Ian & Stuart's Australian Mac: Not for Sale/Another.not.for.sale (Australia).iso/hold me in your arms/Revolutionary Politics Online

Text File | 1994-11-11 | 10KB | 183 lines

* * * *  The Maoist Internationalist Movement  * * * *

-    MIM Notes 87, April 1994   -


Shining Electronic Superhighway:

REVOLUTIONARY POLITICS PENETRATE GROWING COMPUTER NETWORKS

The boom in electronic telecommunications and computer networks has brought with
it new opportunities - as well as risks - for revolutionary organizing in the
United States and worldwide.

MIM is struggling to get more people involved in this area of growing importance.
"Logging on" must not be a substitute for political action, as it is for those
who have swapped computer terminals for the armchairs of the past. But it can be
a vital part of that action.

REVOLUTIONARY NET

The New York Transfer News Collective (NYT), of which MIM is a member, is a hub
for this activity. "We see ourselves as an activist tool, for getting information
in and out," says NYT's Bob Richards, "using technology as a weapon for waging
psychological warfare against the corporate system and against the government."

Richards and Kathleen Kelly run the system, which combines news writing,
gathering and distribution, with a system for linking activists of many stripes
directly together.

NYT, "a small-scale counter-propaganda center for activists," distributes
literature from MIM as well as solidarity groups like the Nicaragua Solidarity
Network of New York, the anarchist Love and Rage Federation, Workers World and
its affiliated groups, and more.

Kelly sees NYT as a tool for activists - a way for us to get our literature and
information out - and a way to draw us together: "We also do what we can to
encourage all these groups to communicate with one another, and to use the power
at their disposal in their computers to do so," she wrote recently.

"Although they might dislike one another's viewpoints, the members of our
collective all understand and accept our practice of distributing a wide variety
of radical and progressive news," she added. NYT extends this principled position
to include the distribution of members' criticisms of each other.

NYT's coalition politics are not new in themselves, Richards says. "The biggest
difference is the technology involved. There is really is not much difference
politically." Such coalitions "would have happened anyway" with letters, FAXes,
and so on. But now "two people can do what it would have taken hundreds of people
to do."

In some ways electronic politics reflect that "people are no longer social
animals," Richards argues. Access to a network "creates a meeting place for
people to gather remotely."

On the flip side, Kelly notes that politics in the medium could also encourage
isolation. There is a danger that "it can become a very solitary, isolated
addiction," she says. Still, "it gets people to do things they wouldn't otherwise
do - such as signing and sending petitions - with electronic mail, activism is
much easier." And the immediate quality is good: "it's very instantaneous ...
it's almost handed to you. I think that's what the medium has done."

IMPERIALIST TOOL, PARTIALLY SUBVERTED

Electronic mail communication has been the tool of elites. The present-day
Internet was developed by the U.S. military industrial complex as ARPANet in
1969, and has been used by academic and intellectual elites since.

There are about 15 million Internet users worldwide now, with a growing
proportion of them private or corporate.(1) The Internet is not directly owned by
anyone; it's a "federation" of about 12,000 networks. Current projections say it
could have 100 million users in five years.(2)

Its first extensive political use was pioneered, predictably, by Amerika's
fascist vanguards. Kelly recounts, "the right wing is much more technologically
sophisticated. The right has used bulletin boards for years and years."

In 1984 the FBI used a tap on one organizer's modem to track down a whole network
of white supremacists.(3)

But the biggest boon is to revolutionaries, who need ways of getting to large
audiences cheaply and efficiently, and who are often censored from corporate
media.(3) The medium reaches millions of reactionary people, but also exposes a
large number of potential allies to revolutionary politics.

But even as networks are growing and reaching new people, open access to them is
increasingly threatened. Rather than developing coherently as a single,
government-directed system, like the phone or Interstate highway systems
originally did, electronic communication is developing anarchically, driven by
big competing capitalists acting on their own, like the "railway free-for- all"
of the 19th century. Of course, in both cases virtual monopolization was the end
result. (2)

In 1991 the federal government committed itself to spend $3 billion to change the
Internet into a "quasi-commercial entity" called the National Research and
Education Network. Some combination of phone companies and cable companies (who
are currently in a massive merger-mania phase) will rule the big networks in the
near future. At present, IBM pays $80,000 per month to use the Internet, at great
benefit in terms of communications cost and efficiency.(2)

Political networks are not restricted to the Internet, however. There are more
than 50,000 independent bulletin board systems in operation, most not making any
or much money. The most successful one sells, predictably, digital pornography,
raking in $3.5 million per year.(2) These cannot be stopped as long as we still
have phones.

Kelly and Richards predict a five-year "window of opportunity" in which access is
relatively unrestricted, which time we have to develop alternatives. Although
Internet is already "in transition from public to corporate," says Richards, it
still could be partially salvaged "if Internet were considered public domain," if
people thought, "This is ours, this doesn't belong to corporate Amerika."
Eventually, however, getting politics out on the Internet may be no easier than
accessing prime-time TV.

Hank Roth, who facilitates a group of progressive discussion conferences, is
among those who want to save Internet access. "The best way to insure our
presence on Internet is to introduce the masses to Internet," he writes.
"Internet is truly a network where anarchy works. Let's keep it that way. Bring
others onboard. There is empowerment in numbers. That's the only way."

Anarchy doesn't work under capitalism, and that is why the Internet is being
gobbled up by corporate powers, but in the short run MIM agrees with those who
fight to maintain pubic access.

RISKS

The flow of electronic communications traffic is highly vulnerable to state
surveillance and repression. NYT reports having had mail tampered with, phones
tapped, and being investigated by the FBI, NYPD and New York State Police. As a
hub, they are something of an obvious target. Still, despite "the usual
assortment of cyber-vandals who try to crash our system periodically," they say
"we've never been successfully hacked."

New York Transfer was censored for its distribution of MIM literature by the
operators of some newsgroups and a PeaceNet conference. In the process, however,
supporters of open access were able to struggle publicly against any
restrictions. As in other media, MIM opposes any censorship of computer networks
- even as fascists and pornographers flourish - in the name of fighting stronger
state repressive mechanisms of any kind.

In the meantime, MIM urges all readers to learn to use these tools. The computers
and modems required are relatively cheap now, especially for groups and
organizations. From scratch to Internet may cost as little as a few hundred
dollars. Internet yields not only direct contact with thousands of potential
supporters, but also millions of files accessible to those who are eager to
learn.

Revolutionaries must master the technology needed to wage all kinds of wars.
Often that means co-opting existing technology, as well as developing our own.

To get in on computer network political work, do any of these things:

# If you don't have or can't afford a cheap Mac or IBM home computer and modem,
try to find a local site that sells public access: check local colleges and
universities. Or get a group together to buy some equipment.

# If you are equipped, get Internet access from a local college, BBS or
commercial service. Don't pay more than $25/month for full Internet access. Ads
for commercial services with toll free numbers appear in any computer magazine.

# Within calling distance of New York City, call New York Transfer. Dial
212-675-9690 or 212-675- 9663, setting the modem to dial at No Parity, 8 data
bits, 1 stop bit. Or write 39 West 14th St., #206, NY, NY 10011.

# Contact your local MIM distributor to help figure this out. While you're at it,
volunteer time with MIM or NYT; we will both exchange training for labor.

# If you are on Internet already, write MIM at [e-mail] or NYT at
[e-mail].

Notes: 1. New York Times 2/11/94, p. D1. 2. Economist 12/25/94, pp. 35-8. 3. Bay
Guardian 7/21/93, pp. 18-20.
MIM Notes is not copyrighted. Please credit MIM when redistributing or referring
to this material.
Subscriptions are $12/year (12 issues), U.S. mail or e-mail. Send only cash,
stamps or check made out to "ABS." Write: MIM Distributors, PO Box 3576, Ann
Arbor MI 48106-3576. E-mail: [e-mail].
-- + 212-675-9690      NY TRANSFER NEWS COLLECTIVE     212-675-9663 + +
Since 1985: Information for the Rest of Us           + +            GET INFO from
[e-mail]            + + e-mail: [e-mail]
 info: [e-mail] +