Archive for the 'My life' Category

They’re not going to stop pushing the envelope

Monday, September 1st, 2008

Well, I’m sure you’ve heard about the preemptive raids on groups planning to protest at the Republican convention in Minneapolis. I don’t really have much to add to what’s being said elsewhere on the net. It’s an outrage and it breaks my heart that I can’t stand with them, but my place was definitely in Louisville this weekend. And with the convention being toned way down, I wonder if the protests will have the same effect.

It’s therefore important that, as much as I hate to repeat news better reported elsewhere, we all talk about the horror that’s occurring in Minneapolis on our own outlets. Better yet, call the jail where many are held to demand their release; the number is (651) 266 - 9350. Don’t be silent - bring this up in conversations, and let people know exactly how free we are in this country! The police are going to keep pushing the envelope of oppressiveness unless we can build a broad consensus that their actions are simply wrong.

Posted in Activism, Current Events, LL.org, Law Enforcement, My life, Police State, Politics | Comments Off

Reflections on a Neighborhood Watch Meeting

Thursday, June 28th, 2007

Recently I have discovered a renewed interest in left libertarian and anarchist concepts of community solidarity. My interests lie in finding ways to build community relationships and institutions that devolve important decisions to the interpersonal, neighborly level - rather than counting on government bureaucrats and politicians to fix all our problems. I believe that this reliance on an outside force to manage us - a top-down, progressive-era holdover - has damaged what was once a bottom-up, dynamic consensus. This breakdown in neighborliness is partially responsible for many of our present social ills, and reflects the dark side of the centralized, managerial State that so many Americans seem to want.

Inviting cops into our neighborhoods should be a last resort, because law enforcement professionals view everybody - not just the elements you find undesirable - as a potential criminal. They write traffic tickets; they harass citizens; they conduct reckless raids against innocent citizens; the list just goes on. Residents should be very careful when inviting outsiders - such as police officers - to make decisions on how the neighborhood’s business should be conducted. Ideally, cops should be called only as an alternative to a neighborhood resident employing force himself in self-defense, and only in reaction to a particular threat.

Maybe there was once a time when police officers lived in the neighborhoods they patrolled, knew everybody by name and whose kid was whose, and exercised a form of reasonable discretion (even if that discretion was poisoned by racism, classism, etc.). Maybe they policed on the basis of what was best for the community rather than maximizing their arrest statistics to secure federal funding. Those times, however, are no more: police are intervening in neighborhoods more and more, with less and less of a sense of statutory limitation, and a growing sense of entitlement to dictate to people the most mundane details of their lives. This dependence on such authoritarian elements is surely brought about by the increasing atomization and isolation of residents, who cannot look to the community to realize their values. When neighbors are strangers, there isn’t even the opportunity to establish an authentic sense of shared interests or common concerns, let alone the true security situation.

Posted in Activism, Authority, Community, Decentralization, LL.org, Law, Managerialism, My life, Organizational Behavior, Police State, Society | Comments Off