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My greetings of solidarity and respects are extended to all comrades on both sides of the razorwire. I just wanted to take this time to reproduce this list of CIA brainwashing techniques that are being used against the imprisoned and the oppressors. Th…

Continue reading at COYOTE CALLING …

• Why Didn't Nixon Think of This Argument During the Pentagon Papers Case? Jesse Walker, Jesse Walker: Reason Magazine articles and blog posts. (2010-01-22). An intriguing statement in today's New York Times: The majority [in Citizens United v. FEC] is deeply wrong on the law. Most wrongheaded of all is its insistence that corporations are just like people and entitled to the same First Amendment rights. It is an odd claim since companies are... (Linked Thursday 2010-01-28.)
• (One of the many) Ebook Dilemmas. Kellan, Laughing Meme (2010-01-25). How do I support and reward the excellent curation of the local bookstore if I want the ebook version of something I find? – Kellan I am not a unsophisticated consumer of science fiction. And finding new material to feed the book addiction is something I spend a not inconsiderable... (Linked Thursday 2010-01-28.)

A ring form the telephone, Seems the voice sounds like just my own
But I cant believe its so familiar.
THe tone of voice is so in line, but i cant seem to touch the time
that I could remeber you or myself
Waking here well i dont know, but i sure as hell can hope
that your good just where you are
The sickening days of our past seems like a hard course of remedial math
well those numbers just don't add up

and the distance on this telephone is creepin up my spine
Its been a year or two since we sat and had coffee
And maybe caffiene will harden my veins and bring an early death
I'd gladly pay that price just to see how you have been

• Walking While Black in America Today... Brad DeLong, Grasping Reality with a Ten-Foot-Long Flexible Trunk (2010-01-25). Ta-Nehisi Coates: Ta-Nehisi Coates: Fear, Parenting, and the Police: We talked some, last week, about how fear drives black parents. I think this is the sort of case that I was thinking about: The photos taken by Jordan Miles' mother show his face covered with raw, red bruises, his cheek... (Linked Wednesday 2010-01-27.)
• Populism. Ezra Klein (2010-01-27). Stopped clocks and all that, I guess. The rest of Brooks's column is, in fact, nonsense; but this is spot-on: "Populism is popular with the ruling class. Ever since I started covering politics, the Democratic ruling class has been driven by one fantasy: that voters will get so furious at people with M.B.A.’s that they will hand power to people with Ph.D.’s. The Republican ruling class has been driven by the fantasy that voters will get so furious at people with Ph.D.’s that they will hand power to people with M.B.A.’s. Members of the ruling class love populism because they think it will help their section of the elite gain power."
  
  Of course, the reason that the rest of Brooks's column is nonsense is because Brooks identifies this as a problem with "populism." It's not. It's a problem with populism as filtered through electoral politics. Or, to get to the heart of it, it's a problem with electoral politics. Which is always based around zero-sum power plays and consists more or less entirely in only nominally opposed power-elite factions playing off fear of one another in order to secure support from a captive voter base. (Linked Wednesday 2010-01-27.)

From Washington state:

On Wednesday, the House Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Committee voted against two pieces of legislation, one of which called for the legalization of marijuana, and would, among other things, make it available for sale — heavily taxed — at state liquor stores. The other would have reduced possession of marijuana from a criminal offense to a civil one.

The legalization bill (HB 2401) was voted down 6-2. For a moment, HB 1177, which would have decriminalized marijuana, looked as though it might have a chance, but it too died, with a final vote of 5-3.

In his opening remarks to the committee, Chairman Chris Hurst, D-Enumclaw, said he found merit in all of the arguments, pro and con, but that it came down to the question of whether the federal government or the states should be in the business of regulating marijuana. Although he favors state regulation, Hurst said, he could not in good conscience vote for a bill that conflicted with federal law.

… Rep. Roger Goodman, D-Kirkland, argued that legalization would allow the state to regulate a product that has potential hazardous consequences. A vote yes, he told his fellow committee members, is a vote for control. A vote no is a vote for continued chaos.

—Lillian Tucker, The Seattle Times (2010-01-20): Pot bills go up in smoke as House panel stops both

… And that’s why I’m against legalization schemes. For decriminalization, yes, of course; but against this kind of cockamamie tax-and-regulate license-monopoly scheme, carried out in the name of exposing yet another good to government control.

It’s also why I’m against relying on electoral politics as a means of social change. When the political debate is constrained to the one side, who argue for arresting harmless potheads and locking them in cages, even though they think it is a bad idea, simply because their conscience demands absolute submission to the will of the United States federal government; and the other side, who think that marijuana ought to be legalized so that the government can use a tax-stamp scheme to more fully control people’s access to it — when, that is, the debate consists of two sides, each jockeying for position against the other to see which of them can package its policy proposals in the most authoritarian terms — when, I say, the political debate is constrained to those kind of options, it’s time to start looking for a new forum.

There’s no sense in trying to win at a rigged game; sooner or later, you need to just walk away. Go counter-economic — direct action gets the goods.

See also:

• GT 2009-04-04: The State of the Debate
• GT 2008-11-14: So you are in favor of personal money holes?

Speaking Truth to PowerHuman Rights Advocates Given Maximum Federal Prison Sentences of Six Months for Direct Action Opposing the School of the Americas (SOA/WHINSEC)Judge Finds SOA Watch Activists Guilty for Carrying Protest against the SOA/WHINSEC on…

Continue reading at Activists in Las Vegas …

I am obnoxious…I have been a terrible person,Treated people with utmost disgrace,Have taken those who were honest,And tore them from their Roots!I have lost myself…Sometimes I don’t know who I am,Relating to a person who is there,But sometimes isn…

Continue reading at Halla: Everything that is, was, and will be. …

• Fragments and Approximations - 2. Shawn P. Wilbur, Out of the Libertarian Labyrinth (2010-01-23). [from the Forums of the Libertarian Left]Actually, there is no problem determining costs without prices -- assuming that you don't insist on having your costs represented as prices. Now, it is not clear that one can compare kinds of costliness against one another in a non-market economy with the same... (Linked Sunday 2010-01-24.)
• 01/20/10 PHD comic: '63% of internet readers will like this comic' PHD Comics (2010-01-22). Piled Higher & Deeper by Jorge Cham www.phdcomics.com title: "63% of internet readers will like this comic" - originally published 1/20/2010 For the latest news in PHD Comics, CLICK HERE! (Linked Monday 2010-01-25.)

The new website / weblog of Solitary Watch published this article yesterday on their site:

Voices from Solitary: Coyote Calling.

January 24, 2010
by James Ridgeway and Jean Casella

One of the aims of Solitary Watch News is to build an online archive of literature, drawings, and reportage by people who are, or have been, in solitary confinement. These will be compiled in the Voices from Solitary section of the site, and sometimes featured in blog posts. Readers are encouraged to send in their suggestions.

A reader from Nevada Prison Watch recently told us about the writings of Coyote Sheff, which are now being published by his friends on the outside on a blog, Coyote Calling. Coyote has been in Nevada’s Ely State Prison for about a decade, much of it in Discliplinary Segregation. In fact, of the eight units at Ely, seven are in some form of permanent lockdown, where prisoners are held in their cells 23 hours a day, either alone or with a cellmate.

Ely State Prison, located in a remote town in Eastern Nevada, is currently being sued by the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prison Project for ”grossly inadequate medical care” to its 1,000 prisoners. The ACLU filed suit after state officials failed to act on the findings of an expert, Dr. William Noel, who was sent in to investigate medical conditions at Ely. According to the ACLU:

In his report, Noel wrote that medical care at ESP shows “the most shocking and callous disregard for human life and human suffering that I have ever encountered in the medical profession in my 35 years of practice.” According to the report…there is a horrific pattern of neglect, misguided health care policies, and little accountability for frequently under-qualified staff. Noel also noted numerous instances where important medical records were missing from prisoners’ medical files. Finally, Noel and the ACLU have raised serious concerns about prisoners who died and were cremated before autopsies were completed and their families notified.

This piece by Coyote Sheff is called “Solitary Enslavement.”

We sit in these cells like dead bodies sit in cemeteries. Death fills our lungs, fills our minds, fills our hearts and fills our souls as it lurks and lingers and seeps through the concrete. Our minds go numb and our spirits fade into inactivity. We sit here waiting to waste away, erode, dissolve, and disappear into the cracks of the cement.

Solitary confinement. What an evil concept, what a wicked notion, what a clever way to destroy a man without even laying a finger on him. Solitary confinement — the murderer of minds, hearts, and souls. The person who designed such an evil conception must’ve had murder on his mind and hate in his heart.

We die alone in these cold cells, as our hands stretch out to clutch concrete, but fail miserably to hold anything in their grasp other than the death-stenched air. We die alone — a lonely, miserable, suffering death. We die alone….