by Pete Eyre | Aug 17, 2021 |
A key impetus for FreeKeene.com is to cover liberty activism in the Free State of New Hampshire. Content often takes the form of documenting an uninvited incident, ousting aggressors, and supporting individuals standing up for their rights. But just as relevant in this peaceful evolution are happenings that proactively seek to grow neighborly goodwill and interconnectedness.
Enter: West Manchester Day, happening Saturday, September 04, 2021.
West Manchester, Free State of New Hampshire
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by Ian | Jul 21, 2021 |
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Though our YouTube is still online after receiving a bullshit content “strike” on a 10+ year old video, it could be taken down completely at any time. As a result, the time has come to finally migrate fully to exclusively posting our full video content on Odysee / LBRY. Starting today, the only videos that are posted to the Free Keene YouTube channel will be promo videos for the full versions which will exclusively be available on our Odysee channel.
How can you help? If you haven’t yet, please create an account on Odysee and follow our channel there. We have over 20,000 followers on YouTube but just over 300 on Odysee, so your assistance there would be appreciated. Of course, share your favorite Free Keene videos from our Odysee channel instead of YouTube. Our full catalog is on Odysee. Finally, if you really want to support the LBRY network that backs Odysee, you should go ahead and download the LBRY.com app for your desktop/laptop. Then, every video you watch of ours there, you’ll become a seed for on the network, which helps ensure our videos stay readily available online. Please visit video.freekeene.com, which will take you right to our Odysee channel. Thank you!
by Bonnie | Jun 14, 2021 |
Nobody Interviewed on Wake Up Call at WKNH-FM.
The former Pope Indigent of The Church of the Invisible Hand, Nobody, is still in jail. He has been meeting other prisoners, listening to their stories and proselytizing while locked up. He started a newsletter called “Spank”, and has been gathering addresses of people both in and out of jail. I, Bonnie, Peace Nun of the Shire Free Church and one of the Priestesses of the Church of the Invisible Hand, have taken on the role of typing up some things he has written in jail and getting them out to subscribers of Spank. Here is the introduction that will be in every newsletter.
Welcome to “Spank”, the newsletter of the Church of the Invisible Hand’s Prison Outreach Ministry.
Here, we will discuss the spirituality and beliefs of the Church, the sources that inspire it, the ideas that inform it, (both as a whole and in individual practice,) and the practices, both universal and individual, by which we express our beliefs and exercise our faith in them.
As we enter into the long predicted Tribulations and the time of Persecutions of our faith, we beg of our newer Brothers and Sisters to views us with an open mind. Our ideas may seem foreign to you. Our ways may seem strange. But if you study them, we believe you will find, as we have, a faith that works for us, both in theory and in practice. We ask nothing of you but your time and thoughts. If our ways are not for you, we will gladly refund your misery.
The Church is, like Discordianism, an open-source religion. If you agree with us for the most part, but find some of our beliefs unacceptable to you, we invite you to discard those parts of our faith that do not work for you and replace them with others that do. There are a few parts of our faith which cannot be changed without rendering your brand of religion alien to, and irreconcilable with ours. If you believe that you have the right to force your ways on unconsenting others, then your ways are not ours. Please reconsider, and if you cannot, go from us in peace. We advise you not to try to impose your ways on us, or on those we love. If you can do even this, you can live in peace with us. If you believe that races are superior to, or inferior to other races, then we have no time for you. There is one race; the human race. All else is nonsense. We will council you if you wish to hear us, but we will never recognize you as being of our faith until you recant this nonsense. Claim no connection to the Church, we excommunicate you.
The invisible hand of Nature, and its antithesis, the Visible Boot of Government, are not entities or deities in the classical sense. They are more similar to the yin and yang of Taoism. Masculine and feminine, light and dark, right and wrong, good and evil. If you feel your understanding of the Tao is so good that you may force it on others, you have no understanding of the Tao. The way which can be spoken is not the true way. The course which can be forced is not the true course.
If you know anyone who you think would enjoy our newsletter, please send us their name and address at the return address included. Soon, we hope to be able to include business reply postcards, but these things take time, and we are but an egg. Or, perhaps, a clutch. Conversely, if you wish to cancel your subscription, just let us know, or pass future copies on to others. If you want our words to be heard by others, send us money and help us amplify, market and promote our message. Five bucks a month will pay for printing and mailing for many.
We look forward to meeting you and knowing you, as we trudge the road to happy destiny. Until then, we leave you with the traditional Blessing of our People: May the Visible Boot of the Government kick not in thy Door, nor thy Teeth, nor Stomp Upon thy Face. Ramen.
If you’re interested in getting on the mailing list, email a mailing address or email to bonnie@freetalklive.com. Or send mail to Nobody at:
Nobody (Formerly Rich Paul)
314 Daniel Webster Hwy
Boscawen, NH 03303
by Ian | Mar 14, 2021 |
LBRY – Content Freedom
The supposedly offensive promo has a limited amount of footage that could possibly be objectionable. Was it the scenes of two men being arrested? A photo of a massive 420 rally in Central Square in 2009? A man speaking into a megaphone? A photo of a band playing or people playing a card game in Railroad Square? A large group of people standing around the “Welcome to New Hampshire” sign at the Vermont border? The 4:20 pumpkin?
Two days prior to this strike, another decade-old :15 promo was allegedly found objectionable, this one featuring then-libertarian Penn Jillette saying he should move to Keene to join the Free Staters. I appealed the finding, and YouTube reversed it, once again allowing the video to be played. So, when the subsequent takedown happened this weekend, I also appealed it, asking in my appeal where the supposed “harmful or dangerous” content was. They upheld their decision to block the short promo video and give the account a “strike”. Of course, they declined to state exactly what it was in those scant fifteen seconds that was so offensive.
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Luckily, we’ve been cultivating our exit plan from YouTube for years.
In 2018 Free Keene was among the first to join the “YouTube Partner Program” that automatically syncs our YouTube uploads to the decentralized blockchain-based media protocol, LBRY. We’ve promoted LBRY multiple times as they have successfully protected our videos that YouTube has deleted over the years.
Now, YouTube has increased its rate of finding things it doesn’t like about our videos. It may not be long before our entire channel is taken down. If you haven’t looked seriously at LBRY yet, now is the time to do it. In 2020, they launched Odysee, a video platform built on LBRY. I’ve created a handy url to take you right to the Free Keene channel on Odysee: video.freekeene.com. Unlike YouTube, LBRY/Odysee has no strikes and videos cannot be taken down. It’s true content freedom, and blockchain-powered. You can get the LBRY app or just follow our channel on Odysee.
From now on, this :30 migrate-to-LBRY promo will play at the end of every upload I am able to make to YouTube before they shut us down completely:
by Pete Eyre | Jan 9, 2021 |
Carl Watner, longtime proponent of voluntaryism, has passed away. He was 72 years young. He will be missed. And his efforts will live on through those of us seeking complete liberty.
Who was Carl Watner?
According to OpenlyVoluntary.com, Watner was:
an American author and historian of libertarian studies, and a voluntaryist. He has written articles for Reason magazine, the Libertarian Forum, Mises Institute and the Journal of Libertarian Studies. Although use of the label “voluntaryist” waned after the death of Auberon Herbert in 1906, its use was renewed in 1982, when George H. Smith, Wendy McElroy, and Carl Watner began publishing The Voluntaryist magazine.
That newsletter, The Voluntaryist, was published continuously since October 1982. For almost four decades Watner, a family man who ran a business in South Carolina, made time to share ideas he believed would foster human flourishing. He also wrote and edited a bevy of books, and is credited with tracking-down and making again accessible the seminal essay by Lysander Spooner, Vices Are Not Crimes.
Watner excelled at communicating a clear, consistent, strike-the-root message. Indeed, in no uncertain terms, Wendy McElroy wrote on her blog that Watner “was the primary hand in founding the modern Voluntaryist movement in the early 1980s.” She continues:
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by Ian | Dec 25, 2020 |
Captain Kickass’ “COVID Carols” – Click for Printable PDF.
The point of the Chronic Carols was to protest the insane war on drugs and do it in a creative and fun way, as singing is much more likely to bring people together or get people to listen to new ideas than say, chanting. Chanting can come across as mindless and angry whereas singing is harmonious. Singing is a virtually unassailable activity as a protest and the American civil rights movement had a lot of success with song, as did the “Singing Revolution” in Estonia.
Fast forward to the present situation where the war on drugs has lightened up a little – at least on cannabis – but now the war is coming against people who just want to breath free, associate with others, hug, or smile at another person. The madness of prohibition has changed into an insane medical authoritarian state. If there was ever a time for the Shire Choir to come back, it’s now.
Actually, the Shire Choir has already come back this year. It was when we visited the NH Attorney General’s house on Thanksgiving and performed the original Chronic Carols, since the war on drugs the AG is behind is still harming innocent, peaceful drug users and dealers. It was fun, but it was clear we needed some current material that could be sung in more places.
Thankfully, Captain Kickass – a longtime professional parody writer who happens to live in Keene – stepped up and cranked out four “COVID Carols” in just a matter of days. The tunes parodied include “Do you hear what I hear?”, which has become “Do you fear what I fear?”, “Merry Little Christmas” is now “Sterile Little Christmas”, “Joy to the World” as “Close down the World”, and “Little Drummer Boy” replaced by “Little Lockdown Boy”. Johnson Rice provided some talented graphic design to put the Captain’s creative lyrics to classic Christmas carols onto a dual-sided color songsheet that you can easily print out and share. Though we have the Shire Choir here in New Hampshire, these songs are intended for the entire world. You can form your own choir and sing anywhere this COVID madness and tyranny has struck.
We have found ourselves in a world now where the Centers for Disease Control is telling people not to sing and local government gangs are telling business owners they aren’t allowed to host karaoke and then fining them if they do. Seriously, that’s really happening.
Don’t let yourself be silenced by the state or social pressure. Sing loud, proud, and hopefully in unison with others. Download and print your own “COVID Carols” songsheet PDF now! Please do share it anywhere you like. It’s our gift to you that hopefully will brighten your spirits on what is an otherwise depressing year and holiday season. It’s darkest before the light – don’t lose hope and please make it your New Year’s resolution to join the liberty migration to New Hampshire in 2021!
