Two stories appeared in rapid succession today on Wired’s excellent Threat Level. In the first, Rep. Linda Sanchez defends her, possibly overbroad, anti-cyber-bullying law with the argument that it’s only aimed at hostile bloggers.

In the second, a court upholds a hacking conviction for a man who used his work computer to upload nudie shots. The hacking law was never intended to be used to turn work policy violations into crimes, but there it is.

Here’s hoping that U.S. Lawmakers are able to understand the relationship between these two stories.

photo credit: SliceofNYC

Everywhere I go, I carry a pen and a stack of 3×5 index cards held together by a binder clip. It’s a Hipster PDA 1.0, from before all those apps got installed.

On one of these cards are the words: “Entrepreneurship is alive and well at the Anarchist Book Fair”. I wrote them last spring, during a trip to Montreal. This is kind of condescending thought that runs through my head when I see idealist-ideologues try to navigate the shoals of reality.

The book fair is annual. It’s a focal point – the anarchist social event of the year. People travel from all over Canada and the U.S. to visit friends, network, run workshops, and party. The contradictions don’t seem to bother anybody.

It’s literally an anti-capitalist marketplace, crammed to the gills with people selling books, t-shirts, pins and paraphenilia. It’s a weird, vibrant mirror of a county craft fair, complete with live music, hidden bottles of booze and a snack booth (vegan, organic and sustainable, we are told). And why not? Anarchists need to eat, same as everyone else. The clothes are fashionably ragged, instead of old and faded. The patches are silkscreened with black instead of embroidered in red white and blue. There are cupcakes. When the police stop by to let the organizers know that the skinhead rally has been broken up, they get booed.

Capitalism is on the run, have you heard? The Financial Times is running a whole series on what comes next.

I wonder what the fair will feel like this year. What will the mood be? Triumphant told-you-sos? Gleeful excitement at the opportunities for effecting change? Will there be the same cold worry that the rest of us feel, that the collapse might be real and total and we might not get back up? I’ve met them. When they aren’t writing autonomous anti-oppressive zines, they work in the service industry. They don’t have severance packages, they have 2 weeks notice. And they are living paycheque to paycheque or worse. How many anarchists will look in their wallets and decide they can’t make the trip this year, due to the impending collapse of capitalism.

Does it sound like I am making fun of these contradictions? I assure you I am not. It’s these kinds of barely held tensions that keep a movement alive and dynamic. And we need a vibrant anarchism. We need one that is not caught up in internal struggles of self-definition and specialist rhetoric. Come what may, there is a lot of work that needs doing that doesn’t necessarily get done by businesses anymore. The more people offering solutions, the more likely it is that one gets found.

Who am I kidding? The answer to the Financial Times’ question is probably “more capitalism”.

The Anarchist Bookfair collective affirms and promotes values of mutual aid, direct democracy, anti-authoritarianism, autonomy and solidarity. We reiterate our opposition to capitalism, imperialism, patriarchy, heterosexism, racism, colonialism, statism and all other forms of oppression; we will not accept anyone to participate in the Anarchist Bookfair that perpetuates or promotes these attitudes.

-from Montreal’s Anarchist Bookfair statement of principles
photo credit: anarchosyn

This post exemplifies everything that I think is important about political argument. It displays memory (bringing up an issue that is more than a week old), data (actual information upon which to base a judgement) and context (puts the data in relation to other information). Also it overthrows some pretty appalling common wisdom.

Also, also, even if you bought the old “10% of the votes came from blacks and 70% of blacks voted in favour” story: YOU IDIOTS. WHERE DID YOU THINK THE OTHER VOTES THAT KNOCKED IT OVER 50% CAME FROM?

There are people in my business who took to the highest hills to decry the betrayal of black Californians, and to this day, are giddily noting that blacks sunk marriage equality in California, who foist the failure of marriage equality on seven percent of the electorate . I will not speculate on their motives. But let’s see how loudly they address this study. Let’s see how much ink we see spilled revisiting those assumptions. Or will it be on to the next calamity, where the blacks–or the Arabs, or the Latinos–can be trotted out and blamed for the failings of others. For the failings of us all.

photo credit: Peter Davis

Oh man, this is pretty much everything that this blog is about in one place.

This is a piece of brilliant design, for an excellent presentation about a critical problem, backed up by a raft of interesting statistics relating to the impact and efficacy of helping girls vs helping other groups.

(via Presentation Zen)

photo credit: monkiemag

I made some bad choices relating to some credit cards that I have and I have been slowly paying off my debts. The big problem was that the amount of money per month that I was putting on the cards was only a little bit more than the amount of money per month that my interest charges were adding. Progress was slow.

I handled this by calling the bank and transferring to a credit card with a lower interest rate. From now on, more of my monthly payments will go to the principal instead of the interest. During the call, the guy suggested that if I could find money equal to the balance on my card, I could zero the credit card,and then write one of those Visa Cheques that have 2% interest, giving me an even better ratio of interest to principal payment.

This plan is conceivable because I have friends and family who might have enough cash lying around that I could borrow it from them for a few days to enact this scheme. It’s one of the nice things about being middle class: you are surrounded by people who have spare resources that you can borrow from time to time to help with tough spots.

Poorer people don’t have access to the same kind of resources. This is one of the reasons that the Grameen Bank is so important as a tool for alleviating poverty.

Easy access to temporary resources is something that you might call a privilege of being well-to-do.

Privilege

I have a problem with the common use of the word “privilege” in phrases like “male privilege” and “white privilege”. To my mind, privilege connotes things that you get that you don’t necessarily deserve. Special powers or nice things that lift you above others. Platinum plus membership cards and so on. I’ve since spoken to a number of other people about this and found that a lot of different people have very different reactions to the meaning of the word.

If you click on that “white privilege” link, you’ll come to a list of 50 things that Peggy McIntosh considers to be special privileges of being white. Read the list. The overwhelming majority of those things should not be (my definition of) privileges, they should be inalienable rights. Mixed in are some things that look more like (my definition of) privileges (“26. I can easily buy posters, post-cards, picture books, greeting cards, dolls, toys and children’s magazines featuring people of my race.“).

Pareto Optimality

A Pareto optimal condition is one where it is impossible to to make anyone better off without making someone worse off. A Pareto optimal move is one where you make someone better off without making anyone worse off.

We should be able to fix “15. I do not have to educate my children to be aware of systemic racism for their own daily physical protection.” without needing to make any white people worse-off. Same thing for “20. I can do well in a challenging situation without being called a credit to my race.” There are a number of things on the list that should just be a part of human dignity, that we should be able to fix in a Pareto optimal move.

Under my instinctive definition of privilege, these are not privileges that white people have. These are things that EVERYONE should have but do not. We should be working to make it so that everyone else catches up.

Compare those to items like “44. I can easily find academic courses and institutions which give attention only to people of my race.” This strikes me as a privilege which white people will probably have to give up. With a limited number of hours per year for teaching, if there’s going to be more diversity in curricula the proportions will have to shift and white-only parts would have to come down.

Confusion

The problem I have with common use of “___ privilege” is that it mixes both types of unfairness. Things that I have that other people could also have are different from things that I have at the expense of other people. Confusing the two creates resistance and disagreement where otherwise none might be.

They are different flavours of problem with different kinds of solutions. They should have different words.