Re: AKA (Was: Re: Hactivism comments by EFF)

[Chuck0 <chuck@tao.ca>]

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I hate to break up Flint's excellent comments, but I've interspersed
some thoughts below.

Flint Jones wrote:
> 
> [: hacktivism :]
> 
> > "A lot of groups are claiming that they're hacking into sites for a
> > higher moral purpose, but they're hiding beyond anonymity or
> > pseudonymity."
> 
> The common liberal interpretation of the civil rights movement in the 60s
> that all was done completely publically and transparently, is looking back
> with pinko colored glasses.  Further, civil disobedience, activism, etc...
> is far older and far more varied than how certain activists groups today
> interpet it.
> 
> I've been to entirely to many demonstrations over the years where the only
> "civil disobedience" going on was largely a sham, a show, a regularly
> orchestrated ritual of protestors standing/sitting/chaining themselevs to
> a certain space they were "not allowed" to be in.  Then, law enforcement
> would do its "duty" and arrest these protestors.  Papers would get
> processed and everybody would be out in a hour or two and have to show up
> later for a court date where the charges would probably be dropped.  This
> is pathetic, and does hardly any good outside of symbolic value because
> the media rarely covers any of it, so your only reaching the people who
> already showed up.  Many activsts are proud of the number of arrests
> they've gotten.  Many are tied up with some ideas of 60s-civil
> rights-hippy revolution that was hardly the reality of what was going, and
> further hamstring themsleves by only using their civil disobedience to
> influnece the powers that be, rather than making a real change in the
> lives.

We see this problem alot here in DC. There is a very complex protest
etiquette that local "nonviolent" activist groups have arranged with the
cops. You sit down or stand in front of the White House during a demo,
you get arrested. Don't want to get arrested, keep moving with that
sign. We've also seen local leftists (not anarchists) co-opt a
developing situation where punk activists at a Free Peltier demo where
willing to challenge a police order to stay out of the street. This
"spokeperson" for a local lefty group, who moments earlier had been
lecturing about police brutality, was in the forefront of getting the
kids to obey the cops (he lost alot of credibility after this incident).

Civil disobedience means *disobeying*, not playing some activist board
game with the cops. Even at these orchestrated pacifist sit-ins, I've
seen cops take HOURS to arrest a dozen demonstrators. If they want to
make our work harder, I suggest we repay them that favor.

For some good criticisms on the ineffectiveness of today's "civil
disobedience" activists, I suggest that folks read Ward Churchill's
excellent "Pacifism as Pathology."

> Sitting where you weren't supposed to sit, going where you weren't
> supposed to go... because of racial segregation was direct action.  People
> took their lives into the own hands and made the world they wanted right
> then and there.  Often, they were arrested, beaten and imprisoned for
> violating laws.  When they got together and took a stand against a law
> collectively... their simply aren't enough prisons (well, there weren't
> then. ;)   Ofcourse, all kinds of groups were taking actions that are
> unthinkable by most activists today.  There is a whole range of tactics
> between pacificism and violence that many activsts ignored today (atleast
> in rhetoric).

The situation of American activism is pretty pathetic, with activists
not even willing to risk misdemeanor arrests. Fortunately, new forms of
direct action (RTS-style) imported from Europe will make street protests
in the next decade pretty interesting.

> The gall of some people to claim that say, hackers in Indonesia that are
> trying to do something to slow the genocide of people in East Timor,
> aren't behaving responsibly since they use psuedonyms or act
> anonymously... is pretty much the height of middle class liberal
> reformism.  If hackers in Indonesia were up front with who they are,
> they'd be dead.  Ditto for China.  If some totalitarian government
> intelligence database on dissidents gets deleted... I'm not going to shed
> any tears about the destruction of "intellectual property".

We should also keep in mind that organizations like AAAS (who publishes
Science) have come out in favor of encryption to support the anonymity
of activists and scientists working under repressive regimes.

See: http://www.aaas.org/spp/crypto/crypto.htm

If one says that it is wrong to do anonymous activism, they are the
extremists, not us. If a major association supports anonymous activism,
it can't be a far out issue.
 
> If governments are killing people, it seems that almost any action can be
> morally justified... whether it is done anonymously or transparently,
> whether it involves the destruction of property or not, trespass or not.
> To accept something different and ineffectual is being complicit.

Let's not forget those bombs dropped this year on Yugoslavians.

It's no wonder why I flipped off that stealth bomber I saw on Saturday.

-- 
Chuck0

Alternative Press Review
http://flag.blackened.net/apr/

Free Leonard Peltier!

"A society is a healthy society only to the degree 
that it exhibits anarchistic traits." 
        - Jens Bjørneboe

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