Monday, November 28, 2011 The Making of a Prison Society “That’s why you shouldn’t bring kids to protests.” This taunt, which issued from the sneering lips of an armored riot policeman, struck Don Joughin with the force of a billyclub as he tried to comfort his children – a three-year-old and a newborn – after […]

Tuesday, December 6, 2011 The Right to Resist: Will Michigan Repeal the “Rapist Doctrine”? “Don’t resist – you’ll just make it worse.” Until recently, the only people expected to make that demand of their innocent victims were rapists and police officers. Fortunately, women are no longer expected to submit to sexual assault, but rather to […]

Tuesday, December 13, 2011 Send In The Drones: The Predator State Goes Domestic “Eventually, we’ll have to put an end to this, one way or another.” Sheriff Kelly Janke of North Dakota’s Nelson County uttered that ominous sentence in mid-September, during what the local media giddily described as a stand-off with local farmer Rodney Brossart […]

Thursday, December 22, 2011 Their Right to Kill, Our Duty To Die: The Murder of Otto Zehm Otto Zehm, a mentally handicapped, 36-year-old unemployed janitor, was beaten to death in a Spokane convenience store in March 2006. “All I wanted was a Snickers bar,” pleaded the battered and bloody man before he was gagged by […]

Thursday, December 29, 2011 Militarists, Drug Warriors, and Heresy-Hunters: The Anti-Ron Paul Axis of “Decency”   Toxic smugness: Google the term “Backpfeifengesicht.” Newt Gingrich, lapsed adulterer, impenitent warmonger, and self-appointed “teacher of civilization,” has excommunicated Ron Paul and his supporters from the ranks of human decency. A similar anathema has been pronounced by left-wing heresy […]

Sunday, January 3, 2010 Neither Sword Nor Shield: Full-Spectrum Civilian Disarmament The wages of civilian disarmament: U.S. troops shovel the mortal remains of disarmed Sioux into a mass grave at Wounded Knee, January 1891. “We need to make it clear,” fulminated Patrick Lynch of the New York City Policeman’s Benevolent Association, “that if someone lifts […]

Tuesday, January 5, 2010 Creatures from the Conservative Id Out of office, but still in play: The modern Torture State is Dick Cheney’s legacy. Shall I tell you what true evil is? It is to submit to you. It is when we surrender our freedom, our dignity, instead of defying you. –Captain Jean-Luc Picard confronts […]

Thursday, January 14, 2010 All the Reich Moves Either fight it now, or get used to this kind of thing: Pennsylvania State Troopers — one with a drawn assault rifle, his trigger-finger ready — bracket a terrified driver during a roadblock set up near Pittsburgh following the death of a “comrade” in a domestic shooting. […]

Monday, January 18, 2010 Hurting People For a Living Pure, distilled badness : Unlike agents of state coercion, Hawk never preyed on the weak and helpless.I don’t like him. He hurts people for a living.Only people who’ve hurt others, or who haven’t kept a promise.Spenser explains Hawk’s code of ethics to his inamorata, Susan SilvermanFor […]

Wednesday, January 27, 2010 Killing the Commissar: The Limits of Submission Sic semper Tyrannis: Israelite liberator Ehud slays the tyrant-king Eglon. “… Ehud made him a dagger which had two edges, and he did gird it under his raiment upon his right thigh. And he brought [a] present unto Eglon, the king of Moab…. And […]