THE WALL IS PEACE 2

A poster on the message boards I try my damnedest to avoid reprinted the most recent article by Professor Noam Chomsky regarding the wall cross-stitching the map in the Holy Land these days. I object to Chomsky on so many levels save our mutual - well, in his case, feigned - disregard for government, so - in a rare fit of recycling and indulging in the "C&P" myself, I responded with my previous response to Jonathan Kay, with a few editorial flourishes thrown in to compensate for my prior sloppy tone.

Anyway, Miss Ivmeer wrote back with some fine questions I was only too happy to answer:

"I have an honest question, astropolis.

If what the Palestinians want is their own land, then isn't the wall essentially giving it to them? I mean, the wall separates them formally from Israel so that they can do whatever they want on their own side.

It's not as though if the Palestinians were given their own land that the border between Israel and Palestine would be open. Neither Palestinians nor Israelis would want it that way.

So why don't they take advantage of their own space and live their own lives?"

So why don't they take advantage of their own space and live their own lives?

Because it is not that simple (but what is?, I know). They're being aggressed against by another state. See, if I am told that "Here, we're making two states - one Palestinian, the other Israeli - now be happy, you each got your own land" I am being told that collectivism is solving the problem. Simply by virtue of belonging to one group or another, I am being forced by that group to meet a standard that basically assumes we are all one and the same. It does not account for every other difference I might have apart from my neighbor, only that we come from a similar ethnic heritage.

But the larger issue. Simply by being confined in a single territory made up of ethnic brethren, we expect to see some modicum of a solution. But private property has been violated. Destroyed. That will effect no solution. The obvious outcome of this negation of the individual for the group is why we have so many landless refugee Palestinians (understand, I do understand the history - Arab governments compelled the oldest of them to flee in the first place in 1948 - perhaps the single most disastrous act in the history of the conflict). By cordoning them off with "the rest of them", "with their own land" we've essentially seen them thrown into chaos. "Land", property, and the happiness and cultivation derived from both, comes from mutual exchange. This is force and it won't have the expected outcome. They are expected to part ways with their confiscated property and - what - new magical properties appear in an independent Palestine?

Now, I also realize these "refugee camps" are actually cities and some semblance of property is being affirmed within them given time (which, if we were to examine Chomsky's economic beliefs, we'd see them rightly repudiated in this context - his socialist-anarchist negation of private property is an unnatural proposition). A Palestinian claim to property confiscated coming on 60 years ago is impossible to satisfy - and at this point, probably shouldn't be. What needs to happen is an affirmation of property rights as they are and fend off any further encroachments. But to continue property confiscation, as Sharon's government is doing, is insane. It will perpetuate the problem well into the future.

My concerns always stem from regard to private property. Which is why I take any statements emanating from Noam Chomsky with a grain of salt, because he explicitly calls for the destruction of private property rights - which, purposefully or not, tend to result in wanton destruction because there is no mechanism by which cultivation, personal protection, innovation, and mutual exchange can exist any longer - though I value his criticisms of government, his alternative is government no longer called government (because none of these ends can be achieved without resort to coercive force) - and for a linguist - a celebrated one at that - such language dilution is especially appalling. Because some people aggress on another's property - leading to self-defense (reprisal), Chomsky's solution is to - far from penalizing the aggressors - punish the victim by making property illegal (how he ever expects to do this without force is anybody's guess) - thus, without property, no one can aggress on another! What magic! He's a linguist alright.

"If the innocent honest Man must quietly quit all he has for Peace sake, to him who will lay violent hands upon it, I desire it may be considered what kind of Peace there will be in the World, which consists only in Violence and Rapine; and which is to be maintained only for the benefit of Robbers and Oppressors."
-- John Locke, Second Treatise of Civil Government

Take that, Noam Chomsky.

It's not as though if the Palestinians were given their own land that the border between Israel and Palestine would be open.

I'm not talking about giving them land. I'm talking about them being able to retain what land - property, more rather - that they have already and at least have their rights recognized to apply for redress concerning property already taken or destroyed. If that's too difficult, consider the alternative (already outlined).

I'm further not talking about forcing it to be open - akin to the state coming in and say "trade with that person" - I'm talking about allowing it to be. If some individuals or groups of want to keep to themselves and not trade outside of the group - they should have the ability to not want to if that's what they should so want. If other individuals or groups of want to hob-nob and trade goods, services, labor, etc. with those outside their ethnicity or nation, then they should be allowed to as well.

This is why Switzerland works. Freedom of association and private property is paramount. Four different languages and attendant customs flourish without friction under the banner of one geo-political unit because no force is put upon any of them to trade or not trade with one another. People always retort to me that Switzerland is an anomaly. I say that is so because they are the only state to have actually considered it.

Neither Palestinians nor Israelis would want it that way.

You may be able to state that as a generalization, but not an absolute. If a single Palestinian dissents and says "I want to trade with Israel" it throws a kink into the whole observation.

The thing is, people already have their own land, and the construction of this wall is an attempt to decimate this reality. The land isn't collectively owned by one of two masses. Palestinian personal property is being altered, destroyed, confiscated (for that matter, and not much discussed, so is Israeli individual personal property being assaulted) by the state. That won't solve any problems, it will exacerbate them.

The thing is, to the best of my knowledge, nobody involved in the conflict is prescribing a market solution to the problem. The governments involved don't want the headache (for them, for everyone else it's far more convenient) of having jurisdiction over territory that isn't contiguous - which IS, I rather admit, what would happen if my perspective were to be adopted. But by affirming the right of the individual, you're far less likely to aggress against said individual. Palestinians may be collectively embittered against Israelis but it cannot be denied that this bitterness is intensified by their personal experience. The same Palestinian family who has lived in the same house for 150 years, moves about freely for the most part, and hasn't lost any sons or daughters to the conflict isn't probably likely to be near as bitter as they who had their first home confiscated, their second home bulldozed, and their third sluiced off from a significant portion of their yard by some concrete monstrosity.

A single act of Palestinian aggression in Israel always results in collective punishment within the Palestine Authority. That's suicidal.

Private property rights are the key. Insisting on forgetting that they even exist will bring us no further to the best conclusion. I don't expect a perfect solution to this, or even one at all, but an affirmation of private property per Israelis and Palestinians is one good first step towards lessening the destructive effects of this conflict. It has, however, rarely been ventured as even a consideration.

... EXCEPT, OF COURSE, FOR OFF THE GUIDED TOUR

Thumbing through old copies of National Geographic magazine is always a fine way to pass the time while waiting for the Missus to get made up. A photo caption from an August 1974 issue (article: "A Rare Look at North Korea" by Edward H. Kim) reads as follows:

City dwellers enjoy another amenity - stores located within their apartment complexes. Here, Pyongyang shoppers survey an array of fresh vegetables. The selection does not include imported foods, but the supply is plentiful and hunger is unknown in North Korea

Naturally, I do not suggest that famine was rife in North Korea thirty years ago, a PDRK kept on life support with Soviet largesse. It cannot be overlooked that the North Korean destitution and famine of today had its genesis in the lauded North Korean economic "achievements" cited in Mr. Kim's article. The caption really grabbed me.

"Hunger is unknown in North Korea"

Well, it's known now.

FEW AMERICANS SEE CASKETS COMING HOME

from The Baltimore Sun via Antiwar.com

ANOTHER DAY OF BAD PRECEDENT-SETTING

If this door opens, I guess I should feel secure that these hippies who are such a threat to the nation's moral fibre will now be spied upon mercilessly, their on-campus movements recorded with the meticulous zeal of a Heinrich Himmler, if an Iowa federal bench judge's issue of subpoenas stands...

BY RYAN J. FOLEY
Associated Press Writer

DES MOINES, Iowa -- In what may be the first subpoena of its kind in decades, a federal judge has ordered a university to turn over records about a gathering of anti-war activists.

In addition to the subpoena of Drake University, subpoenas were served this past week on four of the activists who attended a Nov. 15 forum at the school, ordering them to appear before a grand jury Tuesday, the protesters said.

Federal prosecutors refuse to comment on the subpoenas.

In addition to records about who attended the forum, the subpoena orders the university to divulge all records relating to the local chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, a New York-based legal activist organization that sponsored the forum.

The group, once targeted for alleged ties to communism in the 1950s, announced Friday it will ask a federal court to quash the subpoena on Monday.

"The law is clear that the use of the grand jury to investigate protected political activities or to intimidate protesters exceeds its authority," guild President Michael Ayers said in a statement.

Representatives of the Lawyer's Guild and the American Civil Liberties Union said they had not heard of such a subpoena being served on any U.S. university in decades.

Those served subpoenas include the leader of the Catholic Peace Ministry, the former coordinator of the Iowa Peace Network, a member of the Catholic Worker House, and an anti-war activist who visited Iraq in 2002.

They say the subpoenas are intended to stifle dissent.

"This is exactly what people feared would happen," said Brian Terrell of the peace ministry, one of those subpoenaed. "The civil liberties of everyone in this country are in danger. How we handle that here in Iowa is very important on how things are going to happen in this country from now on."

The forum, titled "Stop the Occupation! Bring the Iowa Guard Home!" came the day before 12 protesters were arrested at an anti-war rally at Iowa National Guard headquarters in Johnston. Organizers say the forum included nonviolence training for people planning to demonstrate.

The targets of the subpoenas believe investigators are trying to link them to an incident that occurred during the rally. A Grinnell College librarian was charged with misdemeanor assault on a peace officer; she has pleaded innocent, saying she simply went limp and resisted arrest.

"The best approach is not to speculate and see what we learn on Tuesday" when the four testify, said Ben Stone, executive director of the Iowa Civil Liberties Union, which is representing one of the protesters.

Mark Smith, a lobbyist for the Washington-based American Association of University Professors, said he had not heard of any similar case of a U.S. university being subpoenaed for such records.

He said the case brings back fears of the "red squads" of the 1950s and campus clampdowns on Vietnam War protesters.

According to a copy obtained by The Associated Press, the Drake subpoena asks for records of the request for a meeting room, "all documents indicating the purpose and intended participants in the meeting, and all documents or recordings which would identify persons that actually attended the meeting."

It also asks for campus security records "reflecting any observations made of the Nov. 15, 2003, meeting, including any records of persons in charge or control of the meeting, and any records of attendees of the meeting."

Several officials of Drake, a private university with about 5,000 students, refused to comment Friday, including school spokeswoman Andrea McDonough. She referred questions to a lawyer representing the school, Steve Serck, who also would not comment.

A source with knowledge of the investigation said a judge had issued a gag order forbidding school officials from discussing the subpoena.

THE GULAG SNUFFLEUPAGUS

John Venlet at Improved Clinch expresses his dismay at the lack of media attention regarding the emergence (via a BBC documentary) of apparent gulag camps in the glorious people's democratic republic of the northern portion of the Korean peninsula. It's, to say the absolute least, a legitimate complaint, echoing and citing the one made here by the Washington Post's Anne Appelbaum

Seemingly acknowledging that the documentary, in all likelihood, was quite accurate. What I’m wondering, is why, if the “allegations” more than likely are true, why that truth, of what occurs in totally state managed societies, isn’t used to, daily, pound sense into peoples heads about the evil of socialism, under whatever guise it may take. It may appear all friendly and good for everyone at the start, but it’ll end bad.

Because, John... the "state capitalists" pictured above perverted the noble sanctity of Marx' vision. You silly. Look at them, goofy goose. Kim il Sung's wearing a business suit for goodness' sake. How you can somehow extrapolate that socialism is evil from a business suit-clad state capitalist despot's nation-as-personal playground is beyond me.

Supplemental: Free North Korea dot Net

SOMEONE CALL CATALLARCHY!

Goose Creek goose-stepper Get Crackin' McCrackin's been re-assigned!

Following a November drug sweep in which police with guns drawn ordered Stratford High students to the floor, Berkeley County School District officials announced Monday that Principal George McCrackin had resigned.

"I realized it is in the best interest of Stratford High School and of my students for me to make a change," McCrackin said.

District Superintendent J. Chester Floyd said he had had several conversations with McCrackin and that the decision to reassign him came last weekend.

"These past 60 days have been extremely challenging and pressure filled, particularly for Mr. McCrackin," Floyd said. "His decision reiterates his commitment to doing what's best for the school and the students at all times."

But doesn't reassignment really suggest that, far from offering atonement, McCrackin's now liable to bring his callous disregard for the young scholars in his charge to other schools?

Floyd has not decided to what position McCrackin will be reassigned, but he said McCrackin would probably spend time in the coming weeks preparing for two lawsuits filed by students stemming from the incident.

Only two? I thought that this was "The Litigious Age"!

TO LIVE & DIE IN ALABAMA

FROM THE TOO INCREDULOUS TO PASS UP FILE:

The Secret Service puts the screws to a counterfeiting scholar down Al'bamey way.



By KAREN TOLKKINEN
Staff Reporter

A Clarke County student's presentation to his economics class about the U.S. Treasury went awry last month, and the teenage boy ended up being questioned by the Secret Service.

Economics class? I wonder what the nature of his presentation was. Simply noting it was about the U.S. Treasury is way too vague.

The student, whom authorities did not identify because he is a juvenile, had printed a sheaf of $10 bills on a "simple, cheap printer," said Thomas P. Impastato, resident agent in charge of the Mobile office of the Secret Service.

Oh, oh, Mr. T-Man! Competition!

What actually sent me on my nascent quest to Libertarianism and eventually Austrian economics in my teenage years, besides drunken-driving roadblocks in Indianapolis, were two books. "The Warmongers" by Howard Katz and "The International Man" by Douglas Casey. They opened my eyes to a world I had not at that point realized existed. What struck me about each book (the best quarter dollar I ever invested in was the combined purchase price of these two books) is the illuminating notion that a nation's currency controls and printing operations are tied in directly to the amount of liberty the inhabitants of that nation enjoy. Katz, in a break from exposing the funneling of assistance and technology from the American taxpayer to the Soviet bureaucrat, even took time to discuss the Ithaca dollar. From each, I was pointed to Antony Sutton's books, from there to Rothbard, and from Rothbard to Mises.

The boy gave them to classmates at Clarke Preparatory School in Grove Hill because the presentation requirements included a handout, officials said. Afterward, however, he failed to collect the bills. A student tried to spend one at a country store in Whatley, saying he had gotten it from his school lunch room, according to a Clarke County Sheriff's Department report.

This Christmas, I purchased for the Missus the DVD special edition of "To Live & Die In L.A.". It's a thoroughly engrossing depiction of one chaotic month in the lives of two U.S. Secret Service agents in Los Angeles and their attempt to collar the counterfeiter who put the kabosh on the heartbeat of the senior agent's former partner. So thoroughly did director William Friedkin plunge his story into the world of counterfeiting that the production team actually counterfeited hundreds of thousands of dollars (a still from the scene is pictured above). Friedkin, shooting without permits in the first place, later found several of his production crew in hot water with the Treasury after a few of the bills weren't destroyed and the teenage son of the co-producer got into his father's lockbox and tried to spend some of the bills. The story is included in the illuminating documentary contained in the DVD's special features. Austrians, libertarians, and gold standard advocates who possess a DVD player really ought to get this one for their collection.

"It was a darker color and whoever done it, it wasn't too good a counterfeit," said store owner Robert Edward Garrick, who expressed displeasure that such activity was taking place in a school. "It looked like two bills had been stuck together. It wasn't lined up."

Garrick said he made the student wait there while he called law enforcement.

Snitch.

In early December, the Secret Service, whose job is not only to protect the U.S. president but the money supply, interviewed the boy who made the bills, his mother, the school headmaster and the teacher, Impastato said. The federal investigator was accompanied by Clarke County deputies, he said.

"It wasn't too good a counterfeit". Remember that? Because counterfeiting clearly wasn't the intent. If this kid is fined or spends a day in jail, it's a miscarriage of justice.

The Secret Service has turned the matter over to local investigators because the boy is a juvenile, Impastato said. The Clarke County investigator, Virgil Chapman, said Monday that the case will probably be wrapped up this week.

The bills that Impastato showed the Mobile Register on Monday were of similar color to real cash but were obviously fake, chopped too short on the right side and with the phrase "For school purpose only" scrawled on the front. But Garrick said nothing was written on the bill he had.

Much ado about nothing. A government this paranoid is... well... government. Maybe the lad's next econ essay will be on the dangers of fiat currency or, better yet, government monopoly in general.

Federal law allows color copying of U.S. currency only if:

The resulting bills are one-sided and less than 75 percent the size of the original or more than 150 percent.

All negatives or other devices used to store the image are destroyed or deleted.

The student who gave out the counterfeits in class was "just being a child and not thinking," said school Headmaster Billy Pritchett. "I guess assuming that no one would pay much attention to it or use it or think it was real."

Impastato said most of the fake bills have been collected.

"They weren't all recovered," he said. "I think there were four or five that were destroyed by being thrown away."

It really burns Impastato's wick that some of "them bills" got away. Wascally devils.

MORRISSEY: IN HIS OWN WORDS

The other day, bored out of my mind as the snow piled up outside, I revisited a book I had not delved into since my willfully homeless, gutterpunk teenaged years... "Morrissey: In His Own Words".

It remains that I am beyond fond of the Smiths. Fantastic, insightful lyrics about our intimate relations and pleasing, jangly melodies... it's hard not to be so fond of them. The book is basically a compendium of Morrissey quotes, but compiles a scant few post-Smiths breakup quotes, so the book is basically Smiths vintage. While I would not claim to be on any kind of similar political plateau as Morrissey, at least not at this point in his life, I find many of his musings to reporters relevant and witty and, above all, interesting. But one statement leapt out at me in the chapter called "Politics":

"We don't need all this excessive technology, it's just a select bunch of people who think we have to keep up with the Japanese. People's requirements are quite basic. You need food and shelter and anything else you can live without."

To the last point, that may very well be true. But who would want to (live without anything other than food or shelter)? I wonder how Morrissey... whom in other sections of this book expresses his sincerest and undying devotion to these "excessive" things such as books, music, womens' blouses, pugilism, James Dean movies, hearing aids, floral bouquets, public immortality, and the technologies that bring all of these to him and the rest of us... and whom eerily resembles yours truly... could seriously profess a belief such as this.

Of course, I may be reading too much into it.


Morrissey? Or Astropolis? Only their mothers know for certain.

FIGURES IT'D BE LP-WASHINGTON TYPES

From Anti-War.Com's illustrious blog...

LP Hawks Start 'Fight for Liberty' Caucus

A Washington state Libertarian Party member has helped found an organization of "libertarian hawks" that will encourage the LP to support a more aggressive defense policy against terrorists.

The group, Fight for Liberty, "recognizes the need for a powerful military, whether private or state, to vanquish the terror movement," said Kevin Bjornson, an LP Life Member and former chair of the West King County LP.

The group supports a "victory over terrorism," and opposes Libertarians who would "shrink the U.S. military to dangerous weakness," he said.

The current LP platform, which calls for a non-interventionist foreign policy, the withdrawal of American military troops stationed abroad, and an end to foreign aid, is either "insanity or merely ridiculous," said Bjornson.

Fight for Liberty has passed a six-point program that advocates allowing Iraqis to have AK-47s, privatizing the Iraqi Oil Industry, legalizing drugs for U.S. adults, charging allies for NATO-type defense services, preventing the "theocratic/terror state of Iran" from developing nuclear weapons, and encouraging the "establishment of secular, rational government[s]" around the world.

Bjornson said Fight for Liberty will post foreign policy analyses, offer speakers for libertarian supper clubs and conferences, and serve as a "central posting board" for hawkish libertarians.

"COLD MOUNTAIN" SENT U.S. JOBS TO ROMANIA?

EDITED! (passages newly inserted marked by asterisks)

In a letter to the editor of the Tacoma News Tribune, published on December 26th, David Garden of Tacoma wrote:

RE: "Rain, mud, and heat color 'Cold Mountain" (TNT, 12/22)

In a recent television interview, Anthony Minghella, director of "Cold Mountain" told Barbara Walters that he shot the film in Romania because he had looked at locations all over the American South and could not find any large expanses which "had not been touched by modern times".

Anyone familiar with the South knows that this is completely untrue. What is true is that wages for workers in Romania are considerably less than wages anywhere in America.

There is currently a great deal of discussion about outsourcing and its impact on our economy. I am outraged that many companies have exported their manufacturing, customer service, and technical jobs to foreign countries. "Cold Mountain" is no different. This movie represents many hundreds of jobs. The well-established communities of film workers throughout the Southeast would have benefitted.

When such an American story is taken away from its roots, it loses its soul. Those who have already seen the film and know the South say that Romania does not look like the Blue Ridge Mountains. Daily Variety (12/8) says it best: "There is an intangible something missing."

It's impossible to say whether this stems from the fact that the film was shot in Romania, from it being made mostly by foreigners, or from the variability of the accents by an Anglo/Aussie cast.

You can send a message. Do not contribute to "Cold Mountain's" profits by buying a ticket or a DVD.

DAVID GARDEN
Tacoma

Garden's letter ran into, I'll assume, the TNT's word count limit and was somewhat truncated because it is basically a pared down version of the factsheet sent out by IATSE to its dues-paying legions to stir them to outrage.

I let a buddy read this letter before I offered him my thoughts on it. The first thing out of his mouth upon commencement was "WHAT? Does that mean because '2001' wasn't shot in space, it loses its soul?!" On that note, let it be known that IATSE shames the achievements of its members in one fell swoop with this assertion of soullessness inherent in films whose locations do not match their placing. IATSE members have toiled in countless productions set in locales farflung from their shoots. Does this mean that, inherently, these productions lack "soul"? Or is IATSE ordained by the Heavens above to seep productions they work on with soul a shoot shot elsewhere would not likewise enjoy? That out of the way, let's move on to the economic foolishness.

"Cold Mountain's" budget is currently assessed at $83 million. Most likely, the costs incurred are higher. Now, I let my IMDb Pro account lapse and I doubt it would have Romanian to American wage scale information on hand anyway, but let's guess that the budget for this feature were it shot in the American Southeast would be much higher, perhaps as much as double if not more. Costs this high are passed on to whom? The cinema going public, who it is maintained (but ever doubtfully) craves quality in a motion picture that they attend. A higher budget, it is true, is no guarantor of higher quality. But that is no matter. It can be said with some certainty that in the minds of many cinema-goers a bigger budget = better quality. Naturally, however, cinema-goers are certainly budget-conscious where it counts... their own wallets. It cannot escape notice, not even by the great minds at IATSE, that cinema-goers worldwide are put off by the higher costs of attending a motion picture exhibition these days.

Since "Cold Mountain" is not alone in its budget conflations and large segments of consumers demand an ever-increasing amount of technical sophistication from the films they screen, further pressures are put upon the production end to reign in costs while maintaining high standards. Part of this is, obviously, achieved by shooting overseas.

Now, no American jobs have been "shipped" anywhere here. No one, no one sane anyway, can counter that making "Cold Mountain" is, whether within a general filmmaking industry or not, a Southeasten industry. The production of "Cold Mountain" was a one-time thing, no proud tradition of "Cold Mountain" crafting is indigenous to the American South. No more than suggesting that Romanian jobs were shipped to America when post-production moved from the Carpathians to Los Angeles, would it be accurate to suggest that American jobs were lost to sinister Romanian interests.

* The logic implied here by IATSE could be extended to other motion pictures currently in circulation. Films that opt instead to employ CGI technicians when real industries could build replicas themselves unfairly hurts those industries, does it not? In the extreme category, when George Lucas mattes, digitally, cityscape shots of an urban world in his new Star Wars prequels, the lament could be made that millions of American construction workers got screwed. The argument sounds absurd. Because it is.

Further, no one... anywhere... has deprived American filmmakers their ability to make films in the Southeast. If filmmakers, as individuals or as groups, wish to set and produce their films in the American Southeast, they are certainly free to. No one is stopping them. Well... except maybe city, county, and state governments in addition to and in a seeming paradox... IATSE itself. For a good, honest account of IATSE and SAG thuggery, watch the DVD special features for the Canadian film "$lasher$" and see for yourself what happens to the struggling indie feature filmmaker trying to keep costs low on his super-low budget film. No production is too small to escape the thieving and conniving of IATSE and SAG and the thugs they send to do their dirty work.

Now, because Miramax Films and the myriad other investors that took a gamble with "Cold Mountain" shrunk their budget by shooting on Romanian soil, capital is freed up to be spent elsewhere. Instead of collectively pooling capital and resources into a behemoth "Cold Mountain" project, capital is left over to be spent on other projects. What kind of other projects? Presumably, this includes, and by vast numbers, American stories shot on American soil employing American workers. More than anything, shooting "Cold Mountain" on Romanian soil most likely "saved" American jobs, if we're going to insist on speaking in this context, because instead of putting one mammoth project and a few others on the docket and cutting yearly output of other projects, projects in jeopardy are saved and their funding secured. To mandate or attempt to, via political or consumer pressure, to force "Cold Mountain" (moot, a done deal anyway) to be shot on American soil is haughty foolishness and begets wasteful economic destruction, the projects that would not be completed because no capital was there for them attests to this.

And as to the assertion by an IATSE eager to make up the minds of their dues-paying members for them that the Romanian locations do not resemble the American South, two souls on this Garden Web Forum had this to say...

PatrickD_NC

A county to the south of us is Transylvania County and I think it was named so because of an alleged resemblance to Transylvania in Rumania.

Rich7asheville

The mountain area of Rumania and the vegetation actually did look like this area of North Carolina. At times I thought the scenes must be local.

* And why isn't IATSE attacking shows or films like TV's "Smallville"? Anyone who's been to Kansas knows that Vancouver's a poor stand-in. And Canadian labor, excuse me... labour is cheaper than American labour. Scandal!

AND THE VICE-PRESIDENT DESCENDED ON OUR PART OF THE GLOBE...

Cheney Bo-Reiney, Banana-nana-bo-beiney, fee-fi-fo-feiney... Cheney! visited our region yesterday spreading war cheer to the KVI faithful and, if the news was to be believed, elicited cheers and whoops from the soldiers at McChord as he raised the roof with morale-boosting exhortations such as "Defense isn't enough. We need to go on offense, and that's where you come in!" and the killer "We tremendously appreciate what you're doing!" adding that military personnel are "... putting your necks on the line."

Here, I hasten to point out to Cheney that it is he and this administration putting the necks of American soldiers on the line. I do not think, that as a gathering of individuals, American soldiers would one day elect to put their necks on the line and invade a fractious, cobbled-together nation full of hostiles. Maybe a few would, who knows. Anyway...



Following the war rally, Cheney, with the Missus in tow, hopped into their little jet and headed up Boeing Field way where they were shuttled to a Bellevue fundraiser for Republican Senatorial candidate, George Nethercutt, he of the Great 2000 Election Term Limits Campaign Pledge Fiasco and the Great 2003 "The story of what we've done in the post-war period is remarkable! It is a better and more important story than losing a couple of soldiers every day" Fiasco. It is an understatement to note how gratifying it is to see so many tax dollars spent to bankroll fundraising shuttling.

Naturally, nobody would like to see incompetento-extremo Patty Murray expunged from her Senate seat than me. The socialist Snore Whine from Shoreline has been party to all kinds of bad legislation, at home and in the Senate. George Nethercutt is a paltry alternative, a big government conservative the likes of which typify the Washington state Republican. I don't even know who the Libertarian candidate is and besides... it's probably a patchoulitarian whose platform issue is drug legalization and little else anyway.

While Nethercutt and Cheney were whooping it up inside the Bellevue Hyatt Regency on someone else's dime, the protestors and the counter-protestors huddled in the foggy streets outside and, remarkably, both sides were civil. I say "remarkably" because this is, after all, WTO Town. Every protest I have ever been to here has been a whacked out affair.

What gets me is that people will come up with, drive to, and participate in a rally for the gross misspending of their tax dollars. It's not lost on me that the Republican electorate is staunchly in the less government camp, even if shakily so, so why get all a-tizzy at official hypocrisy in action as if it's a good thing? Cheney should be doing his "job" as the Senate tie-breaker, not out campaigning for underlings while someone else foots the bill and in a sane world this would be recognized.

THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING...

I'm one of those folks, rightly described as "jerks", that when they go gift-shopping tend to the purchasing of items that see worth for themselves in. In keeping with my tradition of shopping in this manner, today I went shopping for my father. My father, much like myself, is a man fond of the Western. The sparse vistas, the black and white morality plays, the frontier politics, the rugged individualism... what's not to love? Anyway, I bought him two oaters today, "Winchester '73" and "Shenandoah", both starring the indomitable Jimmy Stewart. Of the two, "Winchester '73" is the one I have seen most recently and liked it enormously as I know my father likewise does. This was the conciliatory purchase.

However, I piped up about "Shenandoah" the other day to my father, who deemed it "okay". I hadn't seen "Shenandoah" since I was about, oh... eight. At the latest. But, quite naturally, my interest was piqued by the ringing endorsement of the Mises site. To wit:



Shenandoah (1965)

This film starring Jimmy Stewart portrays a widower named Anderson at the time of the War between the States who refuses to join either side and just wants to be left alone. His crusty independence and anti-war attitude have made this film a libertarian favourite. As an exercise in nostalgia, Mr. Anderson's rugged individualism is enjoyable. But don't forget how impractical it is... What if Americans all started minding their own business like him? Imagine if all Americans, like Mr. Anderson, focussed primarily on raising virtuous, hard-working children and cultivating their own property instead of "accepting responsibility" as world leaders and getting involved in every two-bit border conflict on the globe and starving Iraqi children out. Here's some favourite quotes from the film:

"Virginia needs all of her sons, Mr. Anderson."
"That might be so, Johnson. But these are my sons. They don't belong to
the state. We never asked anything of the state & never expected anything."
"What's confiscate mean, Pa?" "Steal."
"Like all wars I suppose... The undertakers are winning it."

Well, damn it. I'm easy prey to these kinds of endorsements. So, I fed the Missus' bad Pop Punk/Emo habit by plunking down way too much money for the new A.F.I. disc and the two films for my father as well. He might be underwhelmed at the notion of getting "Shenandoah" for Christmas, but I dare postulate he ought to be thankful he got anything at all from his ingrate son and that, together, we will enjoy the shared experience of watching "Shenandoah", in all its individualist Technicolor glory, on Christmas afternoon while the shorties are obsoleting their new action figures.

And speaking of A.F.I., let me echo the words of Amazon customer "Scudpool":

"How does a band who's written great punk anthems like 'I Wanna Get A Mowhawk (But My Mom Won't Let Me)' end up writing sappy feel-sorry-for-yourself junk like 'The Great Disappointment'?"

My sympathy goes out to Scudpool, wherever he is.

WHAT THE WORLD NEEDS NOW

The other day I was listening to the over-produced sounds of Swedish anti-capitalist punk rock sensations THE (INTERNATIONAL) NOISE CONSPIRACY . Once upon a high school aged youth, I probably would have stood to the left of them.



They're pretty stylin', ain't they? Surely, they're thankful for the progression of technology that capitalism has wrought, elsewise how would their hair stay so stylishly tousled or their clothing be rendered from the finest synthetic material? Thankful, did I say thankful? Of course, I didn't. How could I?

Anyway, while immersed in this sonic soup several thoughts struck me. Naturally, I'm struck by the preponderance of collectivist views in supposedly individualist spheres like the arts. I'm far from the first to notice this contradiction but to the best of my knowledge I'm one of the few to agitate for a response to the call.

One of my favorite bands to this day is English Anarcho-Punk agit-prop superstars CRASS. What Crass are largely responsible for is codifying the punk equation with Anarchy, at least of the Kropotkin variety. To this day, the genre of "crust punk" or "peace punk" persists, though next to none of the new school approaches the cunning and brilliance of Crass (even the new projects of ex-Crass members, projects like Conflict and Schwarzeneggar). Punk has since it's generally accepted infacy flirted with politics of all kinds, but Crass were, for my tastes, the first to exemplify a consistent train of co-ordinated political thought and, most importantly, actually strove to live by those values.

Today, on a more mainstream front, we have Rage Against the Machine prior to their break-up and The (International) Noise Conspiracy selling Marxism to the kids and selling it well. Both bands compile in their liner notes "further reading" for their fans on the issues that concern them, a bibliography of Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky readers for the market to digest. I disagree, vehemently, with the political and economic ideals of these bands, but respect their way of doing the thing they love (which I defy them to do in their chosen economic systems were they to ever be implemented) and sharing their beliefs with their consumer base. This has been incredibly effective, even though both bands have been derided from certain sectors for being "sell-outs" for their appearances on MTV and, in the case of Rage, distributing their records through corporate conglomerate Sony.

Today, the classically liberal minarchist or anarcho-capitalist philosophies are in a kind of upswing. Our views have gained credence in sectors once thought unheard of and, as Lew Rockwell points out often, those in the know in "bureaucracy" tremble at the name "Rothbard". Mises.com sees tremendous amounts of web traffic and as I peruse over Amazon.com Lists, I find many that recommend a bibliography of liberty. I could almost say that I am truly optimistic.

But then, I consider art. Art is inextricably tied to commerce. Art is commerce. It wouldn't be there were there not a market and a supply for it. Governments deem it vital (to it's propagandistic end, sure). Art is, thankfully, everywhere. Yet it persists that art is linked to leftist causes and visions. Artists expound at length about their "visions", even as they tow a political line that is collectivist in nature and not traditionally (try ever) kind to individual points of view, especially as regards art.

The struggling artist today would do well to consider the fates of the fabulous achievements of the Soviet Avant-Garde in the 1920s. An outpouring of artistic brilliance and technical virtuosity flowered in the immediate days after the collapse of the Tsar. Dziga Vertov and V.I. Pudovkin and Sergei Eisenstein pushed the boundaries of film and their work stands as brilliant to this day. The Suprematicists pushed the boundaries of architecture and, even as socialists, made valuable contributions to Futurism. Agit-prop derived it's strengths from the diversity of the artists who contributed to it. While not at all Communists, Mikhail Bulgakov and Yevgeny Zamyatin were banging away at typewriters creating works of amazingly precient fiction (which of course led to their suppression later). Within a decade, all of this was gone. All art, as is the case in the hard left reality of bad ideas made policy, had become "state" art. Individualism was frowned on as a matter of policy and "Socialist Realism" was the only accepted standard. The danger to art that statism proposed was realized in the worst of ways as many artists faced imprisonment and destitution (destitution, it must be noted, that they shared with the rest of their countrymen) or, perhaps worst of all to the mind of the artists, were forced to create art they would never put name to in a free society.

Yet, strangely, artists continue to agitate for this kind of tyranny.

The Mises site is a true treasure. While simultaneously selling printed copies of works such as Mises' "Human Action", the site also offers such works for free as downloads. What fantastic altruism! The Mises Institute puts it all on the line for it's beliefs. Recognizing that, sadly, the Austrian School of economic thought remains an obscure curio of academia even as it gains new adherents every day, the Institute deflects the prospect of continued obscurity by actually, wonder of wonders, getting the word out.

But how effective is all this when the Left maintains a near-monopoly on the arts? Recognizing that the arts is truly the most public mouthpiece for getting their ideas across to a public at large that will consume socialist agit-prop as readily as it will a can of cola, Statism has gained the upper hand through it's feigned patronage of the arts. I truly believe that. More than any other resource, it is art that firmly cements the support for Statism in the mainstream. It is rare that I see the Mises contributor suggest or the liberty blogger actually suggest countering this stranglehold with an effluence of agit-prop art swinging the other way. Of course, that has everything to do with their own interests which may not coincide with a desire to manufacture art. Understandable.

Which is why I today issue a call to arms. The Austro-economic, classically liberal ethos needs a public face. Our views are as revolutionary and as radical as that of a band like Crass' anarcho-socialism was. So, like the flyer you'll find in any Indie record store, I'm putting out an advertisement.

SEEKING: Austro-economic classical liberals with a modicum of musical talent to play BASS, GUITAR, and DRUMS... and provide SAMPLES... for shit-kicking poli-rock band. Vocalist/lyricist frontman entrenched.

Remember the familiar visage of Che Guevera on a red background? The best-selling (ironic) poster of the Vietnam-era? Picture a Pop Art visage of Mises peering down regally from a college dorm room poster because some fantastically creative and popular band, at least on college radio playlists, promoted the writings he so selflessly left us.

THE WALL IS PEACE?

Jonathan Kay of the National Post has written a piece on the beautiful, peace-affirming, trade-friendly wall being constructed in Israel. Naturally, I'm not inclined to loll beneath the olive tree peering through rose-colored lenses at this one. I came across the article, again, on the message boards I'm striving to get away from. My retort:

Maximalist Palestinian delusions aside, the fence is in everyone's interests.

Right there, I take instant exception. Everyone's interests? Wishful thinking. This, quite obviously, negates the interests of those whose properties have been confiscated to build this wall (Israelis and Palestinians alike), primary means of sustenance altered if not outright destroyed by state seizure, neighborhoods and districts torn asunder by the arbitrary building of a razor-wire lined wall through their centers, and other state encroachments on private property. To excuse the negation of private property merely to accomodate state fiat is to excuse any other belligerent encroachments by the state.

What refrain do we always hear from the "Pro-Palestinian" crowd? That Israel's true intentions have always been to steal land. Since the construction of the Wall radically turns suspicion into reality, were this true or not before, it certainly lends legitimacy to the Palestinian position now. Further, mounting evidence indicates that much of the wall seems built to encapsulate water reservoirs in Israeli territory, IE, Israeli government fiat is seperating Palestinian municipalities from their traditional water sources. That's outrageous, and far from sating Palestinian discontent, expect these totalitarian measures to exacerbate it in spades.

Once a measure of security is restored in the region, Israel can slowly start making Palestinians richer, and help them build the institutions they'll need when they ultimately do get their own state.

By placing a gigantic barrier to trade right in the middle of the Israeli-Palestinian co-operation, the author expects to see greater co-operation rise in time? Fat chance. Encircled and cut-off economically, how does the author in a million years expect to see Palestinians grow richer as a result? Oooh, wait, I see... "Israel can slowly"... try glacial-pace... "start making Palestinians richer". What are we talking about here, wealth redistribution? I can't fathom any other meaning from this statement in light of the reality of the Wall, which can have no other purpose other than crushing Palestinian... and even Israeli... economic prospects.

Netanyahu, who emphasized economic growth during his time as PM...

... and economic self-destruction now.

... describes an ambitious plan to create a train link from the Red Sea to the Mediterranean that would compete with the Suez canal for the transportation of Asian cargo to Europe.

Built by whom? The state or private interests? Why bother asking... it's the Israeli government, with the possible help of other governments I'm sure. With the net effect of benefitting mostly government coffers and bureaucrats and with no consideration for the true economic costs of the thing. I wonder... how over-budget will that go?

The West Bank (and perhaps even Jordan) would be linked into the rail network so that Palestinians could take part in the global economy.

As soon as their part in it can scale that Wall, right, Johnny Boy?

Another plan calls for joint industrial parks to be set up along the West Bank's border with pre-1967 Israel.

A plan? By whom? The Israeli government? So, they build these industrial parks (probably on some amount of confiscated land), there's still no guarantee any sane business would want to occupy these industrial parks once they're built. And will the IDF allow for any of these brave companies to provide for their own security once they take a chance on setting up shop there? No. That's the monopoly of the state in Israel.

In the present climate, all of this sounds like a pipe dream.

In any climate. It's top-down socialization of an economy and a heap of the totalitarianism that such socialization implies.

But recall that Mr. Netanyahu himself presided over just such an economic blossoming half a decade ago, a time during which Jews flocked to Ramallah's shops and Jericho's casino.

"Jews flocked"? What? Was there segregation there too?

No, I know. These are West Bank towns. I would posit that, unlike the author's point of view, it isn't exactly threat of death and dismemberment keeping Jews out of the West Bank now, it's their own government's military operations as much as anything else.

Those successes came to naught because Mr. Arafat and his lieutenants launched a terrorist war against Israel when Ehud Barak offered them their own country at Camp David.

Oh, yes. The Palestinian side isn't short on their own list of stupidity and statist excess either.

Once the fence is fully erected, they will no longer have that option.

Innovation arises in the damnedest of places. Has any IDF strategist ever heard of the catapault?

No doubt, Yasser Arafat and his PLO cronies do find the situation "urgent" -- but not, as Ms. Buttu suggests, because a tiny fraction of the West Bank's Palestinians will now have to pass through security gates to tend their olive trees. What they want is for the bloodletting to drag on until Israel gives in on everything, including the right of return for millions of Palestinians. As Mr. Netanyahu told me, "the reason [Palestinians] hate the fence is that it disarms the suicide bombers. That's why they're opposed to it -- because it's a weapon of peace."

Actually, "because a tiny fraction of the West Bank's Palestinians will now have to pass through security gates to tend their olive trees" has everything to do with it. All this piece is, is an apologia for State and a tirade against property rights and trade. Lenin would be pleased.

Palestinian leaders and activists despise the fence -- or, as they call it, Israel's "Apartheid Wall."

For one of those rare moments, the Palestinian "leadership" (gang of thugs more appropriately) is on the mark. It is an Apartheid Wall. Not only are the Palestinians restricted in this sense from engaging and cooperately peaceably with Israelis as well as, per the wishful thinking with the thing, the more nefarious inclinations... so too are Israelis from engaging with Palestinians. This isn't a panacea, it's the mistaken result of fervently believing that two wrongs will make a right. I'm very partial to Israelis as a people, but their government, like all government, plainly stinks.

DON'T LOSE IT

An AP article in my local paper covering the death of Sgt. Joseph Suell, ruled a suicide by the Army, was accompanied by a photograph that just tore me up this Thanksgiving; that of the broken widow of Sgt. Suell, Rebecca, cradling a portrait of the couple in happier times. The poor woman's seeking answers for her husband's puzzling death. I wouldn't hold my breath in anticipation of her receiving any satisfactory word, but my heart's with her in her quest and the rebuilding of her life from here.

The article was actually pretty good, even including at its tail end reference to a case that has troubled me since I first got word of it. The case in question is the unfortunate story of Staff Sgt. Georg-Andreas Pogany, who has "earned" the unfortunate distinction of being the first soldier charged with "cowardice" since the Vietnam War. Sgt. Pogany's crime, you see, was that he had the unmitigated gall to unfortunately bear witness to the mangled, torn-in-two body of an even more unfortunate Iraqi civilian and actually being human enough to be physically shaken by it. Compounding this infraction, he actually had the nerve to seek help for his rattled senses. The Army, in its profound and benevolent way, responded and took decisive action by ordering Sgt. Pogany home to face a court martial. The charges have been reduced to "simple" dereliction of duty, but it remains beyond the pale that he still faces a court martial at all.

Note to deployed soldiers in hot zones the world over: If the stress of combat starts to wear on you mentally, DON'T SEEK HELP. It's better to flake out in the field, isn't it, rather than to face prison time back home.

EDIT: Apparently, a married couple faced cowardice charges during the Gulf War but were not convicted. No U.S. combat soldiers have been convicted of cowardice since Vietnam.

THE SHAPE OF THINGS

Yeah, thus far the blog is piss. Easily explained. The author of said blog knows next to nothing of HTML. Easily overcome as well, as it is all simply a matter of one teaching oneself that which he does not yet know.

Or...

Is foolish enough to blunder headlong into a brisk series of tutorials that will leave nary an imprint and leave the student none the wiser. I am not chastened. It could very well be, like most human technological and scientific advancements, that through a combination of foolish pride and poking around where one probably shouldn't in any other conceivable model might actually result in something good and beneficial and... the point really, interesting.

One hopes.

ASTROPOLIS

People who know me and have long agitated in waves of radical paroxysm on a par with the English Corn Riots of the mid-19th century for the creation and regular maintenance of a blog by yours truly, at long last... you shall be sated!

I had grand, marvelous designs for that which would realize itself as my first blog post. Great blueprints were drawn, long-distance phone calls were placed, expensive consultants were hired. But in the end, we here at astropolis blog Inc. opted instead for the lo-tech, low-key approach... that is to say, cheaply wallowing in ego-centrism and hyperbole.

About myself for the uninitiated. Hmmm... well. Where to begin, where to begin? At the beginning then...

On Valentine's Day, 1976, I was conceived. I, like you in my audience, do not wish to be burdened by the icky details of my physical creation, so we shall fast-forward approximately nine months to November 16th, a day that found me gulping in my first fresh oxygen and witnessing my first light of day on the 13th floor of St. Joseph's Hospital in Tacoma, Washington. That same afternoon, Mr. Universe and struggling actor Arnold Schwarzeneggar was visiting the sick and the infirm quarantined and shacked up within the walls of that very same hospital. What glorious (if not vicarious) beginnings!

Now, 27 years and a day later, I find myself self-professing to be a "minarchist" bordering on "anarcho-capitalist", or "classically liberal", or just plain "libertarian". By trade, I am what millions worldwide describe as a "struggling, unemployed screenwriter seeking to direct". I live in scenic Tacoma, Washington again after failed stabs at living in other municipalities and daily I find myself fuming at the Soviet Socialist Republic my state of birth has made itself. This blog shall find me obsessing on those things that interest me most, namely:

MYSELF. FILMS. MUSIC. ECONOMICS. AND A BUNCH OF OTHER SHIT.