Freedom Fried: The Erosion of Liberty
Two’s-day is when I post my interpersonal and political items for the week that aren’t directly related to alternative energy, organic gardening or off-grid living.
There were a couple of good reviews posted on the Interblogs about Alongside Night, a novel by J. Neil Schulman that brings agorist philosophy to life more directly than any other literary work. Alongside Night was first published in 1979 and celebrates its 30th anniversary this year.
My favorite review was Wally Conger’s at his out of step blog, “Defending ALONGSIDE NIGHT”.
“. . .I think Alongside Night still stands as the Atlas Shrugged of agorism, the first and (so far) only novel to detail the revolution SEK3 talked about. It’s radical, it tells a good story, and it’s the perfect little book to pass on to friends when they greet your ideas with creased brows.”
The latest edition of Alongside Night contains a very special afterword by me, describing the technology that would be deployed by today’s informal undocumented sector, if it emerged from the underground economy, to rescue the displaced victims of the collapsed official system.
Back when the Dow was over 14000, the financial news shows treated Ron Paul’s economic advisor Peter Schiff as a crackpot for saying all the true things that have come to pass about mortgages, consumer debt and stock prices–on his declared schedule. Schiff’s forecast for the next few years looks like Alongside Night turned into nonfiction.
The Dow closed under 8,000 on inauguration day.
This would be the perfect time for a film adaptation of this classic work, as described in the press release linked from http://www.alongsidenight.com.
“Author/filmmaker, J. Neil Schulman, who in 1989 won the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award for his 1979 novel of America in financial meltdown, Alongside Night — and who on October 1, 2008, accepted the Audience Choice award from the Cinema City International Film Festival for Lady Magdalene’s, the suspense-comedy feature film he wrote, produced, and directed — has just completed a screenplay adaptation of Alongside Night that he’s been working on for 27 years.”
Getting back to the inauguration, I don’t have to remind readers that some expect greater social disruption due to peak oil, overpopulation, and/or ecological collapse. Don’t look for sunshine and rainbows from the right. Conservative Thomas Sowell, as you would expect, is also skeptical of economic improvement any time soon in his article “The Economic Stimulus”. He’s as critical of the Republicans who passed it as he is of the Democrats who will implement it.
“New things require long delays before they can get started, especially when they have to be done by politicians. Someone once said that Congress would take 30 days to make instant coffee — and Congress is just the beginning of the delays, as all sorts of competing interests jockey for position at the public trough.”
There were other deep thoughts about the inauguration and The Wizard of Oz from Boing Boing’s Xeni Jardin, “Bing, Bong, the Bush is Gone / 1-20-09: END OF AN ERROR.” including a. . .
“. . .simple little video of the “helicopter of happiness” carrying George W. Bush and fellow war criminals out of DC, and back to the hell that belched them forth.”
