a bandit gang writ large warning the wire spoilers within

fig23a you can sleep easy

"Without justice, what are kingdoms but great robber bands? What are robber bands but small kingdoms? The band itself is made up of men, is ruled by the command of a leader, and is held together by a social pact. Plunder is divided in accordance with an agreed upon law."
- St Augustine

fig23b roberts rules say we gotta have minutes

"This is a court of law, young man, not a court of justice."
- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr

fig23c many ways to play the game

"The state calls its own violence law, but that of the individual crime."
- Max Stirner

fig23d quiet violence in the merikan desert

"I have my own army in the NYPD - the seventh largest army in the world."
- Mayor Michael Bloomberg

fig23e military surplus for the war on terror or immigrants or whatever

"So these villains, who call themselves governments, well understand that their power rests primarily upon money. With money they can hire soldiers, and with soldiers extort money. And, when their authority is denied, the first use they always make of money is to hire soldiers to kill or subdue all those who refuse them more money."
- Lysander Spooner

fig23f cmon books are you really gonna go there - yeah i went there

"For if the bulk of the public were really convinced of the illegitimacy of the state, if it were convinced that the state is nothing more nor less than a bandit gang writ large, then the state would soon collapse to take on no ore status or breadth of existence than another mafia gang."
- Murray Rothbard

fig23g once theyve stopped working for the state theyre just dudes with a sweet ride

"Politics would be a helluva good business if it weren't for the goddamned people."
- Richard M. Nixon

fig23h damn people think they can just use their own bridges whenever they feel like it

"Sometimes the law places the whole apparatus of judges, police, prisons, and gendarmes at the service of the plunderers, and treats the victim - when he defends himself - as a criminal."
- Frederic Bastiat

fig23i stop resisting

"You may think you belong to a big gang, you may be 50 people, even 100, but we have 32,000 in our gang. It's called the metropolitan police."
- Chief Inspector Ian Kibblewhite

fig23j see also a list of countries by size of police force

surely there is data to be considered here

"There is no crueler tyranny than that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice."
- Charles De Montesquieu

fig23k the more translucent the window the more invisible the state

that
did not take as long
as i thought it would

yours for the revolution
forbidden books

postmarxist critique re transformative justice

i spent a number of years in a marxist organization

i have a number of proleftist critiques & contributions

fig4a howtodifferently

the first is most specific & important
a spectacle whichin i participated
first in a showtrial
then in very poor reaction
a good friend introduced me
to the concept of transformative justice
which i think
essential not just to aiding
victims of sexual assault
on the left
& elsewhere

but to confronting this beast
called capitalism
a system of dehumanization

& move to recognize
humanness
in oppressor oppressed
alike

handle things
in a delicate nurturing energetic way

that maps a new route
to confrontation
with the mechanizing monster
which would make
rote of our flesh

a squalor of hypnotism and violation

and look instead
for the way
that there might be hope
for us all

yours for the revolution
forbidden books

you cant compete with the state they have guns

one of my goals for this year is to finish at least volume two of capital by karl marx.

the introduction by ernest mandel has so far been one of the most revealing & compelling parts of this book
it presents the weapon manufacturing industry as the tireless backbone of capitalism

meaning when all other industries fail there will always be a market for weapons

meaning capitalism will never fail entirely with this basis in existence

there will "always" be state & private markets for weapons

the state has a monopoly on violence -
this is part of the marxist definition of the state
even violence against wild animals has to be state sanctioned in industrialized nations

marxism broadly reflects that in the absence of a final
crisis
meaning no natural death for capitalism or the state
armed insurrection illegal violence
is the only method for packing it away once & for all

kind of goofy to try to beat it at its own game

the state will always resort to violence when it has to in order to get people to behave the right way

& snever the white collars who wear the nooses in mass

even with dedicated leadership the strongest armed insurrections can only wreak so much change for so long

because violence has to do with coercion & power paradigms & competition

so those are the paradigms that need to be challenged usurped & changed

yours for the revolution
forbidden books