RTMark rtmark.comis a brokerage that benefits
from limited liability just like any other corporation.
Using this principle, RTMark supports the sabotage of
corporate products by channeling funds from investors
to workers. As ordinary corporations are solely and entirely
machines to increase their shareholders' wealth (often to the
detriment of culture and life) so RTMark is a machine
to improve its shareholders' culture and life
(sometimes to the detriment of corporate wealth).
Andrei Codrescu, prolific writer and National Public
Radio commentator says of RTMark:
"RTMark continues to gain territory in the ongoing
battle against faceless corporations and what used
to be known as human beings, now in the process of
becoming corporate appendages.... I must congratulate
RTMark ...on its victories in cyberspace and in the
secretive lands of Corporate Art, where their advances
have been nothing short of stunning."
Hi Virginia,
Thanks for your amusing mention of RTMark in connection with unbridled
free trade (http://www.forbes.com/forbes/00/0110/6501072a.htm). Calling
RTMark "antibusiness activists" does give us an appealing and otherworldly
comicality, and suggesting that this "California milk law" is
representative of legislation designed to protect citizenries against
corporate predation... that's downright hysterical! I'm sure many good
belly laughs are already rocking the Forbes-reading public.
Opposition to free trade as slapstick: how much for the movie rights?
Riley Burden
http://rtmark.com/
Bringing IT to YOU.
Fiambrera (http://www.sindominio.net/fiambrera)
are a collective who live and work in Valencia,
Sevilla and Madrid. Billboards, dog shit, airport signs,
flamenco music and video games are some of the political
tools Fiambrera use to reinforce a will for grassroots
radical democracy.
Together RTMark and Fiambrera are developing new
strategies for today's artist, tying artistic work to real
political and social challenges -- not just referring to them--
but helping to build them *from the inside.*
http://www.intellectualcapital.com/issues/issue332/item7718.asp
Innovation and the Amateur Spirit
by Howard Rheingold
Thursday, December 23, 1999
The New Interactivism : How will the Internet change politics? Howard
Rheingold explores the changing public sphere.
Pro & Con: The Underside of Moore's Law : Is there such a thing as too much
technology? Howard Rheingold considers the pitfalls of technology
acceleration.
No innovation of the 20th century stands out more than the World Wide Web.
The seeds of the collaborative spirit, and subsequent dilemma, that defines
American innovation are apparent in the creation, and subsequent
popularization, of the Web. A product of love
The Web was built for love before it was ever used to make money. Although
the Defense Department funded the forefather of the Internet, the ARPAnet,
the first online communities (which led to the mainstreaming of the Web)
emerged when ARPA programmers created the first listservs and started
communicating about their favorite science-fiction books -- strictly for
fun. Usenet has been a non-commercial, cooperative effort for 20 years.
Internet Relay Chat, Netiquette, Frequently Asked Questions, were all
created by people who wanted to enrich online culture -- with no thought to
commercial consideration. There is no denying the allure of the enormous
amounts of money that have appeared through the magic of the Web industry.
But there would not be any dot com billionaires today if amateurs had not
built the Web because it was a cool thing to do.
The original "hacker ethic," celebrated in Steven Levy's book Hackers before
the term came to mean cyber-vandalism in the popular parlance, was a norm of
cooperation. In the early 1960s at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
's Artificial Intelligence (AI) laboratory -- the mothership of more than
one revolution in computing technology -- computer programmers punched
instructions into patterns on paper tape. They left the rolls of punched
paper that represented certain software tools in an unlocked drawer for
everyone to use. Everyone in the lab could use the software encoded on the
tape, and internal intellectual competition encouraged them to figure out
better ways to do the same task, improve the software and replace the paper
tape with a new one.
To the original AI hackers, software was a common resource, a collaborative
creation of a community, not private property of any individual. Microsoft
Chairman Bill Gates' now-famous letter to the Homebrew Computer Club in the
late 1970s brought to close an era when nobody who knew how to create
personal computer software would think of trying to sell it. Outraged about
piracy of Microsoft's first product, a BASIC compiler, Gates made it clear
in the letter that software was a valuable commodity that could be owned and
should not be stolen.
>From Fidonet to fortune
Fifteen years ago, when you had to be a government researcher or have a
university connection to get an Internet account, Tom Jennings and the
Fidonet community created a distributed community of independent but
cooperative bulletin boards (BBSs). Each node was a personal computer
running a dial-up Fido BBS. Late at night, when rates were cheap, Fidonet
BBSs sent each other messages through the shortest telephone distance
possible, relaying messages from one part of the network to each other. You
cannot get much more amateur than BBS sysops. Although they were amateurs in
the sense that they created Fidonet for their own enjoyment, rather than
profit, the BBS amateurs were highly competent and inventive. They created a
poor person's Internet decades before the Net emerged into the wider
culture.
If you inquire into the backgrounds of the CEOs, managers and investors in
the early Web-based companies, you will find a large number of ex-BBSers,
who first encountered and thrived in the culture of technology
entrepreneurship when they were teenagers, running Fido BBSs out of their
bedrooms.
E-commerce has turned the Web into an engine for creating and distributing
wealth, and for creating better ways to create and distribute wealth. The
Web has become the biggest cash register in history as well as being a
self-expanding knowledge resource, global social space, and political and
scientific tool. The gold-rush analogy was tired 20 years ago, during the
first PC revolution, but the companies that have grown out of the Internet
are now worth more than all the gold ever mined. Just keep in mind that the
person who created it -- Tim Berners-Lee -- actually set out to create a
universal resource, a public good, not to make a fortune.
Mixed emotions?
Berners-Lee might not be particularly familiar to you. In his book Short
History of the Web he wrote:
"The dream behind the Web is of a common information space in which we
communicate by sharing information. Its universality is essential: the fact
that a hypertext link can point to anything, be it personal, local or
global, be it draft or highly polished. There was a second part of the
dream, too, dependent on the Web being so generally used that it became a
realistic mirror (or in fact the primary embodiment) of the ways in which we
work and play and socialize. That was that once the state of our
interactions was online, we could then use computers to help us analyze it,
make sense of what we are doing, where we individually fit in, and how we
can better work together."
That spirit embodied the early formative years of the Web -- a spirit
largely lost in the rush to profit that characterizes today's Web. The
following passage from Berners-Lee's FAQ is instructive:
Q: Is it true that you have had mixed emotions about, if I may, not cashing
in on the Web?
A: Not really. It was simply that had the technology been proprietary, and
in my total control, it would probably not have taken off. The decision to
make the Web an open system was necessary for it to be universal. You can't
propose that something be a universal space and at the same time keep
control of it.
Q: Are you happy with what the World Wide Web has turned out so far?
A: That is a big question. I am very happy at the incredible richness of
material on the Web, and in the diversity of ways in which it is being used.
There are many parts of the original dream which are not yet implemented.
For example, very few people have an easy, intuitive tool for putting their
thoughts into hypertext. And much of reasons for, and meaning of, links on
the Web is lost. But these can and I think will change.
Q: What do you think of the commercial turf wars going on the Web?
A: There has always been a huge competition to come out with the best Web
technology. This has followed from the fact that the standards, being open,
allow anyone to experiment with new extensions. This produces the threat of
fragmentation into many Webs, and that threat brings the companies to the
W3C [Web Accessibility Initiative] to come to agreement about how to go
forward together. It is the tension of this competition and the need for
standard which drives W3C forward at such a speed.
A symbiosis of innovation
The tension between competition and the need for a standard that drives the
rapid evolution of the Web is an intimate, dynamic and complex dance between
public and proprietary, cooperation and competition, doing it for fun and
doing it for profit. So much of our cultural conditioning responds
powerfully to the riches made by teenage entrepreneurs and the hot Internet
investment market that has spread the wealth to anyone who could afford a
piece of the action. Many people glorify "market forces," and tend to look
at the pre-gold-rush amateur era as a milieu of naive brainiacs who were not
smart enough to become jillionaire brainiacs.
What remains less visible in the rush to glorify the Internet lottery
winners are all the ways amateurs were needed to create a platform that had
never existed before -- the personal computer linked to a global network --
before professionals could build industries on that platform.
In the earliest years of Darwinian theory, the driving power of biological
competition for resources -- "survival of the fittest" -- led to an
oversimplified public understanding of the evolutionary process. Social
Darwinism, an attempt to justify class distinctions by analogy, was based on
this flawed knowledge -- and the mythology that market competition is a
force of biological generality has since grown universal. In more recent
years, as the scientific importance of symbiosis and ecological systems has
become better understood, the role of cooperation in tandem with competition
has been seen as a fundamental driving force from the intracellular level to
the level of the planetary ecosystem. If the past history of computing and
networking are good predictors, both cooperation and competition will be
essential driving forces in the future of technological evolution.
Howard Rheingold is the author of The Virtual Community: Homesteading on the
Electronic Frontier. His e-mail address is hlr@well.com.
PFIR Statement on Recent Internet Denial of Service Attacks
(http://www.pfir.org/statements/02.09.00)
PFIR - People For Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
2/9/00
Greetings. The recent rash of "Denial of Service" (DoS) attacks on major
Internet sites such as Yahoo!, E-Bay, CNN, and others, has caused outcries of
surprise and consternation in many quarters, and has become the lead story
for many newscasts. But these attacks come as no surprise to many of us,
who have long predicted that these sorts of events would come to pass.
It's basically easy to understand. Imagine a small firm with two phone
lines. Now have 10,000 people at pay phones scattered around the world all
trying to call that company at once, and hanging up as soon as there is an
answer. Few (if any) customer calls will get through, and finding the
perpetrators will be problematic at best.
A variety of software tools are available for launching effectively
anonymous DoS attacks on the Internet, which in many cases may involve
otherwise innocent computers "hijacked" for this purpose. While some of the
simpler attack methods may be repelled to a degree by "filtering" to block
some of the offending data, the fundamental structure of the existing
Internet makes complete solutions essentially impossible. We can expect to
see a rapid evolution in the sophistication of such attacks and their
relative invulnerability to quick eradication. There will not be simple
answers of any lasting value.
There are a number of very important lessons to be learned from these
events. It seems apparent that the rush to move all manner of important or
even critical commercial, medical, government, and other applications onto
the Internet and Web has far outstripped the underlying reality of the
existing Internet infrastructure.
Compared with the overall robustness of the U.S. telephone system, the
Internet is a second-class citizen when it comes to these kinds of
vulnerabilities. Nor will simply throwing money at the Internet
necessarily do much good in this regard. More bandwidth, additional
servers, and faster routers--they'd still be open to sophisticated (and
even not so sophisticated) attacks which could be triggered from one PC
anywhere in the world.
In the long run, major alterations will be needed in the fundamental
structure of the Internet to even begin to get a handle on these sorts of
problems, and a practical path to that goal still remains fuzzy at this
time.
For now, it might be advisable for everyone to remember that the Internet,
for all its wonders, is in many ways very fragile. We must not allow
ourselves to get into a position where being cut off from a site for a few
hours--or even longer--puts people or property at risk. Our lives should
not revolve around guaranteed 24/7 access to E-Bay, or Yahoo!, or *any*
site on the public Internet, regardless of its importance. The need for
alternative access methods for critical systems, and the potential
recklessness of eliminating older systems in exchange for 100% Internet
dependence, cannot be overstated.
The current attacks are sure to be but the beginning. Many even more
attractive targets are likely to be appearing that will draw ever more
sophisticated fire. Imagine what a concerted denial of service attack
might do to an election with Internet/Web-based voting--a technology being
pushed on a fast track in many quarters.
It's time to get past the "dot com" hype and to start considering
carefully the realities, and limits, of the technology on which we're
trying to base so much, so very fast. If we continue to plow ahead
without heeding these lessons, it will be at our extreme peril.
--Lauren--
lauren@vortex.com
Lauren Weinstein
Co-Founder, PFIR: People for Internet Responsibility - http://www.pfir.org
Moderator, PRIVACY Forum - http://www.vortex.com
Member, ACM Committee on Computers and Public Policy
http://www.michaelmoore.com/
[orig to NTK now ]
_ _ _____ _ __ <*the* weekly high-tech sarcastic update for the uk>
| \ | |_ _| |/ / _ __ __1999-12-24_ o join! mail an empty message to
| \| | | | | ' / | '_ \ / _ \ \ /\ / / o ntknow-subscribe@lists.ntk.net
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"Tribe Flood Network and Trinoo launch their attacks from a
host of innocent computers that already have been broken
into. Then, on a signal from a master computer, the computers
simultaneously bombard the victim machine with packets of
information so fast that it becomes unresponsive. At that
point, the target computer won't respond to commands and
can't be taken off the network."
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1003-200-1501144.html
... what, not even by unplugging it?
>> HARD NEWS <<
"Humbug!", said Scrooge
It's on nights like this that one naturally turns for
inspiration to the eternal Christmas story: you know - the
one where rampant commercialism devours everything in its
path in the pursuit of a quick buck? LEONARDO FINANCE, a
French subsidiary of the Transasia Corporation, this week
launched a lawsuit against the internationally respected
Association Leonardo, publishers of the multimediatronic
Leonardo Journal. Transasia claim one million dollars in
damages on the basis that a search engine search on the word
"Leonardo" brings up not only their Web site but those of
the magazine. And so, in this season of goodwill, a
squad of eight French policeman broke into Leonardo's legal
address in France - the home of the 80-year old widow of the
organisations' founder, Frank Malina - and confiscated all
paperwork with the word "Leonardo" on it. This all
makes perfect sense. "Leonardo" is a mind-bogglingly unique
and sufficient descriptor for Transasia's work. And it's not
as if "Leonardo" practically connotes the whole tradition of
inventiveness and "prior art". And it's definitely worth
their while fighting for the word, because once they get
hold of that whole Leonardo namespace - no matter *who* used
it before - who else might they go after? How about
helicopter manufacturers?
http://mitpress.mit.edu/e-journals/Leonardo/#raid
- "He who controls the language, controls the future"
http://www.leonardofinance.fr/anglais/
- who'd have thought they'd do it one word at a time?
And if you think the Namespace Wars will be over before
Christmas, note that our trusted betters at ICANN are
planning to move arbitration of domain names to the National
Arbitration Forum. Will this help in matters such as the
ongoing battle between etoys.com and etoy.com, where the
younger, richer, and more commercial company can sue the
award-winning European artists off the face of the Net?
Listen to this quote from the NAF Webpages spotted by Lewis
Shadoff (c/o the excellent Tasty Bits from the Technological
Frontier discussion list): "Forum arbitrators are not
permitted to ignore the law and make decisions based on
'equity'." Equity, for those of you who haven't yet the
sense to become lawyers, is the principle that justice
involves fairness as well as the fixed rules of law. No room
for fairness, or for non-profits too poor to fight back, or
for the exercise of art: just for the iron rules of law and
business. Well, we must have our rules. But who's that out
on the streets of London, wailing up at our window on this
freezing Christmas Eve?
"Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again.
"Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my
business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence,
were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but
a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my
business!"
http://www.literature.org/authors/dickens-charles/christmas-carol/
- the owners of www.dickens.com will be furious
http://www.tbtf.com/
- and a Merry Newtonmas to all our sources
>> ANTI-NEWS <<
berating the obvious
MODIFY mails from NSI are now dated Dec 31, 1969 - uh *oh* ...
BRITISH WEB DESIGN & MARKETING ASSOCIATION ("committed to
raising standards") now spamming for members ... you're
leaving this a bit late, guys: http://www.millennium.com/
and http://www.millenniumdome.com/ ... how many OSes does
it take to "power" a Website? http://www.daemonnews.org/ ...
ON DIGITAL in sponsorship deal with Windows error dialogs:
http://www.ntk.net/doh/19991224ondig.jpg ... first Net
libel case to use the "don't blame us, we're autistic" defence:
http://www.ireland.com/scripts/technology/newsshowall.cfm?id=240 ...
still running on NT, but trying to open source as much
as possible, it's http://www.linuxanswers.co.uk/Includes/
... NETGUIDE equivalent of "Jackie Harvey's Outside Scoop"
http://www.netguide.com/Snapshot/Archive?guide=computing&id=1536
suggests we will "see more PCs which will be coming with
dual drives: one for the CD-ROM and one for a DVD." ...
searching http://www.eventselector.co.uk/ for aptly-named
"Comedy" title "Hiss And Boo Show" ...
>> EVENT QUEUE <<
goto's considered non-harmful
Jonathan Ungoed-Thomas? Mi2g's bizarre virus warnings? The
terror of "downloadable internet narcotics"? Yes, the
competition is fierce for the FIRST INTERNET FREEDOM
JOURNALISM AWARDS, intended to "name and shame" 1999's worst
coverage of online issues. And to make the face-off even
more exciting, you have to nominate your favourite
scare-mongering fictions before January 1st 2000! (We'll try
to provide a retrospective as part of next Friday's "Y2K In
The Office Fun Pack", but thought you'd appreciate the extra
notice just in case. Some crimes cannot - and must not - go
unpunished.) http://www.netfreedom.org/
- there's a "high quality journalism" prize too. Yeah, right.
http://www.ntk.net/notw/
- what, no category for "most shameless rent-a-quote pundit"?
>> TRACKING <<
sufficiently advanced technology: the Gathering
Oooh, a database library! How seasonal! METAKIT is a curious
mix of flatfile, relational and OODBMS features with a small
footprint and a big following. For those who don't need a
heavy-duty SQL solution, it's tight and fast for <100,000
items, with a snazzy ability to dynamically change data
structures on the fly. Interfaces are available for Tcl and
Python, with Perl promised soon. METAKIT has been kicking
around now for three years or so with good reports, but
looks to capture even more hearts now that it's - tara! -
open sourced. Happy Christmas!
http://www.equi4.com/metakit/intro.html
- well, that's Christmas morning taken care of
http://www.sunworld.com/sunworldonline/swol-05-1999/swol-05-regex-2.html
- addicts drool for the press
>> MEMEPOOL <<
hasta la altavista
seasonal pyrotechnics: http://www.sunplan.com/pp/ ... TOPICA
buying up more mailing lists ... EWOK apocalypse:
http://www.geekhaus.co.uk/toybox/ewok.htm ... break into Ion
Storm's HQ and steal the Daikatana master discs:
http://www.arrgh.co.uk/ionstorm ... oh, that canny BOFH: THE
REGISTER pays for the new columns, but who ends up with the
archive? http://bofh.ntk.net/ is your new, ad-free local
mirror ... hooray! a pre-millennium socket layer for the
Z88! http://www.jb.man.ac.uk/~djm/z88dk/zsock/ ... a
Spectrum ZX81 - now they *are* rare:
http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=224436737
... somebody really *doesn't* want cheap Net access in
Manchester: http://www.redbricks.org.uk/comms/crisis/matthewa001.htm
>> GEEK MEDIA <<
get out less
TV>> Andi Peters is compelled to give Disney a free one-hour
prime-time advert entitled ANDI MEETS TOY STORY 2 (5.25pm,
Fri, C4)... the ropey movie season continues with Adam
Sandler/ Brendan Fraser air-guitar collaboration AIRHEADS
(9pm, Fri, C5), those "Vids" guys dressing up in lizard
suits for a season of original GODZILLAs (1am, Fri night, C4),
and mildly watchable Robin Williams CGI showreel JUMANJI (4pm,
Christmas Day, BBC1)... and, yes, they did take a few
"liberties" with the post-apocalyptic Kevin Costner remake
of IL POSTINO (8.30pm, Christmas Day, BBC2)... don't expect
the famous fish finger ad to feature in BBC2's 6-hour Orson
Welles tribute, including some old black and white yawnathon
called CITIZEN KANE (11.45pm, Christmas Day, BBC2) -
believed to be the best film ever made, after Star Wars and
Blade Runner, natch... and C5 weighs in, perhaps
predictably, with a schedule consisting entirely of Abba and
porn... this year's junior geekfest ROYAL INSTITUTION
CHRISTMAS LECTURES (11ish am, Sun-Thu, BBC2) seem to be
nicked from the pop science paperback "The Arrow Of Time"...
the MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE (9pm, Sun, BBC1) movie is more
incomprehensibly convoluted than even the TV show, and - at
last - reveals long-term "sleeper" Jim Phelps as a traitor...
after Airheads, the Michael Lehmann disappointments continue
with THE TRUTH ABOUT CATS AND DOGS (10pm, Mon, BBC2)... and
smug talentless scum FRENCH AND SAUNDERS (9.50pm, Tue, BBC1)
dress up as - oh my sides - "The Phantom Menace"... despite
strong competition, Kathryn Bigelow's optimistically
millennial STRANGE DAYS (11.15pm, Wed, BBC2) is the *worst
cyber-VR thriller of all time*... while perfectly capturing
the closed-off claustrophobia, steadily building pressure,
and Nazi-like discipline of spending time with your family,
BBC2 wisely schedules regular showings of U-boat fave DAS
BOOT (6ish, Sun-Fri, BBC2)...
FILM>> "We've got a blind date with Destiny - and it looks
like she's ordered the lobster" chortles wittily scripted
Ben Stiller/ Janeane Garofalo undermarketed flop comic book
adaptation MYSTERY MEN (imdb: parody / superhero /
training), whose top-notch supporting cast - Greg Kinnear,
Hank Azaria - even makes up for Eddie Izzard and a farting
Pee-Wee Herman... the increasingly overrated Kevin Smith
applies his usual laid-back incompetence to predictably
inoffensive modern-day Life Of Brian-style Catholic
self-exorcism DOGMA (http://www.capalert.com/capreports/ :
licentious disregard for righteous behavior based on
Biblical admonitions) - in what may come to be viewed as his
very own "A Life Less Ordinary"... connoisseurs regret to
report a failure in meeting previous quality benchmarks in
largely Kermit-free sci-fi spoof MUPPETS FROM SPACE
(http://www.capalert.com/capreports/ : nonlegal custody at
gunpoint; false imprisonment; a child character sitting atop
a roof; physical violence to gain advantage; Miss Piggy
gamming - sitting cross-legged intentionally in a very short
skirt showing as much upper leg as possible)... while Martin
"Bad Boys" Lawrence takes a short break from his
intermittently self-destructive behaviour to head up
competent mistaken-identity Beverly Hills Cop remake BLUE
STREAK (MPAA: rated PG-13 for action violence, continuous
language and some crude humor)...
BUMPER CHRISTMAS TURKEY BONER BONANZA!>> and festive
greetings to all of ye who cheered last week's "factoring
primes" faux pas though it was, of course, an allusion to
Bill Gates' famed goof in his book The Road Ahead rather
than genuine incompetence on our part. Ahem... extending
seasonal goodwill slightly further than is usually
recommended, "Where, oh were is David Brake's weblog?" many
of you inquired, while not detailing your precise
motivation. Well, http://blog.org/ is the URL for both
moderately interesting links *and* Brake's own unique brand
of earnest, choir-singing commentary... and ADRIAN MOULDER
once again fell into the trap of assuming our omniscience,
querying the "flagrant omission" from last week's books &
zines round-up of both Norman Spinrad's re-released
trial-by-TV '60s sci-fi classic BUG JACK BARRON and the
latest issue of HULK comic which features a reader's letter
from Al "The Pub Landlord" Murray... LLOYD WOOD felt the
need to come clean over NTK 1999-12- 10's claim that
"Carrie" at http://www.bluenudes.com/ is wearing "Klingon
headgear". After re-viewing "Amok Time", Lloyd reports it
more closely "resembles the thing T'Pau was wearing", and is
"therefore obviously Vulcan"... but beating even that for
corrective urgency comes THOMAS KRUEMMER, who (rightly)
questions Dave Winer's claim [NTK 1999-12-17] that the SS
were the "secret police in Nazi Germany". It would have been
hard to keep them that secret, Thomas argues, as they were
"a second army, but unlike the regular 'Wehrmacht', the SS
troopers were loyal to the NSDAP party. Later the SS
received weapons and also heavy equipment, in order to
outweigh any potential threat to the government from
officers of the regular army, plus the added benefit of
being able to commit acts of war which the Wehrmacht might
have refused to carry out" - hence, presumably, Winer's
confusion. "I hope Dave is more qualified writing about
other matters of general interest," Thomas concludes. And a
Merry Christmas to you, one and all!
>> SMALL PRINT <<
Need to Know is a useful and interesting UK digest of things that
happened last week or might happen next week. You can read it
on Friday afternoon or print it out then take it home if you have
nothing better to do. It is compiled by NTK from stuff they get sent.
Registered at the Post Office as "holiday, baby, holiday"
NEED TO KNOW
THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK.
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Richard Barbrook
At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the prophets of American
neo-liberalism are heralding the imminent arrival of the digital utopia.
They believe that the noise and confusion of industrial production are
being replaced by friction-free trading within the perfect markets of
cyberspace. They claim that an elite of entrepreneurs, inventors and
ideologues are pioneering a digital lifestyle which will eventually become
available to everyone. These right-wing gurus even measure our progress
towards the privatised future through increases in the ownership of new
technologies: computers, mobiles, decoders and Net connections. Ironically,
this neo-liberal futurism echoes the preconceptions of Soviet communism.
During the 1930s, Josef Stalin similarly measured progress towards utopia
through the rising output of modern products: steel, cars, tractors and
machine-tools. In the former Soviet Union, the enlightened minority was
also leading the ignorant masses towards eventual emancipation. Most
notoriously, the Stalinists used the promise of future liberation to
justify the forcible silencing of the noise of dissent. Although the Soviet
Union has long disappeared, the ideologues of American neo-liberalism are
still inspired by the Stalinist version of communism.
vanguard party digerati
The Five-Year Plan The New Paradigm
boy-meets-tractor nerd-meets-Net
Third International Third Wave
Moscow Silicon Valley
Pravda Wired
party line unique thought
Soviet democracy electronic town halls
Lysenkoism memetics
society-as-factory society-as-hive
New Soviet Man post-humans
Stakhanovite norm-busting overworked contract labour
purges downsizing
Russian nationalism Californian chauvinism
According to most politicians, executives and pundits, intellectual labour
within the Net must be enclosed into commodities and protected by
copyright. However, the scientists who invented computer-mediated
communications were working within the academic gift economy. As a
consequence, they embedded the free distribution of information within the
technical structures and social mores of the Net. Over time, the charmed
circle of users has slowly grown from scientists through hobbyists to the
general public. Crucially, each new member doesn't just observe the
technical rules of the system, but also adheres to certain social
conventions. Without even thinking about it, people continually circulate
information between each other for free. By giving away their own personal
efforts, Net users always receive the results of much greater amounts of
labour in return from others. Although many on-line activities are trivial,
some collaborations are now creating very sophisticated products, such as
the Linux operating system and interactive music pieces. Net users are now
developing a much more efficient and enjoyable way of working together:
cyber-communism.
commodity gift
enclosure disclosure
copyright piracy
fixed fluid
product process
proprietary open source
digital encryption free download
original recording latest remix
scarcity abundance
alienation friendship
market competition network communities
e-commerce cyber-communism
For those nostalgic for ideological certainty, there can be no compromise
between these contradictory visions of the Net. The digital future must be
homogeneous and unsullied. However, it is impossible to expel noise and
disturbance from cyberspace. Already the synthesis of dialectical opposites
is happening for pragmatic reasons. The low cost of entry into e-commerce
depends upon the absence of proprietary barriers within the Net. The rapid
expansion of the hi-tech gift economy is facilitated by hardware and
software sold by large companies. Above all, Net users always adopt the
working methods which are most beneficial to their own interests. While
sometimes engaging in e-commerce, they often prefer to collaborate within
the hi-tech gift economy. Many social activities have long been organised
by voluntary labour and with donated resources. Now, with the advent of the
Net, this gift economy is hybridising with market competition at the
cutting-edge of modernity. Living within a prosperous society, many people
will work solely to gain the respect from their peers for their digital
artefacts. During the last two hundred years, the intimate bonds of kinship
and friendship have simultaneously inhibited and underpinned the impersonal
relationships needed for market competition. The modern has always
co-existed with the traditional. Now, within cyberspace, the exchange of
commodities is being both intensified and prevented by the circulation of
gifts. The modern must synthesise with the hyper-modern. Far from needing
leadership by a heroic elite, ordinary people are now successfully
constructing their own utopia. In the age of the Net, cyber-communism is
becoming an everyday experience. The digital future is a noisy festival.
The Dialectics of Cyber-Communism
The Positive: work-as-commodity
e-commerce
reactionary modernism
The Negation: waste-as-gift
potlatch
revolutionary anti-modernism
The Negation of the Negation: work-as-gift
network communities
revolutionary modernism
=======================================================
Richard Barbrook is a member of the Hypermedia Research Centre, University
of Westminster, London.
=======================================================
This piece appears in the catalogue for 'Noise: the digital and the
discrete', an exhibition about information and transformation held in
Cambridge at Kettle's Yard; the Whipple Museum of the History of Science;
the Museum of Archeology and Anthropology; and the Fitzwilliam Museum; and
in London at the Wellcome Institute from 22nd January to 26th March 2000
.
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Richard Barbrook
Hypermedia Research Centre
School of Communications, Design & Media
University of Westminster
Watford Road
Northwick Park
HARROW HA1 3TP
+44 (0)171-911-5000 x 4590
-------------------------------------------------------------------
"While there is irony, we are still living in the prehistoric age. And we
are not out of it yet..." - Henri Lefebvre
-------------------------------------------------------------------
If you would like to keep in touch with what is happening at the HRC, you
can subscribe to our Friends mailing list on:
http://ma.hrc.wmin.ac.uk/lists.friends.db
Harry Cleaver, "Computer-linked Social Movements and the
Global Threat to Capitalism", Austin, Texas, July 1999
Abstract:
Of all the emerging roles of computer communications in social
conflict, this paper argues that the most serious challenge to
the basic institutional structures of modern society flow from
the emergence of computer-linked global social movements that
are, increasingly, challenging both national and supranational
policy-making institutions.
The suggestion is that we are currently witnessing an
accelerating circulation of social conflicts whose participants
recognize a common enemy: contemporary capitalism. In their
increasingly common rejection of business priorities their
struggles cannot but recall Marxist notions of 'class warfare'.
Yet the common opposition to capitalism is not accompanied by the
old notion of a unified alternative project of socialism. On the
contrary, such a vision has been displaced by a proliferation of
diverse projects and the notion that there is no need for
universal rules.
In response to these struggles, the threatened institutions are
responding in various ways, sometimes by military and
paramilitary force, sometimes by co-optation aimed at
reintegrating the antagonistic forces. The problem for us is
finding ever new ways to defeat these responses and continue to
build new worlds.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Erik Wesselius
Corporate Europe Observatory
Paulus Potterstraat 20
1071 DA Amsterdam
tel/fax: +31-20-6127023
e-mail:
internet:
"mailradek" project is a non-regular posting of subjective commentaries on
political themes. texts have no copyright and can be reprinted,
translated, distributed without a special authors' permission. All previous
issues (in English and Russian) can be found at the new site
WWW.MAILRADEK.REMA.RU.
There are also many info about the latest events in radical culture and the
regularly changing large texts on actual themes.
Everybody who doesn't receive it can send a "subscribe english mailradek"
or "subscribe russian mailradek" (a more often and full version) e-mail to
kireev@glasnet.ru to be included into the mailing list.
Address: Russia 117333 Moscow, Vavilova 48-237, tel.: (095) 137 71 31,
e-mail: kireev@glasnet.ru.
AGAINST ALL PARTIES CAMPAIGN INFO
An issue of newspaper published in 1000 copies,
additional coipies expected. The issue contains analytic, informational and
compromising information dedicated to the election campaign, many photos
included. You can see extracts from the paper at www.mailradek.rema.ru.
Phone order 095/137-7131
The following things are due on the 17th of December in the Institute of
Contemporary Art on the Chisty Prudy, 8:00 PM (Sretensky blvd., 6/1, the
highest floor, a few steps from the station ): the
presentation of the Against All Parties campaign, the campaign site, a text
compilation (articles by B.Kagarlitsky, I. Zasursky, O. Kireev, I.
Aristarkhova, verses by D. Pimenov and other materials), and also
proclamation of boycott against TV information. There will also be music by
Pavel Shevchenco, a ZaIBi video and an exhibition. An "Against all parties"
campaign presentation will be combined with the other's campaign starting
presentation, which is a boycott for the main TV broadcasting info channels
(ORT, RTR and TV-Center). We look for the free information distribution in
the internet instead of TV.
Stickers are becoming more and more powerful a political weapon than
leaflets. People far from political activities are paying much more
attention to colourful stickers than to black and white texts. The campaign
activists stick such banners as , , in
the Moscow subway. The most effective way is to stick these directly onto
the election advertisements of various fractions, or onto advertisement as
such:
.
The leaflets (check mailraded #42) are distributed in
the subway and suburban trains. There is going to be an action, conducted by
activists, which is going to look this way: .
A broadcast of (ORT, 16:00) on the 14th of December was
dedicated to voting and some other issues of resistance (such
as militia supporting heroin trade etc.). Every progressive person should
watch this broadcast, at least the monthly issues produced by the team
constisting of Marina Potapova, Sergey Loban, Zakhar Mukhin etc.
Punk rock can regain its political effectiveness, for there are new concerts
taking place under actual political slogans. There was a concert in the
Jerry Rubin club on the 12th of December under the title of , with campaign activists as show leaders. This is important, for
the Russian punk scene has been rather apolitical lately, and some punk
performers are published on various corporative labels.
An action took place on the 8th of December at the Lenin Mausoleum. It was
quite like the old one, by which an old Radek group intended to start the
Against all Parties campaign. The Mausoleum was captured by a group of
activists who posted onto in a banner saying .. The action which
regained the spirit of Moscow actionism, had a direct media orientation,
and, indeed, attracted much attention of the media. The campaign was then,
on the last October, planned as a network of uncoordinated initiatives, and
that's the way it is conducted now. There are various initiative groups
conducting actions and propaganda in Moscow (antifascist magazine
, Anatoly Osmolovsky with a group of followers, the mailradek
headquarters), and also similar activities are reported in various
locations, from Sochi to Magadan.
A pacifist picket took place near Yury Dolgoruky monument. A group of
anarchists built a fence of red flags, which lasted for 20 minutes, and
announced this space to be an anti-military zone. The leaflet dedicated to
the action contained anti-state and slogans.
The 11th issue of the magazine is published in Krasnodar. The
quality of the magazine has been substantially improved, and the number of
regional branches of the Kuban Anarchist Federation increased.
continues to publish various texts dedicated to anarchism history and some
recomendations on modern resistance methods, such as establishing pirate
broadcasts, closed , and also hints on how to behave at FSB
investigations.
From: Olivier Hoedeman
Katz: Activists use Internet to slow trade liberalization
US business leader sees free-trade threat
BY JACK LUCENTINI JOURNAL OF COMMERCE STAFF 12/10/98
NEW YORK -- Increasingly mobilized by the Internet, labor and
environmental activists are a growing threat to free trade and an open
global economy, a business leader said Tuesday.
Abraham Katz, outgoing president of the U.S. Council for International
Business, gave the keynote speech at the organization's annual dinner on
Tuesday.
He will retire from the post in February, to be replaced by Thomas M.T.
Niles, a former ambassador to Greece who has been serving as vice
president of the National Defense University.
Mr. Katz laid out several accomplishments achieved during his 14-year
tenure, as well as a number of continuing problems.
"The enemies of an open market system have marshalled a serious
counterattack on further liberalization of trade and investment and on
multinational companies as the main agents of globalization," said Mr.
Katz, who joined the council after a long career with the State
Department.
Officials of the business group have been alarmed about what they see as
growing threats to business, often spurred by the Internet. For instance,
recent charges that Nike Inc. mistreats its workers in southeast Asia were
largely spread across the electronic medium.
Organized labor and environmental groups are pushing for unilateral
sanctions against offending countries and companies, Mr. Katz said.
"The more worldly and knowledgeable among them (activists) are aware that
the U.S. neither singly, nor in any combination of countries, can
introduce a unilateral sanction-based approach into the multilateral
rule-based system without tearing it apart," Mr. Katz said.
"Frankly," he charged, many of them "would just as soon see this happen."
One of the chief accomplishments that Mr. Katz cited is the International
Labor Organization's Declaration of Principles and Rights at Work, which
was ratified in June at the ILO, a 174-member group affiliated with the
United Nations.
Mr. Katz's organization saw the declaration as a way to use the UN to
pursue better labor rights principles in countries that violate them
egregiously, without letting those concerns get in the way of trade.
Labor groups that oppose the business group's agenda favor extending the
declaration of principles so that it can be used to punish or sanction
countries or individual companies.
"The objective of these groups, supported by certain governments, is to be
able to judge the behavior of companies in what would amount to kangaroo
courts in which non-governmental organizations and trade unions would have
a major voice," he said.
Another initiative of the business group that Internet-mobilized activists
have derailed is the Multilateral Agreement on Investment. That would
standardize rules so that each country would have to treat outside
investors the same way. It would protect investors from government
interference such as arbitrary seizure of property.
Opponents say it would give multinational corporations unprecedented power
to challenge governments' consumer, labor and environmental laws.
Mr. Katz also complained that labor groups have defeated fast-track trade
negotiating authority for President Clinton. In September, the House of
Representatives defeated a Republican-drafted fast-track bill. The
president has pledged to bring a new, comprehensive fast-track bill to
Congress in January.
ANSIR Email - Threat to World Trade Organization (WTO) Ministerial Meeting
in Seattle, Washington, 11/29/99 through 12/3/99.
National Security Division, Washington, D.C.
The following message is an FBI Terrorist Threat Advisory for the Domestic
United States only. This advisory will remain in effect for the duration of
the WTO Meeting at which time it will expire automatically unless extended
by the FBI.
This Awareness of National Security Issues and Response (ANSIR)
communication is intended for corporate security professionals and others
who have requested to receive unclassified national security threat
information from the FBI. This communication is not a press release and may
not be republished in any public format without specific authorization from
the National ANSIR Program manager at FBIHQ. You may forward this advisory
to those in your association, company, or other colleagues in the security
profession as deemed appropriate. Media requests should be directed to
the WFO media representative, Special Agent Susan Lloyd.
The World Trade Organization (WTO) is holding a ministerial meeting in
Seattle, Washington from November 29, 1999 through December 3, 1999. The
meeting will be attended by approximately 8,000 people, including delegates
>from 135 member nations, individuals from non-member observer nations,
representatives of corporate sponsors, and the press.
Many groups in opposition to the WTO have stated that they will be present
in Seattle during the WTO Conference and plan to hold a number of
activities including seminars, teach-ins, parades, and street protests.
The FBI has received credible information that some elements within the
protest community are planning to disrupt the conference. The FBI assesses
the potential threat of violence, to include criminal acts of civil
disturbance, as low to medium for the Seattle area during the time frame of
the WTO Meeting. In particular, environmental or animal rights extremists
or anarchist-induced violence should be considered a possibility during the
meeting.
There are also strong indications that computer-based attacks on
WTO-related web sites, as well as key corporate and financial sites, will
take place to coincide with the opening of the WTO meeting. Cyber-protests
are likely to generate Denial of Service attacks, disruptions or
alterations of web pages, and "virtual sit-ins."
Corporate sponsors of the WTO may be subject to surveillance efforts from
these groups. The purpose of the surveillance is to identify the residences
of key employees of sponsoring corporations. At this time the FBI has no
specific information regarding which corporations or individuals may be
selected for surveillance.
Security officers of corporate sponsors and companies attending the
conference are advised to brief the appropriate employees that they may be
selected for surveillance prior to, and during the conference. These
employees should remain alert for individuals who may be targeting them in
furtherance of anti-WTO activities.
If vehicle surveillance is detected, individuals should take no direct
action and drive to the nearest police station. Individuals believing they
may have been targets of surveillance activities should contact the FBI
office ANSIR Coordinator at the number listed below. Activities requiring
immediate law enforcement response should be directed to the appropriate
local authorities.
Recipients should remain sensitive to threats made by anti-WTO groups. In
recent years, protest activity has occurred in New York City and other
American cities in conjunction with high profile international conferences
taking place outside the United States.
*********************************************************************
Special Agent Gary Harter, Email: gharter@leo.gov
FBI Washington Field Office/NVRA ANSIR Coordinator
7799 Leesburg Pike, Falls Church, Va. 22043
Phone: 703-762-3024, Fax: (703) 762-3446
*********************************************************************
Terry J. Allen
44 Old Brook Rd.
Richmond, VT 05477 USA
802-434-3767 voice
802-434-3446 fax
tallen@igc.org
-----
Translated by irlandesa
5. The Sup's Words for the "From the Underground Culture to the Culture
of Resistance" Roundtable Alicia Multiforum.
October 26, 1999.
I would like to thank those who were in charge of the Alicia Multiforum
for the invitation they extended to us to participate in this Roundtable.
I do not have much experience in round tables, square tables are more our
specialty, as the table most certainly must be where those who are
accompanying this act are seated: Zack de la Rocha, Yaotl, Hermann
Bellinghausen, Nacho Pineda, a compa from the Punk Anarchy collective and
Javier Elorriaga.
And more, it is quite likely that the participants at this round table
that is not round are seated on a small platform. And more, perhaps there
is not even a table, and there are only a few chairs. Perhaps the only
one who has a table is me, because they have to put the TV on something in
order to show you this video.
Good, the fact is, at this round table, those who are participating cannot
see each others faces, something that would most certainly be happening if
they were at a round table that were, in fact, round. And so here we are,
sitting around a round table that is not round, and facing you, which is
better, because from here I'm able to see a guy whose face is the best
argument for leaving the issue of round and square tables in peace, and
better that I don't tell you what that look is suggesting either (sigh).
Where was I? Oh, yes! That here we are, facing you, at that round table
that I don't know who called "From Underground Culture to the Culture of
Resistance." No, I don't have anything against whoever called this round
table that isn't round that. The problem is that word that is repeated:
"CULTURE." So many things fit there that, even though we are restricting
them to the limits imposed by the words "Underground" and "Resistance,"
they would not do for a round table, no matter how square it might be, but
rather for a great intercontinental encuentro that would last for light
years, without even including the time taken up in arranging the
microphone, greeting the raza, or in staying asleep because someone has
decided that culture can also be boring and has set about demonstrating
it.
Having said that, I am not going to talk to you about underground culture,
nor about the culture of resistance, nor about the bridge that most
certainly joins them. In addition to leaving the issue for those who are
accompanying us at that table that we are calling round even knowing that
it is square, I will avoid making myself appear ridiculous and I will be
able to conceal my encyclopedic ignorance on this subject. As the
greatest and well-loved Don Durito of La Lacandona would say, "There is no
problem sufficiently great that it cannot be pondered upon." I would add
to those wise words that cause the action and the commitment, "nor is
there a round table that is not square."
I know that you are all anxious to know what in the hell I'm going to talk
about then. More than one of you might be asking if the guitar I have by
my side means that I'm going to play a song, one of those that are so
honorably played in the Mexico of below, which we all are.
But no, I'm not going to play any songs. The guitar is for the surprise
appearance we're going to make tomorrow, October 27, 1999, with "Rage
Against the Machine," "Aztl‡n Underground" and "Tijuana NO" at the Sports
Palace. Well, that's if they don't censor us first, or if the law doesn't
show up, in which case the concert will be held in the prison closest to
your hearts.
And, I'm going to be sincere with you, this entire initial litany has been
to use up time, because the organizers made it quite clear to me that I
was to speak for some 20 minutes, and I believe that 20 minutes are too
long to say that I'm not going to speak to you about underground culture,
nor about the culture of resistance, nor about the relationship between
the one and the other.
You know? We are guerreros. Some very otherly guerreros, but, at the end
of the day, some guerreros. And we guerreros know a few things. And
among the few things that we know, we know about weapons.
So, better that I talk to you about weapons. Specifically, I'm going to
talk to you about the weapon of resistance.
We, besides being guerreros, are Mexican indigenous. We live in the
mountains of the Mexican Southeast, which is turning out to be the last
corner of this country. We live like the majority of the indigenous in
Mexico live, that is, very badly.
Our homes have dirt floors, our walls are of sticks or mud, and our roofs
are of laminate, cardboard or grass. One single room serves for kitchen,
dining room, bedroom, living room and hen-house. Our foods are,
basically, maize, beans, chili, and the vegetables that grow in the
garden. For medicine we have some little popular pharmacy, poorly
stocked. Doctors? In our dreams. The school, if it is not being
occupied by the government's soldiers, is a hall, where up to 4 different
groups of students coexist at the same time, and who are not very
numerous, because our children start working when they're very small,
between 4 and 5 years old, the women carrying wood, grinding maize,
washing clothes and taking care of their younger brothers and sisters;
when they're between 10 and 12, the boys, to the mountain, taking care of
the livestock, carrying wood, working the fields, the coffee plantations
or the pasture. Our lands are poor in two senses: they are poor because
they are ours, who are poor as a matter of course. And they are poor
because they yield little in the way of harvest.
We have only mud and rocks, the finqueros have the good lands. The
livestock and coffee that we sell to make money, we sell to the coyotes,
who are a kind of intermediary, who pay us up to 10 times less than the
price of our products in the market. And, so, our work, in addition to
being hard, is badly paid.
However, even though we live like most of the indigenous population in the
country, that is, in poverty, we do not live the same as most of the
indigenous population. Our poverty is the same as the poverty of the
others, but it is different, it is "other" poverty. We are poor because
that is what we chose. From the beginning of our uprising, they have
offered us everything to get us to sell ourselves, to surrender.
If we had done so, if we had surrendered, if we had sold ourselves, we
would now have good houses, good schools, hospitals, machinery for working
the land, better prices for our products, good food.
But we chose not to sell ourselves, we chose not to surrender. Because it
so happens that we are indigenous and we are also guerreros. And
guerreros are guerreros because they are fighting for something. And we,
the zapatistas, are fighting for good homes, good food, good health, a
good price for our work, good lands, good education, respect for the
culture, the right to information, liberty, independence, justice,
democracy and peace. Yes, we are fighting for all of that, but for
everyone, not just for ourselves. That is why we zapatistas are
guerreros, because we want "For everyone, everything, nothing for
ourselves."
If we had surrendered, if we had sold ourselves, we would no longer have
been poor, but others would have continued to be so.
Good, but you are asking yourselves: Where is the weapon that this
handsome, attractive, nice guerrero was going to talk to us about? I'll
tell you now.
It happened that, when they saw that we were not surrendering, that we
were not selling ourselves, the government began attacking us in order to
force us to surrender and to sell ourselves. They offered us many things,
money, projects, aid, and, if we rejected them, they became angry and they
threatened us. That is how we came to understand that, by refusing to
accept government aid, by resisting, then, we made the powerful angry.
And there is nothing a zapatista guerrero likes more than making the
powerful angry. And so, with singular joy we dedicated ourselves to
resisting, to saying "no," to transforming our poverty into a weapon. The
weapon of resistance.
Almost 6 years of war have now spoken with that weapon, with it we have
resisted more than 60,000 soldiers, war tanks, bomber aircraft, artillery
helicopters, cannons, machine guns, bullets and grenades. With it, we
have resisted the lie.
If you would like me to sum it up, I would tell you that we made ourselves
soldiers like that so that one day soldiers would no longer be necessary,
as we also remain poor, so that one day there will no longer be poverty.
This is what we use the weapon of resistance for.
Obviously, it is not the only weapon we have, as is clear from the metal
that clothes us. We have other arms. For example, we have the arm of the
word. We also have the weapon of our culture, of our being what we are.
We have the weapon of music, the weapon of dance. We have the weapon of
the mountain, that old friend and compa–era who fights along with us, with
her roads, hiding places and hillsides, with her trees, with her rains,
with her suns, with her dawns, with her moons...
We also have the weapons that we carry by nature, but it is not the time
to be going around punning, much less now, when you've all become very
serious. And, in order to chase away your seriousness, I'm going to tell
you a joke, no, don't believe it or be frightened, I'm not going to tell
you a joke, better that we leave that to Zedillo, who, as president, is
nothing but a bad joke. No, better that I go on to the next issue that
I'm going to talk to you about.
Music and Resistance. Notably Rock, but not just rock. Notably music
groups, but not just music groups. I mean, not just what we see and
listen to, but also what makes our seeing and listening possible. Because
the raza gets down when it listens to Rage Against the Machine, to Aztl‡n
Underground, to Tijuana No. Or to "Durito Against the Sup" (which is a
group that's going to be formed if Durito keeps on giving me whooping
cough).
Where was I? Ah yes! That the raza gets down when it listens to a good
music group, and then one feels ones bones and muscles being controlled by
nothing other than the heart and one starts moving, shaking, jumping, a
little step here and another little step there, getting together, a
"prexta pa la orquestra" (I already know that everyone is thinking: son of
a bitch, the Sup is talking like a pachuco from the Tin Tan or Piporro
films, but, whatever, raza) well, they dance then, and they don't think
about those who are making it possible for that group to be listened to,
and that we have a place and a reason to dance. For example, the other
day I was listening to some cuts from a group that plays heavy heavy
(since it so happens that I am "educating my ear," because before the war
I was just into folk dances and polkas, ajua) and just zapatistas and it
happens that I took a look at the introduction to the cassette or to the
compact disc, and I read that there are tons of people involved, in
addition to those who play it, and I believe the musicians do recognize
the work of all these people, but those of us who are listening or dancing
just don't. For example, here we are in the self-named "Alicia
MultiForum" and here is Zack, Yaotl, Pineda, the compa from Punk Anarchy,
Elorriaga, and this video that you are being forced to watch and listen
to, because what you wanted was to listen to Zack and Yaotl, and not
talking exactly, but partying with a song. Good, I said here we are in
this place, and whoever organized this round table that is square, whoever
or whatever is responsible for the sound being heard well or badly,
whoever takes care of this building, whoever keeps it going, whoever
opened this space so that you and we could meet, whoever then. There it
is. We don't have any idea. No way, their place is to in the background.
But, then, I'm proposing to you, for all those people who are back there,
that we give them a round of applause that can be heard even in the back,
and don't leave them out, because, if not, neither round table, nor
square, nor concert, nor maiz palomas naranjas dridas que jais de la
guirinais. Applaud, then.
(Applause continues)
(If the applause takes a while, push "stop" on the video, because, if not,
I'm going to continue and no one can fight me).
All done now? Good, then the subject was, what is Music and Resistance.
But, as I already explained before, as far as music goes I'm just
do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-si, and I still get it wrong, but we are a bit smart
about resistance. The fact is that zapatismo and rock bring and carry
something, because, if not, what are Zack and Yaotl and I doing here
(because I'm also a rocker, but an "old-fashioned" one), sitting at a
round table which, as everyone has seen, is square.
Good. If we say that zapatismo "rebounded" in rock groups and in that way
produced its "other" and "different" effect, I believe we would be being
unfair. We are talking about groups with a long tradition of social
commitment and professional independence. What happened? Who knows.
Perhaps many round tables are necessary, even though they be square, in
order to look at the issue of rock and zapatismo.
Perhaps what happened is there was a meeting. There were words that met,
but, above all, there were, and are, feelings that met. If there are
songs from these groups that could easily appear to be communiques, and if
there are communiques that could be lines to songs, it is not by virtue of
who is writing them, no, it is because they are saying the same thing,
they are reflecting the same thing, that underground "other," which, by
being "different," organizes itself in order to resist, in order to exist.
Because it is not just the zapatistas who are guerreros of resistance.
There are many groups (and there are several gathered together here) who
have also made a weapon of resistance, and they are using it. And there
are all, there are indigenous, there are workers, there are women, there
are homosexuals, there are lesbians, there are students, there are young
people. Above all there are young people, men and women, who name their
own identities: "punk," "ska," "goth," "metal," "trasher," "rapper,"
"hip-hopper" and "etceteras." If we look at what they all have in common,
we will see that they have nothing in common, that they are all
"different." They are "others." And that is exactly what we have in
common, that we are "other," and "different." Not only that, we also have
in common that we are fighting in order to continue being "other" and
"different," and that is what we are resisting for. And we are "other"
and "different" to the powerful, or we are not like they want us to be,
but rather just as we are.
And what we are - far from wanting to impose its being on the "other" or
"different" - seeks its own space, and, at the same time, a space of
meeting. The "punks" don't go around on a campaign demanding that all
young people be "punks," nor do the "ska," or the "goths," or the "metal,"
or the "trashers," or the rappers, or, certainly, the indigenous.
Nonetheless. The Power does indeed want us to be how they want us to be,
want us to dress according to the style the Power dictates, want us to
talk the way he says, want us to eat what he sells, want us to consider
beautiful and lovely what he considers beautiful and lovely, even want us
to love and hate the way he establishes that love and hate should be. And
not just that, the Power also wants us to do all this on our knees and in
silence, without going around jumping, without shouts, without indigenous
uprisings, well-mannered. That is why the Power has armies and police, to
force those who are "other" and "different" to be the same and identical.
But the "other" and "different" are not looking for everyone to be like
they are. As if each one is saying that everyone has his own way or his
own thing ( I don't know how that's said now) and, in order for this to be
possible, it is not enough to just be, you also must always respect the
other. The "everyone doing his own thing" is double: it is affirmation
of difference, and it is respect for the other difference. When we say we
are fighting for respect for our "different" and "other" selves, that
includes fighting for respect for those who are also "other" and
"different," who are not like ourselves. And it is here where this entire
resistance movement - called "underground" or "subterranean," because it
takes place among those of below and underneath institutional movements -
meets zapatismo.
And this meeting is a meeting between guerreros and guerreras, among those
who make resistance a weapon, and who fight with it in order to be what
they are, in order to exist.
Or, when zapatistas say "we want a world where many worlds fit," they are
not discovering anything new, they are simply saying what the "other" and
"different" who walk the worlds of below have already said.
We zapatistas say "I am as I am and you are as you are, we are building a
world where I can be, without having to cease being me, where you can be,
without having to stop being you, and where neither I nor you force
another to be like me or like you. Or, as when the zapatistas say "a
world where many worlds fit," they are saying, more or less, "everyone
does his own thing."
And, before you start putting on airs, I'll go on to another subject on
the same subject.
Because it so happens then that, because we are different, we are the
same.
We are the same persecuted, the same despised, the same beaten, the same
imprisoned, the same disappeared, the same assassinated. And it is not
ours who are persecuting, despising, beating, imprisoning, assassinating
us. It is not even the "others" from below. It is the Power and their
names. And our crimes are not stealing, beating, assassinating,
insulting.
Nor is our crime being "other" and "different." No, our crime is in
being so, and in being proud of being so. Our crime - which in the
Power's penal code merits the death penalty - is the struggle we are
making to continue being "other" and "different." If we were "other" and
"different" shamefully, in hiding, guiltily, betrayed by ourselves,
trying to be, or to appear to be, what the Power wants us to be or to
appear to be, then they would give us an indulgent and pitying little pat,
and they would tell us that "they are things of youth, you will get over
it with age." For the Power, the medicine against rebellion is time,
"since it will go away with age."
Lie, what the Power is not saying is what is behind "that age" that it
assumes will cure and do away with youthful rebellion. Hours, months,
years of blows, of insults, of jails, of deaths, of rapes, of
persecutions, of neglect, a machinery working to "cure us" if we stop
being what we are and if we turn ourselves into servile beings, or which
will eliminate us if we insist on being what we are, without regard to
calendar, birthdays or the date on the birth certificate.
And so, then, we are all transgressors of the law. Because there is a law
in this system that kills and silences those who are "other" and
"different." And, by living, by shouting, by talking, that is, by being
rebels, we are transgressing that law, and we are, automatically,
criminals.
And these criminals that we are, we live in a rebel reality, where
resistance is bridge for us to meet, recognizing our difference and our
equality. And rock is also like a bridge over which those realities walk
in order to meet.
In what way is rock mirror and crystal for this very "other" and
"different" reality? The truth is, I do not know and I do not understand.
I look at and listen to groups like Rage Against the Machine and Tijuana
NO (to mention just those who are participating in tomorrow's concert, but
knowing that there are many others, and that all of them are good - as
musicians and as human beings), and I ask myself why do they do what they
do, say what they say, and play what they play. I believe it would be
better for them to tell us what goes on with them. Perhaps it so happens
that they are also asking themselves why we zapatistas are doing what we
are doing, saying what we are saying and playing what we are playing
(although, when it comes to rock, we are fairly useless. "Useless.": How
about that? A good name for a group or for a song. "Useless," like that,
with no qualifiers, so that everyone fits, men, women, and those who are
neither men nor women, but who are).
And, the reason for this video is to answer why we zapatistas are doing
what we are doing, saying what we are saying and playing what we are
playing, but, since I've gone over the 20 minutes I had, it will remain
open. At best, what I said earlier might help in finding the answer.
Sale, then, raza, banda, compas, chompiras, valedores, neros, gueyes, or,
as that international philosopher who is now dressing as a pirate, Durito,
says, "everyone doing his own thing."
Then, Elorriaga's thing shall follow, who will, in his turn, tell us whose
thing is to follow, Bellinghausen's, Zack's, Yaotl's, Pineda's, the compa
from Punk Anarchy's, or I don't know whose thing then, because, because
they might have put me in the middle (which would be in verrrry bad
taste), or left me to the end, so that the raza would already be asleep
and wouldn't have to hear the outrageous things I'm saying here.
Vale. Salud and (like it says on the cover of that fanzine that has the
good taste to call itself "ZUPterraneo"), and with such a thing,
"something doesn't smell right," which means something like "there are
things and then there are things." Salud!
>From the mountains of the Mexican Southeast
The Sup, tuning up his guitar for the "special appearance."
Mexico, "other" and "different," October of 1999.
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nos vemos en el futuro.
ilich. http://cinematik.com