The social opposition is defined by public action: the presence of collectivities in political meetings, individuals speaking at public meetings, activists marching in public squares, militant trade unionists confronting employers, poor people demanding sites for housing and public services from public authorities…

To address an active assembled public meeting, to formulate ideas, programs and propose programs and strategies through political action defines the role of the public intellectual. To sit at a desk in an office, in splendid isolation, sending out five manifestos per minute defines a “desktop militant”. It is a form pseudo-militancy that isolates the word from the deed. Desktop “militancy” is an act of verbal inaction, of inconsequential “activism”, a make-believe revolution of the mind. The exchange of internet communications becomes a political act when it engages in public social movements that challenge power. By necessity that involves risks for the public intellectual: of police assaults in public spaces and economic reprisals in the private sphere. The desktop “activists” risk nothing and accomplish little. The public intellectual links the private discontents of individuals to the social activism of the collectivity. The academic critic comes to a site of action, speaks and returns to their academic office. The public intellectual speaks and sustains a long-term political educational commitment with the social opposition in the public sphere via the internet and in face to face daily encounters.

The internet has become contested terrain, a new form of class struggle,engaging national liberation and pro-democracy movements. The major movements and leaders from the armed fighters in the mountains of Afghanistan to the pro-democracy activists in Egypt, to the student movements in Chile and including the poor peoples’ housing movement in Turkey, rely on the internet to inform the world of their struggles, programs, state repression and popular victories. The internet links peoples’ struggles across national boundaries – it is a key weapon in creating a new internationalism to counter capitalist globalization and imperial wars.

To paraphrase Lenin, we could argue that 21st century socialism can be summed up by the equation: “soviets plus internet = participatory socialism”.

The internet has played a vital role in publicizing and mobilizing “spontaneous protests” like the ‘indignados’ (the indignant protestors) mostly unaffiliated unemployed youth in Spain and the protestors involved in the US “Occupy Wall Street”. In other instances, for example, the mass general strikes in Italy, Portugal, Greece and elsewhere the organized trade union confederations played a central role and the internet had a secondary impact.

In highly repressive countries like Egypt, Tunisia and China, the internet played a major role in publicizing public action and organizing mass protests. However, the internet has not led to any successful revolutions – it can inform, provide a forum for debate, and mobilize, but it cannot provide leadership and organization to sustain political action let alone a strategy for taking state power. The illusion that some internet gurus foster, that ‘computerized’ action replaces the need for a disciplined, political party, has been demonstrated to be false: the internet can facilitate movement but only an organized social opposition can provide the tactical and strategic direction which can sustain the movement against state repression and toward successful struggles.

In other words, the internet is not an “end in itself” – the self-congratulatory posture of internet ideologues in heralding a new “revolutionary” information age overlooks the fact that the NATO powers, Israel and their allies and clients now use the internet to plant viruses to disrupt economies, sabotage defense programs and promote ethno-religious uprisings. Israel sent damaging viruses to hinder Iran’s peaceful nuclear program; the US, France and Turkey incited client social opposition in Libya and Syria. In a word, the internet has become the new terrain of class and anti-imperialist struggle. The internet is a means not an end in itself. The internet is part of a public sphere whose purpose and results are determined by the larger class structure in which it is embedded.

http://petras.lahaine.org/?p=1880

Crow posted:

swampman posted:
On my way to those protest by the way I jokingly asked my roommates if they wanted me to loot anything for them and they were Very surprised and disappointed that someone with such usually measured views on the subject of ows would consider reprehensible acts like that. And i just didnt know which way to turn, do I get offended by the implication that I would actually loot, or reveal in my true belief that the directed, measured, but fundamentally chaotic destruction of symbolic things is all that will scare the powerful? As you can see I chose a middle road. Kudos to me for my bravery, imo.

time for new friends. Anarchy fatwa. Khrushchev ftw

Crow posted:
fatwa

omg my new kindle is an agent provocateur. Vigilance

Crow posted:
Crow posted:
omg my new kindle is an agent provocateur. Vigilance

lmao what did you think it was supposed to be. now order some gorky or somethin. its so easy

swampman posted:
Crow posted:
Crow posted:
omg my new kindle is an agent provocateur. Vigilance

lmao what did you think it was supposed to be. now order some gorky or somethin. its so easy

I actually like Gorky so I'm gonna download a Pdt file. Smash the Christian crusaders

E:GODDAMMIT AMAZON