Alan Moore on V For Vendetta and the Rise of Anonymous 286
First time accepted submitter tmcb writes in with a piece by Alan Moore about the influence his comic has had on the hacker group Anonymous. "On Saturday protests are planned across the world against Acta — the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. The treaty has become the focus of activists associated with the Anonymous hacking network because of concerns that it could undermine internet privacy and aid censorship.
First published in 1982, the comic series V for Vendetta charted a masked vigilante's attempt to bring down a fascist British government and its complicit media. Many of the demonstrators are expected to wear masks based on the book's central character.
Ahead of the protests, the BBC asked V for Vendetta's writer, Alan Moore, for his thoughts on how his creation had become an inspiration and identity to Anonymous."
Are they sure the writer is the real Alan Moore? (Score:5, Funny)
I'd be lying if I didn't admit that whatever usefulness they afford modern radicalism is very satisfying.
Wow, that's the first time I think I've ever heard Alan Moore expressing anything remotely akin to...dare I say..."happiness."
This article *must* be a hoax.
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I've spotted him laughing along at a couple of comedy gigs in Northampton of late. And showing a great deal of bonhomie with the acts too.
Guess what, we're all human.
Re:Are they sure the writer is the real Alan Moore (Score:5, Insightful)
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As plot lines are usually driven by conflict as opposed to happy, fluffy bunnies, and as conflict is usually a relatively negative thing, a moderate tendency towards a more negative worldview helps in dramatic writing.
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Alan Moore doesn't feel happiness. He just gets so pissed that his feeling loop back around to the other end of the emotional spectrum.
Re:Are they sure the writer is the real Alan Moore (Score:5, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti_tree_hoax
Re:Are they sure the writer is the real Alan Moore (Score:5, Funny)
Then you're obviously on the wrong site: this is news for nerds, i.e., people who can figure out how to use a URI even if it's not hyperlinked. News for hapless, brain-dead idiots is thataway [foxnews.com]. (Or even thataway [nationalenquirer.com].)
Now go away and let the grownups talk. :p ;)
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At Least... (Score:2, Insightful)
...the V for Vendetta guy had the decency to die for what he believes in.
When will we see Anonymous punks start offing themselves? I suggest they do self immolation. Doesn't hurt anyone else really and the spectacle is great!
Re:At Least... (Score:5, Insightful)
You say that though /. but I can't believe that in the current climate in that situation in the real world the police wouldn't fire and then chase them down.
I was re-watching the film recently and it was the scene at the end where the mob marches on the armed police and the police use their own judgement and decide not to fire. Maybe I've been spending too much time on
After seeing what happened at the recent protests with police attacking protesters with disproportionate force, the kettling, the staying away from areas where riots were actually taking place I can't believe that with today's police force would do what happened to V's supporters. I honestly found the resolution to be unbelievable because they have shown they're willing to attack huge crowds of protesters for political gain.
Re:At Least... (Score:5, Insightful)
My guess is that today's police forces are slightly more independent then the one in the movie. Their commanders are unlikely to be executed or disappeared if they do something that the political leadership does not approve of.
In the movie, the country was extremely centralized, and both of the 'leaders' were dead at the time the barricades were breached. The army could easily have stopped them, and probably wouldn't have felt bad about it. What they didn't dare do was act without orders.
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Our countries' police force IS for the most part centralised already. Most police policies across the country are determined in London.
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"If soldiers thought, they wouldn't be soldiers."
The line between police and military is becoming grey in the US. They want them to be interchangeable. Once the general public has accepted the fact that your liberties are provided to you by the government, and not your Creator we will be doomed.
Don't believe in a creator? That's fine, but understand this country was founded
Re:At Least... (Score:5, Insightful)
My parents were my creators. That at least is provable.
Re:At Least... (Score:5, Insightful)
Your country (assuming you're American) was founded by people who were either atheists or had very non-standard (for the time, and even by today's standard) religious views. Certainly not "Religious people" of the kind you imply.
Believing your rights and liberties are granted to you by your government is obviously a bad idea - it puts the government in charge. Believing your rights and liberties are granted to you by a creator not only doesn't make much sense (you don't have rights in the jungle), it's ALSO a bad idea - it puts the creator, or rather whoever you believe speaks for him, in charge. Religion was harnessed to be an effective means of controlling the people long before governments came along to try the same thing. And to head off the obvious protestant objection, you most likely still regard some form of holy book as speaking for your creator, and if you're Christian, the details of that holy book are nasty if interpreted literally and/or completely.
You live in a democracy. Your rights are granted to you by society (i.e. the people, i.e. you). When people realize this, democracy will actually work properly and the world will be a better place.
Re:At Least... (Score:5, Insightful)
Your rights are granted to you by society (i.e. the people, i.e. you).
Ha, that is most certainly not true. If it was, how do you justify saying "slavery was wrong"? Or don't you? Because if rights are only granted by society, then if society as a whole decides certain people don't deserve certain rights, then they don't get those rights and that is perfectly justified (if what you say is true). Perhaps you meant to add certain qualifiers.
You have to say there are certain rights that humans possess by being human. And then there are certain rights that society can grant later. Basic health care would be a good example: it isn't a basic human right, but it can be granted as a right by a society that passes a certain stage of wealth and medical technology.
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Not parent, but:
Ha, that is most certainly not true.
Why, because you don't want it to be?
If it was, how do you justify saying "slavery was wrong"? Or don't you? Because if rights are only granted by society, then if society as a whole decides certain people don't deserve certain rights, then they don't get those rights and that is perfectly justified (if what you say is true). Perhaps you meant to add certain qualifiers.
Right and wrong is subjective. Slavery was wrong to some, right to others. Since I find slavery to be wrong, I'm glad most society agrees with me, but the fact is that there's no reason to consider one of those positions to be objectively right, therefore they're both valid.
You have to say there are certain rights that humans possess by being human.
OK, then please prove it.
Re:At Least... (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's get down to the brass tacks. If somebody has more power than you, what rights do you truly possess? They can force you to work, force you to starve, force you to die. At some point in our history though, we decided that wasn't acceptable. We collectively decided it's wrong to deny certain rights and we use the might of our society to attempt to protect those rights.
You can't out of context say "a person has these inalienable rights" because it isn't always true. You can say "In the US, a person has these inalienable rights" because we as a society have decided to protect them. Replace US with Darfur or North Korea and you see it isn't true - because society doesn't have the strength to protect those rights.
Re:At Least... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Believing your rights and liberties are granted to you by a creator not only doesn't make much sense (you don't have rights in the jungle), it's ALSO a bad idea
But that's the whole idea of "inalienable rights." They're things you can do alone in the jungle. You have the right to life, but that's different than obligating someone else to support you. You have the right to liberty, ie, not to do what you don't want. You have the right to pursue happiness - to do what you want. However you came into the world, whether by sentient Creator or stochastic chance, you alone in the jungle can exercise your own sentience.
Once you come out of the jungle, your actions int
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Your country (assuming you're American) was founded by people who were either atheists or had very non-standard (for the time, and even by today's standard) religious views. Certainly not "Religious people" of the kind you imply.
Of the 55 delegates to the 1787 Constitutional Convention, 49 were Protestants, and three were Roman Catholics (C. Carroll, D. Carroll, and Fitzsimons). Among the Protestant delegates to the Constitutional Convention, 28 were Church of England (or Episcopalian, after the American Re
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I offer you a quote that might shed some light on the difference between Hollywood's version of good guys, and the real thing.
"If soldiers thought, they wouldn't be soldiers."
Whoever you're quoting, they, and you, have clearly never spent quality time with any soldiers.
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Actually the US wasn't founded by religious people. Don't believe the current rewriting of US history.
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Don't believe in a creator? That's fine, but understand this country was founded by [Religious] people ...
Not true. Not even close. Cf. "Separation of Church and State."
[Eternal vigilance is the only way to keep idiots from re-writing history.]
Re:At Least... (Score:4, Insightful)
How about we make a deal: I don't make up shit interpretations of your religion ("An important tenet for Christans is that cannibalism can be a good thing. This is especially important to Catholics, who interpret their important Holy Communion ritual as literal cannibalism, brough about by magic.") that completely miss the point and you don't make up shit interpretation of the psychology of faith and atheism that completely miss the point?
I don't have the skills to reasonably interpret your emotions around the internals of your religion, and you don't have the skills to reasonably interpret the emotions or reason of people that aren't religious, so if we both stay off saying things about it, I think the world would be a better place.
Re:At Least... (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't believe in a creator? That's fine, but understand this country was founded by Religous people and we will always be fighting to govern it, because we know our rights are provided by our Creator.
"Religious bondage shackles and debilitates the mind and unfits it for every noble enterprise."
- James Madison, letter to Wm. Bradford, April 1, 1774
"This would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it."
- John Adams
"In every country and every age, the priest has been hostile to liberty. He is always in alliance with the despot ... they have perverted the purest religion ever preached to man into mystery and jargon, unintelligible to all mankind, and therefore the safer engine for their purpose."
- Thomas Jefferson, to Horatio Spafford, March 17, 1814
You get the point. They may have been men of FAITH, but certainly not RELIGIOUS. There's a significant difference.
Furthermore, why must liberties be GRANTED? They're quite plainly something that cannot be given; they can only be taken away. The question is not who grants us our rights, but rather who would try to take them away. To which the answer is almost always government. You are correct that others believing rights are granted by government is a very dangerous thing. But believing rights are granted by some deity is equally dangerous. If people believe that our rights come directly from the Christian God, for example, then denying those rights to people who people who get abortions or are athiest or are homosexual seems justified. Believing that rights are granted to you by some entity only makes those rights easier for others to violate.
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Re:At Least... (Score:5, Insightful)
poormanjoe blathered:
Don't believe in a creator? That's fine, but understand this country was founded by Religous people and we will always be fighting to govern it, because we know our rights are provided by our Creator.
Advocates of a Christian theocracy in America constantly repeat that meme, despite the fact that it's patently untrue.
Christian cultists immigrated to America on the Mayflower specifically so that they could practic religious intolerance free from interference by the English government. Other cults followed their lead over the ensuing century-and-a-half or so, but they were not the only sort of people who immigrated to America. Most of those who came here in the 150+ years before this country was actually founded did so for economic reasons - because land was free for the taking, and opportunities to get rich abounded in the New Woirld.
The founders of the USA - which is to say the delegates to the Continental Congress and its successor bodies - were, admittedly, mostly at least nominally Christian. But the country that they created was, by design, emphatically a secular entity. That, in turn, was because for many decades before (and, indeed, after) the founding of the USA various of those Christian cults mentioned above were in a practically continuous state of war with one another [smithsonianmag.com]. Take the so-called Great Awakening [colonialwarsct.org] in Connecticut during the period 1735-1745, a time of tremendous turmoil in the Congregationalist (i.e. - "Puritan) faith. The Massachusetts Bay Puritans even went so far as to hang four Quakers for the crime of not being Puritans. So the founding fathers explicitly made the USA a secular nation, to prevent any of the cults from gaining supremacy over the others and establishing itself as a national religion.
Basically, you and your ilk want to undo that and make the USA into a Christian theocracy. The problem is, you fail to understand that, if the USA became an officially Christian theocracy, chances are that it would be a Catholic one - because adherents of the Catholic Church comprise the single largest denomination in the USA, with more than 65.5 million members (although there are more Protestant adherents collectively, they are fractured into hundreds of denominations with serious doctrinal and dogmatic divisions from one another, and cannot be considered as a single religious entity), with Southern Baptists at just over 16 million members being the next-largest denomination.
If you believe that Southern Baptists would be happy at the prospect of an explicitly Catholic theocracy in the USA, you aren't very well acquainted with Southern Baptists, or their ingrained hatred of and contempt for what they like to call Papists.
So, in conclusion, kindly shut the fuck up, because you obviously don't know what the hell you're talking about.
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I'd say Amateurasu.
Re:At Least... Your quote is incorrect (Score:3)
No, Washington is often quoted as saying that, but it actually comes from the first Treaty of Tripoli, which goes back to the Barbary Coast pirates. American ships were being attacked by pirates, and thus, the U.S. Marines went to Libya to go take care of it. (That's why the Marine's Hymn goes, "From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli.") What resulted was the first Treaty of Tripoli, which ended the war. It was signed in 1796 by the Tripolians, and in 1797 by the U.S. Congress. In the English
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there is a certain level of public participation and opinion at which police/military side with protesters. this has been the case in all previous occurrences in different countries. in usa, its not yet there.
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Enemy is approaching fast. Requesting orders. General, what should we do?
There's no response from Command, or from party leader Creedy, or from the High Chancellor.
Bloody hell, stand down! Stand down!
Perhaps if V hadn't taken out Creedy and the Chancellor things would have been different. Certainly the movie takes quite a few liberties with reality, but this one is somewhat believable. Without those people to order horrible things, we were left with average people firing or not. The decency of most average people was a theme in the film (Evey; the gay guy; the people who attacked
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I had a very good friend who was on the steps of the capitol at the fall of MiloÅeviÄ. She told the story of the police arriving. She said, "The boys were in front and ready to fight, and we girls in back were ready to die and bandage them up. But then, the police put their guns down and joined us. That's when we knew we won."
So yeah, it sometimes happens and there's a happy ending.
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Don't worry, once ACTA passes the police will own the copyright on such videos and they'll be taken down posthaste to prevent piracy.
Re:That was England... (Score:5, Interesting)
Nah, the news would show some guy taking a dump on the flag, some smashed windows, not cover the rest of the story. The viewers would be telling the trigger-happy police "Atta boy!"
Re:That was England... (Score:4, Insightful)
There would be some news reports about alleged police brutality with no facts, images, or video, but with a few interviews of older white middle class people saying that they are glad the police are protecting society from the dirty hobo looters.
Re:That was England... (Score:5, Insightful)
Really.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_England_riots [wikipedia.org]
or perhaps this.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_England_riots#Police_shooting_of_Mark_Duggan [wikipedia.org]
Doesn't matter where you live, people can still lose it...
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England & the UK don't know how good they have (Score:4, Interesting)
I think in some ways the UK police are as bad as anything the US can bring. Note the OC mentions kettling. This is a very distinctly European (and especially London/British) police behaviour and terminology.
You know, having lived for years in both countries, and being a dual citizen, I can unequivocally say that the police in the UK are nowhere near as bad as the police in the US.
Not even in the same universe, much less the same ballpark.
Yes, UK police use kettling, yes, they shoved a newspaper man to the ground (but did not subsequently beat to within an inch of his life) whose internal injuries from the later killed him, yes, they are imperfect, and can be as myopic or provincial as anyone. Yes, the chief of police can get buy for years with flagrant corruption and keep his post long past his sell-by date by deftly playing the ethnicity card over and over again, until a victim of his own ethnicity finally outs him in court, yes to all of that.
But that pales in comparison to the harshness of the US police that is part and parcel of daily policing here. Unarmed people here are shot dead in their own home, with alarming regularity, and the police get away with it by saying they 'thought he was armed.' There was just another instance of that in the tri-state area this past week, and dozens more in the 18 months or so I've been back in the states.
The UK police can be criticized plenty, but until you've lived on this side of the pond, you really don't know how good you have it. Your police are positively humane and polite, sometimes to a fault, by comparison.
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There are so many police officers in this country that of COURSE you're gonna get some racists, nutjobs, or power-trippers, just like any other large enough group of people
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We're so level headed we passive/aggressive police tactics like kettling ignoring those we squash when forcing them into tight spaces.
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All the examples I used were from things that have happened in the UK recently. ;-)
I'd move somewhere else, but I can't think of anywhere that's any better Australia is about the only one but then you trade a government trying to control you for wildlife that's trying to kill you.
I'll take the oppression over their wildlife anyday
Re:That was England... (Score:5, Interesting)
Here in America, the police would just mow down the crowd with machine-gun fire and call it a day.
There in the USA, the crowd would show up armed to the teeth, and the cops would be running for their lives if they weren't fragging their superiors.
Re:At Least... (Score:5, Funny)
I suggest they do self immolation.
Hilariously, your comment was modded as Flamebait.
Re:At Least... (Score:5, Insightful)
The also rolled back from targeting the Mexican cartel the moment it was clear their lives would be in danger...
Re:At Least... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:At Least... (Score:5, Funny)
I think the only way to get a grouping of people that doesn't have members that have been murdered by the Mexican Mafia, is to make the group "People who haven't been murdered by the Mexican Mafia."
Based on previous reactions of Moore's: (Score:5, Funny)
I expected any external use of his writings whatsoever to cause him to roll-over in the grave which I can only assume he sleeps in every night.
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I'm not sure whether that fits Moore's MO--would rolling over in the grave be something he could borrow from the Charlton Comics, but then get indignant about when other people used it?
What's the message here? (Score:5, Interesting)
Moore sounds like he is satisfied with his contribution to the movement, but not as satisfied or validated with the achievements of modern radicals (yet).
I love seeing symbols and characters borrowed from history and re-used, or re-purposed. It reassures me that our actions could potentially matter to future generations.
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I'm not sure how far back the story of Batman's martial arts training originated, but it was portrayed much like it was seen in the recent movie in the '90s Batman: Animated Series cartoon. And AFAIK he's always had martial arts skills and I don't think we're supposed to assume he was born with them.
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The general public's response to the strategies of the music and film industries is enough to cause concern; a cover is fine every so often, but reboots are naked assaults on history. One can make a new story without redefining the past: it's called $TITLE, not Batman: Bet You Didn't Know He Was a Ninja!
First, there's nothing intrinsically wrong with a reboot. It's the best way of having an artist give his own take to a story without actually ruining the other story. Since you're using Batman's example, it's easy to talk about Nolan's Batman vs. Burton's Batman, and it's easy to enjoy both of them in their own way.
More specific, as far as comic books are concerned, reboots happen so often in comic-book land that having them in the movies is just one more way in which you can be faithful. I'm just waitin
Wow. (Score:5, Insightful)
To be honest, i never thought that i would see such thoughts and philosophies, and such awareness about the depravity of the current system in mainstream in my lifetime.
im quite pleased in the direction the awareness is going. i think, even if i dont see the full materialization of these ideals immediately in my lifetime, i can still die a happy camper. however, at this rate things are going, i may actually see the realization of those ideas before i bite the dust.
its exciting. i thank everyone who is participating in these awareness movements to change the world for the better.
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i can still die a happy camper
Getting more involved in these movements should speed that part up for you.
wow (Score:2)
bullshit. mask was an icon right after the movie was released, especially in internet underground.
How long... (Score:4, Interesting)
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I'd be surprised if the US government wasn't already monitoring the sale of these.
Oh its deeper than a comic book (Score:2)
The protests happening around the world are a sign of a transition happening.
Population growth drives need for change. We have been through such transition before and there are stories indicating such. Like the tower of babel, where we moved from bicameral mind mode of social interaction to a conscious mode capable of the creation and use of higher level abstraction. When we made that transition the misuse of higher level abstraction was the discovery of deception and the value of its intentional use, or mi
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Yeah, the Matrix sucked as they lied and killed off that which cannot be killed off in reality. The Wachowskis had the opportunity to do something wonderful, instead they chose to cash in on an attempt to suppress. As V for Vendetta is wrong about the need for violence by those protesting, which will only fuel excuses of the lying elite to kill those awakening to the wrongs of the elite...
As such you should read the links I provided, as regardless of the fictional movies, in real life you cannot avoid that
Is he (Score:2)
any relation to Michael Moore (Fahrenheit 911) or Gordon Moore (Moore's Law)
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any relation to Michael Moore (Fahrenheit 911) or Gordon Moore (Moore's Law)
You think there are a lot less Moores than any other last name, more or less?
Next up (Score:3)
The creator of Zero Wing [wikipedia.org] explains how his game served as an inspiration to Anonymous.
Pretentious pointless movie (Score:3, Interesting)
So.
Although the government of today (In England) is a progressive bureaucratic creeping state of regulation and control, V for Vendetta makes the evil government a Christian Dictatorship? Yeah...that's a believable outcome.
The Hero tortures the Heroine to get her on his side in the grand fight? And he's the good guy?
The glorifying of Guy Fawlkes for his attempt to blow up parliment? What?
V for Vendetta is a stupid movie.
If you want to see a great movie about standing up to an evil state watch "The Lives of Others" A movie based in a believable world, one that really exists. Set in the ex-communist East Germany. It is a beautiful movie with sadness throughout but redemption at the end. Including bravery and doing what is right.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lives_of_Others
Re:Pretentious pointless movie (Score:5, Insightful)
What ticks me off about it is the abuse of history. Fawkes (and others; Fawkes was largely the fall guy) was attempting to kill the Protestant King James I so they could install a Catholic on the throne. And an underaged Catholic at that; they would make themselves the regent, tied to the king of Spain.
This wasn't a blow for freedom. It was a coup to replace one monarch with another, and a slightly-tolerant regime with an intolerant one.
The original Fawkes wasn't a hero of any kind. If the book and film have any "greatness" to them, it's in the power of a compelling piece of propaganda to mislead. The anarchists who feel inspired by it were manipulated, and that should be a cautionary tale, not a role model.
Re:Pretentious pointless movie (Score:4, Informative)
What ticks me off about it is the abuse of history. Fawkes (and others; Fawkes was largely the fall guy) was attempting to kill the Protestant King James I so they could install a Catholic on the throne. And an underaged Catholic at that; they would make themselves the regent, tied to the king of Spain.
Moore knows the history perfectly well. The book isn't about Guy Fawkes, it's about an anarchist who uses powerful symbols associated with Fawkes in a dystopia set centuries later, which owes much more to the politics of Britain under Margaret Thatcher than it does to historical plots against James I. By the time Moore was growing up, Guy Fawkes had become an ambiguous figure in the popular imagination; still burnt in effigy, but somehow 'remembered' with a degree of respect or even affection (especially if you weren't a fan of the government of the day). FTA:
"Jump forward 300 years, though, to the battered post-war England of the 1950s, and the saturnine insurrectionary had taken on more ambiguous connotations...When parents explained to their offspring about Guy Fawkes and his attempt to blow up Parliament, there always seemed to be an undertone of admiration in their voices, or at least there did in Northampton...While that era's children perhaps didn't see Fawkes as a hero, they certainly didn't see him as the villainous scapegoat he'd originally been intended as."
Well... we already know the V mask (Score:4, Interesting)
Well... we already know the V mask version of Guido Fawkes and where it came from... but what about the Lulz characters?
Both LulzSec and that new one- whats it called something "S" Sec- the one that got FoxConn recently use a snobby looking character with a top-hat. The two logos are different- but there are obvious similarities... the black tophat for one.
The only thing I can think of is "black hat"- although they're not really black hat hackers... Personally, I think they should be called "Red Hat" because they don't fit the white hat or grey hat definitions either. Red is the symbol for revolution and activism.
Nonetheless- I thought the colour hat referred to Westerns- you know the cowboy in white was the good guy- the guy in black was the bad guy. No?
Anyhow- back on subject- what is the origin of that guy- is it just a coincidence the new groups logo looks similar to Lulzsecs logo?
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Indeed, instead of opposing a fascist government its now about opposing a government controlled by big corporations.
Re:difference (Score:4, Funny)
Was that intentional? Like in "King of the Hill" where a character says something along the lines of: I'm not sad, I just feel sense hopelessness and depressed mood. If it was intentional, very funny.
Re:difference (Score:5, Insightful)
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini
I assume that's the quote you wanted! And since we see Monsanto execs running the FDA and regulatory officials literally sleeping with BP execs, it sure seems spot on.
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It would be more truthful to switch fascism with communism in your quote.
Re:difference (Score:5, Insightful)
except that even as a non-pirate I can see that the means employed to stop these "anonymous thieving pirates" are becoming increasingly fascist and removed from the principles of enlightenment. Take special note of how "trade agreements" which "must" be agreed upon in secret are used to introduce laws in a step to side-step national parliaments, the overwhelming police brutality and tactics (like transporting people 20km away from a city center and dumping them by the roadside, in the middle of the night if they so wish to, without needing to ensure that they have any means to get home safely. In fact we have had at least one death due to this already as a man froze to death. All perfectly legal) used to make sure protesters can't be there to voice their displeasure at avenues (such as trade summits) covered by the media.
mod parent up (Score:2)
im out of points.
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like transporting people 20km away from a city center and dumping them by the roadside, in the middle of the night if they so wish to, without needing to ensure that they have any means to get home safely. In fact we have had at least one death due to this already as a man froze to death.
Link? I searched and couldn't find this story.
And the GP is spot on. Not flamebait. It really is that simple.
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except that even as a non-pirate I can see that the means employed to stop these "anonymous thieving pirates" are becoming increasingly fascist and removed from the principles of enlightenment.
Hold on a minute here! You just said something that a pirate might say. Therefore, you're a pirate. That makes you extremely biased. And that means you're wrong!
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ignorance much ? (Score:2)
fascism is a certain wealthy segment, which manifests as various corporate holders, holding the administration through a dictator they support. there has been no exceptions. nazis, mussolini, peron, they all had a certain corporate elite backing them into power, which continued to dictate policies through them after they got dictators placed. for example, not even at the highest peak of world war ii, when germany needed full mobilization very badly, nazi government did not take control of companies and fact
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... except the V mask has been appropriated by the Occupy movement, which is protesting about more serious matters than IP.
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And they deserved it. Now we need the V response to Obama's tenure.
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Not Obama's tenure, the whole system of government. The US is in bad need of a third political party, everybody thinks with a binary attitude to the issues in life. A third party would do wonders for debate.
Re:Huh (Score:5, Insightful)
Absolutely agree 100%.
I always vote third party out of principal. Even if I don't agree with what they say. Even if I know they won't win. The US voters have got into a mindset that there are only two parties.
My vote (and yours, anyones) for a third party is not a wasted vote- it is a vote towards establishing the legitimacy of ANY viewpoint- not just two.
The more people vote 3rd party- the more people will see it as a legitimate stance- which hopefully one day will lead to more than two parties.
I'm actually a huge fan of sortition- or an election/sortition hybrid- I believe that will truly give government the full-spectrum of political beliefs of the country- something that isn't represented in our two-party system.
I also am opposed to political party being listed on the ballot- or the option to vote "straight party ticket". We are electing people- not parties. The party should not show up on the ballot- nothing in our constitution says we are electing parties or that parties should be listed on the ballot. This creates an unfair environment and an unlevel playing field.
If you don't know what party someone belongs to- do you really know enough to be voting for them?
Re: (Score:3)
I find it interesting how so many movies were labelled as "propaganda against the Bush administration" just because they had an evil politician in them...
Re:Huh (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, Moore agrees with you. The film was different from the graphic novel:
I've read the screenplay, so I know exactly what they're doing with it, and I'm not going to be going to see it. When I wrote "V," politics were taking a serious turn for the worse over here. We'd had [Conservative Party Prime Minister] Margaret Thatcher in for two or three years, we'd had anti-Thatcher riots, we'd got the National Front and the right wing making serious advances. "V for Vendetta" was specifically about things like fascism and anarchy.
Those words, "fascism" and "anarchy," occur nowhere in the film. It's been turned into a Bush-era parable by people too timid to set a political satire in their own country. In my original story there had been a limited nuclear war, which had isolated Britain, caused a lot of chaos and a collapse of government, and a fascist totalitarian dictatorship had sprung up. Now, in the film, you've got a sinister group of right-wing figures â" not fascists, but you know that they're bad guys â" and what they have done is manufactured a bio-terror weapon in secret, so that they can fake a massive terrorist incident to get everybody on their side, so that they can pursue their right-wing agenda. It's a thwarted and frustrated and perhaps largely impotent American liberal fantasy of someone with American liberal values [standing up] against a state run by neo-conservatives â" which is not what "V for Vendetta" was about. It was about fascism, it was about anarchy, it was about [England]. The intent of the film is nothing like the intent of the book as I wrote it. And if the Wachowski brothers had felt moved to protest the way things were going in America, then wouldn't it have been more direct to do what I'd done and set a risky political narrative sometime in the near future that was obviously talking about the things going on today?
(Emphasis mine)
http://www.mtv.com/shared/movies/interviews/m/moore_alan_060315/ [mtv.com]
Re: (Score:2)
people who say the mask is based on that book or V for V movie are funny, the mask is this guy (pun intended):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_fawkes [wikipedia.org]
Yes, but the masks used by protestors are very much based on the version drawn by Alan Moore (and which the movie intentionally used, being a cinematic version of Moore's work). Had they been directly drawn from the original source, they would have looked more different.
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Moore didn't draw it. David Lloyd did.
Re: (Score:2)
Moore didn't draw it. David Lloyd did.
I stand corrected.
Re:masked based on book? (Score:4, Informative)
Yes, but the masks used by protestors are very much based on the version drawn by Alan Moore (and which the movie intentionally used, being a cinematic version of Moore's work). Had they been directly drawn from the original source, they would have looked more different.
...and not subject to royalties. [nytimes.com]
Anonymous, thanks for inflating the profits of one of the big media companies you are protesting against.
Re: (Score:2)
And that's why you should just make your own:
http://blog.makezine.com/2012/02/02/easy-vacuum-forming-with-a-guy-fawkes-mask/ [makezine.com]
how do you afford your rock and roll lifestyle? (Score:3)
Oh, that's ironic. Not a very effective protest of corporate greed, paying royalties, buying something made in China. Stopping fascism is in large part done by people being aware of their participation in the system and opting out of it. Someone needs to make a free version. Maybe base it off the original. Not the movie version [comicartfans.com].
Something nicer than some DIY versions [deviantart.com].
I suppose you could illegally copy the design [indybay.org]...
Are these originals? mask1 [blogspot.com] mask 2 [wordpress.com]
Ah, here are some more [no-ip.org]. And another kind [no-ip.org].
another [pyrobin.com] and ano [pyrobin.com]
Re: (Score:2)
people who say the mask is based on that book or V for V movie are funny, the mask is this guy (pun intended):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_fawkes [wikipedia.org]
Yes, but the masks used by protestors are very much based on the version drawn by Alan Moore (and which the movie intentionally used, being a cinematic version of Moore's work). Had they been directly drawn from the original source, they would have looked more different.
I'm aware of all this (as I'm sure most on Slashdot are); what I haven't been able to find is an image of what Guy Fawkes masks looked like before V for Vendetta. As stated in the article, when creating the look for V in the graphic novel they used an existing cardboard Guy Fawkes mask as a reference - anyone know what these "original" masks looked like (no doubt they changed significantly through the years even before David Lloyd and Alan Moore left their mark)?
Re: (Score:2)
I'm aware of all this (as I'm sure most on Slashdot are); what I haven't been able to find is an image of what Guy Fawkes masks looked like before V for Vendetta. As stated in the article, when creating the look for V in the graphic novel they used an existing cardboard Guy Fawkes mask as a reference - anyone know what these "original" masks looked like (no doubt they changed significantly through the years even before David Lloyd and Alan Moore left their mark)?
I don't believe there was a canonical mask before V. Google Image search "Penny for the guy" and ignore the V masks; there's little in common.
I can't find the interview, but I recall one with David Lloyd in which he said that the big change he made was to the smile -- but the mask they based it on wasn't a widespread image before that.
Re:That's Because He's Getting Paid (Score:5, Informative)
For every cut Warner gets, Moore gets a cut.
Nope. He had his name taken off the film and directed that all profits he might be due from the film be given to Lloyd instead.
Re: (Score:3)
The London protester said his brethren are trying to counter Warner Bros.’ control of the imagery. He claims that Anonymous UK has imported 1,000 copies from China, and the distribution goes “straight into the pockets of the Anonymous beer fund rather than the Warner Brothers. Much better.”
source : http://www.theblaze.com/stories/heres-the-history-behind-occupy-wall-streets-creepy-guy-fawkes-mask/ [theblaze.com]
Re: (Score:3)
I can't sort out how an image that dates back to the 17th century can possibly be copyrighted by anyone.
Where did you get the idea that the V for Vendatta mask is a 17th century image?
The mask in use is based on a copyrighted comic book image [wikipedia.org], not a generic Guy Fawkes image.
Re: (Score:3)
They can't own the mask; it predates the corporation.
No, it doesn't. [nytimes.com]
"What few people seem to know, though, is that Time Warner, one of the largest media companies in the world and parent of Warner Brothers, owns the rights to the image and is paid a licensing fee with the sale of each mask."
Re: (Score:3)
without much effort:
http://pyrotechnics.no-ip.org/files/astra%20advert%20-%201965-01%20trade%20-%203d%20for%20the%20guy%20(due%20to%20a%20rise%20in%20cost%20of%20living)%20(small).jpg [no-ip.org]
I've seen old versions of that mask in photos dating many years before the comic.
Not that the old ones looked exactly the same. Like Santa Claus, some corporation takes the image and makes it into 1 icon. BTW, Santa's red/white fatness being THE image of santa is from Coca-Cola, I read about the history of that back before the