Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1998 17:11:55 -0400 (EDT)
Subject: Re: AUT: PENTAGON CONTACTS (ETC.)/E;<nettime> The Debate on the Tactic of Electronic Civil (fwd)


        In response to Harry Cleaver's request that I "dredge up" the
article to which I referred that had supported the anti-ECD position, I am
reposting this one, which I received from the aut-op-sy list (apparently via
other lists) about a month ago.  I think it is an excellent post.



Richard Singer



>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: 17 Aug 1998 05:14:13 +1000
>From: Chiapas95 <owner-chiapas95-AT-eco.utexas.edu>
>Reply-To: Chiapas 95 Moderators <chiapas-AT-eco.utexas.edu>
>Newsgroups: anet.xchange.news.chiapas
>Subject: E;<nettime> The Debate on the Tactic of Electronic Civil
>
>
>This posting has been forwarded to you as a service of
>Accion Zapatista de Austin.
>
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Tue, 11 Aug 1998 10:42:05 -0700
>From: Gidget Digit <gidget-AT-tao.ca>
>To: nettime-l-AT-Desk.nl
>Subject: <nettime> The Debate on the Tactic of Electronic Civil Disobedience
>
>The Debate on the Tactic of Electronic Civil Disobedience
>(just another case of Dirty Bodies clashing with Clean Efficience?)
>
>The president of the World Bank, in his speech to the political and
>technological elite at last summer's "Global Knowledge for Development"
>conference, used the word "revolution" no less than 16 times, in a brief
>10 minutes.  He was referring to the already over-hyped "information
>revolution", where executives of Microsoft, WorldCom, and AT&T are the
>revolutionaries.
>
>The Electronic Disturbance Theatre is heralding this same "information
>revolution" with a call to cyberwar.  But the people's movements will not
>be driven by a Java applet.
>
>The internet has obvious limitations as a medium which depends upon one's
>ability to read and write (usually English) and one's technical access,
>all piled on the amount of time one can spend plugged in.  It is also
>equally obvious that it is currently one of the cheapest forms of global
>communication, and as more relatively low tech computers become equipped
>with e-mail and list service, there is increasingly better access to
>grassroots information.   All of these factors make it a good tool to
>improve our communication strategy, but a poor place to choose as a site
>for direct action.
>
>Yet, several yanquis in a high-wired, post-modernist academic environment
>are organizing "Electronic Civil Disobedience" as if power is no longer in
>the streets.  As if the Spectacle is the main stage of engagement.  And
>this suits the suits just fine.  It removes the debate from the public
>sphere and places it in the private.  When the <I>Electronic Disturbance
>Theatre</I> talks "direct" action in corporate networks, with hordes of
>businessmen already self-defined as 'revolutionaries', grassroots
>activists should see right away that this is definitely not our area of
>strength.  Their "information revolution" is largely about deskilling
>workers.  Terms like 'flexible' labour, or 'outsourcing' are code words
>for removing benefits and long-term support and forcing people into
>socially isolating piecework. The ECD tactic neither organizes electronic
>workers into sabotaging nor unionizing against this "progression", and
>worse, it de-mobilizes and de-politicizes solidarity activism.
>
>Much Ado About Virtually Nothing
>
> "Electronic Pulse Systems" are designed to centralize "swarms" of
>computer users in order to "automate" the repetitive process of reloading
>a web-page. In theory, with enough participants, the "FloodNet device"
>thereby overloads the target server. A "denial-of-service attack" is
>another name for this ECD 'hack' or 'jam' that causes a temporary
>interuption in an opponents public web page service.  Used on the White
>House back in May, it had nil affect, and used on Zedillo's site, June
>10th, it actually backfired.  (This action took place after Mexican human
>rights organization AME LA PAZ specifically asked the Electronic
>Disturbance Theatre to avoid choosing targets in Mexican cyberspace.)
>Activists may recognize the ECD similarity with the old trick of getting
>large numbers of people to continuously re-dial a target's phone lines, or
>tie up fax machines with garbage data.   Organizing ECD seems to be like
>getting as many people as you can together and going to stand in front of
>a billboard.  It's an ineffective use of activist time and resources.
>Because it's on-line though, it is currently attracting mucho hype from
>mainstream media.
>
>Warrior Machismo
>
>There are several reasons for the speedy spread of this particular meme.
>With often two or three rounds of announcements leading up to an "act" in
>the unfolding play, there is no doubt that the Electronic Disturbance
>Theatre understands spin.  It's a weird mix between rhetoric appealing to
>sixties-non-violent-civil-disobedience folks, and adventurist "electronic
>tinkerers" of the brave new world.
>
>Such appeals as to "today's nomadic warriors who wander on the net" is
>pure romantic nonsense designed to coax the DOOM-playing wanna-be
>"revolutionaries" into doing something remotely political.  Much better
>use of time to help those without access, who are already active in
>struggle, to use the tools for their needs, than try to work within the
>capitalist view of the masses as consumers.
>
>Rather than politicizing through praxis, ECD siphons off the energy of the
>movement on the ground, when folks who may become more engaged in activism
>with encouragement and participation are told to reload a web page, or
>send an e-mail to a politician.  Many would contend this does more to
>assuage gringo guilt than effect any real change.
>
>                    SUBVERT AND REPURPOSE-- POPULAR THEATRE
>
>Sit-ins and blockades are not old-school and obsolete.  When a government,
>whether the US Federal, or your local school, has no popular support, they
>are still damn fine "devices" for publicly unseating illegitimate leaders,
>and for physically re-placing them with people power.  That physical
>change is the basis of the establishment of rebel autonomous communities.
>And that "transformatory" change is also educational because popular
>theatre is part of the streets.  Real "mass, public participation" by
>necessity means that human beings have to form direct face-to-face
>relationships with one another, in order to facilitate decision making for
>themselves.
>
>Floodnet runs counter to this, and I don't only mean centralized
>automation of the process. It actually quantifies democratic participation
>into hit measurements.  Yes, it is easy and convenient to "participate
>from home or work" (if you have a computer!) But all this emphasis on
>being able to attack without your body, just by hitting a button, ignores
>the realities of boundaries -- in the time needed for organizing, the
>locality of human relations and needs.
>
>DIRECT ACTION GETS THE GOODS
>
>Why send an e-mail of complaint to the politician, when you could work to
>make him obsolete?  Our priority needs to be in building the autonomous
>municipalities and the tangible solidarity here in the north, that would
>support and work in concert with the struggles of our zapatista and
>mexican comrades.
>
>In essence, this is the central meaning of direct action that the
>Electronic Disturbance Theatre cannot edit out in Microsoft Word.  It is
>immediate.  As organizers of the international Reclaim the Streets
>movement contend, "Direct action enables people to develop a new sense of
>self-confidence and an awareness of their individual and collective power.
>It is founded on the idea that people can develop the ability for
>self-rule only through practice, and proposes that all persons directly
>decide the importance of the issues facing them."  Such praxis comes
>through seeing, touching, listening and truly working with people next to
>you on the picket line, in the march, on the soup line, in your
>neighborhood.
>
>It is eventually socially isolating to sit in a room alone and type
>because the medium only extends part of your body.  The information
>transmitted across the net about demonstrations may help to determine the
>general size and scope of our movements.  But when the "act" of
>"disobedience" is simply hitting a button, when the net is relied upon by
>organizers as a site for mobilization, then we miss entirely the real
>character of resistance.  Worse, it will become painfully obvious to
>people in struggle that our other senses of communication are dangerously
>underdeveloped.
>
>Analog Zapatismo
>
>"Electronic Civil Disobedience" to defend the Zapatistas might not be
>*such* a bad idea if there was already massive resistance in the streets.
>Right now, the claims of the Electronic Disturbance Theatre to be 'just
>another affinity group' carrying out 'one tactic in a range of available
>tactics' ring hollow. But to its credit, the EDT says it does want to help
>in setting up and defending a server in a zapatista support base.
>
>As the urgent situation currently stands, there is a "low intensity" war
>going on, which breaks out in massacres or mass imprisonment when Mexican
>state police and Federal agents forcibly enter and try to dismantle the
>autonomous communities.  It is a matter of life and death that we mobilize
>people --bodies, physical support-- to bring medicine, food and
>communication supplies, and to bear witness with our physical presence,
>either there, or here in the streets, and at the businesses whose
>investments perpetuate this war.   [A Mexican Solidarity Network is
>beginning to emerge in several norteamericano cities, but when reading the
>desperate pleas for help which come out across e-mail support lists from
>Chiapas, it is clear we have a long way to go.]
>
> Our power is still in the streets, and we should not welcome a move to
>the realm of the electronic with a rally call, but rather with intelligent
>information gathering, a critical analysis of the electronic environment.
>Instead of declaring cyberwar deep in capitalist territory, we need to
>take a peaceful, cautious approach to the technology with the goal
>improving the communications infrastructure in the service of the movement
>on the ground.
>
>This will necessitate broadening access, slowing down the devastating side
>effects of the "knowledge economy" by sharing constructive skills,
>hardware and software so that people of the south can tell their own
>stories, not suffer the fallout of cyberwar.  Building this infrastructure
>and autonomy will do far more to defend and expand public space within the
>networks and on the ground, than any "electronic civil disobedience".
>
>
>keep it real.
>!Venceremos!
>^ i don't even know how to make this upside down in said Microsoft
>Word.TM
>
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>"There ain't no such thing as shitwork.  It's all work, and it's all got
>to be done."            --adapted from The Grapes of Wrath, by Steinbeck
>++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
>    and speaking of work, join the Active Resistance -- ar98.tao.ca
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