Posts tagged "Elle Dark"
  1. Notes: 15 / 1 year ago  from elledark
    elledark: No .. they haven’t, but that was never the point.Those who used the phoney ‘war on terror’ to legitimize riding rough-shod over civil rights and the constitution, turning America into a surveillance state, won.Those who used ‘terrorism’ as an excuse for foreign wars of choice that the public wouldn’t have otherwise supported won.Those who’ve make fortunes out of the unnecessary foreign wars and the vast ‘terror industry’ at home and abroad won.They’re the winners. The American people are the ones who lost, along with the hundreds of thousands dead in the middle-east who lost even more.

    elledark:

    No .. they haven’t, but that was never the point.

    Those who used the phoney ‘war on terror’ to legitimize riding rough-shod over civil rights and the constitution, turning America into a surveillance state, won.

    Those who used ‘terrorism’ as an excuse for foreign wars of choice that the public wouldn’t have otherwise supported won.

    Those who’ve make fortunes out of the unnecessary foreign wars and the vast ‘terror industry’ at home and abroad won.

    They’re the winners. The American people are the ones who lost, along with the hundreds of thousands dead in the middle-east who lost even more.

     
  2. Notes: 45 / 1 year ago  from elledark
    Elle Dark: The Long Suicide of Stumbleupon

    elledark:

    I noticed a Stumbleupon ‘news flash’ today saying .. “We plan to start migrating everyone into the new StumbleUpon design in early March”. So now we know.

    Thats the point at which the crippled, barren shell of what was once a vibrant community becomes totally unusable. That’s when they switch to…

  3. Notes: 16 / 1 year ago  from elledark
    elledark: ‘Pirates’ 1 - Repressive Legislation 0At least that’s the way the score is looking at the moment in the ongoing battle between file-sharers and some politicians, acting for big corporations, who want to control how the internet is used through legislation like SOPA, PIPA and ACTA. Tribler is a variant on the popular BitTorrent file-sharing software, but is designed specifically to stay online under any circumstances , including attacks by governments and anti-‘piracy’ organisations.‘The only way to take it down is to take the internet down,’ says Dr Pouwelse of Delft University of Technology. The software has no ‘central point’ to attack and will continue working even if every file-sharing site in the world is taken downIt was widely predicted that computer illiterate politicians and the big corporations they represent, desperate to protect their dinosaur business models, wouldn’t be able to cope with the innovation of online users or the ability of the internet to flow around obstacles and Tribler may be an example of just thatSo this may be encouraging news for anyone who believes that recent attempts at legislation such as SOPA, PIPA and ACTA are grossly disproportionate to any real problem, fundamentally flawed in concept, repressive, over-reaching and potentially harmful to a free and vibrant internet.Story here ..

    elledark:

    ‘Pirates’ 1 - Repressive Legislation 0

    At least that’s the way the score is looking at the moment in the ongoing battle between file-sharers and some politicians, acting for big corporations, who want to control how the internet is used through legislation like SOPA, PIPA and ACTA.

    Tribler is a variant on the popular BitTorrent file-sharing software, but is designed specifically to stay online under any circumstances , including attacks by governments and anti-‘piracy’ organisations.

    ‘The only way to take it down is to take the internet down,’ says Dr Pouwelse of Delft University of Technology. The software has no ‘central point’ to attack and will continue working even if every file-sharing site in the world is taken down

    It was widely predicted that computer illiterate politicians and the big corporations they represent, desperate to protect their dinosaur business models, wouldn’t be able to cope with the innovation of online users or the ability of the internet to flow around obstacles and Tribler may be an example of just that

    So this may be encouraging news for anyone who believes that recent attempts at legislation such as SOPA, PIPA and ACTA are grossly disproportionate to any real problem, fundamentally flawed in concept, repressive, over-reaching and potentially harmful to a free and vibrant internet.

    Story here ..

     
  4. Notes: 12 / 1 year ago  from elledark
    elledark: “I Did It For the Lulz” ~ (God)We hear that Rick Santorum prayed and firmly believes it is Gods will that he runs for president. But then so too, apparently, did Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry and any number of others for all we know. It is not clear whether God is telling each one they’re his main squeeze or owning up to endorsing all of the rest.Plainly they all believe God is a Republican and is taking time off from global affairs to micro-manage American politics. They also each think God has fingered them alone as his ‘chosen one’. Either they’re all lying, deluded, or (my favorite theory) the almighty is just being mischievous and messing with them for the lulz.I mean .. who could blame him/her/it .. ?

    elledark:

    “I Did It For the Lulz” ~ (God)

    We hear that Rick Santorum prayed and firmly believes it is Gods will that he runs for president. But then so too, apparently, did Herman Cain, Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry and any number of others for all we know. It is not clear whether God is telling each one they’re his main squeeze or owning up to endorsing all of the rest.

    Plainly they all believe God is a Republican and is taking time off from global affairs to micro-manage American politics. They also each think God has fingered them alone as his ‘chosen one’. Either they’re all lying, deluded, or (my favorite theory) the almighty is just being mischievous and messing with them for the lulz.

    I mean .. who could blame him/her/it .. ?

     
  5. Notes: 25 / 1 year ago  from elledark
    elledark: The Myth of the Pinata of Benevolence“We have this fantasy that our interests and the interests of the super rich are the same. Like somehow the rich will eventually get so full that they’ll explode. And the candy will rain down on the rest of us. Like there’s some kind of pinata of benevolence. But here’s the thing about a pinata: it doesn’t open on it’s own. You have to beat it with a stick.” ~ (Bill Maher) .The problem is that America’s career politicians, of all parties, are among the least likely people on earth to use that stick on our behalf.

    elledark:

    The Myth of the Pinata of Benevolence

    “We have this fantasy that our interests and the interests of the super rich are the same. Like somehow the rich will eventually get so full that they’ll explode. And the candy will rain down on the rest of us. Like there’s some kind of pinata of benevolence. But here’s the thing about a pinata: it doesn’t open on it’s own. You have to beat it with a stick.” ~ (Bill Maher) .

    The problem is that America’s career politicians, of all parties, are among the least likely people on earth to use that stick on our behalf.

     
  6. Notes: 15068 / 1 year ago  from elledark (originally from 3liza)
    3liza: ACTA passed one of the several voting gates it needs to get through before becoming law. It was ratified in Poland last night.  This was the scene at Polish parliament afterwards, as (presumably) a bloc of anti-ACTA politicians expressed their displeasure and, perhaps without knowing it, foretell of the Anonymous repercussions to this bill. Some things you should know: Online petitions are meaningless.  While they are well-intentioned and organized, the signing of a digital petition takes about twenty seconds, and does not require that you leave your beanbag chair in the coal cellar.  Politicians know this, and pay just as much attention to online petitions as is warranted by a “political action” that is literally less strenuous than leaving a YouTube comment. Nothing except direct action is going to do a goddamn thing.  This means getting out in the street, it means DDoSing, it means vicious and widespread boycotts, site blackouts, and other strongarm tactics that actually impact the flow of money from corporations to lobbyists to politicians.  How do you, as a tiny flailing consumer, do this?  You can’t, really.  You can join up with groups that are intent on doing actions that actually mean something, adding your voice to a chorus of hundreds or thousands, instead of screaming alone.  You can contact celebrities, the spokespeople of our time, as ask them to leverage their followers on the issue.  You can write to Tumblr and ask for more blackouts.  None of these things will be very effective, so don’t be too disappointed when they don’t work, but they sure as fuck are more effective than online petitions, and the intense response to SOPA by corporations and consumers was responsible for getting it “tabled” (not dead, but dreaming lies). ACTA was already signed by Obama in September of 2011.  He had been praising the bill for over a year prior, and signed it without reservation.  Most of us didn’t hear about it, and he likely used the 9/11 coverage to make sure of that. Eventually, one of these bills will pass, and the pro-corporate laws will go into effect.  Expect it.  Be prepared.  Learn to circumvent this garbage and you’ll have a leg up when the feds shut down the internet as we know it. The best thing you can do now is install Tor and learn how to use it.  Tor is free software and an open network that helps you defend against a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security known as traffic analysis.  In order to circumvent the coming corporate takeover of the web, we’re going to have to go underground, creating a sub-internet of encrypted nodes known as a “darknet”.  It’s probably going to be like the internet was in the beginning, with most people only seeing what AOL wanted them to see, and only a small group of super-nerds existing outside of that bubble in the “real” internet.  It’ll take another twenty years for them to catch up to us again. Welcome to the grim cyberpunk future.

    3liza:

    ACTA passed one of the several voting gates it needs to get through before becoming law.

    It was ratified in Poland last night.  This was the scene at Polish parliament afterwards, as (presumably) a bloc of anti-ACTA politicians expressed their displeasure and, perhaps without knowing it, foretell of the Anonymous repercussions to this bill.

    Some things you should know:

    • Online petitions are meaningless.  While they are well-intentioned and organized, the signing of a digital petition takes about twenty seconds, and does not require that you leave your beanbag chair in the coal cellar.  Politicians know this, and pay just as much attention to online petitions as is warranted by a “political action” that is literally less strenuous than leaving a YouTube comment.
    • Nothing except direct action is going to do a goddamn thing.  This means getting out in the street, it means DDoSing, it means vicious and widespread boycotts, site blackouts, and other strongarm tactics that actually impact the flow of money from corporations to lobbyists to politicians.  How do you, as a tiny flailing consumer, do this?  You can’t, really.  You can join up with groups that are intent on doing actions that actually mean something, adding your voice to a chorus of hundreds or thousands, instead of screaming alone.  You can contact celebrities, the spokespeople of our time, as ask them to leverage their followers on the issue.  You can write to Tumblr and ask for more blackouts.  None of these things will be very effective, so don’t be too disappointed when they don’t work, but they sure as fuck are more effective than online petitions, and the intense response to SOPA by corporations and consumers was responsible for getting it “tabled” (not dead, but dreaming lies).
    • ACTA was already signed by Obama in September of 2011.  He had been praising the bill for over a year prior, and signed it without reservation.  Most of us didn’t hear about it, and he likely used the 9/11 coverage to make sure of that.

    • Eventually, one of these bills will pass, and the pro-corporate laws will go into effect.  Expect it.  Be prepared.  Learn to circumvent this garbage and you’ll have a leg up when the feds shut down the internet as we know it.

    • The best thing you can do now is install Tor and learn how to use it.  Tor is free software and an open network that helps you defend against a form of network surveillance that threatens personal freedom and privacy, confidential business activities and relationships, and state security known as traffic analysis.  In order to circumvent the coming corporate takeover of the web, we’re going to have to go underground, creating a sub-internet of encrypted nodes known as a “darknet”.  It’s probably going to be like the internet was in the beginning, with most people only seeing what AOL wanted them to see, and only a small group of super-nerds existing outside of that bubble in the “real” internet.  It’ll take another twenty years for them to catch up to us again.

    • Welcome to the grim cyberpunk future.

    (Source: 3liza)

     
  7. Notes: 26 / 1 year ago  from stumblers2tumblrs (originally from elledark)
    elledark: ACTA - The Next Step in Breaking the InternetExtract from this article .. “There is a new baddie in town, meet ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement). The treaty already has the support of the US, Australia, Canada, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea. It has been called worse than SOPA and PIPA.”“ACTA is a proposed agreement for the purpose of establishing international standards on intellectual property rights enforcement. Negotiating countries have described it as a response ‘to the increase in global trade of counterfeit goods and pirated copyright protected works’.” In a world under the ACTA I would be fined and maybe if I was a regular culprit imprisoned for that quote. The ACTA is a long and often difficult to understand piece of scripture but simply put amounts to the following.Under ACTA, [your] ISP, the company you pay for access to the internet, will be forced to open up and inspect every single data package you send and receive to look for copyrighted information. If you send copyrighted material several times you will be disconnected and even face charges. Under the worst interpretation of the ACTA treaty, if you send a friend an MP3 through instant messenger, upload a video of a party with played copyrighted music or quote a copyrighted newspaper article in an email, you’re gone! In the case of the newspaper article the publisher would be contacted and, based on their claims, you could be fined or sent to prison. Any sites such as Twitter and Youtube that hold content of music, videos or pictures will be greatly affected. How will they work under a law such as ACTA? Simple. They won’t. The internet as we know it faces major reconstructive surgery to the point of no recognition.This doesn’t mean that artists, musicians, writers, filmmakers, software developers, researchers and journalists will benefit in any way. They also lose as they will be restricted by the same rules. Protected ideas now cannot be reused, refined or developed any further. The whole agreement only benefits a small part of the industry- media publishing companies (RIAA, MPAA) which have long tried to solve the internet problem but have failed until now. ACTA is the result of their lobbying and under the table negotiations.This copy protection is a great tool of information suppression. Once all the internet filters and blocking techniques are in place virtually all information taken as copyright can be suppressed. This is bigger than internet censorship; it is also about the restriction on freedom of speech, the total surveillance of all online activities and punishing individuals by taking the internet away from them.” Check the Stop ACTA website and sign the online petition if you want. It does no harm but will probably not do a great deal of good either unless the big money organizations (like Google) that benefited from fighting SOPA get behind it with actions that will impact the politicians supporting ACTA and this doesn’t seem likely at the moment. The reasonable objections most people have is to excessive, over-reaching and ill-conceived legislation, implemented by ‘bribed’, internet-illiterate politicians, that stands a very real chance of ‘breaking’ the structure of the internet and will certainly treat every user like a potential criminal. The ‘remedies’ proposed (ACTA, PIPA, SOPA et al) are all grotesquely out of proportion to any possible problem they say they’re addressing. Its madness.

    elledark:

    ACTA - The Next Step in Breaking the Internet

    Extract from this article .. “There is a new baddie in town, meet ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement). The treaty already has the support of the US, Australia, Canada, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea. It has been called worse than SOPA and PIPA.”

    “ACTA is a proposed agreement for the purpose of establishing international standards on intellectual property rights enforcement. Negotiating countries have described it as a response ‘to the increase in global trade of counterfeit goods and pirated copyright protected works’.” In a world under the ACTA I would be fined and maybe if I was a regular culprit imprisoned for that quote. The ACTA is a long and often difficult to understand piece of scripture but simply put amounts to the following.

    Under ACTA, [your] ISP, the company you pay for access to the internet, will be forced to open up and inspect every single data package you send and receive to look for copyrighted information. If you send copyrighted material several times you will be disconnected and even face charges. Under the worst interpretation of the ACTA treaty, if you send a friend an MP3 through instant messenger, upload a video of a party with played copyrighted music or quote a copyrighted newspaper article in an email, you’re gone! In the case of the newspaper article the publisher would be contacted and, based on their claims, you could be fined or sent to prison. Any sites such as Twitter and Youtube that hold content of music, videos or pictures will be greatly affected. How will they work under a law such as ACTA? Simple. They won’t. The internet as we know it faces major reconstructive surgery to the point of no recognition.

    This doesn’t mean that artists, musicians, writers, filmmakers, software developers, researchers and journalists will benefit in any way. They also lose as they will be restricted by the same rules. Protected ideas now cannot be reused, refined or developed any further. The whole agreement only benefits a small part of the industry- media publishing companies (RIAA, MPAA) which have long tried to solve the internet problem but have failed until now. ACTA is the result of their lobbying and under the table negotiations.

    This copy protection is a great tool of information suppression. Once all the internet filters and blocking techniques are in place virtually all information taken as copyright can be suppressed. This is bigger than internet censorship; it is also about the restriction on freedom of speech, the total surveillance of all online activities and punishing individuals by taking the internet away from them.”

    Check the Stop ACTA website and sign the online petition if you want. It does no harm but will probably not do a great deal of good either unless the big money organizations (like Google) that benefited from fighting SOPA get behind it with actions that will impact the politicians supporting ACTA and this doesn’t seem likely at the moment.

    The reasonable objections most people have is to excessive, over-reaching and ill-conceived legislation, implemented by ‘bribed’, internet-illiterate politicians, that stands a very real chance of ‘breaking’ the structure of the internet and will certainly treat every user like a potential criminal. The ‘remedies’ proposed (ACTA, PIPA, SOPA et al) are all grotesquely out of proportion to any possible problem they say they’re addressing. Its madness.

     
  8. Notes: 28 / 1 year ago  from elledark
    Elle Dark: More Muttering About Stumbleupon

    elledark:

    Sorry if I’m getting boring on this subject but I logged on there yesterday to the ‘new’ Stumbleupon and it brought home with depressing clarity how much its changed for the worse.

    A couple of years ago my Stumbleupon blog was pretty much all I did online. I’d post what interested me, have a…

    Like Elle I too miss the StumbleUpon of old (even left a couple of gripes on StumbleUpon’s twitter page, GetSatisfaction.com all to no avail). And the kicker is, every time I check my StumbleUpon page it implores me to “try the new StumbleUpon. It’s simpler, more visual, and gives you new way’s to explore the web.” My brief tryout of the “new StumbleUpon” it was none of the above!
  9. Notes: 295 / 1 year ago  from elledark (originally from cartoonpolitics)
    cartoonpolitics: The internet we use is under serious and imminent threat from the US government and the giant corporations it serves. Protect IP and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) will impose draconian control and cause lasting damage. Once passed, there will be no going back. It could happen any day now. More information.

    cartoonpolitics:

    The internet we use is under serious and imminent threat from the US government and the giant corporations it serves. Protect IP and the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) will impose draconian control and cause lasting damage. Once passed, there will be no going back. It could happen any day now. More information.

     
  10. Notes: 23 / 1 year ago  from elledark
    elledark: Internet Freedom and the Stench of Hypocrisy“The United States stands with cyber dissidents and democracy activists from the Middle East to China and beyond”, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said  recently in a speech about internet freedom.  She pledged to “expand the Obama administration’s efforts to stand against Internet repression in autocratic states”. She was at it again just the other day at another internet freedom conference, mouthing the same platitudes.Fine words and no less than you would expect from any regime paying lip-service to freedom-of-speech and transparency, but is it just me who is gagging on the ripe, rancid stench of hypocrisy ?Is this not the very administration that has been so mercilessly persecuting Bradley Manning for documents leaked in the public interest that highlighted war crimes (the apache helicopter massacre for example) ? Months of extreme solitary confinement so far in conditions regarded by many reputable critics as torture and designed to break him mentally so that he will implicate Wikileaks. Despicable.Is this not the very administration which, totally outside of any legal process, leaned on and bullied private companies like Amazon, Visa, and Paypal to get them to refuse service to Wikileaks ? Take a bow Senator Joe Lieberman who acted as the enforcer and got the dirty work done in the shadows.Is this not the very administration which … well I’m not even going to get into the whole murky business of the personal character assassination of Assange in the media but anyone who thinks its totally divorced from his Wikileaks activities must be dangerously naive or resolutely blinkered.Is this not the very administration which had its minions mount massive and illegal denial of service attacks on the Wikileaks servers in criminal acts that mirrored the kind of thing done by the very repressive regimes it criticizes ?Its worse than that, though. Every day, everything we do on the internet is spied on by the American government. Collection systems at the National Security Agency intercept and store 1.7 billion e-mails, phone calls and other types of communications. Automated programs work tirelessly 24/7 flagging up anything ‘suspicious’ for human investigation. Say the wrong word in chat, send the wrong link in email, visit the wrong site online and you could end up a ‘suspect’ and innocence of any crime is no guarantee of a just outcome. Mistakes are made. Glenn Greenwald says .. “Internet freedom — preventing government and corporate control of the Internet — is indeed one of the most vital political fights of this generation, perhaps the most vital. There are many people in a position credibly to lead and support that fight. Hillary Clinton and the government in which she serves is most definitely not among them; more often than not, they are among the enemies of those freedoms.” .. I couldn’t agree more.So yes Hilary .. good to hear you standing up for freedom on the internet and against authoritarian regimes that seek to curtail it. I must say it all sounds very convincing. Now could you just start to practice what you preach ? Oh and in the meantime pass me the sick-bag please .. its that stench of hypocrisy. Thanks

    elledark:

    Internet Freedom and the Stench of Hypocrisy

    “The United States stands with cyber dissidents and democracy activists from the Middle East to China and beyond”, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said  recently in a speech about internet freedom.  She pledged to “expand the Obama administration’s efforts to stand against Internet repression in autocratic states”. She was at it again just the other day at another internet freedom conference, mouthing the same platitudes.

    Fine words and no less than you would expect from any regime paying lip-service to freedom-of-speech and transparency, but is it just me who is gagging on the ripe, rancid stench of hypocrisy ?

    Is this not the very administration that has been so mercilessly persecuting Bradley Manning for documents leaked in the public interest that highlighted war crimes (the apache helicopter massacre for example) ? Months of extreme solitary confinement so far in conditions regarded by many reputable critics as torture and designed to break him mentally so that he will implicate Wikileaks. Despicable.

    Is this not the very administration which, totally outside of any legal process, leaned on and bullied private companies like Amazon, Visa, and Paypal to get them to refuse service to Wikileaks ? Take a bow Senator Joe Lieberman who acted as the enforcer and got the dirty work done in the shadows.

    Is this not the very administration which … well I’m not even going to get into the whole murky business of the personal character assassination of Assange in the media but anyone who thinks its totally divorced from his Wikileaks activities must be dangerously naive or resolutely blinkered.

    Is this not the very administration which had its minions mount massive and illegal denial of service attacks on the Wikileaks servers in criminal acts that mirrored the kind of thing done by the very repressive regimes it criticizes ?

    Its worse than that, though. Every day, everything we do on the internet is spied on by the American government. Collection systems at the National Security Agency intercept and store 1.7 billion e-mails, phone calls and other types of communications. Automated programs work tirelessly 24/7 flagging up anything ‘suspicious’ for human investigation. Say the wrong word in chat, send the wrong link in email, visit the wrong site online and you could end up a ‘suspect’ and innocence of any crime is no guarantee of a just outcome. Mistakes are made.

    Glenn Greenwald says .. “Internet freedom — preventing government and corporate control of the Internet — is indeed one of the most vital political fights of this generation, perhaps the most vital. There are many people in a position credibly to lead and support that fight. Hillary Clinton and the government in which she serves is most definitely not among them; more often than not, they are among the enemies of those freedoms.” .. I couldn’t agree more.

    So yes Hilary .. good to hear you standing up for freedom on the internet and against authoritarian regimes that seek to curtail it. I must say it all sounds very convincing. Now could you just start to practice what you preach ? Oh and in the meantime pass me the sick-bag please .. its that stench of hypocrisy. Thanks

     
  11. Notes: 23 / 1 year ago  from elledark
    elledark: The 1%Oh stop your complaining you malcontentwith your silly, anti-capitalist discontentand that Occupy Wall Street non-eventdo you really think it bothers the 1 % ?We’re richer than you by a very long wayand the gaps getting wider every daypolice and politicians do what we saywe’re your masters and we rule the USAWe pull your strings from birth to graveand give you the shiny new toys you craveIts a capitalist paradise if you just behavewhere you’re free to be a consumer slaveSo have your little protest, rant and ventblow some hot air inside your socialist tentbut threaten us and we’ll make you repentbecause we own America, we’re the 1% Ellie

    elledark:

    The 1%

    Oh stop your complaining you malcontent
    with your silly, anti-capitalist discontent
    and that Occupy Wall Street non-event
    do you really think it bothers the 1 % ?

    We’re richer than you by a very long way
    and the gaps getting wider every day
    police and politicians do what we say
    we’re your masters and we rule the USA

    We pull your strings from birth to grave
    and give you the shiny new toys you crave
    Its a capitalist paradise if you just behave
    where you’re free to be a consumer slave

    So have your little protest, rant and vent
    blow some hot air inside your socialist tent
    but threaten us and we’ll make you repent
    because we own America, we’re the 1%

    Ellie

     
  12. Notes: 123 / 1 year ago  from elledark (originally from cartoonpolitics)
    cartoonpolitics: Oh yes .. there’s absolutely no doubt about that. Remember that just before Occupy Wall Street started mega-bankster JP Morgan Chase‘donated’ $4.6 million to New York City Police ? They seem to be getting pretty good value for their money so far ..

    cartoonpolitics:

    Oh yes .. there’s absolutely no doubt about that. Remember that just before Occupy Wall Street started mega-bankster JP Morgan Chase‘donated’ $4.6 million to New York City Police ? They seem to be getting pretty good value for their money so far ..

     
  13. Notes: 25 / 1 year ago  from elledark
    elledark: Cross Me Off Your List, Big Brother, Okay ?Heres a thought for all you liberal comrades who, like me, fly to the blogging barricades to rant indignantly about Americas slide towards fascism. The thing is, if you really believe what you’re saying, you might want to be careful about saying it online. Seriously.In the past the government had to work quite hard to winkle out ‘subversives’. You know the sort … the kind of trouble-makers who were active in unions or spoke out against war or marched for peace or demanded racial equality or any one of a host of activities that made them ‘dangerous’ to society. It was a hard slog identifying and listing them so they could be watched or sometimes, if they looked like causing too much fuss, covertly targeted and smeared. You think I’m kidding or exaggerating ? Please .. *please* .. read the history of America in the 20th century. Does anyone think things have changed ? Really ? If so watch out for the tooth fairy .. she’ll be around later.Nowadays, however, its so much easier for our rulers to find their ‘enemy within’. They don’t have to infiltrate groups. They don’t have to skulk around in the shadows. Its all handed to them on a plate called the internet. We leave a digital trail of our protest. Multi-billion dollar agencies with cutting-edge equipment spy on American citizens 24/7. Everything you put on Facebook or Twitter or other social media sites or blog or write in a private email is fed into the government processor. Just using certain words online will trigger a machine response that flags you up for attention. You won’t even know if some faceless government agent decides to put you under scrutiny and that might happen for any reason or no reason at all. Mistakes are made.The hideously draconian and unpatriotic Patriot Act still looms over the country like the shadow of Darth Vader. None of the oppressive burden of government surveillance that was slipped in under the cloak of ‘anti-terrorism’ hysteria has been lifted and nor will it ever be. It will just get steadily, incrementally, progressively worse. Right now, unless you’re unlucky,  the chances are you won’t know much about it. You’ll go online and ‘have your say’ and rant about this or that and it’ll all seem fine. Its not though.The ‘freedom’ of the internet has encouraged us to jump up and down with our hands raised yelling .. “Hey .. here we are .. we’re the ones you want”. Of course the secret government ‘listeners’ will dismiss most of what we say as the hot air it rightly is but if you say much, and if you say it at all effectively, the chances are you’ll be on their list. Or there might just be a cock-up and you’ll end on a list anyway. Lord knows Its happened. Then you’re ‘the enemy’.If I was really subversive .. really serious about changing the status quo radically .. I think I’d shut up about it online. I’d stay right off the online political or social soap-boxes and post lolcats or blog about pixies while I worked quietly under the radar in the real world for a better, fairer society. I’d appear harmless. I’d subvert from within rather than inviting attention. Of course, in case anyone is covertly monitoring this chitter-chatter, I’m obviously no danger whatsoever to you.  Who in their right minds wouldn’t love Big Brother and the Corporate States of America ?In fact, let me go on record right now for the secret listeners as saying I think having two almost identical right-of-center political parties and calling it a democratic ‘choice’ is neat. I think its so fun that the government scares us all with overblown hype about the ‘terrorist threat’ as  a means of control and to enable illegitimate wars of aggression. I totally approve of the way big business and their lobbyists control government through vast slush funds and ‘contributions’.  I applaud the way the majority of the countries wealth is owned by a tiny minority of people while others are homeless, hungry and without health-care. I even love that the Orwellian named US ‘defence’ industry is the worlds biggest supplier of weapons by a vast margin, needing to find new wars and arenas of death each year to maintain its multi-billion dollar sales. I’m really cool with Americas constant attacks on other countries, the democracies they’ve subverted, the dictators they’ve supported and the vast numbers of innocent people they’ve killed over the years. I mean .. seriously .. how could any reasonable person disagree with any of this ?So if you’re listening secret-service surveillance doods (and we absolutely know you are) I’m totally harmless, yanno.  You can cross me off your list .. really ..:)

    elledark:

    Cross Me Off Your List, Big Brother, Okay ?

    Heres a thought for all you liberal comrades who, like me, fly to the blogging barricades to rant indignantly about Americas slide towards fascism. The thing is, if you really believe what you’re saying, you might want to be careful about saying it online. Seriously.

    In the past the government had to work quite hard to winkle out ‘subversives’. You know the sort … the kind of trouble-makers who were active in unions or spoke out against war or marched for peace or demanded racial equality or any one of a host of activities that made them ‘dangerous’ to society. It was a hard slog identifying and listing them so they could be watched or sometimes, if they looked like causing too much fuss, covertly targeted and smeared. You think I’m kidding or exaggerating ? Please .. *please* .. read the history of America in the 20th century. Does anyone think things have changed ? Really ? If so watch out for the tooth fairy .. she’ll be around later.

    Nowadays, however, its so much easier for our rulers to find their ‘enemy within’. They don’t have to infiltrate groups. They don’t have to skulk around in the shadows. Its all handed to them on a plate called the internet. We leave a digital trail of our protest. Multi-billion dollar agencies with cutting-edge equipment spy on American citizens 24/7. Everything you put on Facebook or Twitter or other social media sites or blog or write in a private email is fed into the government processor. Just using certain words online will trigger a machine response that flags you up for attention. You won’t even know if some faceless government agent decides to put you under scrutiny and that might happen for any reason or no reason at all. Mistakes are made.

    The hideously draconian and unpatriotic Patriot Act still looms over the country like the shadow of Darth Vader. None of the oppressive burden of government surveillance that was slipped in under the cloak of ‘anti-terrorism’ hysteria has been lifted and nor will it ever be. It will just get steadily, incrementally, progressively worse. Right now, unless you’re unlucky,  the chances are you won’t know much about it. You’ll go online and ‘have your say’ and rant about this or that and it’ll all seem fine. Its not though.

    The ‘freedom’ of the internet has encouraged us to jump up and down with our hands raised yelling .. “Hey .. here we are .. we’re the ones you want”. Of course the secret government ‘listeners’ will dismiss most of what we say as the hot air it rightly is but if you say much, and if you say it at all effectively, the chances are you’ll be on their list. Or there might just be a cock-up and you’ll end on a list anyway. Lord knows Its happened. Then you’re ‘the enemy’.

    If I was really subversive .. really serious about changing the status quo radically .. I think I’d shut up about it online. I’d stay right off the online political or social soap-boxes and post lolcats or blog about pixies while I worked quietly under the radar in the real world for a better, fairer society. I’d appear harmless. I’d subvert from within rather than inviting attention. Of course, in case anyone is covertly monitoring this chitter-chatter, I’m obviously no danger whatsoever to you.  Who in their right minds wouldn’t love Big Brother and the Corporate States of America ?

    In fact, let me go on record right now for the secret listeners as saying I think having two almost identical right-of-center political parties and calling it a democratic ‘choice’ is neat. I think its so fun that the government scares us all with overblown hype about the ‘terrorist threat’ as  a means of control and to enable illegitimate wars of aggression. I totally approve of the way big business and their lobbyists control government through vast slush funds and ‘contributions’.  I applaud the way the majority of the countries wealth is owned by a tiny minority of people while others are homeless, hungry and without health-care.

    I even love that the Orwellian named US ‘defence’ industry is the worlds biggest supplier of weapons by a vast margin, needing to find new wars and arenas of death each year to maintain its multi-billion dollar sales. I’m really cool with Americas constant attacks on other countries, the democracies they’ve subverted, the dictators they’ve supported and the vast numbers of innocent people they’ve killed over the years. I mean .. seriously .. how could any reasonable person disagree with any of this ?

    So if you’re listening secret-service surveillance doods (and we absolutely know you are) I’m totally harmless, yanno.  You can cross me off your list .. really ..:)

     
  14. Notes: 15 / 1 year ago  from elledark (originally from cheguevaraslovechild-deactivate)
    cheguevaraslovechild: With the state American politics is in, this might be the best hope ..

    cheguevaraslovechild:

    With the state American politics is in, this might be the best hope ..

     
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