Stop Me Before I Vote Again

Y'know, in principle, I should support this action; I considered doing up a special masthead for my blog for the occasion, but I honestly couldn't get too worked up over it.

I guess it's because, basically, it's the Internet equivalent of a picket or a candlelight vigil -- a passive-aggressive action which changes or affects nothing. The Web blackout protest is a passive-aggressive action at a time when we need active-aggressive action -- all of Earth's Anons bringing their DDoS tools to bear on the MPAA, RIAA, and all the Hollywood studios and all the major record labels, when thousands of Netizens should be aiming their Low-Orbit Ion Cannons at house.gov, senate.gov, and whitehouse.gov.

The best reaction I can muster on this action is "M'eh"... because it doesn't do any damage. Movements involved in public protest -- both online and in meatspace -- need to revise their tactics, up the ante, and start engaging in actions which do real damage to status-quo institutions.

We needed an Internet 9/11, and all we got was the Internet holding its breath until it turned blue.

mike as usual you out pace reality
thankfully always in the left direction

but comrade black
this is clearly one step forward here
not one step back

i hope you don't get to the point where cleverly and rawly advertising your advanced position
becomes sufficient unto the day

surely unlike our strange visitor
from the distant little planet bileos
mr jack crow
you my fine fellow on occasion
consider
the possible realized
trumps
the hoarse growl
of
enraged impotence

I agree with Mike here. This is just another symbolic protest, lacking teeth. Nothing wrong with it in principle, but it will accomplish little.

We should be organizing boycotts of every company that supports this crap. Some clever fellow needs to figure out ways we can participate anonymously in mail-bombing and shutting down the Pentagon every hour of every day, not just as a one-off event by some hackers. Let's get the whole planet involved collectively in cyber-warfare against the US government and corporations. Resistance from your living room. A couch potato's dream.

sean
closet master mind of earth wide couch potato black mayhem

"This is just another symbolic protest, lacking teeth....it will accomplish little."

but will it accomplish nothing ?

you seem conflicted

and just what about its essential features
did you assume anyone here missed ?

"We should be organizing boycotts of every company that supports this crap"

no argument on that i suspect
from anyone here

brother tell us
when looking at this black out

this protest by certain
"interested elements"

this revealing of
a contradiction among corporations

this signal of high powered protesters

this limited liability symbolism

do you see it as a hindrance
to more effective anti IP action ?

want to jump directly to warp speed ?

it would seem so

anything less is in fact obstructionism

and yet you write the following

" Nothing wrong with it in principle.."

i guess that answers my questions

if not wrong sean
so whats your beef ??

simply that its not enough
and you 'd like to see more
or better be part of more ?

or do you simply want to display your mighty fierce agon at any opportunity
ala mike f here
and noticing this under cut it with the final mockery ...self mockery of couch potato terrorists

i wish you good luck in getting past symbolism and into
real hurts to the corporate megaliths my friend

if not tactics we share goals eh comrade ...right ?

viva ".. get the whole planet involved collectively in cyber-warfare against the US government and corporations"

---

i can't go along
with the escalation from
cyber tage to mail bombs

and yet in your case
i'd hardly try to dissuade you

i must say
i have a certain admiration for the unabomber
as fictional character ...but of course
he wasn't a fictional character

in fact i guess maybe i would try to dissuade
anyone from mailing bombs
at least anyone that might heed me
since i think
on the whole
taken all around
and looked at
thru the long lense of class struggle
globe wise

american domestic mail bombs
are prolly counter productive

--- now who's more pompous sean ??---

"We should be organizing boycotts of every company that supports this crap."

If we could pull that off, we wouldn't be fighting for scraps like no SOPA, would we?

But, news flash: The gap between ought and is is yawning, and "we" who see it barely exist, to say nothing of standing a snowball's chance of closing it all at once at this moment of Black Reagan and continuing commercial media dominance/addiction.

Meanwhile, this SOPA thing matters because it is an aspect of the larger politics of the internet and the public's right to own the airwaves and make the infrastructural rules for communications in a nation of 310 million souls.

SOPA will permit (if not encourage) private ISPs to censor traffic. This, in a situation where "the private sector" works its tail off to outlaw publicly owned ISPs:

http://www.consumertrap.com/2011/12/strangling-public-enterprise.html

I'd much prefer the media movement to be pressing on the latter issue, which would obviate the no SOPA drive. But that's a much tougher battlefield.

As it stands, fuck SOPA and PIPA, clearly and fully.

."but will it accomplish nothing ?

The last 45 years experience with this sort of theatrics suggests it won't.

and see it as a hindrance to more effective anti IP action ?

Yes and no. Of course, I would rather see people protest and speak out than remain silent. But at the same time free speech and protests can be a double-edged sword. In some ways, they can be the most potent anti-revolutionary tools the ruling elite has, because they serve as a safety valve for public resentment and help to defuse public rage by channeling it into avenues where it poses little threat to the established order, such as protests, candlelight vigils, etc. They enable people to think they are doing their part to change the system when in fact they are accomplishing nothing.

It isn't an accident that the ruling class invests so heavily in organizations like MoveOn which encourage people to engage in impotent protests, write letters to Congress and generally get outraged at this or that. They don't seem to fear generating public resentment at all just so long as it is carefully directed into organizational dead-ends or into active service to the interests of the elite, such as voting for Democrats or Republicans.

This isn't some tin-pot banana republic run by a generalissismo in a monkey suit who can think of no way of dealing with housewives banging pots and pans than to call out the national guard and open fire. These types have a tendency to push their people over the edge into violent revolution.

Our rulers see the potential in harnessing that rage, or at least employing a little political jujitsu to use the momentum of the protestors against themselves by bogging their energies down in useless protests rather than taking effective action.

This kind of theatrics doesn't necessarily preclude more effective actions, but it does tend to detract from them or create the impression that something is being accomplished when it isn't. It tends to be the default thing for people to rally around and then little attention gets paid to the necessity of doing something with actual impact rather than just mouthing off.

I hardly call organizing a boycott "jumping to warp speed" but starting off with effective action first and following on from there. Fuck the endless whining about everything.

As for mail-bombing I am talking about using massive amounts of e-mails from millions of sources to shut down Pentagon or corporate servers on a regular basis, as I think should be obvious from my suggesting it as a form of cyber-warfare. I am not talking about physical letter bombs. The challenge would be to find some way of enabling millions of people worldwide to access this form of warfare rather than it being the exclusive domain of hackers.

--- now who's more pompous sean ??---

I realize I can't post anything here without starting your well-tended old wounds bleeding like the stigmata op, but does this remark have a purpose?

But, news flash: The gap between ought and is is yawning, and "we" who see it barely exist, to say nothing of standing a snowball's chance of closing it all at once at this moment of Black Reagan and continuing commercial media dominance/addiction.

If we can persuade enough people to believe this, then surely it will be true. The ruling elite likes to encourage us to think our fellow citizens are all just a bunch of lazy, cowardly, brainwashed idiots who will never fight back so therefore, there is no point in trying to educate people or organize effective resistance. It's a defeatist attitude, not a realistic one.

I prefer not to make assumptions about what people will or will not do until we try. Contempt for your fellow citizens is the first form of media conditioning we need to overcome. Some people may be a little slower to the race than others and some will never show, but at least let's give them a race to run and see what happens.

That being said, I don't think most people find elitist leftist snobbery particularly appealing. A change of tone is in order if we wish to reach people.

Sean, I believe if you follow my writing, you'll find that I am very fully on board with the thesis that ordinary people are way less dumb and corrupt than many supposed greens and leftists presume.

Having said that, the topic is your own hyperbole about organizing against the whole system. Tell us, how can that happen? OWS is trying, and has gotten much more MSM coverage than one might have guessed, but, really, what's next? The answer isn't merely a matter of "trying."

And, meanwhile, why flush away easy fights like SOPA in the name of your snot-nosed hare-brained voluntarism? You haven't explained that one.

I agree a thousand percent with your take
On the well cultivated
Fellow citizen contempt line
Nothing is more toxic to. Activism

As for mail-bombing I am talking about using massive amounts of e-mails from millions of sources to shut down Pentagon or corporate servers on a regular basis, as I think should be obvious from my suggesting it as a form of cyber-warfare. I am not talking about physical letter bombs. The challenge would be to find some way of enabling millions of people worldwide to access this form of warfare rather than it being the exclusive domain of hackers.

ROFL, especially re the "find some way" phrase. Tell us the way, please. After that, you might also explain your theory of why hacking the Pentagon would change either the Pentagon or the corporate capitalism from which it arises.

Sean, I believe if you follow my writing, you'll find that I am very fully on board with the thesis that ordinary people are way less dumb and corrupt than many supposed greens and leftists presume.

Your reputation is well known on all the sites you frequent. Perhaps it's time to wake up and realize there's some truth to it?

Having said that, the topic is your own hyperbole about organizing against the whole system. Tell us, how can that happen? OWS is trying, and has gotten much more MSM coverage than one might have guessed, but, really, what's next? The answer isn't merely a matter of "trying."

Trying is all there is. No knows how to take down the system. Do you? Where did I say anything about "organizing against the whole system?" Stop putting words in my mouth.

People have a lot of ideas and we will not know whether those ideas are effective or not until we try them. It is narrow-minded and counter-productive to attack everyone whose ideas are different from yours, as you so frequently do here. It is doubtful that any one strategy alone will have much of an impact, or will have the same appeal to different people.

And, meanwhile, why flush away easy fights like SOPA in the name of your snot-nosed hare-brained voluntarism? You haven't explained that one.

Where did I suggest doing away with the protests? How does suggesting more effective action constitute flushing away "an "easy fight?" If this fight were as easy as you imagine it would have been over before it started. What is "hare-brained" about boycotts? You think the activist equivalent of holding your breath until you turn blue is more effective than hitting corporations in the wallet?

If you don't believe in voluntarism that leaves only two things: acquiescence and coercion. Which of these do you prefer?

ROFL, especially re the "find some way" phrase. Tell us the way, please. After that, you might also explain your theory of why hacking the Pentagon would change either the Pentagon or the corporate capitalism from which it arises.

Explain to me how some people shutting down their websites is going to stop SOPA or anything else. Then please explain to me why shutting down the websites of the companies pushing this thing and permanently preventing them from doing business on the Internet coupled with a boycott of their products in the brick and mortar market is a less effective strategy.

I am no more capable of hacking the Pentagon than I am of manufacturing an AK-47 in my living room or refining gasoline for Molotov cocktails. But these are all tools that can be made by others, and have been used in revolutionary struggle. Cyber warfare against corporations and the Pentagon won't overthrow the system, but it will put a hurt on it. Actions which don't put a hurt on the system are largely useless.

"does this remark have a purpose?"

yes self mockery

lighten up mate

i might note
todays press and the reaction on the hill
suggests the black out had an impact

big content may be forced to take
a step back here

todays press and the reaction on the hill
suggests the black out had an impact

I hope so. I'd like to be proven wrong. Or maybe they noticed that these particular bills aren't as corporate friendly as some would like them to be? On the very day of the blackout a group of Senators introduced new legislation called OPEN that is even more restrictive than SOPA, but which they are opening to input from all the big companies that complained. Seems like the old bait and switch game. I suspect they will come up with something more acceptable to corporate needs this time around and it will go through.

http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/20/technology/SOPA_PIPA_postponed/index.htm?hpt=hp_t3