The Playful Anarchist
Romney Joins Conservative Call for Further Conflict
Fed up with what he calls the "namby pambyness" of other Republican contenders, … [Read More...]
Fort Bragg Warm, Fuzzy over Obama Visit
As we gear up for the 2012 campaign, supporters and critics alike are calling … [Read More...]
Republicans Debate Who Deserves Bombing in 2012
The primary topic of the Republican presidential debates was who each candidate … [Read More...]
Seven-11 Concerned About NASA Gas Stations
NASA, the US space agency, completed a study in July, and is now seriously … [Read More...]
North Korea Doesn’t Understand Where Non-Aggression Comment is Coming From
South Korea announced today that it will not tolerate any aggression from North … [Read More...]
Primogeniture Fades Along With a Measure of King Arthur’s Legitimacy
England and the other realms which consider Elizabaeth II their monarch today … [Read More...]
The Honest Conservatives say It’s Time to Stop Pretending
A new organization, The Honest Conservatives, is creating discomfort among … [Read More...]
Clarence Thomas Starts New Sex Group
Clarence Thomas has founded a new organization for people who have been, in his … [Read More...]
Soldier Discovered in Military Cemetery – FBI Concerned
The FBI arrested a military veteran in Arlington National Cemetery this morning, … [Read More...]
Stripper Porn-star Offended by Penis Euphemism
Ginger "G-strap" Lee, the exotic dancer (some say she's a "stripper" and there's … [Read More...]
Palin Explains Civil War at Sesquicentennial
Sarah Palin visited Fort Sumter today, where exactly 150 years ago the opening … [Read More...]
Produced by Asher Black
White House bin Laden Script Subject to Revision
The reported assassination of Osama bin Laden that began with a US military … [Read More...]
Pat Robertson Says God is Pissed Off Again
Pat Robertson, today, in a press release responded to ninety-seven tornadoes … [Read More...]
Sesame Street Exposed – May be Next to Lose Funding
Republicans today added another icon of public media to their targets for … [Read More...]
Ragdoll Wins Men’s Favorite
Anzu Ayami has been awarded the Beauty Icon of 2011 crown by Popular Opinion … [Read More...]
King Defends Radicalization Hearings
Under fire over the hearings on radicalization of Muslims, Peter King today … [Read More...]
Human Rights Advocates Say It Was Just a Theory
U.S. human rights supporters who called for an end to the genocide by Muammar … [Read More...]
Sarah Palin Vindicated on Washington Wildlife
Published research by the US Department of Fish and Wildlife, yesterday, … [Read More...]
Opponent of Islam Admits Just Making It Up
Under fire about a previous comment on Muslims "occupying US neighborhoods" and … [Read More...]
Belgium Finds Government Actually Unnecessary
After 9 months with no government, breaking the record previously held by Iraq, … [Read More...]
Media Wrongly Reports Gaddafi’s Claim of Cease Fire
Western news outlets erroneously reported today that Libyan leader Muammar … [Read More...]
US Says Libyan Massacres Important – Yemen and Bahrain Not So Much
The US state department said today that ongoing government attacks on civilians … [Read More...]
Nonspirational Mantras (from The Anarchist Playbook)
If the US is a Christian nation, I’m with the antichrist.
One can acknowledge that the politicized version of fundamentalist Islam is dangerous and destructive. But so is the politicized version of fundamentalist evangelicalism. And the latter has been far more insidious, far reaching, and wreaked greater suffering, murder, and terror than any wild-eyed imam's most evil dream. The fact that it's being done to everyone else, or that we're "right", or 'we … [Read More...]
All Solutions Create Undesirable Problems
This does not mean one is excused from doing anything; apathy creates the worst problems. But all proposed solutions to any given problem will create further undesirable conditions - some forseeable and some discreet. The world allows no pure answers and no perfect actions. … [Read More...]
The People are Always Wrong
Whenever you want to do something irrational, paranoid, or bigoted, on a national or local level, appeal to the will of the people, and garner bipartisan support. Claiming you're merely representing your constituents is the ideal cop out for something that can't stand up, reasonably, on its own. If you have to appeal to the people (ad populum), it's always a dishonest cover for dubious … [Read More...]
If Someone Can Think It, Someone Will Do It
The Arkansas derivatives forgeries were so easy to pull off, so almost reflexively evil, that they occurred as easily as ordering office supplies or creating a marketing flyer [source]. They illustrate one of Asher's Maxims (see title). Of course, I suspect the forgeries in Arkansas are actually quite common everywhere. Look at the crap that was forged to justify the invasion of Iraq - which people … [Read More...]
Ideology is to Groups what LSD is to the Mind
The Colosseum - Cultural Insanity, Ideology, & Personalism: Ideology creates group insanity. You see it everywhere. Look at the fundamentalists watching disasters with baited interest, speculating that it signals the apocalypse. They can't love or maintain an attitude of compassion - that part of them has been shriveled to a stump by ideology. They wonder aloud whether God is punishing the … [Read More...]
Superpowers Always Prefer Tyrants, Because Dealing with a Million Peasants is too Expensive
Propping Up Dictators Has Been a Nonstop US Policy: Watching people surround all the murdering, torturing, embezzling, lying, oppressive dictators that the U.S. and other "freedom loving" powers supported, funded, and kept in place all these years, one can't help but observe that this is such an ingrained norm in the U.S. that it's unlikely to change with U.S. intervention and help of any kind. … [Read More...]
Enjoying Someone’s Illness is the Greater Illness
I'm getting sick not of Charlie Sheen, but of people enjoying the spectacle of mental illness in a celebrity. It's like watching someone on fire, flailing about in the street, and taking an either academic or vaguely amused and curious interest in it. Sheen's sickness makes far less of an impression on me than the emotional amputees serving as his spectators. … [Read More...]
We Go to War Over Schools, Because Alternatives Require Real Effort
Curriculum, Textbook Wars, Fundamentalists, and Left Wing Nuts: I was listening to NPR's retrospective on the textbook wars in West Virginian in 1974, and I found myself thinking that, as little truck as I have with fundamentalists of any stripe, they are not without some valid points in this matter. For one thing, the textbook committees that produce these texts have either got to be the … [Read More...]
It’s Easy to Be Brave Facing a Minivan with a Tank
The irony of Muslim courage, compared to how they've been portrayed in the West, is seen in that the protestors in Libya are so brave. The mercenaries and "militia" working for Gaddafi are such cowards. It's easy to receive acclaim for courage when you're wearing a million dollars in equipment on your back, or driving a ten million dollar vehicle, or flying a hundred million dollar plane, dropping … [Read More...]
When the Military Turn on the People, They Become Foreign Mercenaries
Gaddafi is like the gun toters that shoot people in public schools ("ready to die as a martyr"); he has basically said he is willing to kill a lot of people, destroy their ability to survive (e.g. the oil wells and pipelines), and then kill himself. Once a person reaches this point, and there's no negotiation, you've really got not recourse but to launch an assault to capture or kill him. The … [Read More...]
We’ve Already Established That Elections Are for Sale – Now We’re Just Haggling Over the Reserve Price
It costs a billion dollars now, we're told, to run for president. You know, even the dumbest person who makes fun of conspiracy theories should be able to figure out that a billion dollars isn't coming from the ordinary guy on the street, however much microdonations may have been an interesting facet of the last election. Multinational corporations, mega-industries like healthcare, arms, and … [Read More...]
Emergencies Always Continue Until Replaced by a More Useful Emergency
On renewing the Patriot Act: I just wish the advocates of fascism (conservatives) and statism (conservatives and liberals) were actually honest people. If they could admit that when a state deprives people of civil liberties like privacy under supposed "emergency conditions", it has no intention of returning those liberties to the people under ordinary conditions, or else "ordinary" will just never … [Read More...]
Capitalism was a Ponzi Scheme Until they Made it Legal
A genuine anarchist has nothing against the actual operation of capitalism, which is predicated on separating foolish people from wealth they don't deserve (just look at what they're spending it on). It's the institutions and ideology of capitalism that an anarchist considers toxic to life. It's one thing to trick people out of their money - it's another to teach them it's right to be fooled and … [Read More...]
Latest Ashercasts (Brim Full of Asher)
Anarcast #10: Revolutions, Libya, & Gaddafi
The Playful Anarchist podcast, with Asher Black
Topic: The revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Libya. Gaddafi the Acid-head. Chants as Middle Eastern Kumbaya. The hypocrisy of conservatism. Inconsistent conspiracies. Sarah Palin (always more nutty goodness). The embarrassment of the West – US & Europe. The news as ongoing demonstration of conspiracy and anarchist premises.
Music: by Kalakh (“Hoba Hoba Spirit”). Opinions: solely those of Asher Black.
Standard Podcasts [11:15m]: Play in Popup | Download
Anarcast #9: Earthquakes & Fundamentalism
The Playful Anarchist podcast, with Asher Black
Topic: Earthquakes that get lots of press and so lots of aid, prompt some fundamentalists to ask whether it’s God’s judgment on some particular nation – as though God considers national boundaries the defining factor in whom he judges, and as though the US, where such discussion occurs, is a righteous and good nation, with whom God is quite pleased, while countries like Haiti and Chile are bad ones, and God is angry with them – anger being presumably the cause of judgment. Asher analyzes this kind of thinking in the context of these and other earthquakes, drawing on the US Geological Survey, the Center for Earthquake Research and Information, and other references.
Music: by Beth Quist (Q Song) on the Magnatune label. Opinions: solely those of Asher Black.
Standard Podcasts [5:43m]: Play in Popup | Download
