Supper Club: The Black Oak Years

I used to write for Black Oak Media. Here is a short collection of the articles that appeared in their various publications.

Direct Download - Supper Club: The Black Oak Years

Julian Assange’s Fully Informed Jury

The ever productive George Donnelly has put together a possible Fully Informed Jury Association outreach project in support of WikiLeak‘s co-founder Julian Assange.

Julian Assange’s Fully Informed Jury!

If Julian Assange is extradited to the US, he will face a kangaroo court. Our job is to educate every potential member of his jury about their right to judge the law as well as the facts of a case.

IOW, jury members can decide that – even though the state may prove Assange did something it doesn’t like – the law is wrong or there are extenuating circumstances that justify rendering a not guilty verdict.

Our job is to educate jurors about this. We don’t want a conviction or long sentence for someone like Assange. We can hardly afford further chilling of the human right of free speech.

DO NOT take this pledge lightly. It may require travel, hardship, significant cost and time. If you pledge and then don’t honor it, your reputation WILL suffer.

I, along with the C4SS DirectorBrad Spangler, have pledged to participate in this event.  Road Trip!  If you need a ride, just let me know and we will pick you up.

ALL the best!

On Wage Slavery.

Brad Spangler, Director of the Center for a Stateless Society, published this little gem under Talking Points: Wage Slavery: The Short Version.

From the body of the post:

The state acts to involuntarily transfer wealth from the productive class to a political class elite, thereby monopolizing/cartelizing capital. Additionally, the state forcibly cuts off opportunities for economic self-sufficiency. The result is that people are forcibly denied any alternative but to sell labor artificially cheaply in a buyer’s market, where the buyers are a political class plutocracy gorged on stolen loot and enjoying economic influence they are not rightly due.

From the comments section by the ever brilliant Neverfox:

There is also another way that I’ve discussed before: a situation where people are treated, through the wage relation, as a thing without responsibility for its actions, i.e. a legal non-person in some regard (though not necessarily every regard, which is why I don’t think it’s sufficient to point to some ways that they are treated as a legal person, e.g. by pointing out that they can voluntarily disassociate without fear of reprisal). The burden, I think, is on the capitalist (in the ideological sense, not the purely descriptive sense of someone who owns capital) to explain, other than by duration, why renting someone by the hour is substantively different from buying someone for a lifetime, even when it’s voluntary, if both happen to require that the worker give up something they have no right to give up, i.e. some aspect of their legal standing as a person.

Also checkout the C4SS Market Anarchism FAQ lovingly looked after by Ross Kenyon:

However, market forces naturally undermine exploitation. Market Anarchists tend to see economic domination of working people as the product of statism and not the market. In a free society without Benjamin Tucker’s Four Monopolies over land, currency, patents, and tariffs, the economic dependency proletarians have upon capitalists is virtually destroyed. Capitalism, in the sense of an unjust status quo characterized by state-driven monopolization of capital, depends upon a captive labor force whose better options are destroyed or precluded by state intervention in the market on behalf of a parasitic elite.

As a Wobbly I am committed to the end of the Wage System. I believe liberty, ethics and market forces, along with direct action, radical democracy, community building, P6 committed cooperatives and fighting unions will get us to that end.  In a sense, I believe the whole universe is on our side.  State-Capital is an upside down pyramid only held in place by violence, blood, oppression and silence.  It will come down, it must come down.  The only questions left are, “when?”  And,  ”how much more do we tolerate?”

As Kevin Carson has so eloquently put it in The Iron Fist Behind the Invisible Hand:

“The current structure of capital ownership and organization of production in our so-called “market” economy, reflects coercive state intervention prior to and extraneous to the market. From the outset of the industrial revolution, what is nostalgically called “laissez-faire” was in fact a system of continuing state intervention to subsidize accumulation, guarantee privilege, and maintain work discipline.”

The Julian Assange Welcome Pledge

I, James Tuttle, hereby pledge that if Julian Assange should call upon me in need of a place to stay, I will provide it to him with no questions asked, indefinitely, and with the highest degree of security and confidentiality I can provide. I’m easy to get a hold of.  Jules, I just hope you don’t have cat allergies.

“Leaking is inherently an anti-authoritarian act. It is inherently an anarchist act.”  And I am an anarchist.

Now it’s your turn. Simply replace your name with mine and publish. Link here if you wish, but publish.

The Center Needs Your Help!

Dear Fans of the Center (Centerians?),

So this is how the story goes, retold for the recently Centered: C4SS asks the internet for donations and support.  Out of the gate, there is a sudden influx of funds followed by a long period of nothing.  This is when the writers and volunteers begin to bite their nails.  But fear not!  In the end, the fans come through, we thank you for all for your support and the Center knuckles back down to dissolving the state.  Rinse/Repeat.

We are currently in the “long period of nothing.”

Instead of begging, I would like to take a moment to describe a mini-miracle.  In my home state of Oklahoma, the majority thought it necessary to outlaw Sharia Law.  There is zero political opposition in Oklahoma, only some Libertarian Party Members struggling for ballot access and some Democrats that can’t even field a candidate.   Oklahoma is prime minority opposition territory, and this minority has reached out to C4SS.  That’s right; anarchist commentary from the Center was published in the Urban Tulsa. Emma Goldman was quoted in the Urban Tulsa!  This is why the Center is important.  This why we need your support; the more blue or red the state the more desperate the population needs alternatives.

The Center has a pretty steep price tag this time, for sure, but let’s take a quick look at what projects we offer: Blackvanguard.net, Groundbreaking Case Studies, Stateless University, a Nuanced Political Orientation Quiz, Op-ed Boot Camp, and biting News analysis and Commentary.  All in one location with an easy four character address.  C4SS!

Donate a little or a lot.  Whatever you saved from participating in No Shave November, a Thanksgiving Potluck or Black Friday’s crazy discount deals, the Center will use it to continue the fight against the continued encroachment of State madness.

Thank you and happy holidays.