Anonymous Comrade writes:

To the Vector the Spoils
McKenzie Wark interviewed by Roy Christopher
from frontwheeldrive.com

http://frontwheeldrive.com/mckenzie_wark.html

Roy Christopher: Let's get our terms aligned first:
How do you define the term 'hacker'? Do you
include artists, software developers and other so-
called 'knowledge workers'?

McKenzie Wark: I think everyone who actually
creates 'intellectual property' could consider
themselves part of the same class -- the hacker class
? and as having convergent interests. So, yes, that
could include programmers, musicians, writers, and
also engineers, chemists -- all sorts of people who
are culturally distinct. What we have in common is
that we have to sell the products of our intellectual
labor to corporations who have a monopoly on
realizing its value. We invent the idea, but they
control the means of production. The laws that
used to protect us ? copyright and patent -- have
been subtly changing over the course of the last
few decades to protect corporate owners of
existing 'intellectual property', not individual
creators of new ideas. And so I wrote 'A Hacker
Manifesto', to dramatize this emergent conflict.

Retort writes:



NEITHER THEIR WAR NOR THEIR PEACE

[IMAGE: Picasso, Guernica]

Last week, at American insistence, the copy of Picasso's Guernica in the anteroom to the UN Security Council Chamber was curtained over - not "an appropriate backdrop," it was explained, for official statements to the world media.

WE HAVE NO WORDS FOR THE HORROR TO COME,

for the screams and carnage of the first days of battle, the fear and brutality of the long night of occupation that will follow, the truck bombs and slit throats and unstoppable cycle of revenge, the puppets in the palaces chattering about "democracy," the exultation of the anti-Crusaders, Baghdad descending into the shambles of a new, more dreadful Beirut, and the inevitable retreat (thousands of bodybags later) from the failed McJerusalem.

jason adams writes:

"The Constellation of Opposition"


Jason Adams

Introduction: The Constellation of N30

The protests that occurred around the world on November 30, 1999 (N30) were truly without precedent. They mark an important turning point in what had become increasingly fragmented struggles of new social movements constructed around various forms of antiauthoritarian politics, identity politics and ecological politics as well as traditional class struggle politics. In the cultural rebound against universalism after the 1960s, new social movements continuously sought to create autonomous space for the particularity of youth, queers, women and people of color as well as for the general ecology of the planet. While there have been enormous strides made since that time, the downside has been that in general, they have not succesfully articulated the intersectionalities of these various oppressions and resistances.

Please submit your own comments on the last year, remedy the gaping holes in the review of events, other signioficant deaths, favourite article, books etc. whatever, alcoholic existential ramblings....

"Instead of an Almanac..."

Hydrarchist

Okay so this is addressed to you, and that means:

sho, lunacharsky, malatesta, pde, olly abbot, A cheeba, Daaaaih Looong, mobiustrip, pvh, tiliting, NMPW, antiproperty mxyzptlk, sark han T, nolympics, ducasse, praxcologer, MRGIMP, worldrevolt, shoplift, billydub, dureevital, mr oblivion, albamuth, mobiustrip44, grumpy, who have made comments when logged in as well AWM, Phuq Hedd and Chuck0 who never log-in but always sign their contributions. Also for La Citta Invisibile and Rekombinant who run RSS boxes to our headlines.

Here's the stats: there were 845 stories and 545 comments. So the difficulty in being participatory, rather than modelled on a traditional broadcast model, is plain. The following panoramic view of the site's activity makes no claim to cover all of the salient events of the year; many things are missing, notably commentary on the US's financial scandals, news from the social and economic earthquakes of Uruguay and Brazil, and commentary that would do justice to the fight in Israel-Palestine, just to name a few. In fact, the value of this summary lies in the lacunae revealed. Nonetheless it reflects the interests of the site's administrators and users, mirrored in the subject matter of the popular stories posted, those which generated discussion (still all too few) and those that decisively more readers than the rest.