Anonymous Organizes Global Protests For WikiLeaks 275
pafein writes "Internet collective Anonymous launched a global protest for January 15 in support of beleaguered WikiLeaks. Anonymous has a history of defending Internet freedom, beginning with Project Chanology against the Church of Scientology. The group gained recent attention for itself with DDOS attacks on Mastercard, Visa, Paypal and the government of Tunisia."
War (Score:1, Insightful)
Yep. They are organizing their army for the war against nation-states.
It's sad. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think it's a sad comment on modern reality that my response to anything counter-culture or pro-liberty and freedom for the past 30+ years would have been a fist in the air and a "fuck yeah!" and, today, my gut response is "some people are going to be disappeared" and "better to keep my mouth shut and not even give vocal support or encouragement to anything which might seen to dissent from my government, because I can't afford the hassle of being eyeballed or investigated or put on a list somewhere". Not just for this, but things with even more credibility.
Hell, it's almost to the point where it feels like calling yourself a "libertarian" or - worse - being a registered libertarian, is potentially as risky as calling yourself a communist or socialist in the 1950s.
Please don't. (Score:5, Insightful)
It would be better if Wikileaks, which actually serves a valuable (although controversial) role, is not associated with Anonymous and their juvenile DDOS attacks and Rick-rolling.
A history for defending Internet freedom? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Why single out 4chan? At least they're doing something. More, I always get a kick out of how we say things like "Americans are too fat and lazy and content with their sports teams and iced coffees to bother ever standing up to their government or taking real action beyond singing songs while standing in a circle with rhyming picket signs", but the truth is that if you or I voiced any dissent against our government or even took some sort of action and were given the hell of a boot, we'd be bawling like little bitches, too.
We're all willing to kick Hitler's ass or storm Washington DC with torches and sidearms in our heads, but the moment there's any risk -- even just the risk of losing our internet access or having a hassle at the airport security line -- we're all bitches. We're not really in a situation where we can afford to be anything else, I guess. No matter how justified we are in our principals and should do something, most of us really do have something to lose. It's not like we're mining "blood diamonds" and have nowhere to go but up.
That said, Anonymous has done some things I thoroughly support (Scientology related, in particular) and some things that make me grin, even though I know it probably isn't helping things, over all. Some of their recent actions seem to have definitely risked the real cause, on which their actions sometimes reflect.
Anyway, if there is any time in your life where you can afford to be a snotty, spoiled, idealistic person rebelling against stuff, it's when you're a snotty little teen (and if you think these guys are even mostly teens, I think you're wrong). As soon as you're of age to be truly held accountable or persecuted and you have responsibilities and things to lose (your physical freedom, access to your cash, your home, your family, your job, your reputation, etc) -- you start falling into line. Idealism is a young man's game. As is just being an ass (though I, personally, have far exceeded the average years in which most people pursue that one!).
Re:It's sad. (Score:5, Insightful)
To be fair, that shift of perception is usually a sign of getting older.
vital liberties (Score:1, Insightful)
The vital liberties of being able to max out your credit card at Walmart, watch reality tv, become obese, go into debt slavery and work for the rest of your life.
Re:It's sad. (Score:5, Insightful)
Say again?
The Libertarian party is alive and well. Actual libertarian-focused groups like the EFF do just fine, too.
The problem you've got is that the Libertarian platform got co-opted by the other "big two" parties in such a way that Libertarians can't find a focus to get their foot in the door. Either they focus on social issues and get lumped in with the extremist wing of the Democrat party, or they focus on a number of law and tax issues and get lumped in with the extremist wing of the Republicans.
It'd be far better if we abolished the "direct election" of the US Senate and re-instituted state legislature appointment or even better, turned the Senate into a parliamentary body where the smaller parties (green, libertarian, etc) could actually get a minority voice with real representation present for debate. But that won't happen because the republicrats and demicans (who the fuck can tell them apart most days anyways while they betray their constituents?) don't want to give up their institutional stranglehold on the election process.
The difference between the US's "democracy" and the Chinese "democracy" isn't as great as we think these days. The Chinese get to vote in elections with only one candidate, US citizens get to vote in elections where both candidates are the two faces of the same fucking coin. The illusion of "choice" is about all we get.
Re:then you deserve to be told the below (Score:2, Insightful)
If I got a penny each time someone mentioned that quote in a crowd of people who have all seen it mentioned a hundred times before, I'd be able to buy all the liberty I wanted.
Re:then you deserve to be told the below (Score:3, Insightful)
If I got a penny each time I heard some idiot interviewed "man on the street" fashion who said "we have to give up some freedom to be secure", I'd be richer than you would be.
Anonymous is not for moralfaggots (Score:4, Insightful)
Anonymous has a well known history of cyber-bullying (do you like pizza and strippers?), vandalizing myspace and facebook pages etc. even though it might not qualify as DDossing.
Re:It's sad. (Score:5, Insightful)
Hell, it's almost to the point where it feels like calling yourself a "libertarian" or - worse - being a registered libertarian, is potentially as risky as calling yourself a communist or socialist in the 1950s.
Have you ever been fired for being a suspected libertarian? Have you ever been fired, and then all your potential employers informed that they shouldn't hire you because then they might be suspected as being libertarians too? Have you ever been called up in front of a congressional investigative committee for being a libertarian? Have libertarian leaders been imprisoned? All those things were happening to suspected communists during the 1950's: For instance, my grandfather went from being a highly respected academic musicologist to teaching a dozen piano students in his living room.
And if you want to know what the most risky group to be affiliated with right now in the US, it's not libertarianism, its Islam, which subjects you to regular harassment at airports, hate crimes, and in a few cases being disappeared.
Re:then you deserve to be told the below (Score:5, Insightful)
How many of us throw that quote around along with "Give me liberty or give me death!" and really mean it? And if we haven't acted on your principals against the actions of our own government by now, exactly what is it going to take for us to ever do something? I mean, for fuck's sake, we slept through the suspension of Habeas corpus and endured several years of corporate welfare to provide economic speculators a safety-net that we've never before offered. We've tolerated questionable wars in our name, with shifting justifications given. One could generate a nearly endless list of significant concerns just from the past decade and while we still throw around quotes, we do nothing (I'm lumping myself in here as well, of course).
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
If push can to shove and someone like hitler really did appear the response now would be the same as it was then. ignore it until they directly threatened us, and then mobilize in ways never before seen in warfare.
American's don't care about Afghanistan because it doesn't affect the average american. If you go for all out TOTAL War then you would be in for a surprise at just how not lazy American's can be when pushed hard enough. The thing is even Vietnam wasn't a Total war.
American's are lazy because they can be. We don't have to work hard. Just hard enough to maintain what is. When What is no longer exists we will moan and cry and then build it again.
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Go fight Hitler? Did you miss History, or were you misinformed? The Americans basically sat back saying "meh. Not our business." for two years.
It wasn't until the Japanese attacked the US that the Americans became involved - indeed, were it not for the pact whereby Germany and Italy were obliged to defend to Japan by declaring war on the US immediately after the US attacked Japan, there's a good chance we'd be speaking German in most of Europe today.
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
I think my point flew over your head.
People say things about how if they had been alive when the Nazi party was taking over Germany, they "would have done something". In reality, if you or I or anyone else who talk big about how much we'd stand up to oppression and violation of liberties and just plain "wrongness" would do no such thing if we stepped back in time.
If we were on the street and saw some brown shirts hauling a jewish family out of their home, making them get on their knees, and putting a gun to their head, you know what we'd do? We'd shut our fucking mouths and look the other way, because we don't want to be next.
My point with that given example was that we do an awful lot of talking about how we should stand up to injustice and fight on principal to retain those ideals that we've lived on for a couple hundred years (and of which many are now considered general "human rights" by the UN, even) . . . but none of us would ever be willing to take the risk of doing anything about it. Except maybe putting a bumper sticker on our cars, a little button on our websites, and if we're really "rebels", going out and standing outside a building with signs . . . on sticks!
Re:Hmmm (Score:4, Insightful)
You're right, it's just Wikileaks. Every other violation (suspension of habeas corpus comes to mind, among many others) has been met with such active and significant response by the informed and caring American public. It's just this one isolated incident of Wikileaks where Americans said "you know, I usually put it all on the line to defend our liberties, but I'm gonna take a break today".
We're all part of a government that commits heinous violations on its own people and - often - even worse violations on others. As long as we have Starbucks, Jersey Shore, Facebook, and our mini-vans, we're content to permit it. Neigh, even to justify and defend it.
Re:Hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
Go fight Hitler? Did you miss History, or were you misinformed? The Americans basically sat back saying "meh. Not our business." for two years.
As they should have. Why should they have declared war on Axis powers until they were attacked? For "freedom and democracy"? Isn't that neo-con thinking? It never ceases to amaze me that many of the same people that criticize neocons for their doctrine of forcibly spreading democracy across the world also criticize the US for not jumping right into WWII in 1939.
We tried that, actually, just a couple of decades before. Woodrow Wilson committed this country to war with Germany in 1917. He was looking for a reason to get us in it, and finally got it when the Germans sank the Lusitania (which, yes Virginia, was carrying arms and ammo bound for the British, a violation of our neutrality policy). People were so disillusioned about "saving the world for democracy" precisely because we saw we were snookered in WWI.
So, have we got that straight? Bush was wrong for war with Saddam, but no no no, Wilson didn't send US troops to fight in what was basically a European pissing match over empires. It was making the world safe for democracy.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Said before (Score:2, Insightful)