Chicken-Shit Pansy-Ass of the Year?

Michael Sellers is the guy, left, who is not visibly damaged. He used to be police chief in Fullerton CA, and we’ll get back to him. The other guy (below) is Kelly Thomas, whose hospital photo was taken by his father, and first published by bloggers (with permission of the elder Thomas.)

The blog is Friends for Fullerton’s Future, run by Tony Bushala. Chris Thompson is part of the team, along with Travis Kiger. FFFF has been all over this thing like white on rice, right from the start, soliciting information and interviewing witnesses.

ReasonTV made a video segment about FFFF. Some of the website’s posts about the case have stimulated more than 500 comments.

Kiger has said, “The picture was so horrific, the local TV channels wouldn’t even show it.” And besides, the local newspapers can’t print anything critical of the police force, because they’re dependent on the cops for the – you know, like, the news.

On July 5, 2011, Kelly Thomas was hanging around the bus depot, and supposedly the cops got a phoned-in citizen complaint that somebody was breaking into cars around there. The whole thing stinks from the word “go,” because, funnily enough, no record of that calls seems to exist. Kelly was 37, schizophrenic, the son of a man who is himself in law enforcement. Various family members say he could have stayed with them, but like many people with that condition he preferred to live outside. According to those who knew Kelly, he wasn’t the combative type.

One press report said he had a long history of police encounters. There was a felony assault with a deadly weapon, and a bunch of misdemeanors and infractions. Daily Kos said this about that:

What the writer fails to mention is that the felony assault was about many years old and was related to when Kelly first showed signs of mental illness when he was first diagnosed.  The rest of his crimes were harmless and he had been deemed as harmless for years.

And a whole lot of people say, even if someone has a record, it’s still illegal for cops to be so violent. For supposedly committing an unofficial but de facto crime known as contempt of cop, Kelly Thomas got beaten to a pulp by six contempible cops. Here is how KruizinKareem tells the story:

They sat him on the curb and started questioning and searching him, matters quickly escalated when officer Manuel Ramos decided to threaten Kelly. Officer Ramos put latex gloves on and put his fists up in Thomas’ face, he then said “You see these fists? They’re getting ready to fuck you up” Kelly ran in fear for his life, he was chased down by Ramos, punched repeatedly in the ribs, then officer Kenton Hampton jumped in to aid Ramos, they both subdued him and continued the beating.
Officer Jay Cicinelli arrived on the scene a few minutes later, he kneed Kelly in the face multiple times, tased him repeatedly and smashed his face in with the butt of the taser. Eventually there were 6 cops on top of Kelly as he laid helpless in a pool of his own blood while witnesses stand on the sides watching helplessly.

A lot of people were around, one report says as many as 150. A one woman was made to expose the film in her camera, and it sounds like at least one camera was confiscated.

By the time they got Kelly to the hospital, asphyxiating from blood-filled lungs, he was brain-dead, and on July 10 he was taken off life support. Chief Sellers went on vacation around this time. He didn’t do any press conference or even a written statement

In late July, Sellers was still on vacation, but exercised his influence to get a guy named Stan Berry hired as the DA investigator. FFFF received an anonymous tip:

Sellers hired Berry when he was the Chief at Seal Beach PD. Sellers and his wife… are close personal friends with Berry and his wife… They socialize together, vacation together and entertain each other in their respective homes.

Dang! Conflict of interest much? Sellers had only been in office since early 2009, and has taught law enforcement classes for more than 30 years. He even teaches ethics at Fullerton College. Ethics. When he got the job of chief in Fullerton, he advertised himself as an advocate of community-oriented policing. Check out this quote:

Our first step is to save lives. When lives are not at stake, our next job is to protect life. When that’s not an issue, our job is to help improve the quality of life for our citizens…

The FBI, incidentally, also opened an investigation. And then… the lawyer for the authorities offered Kelly’s father Ron Thomas a $900,000 settlement and said he might as well take it because his son wasn’t exactly a rocket scientist.

Citizens started bitching that the still-vacationing Sellers should resign, so he … wait for it… went on medical leave. The title of this piece asks, “Chicken-Shit Pansy-Ass of the Year?” and at this point, the answer is yes. This is the guy who was supposed to be keeping these monsters in line. His job was to make sure the troops didn’t go out slaughtering citizens at random. People want to know why he didn’t do his job.

Unless his job happened to be playing the system, which was nicely accomplished according to a Facebook commentator because taking medical leave

—Prevents him from being fired
—Prevents (or delays) him from being hauled in to court

In September, 2 out of the 6 involved cops were charged. Murder and involuntary manslaughter. A few days later, the family’s lawyer went on TV with horrific pictures of the injuries. By October, Kelly’s Army was an un-ignorable reality. FFFF reported that crowds had been shouting, honking and marching in front of police headquarters every Saturday morning since Kelly died. The activism was branching out in other directions, too, with talk of city council recalls and other dire consequences to the body politic. Coming up on Christmas, Sellers was still on medical leave, the police department was in turmoil, and the city appointed an acting police chief.

Fast-forward to 2012, when it is announced that Michael Sellers, still on medical leave, formerly on vacation, will as of February 19th be a RETIRED police chief. This chicken-shit pansy-ass is NEVER gonna be held accountable for his part in this. Plus, he filed a work comp claim which will give him $127,000 and that’s only the tip of the money iceberg, but anybody who cares that much can find it all online.

For the murdering cops, the pretrial stuff starts March 28. Policing has hit a new low, no doubt about it. A website called Cop Block has quite a lot to say about the case too, including posts from a pseudonymous person who is said to be a law enforcement officer with 17 year experience. This professional writes,

YOU ASSHOLES KILLED A HUMAN BEING AND FOR ABSOLUTELY NO REASON AND I HOPE WHEN YOU GO TO PRISON YOU GET WHAT YOU DESERVE. I SINCERELY HOPE THEY FEAST ON YOU FROM THE ROOTER TO THE TOOTER.

Here’s a brochure that describes the whole case

THE GOOD NEWS IS

The protest song is alive and well.

“For Kelly” by Devil’s BeatDown – Written and dedicated to Kelly Thomas. The words quoted by KruizinKareem were taken from this page, which also has the lyrics, and the credits:

This song was written for Kelly Thomas by “Devil’s BeatDown” produced by Greg Hetson (Bad Religion, Circle Jerks) and Josh Ackziger. The video directed and produced by Kareem Girgis.

That’s Enough / Kelly Thomas Song – Jon Durham
The Ballad of Kelly Thomas   Julian Porte

The Myth of Natural Rights and Other Essays

Yes, I’ve been very much wanting to say something about this volume published by Nine-Banded Books. I kept putting it off, because I read “The Myth of Natural Rights,” which is the anchor of the collection, a few years ago, and there are notes somewhere. Also, my Must Read stack is a couple of feet tall. And too much time has passed. So, it’s come to where I’ll do what I can now, and add more when the other stuff turns up.

And besides, I already know what I think about natural rights. In both nature and science, a law can’t be broken. If it can be broken, it isn’t a law. It’s only a law if it can’t be broken. If it’s breakable, it is neither natural nor law. “Law” is a description, not a prescription or a proscription. Natural rights are like natural law. It’s only a natural right if it’s incapable of being violated. If it is amenable to violation, it’s not a natural right.

I have no idea how closely this resembles the thought of L. A. Rollins on the subject, because I don’t remember what those notes said, that I took so many years ago. I might have bought the Rollins party line wholesale. Or maybe he said something completely different. So I urge you to have a look at it yourself.

There is more between these covers, including “An Open Letter to Allah,” which has got to be ten times worse than anything Salman Rushdie ever wrote. And “Lucifer’s Lexicon,” which is like Ambrose Bierce’s “Devil’s Dictionary,” a very subversive work in its day.

Also, here’s the sarcastic “Ode to Emperor Bush,” which I believe I first saw in manuscript form. I used to have quite a lively correspondence with L. A. Rollins. (I heard from elsewhere that he also corresponded with Robert Anton Wilson, co-author of the Illuminatus trilogy, which put me in very distinguished company.) This was back in the day, when people wrote by hand or typewriter. Which Rollins probably still does. It takes guts to so thoroughly resist the computer era. And he was able to resist it despite working in the publishing business, as proof-reader and copy-editor for Loompanics. You have to be really good, to get away with computer refusal. Rollins is, in general, one of those people I learn from; admire for their wit; recognize as very, very smart; and enjoy arguing with. I also disagree with a large percentage of what he says…I think.

I’m not the only one who sometimes doesn’t quite comprehend L. A. Rollins. In the Preface, publisher Chip Smith talks about Rollins’s study of Holocaust revisionism.

It seemed at times as though Rollins was in the revisionist camp himself. At other times, he seemed to hold revisionists out for wicked ridicule…I just couldn’t get a fix on it.

Well, that’s L. A. Rollins for ya, an ornery SOB if ever there was one. And a fair one. In one of his pieces on the topic, he invites anybody with better evidence to send it to him, saying,

‘Revisionism’ is sometimes defined in terms of setting the record straight. Thus, I see no reason why the writings of avowed revisionists should be exempt from revisionism.

The Preface also states that works by L. A. Rollins appeared in the zine I used to publish. They did, and I was honored to have them there among the pages of Salon: A Journal of Aesthetics.

Along with lengthy letters, he supplied examples of truly disturbing literature, the likes of which I had not imagined. Or we’d be wrangling about something, and he would send me news clippings that supported my side, in case I’d missed them. You gotta respect that. He’d rile me up by claiming, for instance, that Dalton Trumbo abandoned his anti-war stance in the 1940s. The revered author of Johnny Got His Gun, the blacklisted screenwriter, one of the Hollywood Ten, – according to Rollins, this hero of free speech rolled over, but people didn’t know. They still perceived him as one of the great pacifist voices of the age, and sent fan mail, which he turned over to the FBI. Well, hell!

This was long before I ever had Internet access, and it made me crazy, but I had no way of cross-checking that information, and in fact I forgot about it, up until about ten minutes ago. So now I’m gonna consult Wikipedia. Which says, Johnny Got His Gun was published in 1939 and won the National Book Award. Then in ’41, Germany invaded the Soviet Union, so Trumbo and his publishers decided not to print any more copies until the war was over. But people sent him letters asking for copies, and he gave the letters to the Federal Bureau of Investigation. That really sucks!

This article says he regretted it, but seems to imply the regret was only because it focused the attention of the Communist-hunters in Washington on him. He ended up being called before the House Un-American Activities Committee and served almost a year in federal prison – even though he had cooperated by turning in the people who were trying to buy copies of his anti-war book. Bummer.

Anyhow, never think that L. A. Rollins is not a nice person. In the book’s Acknowledgements pages he thanks about a hundred people, including Ace Backwords, Mike Hoy, Jim Hogshire, Adam Parfrey, Bob Black….. and me.

You’re welcome!

*****

Short Takes from “Lucifer’s Lexicon” by L. A. Rollins

Vain, n. A foreign domain in which many a soldier has died.

Transubstantiation, n. A supperstition.

Labor Union, n. An association of workers organized to advance the interests of union organizers.

The WTF Network

The great thinker Voltaire went to an orgy and had a good time, but declined a follow-up invitation. He said, “Once is philosophy, twice is perversion.” That’s how I feel about watching the WTF Network.

Here’s the setup: Out on the West Coast, a colleague is fighting for a cause that’s already taken him to some extremes. Apparently, he slanted his story in a way that fits the format of a TV series called “Most Daring.” (We’ve discussed the proposition that there is no such thing as bad publicity.) So for the sake of team spirit, I decided to watch it, and even turned the TV on a bit early, and caught part of a show called “Cops.”

You will have guessed that the title up there at the top of the page is a gag. Oh, the network has a three-letter name, but they’re a different three letters. I call it the WTF Network, because the words that come to mind again and again are – “What the f***?”

Take “Cops,” for instance. I’m sitting here with a cup of tea, engaging in the spectator sport of looking at my fellow citizens being violently arrested. WTF were the people thinking, who first proposed this as entertainment? WTF causes anybody to watch this genre of television? It’s hard to imagine anyone who has actually been a victim of police brutality, wanting to see this stuff. Or the families of anyone at all who’s been in trouble with the law which, these days, is most people. If I had a son, I wouldn’t want to see a boy his age and general description being taken down by the cops.

Is any of this stuff for real? How much of it is “re-enactment”? I can’t imagine any actor, no matter how underemployed or desperate, consenting to be brutalized in the ways shown here. A large part of this has got to be real, genuine police photography.

“Cops” includes a long, Academy-quality performance by a shirtless driver who is questioned by officers at the roadside. With just a slight tweak, this old boy could be on the “Blue Collar Comedy” stage. Can this possibly be spontaneous and real? Why does this dude so tamely allow his humiliation at the hands of the law to be filmed?

Is any of this stuff, on any of these shows, spontaneous and real? Are they seriously asking us to believe it’s all real? Okay, tornadoes and stuff like that. Fine. But other stuff is impossible to have captured in the way it is shown, under any conceivable circumstances. Is it only obvious to media professionals? Maybe it’s obvious to everybody. Maybe the entire TV audience, these days, is so hip that everyone knows exactly what degree of verisimilitude to infer from any given image. Am I the only moron too unsophisticated to understand that nobody believes anything they see on TV any more, and I’m getting all excited over nothing?

Pretty soon, “Most Daring” starts up. It offers:

—- A subway riot in Buffalo, where I once lived.

— -A train/trailer truck collision that seems to have been filmed from about 99 different angles. Does a railway crossing really have that many cameras pointed at it?

—- A high-speed chase, where two truckers collaborate on blocking the fugitive from passing them. When he tries to pass on the right, they pin his car to a guardrail. Cut to cop being interviewed, later. He says, “To this day, I don’t know who they are.” Are you kidding? They just rode off, like the Lone Ranger? “Who was that masked man?” “Dunno, we’re just an agency with the ability to tap every nationwide database there is, as well as review the footage we ourselves took. How the hell should we know who those truckers were?”

—- Some pedestrian bandito leans in the window of a car stalled in traffic and steals a purse. He weaves his hazardous way through a herd of vehicles, and is chased, and so on. The amazing thing is, the footage is shot from many different directions. No single, stationary surveillance camera took all these pictures. I mention this to somebody, who assures me: Everybody has camera phones now. Okay, say there were 20 people in the area, who could spare enough attention from driving their own cars to take pictures of the crook. How did it all wind up on this show? Did the producers send out a call throughout every possible channel, asking for footage of the event that took place on such-and-such street, on such-and-such date? Did everyone with a camera spontaneously realize they could sell their footage to “Most Daring,” and take the initiative to get in touch? Do people get paid for turning over their amateur videos? Do they get paid the same whether it’s real, or really real?

How does it happen, that cameras are always present for these weird incidents? Sure, security cameras are ubiquitous, the average person is photographed 300 times a day, bla bla bla. But how does all this artful tracking and refocusing come about? This isn’t the work of automatic camera mounted on a wall.

The editors work overtime. If for some dire reason, they don’t have shots from a lot of different angles, they just replay one snippet a whole bunch of times. A suspect on foot gets mowed down by a cop car, and we are treated to the sight of the impact at least half a dozen times. Apparently, they could just put that vignette on an endless loop and sell it to people as a standalone product.

At some point I realized this was the wrong TV show. “Most Daring” comes in several varieties, and this was “Commuter Chaos,” which I knew wouldn’t include the segment I was watching for. But I sat there anyway, wondering how much worse it could get. “Commuter Chaos” was a lot like “Cops.” In fact, I’m not even sure which things were on which show. But that doesn’t change the basic essence of the matter.

———————————-

Finally, the show I’ve been waiting for – “Most Daring: Bedlam in the Burbs.” The person I sort of know is supposed to be in this one. Some highlights:

—-  A backyard demolition derby. My inner libertarian says people have the right to do whatever they want with their own property, including destroy it. Still, whenever I see cars being gratuitously wrecked, I think of all the people who could really, really use a car and can’t quite manage to get one. What a waste.

—- Police chase a motorist through a semi-rural neighborhood. A guy comes out of a house and throws something at the fugitive’s car as it goes by. Further on, another resident comes out with a gun and shoots at the fugitive’s car. Cut to a cop being interviewed about the helpful citizen with a firearm. “He’s listened to the police scanner over a case of beer and decided to get involved.” Not a word about the wrongness of vigilantism, no word on any arrest of the gun-wielding citizen, nothing like that.

—- This guy tells his girlfriend to pick up a dog collar, and they’re walking along, and all of a sudden she yelps and falls on her ass. It is, of course, a shock collar, whose purpose is to cure gratuitous barking, and the boyfriend has the control in his pocket. We’re supposed to think it’s all spontaneous and the girl was surprised. Didn’t she wonder why somebody was filming her and her boyfriend on their ordinary, mundane stroll through the back yard?

—- There’s a real short clip of a guy firing some kind of long gun, and when it goes boom, his pants fall down. Okay, that was interesting. But why was anyone filming him, to begin with? The unaccountable presence of a camera at these boring scenes is a pretty good indication that a lot of what the audience is supposed to believe accidental, is really on purpose. WTF is the point?

Okay, fine, set up a gag and film it. That’s what Chaplin did. Nothing wrong with that. But these guys want viewers to believe their subject matter is real accident, rather than a staged scene. It’s not enough that an audience should see it and laugh at it. The creators of it also require the audience’s belief in its authenticity. Why?

Why would anyone be filming any of this stuff, unless they knew beforehand that something would happen to liven things up? Well, one of the reasons is that parents will take any amount of pictures of their kids. This is how we get such masterpieces as a little boy learning to ride a bike, crashing into a toy car. And little boy knocked off a trampoline. This is how we get nonsense like the Balloon Boy media circus, as a direct result of the WTF Network culture.

— Some moron douses a basketball with gasoline, lights it on fire, kicks it, and manages to set his foot on fire.

Is it only because I worked as a nurse, that I don’t see the humor? There really isn’t anything funny about, for instance, a hand whose digits are all fused together by scar tissue. I knew a man whose hand was like that. When he was a little boy, his brother tied a rag around his hand, soaked it in kerosene, and put a match to it. He probably told him it would be fun. The parents were Alabama sharecroppers. Reconstructive surgery wasn’t in the cards for that kid.

The argument for not televising jackass stunts: I knew a kid who tried to duplicate one of them, broke his leg, cost his parents a bundle of money and hassle when they could least afford it, because his mother was recovering from two major surgeries and his father had been out of work for a couple of years. Do we really need TV that encourages that kind of thing?

The other side: I had a relative, a couple generations back, who spent his entire life on a couch, in the kitchen of a farmhouse without plumbing or electricity. There was nothing else he could do, being permanently crippled by a fall from the barn roof. Maybe he was up there on legitimate business; maybe it was a jackass stunt. They didn’t have TV. Nobody had TV. Those Alabama folks had kerosene lamps, not electricity. Okay, it could be said that I’ve just demolished my own argument. Kids have always gotten hurt

But to go from “Boys have always done asinine things” to “Therefore we should televise the asinine things done by boys” is a leap of logic I can’t quite negotiate. (For somebody who doesn’t believe in censorship, this is a difficult position to be in.) Let’s start with the very real possibility that the basketball pyromaniac could have set the building on fire. There’s very little humor in a house fire, or a fire of any kind, really. People’s lives are devastated by fire. It’s the kind of thing a survivor never really gets over. I sure hate to typecast myself as a curmudgeon and a stick-in-the-mud, but fire just isn’t that funny.

—————————————-

I include, as a target for scorn, “America’s Funniest Home Videos,” which may be on a different network, but that’s not really important. On most of these programs, most of the material involves somebody getting hurt, with genital injuries especially prized. Again, WTF? Just as a baby can find endless fascination in a bunch of jingling keys, men find endless amusement in the sight of some other guy taking a shot to the balls. And for some unfathomable reason, men love the sound of emergency vehicle sirens and screeching brakes. What’s up with that?

One of these shows even has a motto, “There’s nothing funnier than pain, embarrassment and humiliation!” Maybe so. Maybe also, there’s nothing worse than justifying sadism and bullshit under the guise of humor. Maybe there’s nothing worse than a sense of humor that’s limited to pain, embarrassment and humiliation, and incapable of moving beyond those hilarious qualities. Maybe there’s nothing sadder than elevating funniness to the very highest echelon of values. Maybe… a lot of things.

Humor is great, it’s healing, it’s stress-relieving, yada yada…. But just because a thing makes us laugh, that doesn’t mean it’s intrinsically good. I’m sure there were concentration camp guards who found abundant humor in some of the stunts they got up to. There’s nothing sacred about humor, and if we’re able to see that there are different kinds of humor, and that some are more desirable than others, we are probably happier. The fun of “Blue Collar Comedy” can make you feel good for minutes at a time, and even affect your whole day. The humor of a guru can blow your mind and change your life. Why not aim high?

When negativity takes over my brain, I apply the Codger Test. “If I were 16 or 21, would I feel the same way?” (A song by Will Crist says, “I’ll help you remember your youth.” To which I reply, “No, thanks.” It is all too easily remembered. While I wouldn’t change anything, neither would I want to live through it again.) So I imagine watching “America’s Funniest Home Videos” or, Goddess forbid, “Cops,” at one of tender young ages. First of all, in the Sixties, only a few science fiction writers (and Paul Krassner) could have envisioned the shape of media to come. If, as a young adult, I had by some magical means glimpsed this future, it would have been added to my list of reasons for suicide. So, that’s the Codger Test. Would my opinion then, be the same as now? Hell, yeah. Pacifist though I was, I might even have found it a good reason to put my foot through the TV screen.

“Cops” is particularly distressing. The law-and-order freaks and cop wanna-be types who justify this show’s existence, sit hypnotized by the flashing lights of the patrol car – exactly like strobe-mesmerized hippies at a rock concert, a class of people they consider deviant zombies. (Has anyone ever sued the show for inducing an epilepsy attack with those flashing lights?) I keep wanting to say, “This is pornography,” then I remember the word means “writing about prostitutes.” Does that apply to this show? I haven’t watched enough of “Cops” to know whether it covers hookers, and don’t intend to. Sometimes research is a waste of time.

But on another plane of cogitation, yes, this is prostitution. What is prostitution, but selling something that probably shouldn’t be sold? It’s the same kind of whoredom practiced by small American towns struggling for economic survival, that can’t think of any idea better than “Let’s build a prison!” – with all the enthusiasm of an old cornball movie, “Hey kids! Let’s put on a show!”

Another TV series I don’t intend to treat myself to is “Operation Repo.” Just the ad for it was enough. This is how our invisible rulers maintain control over the population. All they gotta do is, make half the people into government minions with weapons, and the other half into outlaws with weapons. Keep our sorry asses busy clobbering each other, while they get their hands on everything. And free Americans voluntarily subject themselves to this indoctrination. The whole WTF Network is about America wallowing in its own worst impulses, and ya know what? It’s okay not to like it.

Loompanics

(Originally published at Earthblog.net)

When I think of America, the picture in my mind is not the Statue of Liberty or the flag, but the Loompanics Unlimited catalog. Loompanics is the apotheosis – a word I’ve always craved the opportunity to use – of free speech, the most perfect example of everything that’s right with our beloved country. As Marilyn epitomizes movie stardom, as Willie epitomizes country music –in the same way, Loompanics is the ideal example of what America is all about. Or was meant to be.

Both distributor and publisher, in a typical year the company produced 15 books under its own imprint, and added around 150 new titles from other houses. Four-time Loompanics author Claire Wolfe, who has been called America’s most eloquent anarchist and the Ayn Rand of the 21st century, says, “Loompanics had a well-deserved reputation as the most bold, eclectic, and in-your-face of all freedom-oriented book catalogs.” I’d certainly never received another that featured a disclaimer, warning the customer that the bookseller can’t be responsible for the fate of your package if it happens to cross the path of certain government officials.

The news that Loompanics is folding its tent comes as a real blow to many. “They were one of the only book publishers in the world to publish Ace Backwords. And now they’re closing down. I just hope there wasn’t a connection there,” says the author of Surviving on the Streets, continuing, “Loompanics occupied a special niche in the book publishing world, and now that niche is no more. Which is a sad state of affairs. A lot of would-be rebels, pseudo-nonconformists, and arm-chair anarchists talked ABOUT subversion. Loompanics showed you how to BE subversive.”

The company has published and/or carried the works of Karl Hess, L. Neil Smith, Jim Goad, Russ Kick, Vin Suprynowicz, Paul Krassner, and many other notable thinkers. “I have seen the best minds of my generation…..in the Loompanics catalog,” as Allen Ginsberg might have said in his most famous poem.

The arrival of the 200-plus page, non-shiny, black and white catalog always promised several evenings of delight. Many of those pages were accounted for by articles about the latest abhorrent schemes of the government and big business, making it as much a magazine as a catalog. Other gems also turned up, original essays you can’t find anywhere else, like an Ace Backwords memoir of working in the red-light district.

You Are What You Know
You Are What You Do
Help Yourself
No More Secrets
No More Excuses
No More Limits

That’s the Loompanics philosophy, summed up in 6 precepts. Not a bad platform. If a Presidential candidate offered the same, I’d vote for her.

Loompanics never hesitated to take a stand, announcing Jack Herer’s masterpiece The Emperor Wears No Clothes, as “the most important book we have ever sold!” Some of its offerings were pure philosophy, like William J. Murray’s Anarchic Harmony and Unconditional Freedom. Others sound like an outlaw curriculum: how to do armed robbery, pick pockets, beat a lie detector, collect illegal debts, bury your contraband, change your identity, and disappear.

Before saying “tsk-tsk,” a rational person will pause for moment to consider the multitudes of fellow citizens incarcerated for victimless crimes, who emerge months or years later with a full set of thug credentials. When it comes to manufacturing career criminals, nobody does it better than the American justice system. No mere book of dirty trickery or exotic weaponry could hope to have a fraction of the impact. Government goons may be the only ones remaining who hold the touching faith that books have tangible power. Most real thugs don’t or can’t read.

Loompanics books can help protect your computer from viruses, your phone from tapping, and your house from unauthorized entry. They can also help you promulgate computer viruses, tap somebody else’s phone, and unauthorizedly enter someone else’s house. You could learn how to lie with statistics, and also how to unmask their lies. How to cheat on your wife without being caught, and how to win a street fight in case you get caught anyway. How to create a revolution or a nuclear strike, and also how to survive a revolution or a nuclear strike. It’s equal-opportunity knowledge and, like all knowledge, a sword with two edges. What if everybody knew everything, all the time? Us and them – what then? Can you imagine living on a planet of telepaths?

It goes without saying that Loompanics provided a full complement of sex books and drug books. Not to mention cannibalism, conspiracy theories and female serial killers (one book features 182 of them.) Subjects ranged from the practical How to Get Your Filipina Finacee to the U.S. to the ecclesiastical Sex, Drugs, Violence and the Bible to the whimsical yet totally useful Complete Guide to Science Fiction Conventions.

Yes, Loompanics has published some unapologetically awful things. Former chief editorial director Steve O’Keefe reminisced to an interviewer about a book (not named) which “so upset the staff that the entire staff revolted against working on it…. Seven printers refused to print it……” The company’s ads have been banned, either permanently or partially, by The Wall Street Journal, Playboy, Soldier of Fortune, and Google Adwords, Which is their perfect right, but still…..Soldier of Fortune???

Before accusing Loompanics of being a dreadful bad influence, pause and take a look at some of the stuff you can get at the most respectable giant chain bookstores: for instance, Writers Digest puts out a compendium of poison information, including symptoms, forms, methods of administration and reactions. A similar volume, on murder and forensic medicine, reveals “how police distinguish between accidents and foul play.” But this is okay, according to the party line: such reference books are only for professional writers, who require accuracy in their fictional violent acts. Yeah, sure, you bet.

Many books on tamer, more life-affirming skills could also be found in the catalog: food growing, bee keeping, brain expansion, language-learning. Rancho Costa Nada: The Dirt Cheap Desert Homestead has been a perennial best-seller. It’s typical of the many works teaching vonu, a life of voluntary simplicity, usually mobile, that keeps you off the grid and under the radar. This may be combined with tax “avoision,” a made-up word encompassing avoidance and aversion. A whole catalog sector was devoted to self-sufficiency: taking care of yourself without government “help.” Because once you stick out your arm for a handout, that’s where they put the handcuffs.

To think the company’s chosen books are dangerous because you can learn how to pick locks or handle explosives, is a superficial view. It’s much worse than that. It’s the ideas, such as tax avoision and vonu, which pose a real threat to the encroaching national Dark Age. There is genuine empowerment in the knowledge of skills we hope we won’t need, but might anyway: how to pass a pee test, fight police abuses, prevent identity theft, or navigate the underground economy. However you or I may feel about it, there are things it would behoove us to know, before the day arrives when we regret our ignorance.

Being as how the US keeps a larger proportion of its people behind bars than any other country, the ugly and unfortunate truth is that even in the best of families, someone is likely to wind up a convict. The several books about how to survive in prison become more relevant, as fewer and fewer of us reach the end of life without needing such information.

The founding and sustaining genius behind Loompanics is Mike Hoy, whose interview at AuthorViews.com, recorded only a few months ago, now has an ironic flavor. “I’ve been doing this for approximately thirty years and the good lord willing I’ll be doing it for another thirty.” Willing as any disembodied spirit undoubtedly is, other factors intervened.

If one had a paranoid cast of mind, one might suspect pressure from the authorities. In the current political climate, a publisher with such a customer database as Loompanics must have – not to mention the true identities of authors who write about things nice boys and girls aren’t supposed to know – such a publisher might find discretion the better part of valor, and close the doors before the inevitable visit from mofos in suits sneering, “Hand over your records.”

But that’s only paranoia. One person familiar with the operation says, “The feds haven’t been so bad. Hell, they’re one of Loompanics’s biggest customers.” It’s possible that a mundane factor like insurance costs pounded the final nail into the coffin. Attempts have been made to hold the company responsible for people’s actions, and to collect damages. Mike Hoy says it’s just been a steady decline in sales. Boring, but also reassuring. I’m glad it wasn’t jackbooted goons in the night. Too many Americans have already become martyrs to the sadly misdirected quest for “security.”

(Originally this piece had 3 links, which have apparently now all disappeared. What’s up with that?)

Interview with Mike Hoy on Loompanics’s own site          gone
Hoy on the AuthorViews site                                                       gone
Claire Wolfe’s tribute to Loompanics                                       gone

Shine the Light

My very favorite art form is the Appreciation. When I find somebody or something I can endorse wholeheartedly, it’s the best kind of piece to write. I’d rather expound upon the reasons why Norman Spinrad is a great among the greats, than write about why the world sucks. One reason why the world sucks is that so many people enjoy pointing it out so very much.

It’s frightening, how many of the world’s prescribers and proscribers have truly horrific home lives. If you can’t form a society with one or two, or a dozen other people – meaning a community that works for every member of it – then how can you be telling anybody how to run entire towns and countries?

Once in a while, I wish all the people who know how to run the world would pause for a moment and ask themselves, “Who am I to tell anybody anything?”

And you, dear reader, might well ask, who is Pat Hartman to tell anybody anything? Well, guess what. I have as much right to speak up, as an archbishop or university professor, or, really as anybody. On any topic. Everybody has an equal right to their say. That doesn’t mean anyone has to listen.

But that’s not the real point. Having the right to speak is only a starting place. There’s a big difference between saying “Everything sucks” and “This is what’s true for me.”

I hear a dear reader saying, “Okay, I’ll try it. This is what’s true for me. Everything sucks.”

And you’re entitled to that opinion. More than entitled – obligated to speak it, if that’s what you think. As long as the disclaimer “This is what’s true for me” is attached. Because ultimately, the only two true things a human can say with absolute certainty are, “I feel” and “I want.”

And I’m entitled to the opinion that it’s more productive to look for the things that don’t suck, and illuminate them.

Dedicated to Senor el Tecolote Loco

RELATED:
Venice in a Time of Love: An Appreciation of Stuart Z. Perkoff
Wanda Coleman
Ace Backwords: An Appreciation
Michael Ventura: An Appreciation

E-graffiti

I know, I know, thousands of these things fly around the webwaves. But these are my favorites of the ones I’ve seen.

This last one is a Mad Magazine Poster

Patriot: a Painting

Patriot: a painting in oil by Dale Hartman

Mommy, Why is the Flag Upside Down?

I heard a child ask his mother this not long ago. It’s a good question. The answer is, an upside-down flag is a distress signal. It’s a serious thing, a cry for help. It means somebody is in trouble, often a whole lot of somebodys. It means something is wrong and needs to be fixed. It means the ship is sinking, the fort is burning. This is not a frivolous gesture, and should never be used as such. Nobody anywhere should ever, ever display a flag upside down unless they really mean it! Below is another example of an upside down flag. It’s here so you remember what not to do. Not unless you are absolutely certain that a situation fully qualifies as an imminent disaster! Not unless something is definitely circling the drain!

Here are some places where you can learn more about this revered symbol:

PrisonPlanet

“Upside Down, Torn, and Tattered”

Threat of Death Should Cause Distress Signal, Not the Other Way Around

Always and Everywhere, Politics Suck – Part 2

More of The Hippest Things Anybody Ever Said About Politics

The people in Berkeley and in New York don’t need my pictures. That’s not where the battle’s going to be won. Tom Laughlin (of the Billy Jack movies)

The U.S. is putting together a constitution for Iraq. Why don’t we just give them ours? Think about it – it was written by very smart people, it’s served us well for over two hundred years, and besides, we’re not using it anymore. Jay Leno

Just because something works doesn’t mean it is desirable. Sy Leon

A piece of blank paper is the only thing in the world I have a serious ambition to control. Peter Levi

When Dick Nixon was going like this and smiling, what do you think he was telling you? ‘Fuck you four times.’ Swami X

Isn’t it absolutely essential to keep a fierce Left and a fierce Right, both on their toes and each terrified of the other? That’s how we get things done. Any opposition … is represented as a Left racket in the Right papers and a Right racket in the Left papers. … Of course we’re nonpolitical. The real power always is. C.S. Lewis in That Hideous Strength, 1945

The government can’t give out more than it takes in, and since the process of taking and redistributing costs something, the government actually gives out less than it takes in. This is why all “share the wealth” programs are actually “share the poverty” scams. Jim Lewis

Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes. Keep this in mind, it may offer a way to make him your friend. If not, you can kill him without hate – and quickly. Lazarus Long

In my grandparents’ generation, they felt enlightened to know multiple languages and have lived in several lands. Now today, there are dummies who can’t even spell or speak in English properly but they feel threatened by Spanish or Korean. Everything is a threat to some people. Marc Madow

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, misdiagnosing it, and then misapplying the wrong remedies. Groucho Marx

From time to time, writers have engaged in politics. Its effect on them as writers has been injurious. W. Somerset Maugham

Being in politics is like being a football coach; you have to be smart enough to understand the game, and dumb enough to think it’s important. Eugene McCarthy

Autonomy and cooperation make government irrelevant. Luke McGuff

Think like a free man and you will not be a slave. Menander

Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. H.L. Mencken

I’d be perfectly fine with all the rules and red tape if we didn’t have to wait in line for so long that the people in the line eventually develop their own regional dialect. Dennis Miller

I regard politics as a thoroughly foul, rotten world. We get nowhere through politics. It debases everything. Henry Miller

Government is the only agency that can take a useful commodity like paper, slap some ink on it, and make it totally worthless. Ludwig von Mises

Revolutionaries’ love is not something isolated from their activities, but rather is related to their political ideals. Tina Modotti

The one must be sacrificed for the good of the many, until the many are all sacrificed, one by one. Ward Moore and Avram Davidson

Conservativism used to be defined by a fear, if not a loathing, of government. Now conservatives pay deference to the state. Bill Moyers

The enemy is not conservatism. The enemy is not liberalism. The enemy is bullshit. Lars Erik Nelson

I don’t believe democracy should have a totally professional military force. I believe the military should be in large number made up of people who don’t want to be there and will help make the generals honest. Willie Nelson

I would be willing to get along with less information about this or that officeholder’s tax return or bedroom activities if I could get him or her to speak more clearly about maters of public policy. Edwin H. Newman

To have a career you need a society to have it in. You go off and you make works of art and you present them here. You’re glad to be making a contribution. America doesn’t provide that society any more. Phil Ochs

We conservatives don’t have gulags because they aren’t tax deductible. You can’t leverage gulag assets, and gulag merchandising rights are worth zilch. P.J. O’Rourke

People took politics seriously in those days. They used to start storing up rotten eggs weeks before an election. George Orwell

History is a bloody testament that sincerity can achieve atrocities which cynicism could never conceive. Jack Parsons

With my own weapons, design and color, I have wanted to conquer the conscience of mankind, so that this knowledge can lead us each day a step ahead on the road of liberty. Pablo Picasso

I’m more comfortable allowing individuals to be stupid, than requiring they not be. Brick Pillow

Prisons and schools are baby-sitting institutions so that we don’t glut the labor market. Baba Ram Dass

It is not self-sacrifice to die protecting that which you value: If the value is great enough, you do not care to exist without it. This applies to any alleged sacrifice for those one loves. Ayn Rand

(re: NATO, IMF, World Bank, GATT, WTO)
One of the oddities of the political situation in the United States since [WWII] has been the persistent belief on some sections of the right that the creation of these and similar international institutions are threats to America; when it is these institutions – backed up by force, over and covert, which have enabled the United States to consume substantially more than its share of the world’s energy and minerals. Robin Ramsey

I don’t wave a flag for anything. I’m a musician. Keith Richards

Of course, like the cliché’ moth courting the trite candle, the lit-up libertarian runs a constant risk. Is it not finer, however, to sizzle whole in the flame of freedom than to slowly stew to pieces in one’s own diminishing juices? Tom Robbins

I don’t make jokes, I just watch the government and report the facts. Will Rogers

Liberal – one whose heart is in the right place, but whose head is not. L.A. Rollins

Events are only real in the present tense – before they happen they’re hype, and after they happen they’re spin. Douglas Rushkoff

The criminal law can be used to prevent anti-social action on the part of those who do not belong to the government. Bertrand Russell

Much of the difficulty in attempting to restructure American and other societies arises from this resistance by groups with vested interests in the status quo. Significant change might require those who are now high in the hierarchy to move downward many steps. This seems to them undesirable and is resisted. Carl Sagan

Politicians fuck with people. That’s what they do. That’s their job. Every day they get up and wonder who they’re gonna fuck with that day. They they go and do it. John Sandford

I have a friend who’s collecting unemployment insurance. This guy has never worked so hard in his life as he has to to keep this thing going. He’s down there every week, waiting in the line and getting interviews and making up all these lies about looking for jobs. If they had any idea of the effort and energy that he is expending to avoid work, I’m sure they’d give him a raise. Jerry Seinfeld

I have no country – and the more I see of countries the better I like the idea. line from film The Shanghai Gesture

From Nixon on, every paranoid suspicion about the dirty tricks of government had proved an underestimate. Samuel Shem

I suggest that we resist apparent solutions that require victims to surrender their freedom, and freedom of expression, as a means of survival. Mary Simmerling

Many hackers tend to be reflexive liars….at least the ones found in newspaper and TV news stories – [they] can be counted on to perform for the listener, telling the gullible just about anything he or she wishes to hear. The result has been that almost any claim, no matter how nonsensical, has been published. George Smith

It is part of the sordid reality of our times that Hollywood is about the only institution left in our country big and powerful enough to challenge the influence of state propaganda that controls our lives with hardly a murmur from the same journalists so incensed by Stone. (re the JFK film) Sam Smith

When you think of the long and gloomy history of man, you will find more hideous crimes have been committed in the name of obedience than have ever been committed in the name of rebellion. C. P. Snow

The simple truth of a courageous individual is not to take part in the lie. One word of truth outweighs the world. Alexander Solzhenitsyn

It’s amazing how much panic one honest man can spread among a multitude of hypocrites. Thomas Sowell

As estimated by the Bureau of National Affairs, the dollar cost of corporate crime in America is over ten times greater than the combined larcenies, thefts, robberies and burglaries committed by individuals. Gerry Spence

I used to believe that a real unitary world government would be a good idea but I changed my mind because of something Lenny Bruce said about the Soviet Union- if you want to imagine what it’s like in the Soviet Union, imagine an entire country run by the phone company. Norman Spinrad

A man is none the less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years. Lysander Spooner

The average fifth-grader these days doesn’t know whether Japan is a state or a city; wonders what happens when you get to the “edge” of the United states on a map; doesn’t know, and can’t understand what a glacier is, and even believes that the government is there to protect him! Rev. Ivan Stang (The Church of the Subgenius)

Let my own life go on undisturbed, and my private affairs prosper – and I don’t give a continental whether the government is being run by a Communist, or a Seventh-Day Adventist, or a Hottentot. Gertrude Stein

A pedestal is as much a prison as any small space. Gloria Steinem

That’s how the government is. It was invented to do stuff that private enterprise doesn’t bother with, which means that there is probably no reason for it. Neal Stephenson

Good health turns out to be a positive by-product of the pursuit of other things. Edward Tenner

Any country which displays more than one statue of a living politician is a country which is headed for trouble. Paul Theroux

What is called politics is comparatively something so superficial and inhuman that practically I have never fairly recognized that it concerns me at all. Henry David Thoreau

Anyone who puts his own conscience above the state is an anarchist. Allen Thornton

Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hard-working, honest Americans. It’s the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity. But then–we elected them. Lily Tomlin

Washington is like Calcutta, full of beggars, only they wear $1500 suits and don’t say please or thank you. Traffic

Liberalism, free-thinking and open inquiry will never object to appear in company with their opposites, because they have the conceit to think that they can quell those opposites; but the opposites will not appear in conjunction with liberalism, free-thinking and open inquiry. Anthony Trollope

You may be willing to give up your rights, but I won’t let you give up MY rights. Hal Turner

The government of my country snubs honest simplicity but fondles artistic villainy. Mark Twain

Q. What’s the difference between God and the Government?
A. The lord giveth and the lord taketh away; the government taketh and giveth away. Unknown

A policeman’s job is easy only in a police state. Unknown

It’s dangerous to be right when the government is wrong. Unknown

No bird flies too high when he flies with his own wings. Unknown

You can always find free cheese in a mousetrap. Unknown

Sometimes the majority only means that all the fools are on the same side. Unknown

When the government tells me not to do something I feel that it’s my patriotic duty to immediately go out and do it. Rico Vaselino

The American Revolution was over in 1781; Washington wasn’t elected our first president until 1789, and he was not elected by the people in a free election but by the select, male-only Federal Constitutional Convention. Michael Ventura

There is only one party, which is People with Money. Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Third World rebels are great at exposing and overthrowing corrupt hypocritical regimes, but they seem noticeably less great at the mundane, non-negative task of then establishing a superior governing alternative. Victorious rebels, in fact, seem best at using their tough, cynical rebel-skills to avoid being rebelled against themselves – in other words, they just become better tyrants. David Foster Wallace

I am so weary about having been consistently right in all my political predictions for ten years. It is so boring seeing it all happen for the second time after one has gone through it in imagination. For you and Duff and Randolph life must be all one lovely surprise after another. Evelyn Waugh

Mom and Dad are biology, but you’re most like sick
if you get your kicks from politics.
Wean yourself now. Clean your own diapers.
Watch out for shoe tiers and nose wipers.
William Wharton in Scumbler

Fraudulence has become a national virtue and is well thought of in many circles. E. B. White

Since this is my first official government rapport I have chosen to write it by hand, because my favorite government documents are handwritten and they seem to work okay. Mason Williams

The Academy…Nobody seriously thought they’d rally behind the Branch Davidians and give the documentary Oscar to Waco: Rules of Engagement, perhaps the most chilling, revealing documentary about our present police-state mentality….Why recognize a new, present villain like the ATF….when you can trot those photogenic Nazis out, year after year?…You’d think impending murders would have some clout over ones committed fifty years ago, but nooooooooooo, not to the guys who cut the checks in Emerald City. Cintra Wilson

All governments are evil in one way or another. Leonard Woolf

In my Utopia, people would more or less give up on politics. Steve Wozniak

A fine is a tax for doing wrong. A tax is a fine for doing well. Stephen Wright

When you’ve seen one stifling transnational media conglomerate, you’re seen them all. Jamie Zawinski

I wouldn’t call it fascism exactly, but a political system nominally controlled by an irresponsible, dumbed down electorate who are manipulated by dishonest, cynical, controlled mass media that dispense the propaganda of a corrupt political establishment can hardly be described as democracy either. Edward Zehr

Always and Everywhere, Politics Suck

The Hippest Things Anybody Ever Said About Politics

Big Brother is like the Uncertainty Principle. You can’t tell where he is and how fast he’s moving at the same moment. Dr. Agon

Apathy, lack of caring, isn’t the problem. The problem is caring too much about the wrong things. Anne Alexander

We weren’t put on this earth to be politicians. Jeff Ament

Once people have learned how to disengage their souls when being abused by the powers that be, the powers that be lose traction rapidly. Kirsten Anderberg

Don’t make the mistake of equating anarchy with liberty. Anarchy is liberty only for the strongest and cruelest. Real liberty is when people respect each other’s liberty, and are willing to voluntarily restrain themselves from doing things that impinge on the liberty of others. Carl Aron

So far, I’ve concluded that politics is all bullshit, but I haven’t worked up any political ideology much more sophisticated than that. Ace Backwords

This is a country with 250 million people who don’t want any news from Washington and, even if they did, wouldn’t expect any news from Washington because they don’t think Washington could pour stale beer out of a boot if the instructions were printed on the heel.

Governments exist to limit freedom. That’s their job. And to the extent that utterly unbridled liberty seems to favor the reptile in us, a little government is not such a bad thing. But it never knows when to quit. John Perry Barlow

For them, the question is always, “What kind of government intervention should we impose on the world?” They never think that maybe we shouldn’t. Dave Barry

To remain distinct within the mass we must be branded with a series of numbers and must recite them to be known and served and allowed to pursue our lives. Jacques Barzun

A reminder from history: the American Revolution was not financed with matching grants from the Crown.
David Bayles and Ted Orland

Every anarchist is in part a hedonist and wants to enjoy his freedom. Fighting is too likely to interfere with that enjoyment. Ned Beaumont

Because I don’t have a job, because I don’t have children, I can get up and say something at a public hearing other blacks can’t say. I can’t be threatened about my job or my children. MaVynee Betsch

Today, problems aren’t solved, they’re attacked. Like the War on Poverty. Remember that? I’m happy to report that it’s finally over. The poor people have all surrendered. Swami Beyondananda

Conspiracy Theory, Unofficial Definition: Anything which, were it true, we couldn’t handle. Steve Bhaerman

We can probably do more for peace and freedom in the world right here, on our own turf, than by exporting ideology to the rest of the world which has perhaps had its fill of our imperial outreach offerings. Bob Black

Experience teaches us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government’s purpose is beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding. Supreme Court Justice Brandeis

Capitalism with its appeal to greed was not on the face of it an attractive system, but it provided a counterweight to the power of the state, besides quickening the life of society by providing competition. Socialism, or rule by bureaucracy, meant, I thought, the dead hand on everything, the life-destroying tyranny of the anonymous. Gerald Brenan

Give government the weapons to fight your enemy and it will use them against you. Harry Browne

One’s got to be against the government, any government, because the people in it are bad people or else they wouldn’t have got in. Anthony Burgess

Public work should be avoided by men who care for their own peace of mind. Daniel Hudson Burnham

Drug control is a thin pretext, and getting thinner, to increase police powers and to brand dissent as criminal…. I now suggest to all competent young people that they emigrate to Canada, before they get busted. If you have a record, it is much more difficult. William S. Burroughs

Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we. George W. Bush

Christianity may be a powerful tonic, but Hislam remains the one true faith of the Republican party. John Calderazzo

Nothing could be more inaccurate than the lazy assumption of the policy elites that groups such as the Freemen and the various militia movements represent anarchistic ‘anti-government’ tendencies. If anything, the so-called anti-government forces of the radical right are among the most fanatical devotees of legal authority among us. Paul F. Campos

Politics is so corrupt even the dishonest people get fucked. George Carlin

It seems what is most feared by a lot of people is somebody else’s ability to act in an organized manner. Casale

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries. Douglas Casey

Some people are cursed with personalities that disqualify them for anything except strident movements and, when one comes along, they tune up and howl. Dick Cavett

The way to move society on its axis is not to play politics. It is to persuade teachable people to think as you do. And the best way to do this is to be a good personal living example of the philosophy you hope to spread. John Chamberlain

The privileged people who actually run the country, they don’t want the state to have power to go after people like them. So they’ll actually protect the civil rights of people they hate if they come from the right class. Noam Chomsky

We seem to think having everyone vote works when it comes to running a country that can start wars, appropriate property, and execute malefactors, yet we assume it’s a bad way to run a business. The Cluetrain Manifesto (four authors)

A mixed herd of both sexes and all ages is the easiest kind to manage. Cowboy saying

Politics means nothing more than the ability to make the inevitable appear to be a matter of wise human choice. Quentin Crisp

As soon as you talk about social or political responsibility, you’ve amputated the best limbs you’ve got as an artist. You are plugging into a very restrictive system that is going to push and pull and mold you and is going to make your art totally useless and ineffective. David Cronenberg

The only way the Bill of Rights will protect you from much of anything nowadays is if you hold it over your head when it rains. Samantha Crouse

Legislative interference with the habits of the people produces the sneak, the spy, the fanatic, and the artful dodger. Aleister Crowley

Boredom and stupidity and patriotism, especially when combined, are three of the greatest evils of the world we live in. Robertson Davies

The sad truth is that individuals will always be under-equipped. We’re always going to have smaller engines. The CIA or whoever is always going to have the bigger infrastructure. Mark Dippe’

Dissent is seen as a form of betrayal. Free speech is seen as being most appropriately exercised when it is not exercised at all. Democracy is maintained by not thinking democratically. E. L. Doctorow

Neither charm nor patience nor endurance has ever wrested power from those who hold it. Frederick Douglass

Politics is an indigenous art form cultivated primarily by lawyers. Politics is about the only way for lawyers to get a little excitement. Peter Drucker

If one were to bring together all customs considered sacred by some group, and were then to take away all customs considered immoral by some group, nothing would remain. Will Durant

The significant problems we face can not be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them. Albert Einstein

I didn’t even know those people out there had gotten shoes yet, much less learned to read! I mean, if they could read, then they must have seen there were other names on the ballot than Reagan or Nixon. Harlan Ellison

It isn’t just propaganda any more, it’s ‘prop-agenda’. It’s not so much the control of what we think, but the control of what we think about. Brian Eno

By the time anybody gets around to saying “leadership”, it’s all over. Werner Erhard

The Bill of Rights and the First Amendment in particular are monuments to the right to doubt, and to the right of one person to doubt the rightness of 200 million. Steve Erickson

(about Russia) There has been a dictatorship there for so long, with so little real resistance, you must ask yourself how much sympathy you can have. Orianna Fallaci

There are these 12 guys running the country, and they all went to the right schools and they’re all trained for their jobs and they all have drawers full of classified information and they all have direct lines to the White House. So they resent it terribly when outsiders, like the American people, try to butt into their foreign policy. Jules Feiffer

Free your ass and your mind will follow. Gerry Fialka

It is the most opulent, most gorgeous land on earth, a land whose wisest are but little wiser than its dullest, where the rulers have minds like little children and the lawgivers believe in Santa Claus. F. Scott Fitzgerald

(On Hitler, 1936) He has a fine library of six thousand volumes, yet he never reads; books would do him no good – his mind is made up. Janet Flanner

I think Nixon did this country a great favor when he reinstilled in the American people a mistrust of government. Carol Fondiller

I don’t say this is a bad country – I say countries are bad. FrancEye

Gentlemen, you see we have been living under anarchy, yet the business of living has gone on as usual. Be careful; if our debates go on too much longer, people may come to see that they can get along very well without us. Ben Franklin

The liberal views of Robert Montgomery, professor of economics at the University of Texas, made him unpopular with the Texas legislature. An investigation was set in motion. When he was asked if he favored private property, Montgomery replied “I do – so strongly that I want everyone in Texas to have some.” John Kenneth Galbraith

The truth, as always, will set you free, but first it will make you sound dangerous. Kaye Gibbons

How small of all that human hearts endure/ That part which laws or kings can cause or cure. Oliver Goldsmith

A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away. Barry Goldwater

It is hard to give understanding to someone with no will, and more difficult to give will to someone with no understanding. Baltasar Gracian

It is true, of course, that war not only arouses suppressed forces slumbering in us, but also really does librate some people, be it from a hated environment, the slavery of daily work, or the burden of one’s own personality. That is one of the mysteries that will perpetuate wars forever. George Grosz

You are strangling freedom but the soul of the people knows no bondage. Graffiti in Moscow in the 70s

Coming back into this country is more horrifying than leaving. Graffiti

Politicians are like polkas – they have different names, but they all sound alike. Graffiti

Politicians are like diapers. They both should be changed often, and for the same reason. Graffiti

The word ‘politics’ is derived from the words ‘poly’ meaning many, and the word ‘tics’ meaning blood-sucking parasites. Larry Hardiman

The truth is that we are not fighting a “war on terror.” We are fighting a pestilential theology and a longing for paradise. Sam Harris

A lot of people who say they want a smaller government really do – it’s just that they want to be it. Dale Hartman

Freedom is doing what you want, when you please, and not being made to do anything. Freedom is not having to spend time with people in whose company you don’t want to spend time. Pat Hartman

What experience and history teach is this: that people and governments never have learned anything from history, or acted on principles deduced from it. George Hegel

Politicians are required to be full of shit because they have to thread their ways to the top through the hordes of amibitious, narcissistic, amoral, back-stabbing dickheads who run things in Washington. Cynthia Heimel

Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a free man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything — you can’t conquer a free man, the most you can do is kill him. Robert Heinlein

The notion of making the government behave as if it were really around to help people is radical in itself, and will cause tremors in the community that you cannot tell where it will lead. Karl Hess

The nonconformist is a more stable type than the conforming individual. It is the average man of today who shows the most striking differences from people of other ages and other civilizations. The rebel of today is twin brother of rebels in all ages and climes. Eric Hoffer

Identity politics, based on racial and gender categories, and on nihilistic assumptions that power is all, culminate in a posture in which the rules of civility and democratic process, not to mention the principles of academic freedom, are dismissed as so much social mystification. David Horowitz

The laws of God, the laws of man,
He may keep that will and can;
Not I: let God and man decree
Laws for themselves and not for me;
And if my ways are not as theirs
Let them mind their own affairs.
Their deeds, I judge and much condemn,
Yet when did I make laws for them?
A.E. Housman

If you don’t have a flag sticking out of your ass, you must be a communist. Chrissie Hynde

Medical bureaucracy creates ill-health by increasing stress, by multiplying disabling dependence, by generating new painful needs, by lowering the levels of tolerance for discomfort or pain, by reducing the leeway that people are wont to concede to an individual when he suffers, and by abolishing even the right to self-care. Ivan Illich

Everyone who has ever lost someone he or she loved in a war has an obligation to talk back to these chest-thumping jackasses who are so anxious to get other people’s sons killed. Molly Ivins

People ought to be free and the way to keep people free is to keep people in charge of politicians rather than the other way around. Paul Jacob

Generosity is a virtue for individuals, not governments. When governments are generous it is with other people’s money, other people’s safety, other people’s future. P. D. James (character)

The idea of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it always to be kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong, but better so than not to be exercised at all. Thomas Jefferson

It’s one thing to sacrifice truth for fairness. It’s another thing to sacrifice truth for success. You can only sacrifice an ethical principle for another ethical principle. Michael Josephson

To believe in conspiracies, one must assume that the government is organized. That is a leap of faith I am unwilling to make. PM Kellermann

I have discovered what previously I didn’t believe possible – that politicians behave in private life and say exactly the same things as they do in public. Their stupidity is inhuman. John Maynard Keynes

True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. Martin Luther King

To vanish, to take a powder, to cut and run – from an army one can’t fight for, a community one can’t live with, or a directive one can’t obey – can be a legitimate political act, and sometimes the consummate political act. Walter Kirn

Ninety percent of the politicians give the other ten percent a bad reputation. Henry Kissinger

The War on Terror was never a war in the traditional sense. It is, instead, a kind of brand, an idea that can be easily franchised by any government in the market for an all-purpose opposition cleanser. Naomi Klein

The game that our politicians play with us is one of constraining political decisions to one of two equally worthless alternatives and portraying them as “the only game in town.” Thomas L. Knapp

Pseudo-patriots will employ their perverted nationalistic views of Americanism to work for their own freedom but to deprive others of theirs. Joe Knight

This is what we wanted, back in the Sixties. And now we have it. It used to be that only people with pigmented skin would get beat up by the cops. Now, anybody can get beat up be the cops. White grannies, Girl Scouts, nuns, anybody. Equality. Will Knott