BE : More Ch 4 departure

[David Morris]

On Fri, Nov 19, 2021 at 2:48 PM Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net> wrote:

> but,... but what I am talking about is the very idea of  a revolutionary
> space where just the fact  people can talk about anything privately and
> untraceably is the what makes it dangerous, and potentially dangerous in
> all the right ways.

[…]

> But it is harder and harder to organize even non-violent effective
> resistance. So much speech is being curtailed by fear. All the fears about
> the soviet union from my youth seem to have become the norms.


So much hyperbole and heavy breathing about an environment of fear and
oppression by government forces over our daily lives that I can’t think of
existing in ANY real-life examples.  It SOUNDS so dramatic and noble a
fight.  But in reality the only people doing the oppressing are the
white-right racist Klansmen and their bubba sheriffs and judges enablers.
And the only people FEELING that racist  oppression are those who *actually
have taken to the streets* in REAL protests…  Usually after your random
next black person has been murdered by cop or racist gunslinger.  If anyone
else fears being listened to, that sure isn’t evident on Facebook or
Twitter.  But God-forbid you post the photo of a female nipple on
Facebook.  THAT will get you in quick trouble.

It isn’t fear of government that is the cause of the ***non-existence*** of
war protests in the US, no matter how hard Joe huffs and puffs.

But the cost of gas might just get them going.

Try to find any mainstream or close to mainstream media outlet that
> advocates against our imperialist wars of aggression, our ‘sanctions’ ,
> sanctified blocakades to starve those nations who insist on choosing their
> own leaders.


Better yet, try to find a MARKET for that kind of media.

I meet people all the time who oppose US militarism and spending, but their
> voices are increasingly constrained to heavily guarded and cordoned free
> speech zones.


You meet them WHERE?  At Trader Joe’s?  Whole Foods?  Piggly Wiggly?

>

> > On Nov 19, 2021, at 1:10 PM, Allen Ruch <quail at shipwrecklibrary.com>
> wrote:
> >
> > Joseph makes some great points, as usual; but just to sound a note of
> caution—
> >
> > The Deep Web certainly has its use for revolution and resistance,
> especially against regimes that lock down the Internet for citizens at the
> drop of a hat—see China and Peng Shuai right now, for instance. But it also
> opens the door to sex trafficking, arms dealing, terrorism, blackmail,
> extortion, and assassination. Just look at Silk Road.
> >
> > And as for hackers—any romanticizing of hackers has to take into account
> all the mischief and mayhem they cause to most normal people. Sadly,
> there's a lot less Matrix-style hacking out there as opposed to "let's
> crash this network because we can," or "let's lock up this hospital until
> they pay us." I wish there were more politically-motivated hackers (by that
> I don’t mean international cyber-warfare; I mean he romantic ideal of
> anarchist collectives devoted to exposing government secrets, etc.)—but the
> sad truth is most hackers are vile scum who do it solely for the money
> and/or the mayhem.
> >
> > So I'm not completely sold on Pynchon siding with hackers—after all, he
> does have a large portion of them seduced by hashslingerz, etc. I think he
> presents hacking similar to the way dynamite is presented in "Against the
> Day." A useful tool against Plutocrats, perhaps; but one that is also used
> by various Big Ideologies to maintain their power.
> >
> > Connecting this to our earlier discussion about violence—something I
> always wonder when I read Pynchon—how far is he willing to go? There's a
> tension between violence-embracing anarchist characters like Webb Traverse
> and Reverend Moss Gatlin, and more peaceful characters who feel that
> violence is a path that leads one astray. I mean—that's why he's a great
> writer, his characters and ideas are complex, yes: but I always wonder,
> just where does the man himself draw the line? I'm especially thinking of
> Reverend Moss Gatlin here:
> >
> > "Being born into this don’t automatically make you innocent. But when
> you reach a point in your life when you understand who is fucking who—beg
> pardon, Lord—who’s taking it and who’s not, that’s when you’re obliged to
> choose how much you’ll go along with. If you are not devoting every breath
> of every day waking and sleeping to destroying those who slaughter innocent
> as easy as signing a check, then how innocent are you willing to call
> yourself? It must be negotiated with the day in those absolute terms."
> >
> > —Quail
> >
> --
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>