Brian’s Column: My Bette Erwin Memorial

Posted on April 5, 2015 by Brian Wright

Tribute to a fiery leader who nurtured the cause of liberty

Bette_Erwin This is an encore piece (originally penned January 8, 2007) as I reach the last of the columns I created in the former clunky format. By conjuring up memories of the way we were—at least here in L/libertarian Michigan in the final quarter of the 20th century—it propels me to think more strongly from the roots of experience. Also, the Libertarian Party that she helped to seed has reached, by many people’s accounts, a Day of Reckoning. It is good to reflect on the salient plusses that arose under its auspices. — bw

For a while I was afraid no one would find out about her passing; finally some solid information emerged from a scattering of emails from friends and who knew her back in the day. “The day” being roughly 1974-1984 in Michigan libertarian politics.

During the period when Bette came to preeminence—she was the Michigan Libertarian Party candidate for US Senate in 1976 and 1982—I was into my iconoclastic-anarchist phase. Continue reading →

Book Review: Confessions of an Economic Hit Man (2004)

Posted on April 3, 2015 by Brian Wright

The inside story of Pax Americana foreign policy
by John Perkins

It’s been more than 10 years now since Confessions of an Economic Hit Man was published. And still the mainstream media is effective in blocking common understanding of how the Western banking cartel leverages Wall Street, the national security wonks, and the US military empire—in the guise of ‘economic development’—to transfer wealth from other countries into its clutches… with payoffs in the hundreds of $billions throughout its gorged network of corporate baronies.

John Perkins was a premier agent for these ‘developers.’ Boots on the ground, negotiating with statesmen and kings, skillfully articulating the contractual intentions of his Mob leaders to often reluctant representatives of the target countries. Continue reading →

Movie Review: Milk (2008)

Posted on April 1, 2015 by Brian Wright

The true test of sharing liberty…

Harvey Milk: [Voice Over, Last lines] I ask this… If there should be an assassination, I would hope that five, ten, one hundred, a thousand would rise. I would like to see every gay lawyer, every gay architect come out… If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door… And that’s all. I ask for the movement to continue. Because it’s not about personal gain, not about ego, not about power… it’s about the “us’s” out there. Not only gays, but the Blacks, the Asians, the disabled, the seniors, the us’s. Without hope, the us’s give up – I know you cannot live on hope alone, but without it, life is not worth living. So you, and you, and you… You gotta give em’ hope… you gotta give em’ hope. Continue reading →