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19 Year Old Diebold Technician Wins U.S. Presidency

19 Year Old Diebold Technician Wins U.S. Presidency

By Ion Zwitter, Avant News Editor
Washington, D.C., November 5, 2008

In a dramatic development that has come as a surprise to pundits and the public alike, a youthful technician with Diebold, Inc. has emerged as the unlikely winner of the 2008 U.S. Presidential election. The president-elect, 19 year old Billy Pustule of Green, Ohio, reached via SMS at the garage apartment by his mother's house in which he currently resides, said he was "real psyched about being the president" and "had big plans for the inauguration party".

Read the rest of the article here.

Thanks to the peeps at Idleworm for finding this one.

Ancient Rome's "War on Terra"

The NY Times published a fascinating Op-Ed piece by Robert Harris, "Pirates of the Mediterranean", on Ancient Rome's "War on Terra" which was triggered by an attack by a rag tag group of "ruined men of all nations" and the disastrous consequences of Rome's over reaction.

In the autumn of 68 B.C. the world’s only military superpower was dealt a profound psychological blow by a daring terrorist attack on its very heart. Rome’s port at Ostia was set on fire, the consular war fleet destroyed, and two prominent senators, together with their bodyguards and staff, kidnapped.

Pompey the Great decided to respond to the nationless enemy combatants with an overwhelming show of force consisting of 120,000 infantry, 5,000 cavalry, and 500 newly built ships. This force almost emptied out the Roman Treasury.  In order to carry his plans out, Pompey had to give himself "not only the supreme naval command but what amounted in fact to an absolute authority and uncontrolled power over everyone" under a new law called Lex Gabinia, which, coincidentally enough, was passed illegally.  I think that's Latin for "Patriot Act."

When members of the senate tried to block its passing, Pompey used the oldest political trick in the book by whipping up panic and dismissing any "dissenting voices as 'soft' or even 'traitorous'". The powers ceded to Pompey by the people to help him in his "war on terra" were never returned.

Pompey stayed in the Middle East for six years, establishing puppet regimes throughout the region, and turning himself into the richest man in the empire.

It also brought a flood of money into an electoral system that had been designed for a simpler, non-imperial era. Caesar, like Pompey, with all the resources of Gaul at his disposal, became immensely wealthy, and used his treasure to fund his own political faction. Henceforth, the result of elections was determined largely by which candidate had the most money to bribe the electorate. In 49 B.C., the system collapsed completely, Caesar crossed the Rubicon — and the rest, as they say, is ancient history.

I can't wrap it up any better than the author of the piece, so I'll step aside here and let him do it:

An intelligent, skeptical American would no doubt scoff at the thought that what has happened since 9/11 could presage the destruction of a centuries-old constitution; but then, I suppose, an intelligent, skeptical Roman in 68 B.C. might well have done the same.

The Lex Gabinia was a classic illustration of the law of unintended consequences: it fatally subverted the institution it was supposed to protect. Let us hope that vote in the United States Senate does not have the same result.

It's time to dust off the copy of Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and reread it.

Pirate Utopias and TAZs

These nomads practice the razzia, they are corsairs, they are viruses; they have both need and desire for TAZs, camps of black tents under the desert stars, interzones, hidden fortified oases along secret caravan routes, "liberated" bits of jungle and bad-land, no-go areas, black markets, and underground bazaar.

                                                                                                                                                 -Hakim Bey

Last Wednesday Big Gav got me started on this Pirate Utopias and Temporary Autonomous Zones jag with a link to a site which had Hakim Bey's famous essay The Temporary Autonomous Zone.  The essay has been bookmarked and sitting in my reading queue since last summer. The following afternoon, I'm in my favorite local bookstore to see what's new and one title catches my eye: Clandestines : The Pirate Journals of an Irish Exile by Ramor Ryan. I decide to buy a copy after leafing through it for ten minutes. That evening I discover that this is a book you simply cannot put down. I finished the first half around 1 AM before finally forcing myself to turn out the lights. The following evening I put off watching my latest two movies from Netflix to finish the second half , as well as Bey's essay--finally.

Where Bey's work is academic, Ramor's book is an account of his travels to and experiences in various real life Temporary Autonomous Zones around the globe. Many of which were (and still are) war zones and semi-war zones, it should be added. Not only is Ryan a first rate writer, whose prose reads like a novel, but he's also one very courageous--or crazy man--to go into these hotspots.

The book starts off with his stay in Berlin shortly after the Wall came down in 1988. There he spends an extended period of time living, drinking, and fighting the German "Bullen" (or Riot Police) with a colorful group of anarchist squatters from all over the globe. His description of one riot is as vivid and exciting as the unforgettable opening riot scene from the movie In the Name of the Father. (Nota bene: If you are in the film business, this book would make a great adventure story.)

How does Ryan get into these situations? Well, for one thing he has a habit of volunteering to be on human rights teams which go into war zones to document abuses against civilian populations. The book includes chapters on his trips to the Kurdish autonomous regions of Turkey and Iraq after the first Gulf War, when the Turkish Army was attacking them with all of its might. Another chapter finds him staying as a human rights observer in a Zapatista autonomous zone in Mexico as the Mexican military does everything it can to intimidate them short of an all out assault.

Other chapters find him in more peaceful TAZs, such as a Rainbow Gathering in Croatia, an anti-globalization conference in Brazil, and various anarchist communities around the globe. One memorable chapter is reminiscent of Joseph Conrad's Nostromo as Ryan works aboard an old merchantman hauling bananas from South America to Rotterdam.

The TAZ, in whatever form it takes, Zapatista village, anarchist enclave, Burningman, Friday night Rave, or weekend festival is the healthy response to what Bey  calls the "hysterical rigidity" of the all intrusive state:

Let us admit that we have attended parties where for one brief night a republic of gratified desires was attained. Shall we not confess that the politics of that night have more reality and force for us than those of, say, the entire U.S. Government? Some of the "parties" we've mentioned lasted for two or three years. Is this something worth imagining, worth fighting for? Let us study invisibility, webworking, psychic nomadism--and who knows what we might attain?

I have always been a sucker for tales of the underdog standing up for his or her rights. If you have become disillusioned about the state of the world and think that the bad guys have won a permanent irreversible victory, then read this book. It will give you hope.

If you have a soul destroying job in a cubicle in Corporate America, this book is the perfect escape. Thank god, there are a few people left out there who have the courage to fight the good fight.

I give Clandestines : The Pirate Journals of an Irish Exile by Ramor Ryan 5 1/2 stars on a scale of 5.

It's that damned good!

Pirate Utopias and Rhizome Networks

Here's a fragment from today's blog by Big Gav. Big Gav writes:

While on the topic of non-authoritarian philosophies, the recent saga of the Swedish file sharing Vikings at The Pirate Bay prompted this revivial of Hakim Bey's Temporary Autonomous Zone.

Then he quotes Hakim Bey:

THE SEA-ROVERS AND CORSAIRS of the 18th century created an "information network" that spanned the globe: primitive and devoted primarily to grim business, the net nevertheless functioned admirably. Scattered throughout the net were islands, remote hideouts where ships could be watered and provisioned, booty traded for luxuries and necessities. Some of these islands supported "intentional communities," whole mini-societies living consciously outside the law and determined to keep it up, even if only for a short but merry life.

Some years ago I looked through a lot of secondary material on piracy hoping to find a study of these enclaves--but it appeared as if no historian has yet found them worthy of analysis. (William Burroughs has mentioned the subject, as did the late British anarchist Larry Law--but no systematic research has been carried out.) I retreated to primary sources and constructed my own theory, some aspects of which will be discussed in this essay. I called the settlements "Pirate Utopias."

Recently Bruce Sterling, one of the leading exponents of Cyberpunk science fiction, published a near-future romance based on the assumption that the decay of political systems will lead to a decentralized proliferation of experiments in living: giant worker-owned corporations, independent enclaves devoted to "data piracy," Green-Social-Democrat enclaves, Zerowork enclaves, anarchist liberated zones, etc. The information economy which supports this diversity is called the Net; the enclaves (and the book's title) are Islands in the Net.

The medieval Assassins founded a "State" which consisted of a network of remote mountain valleys and castles, separated by thousands of miles, strategically invulnerable to invasion, connected by the information flow of secret agents, at war with all governments, and devoted only to knowledge. Modern technology, culminating in the spy satellite, makes this kind of autonomy a romantic dream. No more pirate islands! In the future the same technology-- freed from all political control--could make possible an entire world of autonomous zones. But for now the concept remains precisely science fiction--pure speculation.

Aaarh matey, the stuff of dreams be that line, "the decay of political systems will lead to a decentralized proliferation of experiments in living." Imagine having a veritable smorgazbord of intentional communities to pick and choose from for where to live. Better yet, imagine being able to freely move from one to another whenever you wish to experience a new way of living.

I'm indulging my pirate fantasies this morning before knuckling down to work.

P.S. You can read more on rhizome networks at Jeff Vail's blog.

How Things Work in the USA Today

I first saw this back in late 2003. It's one of the funniest and most accurate descriptions of how things work in the USA today, that I have ever come across. Tom Tomorrow is one of the best political cartoonists working today.

How Absolutely Insane Ideas Become Accepted by the Mainstream

Just goes to show that repetition is the key to mind control. Repeat something absolutely ludicrous enough times, and people will come to believe eventually.