Re: wto ~ what is to be done?

[Flint Jones <flint@mobtown.org>]

[: hacktivism :]

> I've seen several articles recently about the
> emergance of several tech-oriented unions.

Washtech? w4u? IBMunion? CWA?  IWW-IU560?  You in any of them?
Want to hook up?

> So far as I know, these have been ignored so far by
> the WTO, but seeing as the rest of western
> civilization thinks that anyone who can beat out a
> bunch of HTML is the coolest thing since cheeze-whiz,
> I would imagine that the WTO will be on us way too
> quickly, and there's no union as vunerable as a new
> union.

Not just on how it can affect the fledgling unions.  Think of this, an
international court of law determining how technology is to be used with
the interests of the largest corporations being the first priority.  An
international court to decide domain name disputes, intellectual property,
etc... which will always come down on side of the fucking rich and never
on the side of local communities, workers, the environment, etc... 

For instance, it it might be decided that the U.S. Government sponsoring
scholarships for students to learn programming might be regarded as unfair
competition with programmers in India and for the U.S. to get rid of it.  
Or, it might over turn the proposed French Legislation that will only have
the government their using Open Source, or the German governments donation
to GNUprivacy guards. Restrictions on safety standards in clean rooms for
semiconductor and chip manufactures might be overturned.  Patents would be
universalized, as would trademarks and copyrights.  Contract negotiation
which is brought about through an NLRB (National Labor Relations Board)
election in the U.S. could be regarded as government tampering with
business.  

The WTO is anti-labor, and thus anti-techworkers union.  Problem is, the
tech workers union that could counter it, and use direct action to
shutdown the entire global economy does not yet exist.  The only one even
promoting such tactics of militancy would be the IWW.  In addition to
fighting domain disputes, providing services... were working on a project
that will greatly open the whole project alot more.  Stay tuned.

> So, no, I don't think that the WTO is a central focus
> for hacktavists, or the hacker community at large, but
> yes, I think it should be, as it's the first thing to
> come along in several years that stands to affect us
> in a tangible manner.  (none of this Echelon, 'Big
> Brother might be spying on me' shit)

Yes.  We should smash the WTO.  I don't know if were up to actually
interfereing with the WTO with hacking over the net... but we can
definately aid the spreading of information from activists on the ground.  
The local micropower radio station is ready to do its part, along with
some of the local college stations... the local websites and email lists
are hot with anti-wto actions being planned.

I imagine some folks are probably going to hack every webpage related to
the WTO, and replace it with either editorials of their own making... or
maybe just swiping the excellent content from rtmark.com.  But thats just
part of the over publicity strategy.  I don't think we can mount a
stronger attack on international finance yet.  Somebody prove me wrong. :)

Solid,
	Flint


[: hacktivism :]
[: for unsubscribe instructions or list info consult the list FAQ :]
[: http://hacktivism.tao.ca/ :]