10/6/03 5:11 PM- Monday night mailball: this time, it's personal. Finally, it is time that the St. Matthew's rant had its day in court. I have broken my trend of sarcastic responses and given the St. Matthew's rant the personal, legitimate attention my readers seem to think it deserves. Head over to the Reader Mail page and see what develops.

10/4/03 4:33 PM- More mail?! It looks like you are in for not one, but two big updates today. I categorized the pictures on The Photography Emporium, rearranged the sidebar, added 'The Lost Soul of Anarchism' to /thought, added seven brand-spankin'-new photographs, and posted a new reader mail. Once again, someone has written in to defend the St. Matthew's Jesus Prospers Growth Bakeries Self-Help Lose-Weight-In-Seven-Days-or-Less plan. Does the fun ever cease? Head over to The Photography Emporium and the Reader Mail page to find out.

10/4/03 12:46 PM- Update: Photography Emporium. I have yet another bunch of pictures for you today: added 'bee_color,' 'morgan-bw,' 'reflection,' 'stop_sunset,' 'renaissance_rider,' and 'renaissance_swordfight.' Hopefully I will have time to write a new article soon. Stay tuned.

9/24/03 7:56 PM- Update: Photography Emporium. I have two new pieces of eye candy for you today: 'skylight panorama' and 'blue flower.' Check them out.

9/16/03 4:45 PM- Update: Photography Emporium. I posted eight new pictures for your viewing pleasure.

9/11/03-

9/10/03 9:10 PM- A minor update. I have added a new e-mail to the reader mail page discussing social conservatism, decriminalization, and the flaws of American society. Also, I added the memorial you see on the front page in commemoration of September 11th. I wish I had time to write something in-depth, but for now, it will have to suffice. Soon I will be adding the original of the memorial photo to the photography page, along with (hopefully) a few other pictures.

9/7/03 4:49 PM- Update: Photography Emporium. Today I put together a big update to the Photography Emporium; there is now a brand new Dally in the Alley gallery with eigth pictures from yesterday's celebration, as well as eight additional pictures in the friends gallery, including two from the walk out vigil (the day we went to war with Iraq: I know it's a bit late). Props go to Rachel for most of the 'friends' page photographs and disses go to my scanner for doing its best to screw them up. Also, I have added two new pictures to my photography gallery. FYI: I will no longer be adding links to the individual galleries to the main sidebar, so you will have to view new updates on the photography page itself. Pretty soon, I will be removing the individual gallery links altogether.

9/4/03 5:25 PM- The Photography Emporium v0.99. Today I proudly announce to you the launch of the brand new Photography Emporium, which has replaced all galleries that once existed here. From now on, The Photography Emporium will contain the friends, band camp, and protest galleries, as well as an all-new gallery of my personal photography. On the top of each of the main gallery pages is the date last updated; the pictures are thumbnailed and sorted in alphabetical order for maximum ease-of-use. This new system allows me to update the individual thumbnail galleries very easily, so expect The Photography Emporium to expand significantly in the future. The link is on the sidebar: go check it out!

9/2/03 5:38 PM- Endorsements?! This may come as a surprise, but I am writing today’s update for one reason and one reason only: to announce my support of not one, but two candidates for public office. With the presidential race of 2004 approaching, Samuel L. Jackson has yet to acknowledge our plea for his candidacy. Where does that leave us, you ask? Shattered and broken on the side of the road, it leaves us yearning for a less-than-dismal candidate for president. For me, that search has yielded only one result: Dennis Kucinich.

Leader of the house Progressive Caucus, the largest caucus in existence, Kucinich is the former mayor of Cleveland, and a representative of Ohio. His platform consists of a single-payer health care plan that guarantees health care for all, withdrawal from NAFTA and the WTO in the interest of American jobs and welfare, abandonment of the Patriot Act to restore the rights of privacy, and a return to global diplomacy. As far as the Democrats go, he is far and by the most progressive candidate, claiming he represents the “proud to be Democrats” who aim for serious policy changes in the future. Unlike Howard Dean, John Kerry, Dick Gephart, and Joe Lieberman, Dennis Kucinich is an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq and was one of the most influential leaders of the antiwar movement within the House of Representatives. While some of the other candidates are critical of the war in Iraq, Kerry, Gephart, and Lieberman all voted for the Iraq war resolution. Dean has been critical of the war, but has stated that he supports the doctrine of pre-emption as long as evidence is available to the American people. This is one of the major reasons that I support Kucinich instead of Dean, but there are a few more key points worth noting. Firstly, Kucinich is the only candidate unequivocal in his support of gay rights, including gay marriage; secondly, he has promised to repeal the Patriot Act, a promise that has not been echoed by Dean; lastly, he is the only candidate who has promised the complete withdrawal from NAFTA and the WTO, two agreements which have eased the movement of American jobs to other countries and posed a grave threat to U.S. labor. The final reason for my support of Kucinich is a simple one: I do not think that a semi-conservative “middle-of-the-road” Democrat poses much of a threat to Bush. The Democrats need a candidate who provides workable alternatives to the policies instated by the Bush administration. Any voter who supports Bush’s tax cut, the ANWAR drilling act, the Patriot Act, and the war in Iraq is going to vote for Bush, plain and simple; Joe Lieberman and Dick Gephart do not stand a chance.

Of course, despite my agreement with his issues, Kucinich is not perfect. He is at a dire disadvantage in the upcoming race, having served as a mayor and state representative, but never as a senator or governor like many of the other Democratic candidates. Also, he is widley criticized for his decision to put Cleveland $15 million into default by refusing to privatize its public electric company, a move Kucinich claims saved residents millions on their electric bills. Many fear that this may be a sign of economic decisions to come.

As always, I encourage you to explore for yourself. If you would like, you can listen to Kucinich’s stump speech, watch a pro-Dean pro-Kucinich flash animation, and read the ten key points of his platform.

So, who else could I possibly be supporting for a public office? Why, a candidate for the only other race currently garnering national attention: California’s gubernatorial battle! But who could I possibly endorse for that?

Quantum psychologist, brilliant author, philosopher, and former editor for Playboy magazine: Robert Anton Wilson. You may be familiar with RAW as the co-author of the Illuminatus! trilogy, author of the Schrodinger’s Cat Trilogy, and author of Quantum Psychology. By far one of the most interesting, certainly the most open-minded, contemporary philosophers, RAW recently announced his unofficial write-in candidacy on his website. His platform is as follows:
1. Get those pointy-headed Washington bureaucrats off our backs and off our fronts too!

2. Guns for everybody who wants them; no guns for those who don't want them

3. Drugs for everybody who wants them; no drugs for those who don't want them

4. Freedom of choice, free love, free speech, free Internet and free beer

5. California secession -- Keep the anti-gun and ant-dope fanatics on the Eastern side of the Rockies

6. Lotsa wild parties every night by gun-toting dopers

7. Animal protection -- Support your right to keep and arm bears

Naturally, he has my complete and unmitigated support. More power to him, and as he says, "why should [he] remain the ONLY nutcase in California who ain’t running?”

That is all for now, folks. I am interested to hear from you: who do you support for President and why? What issues matter most to you, and do you plan to vote? What the hell will this country come to if Arnold is elected governor of California? Will you move to Canada? Drop me an e-mail and let me know.

8/21/03 2:49 PM-
The lost soul of Anarchism
By Francis Bartus

Once, I believed I was an Anarchist. I thought that the principles of freedom, solidarity, and equality had no comparable manifestation. I thought, surely the anarchists are the freest of the free: beyond all authority, all dogmatism, and the entire status quo- filled with idealism and vigor, but never willing to bow down to any uncompromising belief system. Clearly most anarchists, those who aren’t just bandwagon scenesters, must know better than that.

To my mind, the terms ‘libertarian socialist’ and ‘anarchist’ were synonymous: anarchists believed in a decentralized, worker-controlled cooperativism, where small, active communities worked together to survive; they worked actively toward an existence devoid of the societal machinery that allows one man to recklessly exploit another. I felt that anarchists valued people before profits, always.

The most brazen assumption I made was that to be an anarchist, one must be open-minded.

That is when I discovered Anarchism with a capital ‘A.’

It seems that the armies of Anarchism are anything but what I described above. Yes, they are anti-authoritarian, anti-capitalist, and anti-status quo. But the religion of Anarchism defines itself almost solely by what it opposes; the rest is infighting.

Appallingly, the only term I have heard used as often as ‘true Anarchist’ is ‘true Christian.’

I discovered this fearsome trend when I began to investigate the online anarchist scene. Now, I know you might be thinking “sure, lame 12-year-olds can be found on every forum and newsgroup; that’s hardly a basis to criticize a whole movement,” and of course, I agree- but read on. While the anarchist news tends to follow the usual leftist trend, drawing from various mainstream and alternative sources, it is the editorial commentary and discussion that speaks of True Anarchism. When an editor gives a positive review to a book about a certain part of the movement, that movement is ravaged by members of other groups with other ideologies. Any collective or group with the slightest organizational tendencies is referred to as ‘Stalinist’ or ‘Trotskyist,’ ‘Authoritarian,’ or ‘not True Anarchists™.’

The anarchism I thought I knew accepted a broad range of tactics; as a matter of fact, it accepted any and all tactics that could bring about positive change. Not the movement that I have discovered. It seems that voting is against the very principles of Anarchism, as it constitutes ‘buying into the system with which we are completely disillusioned.’ I may have agreed with that sentiment when I was a middle-schooler, but today this viewpoint seems immature and self-defeating. Anarchists claim to believe in revolution, but not change affected through the ballot box. What ever happened to diversity of tactics?

I have also become disillusioned with Anarchist protest tactics. Too often, I have read accounts of police tear-gassing, beating, and arresting peaceful protestors because “a few anarchists started to hurl [rocks/stones/metal/gasoline bombs/you name it] at police.” These accounts appear not only in the major media, but in the independent, liberal media as well. Again, such tactics seem immature; the Anarchist ideal of full-on revolution seems noble, but such a transformation could only be affected here by a process of slow and gradual change. Unfortunately, many Anarchists seem unwilling to grow up and accept that reality. Throwing rocks at police and getting innocent people abused will never win anyone over to the Anarchist cause.

I am sadly disheartened to read so much infighting and name-calling on discussion boards and within editorials. Each collective and group within the Anarchist community seems to have their own ideology, the One True Anarchist Ideology. Freedom of thought is often trampled underfoot by blatant dogmatism, as any criticism of Anarchist tactics or beliefs is written off or deleted as “Bullshit Liberal Flamebait.” Whatever happened to the freethinking individuals I imagined being anarchists? Where did the vigorous opposition to strict ideology fade to? Since when are anarchists no more than “people who throw objects at police and refuse to vote?”

Reluctantly, I have let go of my idealized vision of the Anarchist movement, slowly accepting that the real movement I have encountered seems to be an immature, uncompromisingly dogmatic religion. So from now on, I declare a clear distinction between anarchism and Anarchism- and I relinquish all associations with the latter. For though I believe in revolution, despise capitalism, and question one man’s authority over another’s life, I have a more accepting and realistic idea of what it takes to create change.

I hope I am not the only one who wishes for the spirit of anarchism to slowly overtake those Anarchists who have so skewed the ideals of freedom.
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Good news! Yesterday I recieved my digital camera, a Fujifilm FinePix s602z. From now on, I will be using the camera to take pictures at protests and events (no more poor-quality scans), take some creative shots for a new photography gallery, and to take some pics of the paintball team.

In other news, There is a new mail on the Reader Mail page from Tom Kawel discussing fear, terror, and the American way of life. Check that out for a good read. I've been playing around with some experimental photography, and hopefully I'll have some cool stuff for you soon.

 

8/14/03 1:44 PM- Ack! I know that it has been a long time since the last update, but I have been out of town and/or insanely busy recently. Finally, I bring you the new, improved, reader mail page version 2.00. The brand-new reader mail page includes 100% real, authentic, true-to-life photographs of every single person who's written in. Not only that, but it comes with three brand-new e-mails, including another e-mail from Neil Schlick in his never ending saga against Mr. Steve Tripp. And just in case you were wondering what Neil's argument would sound like if it were augmented by alcohol, we have a brand-new e-mail that answers that very question! Head on over and check it out.
On a completely different note, I plan to write something new for the site soon, so keep an eye out for that. (All this reader mail has sapped my time, so I haven't written anything of my own- this must be remedied.)

7/26/03 11:25 PM- Today I bring you a big update to the Reader Mail page. Check it out.

7/15/03 10:52 PM- Liberia- Latin for 'place of freedom'. In case you have not heard of it, Liberia is a small African nation located along the ivory coast. Founded in 1821 by the American Colonization Society, Liberia has a population of about 3 million people, and not much else. In fact, the only four things Liberia does have are crucial to its faltering economy. Namely, they are rubber, steel, oil, and Liberians. At one point, a single U.S. company was so central to Liberia's economy that the country itself was commonly known as 'the Firestone colony'.
The Republic of Liberia has gone through many rulers in its tumultuous past, most of whom were overwhelmingly friendly toward the U.S. The country has proved useful as a supplier of rubber and military installations during both World War II and the Cold War.
For the past fourteen years, Liberia has been in a state of civil war. The National Patriotic Front of Liberia (NPFL), led by current Liberian president Charles Taylor, is under fire from a variety of factions, amongst which, the Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) is the most significant. LURD has a liaison with the British military and has allegedly received indirect aid from Washington and London in their ongoing war against the NPFL.
Recently, president Charles Taylor was accused by the United Nations of war crimes and publicly agreed to flee to Nigeria, asking that the U.N. drop all charges against him.
In this small African nation that has been at civil war for fourteen years, the stage is set for an intervention. With the country destabilized, the economy is floundering, and foreign business interests are fleeing; the opportunity for steel, oil, rubber, and plentiful cheap labor are at stake. Who better than the United States to step up to the plate?
Why, no one, of course- and that's exactly what George Bush has decided to do. On July 7, a unit of 10-15 military specialists landed in Liberia- their assignment: to determine how U.S. troops could be effectively deployed. Pentagon officials have stated that they plan to send 500 to 2,000 troops to the country. These troops will lead additional units of up to 3,000 soldiers from various West African countries. Already, intervention plans are being linked to the U.S. war on terrorism, as, according to Condoleeza Rice, "failed states" can spawn "so much instability that you begin to see greater sources of terrorism."
I received the following e-mail on the subject from our now-resident conservative warhawk, Phil Gerhardt: