have to wonder whether he was speaking for himself. And Haggard undeniably enjoyed his pot. "Son," he told one interviewer, "Muskogee's just about the only place I don't smoke it."

Haggard himself was always cagey about what he meant by the song, and the answers he gave to interviewers weren't always consistent with one another. But the best way to understand the record, I've long thought, is to take it as a dramatic monologue. "Okie" reports how a conservative character feels about the counterculture, and whether you take his views as inspiring or hilarious is up to you. The fact that it can work either way is a tribute to Haggard's skills.

Antes da Internet, só tinha ouvido uma vez essa música, numa viagem de autocarro de Lisboa para Portimão (mas é uma letra que fica no ouvido, mesmo que a reação do ouvinte seja "mas que reacionarice é esta!?").

Bernie Sanders e a "Segunda Emenda" (II)

Bernie Sanders and Gun Rights: More Than Just Electoral Expediency, por Jesse Walker (Reason Hit and Run):

Bernie Sanders' uneven but real support for gun rights has puzzled a lot of pundits, who tend to describe the socialist senator's position on the issue as "to Clinton's right" and who tend to figure it's just a byproduct of getting elected in a rural state where guns are everywhere. Both of these theses are undermined by this passage in Michael Tracey's new story for The New Republic:

The [Liberty Union] party, while Sanders served on its executive committee, adopted a platform in 1972 that called for the "abolition of all laws which interfere with the Constitutional right of citizens to bear arms." This may suggest that Sanders's relatively permissive views on gun ownership, already the subject of much consternation among liberals, could be rooted in sincere principle—not simply in the practical realities of winning election in rural Vermont.

Given the Liberty Union Party's penchant for taking self-marginalizing radical stances, I think it's safe to suppose this plank was not mere electoral expediency. But it fit snugly with the New Left's general tendency to be far friendlier to gun rights than center-left liberals were. (...)

I have to confess a certain fondness for the '70s incarnation of Bernie Sanders. (...) [T]he Old, Weird Bernie Sanders was much more libertarian on social issues than he is now, calling for the abolition of compulsory schooling, the legalization of hard drugs, and an end to "all laws which attempt to impose a particular brand of morality or 'right' on people." He even opposed mandatory flouridation and helmet laws. Of course he was also more prone than the current Sanders to call for enormous expansions of the government's economic power.

Como improvisar bancos

We can all get by quite well without banks - Ireland managed to survive without them, por Patrick Cockburn  e Money in an Economy Without Banks - the Case of Ireland, por Antoin Murphy.

Resumo breve - em 1970 houve uma greve bancária que durou meses; com os bancos fechados (e num mundo sem multibancos e transferencias eletrónicas de dinheiro), os cheques (incluindo "cheques" improvisados) tornaram-se a moeda corrente:

Undated cheques, often endorsed over to others but never cashed, became a form of currency. When the supply of cheques dried up, people wrote new ones on any available piece of paper, sometimes adding a postage stamp to give it an official appearance. There was talk of some cheques being written on beer mats and lavatory paper. It was a system that worked because it drew on local knowledge and trust. The people exchanging cheques and IOUs knew each other well, and if they did not, they could soon find the necessary information to assess each other’s credit-worthiness. At that time there were 11,000 pubs in Ireland and 12,000 shops that became substitutes for the banks. Antoin E Murphy, who carried out a study on the strike’s effects, found the public’s ability to assess risk “was based on a vast pool of information available to transactors on the credit-worthiness of other transactors”.

[via Jesse Walker]

Aliás, parece que nos últimos meses os cheques pré-datados tem estado também a tornar-se uma espécie de moeda na Grécia.

William Burroughs - um estranho conservador ou um estranho radical?

The Sultan of Sewers, por Jesse Walker (Reason):

After Naked Lunch was published in 1959, Burroughs graduated from unknown writer to literary celebrity. Today he is widely regarded, along with Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac, as one of the three towering figures of the Beat movement. He was one of the most prominent figures in the emergence of the postwar counterculture, and his influence stretches well beyond the Beats to the bohemias of the '60s, the '70s, and beyond. In 2014, a century after his birth in St. Louis, his work remains a touchstone for alienated cynics of all kinds.

But Burroughs' worldview was miles from the peace-and-love socialism that our cultural clichés tell us to expect from a hippie hero. In 1949, according to Barry Miles' new biography Call Me Burroughs, he complained to Kerouac that "we are bogged down in this octopus of bureaucratic socialism." When he was a landlord in New Orleans he sent Ginsberg a rant against rent control, and when he found himself owning a farm in Texas he gave Ginsberg an earful about the evils of the minimum wage. Eventually he departed for Mexico, and there he wrote to Ginsberg again. "I am not able to share your enthusiasm for the deplorable conditions which obtain in the U.S. at this time," he told his leftist friend. "I think the U.S. is heading in the direction of a Socialistic police state similar to England, and not too different from Russia....At least Mexico is no obscenity 'Welfare' State, and the more I see of this country the better I like it. It is really possible to relax here where nobody tries to mind your business for you." He added that Westbrook Pegler, a hard-right pundit who would soon be a vocal defender of Sen. Joe McCarthy, was "the only columnist, in my opinion, who possesses a grain of integrity."

Two decades later, covering the Democratic Party's bloody 1968 convention for Esquire, Burroughs manifested a more left-wing aura. A day after his arrival he donned a McCarthy button—the antiwar insurgent candidate Eugene McCarthy, that is, not Pegler's pal Joe. When cops started assaulting protesters outside the convention hall, Burroughs immediately aligned himself with the radicals in the streets, declaring in a public statement that the "police acted in the manner of their species" and asking, "Is there not a municipal ordinance that vicious dogs be muzzled and controlled?" (...)

So had the aging artist shifted from the far right to the far left? (...)

Burroughs was no conventional conservative. As a bisexual, a drug user, and a writer whose work was regularly damned as "obscene," he came to regard the right as a gang of bigots and busybodies. But he was no conventional radical either. (...)

Another revolutionary fantasy opens Burroughs' 1981 novel Cities of the Red Night. Here again the heroes are outlaws. Burroughs had discovered the legend of Captain Misson, a probably-fictional pirate whose self-governing, freedom-loving crew was said to have targeted slave ships, liberating the cargo and inviting them to join Misson's buccaneers as equals. According to legend, they eventually established an anarchistic colony on Madagascar called Libertatia. Burroughs imagines an alternate history where Libertatia survived and inspired imitations. "Imagine a number of such fortified positions all through South America and the West Indies, stretching from Africa to Madagascar and Malaya and the East Indies, all offering refuge to fugitives from slavery and oppression," Burroughs writes. "Imagine such a movement on a world-wide scale. Faced by the actual practice of freedom, the French and American revolutions would be forced to stand by their words. The disastrous results of uncontrolled industrialization would also be curtailed, since factory workers and slum dwellers from the cities would seek refuge in [the pirate colonies]. Any man would have the right to settle in any area of his choosing. The land would belong to those who used it. No white-man boss, no Pukka Sahib, no Patrons, no colonists."

In a sense this was a new Burroughs: The onetime landlord and employer was now dreaming of a world without landlords or bosses. But the mechanism he imagined didn't resemble the rent-control and minimum-wage laws he denounced in the '40s. If anything, he was calling for something even more anti-statist. Burroughs didn't want a bureaucracy; he wanted a world without control systems.

Decapitações moderadas

King Abdullah's Moderate Beheadings, por Jesse Walker:

 From The New York Times' obit for King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, who just died at age 90:

Still, Abdullah became, in some ways, a force of moderation. He contested Al Qaeda's militant interpretations of the faith as justifying, even compelling, terrorist acts. He ordered that textbooks be purged of their most extreme language and sent 900 imams to re-education sessions. He had hundreds of militants arrested and some beheaded.