Month: September 2015

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQIJiIQjoRU&feature=share

 

I. “This instant that won’t be forgottenSo empty when thrown back by the shadowsSo empty when rejected by clocksThis wretched moment taken by my tendernessStripped naked, naked of the blood of the wingsRobbed of eyes to remember the angst of yesteryearOf lips to scoop up the juice of the violenceLost in the tolling of frozen belfries.”

Source: Chile: Coordinated incendiary attacks against telecommunications infrastructure by FAI-IRF | anarchistnews.org

Four Meditations on Wild Reaction [Reaccion Salvajes]Note: The photograph below, and the quotes preceding each section of this poem, are  from the first communiqué of Wild Reaction (RS), issued from Cuernavaca, Mexico in  August 2014 and translated by waronsociety.noblogs.org in September.I”After a little more than three years of criminal-terrorist activity, the group“Individualists Tending toward the Wild” (ITS) begins a new phase in this open war against the Technoindustrial System…  from now on the attacks against technology andcivilization will be signed with the new name of “Wild Reaction” (RS).”my new hero is the vanishing point: somewhere and nowhere all at once an internet modem in the mouth of a vacuum, a smartphone dipped in gold. dipped in diamonds. encrusted with priceless gems and introduced at half time of the superbowl the camera-man in a grip’s union panning wide: the new commodities the glamorous intellectuals a motherboard and a mainframe, a smartwatch a smart wrist a smart organ grown on a scaffold

A totalitarian state is only as strong as its informants. And the United States has a lot of them. They read our emails. They listen to, download and store our phone calls. They photograph us on street corners, on subway platforms, in stores, on highways and in public and private buildings. They track us through our electronic devices. They infiltrate our organizations. They entice and facilitate “acts of terrorism” by Muslims, radical environmentalists, activists and Black Bloc anarchists, framing these hapless dissidents and sending them off to prison for years. They have amassed detailed profiles of our habits, our tastes, our peculiar proclivities, our medical and financial records, our sexual orientations, our employment histories, our shopping habits and our criminal records. They store this information in government computers. It sits there, waiting like a time bomb, for the moment when the state decides to criminalize us.Totalitarian states record even the most banal of our activities so that when it comes time to lock us up they can invest these activities with subversive or criminal intent. And citizens who know, because of the courage of Edward Snowden, that they are being watched but naively believe they “have done nothing wrong” do not grasp this dark and terrifying logic.Tyranny is always welded together by subterranean networks of informants. These informants keep a populace in a state of fear. They perpetuate constant anxiety and enforce isolation through distrust. The state uses wholesale surveillance and spying to break down trust and deny us the privacy to think and speak freely.A state security and surveillance apparatus, at the same time, conditions all citizens to become informants. In airports and train, subway and bus stations the recruitment campaign is relentless. We are fed lurid government videos and other messages warning us to be vigilant and report anything suspicious. The videos, on endless loops broadcast through mounted television screens, have the prerequisite ominous music, the shady-looking criminal types, the alert citizen calling the authorities and in some cases the apprehended evildoer being led away in handcuffs. The message to be hypervigilant and help the state ferret out dangerous internal enemies is at the same time disseminated throughout government agencies, the mass media, the press and the entertainment industry. “If you see something say something,” goes the chorus.In any Amtrak station, waiting passengers are told to tell authorities—some of whom often can be found walking among us with dogs—about anyone who “looks like they are in an unauthorized area,” who is “loitering, staring or watching employees and customers,” who is “expressing an unusual level of interest in operations, equipment, and personnel,” who is “dressed inappropriately for the weather conditions, such as a bulky coat in summer,” who “is acting extremely nervous or anxious,” who is “restricting an individual’s freedom of movement” or who is “being coached on what to say to law enforcement or immigration officials.”What is especially disturbing about this constant call to become a citizen informant is that it directs our eyes away from what we should see—the death of our democracy, the growing presence and omnipotence of the police state, and the evisceration, in the name of our security, of our most basic civil liberties.Manufactured fear engenders self-doubt. It makes us, often unconsciously, conform in our outward and inward behavior. It conditions us to relate to those around us with suspicion. It destroys the possibility of organizing, community and dissent. We have built what Robert Gellately calls a “culture of denunciation.”Snitches in prisons, the quintessential totalitarian system, are the glue that allows prison authorities to maintain control and keep prisoners divided and weak. Snitches also populate the courts, where the police make secret deals to drop or mitigate charges against them in exchange for their selling out individuals targeted by the state. Our prisons are filled with people serving long sentences based on false statements that informants provided in exchange for leniency.

Read more: Chris Hedges: A Nation of Snitches – Chris Hedges – Truthdig

David Skrbina replies to a 20-year-late criticism of the Unabomber, and explains why we should pay more attention to the technology problem.

Source: On the Question of Technological Slavery: A Reply to Campbell and Lipkin