Erwin S Strauss - How to Start Your Own Country

For the person on your Christmas list who has everything.

Ever wonder about the phrase "sovereign debt"? In the longest telephraphed coup d'etat in history, spanning decades, from the early 1970s through Friedman's stupid opeds in the New York Times in the 90s and 00s, the bankers want to equate national sovereignty with a monetary sum, as if sovereignty were for sale, and as if a default on payment for out-of-control borrowing by states meant the bankers somehow own that sovereignty.

Wnat to fuck with the bankers? Nationalism of the old-fashioned variety is old hat and part of their system of divide and conquer. Right now the "sovereign debt crisis" is aimed at the psychogeographical unit known as the nation-state (or just state), formerly used in tandem with nationalistic madness to wed the masses to their machines of enslavement, so why not throw a wrench in their works and declare independence?

Erwin Strauss's classic book was originally published by Loompanics running into a second edition and then sold to Palladin Press along with most of the Loompanics catalogue. More recently it has been translated in Chinese and published in Taiwan. Strauss considers the benefits and downsides of a number of issues, including whether to deploy nuclear arms as a guarantor of sovereignty, the different routes taken by new-country projects, a very astute discussion of sovereignty and the bulk of the book made up of case histories of past projects.

Here's what the Loompanics catalogue said about the book:

"Who among us has not dreamed of a "new" country, free of all the taxes, bureaucrats, regulations and idiocy that often make life all but unbearable in today's established nations? Political reform is impossible--so why not start your own country?

"This daring approach to freedom has actually been tried many times in recent years, with varying degrees of success. This fascinating book covers the histories of these new country projects, and discusses what went wrong (or right) and why, with suggestions and alternatives available to you.

"Contents include:

-Case histories of dozen of "new country" projects, most of them since 1960!

-The five approaches to starting a new country that have the best chances of working today.

-Obtaining sovereignty -- the single greatest obstacle to new countries -- three alternatives

-Diplomacy and national defense for new countries.

-Ships under flags of convenience -- as good as a "new" country?

-Internal organization of the new country -- what is best for you?

-How to recruit settlers -- and pitfalls to avoid.

-How to raise funds for a new country project.

-How to deal with the Superpowers, such as Russia and the U.S.A.

-Advantages and disadvantages of various approaches to establishing a new country.

-The inside story on Sealand, Operation Atlantis, Minerva, and other recent new countries.

-And much, much more, including a lengthy Access chapter with names and addresses of current "new" countries!

"Illustrated with dozens of rare photographs, How to Start Your Own Country is a book sure to create interest and controversy. A book that will be invaluable to anyone considering unusual approaches to personal freedom. Highly recommended!

"1999, 5 1/2 x 8 1/2, 167 pp, illustrated, indexed, sof tcover. HOW TO START YOUR OWN COUNTRY: $12.95 (ORDER NUMBER 17028)"

This collection includes an epub, djvu and two pdfs: one with text under graphics, the other just graphics from a scan. The epub contains decent graphics files, but the pdfs suffer from being compressed by some pdf reducing software that introduced non-standard Adobe pdf format references inside the files. The pdfs should be viewable, but you might encounter problems converting them to other formats.

Thanks to archive.org and library.nu for hosting this.