Subject: Column
From: Barrett Brown <barriticus@gmail.com>
Date: 9/28/09, 15:20
To: "BushwickBK.com" <jeremy.sapienza@gmail.com>

Notes from Bushwick


Strolling through the Frick Collection a few weeks ago, I got to thinking about Alexander Berkman, the anarchist revolutionary who is most commonly remembered for his failed bid to kill Henry Clay Frick in 1892. Berkman's assassination attempt was in retaliation for the industrialist's severe handling of the Homestead Steel Strike, during which workers were attacked by several hundred Pinkerton detectives, leaving seven demonstrators dead. Faced with what he saw as a grave injustice, 22-year-old Berkman took an action that he knew would either land him in prison or the morgue (and it was the former, incidentally; his 14-year stint is detailed in Prison Memoirs of an Anarchist).

Then, as now, great industrialists acted in collusion with the state. And then, as now, the state was a great initiator of force on behalf of the great industrialists, as well as on behalf of those voters who were in the habit of supporting unconstitutional laws against free speech. In the early 20th century, the state routinely imprisoned those who advocated birth control, those who opposed drafts, those who opposed our entry into World War I, those who participated in speech that was deemed to be "obscene" by way of some amorphous definition of obscenity. We have made great advances since then in terms of our individual rights, and this is due to the hard work and sacrifice of a great many men and women - Emma Goldman, Eugene Debs, Jack Reed - who spoke out against these unAmerican restrictions, even in the face of imprisonment.

Advances have been made on that front, which is why we may now advocate using condoms and abstaining from war without being thrown into prison. But we have still seen losses in terms of our liberties, and most of these are the direct and demonstrable result of the drug war, which itself has been used to justify all manner of infringements on fundamental rights spelled out in the Constitution, and which is held in place by a combination of inertia on the part of the citizenry and lobbying on the part of the prison-industrial complex. The results may be seen everywhere, of course, but here in Bushwick they may be seen with particular clarity, most commonly in the form of illegal searches.

What we can do in response is to set up a small and informal neighborhood association with which to respond to these infringements on our rights and the rights of our neighbors. We have most of what we need to accomplish this already: a platform from which to report on such incidents and bring them to the attention of other media, the means by which to spread the word that these services are available to those who need them, and people to coordinate all of this. All that we need is a few additional people with backgrounds in law who are willing to volunteer a bit of their time and expertise. There are, I have noticed, some significant number of law students hanging around, unemployed or underemployed, who would personally benefit from this sort of work, both in terms of experience gained and resumes padded. If this is you or someone you know, please send me an e-mail. Note that we need not assist in hundreds or even dozens of cases in order to effect a significant change in the way that some of our local police conduct themselves; just a few successes here and there will have a very wholesome effect on their overall conduct.

The history of Brooklyn presents us with many fine role models who have taken it upon themselves to stand up against oppression by the state; in fighting for free speech and free assembly at great risk to themselves, they have given us the legal means by which to make further advances at no great risk at all. Surely we are obligated to use the tools with which they have provided us at such cost.

Also, you can skip the Frick Collection if you haven't seen it already; it consists largely of mediocre portraits and degenerate French baubles.


Notes from the Outside World

One need not even be in favor of the president's health care proposals to see the muddled hypocrisy of the general "conservative" opposition to these reforms. The argument that the state ought not be given control over our private affairs is a reasonable one to make if the person making it is actually opposed to such things. But few conservatives actually oppose statism across the board; most of them are very much in favor of drug prohibition, for instance, which itself has made technical criminals out of tens of millions of American citizens who are guilty of nothing more than going about their personal business.

The most blatant example of ideological carelessness that I have come across is a piece that appeared last month in The Weekly Standard. Writing in opposition to socialized medicine - which, incidentally, we already have to some degree in the form of Medicare and such things - contributor William Anderson asks a provocative question about the proper relationship between the state and the individual:
Thus arises the question of corporal ownership. For Americans, the answer has been settled. Since the terrible bloodletting of the Civil War, and now excepting military service, ownership of one's body is a matter between the individual and God, with no intermediation by government. Yet assertions are now being made that government should have responsibility for, and thus authority over, the maintenance of our bodies ... So let's make up our minds. Does the government, in the last analysis, own your body, or do you?
As I recently noted in greater detail over at The Huffington Post, Anderson's argument against state control over our bodies also applies rather neatly to laws forbidding citizens from using certain drugs. And, of course, The Weekly Standard has long supported such statist indulgences as necessary to the common good - just as Democrats are now supporting a far less obnoxious set of laws based on a similarly pragmaticic justification.

There is something about the arrest and imprisonment of millions of our fellow citizens for possessing or selling marijuana - a process that is funded, of course, with taxpayer dollars - that appeals to the instincts of many on the right. And there is something about the providing of health care options to millions of our fellow citizens who would otherwise be unable to afford it - a process that is funded, likewise, with taxpayer dollars - that strikes those same conservatives as inherently inimical to our general liberty. Conservatism is now not even a philosophy; it is several philosophies, all contradicting each other.