Radio Free Astrodome: Update

Jesse Walker | September 9, 2005

Yesterday I mentioned that officials had blocked volunteers from setting up a low-power radio outlet for the Astrodome's evacuees. While that station is still being stymied, the good news is that other grassroots information efforts are flowering. Hannah Sassaman of the Prometheus Radio Project writes in an e-mail:

they've handed out thousands of radios already and plan to do more over the weekend. a local station, KPFT, has already dedicated a number of hours a week to programming made by, for, and about the needs, affairs, and stories of displaced people and families. with 8600 people confirmed today by harris county officials still in the astrodome shelter complex, we're exploring a few other options for the LPFM with the FCC, so we'll let you know if there is suddenly a reason to celebrate.

non-astrodome reasons to celebrate: other groups are getting permits to build stations in the hurricane affected regions, including bay st. louis and new orleans itself. and wireless networks are flourishing, allowing families to make VOIP phonecalls and research housing and job options online.

more when we know more!

Comments

|9.9.05 @ 11:23PM|#

The radio thing is nice, but I think a much larger issue is going on with Katrina.

Disclosure: I just gave $100 to the Salvation Army for its Katrina Relief fund, and I grew up in central Mississippi even though I now live in the desert Southwest.

The point is simple: We libertarians have long claimed that help only comes from people given to people. There is an enormous outpouring of charity by people all over the US (even from other nations, including Mexico - think about that) to help those in need after this hurricane. It comes from people and is given to people.

FEMA is a disaster itself. It should be painfully clear to everyone now that government is the last place to turn for help. Government is spastic - especially the federal government - and it only gets in the way and blocks people from helping other people.

I must make an allowance here: The National Guard and various local police and fire departments (including my own here in Chandler) have sent people to the Gulf coast who did an admirable job in difficult circumstances. When our local fire department was ready to come home, a local regional airline made a flight just for them to bring them home at no cost.

This is how we do it. The idea that the federal government is ultimately responsible is an ugly illusion. We as a nation must disabuse ourselves of that. We libreterians have this colossal case in point. We have to remembr that and press that in the courts of public policy and public opinion.

|9.10.05 @ 1:21AM|#

May I make a general point about the tenor of the posts I've seen here lately?

Look, I know you guys are idealists and all, but there's a point where you have to get real. I know the Republican party is far from perfect, but Jesus, consider the alternative.

The GOP and only the GOP is comitted to letting you keep your money -- cutting taxes, ending the death tax, and eventually going to either a flat tax or no income tax at all. The GOP and only the GOP is comitted to phasing out the tyranny of Social Security. The GOP and only the GOP is committed to lifting the onerous restrictions on business that exist.

Look, if we can just ride this out and return a Republican majority and president in 2008, we are going to see some serious progress -- not that we haven't already -- in returning true economic liberty to this country.

Don't worry so much about this and that occasional beauracratic boondoggle or this or that occasional failing by the administration. Look at the big picture. If the Republicans can stay in power for another decade, we WILL starve the Federal beauracracy to EXTINCTION. We WILL end the income tax. We WILL finally end Social Security. We WILL eliminate many of the Federal "enforcement" (enslavement) beauracracies.

Even if Congress doesn't want to, they will HAVE to go along. Because there won't be any WAY to continue on the New Deal path.

All this carping I see at the Republicans does not help us get to our COMMON GOAL. I know this site doesn't make a HUGE difference in elections, but it does make SOME difference in what gets talked about in. And that matters.

When the two major parties are Republican and Libertarian, then you can go back to being all pure and stuff. Until then, doesn't it make sense to go a little easier on your only ally among the major parties?

|9.10.05 @ 2:07AM|#

So, let me get this straight, A Citizen. We're just in the first stage of this Republican starvation of the Federal bureacracy. That's the part where profligate spending increases the deficit. Is that the deal?

|9.10.05 @ 2:29AM|#

Mr Citizen,

I am afraid you are very mistaken about what the GOP is trying to do. Let us take this point by point:

1) The GOP is not committed to letting me keep my money. If they were they would actually be spending less then they bring in through taxes. Actually, they would be getting rid of taxes completely, since the smallest tax means that they are indeed taking my money from me.

Now you can argue that they cut my taxes slightly. Of course, they are borrowing the difference from Alan Greenspan, who is loaning them freshly printed bills. Guess what that does? It dilutes my purchasing power. In other words, I may have more money in my bank account, but it buys less stuff. Even better, when inflation prompts my employer to offer me a higher wage, that eventually will push me into a higher tax bracket, so you will be taking more of my less valuable money.

2) The GOP is not interested in phasing out Social Security. The proposal they have tabled essentially expands the tyranny. After a few years under the program, government appointed fund managers will own about 10 - 25% of the stock in publicly traded companies. It is probable that these fund managers will be majority owners of some of the larger companies. Now, is the Federal government going to allow these companies to fail? Even if they produce a product that is not competitive? History tells us that it won't. There is a definition of an economy wherein individuals officially own the means of production but the state controls them. It's called fascism, and I really have no interest in living in such a society. It didn't work when FDR tried it, and it isn't going to work when Bush's succesor takes office either.

3)The GOP has had ample opportunity to repeal Sarbanes Oxley. They have taken no steps in that direction despite the disaster it has been for publicly traded companies. If they wanted to prevent Enron from happening, all they needed to do was repeal the dividend tax. Instead they have made officers of publicly traded companies into criminals. It is impossible for a businessman to not violate Sarbanes Oxley because it is so vagualy worded. Guess what, if you want to do business as a publicly traded company, you'd better keep the state and Federal A.G.'s happy, because they own your ass.

4) Starving the beast will require the collapse of the Federal Reserve System, and by extension the U.S. banking system, and the repudiation of the National Debt. Let me explain the implications of this. Hyperinflation renders your money worthless. Nobody will want to sell us stuff since we no longer can afford it. Given the abbysmally poor understanding of economics by the body-politic they are going to scream for, and get, draconian laws that they wrongly think will save us from the mess were in. These laws will probably stagnate the economy and prevent recovery just as the New Deal did during the Great Depression. Again, if you look at history, when the santorum hits the fan, people don't scream for more freedom. They scream for the government to loot the hoarders, the people who planned for the future.

The GOP controls both houses of Congress, and the Presidency. If they could pass those absurd laws regarding Terry Sciavo in three days, I think they could star economic liberalization now.

Hell, if they want to starve the beast without tanking the economy, all they need to do is repeal the federal Reserve Act and go back to the gold standard. Then you'd see a government really constrained to live within its means. Even better, then you wouldn't have to worry about current account deficits and jobs going overseas, it would be self-correcting!

From their inception, the Republicans have been mercantilists - believers in state managed crony capitalism. They are not supporters of freedom, but opponents of it. They are not allies of libertarains, but their enemies. Well, with the exception of rep. Ron Paul, that is.

So, if you want to beg for our support, I suggest that you actually offer us something concrete. You guys got yourselves into this mess, and we owe you nothing.

Another citizen|9.10.05 @ 2:58AM|#

1. I don't think there is anything incompatible between libertarianism and a highly progressive tax structure.

2. If the tax structure were more progressive, then the tax burdens would be less in the aggregate.

3. When businesses, as contrasted with individuals, had a higher share of the tax burden, the tax structure was much more progressive. Governments (fed, state) were also smaller and less obtrusive at that time.

4. The time to really cut spending is when you have the WH and both houses of Congress. If your party doesn't cut spending when in that unusually superior position, then your party ain't gonna cut spending ever.

|9.10.05 @ 11:14AM|#

A Citizen;

You are not the first Republican to ask Libertarians to cut you guys some slack. You say that the Republicans are the only ones that can save us from the evil Democrats. You Republicans that blindly support Bush make me want to do the technicolor yawn. Bush is way worse than Clinton, both from an ethical and administrative standpoint. I can't stand either one, but Clinton's watch didn't bring us Iraq, the War on Terror, the Marc Emery / DEA debacle, and the Katrina dog and pony show to mention a few.

1) The government has NEVER become smaller under either a Republican or Democratic Administration / Congress.

2)The war on some drugs has become more draconian with every Republican Administration. The war on some drugs was started by a Republican. Incidently, the Democrats didn't do anything to mitigate this erosion of our civil rights. We have more cops now than ever and the war on some drugs has been going strong for over 30 years. (Any true patriot would call this war intractable)

3) Colorado elected a Republican Governor(Owens) who supported Amendment 22, which closed that evil "gun show loophole" and made a consentual agreement between 2 private individuals a matter of law enforcement. Owens is also working to "de-TABOR" the constitution through Referendums B and C to allow our state government to keep more of our money. (But it's not a tax, HA)

4) Tarran's hyper-inflation point is right on. Starving the beast could cause numerous unintended consequences. We could be buying groceries with wheel barrows full of money.

5) The Republicans may tax us a little less, however they still allow the government to grow larger and take more of our rights.

All I can say is I will continue to vote my conscience and call a spade a spade and bullsh*t when I see it. Liberty Now!

|9.10.05 @ 7:27PM|#

I like how A Citizen calls us all a bunch of idealists, and then goes on to talk about how the Republican party is for lower taxes and a smaller government.

|9.10.05 @ 8:59PM|#

Back to the point of this thread, the people of New Orleans v. Katrina & the federal government.

Direct action between people is what provides relief. Waiting for the government is waiting for Godot.

I just watched Chris Matthews. One of his guests, a BBC correspondent, said, 'you just don't have any top-down system.'

Like DUH. We fought a war with Britain 229 years ago to escape that. Help here does not come from the top down - nor from the bottom up. It comes sideways. It looks chaotic, but it is a self-organizing chaos where thousands of individual decisions are made that could never be centrally coordinated except with horrfic delay and inhumanity.

New Orleans had 3,500 or so restaurants. SIRA, the national association of retaurateurs, is already placing evacuees in jobs and much more than that helping them find homes and transportation to work and establish themselves in new lives.

Like Jakov Smirnov says, 'I luf dees country!'