Saturday, March 25, 2017
Strong smell, faint smell
Unreason mag has an interview with Barrett Brown, who served four years in prison for directly threatening the life of a Fed agent who was investigating him. Unreason is trying to portray the prison as punishment for activism. Given that Brown was also involved with heroin at the time, the likely causation is more complicated. In general the Feds are slow to imprison people for simple activism or simple crimes; they get PISSED when a criminal works WITH them on a sting and then turns AGAINST them.
Brown's current activities also smell slightly fishy, like chastened Agent Provocateur returning to work. This smell is less definite.
Brown is now working as a "journalist" for a mainstream city journal, and he's trying to start a new activist group. If you were really in prison for activism, you wouldn't be allowed to do either of those things, and you wouldn't WANT to start a new group.
Sidenote: I used to read Unreason mag often in the '90s... even subscribed to the paper version for a while. Back then, libertarians had some valid points and useful ideas about decentralizing. Now that the Libertarians have become just another Hillary brand, Unreason seems lost and confused. Authors are trying to use the word "Liberty" to defend Gaia and Globalism. It doesn't work.
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