tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3112869039590710760.comments2023-06-28T12:48:25.522+01:00Leninism 2.0AChttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14498065851569728871noreply@blogger.comBlogger12125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3112869039590710760.post-1999430712910850992009-08-31T01:34:30.010+01:002009-08-31T01:34:30.010+01:00Copyright is a complicated thing. I'm a writer...Copyright is a complicated thing. I'm a writer and while I'm all for the free distribution of ideas and knowledge - I'd be very upset if a studio or producer took the script I'd been working on for two months and turned it into a film without paying me. Copyright, for writers - and actors, et al - is a key part of making a living. For big corporations, it is a key part of maintaining a monopoly on knowledge.Redbedheadhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07599011452142177692noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3112869039590710760.post-22094456943137760532009-08-09T03:41:33.986+01:002009-08-09T03:41:33.986+01:00I dimly recall reading this chapter when I studied...I dimly recall reading this chapter when I studied a Masters in Media and Cultural Studies several years ago. It's certainly worth thinking through the implications for our internet age - and considering how the ideas can be updated and refreshed in the world today. The points about technology's significance remain interesting - I can see why you've posted this - but I'd suggest the specific consequences of current changes need some detailed attention. A future post from Ady HD perhaps?luna17https://www.blogger.com/profile/03754650933188634442noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3112869039590710760.post-79506823116773520952009-06-16T21:47:50.444+01:002009-06-16T21:47:50.444+01:00Brilliant video - keep up the good work. This is a...Brilliant video - keep up the good work. This is an urgent, important struggle.luna17https://www.blogger.com/profile/03754650933188634442noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3112869039590710760.post-16490874412244696882009-02-20T15:15:00.000+00:002009-02-20T15:15:00.000+00:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3112869039590710760.post-39362097778572991202009-02-20T15:14:00.000+00:002009-02-20T15:14:00.000+00:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3112869039590710760.post-65642997940213075022009-02-20T15:14:00.000+00:002009-02-20T15:14:00.000+00:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3112869039590710760.post-91444048634905226462009-02-20T15:13:00.000+00:002009-02-20T15:13:00.000+00:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3112869039590710760.post-56164225520921725502009-02-20T15:12:00.000+00:002009-02-20T15:12:00.000+00:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3112869039590710760.post-22845769881406344312009-02-20T15:12:00.000+00:002009-02-20T15:12:00.000+00:00This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3112869039590710760.post-32728514894926847952009-02-05T02:13:00.000+00:002009-02-05T02:13:00.000+00:00Thank you for visiting my blog.I read at various b...Thank you for visiting my blog.<BR/><BR/>I read at various blogs from the UK, that workers in the strike, who are associated with the CWI, played a role redirecting the strike, to a path that wasn't chauvinist.<BR/><BR/><BR/>Regards.Frank Partisanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03536211653082893030noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3112869039590710760.post-9885095913349676522009-02-02T21:44:00.000+00:002009-02-02T21:44:00.000+00:00Thanks for your questions comrade. Any online orga...Thanks for your questions comrade. Any online organ is not a substitute for an offline one - its an augmentation of the offline activity. I would not abandon the paper, the leaflet, the poster or the telephone. But all of these media must change as a result of new technology.<BR/><BR/>The argument for an online organ recognises that within many countries (in the west at least)there are huge numbers of people that do a vast range of things online - essential for us is the evidence that people are using new online social tools to strengthen existing offline relationships with family and friends whilst at the same time form new relationships with people online.<BR/><BR/>The argument for an online organ recognises that simply transferring the content of a paper organ to a website robs it of all the advantages of the paper publication and does not utilise the advantages of an online publication. It posesses neither the strengths of a paper nor the strengths of a website. <BR/>We cannot produce content appropriate for online delivery simply by changing the form, we have to change the practice that creates the content. This would mean, for instance, turning up to picket line with a video camera and interviewing workers.<BR/><BR/>We should reject the notion that online work is about an alternative form of political activity, a type of "weightless" activism that parallels the idea of a "weightless" economy. Instead it should be seen as a means to strengthen and extend networks whose primary function is to organise resistance offline. In terms of both the west and developing countries the key tool for revolutionaries is not the internet but the mobile phone combined with the internet. So for instance in China protests have been organised using mobile phones:<BR/>SMS Texts Energize a Chinese Protest<BR/>Asia Sentinel<BR/>Friday, 01 June 2007<BR/>http://asiasentinel.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=520&Itemid=31<BR/><BR/>and in Kashmir mobile phones have been used to record protests and have themselves become a factor in building the movement:<BR/>Kashmir's mobile phone chroniclers<BR/>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7618092.stm<BR/>Not to mention what Clare Solomon is trying to do here.<BR/><BR/><BR/>In Sri Lanka there is an online publication that is updated entirely by mobile phone via SMS:<BR/>http://www.jasminenews.com/english<BR/><BR/>Someone asked a question about videos after my meeting at Marxism last year - but the country he mentioned was France. The comrade's point was that the overwhelming majority of the people in the poorer parts of cities did not have internet access and couldn't therefore see the videos produced by video activists working online. My answer is that this is the point of political organisation - to overcome the uneveness in the class not just in terms of the ideas in people's heads but in terms of things such as access to the internet. The solution is for those comrades that do have access to download the films, put them on a DVD, get a cheap digital projector and take them into the poorer areas. This in fact is exactly the approach adopted in this country by Reel News. <BR/><BR/>The same applies of course to printed material. It only requires one comrade to be able to download the files - whether via the internet or using a peer to peer system with encryption etc, another comrade could print the files. It would combine the greatest flexibility and speed of response with the tried and trusted methods of working.<BR/><BR/>Security wise I'd say each operating environment creates its own demands - but if AQ and various NGOs can use online methods securely, so can we.<BR/><BR/>But one thing I have noticed about your work and Wael's is that the internet allows a new approach to security. I see that you photograph the leaders of the strikes, their faces are all over the web, they are publicly present in a way that they would never have been before the internet. This public presence is a form of defence that wasn't available to us before. Their heightened public presence means their absence would also be massively visible - in other words we are no longer at the mercy of the existing media institutions, where being visible was a means of militants being identified briefly so that they could be taken out of circulation. If Wael disappeared off YouTube tomorrow his absence would be obvious in way that it would not have been in the past. Online notoriety has become a form of protection.<BR/><BR/>I suppose the main point of Leninism 2.0 is this:<BR/>The Bolsheviks built a mass party and took state power without the aid of any technology other than the printing press (itself new and revolutionary at that time). <BR/><BR/>They didn't utilise telephones to ring round their members because the telephone was not a widely available technology in the hands of many millions of people. It was not available to the Bolsheviks and crucially, it wasn't available to any competing political traditions - or the ruling class. But had phones been available and commonplace amongst the workers of Petrograd the Bolsheviks would not have been able to take power without using phones. This is because the SRs would have used them, the Mensheviks would have used them, the Kadets and the factory owners, the anarchists and the monarchists would have used them. By not using the commonly available technologies to communicate to their fullest abilities the Bolsheviks would have abandoned the field to others who would have used the new technology as a weapon against the Bolsheviks.<BR/><BR/>Its the technological context in which we operate that supplies us with the need to use those means that are broadly available. <BR/>Not because those technologies possess any magical powers but because our failure to adopt and use them effectively leaves the field open to other opposing political traditions - and our rulers. <BR/>In the battle of ideas that is raging all around us all of the time weapons that are not used by us become weapons that will be used against us. <BR/><BR/>The power lies with the us, the working class, with real people. The technology is simply a means to communicate with, talk to, influence and learn from the class. And beyond the battle of ideas it is vital that we use the new tools as a means of organising to their fullest capabilities, to extend our reach and to enable us to respond to events as they happen - not just to agitate and propagandise but to organise.AChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14498065851569728871noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3112869039590710760.post-76833956063982241132009-01-30T23:24:00.000+00:002009-01-30T23:24:00.000+00:00Very interesting thoughts Ady.. But I have few que...Very interesting thoughts Ady.. But I have few questions:<BR/>- How can we be sure this "online" organ has "active" members "offline"? Although there are many online activists like you and I are also active on the ground, organizing demos or strikes, but this isn't necessarily the case of all "online" activists.. and there's a good number of them who live in virtual reality.<BR/>- How will an "online organ" be built in developing countries where internet usage per population is not as high as in Western countries like UK? In Egypt for example, roughly 10% of the population has cyberaccess. One has to admit, however, that the internet community is increasingly exponentially year by year, but I still don't think we'll reach a 90%+ anytime soon.<BR/>- What can be the course of action, if, say, the internet collapsed on a national level, like what happened in Egypt and the ME last month with the Mediterranean cables cut (as I'm sure you read in the news)? Wouldn't that cripple an online organization? In some extreme cases, like in Burma, the govt literally pulling the plug off the web during the 2007 uprising.<BR/>-Security? How can we secure this online organization vis a vis Big Brother? <BR/><BR/>Sorry for bombarding you with these questions.. Keep up the good work..Hossam el-Hamalawyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00423830284734360965noreply@blogger.com