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Full Menu
Baroque ensemble Ricordo's debut album with Linn Records which received rave reviews.
'In Ricordo we have a new Baroque group of enormous promise' (Gramophone).
Kati Debretzeni – violin
Penelope Spencer – violin
Alison McGillivray – viola da gamba & violone
Adam Woolf – trombone
Matthew Wadsworth – theorbo & baroque lute
Robert Howarth – harpsichord & organ
In the second half of the 17th century, a handful of virtuosos established a clear Austro-German supremacy of the violin over its birthplace, Italy. Amongst them Heinrich Ignaz Franz von Biber stands out both as composer and as violinist. History has done him justice: he is today more popular then ever. His life is well documented, and his major instrumental collections are widely published and recorded. His formative years, however, are merely speculated upon, and they are the focal point of this recording.
Biber was born on Aug. 12th, 1644, in Wartenberg (now Stráz pod Ralskem), Bohemia. The first documents concerning his life come from the court of Prince-Bishop Carl Lichtenstein-Castelcorn (1624-'95), bishop of Olmouc, whose services he entered at Kremsier (today Kromeríž, in the Czech Republic) as "chamber servant" in 1668. Their parting of ways only two years later is infamous: Biber, ever the opportunist, took off without obtaining permission to leave, and entered the services of Maximilian Gandolph, Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg – no doubt following an offer for better wages. He spent the rest of his life in Salzburg, working his way up to the title of 'Kappelmeister'. His fame as virtuoso violinist "was well known to great many courts", as he himself wrote humbly in his second (and granted) petition for knighthood. By his latter years, he was a well published, successful, and moderately wealthy musician. A man who no doubt enjoyed earthly pleasures, he planted a small garden and cultivated wine is his last decade of life. On the 3rd of May 1704 "in the night between twelve and one o'clock [...] after four days of outstanding illness [...the] Kappelmeister, after receiving the holy sacraments, and with the most beautiful resignation, fell gently asleep in God's will".
Biber is a prime exponent of Kirchner's stylus phantasticus in his use of an inventive, elaborate, extravagant, ever surprising and quirky violinistic virtuosity. His highly individual style can be traced back to his early works for solo violin which survive mainly in two collections: in the Archiepiscopal Archives in Kromeríž, and in a late 17th century manuscript (MS 726) containing over one hundred Austro-German violin sonatas, preserved at the Minoritenkonvent, Vienna.
Another suggested teacher for Biber is Antonio Bertali (1605-'69), Schmelzer's predecessor at Vienna. An early work thought to demonstrate this connection is a Sonata à 3, for 2 violins and trombone ascribed to " H.B." at Kromeríž. It has long been attributed to Biber, and even published as his work. Bertali wrote a number of similar sonatas for exactly the same scoring. If the work is by Biber, he might be trying his hand at writing 'in the style of', as any novice composer would. Another possibility is that the work has so far been mis-catalogued. The initials "H.B" could easily be interpreted as "A.B.", standing for Bertali himself. The fact that there is not an iota of Biberesque elements in either of the solo violin passages points to this option. The second of these is, however, more fanciful than any other in Bertali's works. Was it written with the young Biber in mind?
The Bishop had a well documented partiality to 'pizarren Sachen' – the bizarre effects of mistuned violins and naïve-pictorial elements in music. A Fantasia, utilising the scordatura A-e-a-d' is preserved in the Vienna manuscript. It is an earlier form of Sonata no. 4 from the 1681 set of Eight Sonatas, its opening and a 'Gigue' section being almost identical to passages in the later work. That it is a much earlier version is betrayed by the flurry of undeveloped ideas. Incoherent in form and content alike, it possesses an almost tangible burst of unrestrained energy. The extremely active bass part is outstanding beyond comparison: figured only scarcely, it climbs above the violin part, reaching an upper limit of e'! It was probably conceived with the viola da gamba in mind, and the viol might have realised the continuo part on its own. It may well have been composed at Kremsier, or earlier still, and it is perhaps this, or a similar piece that prompted the Bishop to write: "he played the violin, the bass, and the viola da gamba, and also composed with considerable ability."
One of Biber's most striking early works is a Sonata in C minor, an incarnation of Sonata no. 6 from 1681. The opening section is identical to the later version, but the Passacaglia that follows is completely different. It has the features of a lament - the introspective simplicity and the compete lack of violinistic fireworks (even double stops) are in sharp contrast with the later version. The ending, on the highest note of the piece, evokes the image of the child lead to heaven by the Guardian Angel, familiar from the famous Passacaglia for solo violin. We know that Biber became very ill during his stay at Kremsier. This might be the afterthought of a grave illness. A lute arrangement of the Passacaglia from the 1681 version survives at the library of the Kremsmünster monastery. Its author, Ferdinand Fischer (1652-1725), was a monk well known for his skills as a lutenist. Intended perhaps for the amateur, it is heavily simplified, almost re-written. Maybe a third (now lost) version was the basis of this adaptation.
An anomaly in every way, perhaps sent to Vienna to show off the formidable talents of the young composer, is a lengthy Sonata in E major. Its form and simplistic harmonic structure expose an inexperienced composer. In the opening 56 bars all in E major Biber simply cannot tire of his own ability to improvise violinistic pyrotechnics. Of the following two consecutive sets of Aria and Variations, a favourite device, neither has the inventiveness of later examples. They could possibly constitute an 'optional' choice for the performer - a view taken in this recording. Next comes a folk tune and its divisions which wouldn't be out of place in a gipsy band's repertoire. The lengthy closing section is a final show-off of an undoubtedly young Biber.
The three centuries that passed have done nothing to diminish the impact of Biber's music. He never fails to surprise and to astonish. These youthful works, with their imperfections, show Biber pushing boundaries further than anyone before him. They draw a smile with the sheer audacity of experimentation - and evoke the words of Jakob Stainer, the violin maker, who called him "der vortreffliche Virtuos": "the formidable virtuoso, Herr Biber." Kati Debretzeni: 2002


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subset: commoncrawl


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Mays, Lyle
From Library of Congress Name Authority File
Mays, Lyle
Instance Of
Scheme Membership(s)
Collection Membership(s)
Additional Information
Exact Matching Concepts from Other Schemes
- found: Metheny, P. Pat Metheny Group [SR] p1978 (a.e.) container (Lyle Mays, piano, synthesizer, autoharp)
- found: New Grove dict. of jazz (Mays, Lyle (David); b. 1953, Wisconsin; keyboard player and composer)
- found: Guinness enc. of pop. mus., 2nd ed. (Mays, Lyle; b. Nov. 27, 1953, Wausaukie, Wis.; keyboard player)
Change Notes
- 1978-12-20: new
- 1996-07-02: revised
Alternate Formats


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Krewe of Kajuns, follows Houmas parade Feb. 12, West Houma
Published: Friday, January 11, 2013 at 3:06 p.m.
Last Modified: Friday, January 11, 2013 at 3:06 p.m.
Follows Houmas parade
West Houma
Royalty: Queen Macie Acosta
Floats: 15
Tableau: Bash Jan. 18 and 19 at the Ramada Inn
Members: Men, women and children's krewe with more than 300 to 400 members
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It will probably go unspoken but this region owes a debt of gratitude to Rep. Jo Ann Emerson on her decision to seek re-election to her House seat instead of entering the GOP battle for governor of Missouri.
Perhaps Emerson felt her chances were a long shot. Given the statewide name recognition of Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, Treasurer Sarah Steelman and Rep. Kenny Hulshof, maybe the six-term legislator read the tea leaves correctly and decided to stay put. But I'll take her at her word that she has some unfinished business in Congress. And given the prospects for the Republican Party and the nation as a whole, it seems virtually certain there will be ample need for a seasoned, common sense voice to remain representing our District.
Had Emerson opted to enter the gubernatorial contest, can you imagine the nasty fight that would have erupted from a gang of hopefuls to fill her seat? I suspect only newspapers and broadcast media who benefit from political advertising would come out a winner. The last thing we need in this region - at least right now - is a freshman legislator from a minority party representing our voices in Washington, D.C. We have to yell above the fray as it is. Absent Emerson's seniority, you can only imagine how quiet our voice would sound.
Though most would put Emerson in the "moderate" category, I think she belongs squarely on the side of common sense and logic. She's practical enough to know how to pick her battles and vocal enough to wage war when war is needed. Even her opponents - few as they are - know she's good at what she does and she doesn't shy from a fight. Give credit where credit is due.
It's academic at this point to debate the prospects of Rep. Emerson's chances to seek the top spot in Missouri. But I suspect she and Lloyd Smith put their heads together, surveyed the landscape and decided what was best for both her and the people she represents. Academic debates aside, she would have made a dazzling governor with the skills and talents she carries. To think otherwise would be foolhardy.
We hope Rep. Emerson joins in the likely fight to diminish earmarks or at the very least, bring those costly "pet" projects into the public debate. Sen. Claire McCaskill was bold enough to refuse earmarks when she was elected to the Senate. We don't expect these perks of pork to evaporate overnight but it would be gratifying to know that our voice in Congress is working to address this runaway spending that siphons your tax dollars without one single word of public debate. We might suggest she add this item to her agenda following the election.
Depending on the outcome of the presidential election this November, the importance of Rep. Emerson in this Congressional seat cannot be overlooked. We can only imagine what challenges might be just around the corner and how those challenges might impact the farming communities, small businesses, the struggling middle class or those who depend on government assistance just to get through the day. I cannot imagine a more important time for this District to have that voice of reason representing our interests.


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Libertarians In Jackboots?
Michael Lind's recent article accusing libertarianism of being inherently pro-autocracy conflates two different issues. He notes that libertarians have often been skeptical of majoritarian democracy; he also notes that libertarians have sometimes said nice things about certain autocracies. Both of these claims are true, but they are much less closely related than Lind supposes.
One reason for Lind's conflation is that he automatically translates being anti-democracy into being pro-autocracy — because he assumes that the only alternative to democracy is autocracy. But in fact there is a third option; rather than the many dictating to the few or the few dictating to the many, what libertarians seek is a world where nobody is in a position to dictate to anybody — or at least to get as close to that situation as possible. (It might be argued that such a system actually has a better claim to the term "democracy" than those regimes that typically receive that label.) For anarchist libertarians, this means replacing the state entirely with networks of voluntary association; for minarchist libertarians, it means structuring the machinery of government in such a way as to make it as difficult as possible to abuse.
In other words, libertarians don't oppose democracy (in the conventional sense) because they hanker after autocracy; they oppose democracy because it is too much like autocracy.
And even this point assumes, generously, that existing democracies really are majoritarian. As many libertarians have argued, the logic of monopoly government and special-interest capture explains why real-life "democracies" tend to be plutocratic oligarchies in democratic trappings.
In a related conflation, Lind repeatedly refers to "conservatives and libertarians" as though these two groups can be lumped together. But libertarianism at its most consistent is fundamentally opposed to conservatism; indeed it has often been argued that libertarianism is best understood as a form of radical leftism. (Certainly there are prominent figures who combine aspects of both libertarian and conservative rhetoric, but the same could be said of virtually any two ideologies.)
What muddies the waters here is that individual libertarians have indeed, unfortunately, sometimes succumbed to the temptation to let their opposition to democracy befuddle them into whitewashing the evils of certain existing autocracies.
Lind is certainly right to condemn this lunatic tendency; but he grossly overestimates its extent, because of his conflation of anti-democracy with pro-autocracy. The actual extent of libertarian rhetorical support for autocracies pales in comparison to the extent of the similarly motivated and similarly disastrous progressive rhetorical support for communist regimes.
I should also note, in closing, that Lind's claim that libertarians have been silent about "abuses by police and the military" is particularly ludicrous. If he could write that claim with a straight face, clearly his familiarity with libertarian literature and the libertarian blogosphere is laughably inadequate.
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Fernando Teson
Nice post, Roderick, and entirely correct. I wouldn't even take too seriously this slanderous accusation against libertarians; I've seen the mainstream Left do this over and over. The strategic purpose is to obscure the fact that they themselves are authoritarian. Another problem is the left's hostility to markets. so when Milton Friedman correctly said that pro-market reforms in Chile were a good thing even when enacted by a bad dictator, the Left maligned him, not only because they unfairly saw this as an endorsement of Pinochet, but because they just don't believe that free markets are that good. Economic freedom is not important to them, period.
But I don't think Pinochet's "reforms" were pro-market in any meaningful sense.
On this point, I think Naomi Klein (in one of her Jekyll moments) has it right:
"It's clear that Chile was never the laboratory of 'pure' free markets that its cheerleaders claimed. Instead, it was a country where a small elite leapt from wealthy to super-rich in extremely short order — a highly profitable formula bankrolled by debt and heavily subsidized (then bailed out) with public funds. When the hype and salesmanship behind the miracle are stripped away, Chile under Pinochet and the Chicago Boys was not a capitalist state featuring a liberated market but a corporatist one …. a mutually supporting alliance between a police state and large corporations, joining forces to wage all-out war on the third power sector — the workers — thereby drastically increasing the alliance's share of the national wealth…."
Lind erroneously attributes the authoritarian sympathies of some libertarians to all libertarians. Please do not accuse each and every one of us on the left of being, monolithically, the true authoritarians.
Given the mainstream left's tendency to prefer neo-liberal market tweaking reforms, I think its unfair to accuse them of being anti-market. Although this is a bit of a sore spot for me, a Leftist who is a libertarian fellow traveler on many issues, as I find the focus on economic freedom above all other kinds to be dangerous; depriving people of freedom of speech and freedom from state violence in the name of economic freedom is abhorrent. As Friedman was fairly hands-on in the economic reforms made by Pinochet he is more complicit in the regime than that of an outside commentator
The difference is that Lind was taking the positions of individuals and attributing them to a philosophy. Fernando is taking a philosophy and attributing it to the people who hold it. In other words, if you understand the "mainstream Left" to mean the "statist Left," then it is, by definition, true that they are authoritarian. It is not that some on the mainstream Left support states and this a misleading fact to attribute to everyone in that camp. The camp simply is pro-state, i.e. pro-authoritarian. If you are anti-state, then I wouldn't say you're in the mainstream Left.
In other words, if you understand the "mainstream Left" to mean the "statist Left," then it is, by definition, true that they are authoritarian
And if you define the mainstream left as "anti-authoritarian left" then the left is, by definition, anti-authoritarian. Mainstream means the most widely accepted or the most common or normal, not whether such views are authoritarian. So mainstream left means the kind vanilla leftism that most people who view themselves as left-wing would adhere to.
The formulation which you attribute to Mr. Tesoro holds that mainstream left = statist = authoritarian. Its a fair characterization to say the mainstream left is statist, at least relatively, but statist does not necessarily mean authoritarian. The use of a democratically established state in order to further policy goals is statist but not authoritarian.
For example, much of the criticism Obama is receiving from the "professional left" has been targeted at his failure to deviate from the authoritarian tendencies of the Bush administration, his failure to advocate for progressive causes which are perceived to be popular (the public option for example) and his failure to make the case to the american public that unpopular progressive causes are correct. Without commenting on the advisability of these policy goals, it is clear that they are generally statist but supportive or neutral to democratic norms. I have seen very little criticism of Obama for failing to jam progressive policies down people's throughts. Obviously there are authoritarians on the Left, as there are in any movement, but it is just as false to say the mainstream left's ideology is inherently authoritarian as it is to say the same for libertarianism.
Its a fair characterization to say the mainstream left is statist, at least relatively, but statist does not necessarily mean authoritarian.
I think I've located our point of disagreement. A state is, by definition, authoritarian. Last time I checked, even states that weren't (at the moment) "jam[ming] progressive policies down people's throughts [sic]" were still in the business of forcibly maintaining their claim to supreme authority.
Damien S.
what do you call the distinction between a military dictatorship that
murders dissenters, and a majoritarian democracy with strong respect for
civil liberties? Because most people call the former authoritarian and
the latter, not. If you're going to redefine common terminology to
suit yourself, that'll rather hamper intelligible discussion.
I call them both authoritarian. I thought I was clear about that. Fortunately, language affords me many options for expanding on that. And I know how most people use the term. That's rather the point of bothering to suggest that common usage hides some important truths. It would be a shame for most people to go on using the term in a way that suggest that the latter don't "tend to be plutocratic oligarchies in democratic trappings." Now, what do you think most people would call a plutocratic oligarchy? Oh, that's right.
down people's throughts [sic]
You sir, need to bone up on your anatomy! The throught connects the hambone to the aetheric gizzard!
Also I think the distinction between authoritarian and non-authoritarian states is valid and should not be elided as it describes a very important difference between varieties of states. Even if we prefer that there be no state, we can also prefer a better kind of state to a worse kind. I take the position that if the state exists, then it should be as decentralized as possible.
Where a democracy becomes a vehicle of plutocratic oligarchy it ceases to become a substantive democracy and, instead, becomes a procedural democracy (although these regimes are not separated by a bright line, a but exist on a continuum of the effectiveness of the democratic control).
I agree that the distinction is valid. I just don't agree that the distinction makes its cut through the varieties of states. I would perhaps go further than Roderick and say that it's not just a tendency but that democracies (in the conventional sense) just are plutocratic oligarchies, and that this is precisely because they operate with the characteristics of states (even those shared by "good" ones), not despite those characteristics.
So do we also paint Larry Summers (IIRC) with the gangster brush as he was the primary market architect for the soviet transition from socialism to a "free market" society?
Does the architect of the privatization of the former Soviet Union bear some responsibility for what results from that privatization? Yes, to the extent those results are foreseeable. Why wouldn't they? To be clear, I do not believe Friedman's guilt is anywhere near the level of a co-conspirator in the crimes of the regime – he's more like the mob doctor who patches up bullet holes, but doesn't take part in any of the mobs operations.
Plus, it seems like you are conflating the results of a reform program with the methods used to implement it; the Yeltsin regime (as far as I know) did not engage in murder and torture to suppress dissent as the Pinochet regime did.
It's is a hard question to say just how corrupt Yeltsin and his regime was. It's clear that a lot of people think the transition period included a lot of political robbery. Moreover, many of the upcoming capitalists under the new open and free market capitalism of Russia were thought to have been little better than the large organized crime bosses that functioned within the older soviet system, profiting from the corruption in the USSR and enforcing social order.
I do suspect we don't want to paint Yeltsin and Pinochet with the same brush I don't think we should paint the economist suggesting the countries take on free market institutions were ever advocating or supporting the following actions of those regimes.
Perhaps your position is that there is no way of constructively engaging a repressive regime other than effort to oppose their bad behaviors.
On the question of engaging repressive regimes, I hesitate to say never, but I think it is generally extremely difficult to engage regimes such as this in a constructive manner, especially when the policy recommendations will engender opposition. When one is giving advice to a regime, one must be cognizent of how that advice will be implemented. In a regime led by a murderous dictator, policies which face opposition will be implemented murderously. In a democratic regime, they will either be popular enough to survive or they will not be implemented.
I don't think Yeltsin and Pinochet are especially comparabel either. My general point was that advice givers bear some responsibility for what results from their advice.
So Summers responsibility stems from the flawed policies which were implemented. Friedman's stems from the horrific manner in which the policies he recommended would most likely be implemented.
Well, some people have posted defenses on this blog of "epistocracy" – and that does strike me as a new and dangerous wrinkle in the libertarian dialectic. And the recent anti-democracy rhetoric from the libertarian camp strikes me as somewhat more strident and concerning than I remember it from past discussions with libertarians.
Libertarianism used to have relatively little support within the academy, and has as a result usually had an anti-elitist cast. But as libertarianism acquires support at elite universities, and as one combines libertarian thinking with the natural tendencies toward intellectual arrogance and confident belief in superiority which are always present in elite academic settings, it's possible one can get some dangerous new combinations. The supposed general freedom not to be coercively governed by others turns into a specially emphasized freedom not to be governed by others who are not educated enough, and then into a right to be governed only by one's intellectual peers. And of course that right can't be socially manifested in en effective way unless the elite secure for themselves the power to govern others. This is the old road to claims for philosopher kingship and such phenomena as the anti-democratic tyranny of ancient Athens. That's something Americans need to be vigilant against, since this combination of an insistence on individual rights with the prerogatives of education and expertise has perverted and toppled democracies before.
Roderick, you say, "what libertarians seek is a world where nobody is in a position to dictate to anybody — or at least to get as close to that situation as possible."
One of the things I have tried to argue in many comments here on this blog is that the only really viable way of preventing autocratic or oligarchic rule is to establish republican institutions that vest rule in a broad and engaged citizenry, and to stabilize those institutions with checks and balances. It's nice of libertarians to dream of a world where no one coerces anyone else or dictates anything to anyone else. But if that dream is elevated into a recipe for actual political reform, reforms that erode and disempower democratic institutions, the libertarian will only create vacuums into which the autocracies and tyrannies they claim to deplore will rush in. It is charming picture libertarians have – a world of non-coercion that tyrants don't immediately overpower and destroy. But in the actual course of human events, that is never what happens. If the many have a common interest against subordination to an autocratic few, they only way they can secure that interest in a sustainable way is to bind themselves to one another in solidarity, and erect a wall of concerted and shared power against concentrated and despotic power.
Libertarianism used to have
relatively little support within the academy, and has as a result usually had
an anti-elitist cast.
It seems to me that the anti-elitist strand of
libertarianism is growing, not shrinking. Where was the libertarian left twenty years ago?
It is charming picture
libertarians have – a world of non-coercion that tyrants don't immediately
overpower and destroy. But in the actual course of human events, that is
never what happens.
But that's the same argument that's been used
historically against every move in the direction of liberty. Again and again we've heard that
slavery, or monarchy, or male supremacy, is an ineradicable feature of human
society, and that any attempt to abolish these institutions can only result in
their resurrection, so that the most we should shoot for is efforts to moderate
these institutions and make them less abusive. Why should we take the argument this time any more seriously
than its predecessors?
If the many have a common
interest against subordination to an autocratic few, they only way they can
secure that interest in a sustainable way is to bind themselves to one another
in solidarity, and erect a wall of concerted and shared power against
concentrated and despotic power.
Well, I have no quarrel with that unless you
assume that this "concerted and shared power" has to be
But why should we assume that?
All the many have to do to liberate themselves from the autocratic few
is to ignore them.
First, I'm not sure what the difference between left and right really has to do with it. There have been populist left movements and populist right movements; just as there have been elite left movements and elite right movements.
But for what it's worth, there has been a coherent libertarian left in the US, it seems to me, at least since the aftermath of the McCarthy era – but this libertarian left traces its roots back at least to the anarchist movement in the 19th century. Chomsky has always called himself an "anarchist" or "libertarian socialist".
Personally, I think the radical or Chomskyan left's absorption of too many of the habits of and views of libertarianism and anarchism, and its neglect of the democratic theory or governance and organization for governance, has seriously weakened the left and accounts in part for its increasingly disorganized and debilitated state over the past several decades as neoliberalism, market fundamentalism, Thatcherism, Third Wayism and other similar right-trending movements have asserted dominance over the political culture, and rolled back the power of workers. The left will never be resurgent until more leftists decide they want to be the government and participate in it at a formal level, instead of posing forever as perpetual dissidents working only to resist or at best "petition" the government.
I'm not sure what you mean when you say that "all the many have to do to liberate themselves from the autocratic few is to ignore them." If an armed band of brigands is determined to take your land, or your crops, or your resources, or impress you and your friends and family into slavery, or establish some other kind of permanent control or direction over all of you, you can hardly prevent them from doing so just by ignoring them. You have to repel them and defeat them.Now I suppose you can succeed here and there in repelling and defeating threats by adventitiously banding together temporarily into an organized, rule-governed unit for that limited purpose, and then dissolving back into a less organized form of existence. But the threats are persistent and many, and it's both inefficient and ineffective to keep forming and dissolving units of organized power only when threats arise. For one thing, you will want to deter threats from acting against you in the first place, rather than continue paying the high price of only banding together and acting once threats have arisen, and have begun to do their damage. The practical thing to do is to preserve the band as an organized society; to debate, refine and improve the rules under which you live and organize your cooperative activity and common life; and to establish settled practices for keeping these rules and in place. And then you are a government.
You say, "Again and again we've heard that slavery, or monarchy, or male supremacy, is an ineradicable feature of human society, and that any attempt to abolish these institutions can only result in their resurrection."
There is no doubt that important kinds of freedom can be advanced, and advanced on a sustained basis. But the way they are typically advanced is by establishing modifications of existing political orders and systems of laws so that the objectionable form of bondage or coercion are actively prevented. And they are only actively prevented by an organized power that has more coercive heft than the potential oppressors.
For example, all kinds of forms of male domination and female subjugation that existed just a few decades ago have been altered and pushed back in the US and other societies. That's in large part because many of the constitutive practices of male domination are now illegal, and the institutions and claims of right that once underpinned these practices have been abolished. Those who seek to engage in those practices, and there are many who do, are now thwarted by the law and by the imposition of punishment, or at least the threat of punishment, on a continuing basis. So if this is a triumph on behalf of liberty, it is a triumph of democratic government and the rule of democratic law.
And none of these changes would ever have occurred without the extension of the voting franchise to women. It is more voting and and expanded democratic polity, armed with stronger laws, that freed people – not less voting and weaker democratic polities.
"And then you are a government."
Nope. This is the problematic premise underneath your whole line of thinking here (along with that of people like Gus di Zerega and others in the state-as-self-organizing-network camp). You've convinced yourself that anarchism is the lack of persistent institutions or organizations because you seemingly define governments or states as any persistent institution or organization. Either that or you think this is the case in matters of large-scale defense. But why should we accept this? I find that to be a weird way to think of it.
If you're going to tell an anarchist that they don't really oppose the state if they support any kind of "organized, rule-governed unit" for defense (as you suggest is prudent), then it probably helps to know what they mean by a "government" or "state":
I won't hazard a definition of either "government" or "state" here, but some essential features can be described. States have governments, and governments, as such, claim authority over a defined range of territory and citizens. Governments claim the right to issue legitimate orders to anyone subject to them, and to use force to compel obedience. But governments claim more than that: after all, I have the right to order you out of my house, and to shove you out if you won't go quietly. Governments claim supreme authority over legally enforceable claims within their territory; while I have a right to order you off my property, a government claims the right to make and enforce decisive, final, and exclusive orders on questions of legal right—for example, whether it is my property, if there is a dispute, or whether you have a right to stay there. That means the right to review, and possibly to overturn or punish, my demands on you—to decisively settle the dispute, to enforce the settlement over anyone's objections, and deny to anyone outside the government the right to supersede their final say on it. Some governments—the totalitarian ones—assert supreme authority over every aspect of life within their borders; but a "limited government" asserts authority only over a defined range of issues, often enumerated in a written constitution. Minarchists argue not only that governments should be limited in their authority, but specifically that the supreme authority of governments should be limited to the adjudication of disputes over individual rights, and the organized enforcement of those rights. But even the most minimal minarchy, at some point, must claim its citizens' exclusive allegiance—they must love, honor and obey, forsaking all others, or else they deny the government the prerogative of sovereignty. And a "government" without sovereign legal authority is no government at all.-Charles "Rad Geek" Johnson, "Liberty, Equality, Solidarity: Toward a Dialectical Anarchism"
You have not demonstrated that simply reaching the point where an institution is "preserved," where there are "settled practices," or where there is enough continuity to "deter threats" requires anything of the sort Rad Geek describes. If an organization hangs together despite the lack of these essential features, then it is not a state, but anarchy. If we accept, as you said, that "[objectionable forms of bondage or coercion] are only actively prevented by an organized power that has more coercive heft than the potential oppressors" then why must we also accept that this can only take the form of something with sovereign legal authority?
That's in large part because many of the constitutive practices of male domination are now illegal, and the institutions and claims of right that once underpinned these practices have been abolished.
Why is this any more likely to be the case than the idea that the Civil Rights Act is in large part the reason that many of the constitutive practices of racism "have been altered and pushed back in the US and other societies"?
And none of these changes would ever have occurred without the extension of the voting franchise to women.
Yes, it's probably true that legislative changes would not have occurred without the extension of the voting franchise to women. That's very different from saying that any change would never have occurred without the extension of the voting franchise to women.
In addition to these kinds of consequentialist considerations, (to quote Rad Geek again, somewhat out of context):
But even if you concede that immediate repeal of statist controls, without the preconditions in place, would eventually result in disaster, rather than cultural adaptation … you would need to add some kind of further moral argument that would show that people are entitled to continue invading the rights of other people in order to maintain a particular standard of living, or to stave off aggression that would otherwise be committed by some unrelated third party at some point in the future.
He is speaking here against gradualism as a strategy for moving toward statelessness but I think the moral (no pun intended) applies here as well. From the perspective of the anarchist, you are arguing that we should trade coercion for coercion, and that, in light of the idea that it doesn't need to be a choice, isn't a very appealing argument.
By settled practices for keeping the rules in place, I just mean a rule of law. And a rule of law requires a jurisdiction – the place where the rules will be enforced. It seems to me that if you have a territory, and some rules, and some settled system for enforcing the rules, you are one of those evil "states" anarchists purport to tremble over – whether you like it or not.
You seem to me fixated on all the moralistic verbal mythology of "sovereignty" and "authority" and the various pious claims some governing entities make for themselves. I am more concerned with function and practices. A government, it seems to me, is anything that successfully engages in governing. And governing just consists in making and enforcing rules over some group or territory.If you accept that the only way to resist attempted and potential oppression is through settled and sustainable systems of organized power, then that's the crucial thing. I don't care if you want to call that system of organized power a "state" or "anarchy" or "radgeekocracy." Isn't the point here that you are accepting the need for organized coercive force and laws? You can't get out of that by saying your organization's rules wouldn't be capital-L Laws, just so you can claim you are not an arche.When the organization of defenders comes to beat me up and kick me out of his turf because he doesn't like my oppression, I'll just laugh if he says, "I'm not a government. I'm an anarchist! … because I'm not wearing a shiny badge that says, I am an agent of the Sovereign."
I will keep quoting on "radgeekocracy" because, frankly, he has your number:
Government is not just a matter of what an institution does but how it does it; governments are institutions which claim not only the right to settle disputes, but a special kind of sovereignty over dispute-settling, and they are thus, among other things, centralized, monopolistic, territorial, tax-funded, and non-consensual. But it is perfectly possible to conceive of social institutions that do various things that government claims to do (e.g. protecting rightful claims of property) while lacking one or some or all of those features — that are, for example, non-territorial, or funded only by voluntary contributions, or don't make any claims of an exclusive prerogative, or…. Now, maybe you want to claim that a non-governmental institution would be ineffective at defending property claims if it didn't have all the features that sovereign governments have (e.g. territorial monopoly or non-consensual sources of funding). You can do that, but if you do, you need to argue for that position, not simply define the alternative out of existence. Or you might want to use the word "government" in a broader sort of way — for example, not to mean a territorial monopoly on the legally legitimated use of force etc. etc., but rather just something like "any institution that offers effective settlements of interpersonal or social conflicts, no matter how it does so." If that's how you want to use the word, you can do that too, but you should then realize that you're now discussing many institutions that are "governments" by your definition, but not "governments" in the sense that free-market Anarchists oppose.
You can't get out of that by saying your organization's rules wouldn't be capital-L Laws, just so you can claim you are not an arche.
I'm not sure why you think that we say we disagree on the definition of what make a government a government, that we don't in fact disagree. The definition is offered not to "get out" of calling something rulership that really should be, but is meant to actually capture what rulership is. You can disagree, of course, but we can do without this elaborate form of question-begging.
My point is that if one grants your definition – or Radgeek's definition – of "state "or "government", and uses those definitions to distinguish those organized exercises of coercive rule-making that are governments from those organized exercises of coercive rule-making that are not governments, then the anarchist objection to governments has been reduced to something relatively trivial.
Radgeek's explanation is very puzzling. He seems to be saying that the fundamental difference between governments, on the one hand, and coercive institutions that are not governments but that do the same things as governments, on the other hand, consists in "how" these entities do what they do. But then in explaining this what this special government-like mode of exercising coercive power involves, he and you seem to be saying that what makes some coercive institution a government is that governments make various claims in the process of exercising coercion.
But if the anarchist view on what makes some kinds of organized coercive force objectionable has been reduced to some objections to the making of various kinds of claims in the process of exercising coercive force, then it has been reduced to a doctrine without the large significance that both its defenders and opponents have customarily attributed to it.
Recall that my own initial claim was that one can only effectively resist autocracy and tyranny in a sustainable way is through a democratically organized wall of concerted and shared power that is brought to bear on a consistent basis against actual would-be oppressors. I then added that it would be practical for this organized group of people to preserve their unity as a society over time; to make rules for a common life together; to debate, refine and improve the rules over time; and to establish settled practices for keeping these rules in place.
Now if some self-styled anarchists are happy with all that, I am in turn happy to have them in the democratic camp. I really don't care what additional claims that organized power makes for itself concerning its "rights". I believe they need to exercise coercive rule-making power, and do it democratically. The enunciation of claims and doctrines is optional.
more like killing those who perform the same service without its authorization rather than enunciation of claims.
What do you think of the concept of declaring a person Outlaw in the old english legal system?
While I concede there's an element of territoriality it's clear, to me at least, that the important distinction is that it applies to a person — a part of some community — independent of an territorial aspect.
Why is this any more likely to be the case than the idea that the Civil Rights Act is in large part the reason that many of the constitutive practices of racism "have been altered and pushed back in the US and other societies"?
It's not. So I'm not sure what you are asking about here. My view is that government action has been responsible for both rolling back the the subjugation of women and rolling back slavery and other forms of racial oppression. So that seems like a mark in favor of government to me.
I agree that it's not, but what should have been obvious from the thrust of my whole argument is that it's not more likely than something that has little or no responsibility for desegregating society.
Sorry, I guess I'm being thick here. What is not more likely than something that has little or no responsibility for desegregating society? I've completely lost track of the claim you are making.
Although it should be pointed out that slavery was a state-created and state-enforced property right in people. Racial oppression has generally been committed directly by the state (from slavery and Jim Crow to the modern drug war's focus on people of color) or indirectly through the enforcement of rights, such as the enforcement of private individuals rights to exclude people of color from their businesses or the enforcement of exploitative debts and contracts. As Malcolm X said: "You can't drive a knife into a man's back nine inches, pull it out six inches, and call it progress" So the state can't help create a problem, kind of fix it (but not really, see, e.g. the composition of the prison population) and then get credit for a job well done.
Damien S.
As far as our experience goes, *all* property is state-created and -enforced. The slaves were no different than the land they worked or the factories they didn't work in. The state divvies up and enforces land title. The state doesn't create the factory or the tools in it, but land's involved again, and the state enforces that the factory belongs to the capitalist who built it and not the workers who work it or the squatters who could use it as shelter.
And, despite being illegal, people manage to keep sex and labor slaves today, even in the US. Pure private enterprise, there.
I agree. The view of property rights as sacrosanct is probably the biggest reason I don't consider myself a libertarian.
That's a possibility and I've certainly heard libertarians that talk in ways that suggest they might easily follow such a path — or perhaps simply fall for a version of the fatal conceit Hayek talked about with socialist.
It's pretty clear that we have similar problems with today's democracies. Moreover, the problem appears to be getting worse, not better.
One thing that you discount too much is simply the individualist requirement within libertarian theory. You've often pointed out some of the problems with over emphasizing the individual and how libertarians are perceived. That turns into a strength in this case, for any libertarian to take on the mantel of intellectual superiority and therefore the right t dominate another will be seen by all as a charlatan.
See also Sheldon Richman here.
Lind is making the mistake of conflating individual people who identify as libertarians with ideological libertarianism. And there are plenty of people who think they are libertarians because they are republicans and yet don't hate gay people. To be fair to Lind, however, 1) the people he overgeneralizes from (Hayek, Mises, Friedman) are highly regarded by most libertarians and 2) the elements of organizational libertarianism which manage to have the most influence on policy (and are, therefore, the most visible) are those addled by the fusionist alliance with conservative elements. These elements have often been willing to look the other way when authoritarian actions further their shared economic goals. For example, Scott Walker engaged in some anti-democratic tactics in his union busting (with a dash of good old crony capitalism) and received very little criticism from mainstream libertarian institutions like Cato and Reason. So to the untrained eye, libertarians appear most frequently when they are sharing the stage with authoritarian conservatives who happen to also support economic freedom. Lind is wrong about libertarianism, but in an understandable way; if libertarians who abhor authoritarianism do not want to be lumped in with libertarians who support it, at some point they should probably argue with them a bit more loudly.
Damien S.
Indeed. And Mises and Hayek aren't just highly regarded, they're founding thinkers. Seeing them endorse fascism like that should be rather embarrassing. Sort of like Jefferson and slavery, but that at least is usually acknowledged, and longer ago; funny how reading the post here didn't give me any clue that Lind would be talking about Hayek and Pinochet.
Also, I don't know what Libertarians were like back in the 1980s, but these days visible libertarians are visibly strongly associated with the Republican party and conservatism. Gun rights and deregulation and tax cuts and privatising or abolish Social Security, Beck and Limbaugh and the Tea Party. Associating libertarianism with conservatism isn't some fantasy of Lind's, it's what most people will see.
(Granted, the mainstream Democratic party especially post 9/11 isn't exactly a bastion of calls for drug legalization and protecting civil liberties, undermining my 1990s dichotomy of "GOP does guns and taxes, Democrats protect civil liberties", but there's still a clear advantage in gay rights, and rights vs. police at least below the Obama level.)
There's actually a deeper argument associating (US/right) libertarianism with autocracy, though Lind doesn't make it. An anarchist or even minarchist world of sovereign or fee simple landowners is basically a world of petty monarchies. In a world of roughly equal yeoman farmers, that's not a big deal. In a world where land and/or capital are concentrated, and most people are dependent on rent or jobs to live, there's no barrier but competition against company towns and petty tyrannies not just in the workplace but in one's off-work life, and the effectiveness of that competition. Untrammeled liberty of property owners combined with inequal possession of property means liberty for the wealthy, servitude for the poor. Or so it seems to most modern liberals who think about it for a bit, while libertarians are almost always in denial of the importance of the property distribution. You promise anarchy, but we see autocracies.
And man, those MacCaulay quotes. Can't have democracy, because the hungry poor might try to get some food by force. This being the bleedingheartlibertarians site, one hopes people here have more concern for those with but half a dinner — but I've yet to see anything more than the completely orthodox (and conservative) assurances that Libertopia will generate such wealth and generosity as to trickle down on the poor.
Isaac Yonemoto
The irony is that Hayek was correct. Yes a few thousand people were disappeared, but that's not terribly many, relatively speaking. But what's quite interesting is that the Pinochet regime stepped down. Without bloodshed. And Pinochet was tried by the very government that he put in place. Now how many dictators suffer that fate? And when it did end, it ended quite peacefully, and Chile is now one of the most prosperous nations in South America.
A few thousand extrajudicial murders is just a statistic! Depriving a few thousand people of their lives (and torturing 30,000 more) is a small price to pay in order to guarantee individual rights! Wait that doesn't sound right…
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Eric Sundwall
The frequency of these attacks from Salon, Slate et al, is increasing. A welcome thing in my estimation, as they are so easily disputed and bring light to the fallacies and fears so often propagated.
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If I understand your point here: "… the libertarian will only create vacuums into which the autocracies and tyrannies they claim to deplore will rush in. " then "they only way they can secure that interest in a sustainable way is to bind themselves to one another in solidarity", the binding together and solidarity you allude to is really the same thing that the libertarians who would do so seek to replace or avoid, isn't it?
To the argument that the dream of a non-coercive society can never exist or persist because aggressors will not respect it (and hence must be met with force), I, being one who values these dreams (and thinks that dreaming is essential to a creative and satisfying life) would allow for other possibilities.
Perhaps it is no more than naivete, and could lead to a different but equally onerous arrangement, where some are conscripted into service defending the rest, however, it is possible, given the freedom and resources sufficient for the task, we could identify means to preventing them (aggressors) from interfering with us – without becoming disproportionately engaged.
I think the real (big) dream is to establish a society that is so proficient at teaching and demonstrating the value and desirability of living a rational life that eventually most people would join, leaving the irrational outliers with no army.
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john valerio
I don't think it's possible to agree anymore with you, Roderick. It's truly sad that such educated people, like Lind, think and argue like little children when it comes to understanding things of political nature that they do not agree with. Personally, I think Lind is being willfully ignorant to forward what he WANTS people to think knowing that the rebuttals will not get nearly the attention that his article will. He can then simply ignore posts like yours and Richman's (linked above in the comments).
john valerio
Lind 's logic in a baseball analogy:
Everyone is a Red Sox or Yankees fan. So if you hate one, you are a fan of the other. PERIOD.
It's no more silly than what Lind actually said.
I haven't read Lind's column, but it does seem like there's a valuable lesson here.
We all approach life from a binary viewpoint – to eat or not to eat this mushroom, get inside the cave or go hunting, pros and cons. That's how we operate. In reality our choice sets often turn out to be false dilemmas, but presenting radical dilemmas provokes us deeply because survival often requires choosing between A and B. People unsophisticated in informal logic (and otherwise ideologically committed people) thus don't always see that preference of A over B doesn't entail endorsement of A.
The problem is that if libertarians don't learn to communicate themselves, they can't help but look like fascist sympathizers. Given the choice between Hitler's Germany and Stalin's USSR, or Pinochet's Chile and Castro's Cuba, I'd choose the former ones without blinking an eye, and I trust that most people here would do the same (no doubt most liberals would as well, but they're not the ones being examined). However, the best way to make our seemingly authoritarian tendencies even more apparent would be to coyly say "Well, the Nazis did have some property rights…". In the eyes of people who see in two colors, black is all they will see in that.
So what can we do, outside of explaining that we're not actually fascists and autocrats? I suggest trying to make bleeding heart libertarianism a unique and more recognizable brand – something separate from libertarians who look like they apologize for rightist authoritarianism*. Let's choose our words very carefully – a lot of times paleos like Rockwell bash Lincoln's federal tyranny making it look like he's siding with Confederates, whereas a bleeding heart solution would be to start from a staunch anti-slavery position but add that Lincoln didn't solve it the right way. I actually agree with Rockwell that Lincoln was a tyrant in some sense, but it's simply disastrous to phrase it that way if you want your ideas to be taken seriously. Rhetorical jiujitsu is the key.
Libertarianism is a very large tent where small disagreements in focus, rhetoric, policies and principles can make all the difference – and because it's a radical and principle-based philosophy, libertarians like to theorize about the most radical things in life and the most outrageous conclusions are often augmented. The principles of liberty, non-aggression and property can have deep consequences, and if we don't learn how to communicate those principles, we end up with people who think we question female suffrage (Thiel) and permit slavery (Block's and Nozick's voluntary slavery), child neglect (Rothbard), authoritarian rule (Hayek, Hoppe) and feudalistic private tyrannies (Hoppe) among other abominable things. I'd want most people to see that libertarianism isn't a philosophy of tyranny at all, but if we can't have that, the best alternative would be for them to say "Some libertarians have some really awful and inhumane ideas, but at least there are some BHL's (or left-libertarians, whatever you want to call them) who are sensible and thoughtful, even though I disagree with them." That way we have an open window through which to communicate with the public about libertarian ideas.
*Note: this doesn't mean we should stop calling ourselves libertarians or to completely disassociate from people like Rockwell and DiLorenzo, because we still share a common continuum of ideas and principles. (I also don't mean to say that right-libertarians actually do endorse authoritarianism, but they often make it look like they do) It just means creating a recognizable brand that says "I believe in liberty and I take the principle of non-aggression seriously, but I also believe in social justice and I oppose oppression in all forms."
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Ricky Moore
Democracy is an evil cult and egalitarianism a character flaw. Libertarianism is anti-democratic, and good riddance.
"I should also note, in closing, that Lind's claim that libertarians have
been silent about "abuses by police and the military" is particularly
ludicrous. If he could write that claim with a straight face, clearly
his familiarity with libertarian literature and the libertarian
blogosphere is laughably inadequate."
In my experience, the intelligentsia of the USA are almost entirely ignorant of anything that might be termed 'reality'. Their sources of information are all fourth-hand filters of tertiary sources written by men who are so clearly motivated by ideological axe grinding that they're the political ideological equivalent of Creationists.
More to the point, why read Shit magazine or Michael Lind at all? Who gives a fuck what these ignorant priest cultists think? A pox on them and the masses of indolent proles they worship.
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IceFest 2005
11 - 11:30 a.m. - Cory Sarich and Vaclav Prospal will greet fans at ticket windows in the McDonald's Box Office as single-game seats go on sale to the public for the first time at 11 a.m.
11 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. - Brad Richards, Dan Boyle, Rob DiMaio and Fredrik Modin will sign autographs on the Plaza Level concourse.
11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m. - Sarich and Prospal will join their teammates on the Plaza Level (3rd floor) concourse to sign autographs
1 - 1:45 p.m. - Martin St. Louis will conduct a Q&A session with fans in Medallions Restaurant on the Jeep Club Level (4th floor).
12:30 - 2 p.m. - Dmitry Afanasenkov, Sean Burke, Martin Cibak, Chris Dingman, Vincent Lecavalier and Nolan Pratt will sign autographs on the Plaza Level (3rd floor) concourse.
Background: The 2004 Stanley Cup Champion Tampa Bay Lightning are welcoming fans to the St. Pete Times Forum on Saturday, September 10 for IceFest, presented by Kash n' Karry, a free hockey festival designed to celebrate the start of the 2005-06 season. The special event will last from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., and the Stanley Cup will also be present for a fan photo opportunity.
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Dog Portrait Review - A Merryvaluation
by Angie McKaig
As many of our readers know, I take photos of the princess pug nearly every single day for her daily photoblog, the Merrylog. One of my all-time favorite photos, ever, was a photo I took last fall of the princess on our front steps wearing a yummy soft warm red dog sweater. Here's the photo.
I was absolutely thrilled when we were contacted by Patricia Lazar, an artist who creates custom pet portraits for dog lovers. She actually chose my favorite photo as her "inspiration".
But this artist did something a little different; she actually took elements and inspiration from two different photos to make her singular work of art. The second photo, chosen for its absolutely adorable tongue curl, is shown below (4th photo).
As with most pet portrait artists, Patricia works from photos. Rather than painting the scene in its entirety, she usually prefers to paint only the dog and then surround them with a plainer background so that the dog can really "pop" from the painting. Typically, her portraits are head and shoulders only with a plain background; for more detailed backgrounds or full-body portraits, it may affect the pricing.
Usually commissions take about 4-6 weeks, and require a 50% deposit upfront before beginning work.
Our portrait was finished well within the time frame and Patricia sent along several photographs of the piece; framed, unframed in natural light, and close ups to see the detail work. This was a nice touch that not all artists use; it's useful to get a few different perspectives so that you know what to expect when your painting arrives!
As of the time of this writing, there's an added bonus: shipping to USA or Canada is free! With delivery prices skyrocketing, this is a great value.
Many different sizes are available, but we chose the 12 x 12 square with standard, not gallery wrapped canvas (thinner sides). The sides were finished with an extension of the actual painting.
When the finished portrait arrived, it "popped" visually even more in person. Done in an expressionist style, it featured the pug on a sky background surrounded by fluffy clouds. The blue of the sky (perfect with its pink-tinged clouds) was incredible and a wonderful foil for the neutral fawn pup and the dark red sweater.
Very Vanilla Sky, baby.
We loved that Patricia got the "eyes right" - it's often difficult to get an animal's eyes correct, and not all of the photos she was working with showed the pug head-on, but she did a fantastic job of portraying her round, pixie eyes and her tiny little face.
The real topper to the entire portrait, in my opinion, was the tongue - a great call to use that with the other portrait of Merry. That little pink tongue shape totally makes the portrait.
Overall, we were thrilled with the pet portrat from Patricia Lazar Ceramic Art! This will make a wonderful reminder of that fabulous day in November when I snapped one of my favorite photos.
You can find out more about Patricia Lazar Ceramic Art from their web site at www.patricialazarceramicart.com.


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Using JAPEX for Performance Testing
By pelegri on Jul 12, 2007
Several projects in the GlassFish community use Japex to run micro-benchmarks, sometimes taking advantage of additional tools like Hudson and WStest.
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DOHA: A member of the Central Municipal Council (CMC) has criticised local petroleum products distributor, Woqod (Qatar Fuel Company), saying it doesn't bother to clarify on issues that directly concern people's safety.
Mubarak Fraish (pictured) said there is a discussion raging on the local social media suggesting that filling up a car's petrol tank to capacity in this extremely hot weather can be risky as it can explode. "Woqod should have issued a clarification through the media but it hasn't bothered, even as the debate rages on," Fraish said in remarks to this newspaper.
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Skip to comments.Young communists start "National Red School Bus Tour" to indoctrinate children
Posted on 01/24/2011 3:38:51 PM PST by FredJake
Remember when churches used to have "Sunday School" buses that picked up your children and gave them Bible lessons on their way to church?
Now, thanks to the Southern California Young Communist League (YCL), a branch of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), little red school buses may be coming to your neighborhood.
But they won't be teaching your children Bible lessons, or courses in American history that highlight the freedom we have and those who died to protect it.
They'll be teaching your children the wonders of communism and socialism.
According to an article at The Blaze, the "National Red School-Bus Tour" will make stops in Los Angeles, Texas, Florida, and the Northeast between February and April.
A blog post at P/Oed Patriot says the tour will include:
lively classes and discussions: Marxism and the Political Moment: Building the movement for change; The Crisis of Capitalism Today: Causes of Crisis and the Class Struggle; Working Class and the Labor Movement; Racism, Immigrant Rights, womens rights, LGTB rights and the struggle for equality; The CPUSA and YCL, envisioning Bill of Rights Socialism and how to get there. Also plenty of cultural, social and recreational activities
The groups motto? "Unite and Fight" in order to Bring around 'Socialism'."
The "enemy", naturally, is the "political class and capitalism":
"The enemy is not unions, it is not immigrants, nor any other scapegoat. Its the corporations and banks that close factories, cut wages and benefits, and force people, especially youth, to work for minimum and sub-minimum wages or join the military in order to get an education or an income."
The enemy is not overseas. It is not the people of Iraq, Cuba, Venezuela, or China. The enemy is the ruling class right here at home."
(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...
They won't have the stones to come to my little town.
The old timers tell me it was a hotbed of communism in the 1920s but their parents drove the communists out.
If it comes to my neighborhood, it won't be leaving....at least not under it's own power, and certainly not in one piece.
Are these fools trying to push the nation into war? Seems like everything they do is a push for war.
I have a feeling the "young communists" are going to be young in the soviet politburo sense, like 40.
California law PROHIBITS schools from indoctrinating students in Communism. There are some Red Democrats who want to repeal the law, but it still stands for now.
.............................. FRegards
Someone should greet them with pictures of the Lubyanka, the Gulag and copies of Solzhenitsyn. When I was in junior high I found a copy of "One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich" at the library and didn't have any trouble reading it and understanding what was going on. Also: pictures of the Berlin wall and an explanation of its function. "See, kids, this is what the people in the little red bus have in store for you."
I hear that those big tires on school busses make real nice redneck flower pots.
Young Communists. Another side of the "Hitler Youth" coin.
I remember in David Horowitz's book he talked about Sunnyside, Queens being a center for communism also.
EDUCATION CODE SECTION 51530 No teacher giving instruction in any school, or on any property belonging to any agencies included in the public school system, shall advocate or teach communism with the intent to indoctrinate or to inculcate in the mind of any pupil a preference for communism.
I suspect that this law is honored more in the breach than the observance nowadays.
It's bait.
It's more than likely the "short" school bus...
Maybe they could do a two-fer with the American Nazi Party, so all folks would need would be a bridge, and they could use both ends of the rope at the same time. Commies off the left side, Nazis off the other left side.
I'm in a tiny farming community but communists were farmers too.
My neighbor has an planning map of it as a much larger planned community with seperate barracks for unmarried farmhands, cottages for married farm workers and workers with children. Mill workers live by the dam, ice workers by the lake and icehouse by the rail line. They expected several thousand people here. There are less than 200 today and its perfect.
I wonder how they would feel seeing this tiny town with their main drag as my private driveway and my house sitting where their icehouse did.
"Now, thanks to the Southern California Young Communist League (YCL), a branch of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA), little red school buses may be coming to your neighborhood."
I thought ACORN disbanded?
None of the communist / socialist / anarchist utopian communities attempted in the US ever succeeded. They all failed, and usually within a year or two. The only thingthat kept them afloat for even that long was an available sugar daddy, like Robert Owen. Once they ran out of money - collapse. And most of them collapsed even before that happened.
The only thing that differentiated the US utopians is that they never quite got around to slaughtering those who didn't agree with them. Soem might argue that John Brown the abolitionist was one such example, but he doesn't quuite fit the mold of our noble dreamers.
Those red diaper dopers are going to be trolling for "dates" I'm sure. Looking to score some dumbass high schoolers who will think their gray ponytails are so cool. ;-)
That POS shows up in my town, we will take it apart bolt by bolt using a .223 FMJ chisel.
*Damn*. I hate it when you're right.
Which is always.
Which I hate too.
There is one still around, but I think they practice a form of capitalism to stay afloat. The do have the hideous concrete architecture going on, though.
I'm sure some Arizona Freepers can share more about this place.
Remember the words of H. Rap Brown !
Every town where these maggots show up should have their local P.D. run background checks on the idiots. No telling how many of them might be child molesters.
I was up there once a few years ago.
As I recall, they were about half-way through the time anticipated by the founder(s) for construction, and were about 10% complete.
Claimed they were right on schedule.
Obviously an MBA in the batch.
The YCL is the least of anyones problem. Look up YFIS (Youth for International Socialism) and WIL (Workers International League). They are gaining more in support than the CPUSA and YCL.
These buses need to be impounded by the state. They know how to use them better than the young commies do.
It would be ironic if the buses were incapacitated by an SKS or AK-47.
The Oneida cutlery and flatware company has similar origins. Now there was a sick bunch.
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Definition of rodomontade in English:
Boastful or inflated talk or behavior.
Example sentences
- Since that moment, the football gods punished the team's rodomontade with injuries, embarrassment, and a 2000 flameout.
- Accomplished veterans are punished for such rodomontade: What do we suppose will happen to he who taunts the defending champions in his very first career start?
- The football gods take a dim view of boasting after victory; boasting after defeat is a new low in rodomontade.
verb[no object] archaic
Talk boastfully.
Example sentences
- The song, which boasts that the club is 'Super Bowl bound,' played nonstop in Jacksonville after the 62-7 game - and it's been downhill ever since as the football gods punish the rodomontading franchise.
Early 17th century: from French, from obsolete Italian rodomontada, from Italian rodomonte, from the name of a boastful character in the medieval Orlando epics.
Words that rhyme with rodomontadeAssad, aubade, avant-garde, backyard, ballade, bard, Bernard, bombard, canard, card, charade, chard, couvade, croustade, Cunard, facade, glissade, guard, hard, ill-starred, interlard, lard, Montagnard, nard, pard, petard, pomade, promenade, regard, roulade, saccade, Sade, salade, sard, shard, unmarred, unscarred, yard
For editors and proofreaders
Syllabification: rod·o·mon·tade
Definition of rodomontade in:
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Consumer medical spending isn't going down in 2012 — it's rising, and above the rate of inflation. One study examines the out-of-pocket burden of medical spending, and it's not a pretty picture.
Palo Alto, Calif.-based Simplee, a medical bills consumer consultancy, is out with a new report that shows out-of-pocket medical costs have risen 3.3% from the first quarter of 2011 to the first quarter of 2012.
That's well above the average U.S. inflation rate of 2.65%, as measured by InflationData.com.
At an annual amount of $962, the average amount of cash U.S. families pay to cover those out-of-pocket costs isn't chicken feed, either. The chart bellows shows such costs rising across the board (with the lone exception of dental care):
Total Consumer Out-Of-Pocket Health Care Costs
|Spend Category
|Total Out-of-Pocket
Source: Simplee.com
To square off better against rising out-of-pocket costs, more and more Americans are turning to a new tactic — account-based health insurance plans — which provide lower premium costs in exchange for higher deductibles.
According to a survey by the consulting group Towers Watson, 59% of U.S. companies already offer account-based health plans, and 11% more say they will offer them in 2013. The firm says health-based accounts have nearly doubled in the last two years, from 15% in 2010 to 27% in 2011.
Putting the term "consumer" back in health plans should make Americans more cautious about their health care spending, and encourage them to shop around for better deals, just like they would for a new car or a new home.
"To be truly successful at containing costs, employers need to empower their employees to make smart health care consumption decisions with financial incentives and tools that provide information on pricing and quality," says Helen Darling, CEO of the NBGH, in a statement. "Employers can also reduce their claim costs and boost the productivity of their employees by using incentives to promote health improvement and behavior change."
To further cut costs, health care consumers can shop around for the best and most affordable medical service. Try negotiating with specialists, like imaging and lab specialists, and medical equipment providers. Chances are there is more than one in your area, and you can use that as leverage in negotiating the costs down.
Also, when you plan a medical procedure, aim for a middle-of-the-week appointment. Health care providers may charge more for Monday and Friday appointments, and pay as much as you can upfront. If you pay 100% upfront, you can earn a 5-10% discount on service costs.
With out-of-pocket health care costs continuing to rise, consumers have to learn how to get creative to keep costs down. Their household budgets may depend on how well they do on that front.
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David Barton Intends To Report The Truth On "The Jefferson Lies"
A few weeks ago, an atheist group put up a billboard in California featuring a quote it attributed to Thomas Jefferson saying "I do not find in Christianity one redeeming feature. It is founded on fables and mythology."
It turned out that there was no evidence that Jefferson had ever said such a thing and when the head of the group was informed that the quote was unverified, he admitted that he was wrong and "should have done the research before I put my billboard up."
Now, David Barton, of all people, is using the incident to promote his own book on Jefferson to be released next year:
The need for this book was recently made evident by an atheist group's California billboard allegedly quoting Jefferson condemning Christianity ... The only problem with this quote is that it doesn't exist. It has never been found in any Jefferson writing; yet it remains one of the many lies about Jefferson told by the Secular and Academic Left over the past century.
Strikingly, Jefferson's position on religion is actually the opposite of what is often claimed today. To see the authoritative documentation of this fact, look for The Jefferson Lies (to be released in the Spring), and discover from Jefferson's own writings not only the truth about this particular lie but also many other Jefferson myths and lies that we were steadily fed throughout the twentieth century.
This is the same David Barton who falsely claimed that Jefferson said the "wall of separation" was "one directional" and designed to keep "the government from running the church but it makes sure that Christian principles will always stay in government."
This is the same David Barton who claimed that the famous "Jefferson Bible" was really designed as a tool to evangelize Native Americans.
This is the same David Barton who claimed that the report that Jefferson had fathered children with his slave Sally Hemmings was part of a conspiracy designed to protect Bill Clinton.
This is the same David Barton who has posted on his website a list of "Unconfirmed Quotations" he has used in the past but admits cannot be verified.
And whereas the man behind the erroneous billboard took responsibility for his mistake, Barton falsely insists that he's never had to retract anything and that critics have never been able to find anything wrong with his work.
You really do have to admire the amount of utter shamelessness Barton must possess in order to try to use an incident like this to promote his own book called, ironically enough, "The Jefferson Lies."
Frankly, we couldn't have come up with a better name for Barton's book if he had asked us to do so ourselves.
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Gym class for schools in Eindhoven at the EHL
Apr 10 2014
On Thursday 17 April and Friday 18 April, the EHL will organise gym classes for schools in Eindhoven, in collaboration with Eindhoven 365, Sportformule Eindhoven and Bovelander & Bovelander. These gym classes will take place on the ABN AMRO Kids Pitch at MHC Oranje Zwart. Different schools from Eindhoven and the surrounding areas will get the chance to take part in a clinic from one of the top players in the Dutch league.
Sportformule Eindhoven is the connecting link between schools, sports clubs and the neighbourhood as they endeavour to get all the people in Eindhoven playing sports. To make this happen, they try to make a connection between regular and professional sports. The EHL is an ideal opportunity to do this. Children from different schools in Eindhoven will participate in a hockey clinic on the EHL pitch. These clinics will be provided by players from the Dutch league.
The Euro Hockey League will give children the opportunity to get acquainted with hockey in a fun and playful way. For children who are already familiar with hockey, it will be a chance to learn new tricks and meet their heroes.Image Credit: Euro Hockey League/Frank Uijlenbroek. This image may not be reproduced without the explicit permission of the EHL or the photographer.
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An almost certifiable lunatic. With a tendency to run his mouth off, he will spend much time talking about himself in the third person. But one thing to note if he says it is the 'lock of the week', check the size of the lock before 'investing' your entire account.
'I tell you it was a lock' is all he can often say after the game.
ally d tarafından 13 Nisan 2005, Çarşamba
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