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146 lines
6.7 KiB
Plaintext
146 lines
6.7 KiB
Plaintext
ANARCHY IN MORE THAN THE U.K.
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Spunk keeps anarchist torch lit on net
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by
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K.K. CAMPBELL
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There are lots of politics discussed -- ha! I mean ranted about -- on
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the net. What many newbies are surprised to find is the number of
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radical political perspectives.
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At first, they think there's just a disproportionate number of
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"oddballs," but it's not the case. What's different is they get to
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hear/read a disproportionate number of alternative views.
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In the "real world," the mass media game is structured to
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deliberately marginalize alternative political voices. Monitor any
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mainstream paper/broadcast and editorial slants become evident.
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Something called the "conventional wisdom" dominates. Journalism
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likes to claim "objectivity," but that's hype. It's extremely
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ideological. (See Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent or
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Visualizing Deviance: A Study of News Organizations by Ericson,
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Baranek and Chan.)
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The horizontal structure of the net means radical political
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perspectives aren't automatically "edited out" per verticalized
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corporate ideology. This is unfamiliar to newbies, thus it appears
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that radical political views -- such as social anarchism -- are more
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prevalent on the net than in "real life." Many think "anarchism"
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means bomb-throwing, nihilistic barbarism and chaos. This is
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centuries-old ruling class disinformation. In crudest terms:
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anarchism is the belief that human beings naturally engage in
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mutually beneficial social interaction if hierarchical power
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structures are not allowed to pervert innate social instinct. The
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state isn't corrupt because it attracts lots of "immoral" people; the
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system breeds corruption by protecting class, strata and privilege.
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DA KID'S GOT SPUNK
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One of the strongest anarchist voices on the Internet is Spunk Press,
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started in late '92. It's only fitting that its founders found each
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other through net.activism.
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"We largely met online, via the Anarchy Discussion list and other
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fora," says Ian Heavens
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That mailing list is still moderated by Holland's Jack Jansen
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(jack.jansen@cwi.nl). Americans Chuck Munson and Mikael Cardell,
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editors of Practical Anarchy Online (mjmc@fullfeed.com), rounded
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out the original crew. This Spunk editorial collective can be reached
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at spunk@lysator.liu.se .
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Spunk's numbers have grown, members often recruited from Jansen's
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email list -- which is "a good way of people getting involved,"
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Heavens says. "Discussion is sporadic but focused."
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Their goal is to amass vast digital libraries of famous (and not-so-
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famous) works with an anarchist bent, and use the power of the net
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to distribute them far and wide. It holds hundreds of files --
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available free -- by and about Mikhail Bakunin, William Godwin,
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Emma Goldman, George Orwell, Hakim Bey, Peter Kropotkin,
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Alexander Berkman, Max Stirner, Malatesta, Abbie Hoffman, etc. --
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including, among my faves, those proponents of enlightenment and
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entertainment through mindfuck, the Situationist International.
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Heavens hopes radical publishers will store works in Spunk sites.
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"At the Glasgow summer school on anarchism a few weeks ago, I got
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an encouraging response, and we'll give some U.K.-based radical
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publishers their own directories in Spunk archives," he told eye.
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These archives are reachable via anonymous FTP at
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etext.archive.umich.edu in /pub/Politics. (Note: This site carries
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loads of alternative political material!)
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Jansen believes Spunk is unique. "As far as I know, we're the only
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group working this way -- i.e., distributing globally by using the net
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as our communications medium. There are other groups with similar
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subject matter, but they tend to be one-person projects. There are
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also groups who make documents available, like Project Gutenberg,
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but they are funded." Jansen's Anarchy Discussion list can be joined
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via anarchy-list-request@cwi.nl; Spunk Press list, spunk-info-
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request@lysator.liu.se. There's an anarchist web page at
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http://www.cwi.nl/cwi/people/Jack.Jansen/anarchy/anarchy. html
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which will take you to the Spunk page.
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FREE ANARCHY
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There are also lots of electronic publications (ezones). Autonome
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Forum has several (aforum@moose.uvm.edu); Love & Rage
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(lnr@blythe.org); Baklava Autonomist Collective, Wind Chill Factor
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paper/'zine (thak@midway.uchicago.edu); Libertarian Labor Review
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(jbekken@igc.apc.org); Industrial Worker, IWW or Wobblies
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(jditz@igc.apc.org), or Canada's IWW (indwrk@web.apc.org); Arm The
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Spirit (ats@etext.org); Ireland's Workers' Solidarity Movement
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(anflood@macollamh.ucd.ie).
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MANUFACTURING CHOMSKY
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One of the most notable American anarchists (or social libertarians)
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today is MIT linguistic prof Noam Chomsky. In July, a Chomsky
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Archive "officially" came online -- though transcripts of his works
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have circulated the net for years. You can get to it via ftp.cs.cmu.edu
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in the directory usr/cap/chomsky/ (note: no slash at beginning of
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pathname). Via WWW, jump to
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http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu:/usr/tp0x/chomsky.html .
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LIBERTARIANS
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You'll also find lots of Libertarians (big-L) on the net, claiming to
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be "anarchists." In actuality, Libertarians are a laissez-faire
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capitalist party, only seeking to roll back the state enough to serve
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their capital interests. They adhere to current property relations and
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desire politicos/police enough to ensure they keep their economic
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position. Read alt.politics.libertarian for lots of capitalist
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apologia.
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MICKEY ANARCHISTS
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Oh ya, gotta mention these guys. The net is loaded with .edu sites, so
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you get scads of just-outta-high school kiddies who fancy anarchism
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is telling one's teacher to Eat Shit or fiddling with chemicals in a
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friend's basement. Easily spotted -- nothing but slogans and visions
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of "anarchist society" as some vague artisan, pre-capitalist barter
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society. Take 'em in stride. Often WareZ d00dZ in disguise.
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INTERNATIONAL LOOMPANICS
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An interesting source of alternative/controversial reading material
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is Port Townsend, Washington publisher Loompanics Unlimited
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(loompanx@pt.olympus.net -- no orders by email). It maintains a vast
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catalogue of underground stuff at The Well's gopher site --
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gopher.well.sf.ca.us .
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Retransmit freely in cyberspace Author holds standard copyright
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Full issue of eye available in archive ==> gopher.io.org or ftp.io.org
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Mailing list available http://www.io.org/eye
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eye@io.org "Break the Gutenberg Lock..." 416-971-8421
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