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<http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/04/19/the-new-hungarian-secret-police/> April 19, 2012, 6:59 pmThe New Hungarian Secret Police Another Hungary post from my Princeton colleague Kim Lane Scheppele, after the jump. The New Hungarian Secret Police Kim Lane Scheppele Tuesday 17 April 2012 Brad Pitt knows all about the TEK, Hungary's new counter-terrorism police. When Pitt was in Budapest last October shooting World War Z, an upcoming zombie-thriller, TEK agents [42]seized 100 machine guns, automatic pistols and sniper rifles that had been flown to Hungary for use as props in the movie. The weapons were disabled and came with no ammunition. But the Hungarian counter-terrorism police determined that they constituted a serious threat. The dead-pan seizure of movie props made TEK the laughing stock of the world. As David Itzkoff [43]joked in the pages of the New York Times, "If Hungary ever finds itself the target of an undead invasion, its police force should now be well supplied to defend the nation." Few have taken TEK seriously. But that is a big mistake. In fact, TEK seems to be turning into Prime Minister Viktor Orbn's own secret police. In less than two years, TEK has amassed truly Orwellian powers, including virtually unlimited powers of secret surveillance and secret data collection. The speaker of the Parliament, Lszl Kvr, now has his own armed guard too, since the Parliament yesterday passed a law that creates a separate armed police force accountable to the Parliament. It too has extraordinary powers not normally associated with a Parliamentary guard. The creation of this "Parlia-military" gives Hungary the dubious distinction of having the only Parliament in Europe with its own armed guard that has the power to search and "act in" private homes. About the Parlia-military, more later. First, to TEK. TEK was created in September 2010 by a governmental decree, shortly after the Fidesz government took office. TEK exists outside the normal command structure of both the police and the security agencies. The Prime Minister directly names (and can fire) its head and only the interior minister stands between him and the direct command of the force. It is well known that the head of this force is a very close confidante of the Prime Minister. TEK was set up as an anti-terror police unit within the interior ministry and given a budget of 10 billion forints (about $44 million) in a time of austerity. Since then, it has grown to nearly 900 employees in a country of 10.5 million people that is only as big as Indiana. Why was TEK necessary? When it was created, the government said that it needed TEK because Hungary would hold the rotating presidency of the European Union starting in January 2011. During the six months it held this office, Hungary could be expected to host many important meetings for which top anti-terrorism security would be necessary. But even though Hungary's stint in the EU chair is over, TEK has continued to grow. Eyebrows were raised when Jnos Hajdu, Orbn's personal bodyguard, was appointed directly by the prime minister to be the first head of this new agency. Since TEK's job also included guarding the prime minister, some believed that Orbn had set up the office to get his trusted bodyguard onto the public payroll. Patronage turns out to be the least of the worries about TEK, however. TEK is now the sort of secret police that any authoritarian ruler would love to have. Its powers have been added slowly but surely through a series of amendments to the police laws, pushed through the Parliament at times when it was passing hundreds of new laws and when most people, myself included, did not notice. The new powers of TEK have received virtually no public discussion in Hungary. But now, its powers are huge. What can the TEK do? TEK can engage in secret surveillance without having to give reasons or having to get permission from anyone outside the cabinet. In an amendment to the police law passed in December 2010, TEK was made an official police agency and was given this jurisdiction to spy on anyone. TEK now has the legal power to secretly enter and search homes, engage in secret wiretapping, make audio and video recordings of people without their knowledge, secretly search mail and packages, and surreptitiously confiscate electronic data (for example, the content of computers and email). The searches never have to be disclosed to the person who is the target of the search - or to anyone else for that matter. In fact, as national security information, it may not be disclosed to anyone. There are no legal limits on how long this data can be kept. Ordinary police in Hungary are allowed to enter homes or wiretap phones only after getting a warrant from a judge. But TEK agents don't have to go to a judge for permission to spy on someone - they only need the approval of the justice minister to carry out such activities. As a result, requests for secret surveillance are never reviewed by an independent branch of government. The justice minister approves the requests made by a secret police unit operated by the interior minister. Since both are in the same cabinet of the same government, they are both on the same political team. TEK's powers were enlarged again in another set of amendments to the police law passed on 30 December 2011, the day that many other laws were passed in a huge end-of-year flurry. With those amendments, TEK now has had the legal authority to collect personal data about anyone by making requests to financial companies (like banks and brokerage firms), insurance companies, communications companies (like cell phone and internet service providers) - as well as state agencies. Data held by state agencies include not only criminal and tax records but also educational and medical records - and much more. Once asked, no private company or state agency may refuse to provide data to TEK. Before December 2011, TEK had the power to ask for data like this, but they could only do so in conjunction with a criminal investigation and with the permission of the public prosecutor. After December 2011, their data requests no longer had to be tied to criminal investigations or be approved by the prosecutor. In fact, they have virtually no limits on what data they can collect and require no permission from anyone. If an organization (like an internet service provider, a bank or state agency) is asked to turn over personally identifiable information, the organization may not tell anyone about the request. People whose data have been turned over to TEK are deliberately kept in the dark. These powers are shocking, not just because of their scope, but also because most Hungarians knowledgeable about constitutional law would probably have thought they were illegal. After the changes of 1989, the new Hungarian Constitutional Court was quick to dismantle the old system in which the state could compile in one place huge amounts of personal information about individuals. In its "PIN number" decision of 1991, the Constitutional Court ruled that the state had to get rid of the single "personal identifier number" (PIN) so that personally identifiable data could no longer be linked across state agencies. The Court found that "everyone has the right to decide about the disclosure and use of his/her personal data" and that approval by the person concerned is generally required before personal data can be collected. It was the essence of totalitarianism, the Court found, for personal information about someone to be collected and amassed into a personal profile without the person's knowledge. With that Constitutional Court decision still on the books and not formally overruled, the Fidesz government is reproducing the very system that the Court had banned by creating a single agency that can gather all private information about individuals in one place again. What, one might ask, is left of constitutional law in Hungary? One might also ask: Are there any limits to TEK's power? The law specifies that TEK operates both as a police and as a national security agency. When it is acting as a police unit, it has the jurisdiction to spy on any person or group who poses a threat of terrorism, along with anyone else associated with such persons. Hungary, like many countries after 9/11, has a broad definition of terrorism that includes, among other things, planning to commit a "crime against the public order" with the purpose of "coercing a state body . . . into action, non-action or toleration." Crimes against the public order include a long list of violent crimes, but also the vaguer "causing public danger." In addition, TEK also may arrest "dangerous individuals," a term not defined in the criminal law. It is difficult from the text of the law itself to see any clear limits on TEK's powers. And TEK is very active. On April 7, TEK agents were called in to [44]capture a young man in the small village of Kulcs who killed four members of his family with a machete. And then, in the early morning hours of Friday, April 13, TEK agents conducted a major drug bust in Budapest, arresting 23 people. According to news reports, fully 120 TEK agents were involved in the drug operation, [45]raising questions about whether the drug bust was thought to be part of the anti-terrorism mission of the agency or a rather broad extension of the concept of the "dangerous individual." Either way, the drug ring looked like garden-variety crime. If that is within TEK's jurisdiction, it is hard to imagine what is not. A You-Tube video of the April 13 drug bust, made available by TEK itself, shows what a middle-of-the-night raid by TEK officers looks like, complete with the use of heavy-duty tools to cut open an exterior door. IFRAME: [46]http://www.youtube.com/embed/Trl2YSiawXk Given that this is the video that TEK wanted you to see, one can only imagine the activities of TEK that are not recorded for posterity. (It would be interesting to know, for example, why the audio cuts out at certain points in the clip, as well as what happens between the time that TEK breaks open the door and the time the various suspects are seen lying handcuffed on the floor.) While its videos are crystal clear, TEK's legal status is blurry, as some parts of its activities are authorized under the police law and others parts are authorized under the national security law. Different rules and standards apply to police agencies and to national security agencies. Moreover, TEK seems to have some powers that exceed those of both police and national security agencies, particularly in its ability to avoid judicial warrants. No other agency in the Hungarian government has both police and national security powers, and it is unclear precisely how the agency is accountable - for which functions, under what standards and to whom. What follows is my best guess from reading the law. With respect to its powers authorized under the police law, it appears that TEK must act like the police and get judicial warrants to search houses, to wiretap and to capture electronic data when these activities are part of a criminal investigation. When TEK was arresting the machete-wielder and making the drug bust, it was probably acting under its police powers. But TEK only need judicial warrants when it is engaged in criminal investigations. It doesn't need judicial warrants when it is using its secret surveillance powers in security investigations. When it is acting as a national security agency, TEK only needs the permission of the justice minister to engage in secret and intrusive surveillance. Of course, given that the permissions and constraints are different depending on whether TEK is acting as a police agency or a national security agency, it would matter who decides whether a particular activity is conducted for police or national security purposes and what the criteria are for determining that it is one or the other. The law does not provide the answer to either question. Suppose someone believes that she has been spied upon illegally by TEK. What can she do to object? First, if TEK is engaged in secret surveillance or data collection, it is unlikely that people will know that they are a target, given the extraordinary secrecy of the whole operation. But even if one finds out that one is being watched, the remedies are not encouraging. A person aggrieved by TEK's actions may complain to the interior minister, and the interior minister must answer the complaint within 30 days. But given that the interior minister is the minister who controls TEK in the first place, this is not an independent review. If the complainant does not like the answer of the interior minister, s/he may appeal to the Parliament's national security committee, which must muster a one-third vote to hear the petition. At the moment, the 12-member national security committee consists of two-thirds governing party members and one-third members of all other parties combined. If the governing party does not want to investigate a complaint, garnering a one-third vote would mean uniting the whole opposition - or, to put it in more blunt terms, getting the Socialists to work with the neo-Nazis. That is unlikely to happen. Even if the national security committee agrees to hear a petition, however, it would take a two-thirds vote of the committee to require the interior minister to reveal the surveillance methods used against the complainant so that the committee can determine whether they were legal. There is no judicial review at any stage of this process. TEK operates in secret with extraordinary powers and no one reliably independent of the current governing party can review what it is doing when it uses its most potentially abusive powers. This shocking accumulation of power may explain the Hungarian government's abolition of a separate data protection ombudsman who would have the power to investigate such shocking accumulation of data. Instead, the data protection officer - a post required by European Union law - has been made a political appointee of the government itself. This is why the EU has [47]launched an infringement action against Hungary for failing to guarantee the independence of the office. Now we can see why the EU may be onto something. As if the powers of TEK are not enough, though, Parliament yesterday authorized another security service with the power to use police measures against citizens and residents of Hungary. The cardinal law on the Parliament itself contains a provision that gives the Parliament its own military, a Parlia-military. The Parlia-military is an armed police unit outside the chain of command of the regular military or police structures. Its commander in chief is the speaker of the house, Lszl Kvr, who served as minister without portfolio for the Civilian Intelligence Services during the first Orbn government from 1998-2002. The Parlia-military has the power to guard the Parliament and the speaker of the house, as might be expected. But if the Parlia-military is only supposed to guard the Parliament and the speaker, why does it need the powers that the cardinal law gives it? The law gives the Parlia-military power "to enter and to act in private homes." That's literally what the law says. It is unlikely that the Parliament will want to conduct a plenary session in someone's living room, so one must then wonder just what the Parliament will do if its armed military enters someone's home to "act." In addition to this power, the Parlia-military may also make public audio and video recordings of people. It can also search cars, luggage and clothing. It can use handcuffs and chemical substances (which I assume means tear gas and nothing more, but the wording make it sound like the Parlia-military may use chemical weapons!). The draft law seems to imply that the Parlia-military would have to operate under the constraints of the police law, which would mean that it would need judicial warrants to conduct these intrusive measures. But that is not completely clear. What is clear is that Hungary now suffers from a proliferation of police that are under direct political control. Until this point, I have thought that the Fidesz government was just attempting to lock down power for itself for the foreseeable future, which was bad enough. But now, with the discovery of these new security services, it seems increasingly likely that the Hungarian government is heading toward the creation of a police state. Actually, it may already be there. But shhhh! It's secret. 2012 The New York Times Company

What Relational Aesthetics Can Learn From 4Chanhttp://www.artfagcity.com/2010/09/09/img-mgmt-what-relational-aesthetics-can-learn-from-4chan/by Brad Troemel on September 9, 2010 · 127 comments[Editor's note: IMG MGMT is an annual image-based artist essay series. Today’s invited artist wishes to remain anonymous.]Is it still necessary to define art by intent and context? The gallery world would have us believe this to be the case, but the internet tells a more mutable story. Contrary to the long held belief that art needs intent and context, I suggest that if we look outside of galleries, we’ll find the actions, events and people that create contemporary art with or without the art world’s label.Over the past 20 years, the theory Relational Aesthetics (referred to in this essay as RA) has interpreted social exchanges as an art form. Founding theoretician Nicholas Bourriaud describes this development as “a set of artistic practices that take as their theoretical and practical point of departure the whole of human relations and their social context”[1]. In reality, art erroneously known to typify RA’s theorization hasn’t strayed far from the model of the 1960’s Happening, an event beholden to the conventions of the gallery and the direction of its individual creator. In her essay Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics, Claire Bishop describes Rikrit Tiravanija’s dinners as events circumscribed in advance, using their location as a crutch to differentiate the otherwise ordinary action of eating a meal as art[2]. A better example of the theory of RA succinctly put into action can be seen in anonymous group activities on the internet, where people form relations and meaning without hierarchy.Started in 2003, 4Chan.org is one such site, and host to 50 image posting message boards, (though one board in particular, simply titled ‘/b/’, is responsible for originating many of the memes we use to burn our free time.) The site’s 700,000 daily users post and comment in complete anonymity; a bathroom-stall culture generating posts that alternate between comedic brilliance, virulent hate and both combined. Typically, the content featured is a NSFW intertextual gangbang of obscure references and in-jokes where images are created, remixed, popularized and forgotten about in a matter of hours. 4Chan keeps no permanent record of itself, making an in the moment experience the allure of participation. For all of the memes that have leaked into our inbox from it, 4Chan maintains a language, ethics and set of activities that would be incomprehensible to the unfamiliar viewer. Induction to /b/’s world is not fortified and understanding it merely requires Google searching its litany of acronymated terms or participating regularly enough to find out for yourself.“It is up to us as beholders of art to bring [unforeseen associations] to light, […] to judge artworks in terms of the relations they produce in the specific contexts they inhabit” [3] concludes Bourriaud in his 2001 book, Postproduction. One of the unforeseen relationships he mentions is that of the contemporary artist and contributive internet surfer­ (the kind of Photoshop bandit you can find on /b/). Bourriaud understands each as methodological equals, calling them “semionauts”. He uses this term to define those who create pathways through culture by reorganizing history to bring forward new ideas[4]. In a digital environment equally defined by information categorizing and shopping, a case for surfing-as-art neatly falls between two historical precedents: Duchamp’s specification-as-art and 1980’s artists’ (such as Jeff Koons, Sherrie Levine, or Heim Steinbach) interest in consumption-as-art. Surfing-as-art and RA both enact Peter Bürger’s description of the avant-garde’s intention to merge everyday life with the aesthetic realm.Marcin Ramocki’s essay Surfing Clubs: organized notes and comments describes the rapid conversations on group posting websites using jpgs, gifs, video, links, and text as a material; The older the club the more convoluted the semiotics of communication between surfers becomes. This communication entails posting organized content by a challenger, and a decoding of it by other participants, who respond with a posting where both syntagms and paradigms of the challenge post are identified and playfully manipulated.[5]The medium, practice and logic of surf clubs outlined in Ramocki’s essay matches 4Chan’s /b/ message board identically, though the circumstances are obviously different. While /b/ anonymously concerns itself with people and events popularized on the internet, the individuals who manage surf clubs have social and professional connections to the art world, making their primary point of reference art historical. Reference should not be the sole criteria for understanding surfing-as-art, however. Ramocki, like Bourriaud, premises his belief in surfing-as-art not on the type of allusions made in content, but on the production method of a post and its network environment. Both describe this environment as continuously active, altering or re-contextualizing information and making it public with hope for further use by peers.Zach Anner's attempt to host his own television show on Oprah's new television network through an online contest she hosted was supported by /b/ unironicallyWith this condition in mind, it’s fair to call /b/ a massive surf club whose conceptual language is determined by those without connections to the art world or the need for validation from it. As artist and blogger Eryk Salvaggio puts it, “The net can’t handle the pretense of art, or anything that seems manufactured, because it has a keen bullshit mechanism.”[6] Though /b/ doesn’t need us, contemporary art does need a dose of /b/’s refined understanding of actively anonymous group creation for us to advance the “bullshit” we cherish.This notion of ongoing use in surf clubs is also fundamental to RA’s attempt to create an art that takes place through the continuous social interactions participants have within an environment. Ramocki describes surf clubs as more than a dump site for disparate images, but as a location where highly specific visual languages are formed and conversed in. This corresponds with Bourriaud’s description of the future of Relational art; artists intuitive relationship with art history is now going beyond what we call “the art of appropriation,” which naturally infers an ideology of ownership, and moving toward a culture of use of forms, a culture of constant activity of signs based on a collective ideal: sharing.[7] From this quote we can draw another relationship: /b/ and other surf clubs are digital examples of Relational Aesthetics, artforms that rely on social interaction and feedback to take place. But before /b/ can totally fall under the hood of RA, there is one last hurdle in aligning it with Bourriaud’s theory. Relational Aesthetics reflected Bourriaud’s distrust for technology, a feeling so deep he even criticized automatic public toilets as instruments that distance the public from itself. Bourriaud saw the 1990’s generation’s drive to initiate an art consisting of intimate human relations as a reaction to the disembodying effects of the digital age.These theories are now out of date. Understanding our only ‘real’ relations as those that occur through physical encounters becomes arbitrary when considering the behavioral and situational norms each physical encounter presents. Each of these norms acts as an intermediary between others and ourselves (though some would argue these norms do not regulate, but are our personalities). Like the digital world, physical interaction is full of socially bound ‘interfaces’, operating methods that determine the substance of relationships. As any millennial can attest, the idea that there is an in-person ‘real’ version of you that comprises your full identity and an online personage that bears no impact on your ‘real’ self, isn’t an accurate description of contemporary life. The inclusion of digital sites of interaction as a development of Relational Aesthetics is an idea not so strange considering the method’s practitioners’ past interest in the economics of mass exchange, intermediary points of being during travel and the collision of global cultures.An expansion into the digital world could also help clarify RA in practice; it is a theory with an open disdain for art’s commodification, though is often exhibited within the shelter of an art institution. This discrepancy was best articulated, oddly enough, by dealer Gavin Brown, sharply saying in an interview with the BBC: Don’t you think that if you wanted to look at the possibilities of an art that’s theoretical horizons encompass the realm of human interactions in a social context, wouldn’t you want to just go out and meet people and have a good life? I mean, to me it seems as though a lot of this work is made by people who are scared to live life in the first place– incredibly unradical people[8] who play a game of a radical life in the safe confines of some Kunsthalle or other museum in Germany or France.[9]Despite Bourriaud’s interest in collaborative art making, his theory’s purest realization has been put on hold by institutions that must place emphasis on individual creators to maintain their financial well-being. While inside of a Liam Gillick exhibit, have you ever forgot that you were attending a Liam Gillick exhibit? I haven’t. Ending the viewer/creator dichotomy requires no less than the end of the art-star system and a participation format that makes room for the errors inherent in free will. In his essay Postchronist Manifestation, Dominick Chen states as long as there exists an asymmetry (or distance) between producer and receiver, the modality of cultural production would inevitably lead back to a religious power structure.[10]An art of Relational Aesthetics “far from the classical mythology of the solitary effort”[11] would be anonymously produced and give all participants the greatest degree of choice possible when determining the course of their own experience. Here we arrive again at 4Chan.After videos of a teen beating his cat (named Dusty) surfaced on Youtube, it took /b/ a day to track down the anonymous abuser and have him arrestedIn addition to the constantly evolving visual and textual language on 4Chan’s message boards, there is another /b/ activity that exemplifies group production in line with RA’s theory. These activities are called ‘raids’– projects where a person or institution is chosen and a mass of anonymous people contribute to bringing on the manipulation of its digital existence.While a surf club may screen capture and edit material in Photoshop to post to their board, /b/’s raids are concerned with bringing on an evolving change in the source itself, not a visualized hypothetical. Surf-clubs have a Relational structure of communication among members, but they still maintain the individual creation of static art within a designated space. In contrast, raids are a breach of boundaries—a way of altering the work’s ‘real life’. William S. Burrough’s proposition that art manifest itself (“What if a painting of a bomb exploded in a gallery?”) is fitting for raids[12]. These site-specific alterations may take place through cracking passwords, using the open editing features on a website like Wikipedia, or hacking. Sometimes they even take place in person.Raids have no leaders and the course of their action is decided by the collective will(s) of all participants. Without a chain of command, a raid is an event constantly in flux. They may end before they even start or begin with one plan of action and later morph into many splintering reactions. A raid’s anti-hierarchical fragmentation is similar to the antagonism Claire Bishop describes in Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics. Separate from the temporary microtopias attempted by some RA artists, Bishop calls the social works of art that reveal natural oppositions between participants an example of relational antagonism. She explains that this art making is a way of “exposing that which is repressed in sustaining the semblance of harmony.”[13]Antagonism is a byproduct of free choice and speech– an inefficient but necessary way of relating if a project wishes to remain as open as possible. 4Chan users tend to value personal liberty above all, making the prime targets of their raids people or companies who engage in censorship or moral zealotry[14]. Disgust for authority is so engrained in /b/’s culture of anonymity that users who attempt to demand raids for their own personal gain have became the target of backlash attacks themselves. While some group interventions are petty, others are thought provoking and intelligently executed, like 2009’s mARBLECAKEALSOTHEGAME raid, which is /b/’s finest work yet.When TIME Magazine offered 4Chan’s founder, m00t, as a candidate for 2009’s 100 Most Influential People of the Year online readership poll, /b/ wasted no time launching an attack to propel him to the top spot. The resulting campaign included likely thousands of participants’ manual labor, the creation and dispersion of sophisticated ballot-stuffing software programs and several strategic changes[15] in online manipulation methods from March to April of 2009. m00t not only took first place, but all of the top 21 people listed in the poll were intentionally ordered in such a way that their first names spelled out a secret message: ‘mARBLE CAKE ALSO THE GAME’[16]. ‘Marble cake’ is alternately described as the name of the chat room where the anti-Scientology raid Project Chanology was born, or as an unsanitary sex act. ‘The game’ is an inside joke that requires you to not utter or think of it to be able to win. You mostly likely just lost the game.The mARBLE CAKE raid was an impulsive assembly of a group to simultaneously make reflexive commentary while literally revising who the public thought they voted to be the most powerful that year. The ranked influence of the names listed in the top 21 becomes subservient to the order of /b/’s encrypted message. This echoes the commonly launched criticism of TIME’s yearly “Influential” issue that many of the people included are merely entertaining figureheads or patsies who act at the behest of even more powerful, discrete interests. More specifically, the raid is a work of Relational Aesthetics. Just as the empty bottles left over from Rikrit Taravanija’s meals are later used as sculptures in their own right, the resulting alteration of TIME’s poll becomes a digital monument to /b/’s successfully group-orchestrated intervention. /b/’s influence on Time magazine’s website is the Relational given form through their own activity.What we witness by looking at the mARBLE CAKE raid is the result of a group of computer programmers who used their knowledge to make a mockery of a flawed media structure without retaining individual credit for themselves. With this equally creditless result, I’m reminded of the symmetrical creativity Dominick Chen calls for in his essay Postchronist Manifestation. Chen situates Relational Aesthetics as the second to most current form of art making in history. The newest, he claims, is as-of-yet unmade, though differs from RA in that it is created and interpreted collectively without hierarchy. This ‘new’ form of art does not exist inside of traditional institutions and confronts the conditions of its participants’ lives within their own environment. What Chen describes is in fact Relational Aesthetics as ideally theorized by Bourriaud, highlighting the contradiction between the reality of RA’s art-star-filled, institutionally reified present incarnation and the hope for an emancipatory future inherent in RA’s theory. Chen calls this ‘new’ form of art ‘X’ but he might as well have named it /b/.[1] Nicolas Bourriaud. Relational Aesthetics, (Les Press Du Reel, France 1998) p. 113[2] Clare Bishop. Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics, (OCTOBER 110, Fall 2004) p. 69[3] Nicolas Bourriaud. Postproduction, (Lukas and Sternberg, New York 2002) p. 94[4] Nicolas Bourriaud. Postproduction, (Lukas and Sternberg, New York 2002) p. 18[5] Marcin Ramocki. Surf Clubs: organized notes and comments. (Self published, May 27, 2008) p. 5[6] Comment by Eryk Salvaggio on Rhizome.org discussion board May 12, 2008. http://www.rhizome.org/discuss/view/37290[7] Nicolas Bourriaud. Postproduction, (Lukas and Sternberg, New York 2002) p. 4[8] It should be mentioned that his gallery, Gavin Brown Enterprise represents several Relational artists, calling into question whether this answer was hypocritically sincere, ironic or Sophist.[9] BBC News. Relational Art: Is it an Ism? 2004. http://www.ubu.com/film/relational.html[10] Dominick Chen. Postchronist Manifestation. Video Vortex Reader Responses to Youtube. Edited by Geert Lovink and Sabine Neiderer (Institute of Network Cultures, Amsterdam 2008) p. 74[11] Nicolas Bourriaud. Postproduction, (Lukas and Sternberg, New York 2002) p. 10[12] William S. Burroughs, The Fall of Art from The Adding Machine: Selected Essays. Arcade Publishing, 1993. P. 62[13] Clare Bishop. Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics, (OCTOBER 110, Fall 2004) p. 79[14] Julian Dibbell describes 4Chan’s ethos as “radically authorless, furiously remixed and compulsively serious” while imagining their antithesis as “a strictly disciplined, hierarchical organization founded on the exact reproduction of relentlessly earnest, fiercely copyright-protected words” in his Wired article The Assclown Offensive.[15] Because the poll took account of both the number of votes and the average rating of influence (a number up to 100 at best), the ballot stuffing software distributed among participants needed to take use complicated algorithms to insure each of the 21 names would stay high or low enough on the list for the mARBLE CAKE message to be spelled properly. As the raid continued, TIME caught on to these attempts and upped their security measures. Throughout the month the mARBLECAKEALSOTHEGAME message became illegible many times, forcing raiders to adopt new methods to combat Captcha Codes and time restrictions. As the amount of manual labor increased, many lost interest in the project and moved on. Participants came and went all throughout the raid– free choice includes the possibility of refusal.All images shamelessly stolen from Encyclopedia Dramatica, except for the ones stolen from Google image search.Tagged as: /b/, 4chan, Dominick Chen, Eryk Salvaggio, Gavin Brown, Liam Gillick, mARBLECAKEALSOTHEGAME, marcin Ramocki, MOOT, Nicholas Bourriaud claire bishop, relational aesthetics, Rikrit Tiravanija, William S. Burrough

“10 Theses on the Digital”Alexander R. Galloway5pm, Monday 14th MayRoom LG02New Academic BuildingGoldsmiths, University of LondonFree, All WelcomeDespite being the object of much discussion these days, the digital does not often appear in the writings of philosophers, except perhaps when it arrives unwittingly under the aegis of another name. The world of business consultancy has accepted it, as has the popular and folk culture, consumer society, telecommunications, medicine, the arts, and of course the spheres of industrial engineering and information processing (where it plays a special role). But is there an ontology of the digital, or even a philosophy of it? The goal of this project is not so much to answer such questions, but to draw up a map for what is necessary to answer them, something like a prolegomenon for future writing on digitality and philosophy.What is the digital exactly? The digital means the one dividing into two. Its heart lies in metaphysics, and adjacent philosophical systems, most importantly dialectics. By comparison, the analogue means the two coming together as one. It is found in theories of immanence: either the immanence of the total plane of being, or the immanence of the individual person or object. Either immanence in its infinity, or immanence in its finitude.The goal, then, is not so much to produce a “philosophy of the digital” or even a “digitization of philosophy.” Rather we will explore how digitality and philosophy come together, as two modal conditions. They exist both in parallel as they diverge and differentiate themselves, but also in series as they merge and intermediate. So this project will, if it is successful, pay attention to the conceptual requirements of the digital (and by contrast the analogue) and the strictures and affordances it grants to philosophy.For directions: http://www.gold.ac.uk/find-us/Organised by Centre for Cultural Studies http://www.gold.ac.uk/cultural-studies/and the Department of Media and Communications http://www.gold.ac.uk/media-communications/# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets# more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l# archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime< at >kein.org

Folks:In his 6 Sept. 1943 speech at Harvard (where he got an honorary degree), Churchill delivered his famous "empires of the future will be empires of the mind" phrase.What this turned out to mean is that the techniques of psychological warfare that had already become dominant in WW II were about to become universal, in the name of "justice" and "law," as Churchill saw it.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lh-P_sOZDwghttp://www.winstonchurchill.org/component/content/article/3-speeches/420-the-price-of-greatness-is-responsibilityThe resulting Cold War, also highlighted by Churchill's more-famous "Iron Curtain" phrase, was aggressively fought as a CULTURAL war, in which one side promoted "freedom" and the other promoted "peace," as the psychological "flags" around which they attempted to build their *mental* empires.Important aspects of this psychological war for the "hearts and minds" of populations have been detailed in books like (with more coming) --http://www.amazon.com/Science-Coercion-Communication-Psychological-1945-1960/dp/0195102924/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335099433&sr=1-1http://www.amazon.com/The-Making-Cold-Enemy-Military-Intellectual/dp/0691114552/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335099433&sr=1-3http://www.amazon.com/The-Cultural-Cold-War-Letters/dp/1565846648/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335099594&sr=1-1http://www.amazon.com/The-Mighty-Wurlitzer-Played-America/dp/067403256X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335099624&sr=1-1All of this took place in the context of the radio/television world that Churchill (and everyone else) lived in -- forcing the "belief structures" of this *imperial* battle to conform to the beliefs and attitudes that were appropriate to what McLuhan called the "electric media environment." Indeed, it was these "media" that were most aggressively used to promote these "empires."Among the ideas that arose from this very well funded effort to mobilize social science on behalf of "empires of the mind" were "complex systems" (following the effort to construct "general systems") as the best way to "model" society. Complex systems research grew out of a fascination with Chaos, which, in turn had been a recurring theme in the "modern" artistic expressions of the times. The "anarchist" movement belongs to this period of environmental chaos and, indeed, McLuhan originally titled his first book "Guide to Chaos."Again, to use McLuhan's terms, the pre-electric media environment, which McLuhan had termed the "Gutenberg Galaxy," had promoted "concepts" that tended to be linear and bureaucratic, leading to the rise of nation states and to the spread of "science" and with it technologically driven political-economy, including both capitalism and its various "successors" like the "communism" envisaged by Karl Marx and others. But these 19th century (and earlier) sympathies were to be replaced by very different behaviors and attitudes.Gregory Bateson's 1972 Steps to an Ecology of Mind: A Revolutionary Approach to Man's Understanding of Himself is an important compilation from a senior WW II psychological warrior. As was his 1967 speech "Conscious Purpose Versus Nature" at the Dialectics of Liberation conference in London, sponsored by the Tavistock Institute, a "psychiatric" think-tank which had itself been at the center of Britain's WW II psywar efforts.Many of Bateson's essays had first been delivered as keynotes at meetings of the Institute of General Semantics. General Semantics was a movement that had been started by Polish Count Alfred Korzybski, who had developed an elaborate system of "therapeutic" language use which was critical because "the task ahead is gigantic if we are to avoid more personal, national, and even international tragedies based on unpredictability, insecurity, fears, anxieties etc., which are steadily disorganizing the functioning of the human nervous system" (from Preface to the 3rd edition of his Science and Sanity.)Korzybski's General Semantics, later promoted by S. I. Hayakawa and Neil Postman (among others), had its origins in the early 20th century fascination with the interaction between language and society, particularly (according to Korzybski's own accounts) in the 1923 book The Meaning of Meaning: A Study of the Influence of Language upon Thought and the Science of Symbolism, by C.K Ogden and I. A. Richards (who, incidentally, had been an instructor to McLuhan at Cambridge.)Ogden and Richards later teamed up on the BASIC ENGLISH project, which received considerable support from the Rockefeller Foundation and Harvard University, as well as being promoted by Churchill himself. This recent book details some of the links between this linguistic project and post-WW II imperialism --http://www.amazon.com/Empires-Mind-Richards-English-1929-1979/dp/0804748225/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1335103270&sr=1-4Again, *all* of this -- Churchill, Korzybski, Bateson, Ogden, Richards etc. -- including the global push for total PSYWAR (and its supporting "complexity" and related themes) are completely subsumed by the "environment" created by analog/mass-market/propaganda media of radio and television.But, we have all lived in a very *different* environment for at least the past 20 years. We are now in the DIGITAL era, whose characteristics are radically different from the one that gave rise to these earlier "effects."Yes, superficially, or to use the terms of Gestalt psychology (which McLuhan was also fond of), the "figures" of our lives still appear to be the same themes of chaos/complexity that dominated in the *analog* media environment. However, the "ground" of our experience has fundamentally changed.Has anyone successfully (or even partially, tentatively) tried to *contrast* the effects of today's digital technology, along with its implications for language, with the psychological warfare EMPIRES of the MIND approach that arose in the earlier analog environment?Mark StahlmanBrooklyn NY

Hello. I have uploaded several new files to a temporary FTP site accessible for a few days via web browser at the following URL: ==> ftp.blackflag.synology.me username:public password: public --- The Bloodletting - part 3 ---* The last in a three part series (1st volume) personal historyspanning architectural school to electroconvulsive therapy--- Appendix Imagery - part 3 ---* A few related images, almost all other documentation lostNote: please see Public Service Announcement (PSA) regardingthe Patak's products mentioned in E.T. & Truth 2. shipments at thelocal grocer appeared tampered with, thus take care if purchasing warning: this content may be disturbing, read at your own risk I was hoping to move before starting to write Volume 2, because still living in extremely hostile situation in deteriorated condition. Volume 2 will chart moving to california, 9/11, and back into MN present-day. Volume 3 is of the future, not to be written near-term. Brian Carroll

Revolutionary Flows of Value in the MacroeconomyIn continuation from the last two essays looking at the macroeconomics  of class struggle (#1)  (#2) we will try to describe the process of revolution within the framework as developed so far.The old acrimonious accusations between so-called "Reformist" and so-called "Revolutionary" positions are counter productive.The reformist strives to improve certain conditions within the current society. A revolutionary strives for a complete transformation of society. In the context of the struggle against economic exploitation, a reformist fights for wages and benefits by organizing collectively and politically against capital, while the revolutionary organizes collectively and politically towards to abolition of capitalism.Reformists argue the revolutionaries are unrealistic and divisive, while revolutionaries consider the reformists delusional and as simply serving to preserve capitalism.In many cases, both are right.Utopianism (#3 #4) is rampant among reformists, making& much of what is proposed among proponents of so-called "Alternative Economics" utterly nonsensical.However, one must differentiate among those engaging in direct struggle for wages and benefits, that is, those who recognize and acknowledge class conflict, and those who, as Marx wrote, "want to improve the condition of every member of society, even that of the most favored. Hence, they habitually appeal to society at large, without distinction of class; nay, by preference, to the ruling class. For how can people, when once they understand their system, fail to see it in the best possible plan of the best possible state of society?" That is, those that "reject all political, and especially all revolutionary, action; they wish to attain their ends by peaceful means, and endeavor, by small experiments, necessarily doomed to failure."And conversely, certain kinds of nihilism and disassociation are rampant among revolutionaries. A tendency to mock and often even hold in contempt all those who are actively trying to improve the conditions of life within capitalism, sometimes with the extremely vulgar belief that to abolish capitalism we must not improve the conditions of life within it, or even actually celebrate its further decline, for only when the conditions become so miserable that they become unbearable will the masses rise up and abolish capitalism!Thus, those trying to improve the conditions of life are actually counter-revolutionaries, and those remaining aloof and inactive are the true revolutionaries!Just as much as Utopianism is to be rejected, this view, what we might call "Cataclysmism" must likewise be rejected.Neither waiting for the collapse of the ruling class, nor appealing for their mercy will lead to communism. Social collapse is much more likely to lead to despotism and fascism than communism. Appeals will fail because the ruling class is compelled to protect their privilege by any means necessary, just as the workers are compelled to keep working. If they fail to do so, they lose their privilege, not to the working classes, but to competing elites.Any realistic path to overcoming economic exploitation requires both reform and revolution.Which brings us back to Macroeconomic Identities.Our capacity to change society begins with what I have described as "The social capacity of workers to invest" and identified macroenomically as Iw.If Iw is zero, we can not change society at all, because we are not able to retain any more wealth than is required for our own subsistence. Thus we would have no wealth available to apply towards organizing collectively or politically towards anything at all, only just enough to toil another day.The working of the capitalist labour market will always push Iw toward zero, thus only through political struggle is Iw kept above zero.  Our revolutionary capacity depends on pushing for as much reform as possible, whatever serves to increase wage levels and benefits gives us more left over to invest towards revolutionary aims.However, such reforms will not serve our purposes unless they come with revolutionary aims. Increases in wages and benefits are easily absorbed in capitalist consumption, often simply in increased rents, if not intentionally intvested in worker's productive capacity.We can understand flows between modes of production similar to the way that imports and exports are understood.Returning to our basic macroeconomic identity, W + P =  C + I, if we want to factor in imports and exports we can say that W + P = C + I + N, wages plus profits are equal to Consumption plus Investment plus net exports, that us exports minus imports. This allows us to look at the macroeconomy of one country within a global context that includes other countries.A country can increase it's wages and profit above what it's own consumption and investment can fund when it has a trade surplus because the consumption from other countries are funding wages and profits within the country. However, at the global level net exports must always be zero, so a trade surplus in one country implies a trade deficit elsewhere.When a country has a trade deficit then N is negative, meaning that the country's total wages and profits are below it's consumption and investment. This naturally means that the country is building debt and thus, such a situation is not normally sustainable. The economy of the country with a trade deficit is shrinking relative to the economy of the country with the trade surplus.We can look at intermodal economic flows in the same way.We can define the capitalist sector of the economy with P + Wm = Cm + Ip + Nm, or profits plus wages of workers working for capital equals consumption of the output of capital (market consumption) plus investment derived from profit plus net intermodal consumption. That is, the "exports" from the capitalist sector to the communist sector minus the "imports" from the communist sector to the capitalist sector.Whenever money earned in the capitalist sector is used to consume wealth produced in the communist sector, the net effect is that the capitalist sector shrinks relative to the communist sector, and vice versa.Conversely, we can define the communist economy as Wc = Cc + Iw + Nc, that is wages of commons-based producers are equal to commons based consumption plus workers' investment plus net intermodal consumption.Of course, Nm + Nc = Zero.Thus, economic reformism is only to be dismissed with it simply increases Cm and thereby does not change the balance of economic power, while a revolutionary must strive to push Nc above zero, for if it can be sustained as such then this means the inevitable disappearance of the capitalist sector.To abolish capitalism and replace it with a commons based economy we need to build an intermodal trade surplus.I'll be at Stammtisch as usual at 9pm (#5).  Please come!(1) http://www.dmytri.info/its-the-macroeconomy-stupid/(2) http://www.dmytri.info/the-macroeconomic-identity-of-communism(3) http://www.dmytri.info/false-defences-of-utopian-thought/(4) http://wp.me/p24fqL-2E(5) http://bit.ly/buchhandlung A shareable version of this text is online here:http://www.dmytri.info/revolutionary-flows-of-value-in-the-macroeconomy/  

EUROPEAN SCHOOL FOR SOCIAL IMAGINATION (scepsi)After San Marino, in May 2011,after Kafca< at >macba in December 2011,we are preparing Scepsi< at >dOCUMENTA (13)Run Morphogenesis will start in Kassel on June 7thWhat is the meaning of the word “transformation”?What is the meaning of change at the level of social life?What is the meaning of the expression: “beyond capitalist form”? Whatis “beyond”? And what is “form”? How does a (new) form emerge fromchaosWhen can you say that a form is new? What is the meaning of“new”?These questions are urgent, as the current agony of capitalism isdestroying the very legacy of social civilization, pulling social lifeinto an abyss of violence, misery, and humiliation.We’ll try to answer these questions from several different points ofview: of biology, of neurology, of synthetic images, and of socialtransformation. Our subject will be the morphogenetic process:determinism and uncertainty in the generation of forms, and theemergence of form from information.http://scepsi.eu/run-morph/run-morphogenesisYou will find also some of the contributions at the ConferenceKAFCA (Knowledge against financial capitalism)http://scepsi.eu/category/kafcaand the archive of the Conference of inauguration of theEuropean School for Social Imagination, San Marinohttp://scepsi.eu/san-marino/conference-archive

Warrior President Sarkozy proves it: “A friendship bought will be betrayed.”April 29, 2012 by Tjebbe van TijenA sitting president of any nation at the end of his term always has stains on his/her presidential uniform and the frequency with which the presidential suit has to be brought to the state-media-dry-cleaning-services may increase when she or he is so bold to want a second term. Sarkozy is no exception to this rule and indeed his stains are numerous, some are hard to remove older stains on the shirts he was wearing during earlier stages of his career: Karachi-gate (1994) Bettencourt (2007), La Garde-Tapie (1993-2007), and several stains by ‘the always well documented slander’ of Le Canard Enchainé (like the October 2011 article on how a death sentence of Gaddafi has been instrumented by French Military Intelligence). Last stain thrown at him was by Dominique Strauss Kahn saying his sexual misconduct in New York was manipulated by the French government to keep him from running for President . Yes, the same DSK who is like Sarkozy a master of doing things and than saying he has not done them.There is a method to remove such scandalous stains in one go from the president uniform and that is an old governmental recipe: WAGE WAR!War is is something as glorious as it is dirty and a president that leads a nation into war – even when it is just a small one – will not be judged anymore for his civil stains. A president in the double role of a warrior wears the military stains that come with that exercise like medals of honour on his uniform.This understanding of the manipulation of the mood of a nation made me write several weeks ago this small article which may have still some informative relevance today, only one week from the final decisive presidential elections in France.The rest of this fully illustrated and documented article can be found herehttp://limpingmessenger.wordpress.com/2012/04/29/warrior-president-sarkozy-proves-it-a-friendship-bought-will-be-betrayed/Tjebbe van TijenImaginary Museum ProjectsDramatizing Historical Informationhttp://imaginarymuseum.orgweb-blog: The Limping Messengerhttp://limpingmessenger.wordpress.com/

lifted at:http://www.lipstickalley.com/f219/education-slowdown-threatens-u-s-391155/unfortunately, they left out the last sentences (dutifuly copied by handfor u by yrs truly) which are the most remarkable - esp for an WSJarticle...-------Alex Gavic, 21, is one of those who don't want to take on college debt. Asa teenager, he had fleeting thoughts of studying marine biology incollege.Instead, he dropped out of high school—eventually receiving a high-schooldiploma in a second-chance program at a community college.Today, he makes $12 an hour at a Park City, Utah, landscaping firm duringthe summer so he can snowboard daily during the winter."The greater society told me I had to go to college if I want to make itin life, but it's not true," said Mr. Gavic, who competessemiprofessionally in snowboarding. "I don't care about making a lot ofmoney because I'm happy. I'm just living the life."rest of article (& end of it) reads:Mr Gavic said he hopes he will have his own landscaping business one day.But in the meanwhile he doesn't envy his peers who went to college, manyof whom have debts to repay and still haven't found jobs."You spend all this time in school, then you are in debt, then you have tofind a job to spend 20 years to pay it back" he said. "That never madesense to me."...................Sponsor Alex Gavic!http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dM5Rdyyimc;-)Cheerio, p+4D!

What's Left: The Crisis of Philosophy and Thought in the World(I've been thinking along these lines for quite a while now, skitteringfrom one article or book of physics/cosmology to another. Now a similardebate is occurring, from Scientific American to the New York Times andacross the Net. The issue isn't basically the issue of the role ofphilosophy - it's one of our own, human, disorganization as the universeappears increasingly alien and unknowable. Do we release ourselves fromknowledge and its attendant dream of totalization, or do we proceed withthe development of grander, perhaps simpler, models which "fit" more andmore awkwardly with the results coming in from theory and experimentation?My own work has always tended towards concepts of fundamental orbackground material, however weak such material might be; now, it tendstowards a releasing that's somewhat similar to the creation of a bunker orvillage.)It's a wonder we're organized at all, that there are cultural restraints,that one can function in this world - such a miniscule part of the multi-verse in the midst of inconceivable catastrophic forces that just happento avoid the planet, disrupt the solar system.Given the multiverse and an eternity of consequences, the one remaininggoal of philosophy is to consider the relationship of this inconceivableto human consciousness - the relationship of increasingly complex theoriesas well, to a comprehension of one's place in the cosmos.Everything else has been prepared for and the fundamental structures oflogic, equivalence and identity for examples - as well as the fundamentalstructures of mathematics in general - point towards a platonism that goeshand in hand with the physics of the world and its interpretation.There is no role for doubt in this as well as no room for belief. Thehaecceity of the world is its demonstration; it remains mute, obdurate.What can be said is the entanglement of philosophy with haecceity whichveers from cognitive science to a traditional phenomenology of the senses.On the other hand, it's impossible to draw first principles from this, andphilosophy remains a mode of description, not explanation, or perhapsexplanation by fiat, by circumlocution in the literal sense.All of this is also the condition of anxiety; whatever moorings one mightdesire disappear in the digital shifting of analysis and culture. In otherwords, the appearance of the multiverse is founded on enormous holarchiesof data reaching far beyond our ability to comprehend directly; we rely oninterpretations of inferences that allow us to filter the inconceivablyhigh input we would require for absorption of the raw. In this sense,there's an uncanny parallel with looking on the face of a god whichnecessarily remains ineffable: Everything that exists, everything thatoccurs, does so, for us, only on the basis of interpretation.I would argue platonically that any logic would unfold the same in anyuniverse, that this is a characteristic of mathematical ontology thatremains identical from one conceivable unfolding to another. One mightconstruct, read, and interpret syllogisms variously; the tetherings areradically different for differing systems, but the tetherings themselvesare dictionaries, acts of interpretation, within which tautologies andequivalences rule. The Whorfian hypothesis and its descendents doesn'thold for mathematics, but only for mathematical cultures; someone workingin base twelve will have a different sense of the divisions of the day,for example, than someone working in base ten. We have to let it go atthat.Further, mathematical ontology is not dynamic: It is the background ofdynamics, which operates through radical transformations that must becoherent anywhere on a fundamental level. Chaos and noise are coherent inthis sense, as is randomness. Think of mathematics as the indeterminatescaffolding of the multiverse; think of physics and cosmology as "that"scaffolding that fits.So the crisis of philosophy might be this: That there is nothing to beconsidered or done that is not part of the human, part and parcel of humanculture. Fundamental truths are relegated as they always have been, tophysics and cosmology; the rest is narrative and the fear of death andabjection. The rest is human affairs. What is human and human culture isfounded on unsteady and dynamic principles, as well as cybernetic andprosthetic ones; it's here that philosophy operates - for example withinthe realms of inscription, psychoanalytics, marxisms, deconstructions,multiculturalisms, etc. So we're talking about philosophy as part andparcel of the humanities, adjunct to the world, contingent. We're talkingabout it as a moral guide, and as guidebook to the phenomenology of ourimaginary of our place in the cosmos.The manifesto appears in this, for example in Wittgenstein's Tractatus, asthe last gasp of setting the world aright, bridging human and non-human,mysticism and atomic statements, logic and philosophy of language. At theend what is unspeakable isn't consigned to silence (think of silence as azero-order language with full redundancy), but to the complex equationsof mathematical physics for example (think of equations as a multi-orderedlanguage with zero redundancy). On a basic level we might even write,uselessly and philosophically:[ ] ---> [1 + 1 = 2]or some such: The fundamental silence of philosophy is superseded by anynon-redundant mathematical equation (which clearly, at least here, maynonetheless be tautological). (And to get "something out of nothing" infact applies metaphorically to the expression as well, in which case"--->" implies that the former leads to mathesis, quantum field theory,and the like.)There is no agreed-upon model of the universe or multiverse, no consensusfor particle physics or the physics of space-time near the Planck-lengths.And we can agree this is a problem for physics and cosmology. What we aregiven, as lay-level consumers, are a confluence of static and dynamicimages, each of which has different implications for our appetition of theworld. Each implies a different worlding, a different grouping of intro-jections and projections. As consumers on a popular level of high-leveltheoretical work, we look after our consciousness, our positioning in thecosmos. And we find ourselves in a continuous negotiation with the real,which means a continuous remodeling of our imagining and imaging theworld. This remodeling takes its toll on consciousness as well; we live anexistence of fundamental weakness, chaotic adjustments of a popularizedtheoretical "heap" - provided we care about these issues at all. In thissense, one might say that the universe constructs a state of anxiety forits inhabitants, as model after model takes center stage and falls by thewayside. Could we not conceive, after all, of a cosmos without a steadymodel, whose physics are constantly undergoing differentiation as far asanalysis goes? Whose physics are always tolerance-based, always incom-plete, in somewhat the same way that multiverses might be fundamentallyout of contact with each other? Badiou's truth is not mine; it's alwaysalready someone else's, always already radically disappearing into achaotic past. This is true for all of us; philosophy attempts aretardation of the physical world, as if the dynamics of theory stops inthe form of an image for contemplation. And whatever truth is, there isnothing farther from the truth.iiAfter all the theologies and religious beliefs in the world, is anythingthis simple? Is it necessary to go farther than this? Phenomenologicallyone might consign cosmological theory to the chaotic domain, which iscapable of interpretation on a graphical level - a level, however, thatsays nothing about the world, not even its shape in any conceivable sense.Religion then provides the coordinates; at one point these included theOrigin, capitalized and under capital. Somewhere Weyl said that theCartesian ego was all that remained of the ego; it's also all that's leftof a positioning which of course slides out from under us. I think ofreligion in a sense of set theory - beginning with simple principles, setsturn out to have inordinately complex structures. And theological-theor-etical constructs are, of course, inherently more complex right from thebeginning - think of Tibetan deities, Christian scholasticism, etc. Theseare also weak, in the sense that these edifices dissolve if beliefdissolves. There is always a kernel of willing suspension. Likewise, forbelievers the edifices are strong, inviolate, in the sense that edificesare constructed through belief. (Think of the Pirke Avot's injunction to"Put a hedge around the Torah.") However beliefs lead anywhere theircontent takes them (anywhere they take their content, in paths of logicaland illogical consequences), even though the basic psychological andmolecular mechanisms underlying them might be the same. Beliefs build in asense on surplus and psychic necessity. Internally they appear as visionand necessity; externally they are similar in their neurophysiology. Allof this goes round and round, operates as if cosmology itself is a prioricircumscribed by another set of principles. There is no point to this,except for the solace it supplies. Again, the cracks of thought itself, ofthe philosophical, the religious - to the extent that philosophy andreligion dominate, creating their own internal imaginary of transcendence- appear with an increased urgency and sense of violence - as if violencewere a guarantee of the truth, or meditation a guarantee, or any otherhardening of and within practice and its austerity. Here, field ofcosmology itself is at its weakness; it is always uncertain, always indialog with experimentation, always capable of falsification on a stillfiner tolerance level. But that is the nature of the dynamics of thepractice of cosmology - NOT the dynamics of the cosmos, or cosmos to theinfinite degree, something inconceivable to contemplate, without theintervention of symbolic systems, and a/the philosophy of contemplation.(The "grand title" of this piece - "What's Left: The Crisis of Philosophyand Thought in the World" - implies a crisis for our time as belief bothhardens and is cast aside. We live within a jitters of thought, because welive within and beyond our inheritance of traditional backgrounding andstructuring of discourse. To think this is to begin to think otherwise,but to do so is also to be stopped in our tracks: What if, for example,our very notions of existence are challenged by a mathesis far beyond ourcomprehension? What if fundamental ontologies are dissolving in the wakeof a theorized holographic universe, whose equations are translated andretranslated to the metaphor of everyday holography? Beginning to thinkotherwise means abandoning the metaphor, which always contains a kernel ofbelief; it means absorbing the unknowable without transforming it intoanother spiritual or philosophical discourse. I believe (that word!) thatthis holds for cosmologists as well; the unknowable is always with us, andit's not simply an unknowable of the cosmological horizon, but one thatwould apply to any description at any time within the cosmos. Hence thejitters: We can no longer proclaim, and what we say is always "just about"under erasure. This foregrounds death, and a wall for each of us at theend of speculation. How to live with death is another story, a local one,that might be found at the heart of the humanities. Of course we all knowthat the grand philosophical narratives - that the Grand Narrative - isgone; we just haven't realized how deep the erasure goes.)

Intermodal Value Flows in the MacroeconomyIt's May 1st today, I'm sure that I could, rather than test your patience with yet more wonkish macroeconomic explorations, publish a more exiting and popular article today, celebrating the history of May Day, but I wont. I want to follow this macroeconomic line of thought through.As I've argued previously, the history of May 1st demonstrates that that reform and revolution are hardly in conflict, and often go hand in hand. From the very beginning May Day has been coloured by the whole spectrum of the methods of class strugle, from demonstration of labour solidarity and effective organized campaigns that dramatically improved the working conditions of the world's workers, to demonstrations of uncontrollable rage and revolutionary uprisings that drew uncompromising lines in the sand resisting the endless encroachment of capitalism into our private and public lives, resisting the misery and alienation this creates.Also, Telekommunisten was founded on May 1st, 2006, so it's also always an anniversary for us, this year is our 6th birthday.In my last article I begin sketching out what I'm calling an intermodal macroeconomic model, hoping to understand what an revolutionary social transformation would look like from the economic perspective.In this model, we have two economies, each representing a given Mode of Production, capitalism and communism.We often say we live in a Capitalist society, but yet this does not mean that all forms of producing and sharing that occur within our society are Capitalist. This is more than evident when looking at social relations in family and personal life, in intentional communities of various kinds, within co-ops and other non-capitalist organizations, the charity and profit sectors, and, of course, the emerging world of peer-production including free software, free culture, etc. It's quite clear there is a lot more going on than just Capitalism.When we say we live in a Capitalist society what we mean is that Capitalism is the dominant mode of production, and as such, it is able to apply the greatest amount of wealth towards it's own expansion and the enforcement of it's interests. As a result, our private and public institutions, including our law making and financial institutions are set up according to the interest of this dominant mode.We can not change our society, neither the public or private institutions that make it up, nor the laws and financial constraints that are imposed without first building the capacity to overcome the capacity of those who resist such change.Only when the commons based economy exceeds the market based economy can we achieve a society that is organized around the interests of creating wealth for the many instead of creating profit for the few.Starting with the Kaleckian model, Y = Cw + Cp + I that introduces classes on the consumption side, by dividing consumption into consumption of workers (Cw) and consumption of capital (Cp), Kalecki is able to isolate profit as P = Cp + I. Reasoning that Cw = W, In other words, reasoning that worker's spend whatever they earn. This assumption is of course true within capitalism. However, if we understand that Capitalism itself, while dominant, exists among several other modes occurring simultaneously, we need to take this into a different direction.If the commons-based economy must become the dominant economic mode, then instead of understanding the level of profit within the capitalist sector, we need look at relative growth between the capitalist and communist sector, in other words between the sectors that produce for private profit and the sectors that produce for public wealth, the predatory sector and the co-operative sector.To do so, me move Kalecki's class division to the investment side, since with capitalism, workers spend everything they earn, but in the more complex social context that capitalism exists within worker's also invest. So our starting point becomes Y = C + Ip + Iw. With Ip representing Capital's capacity to invest, and Iw representing workers' capacity to invest, as result as both classes have the capacity to invest in production.We now divide C, not on classes, but on mode, creating Cm and Cc, market based consumption that returns profit to it's investors privately, and Cc, commons based consumption that does not capture profit privately, and returns wealth to society collectively. This gives us Y = Cm + Cc + Iw + Ip.This now allows to us divide these two sectors as Capitalism, Ym = Cm + Ip and Yp and Communism, Yc = Cc + Iw.So, from a macroeconomic view, you could say that the revolutionary aspiration of May 1 is to make Yc > Ym, and thereby overcome the dominance of Capital on our society.In order to understand how this might be possible, we need to look at the flows of value between the two modes.We can not assume that workers will only invest in the commons and consume from it, nor can we assume that Capital will only consume and invest inversely.We started to include this last week by drawing on the way import and export between nations is included in macroeconomic identities, adding "net imports" to the model, so to expand what we have above with N, Ym = Cm + Ip + Nm and Yc = Cc + Ow + Nc. Nm and Nc representing the net relative imports of each mode. Being net imports, Nm + Nc would equal zero as these would balance out by definition.If, in balance, workers consumed the products of capitalist controlled production more than capitalists consumed the products of workers controlled production, then they would have a trade deficit with the capitalist sector and thus have relative reduced economic power as a result, capital would increase it's dominance, conversely, if worker's could create a intermodal trade surplus with capital, then then would decrease, and perhaps eventually overcome the dominance of capital.Likewise, investment can also flow between the sectors, for instance workers buy shares on the stock market, and capitalists may, for instance, finance the development of free software.It's hard to identify such intermodal capital flows as investment, since from a class perspective they don't directly reproduce the wealth that was used, as returns aren't recaptured according to the relative mode, thus such investment is not directly "valorized."Production in capitalism is driven by exchange value, a capitalist commodity can not properly be considered produced until it consumed in such a way that creates more capital. As Capitalism is not directly concerned with producing things because they are useful, but because it is profitable. When the commodity is just given away the "productivity" of the producers who made it is calculated as zero, since zero capital was recaptured.Therefore, I propose to call such capital flows "Sustentation," where value creation within one mode is sustained by inflows from another. Individual capitalists may benefit from such sustentation, and often do, such as the capital cost reduction that free software provides to business that use it. However despite the benefit to some specific businesses, such flows represent a drainage of capital from the point of view of the class as whole, as this expenditure is not directly valorized, and even replaces potential valorized consumption, such as expenditures on commercial software made unneeded by using free software.Likewise, workers' using their retained earnings to buy stocks can be be understood as a similar sustentation. This drains wealth from the commons-based economy as to sustain capital finance, even though individual workers may privately benefit, by essentially becoming tiny capitalists.We can add net sustentation to the model as follows. Ym = Cm + Ip + Nm + Sm and Yc = Cc + Iw + Nc + Sc.Excluding taxation, which is not intermodal, so activity in both modes is subject to the same government, we have a complete macroeconomic picture of class struggle and can start discussing how venture communism, counterpolitics and insurectionist finance can be employed in the struggle.But, that will need to wait until next week.In the mean time you can join us at Cafe Kotti at 8pm or so: http://bit.ly/K04wqfA shareable version of this text is available here: http://www.dmytri.info/intermodel-value-flows/

# This text is based on the work from Vladimir Yakovlevich Propp in# his 1928 essay "Morphology of the Folktale." By studying many# Russian folktales, Propp was able to break down their narrative# structure into several functions, literally exposing an underlying# thirty one step recipe to write new and derivate similar stories.* 1. ABSENTATIONOnce upon a time in the wonderful Folklore Valley, a creator wondersabout the becoming of her memetic folktale legacy and decides to takesome distance from the anonymous creative practices of her community.* 2. INTERDICTIONThe creator is warned by a giant caption. It reads: "Do Not Want".* 3. VIOLATION OF INTERDICTIONDespite the viral warning, the creator leaves her community and startsto sign her work as a mean to legitimate her individual contribution tothe folktale scene.* 4. RECONNAISSANCEOn her way to authorship, she encounters the Lawyer and the Publisher.* 5. DELIVERYThe Lawyer delivers rights to the creator.* 6. TRICKERYThe creator becomes the Author.* 7. COMPLICITYAt this point the Author and the Publisher begin to promote copyrightlaws in the Folklore Valley.* 8. VILLAINY AND LACKWith the help of the Lawyer, the Publisher uses the Author as an excuseto transform the Folklore Valley into a profitable folktale factory.* 9. MEDIATIONThe Author receives distressed calls from another creator persecuted bythe Publisher for making a derivative work from a copyrighted folktale.* 10. COUNTERACTIONThe Author hears the sound of a flute. The free melody comes from acampsite, beyond the Folklore Valley.* 11. DEPARTUREThe Author leaves the, now fully copyrighted, Folklore Valley and headstoward the campsite, attracted by the melody of this open invitation. The Lawyer is following her from a distance.* 12. TESTINGArrived at the campsite, the Author learns from the Man with a Beard,that useful information should be free. And by free he is not referringto its price. The Lawyer, hiding, is listening attentively. The Man witha Beard resumes his flute practice.* 13. REACTIONLeaving the campsite, the Author wonders whether or not culturalexpressions can also be free and, somehow, now liberated from copyright.* 14. ACQUISITIONThe Lawyer appears in front of the Author and hands over free culturelicenses.* 15. GUIDANCEWith the help of remix culture, the Lawyer uses the Author as an excuseto transform the Folklore Valley into a techno-legal free for allbureaucratic maze.* 16. STRUGGLEWith licensing proliferation, the Author cannot cope with the increasingcomplexity linked to her practice. She feels that she lost all controlover her work, just so it can be used as fuel for the ever expandinginformation network nurtured by the Lawyer and the Publisher.* 17. BRANDINGRegardless of what her true intentions are, her whole body of work getstattooed with different logos, iconic representations of supposedlyhuman readable deeds that all reinforce the many conflicting ideologies,commercial interests and beliefs now rationalised by copyright laws andtheir different copyleft-inspired hacks.* 18. VICTORYThe only escape left is to ignore copyright, no matter what. Leaveeverything behind, a small personal victory, over the techno-legalmachine, but a first step towards the liberation of the Folklore Valley.* 19. RESOLUTIONAs a result, the Author becomes Pirate of her own work, of any work,once again.She puts on an eyepatch.* 20. RETURNThe Pirate returns to the, now fully copyfreed, copyrighted, copyleftedand copyfarlefted incompatible and fragmented Folklore Valley. ThePublisher and the Lawyer make sure everything is tidy and sound.Vladimir Propp's Morphology of the Folktale becomes a patented algorithmfor a freemium manufacture that feeds itself automatically from theaggregation of open content produced by the Folklore Valley's creators.She has something to say about that.* 21. PURSUITThe Publisher and the Lawyer, who see the presence of the Pirate as aserious threat to their information empire, start several campaigns ofmisinformation to question the legitimacy of the Pirate to comment onanything but her unlawful, therefore moralistically evil, activities.This undermining process is strengthen by increasingly aggressive,punitive and gratuitous repression mechanisms towards any creators whomight want to follow her footsteps.* 22. RESCUEThe Pirate escapes for a while from the Publisher and the Lawyer byusing the underground networks of tunnels and caverns right under the,now fully tracked, logged, cloudified and gamified, Folklore Valley.* 23. ARRIVALEventually, the Pirate decides to face the surface of the Valley insteadof living the rest of her life as some underground rat. She emergesright in the middle of an astonished crowd of brainwashed creators andtemplate-based folktales.* 24. CLAIMThe Publisher and the Lawyer steps in and deliver the usual moralisticspeech, the one that kept the creators of the Folklore Valley quiet andunder control all this time. The fear of being stolen can be felt in allthe tales, panic is about to break loose.* 25. TASKThe publisher and the Lawyer challenges the Pirate. They argue that shehas no rights to comment on the situation. She is merely a parasite, afree rider who has no clue of what is at stake.* 26. SOLUTIONThe Pirate drops her eyepatch.* 27. RECOGNITIONAll of sudden all the creators recognise the Author. The one Author whoonce started to sign many of the folktales that are now used as licensedtemplates in the tale factories planted by the Lawyer and the Publisher.And they all listen to her...* 28. EXPOSUREThe Author explains her journey.Since her individualistic awakening she started to initiate manyexperiments and ways of working with her medium, using others' materialdirectly or indirectly. She was interested in as many collaborativemethodologies as there were colours in the world. She explains that, asher practice grew, she felt the need to sign and mark her work in a wayor another, and was confused about this sudden paradox: on the one handher desire to be just this simple node in this continuous stream ofcreativity, and on the other hand she had this instinctive need to standabove her peers, to shine and be visible for her own contribution. Shealso tells them about her needs to simply make a living and therefore,why she genuinely thought copyright was a fair model, harmless for heraudience and peers. She says that she equally failed to understand thatthe freedom they once had as a community of folktale creators cannot beemulated through contract laws, no matter what good intentions drivethem. She concludes that at every stage of her quest to understand the veryfabric of culture, the Publisher and the Lawyer were present to enableand support her experiments, yet slowly getting stronger and out ofcontrol. If anything at all, she feels responsible for letting themdecide how her work, how culture, should be produced and consumed.She apologises.* 29. TRANSFIGURATIONThe Author becomes a creator, once again.* 30. PUNISHMENT The Publisher's and the Lawyer's work is undone. Copyright is bannedfrom the Folklore Valley.* 31. WEDDINGThe creator marries another creator. They live happily ever after,creating many new folktales.As for the Man with a Beard, I was told that he turned his campsite intoa brewery, but that's another story...//src: http://su.kuri.mu/00000001/2012----MORPHOLOGY_OF_A_COPYRIGHT_TALE/a.--http://su.kuri.mu

Edward Conard works for Mitt Romney's firm, Bain Capital. He is partof the .01% and he is true to his class. A New York Times reporterinterviewed him on the occasion of his soon-to-be-released book (whichyou should probably steal if you want to read it) called "UnintendedConsequences." As usual, it declares that the superrich do us alla world of good, even though all they want is more for them. InConnard's case, he already has enough to crush us like flies. Checkout his world view, as reported by Adam Davidson:"At a nearby table we saw three young people with plaid shirts andfloppy hair. For all we know, they may have been plotting the nextgeneration's Twitter, but Conard felt sure they were merely loungingon the sidelines. 'What are they doing, sitting here, having a coffeeat 2:30?' he asked. 'I'm sure those guys are college-educated.'Conard, who occasionally flashed a mean streak during our talks,started calling the group 'art-history majors,' his derisive term forpretty much anyone who was lucky enough to be born with the talentand opportunity to join the risk-taking, innovation-hunting mechanismbut who chose instead a less competitive life. In Conard?s mind,this includes, surprisingly, people like lawyers, who opt for stableprofessions that don?t maximize their wealth-creating potential. Hesaid the only way to persuade these 'art-history majors' to jointhe fiercely competitive economic mechanism is to tempt them withextraordinary payoffs."http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/06/magazine/romneys-former-bain-partner-makes-a-case-for-inequality.htmlThis Connard wants to get rid of art-history majors the way you getrid of cockroaches, by calling the exterminator. But it's not a prettypicture when you are the vermin. Like all the ideologues of the 1%,Connard thinks that culture is worth nothing but hatred. In short,gentle reader, he wants to erase us from the face of the earth. Allof you who generously and perhaps a bit self-interestedly wanted tobelieve that the great financial barons were unparalleled patrons ofthe Museum and the Opera and the Academy, please take careful note.Now they don't want to buy us or stick us up with pushpins on thewall. Instead they just want to flame us and laugh when we burn. Thecuts to culture, to education, are not some side effect of a necessaryausterity. They are the centerpieces of a concerted ideological planto eliminate anyone who elaborates any other kind of value.Life, for these Connards, is competition. Full stop. There is no roomfor anyone who does not compete at 2:30 in the afternoon. According toConnard, we who have other values should be banished if not killed.That's the message, and even more, the program.Imagine a world from which art has been surgically removed. Replace itwith entertainment and compete 'till you're blue.Is it maybe time to give up being neutral?here's hoping, Brian

Dear all,here you find a new blog launched by the italian coalition "R.I.S.E. UP!"(Rising Italy for Social Europe): it is animated by students network,social centres, art workers, collectives of precarious and unions that arecreating different events and projects during the Global May of struggle.http://riseupglobalmay.wordpress.comAmong many assemblies and parties, there will be a series of debates inseveral italian cities with a comrade from Symposium of Athen and twomembers of Interventionist Link (IL) from Berlin; Unicommon network willtake part to the Speak tour in Germany organized by Rosa LuxemburgInstitute and IL; Teatro Valle Occupied in Rome will do a caravan fromGreece to Frankfurt to meet independent theaters in Europe.See you in Frankfurt!claudia

WHAT WHEN ALL DISSIDENTS IN THE WORLD COULD STUDY LAW IN AMERICA?May 5, 2012 by Tjebbe van TijenThe illustrated version with links is avialbale at:http://limpingmessenger.wordpress.com/2012/05/05/what-when-all-dissidents-in-the-world-could-study-law-in-america/[tableau with scissor cut paper puppets and one paper puppter on a string held by a manipulating hand]I was reading yet another article about the case of the Chinese dissident Chen Guang Cheng (陈光诚) in Le Monde today which mentioned that his case may be head lines in the world, but not so in China itself (it almost sounds like a definition of what ‘a dissident’ actually is). Chinese media if mentioning the case at all are referring to him as “a marionette of the USA.”The article brought some emblematic pictures to my mind and so I did an image search on Google on marionettes and ‘puppets on a string’ and the last one brought me the image that opens this small note. Paper puppets that when they act become puppets on a string. It is a typical ready-made image to be sold to web sites for may different uses. So I will put the allegory of the picture to my own use here….[screen shot of puppets on a string Google Image search]With the Chinese dissident case in the head lines of the “free world” we seem to be back all the way in the Cold War and its definition and use of ‘dissidents’ who would raise issues felt as a danger to the existing rule in their own countries. There are always many more dissents around in far away countries than we will ever hear about, protesting paper puppets hidden from our view. The ones that manage to come on stage are the ones that will get strings attached to them, if they want it or not. The hand of the puppet player may change during the performance.Smart and lucky dissidents would manage at one moment or another to get their message across their state borders and raise enough attention elsewhere to create – at some moment in time – an opportunity to be shuffled into what is supposed to be a heroic exile.The same kind of dissident criticism at home can also be applied to similar circumstances in any of the dissident hosting countries, but as courtesy and realism makes an exiled dissident cautious, exiled dissidents tend to be silent about their host. This is the sad fate of who – in order to safe his own life – is forced to become a hero-dissident, who will nevertheless have a hard time to defend her/himself against accusations of being just a marionette of a foreign power. The possible hosting country of Chen Guang Chen – the United States of America – does have a long long history of schizophrenic political morality and changing interpretations of the the word ‘freedom’. It is unavoidable that the shadow side of a rescuing power will reflect on a rescued dissident.The manipulating hand of state power with the people as multiplied paper puppet marionettes in the picture is reflecting in the floor space and so the position of the expelled dissident elsewhere becomes a mere mirror image.Chen Guang Chen – when he manages to get out safely – is said to get the opportunity to study law in the United States. He is not the first and certainly not the last getting such a chance. Imagine when all the world dissidents would gather in the United States and study, discuss and further their insight by exchanging experiences. Then, the mere quantity of dissidence could create a new quality and such a combined insight in world political matters could reflect back onto the United States itself. The marionettes would come alive and become players without strings.Tjebbe van TijenImaginary Museum ProjectsDramatizing Historical Informationhttp://imaginarymuseum.orgweb-blog: The Limping Messengerhttp://limpingmessenger.wordpress.com/# distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission# <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism,# collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets# more info: http://mx.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l# archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nettime< at >kein.org

France and the looming shadow of the 5th Republic of De Gaulle: captive of central-presidential-commandMay 6, 2012 by Tjebbe van TijenThe illustrated and fully documented version with several links can be found athttp://limpingmessenger.wordpress.com/2012/05/06/france-and-the-looming-shadow-of-the-5th-republic-of-de-gaulle-captive-of-central-presidential-command/[poster "Oui à la Consitution showing the shadow of General de Gaulle behind a French Marianne that has broken her chains + De Gaulle in the same pose as on the poster during a public address in 1962]It is not so much who wins the French elections, but what is lost to all French voters once again in the ‘super presidentialism’ of a system installed fifty years ago with a manipulated referendums (1958-1962) that createdthe Fifth Republic with ex-general De Gaulle – in power already - making his rule even more powerful. Le Cinquième République, a legal coup-d’état as it was seen by some in that time (as expressed in “Le coup d’état permanente” by François Mitterand 1964, who as a Machiavellian figure did not hesitated later to make use himself of these Gaullist inspired constitutional powers - after a first failed bid for power in 1965 – during two long presidencies lasting from 1981 to 1995, with the presidential terms of seven years, since 2002 changed to terms of five years)Whoever wins coming sunday, this shadow of De Gaulle and his military and Bonapartist inspired top down constitutional rule is still looming….How far away is the concept for a more democratic and ceremonial role of the French president, as a figure that helps bridging differences, with parties that are no longer captives of central-presidential-command and a parliament and prime-ministre that finally regain control and give space for more consensus and interaction with the electorate, putting an end to the frequent practice of rule by presidential degree?Such alternative democratic concepts exist already for decades. Criticism of the the 5th Republic system is more often voiced “a regime that has become more and more monarchical with the passage of years” and ideas for aSixth Republic that assures “political control by citizens and their representatives” are circulating. A detailed plan in French can be found on the web site of the Convention pour la 6e République.[Cartoon on a socialist poster against the first referendum to change the French constitution and give more power to the president in 1958, marked by the Algerian revolt against French colonialism. From top left to bottom right the captions: 1) De Gaulle has been carried to power by the rebellion prepared by his friends, and encouraged and relaunched by his appeals of 15 and 19 May forcing parliament to sing to his tune. 2) The constitution is made to fit De Gaulle. His ministers are his doubles (art 6-8-23) , the assembly can do nothing against him. 3) Urne/Ballot box; Dissolution/dissolve; He could impose laws by calling new referendums and dissolve parliament at his will (art. 11,12). 4) He could assume all power by declaring “the institutions in danger”: imitating Charles X and renewing Napoléon III (art 16).]

from Michael Edwards:You will probably all know (while now we wait for crucial Greek, Frenchetc elections) that we had some local elections in UK this week. Theconservative and 'liberal-democrat' parties which make up the currentnational coalition government did very badly, Labour (even though alsolargely following a neo-liberal / austerity line) did well. Greens had avery good support (by UK standards) and the far right BNP almostdisappeared. Turnouts low. Still feels post-political.In London our dreadful mayor Boris Johnson managed to get re-elected by asmall margin which is bad. The best news is that Jenny Jones, the Green,came third after Ken Livingstone and ahead of the once-significantliberal-democrats. The Assembly has a bit more labour in it, the same 2greens and fewer conservatives.Just delivered by Twitter is what I consider a very nice comment on thepositive strands in Ken Livingstone's career. A lot of us have been verycritical of Ken in the last decade so it's salutary to be reminded of whata huge positive impact he had...MichaelOriginal to: http://www.leftfutures.org/2012/05/a-tribute-to-ken/bwo Inura list/ Michael EdwardsA tribute to KenEnoch Powell (who thanks to a recent revelation and in part to Ken may nowbe described as a onetime member of the LGBT community) said “allpolitical lives, unless they are cut off in midstream at a happy juncture,end in failure“. Ken’s career may have ended in defeat yesterday, but itwas no failure. Before anything else is said, Ken deserves a tribute.Indeed he deserves more tributes than he will get from his fellow membersof the Labour Party, but of that we shall say more anon.He will remain a giant of London politics long after most people stopremembering that there used to be a Mayor Johnson. He has been a majornational political figure since 1981. How many national political figuresfrom 1981 could have even contemplated holding a major political officeuntil 2016? None.Ken’s greatest contribution to British politics was to take unpopularcauses, notably issues of race, sexism, and homophobia, take actions andimplement policies which made a difference to significant minorities, andover time see those causes taken into the mainstream of British politics,by the Tories as well as New Labour. Back in the 1980s, however, Ken wasvilified for raising them by Thatcher’s government, by almost the entiremedia, and by most people in his own party, including many on the moretraditional Left and in the trade unions. If Thatcher had not decided toabolish the GLC, perhaps Ken’s carer would have ended sooner and Britainmight have been a very different place today.Following the Brixton riots in the summer of 1981, Ken had no choice butto take action on race but his approach was very different from thatadvocated by others. Lord Scarman’s report into the riots, thoughrecognising “racial disadvantage” and “racial discrimination” asunderlying causes, argued that “institutional racism” did not exist.Eighteen years after Scarman, the Macpherson Report, an investigation intothe murder of Stephen Lawrence, concluded that the police force was“institutionally racist”, vindicating Ken’s approach.Under Ken’s leadership (he chaired the GLC Ethnic Minorities committeepersonally), the GLC consulted with black and other minority ethniccommunities, drew up equal opportunities policies, employed race relationsadvisers, and sought to empower diverse communities by awarding millionsof pounds in grants. Ken’s approach broke with the prevailing assumptionof assimilation as the core objective, redefining anti-racism as thepromotion of the right to be different, the encouragement of diversity.Under New Labour, this multiculturalism became the new British orthodoxyand, thanks largely to Ken, is at the heart of London’s identity.The experience with gender equality was similar. Ken’s policies achievedreal change in practice amongst the GLC’s large workforce. In 1981, nowomen or black people in the GLC Supplies department, for example, wherethey made up the bulk of the staff, had ever reached even middlemanagement. The Fire Brigade had only six black staff out of 6,500. Thatchanged radically. In the provision of services too, there wasinstitutional racism. Only 2% of GLC housing lettings went to non-whitesin 1981.For these policies, Ken was hounded by the Sun, the Mail and the Standardbut that vilification reached a new depth with the involvement of the GLCin challenging homophobia, notably through its grant-funding. TheBlairites who now seem to dominate LGBT Labour could do more to recognisethe role played by a heterosexual man who carried on making the speecheshe’d been making for years about lesbian and gay rights after he becameLeader of the GLC several years before Chris Smith became the first MP tocome out.In London politics, there is much for which Ken will be remembered –ofwhat he did and more still of the vision he had but which he was notallowed to implement. The crowning glory of his achievement, however, isLondon’s transport system. Ken became Leader of the GLC on the back of hiswork on London’s regional party executive to put an alternative transportpolicy at the heart of Labour’s appeal. Cheaper fares (free travel for allwas dropped in a concession to the unions) and all day free travel forpensioners on buses and tubes increased passenger numbers by 70%, raisedrevenue by 11% in spite of the 32% cut in fares, and cut the number ofcars entering central London in the morning peak. New rail services likeCrossrail and Thameslink were planned.Even after the GLC was abolished, Thatcher dared not extend to London thebus deregulation and rail privatisation which devastated services in therest of Britain. And when Ken returned as Mayor, the process he’d beguncontinued, reinforced by congestion charging, his boldest and bravestmove.But it was not only in mainstream public transport and congestion chargingthat Ken’s contribution was outstanding: door-to-door services for peoplewith disabilities and a more accessible mainstream network, cyclingprovision, the regulation of noisy and polluting lorries, the focus onsafety and on pedestrian facilities are all part of his legacy.Ken says he won’t stand in another election (although actually he is acandidate in Labour’s national executive election later this month), andso we can take it he will not hold major executive public office again. Hehas, of course, made mistakes in his career, though again not as many asyou will read about on a number of ‘Labour’ websites. Some of his mistakeswill have affected his showing in this election, but they all pale intoinsignificance in comparison with his positive legacy which remainsoutstanding.Ken has a young family and deserves to enjoy spending more time with them.And we look forward to his continuing political contributions in whateverform they take.

Dear Nettime:While the rest of the American left was out on May Day celebrating, tryingto make something happen, or block business as usual, Occupy Madison markedthe day by quietly closing down the encampment they¹d held for months. Thefact that this development meant practically nothing to the Wisconsinmovement speaks volumes about the different political space traveled by theWisconsin Uprising at this moment, compared to the national Occupy movement.It is not Occupy that is on the mind of Wisconsinites, but rather theupcoming Wisconsin recall election targeting governor Scott Walker andseveral others.The election, set for June 5, 2012, only about six weeks from now, wasforced by overwhelming petition. Before then, the Democratic and Republicancandidates will be winnowed down to one nominee from each party by a primaryelection set for May 8, this coming Tuesday. May Day it is not. But unlikethe May Day protests, actions, symbolism, and demonstrations‹whose sound andfury, let¹s face it, are pretty easily tuned out by the mainstream (and notjust media, but actual people, by the tens of millions)‹the consequences ofthis election will be felt concretely by everyone in Wisconsin, activist ornot, and for way longer than the news cycle of a single day. Hundreds ofthousands in Wisconsin‹probably even millions‹will feel the effects of thiselection directly in the measurable forms of a reduced paycheck, a lost job,a health problem that leads to financial ruin, an unmanageable classroom,and twenty other big things. Furthermore, the consequences will ripple outnationally, either to draw a line on austerity attacks or to green light theregressive austerity agenda.It has been said by Emma Goldman, Lucy Parsons, and countless radicals thatif elections mattered, they would be made illegal. Well, through theirvarious voter suppression efforts, the Wisconsin GOP has been trying to doexactly that‹make voting difficult and legally restricted. This electionmatters and they know it. But the movement grassroots has not grasped yetthe meaning of the election. We must discuss this, if the movement is tohave any hope of effectively continuing beyond the advertised finality ofthe recall election. This is my attempt to think through how the movementneeds to interpret the election if the Uprising is to remain relevant,powerful, and strategically ready on the morning of June 6, no matter whowins or loses. Is this election of any significance to people outside of Wisconsin? For thelabor movement a Walker victory would be a national disaster. For theregressive Republicans, a Walker defeat would be a repudiation with nationalresonance. So yes, but differently.*Wisconsin has an open primary, meaning anybody of any party affiliation ornon-affiliation can vote for any of the candidates. Conservatives can votefor a Democratic candidate and progressives can vote for a Republican. Anopen primary removes the exclusivity of an official party-identifiedelectorate, which is good. At the same time, the open primary assures anelement of cynicism through tactical voting and bad-faith candidacies. For example, right now the Republicans are running several candidates inDemocratic primaries without a shred of pretense that they are anythingother than electoral hurdles and tactical disruptions. In the case of someor maybe even all of the ³fake² Democrats, there is hardly anythingdishonest about them. For example, the Senate Majority Leader of theWisconsin state senate is Scott Fitzgerald, and he is facing a recallelection of his own (also June 5). In order to force the Democraticchallenger, Lori Compas, into spending resources on a primary election,regressive Republican activist Gary Ellerman is running as a Democrat. If itweren¹t for him, Compas would not have to compete in a primary at all. Thishelps Fitzgerald by taking the fight to the Democratic primary election,which, if enough Republicans vote in it, theoretically could be won byEllerman. Then he simply runs a concessionary campaign for the recallelection and hands a victory to his buddy Fitzgerald. So Compas must win theprimary.This tactic was used back in the summer of 2011 against some of theDemocratic state senators facing recall. It has not been actuallysuccessful, not to the point of actually undermining a good-faith candidate.Not yet. But this time the Republicans are trying harder, and I heard somerumor about Tea Partiers pledging to vote in the Democratic primaries.The tricky part comes with the rule that however one chooses to vote in theprimary, a voter only gets one vote. So if conservatives spend their vote ona bad-faith Democrat, then they leave the Republican side open forprogressive voters to do the same thing to them. Democrats, unsurprisingly,are not aggressively taking the opportunity to generate havoc for theRepublicans by running bad-faith candidates, somehow being content to leavethe Republican candidate unchallenged while they sort out their own. Asusual we can chalk up the Democrats¹ timidity to a cowardice masquerading asintegrity‹a lack of fighting spirit that essentially has become the nationalDemocratic brand, from Obama on down.But here again, an opportunity opens up. Arthur Kohl-Riggs, a young activistwith no Democratic Party connection, recognized the gap and filled it byrunning in the Republican gubernatorial primary as‹and get this‹not a ³fake²Republican, but as a good-faith Lincoln Republican, a "Fighting" BobLaFollette Republican, which is a posture that carries inescapably more thana whiff of irony, if not exactly bad-faith. Kohl-Riggs is recognized by manyin the uprising circles as a regular at Capitol demonstrations and for hissocial media activism, so it is clear to all that he is certainly not of thecontemporary Republicans. But he is playing it straight, pounding theargument that he is, in fact, the true conservative, that Scott Walker is atraitor to the grand Lincoln tradition of integrity, justice, andleadership, and that true conservatives will consider voting for him.That Kohl-Riggs got himself on the primary ballot means that however secureWalker and the Republicans feel, a signal has been sent. The mantle of theLaFollette tradition‹such a Wisconsin thing‹could be picked up yet in thefuture by some enterprising and substantive candidate who speaks thelanguage of Colbert irony, and who potentially could bring a measure ofchaos into the Republican side, and do it without any Democratic Partyinvolvement whatsoever. Could there really be an insurgent force of ironicconservatism brewing somewhere that could invade the Wisconsin GOP? Not ifthe GOP can help it, of course. See how they¹ve shut down the principledlibertarian candidate, Ron Paul, for years. But if Kohl-Riggs dedicateshimself to his idea, I for one would not discount the possibility of someyouth-driven movement to reclaim conservatism eventually gaining visibility.http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=9s4sSka55KkLet¹s parse out the present situation.Scott Walker, the incumbent Republican governor, faces a primary challengefrom Arthur Kohl-Riggs.Democrats Kathleen Falk, Kathleen Vinehout, Tom Barrett, and Doug LaFolletteare running against each other in the primary. Gladys Huber, a knownRepublican, is running as a bad-faith Democratic candidate.Voters get one vote, and it goes to only one of the above sevencandidates‹the vote will be spent on either a Democrat or a Republican, notboth. Say a sizable bloc of progressives decide to vote for Kohl-Riggs.Maybe a previously non-voting bloc comes out of the woodwork, attracted bythe Kohl-Riggs novelty. Whatever the case, the vote total for Kohl-Riggs issure to be small. But in a tight Democratic primary, those votes (or rather,the consequent non-votes for the Democrats) will make a difference. Wheremight those non-votes leave Falk, given that, presumably, many of thosepeople would have voted for her over Barrett? Then again, a prediction basedon ideological correspondence perhaps would have many of Kohl-Riggs¹crossover voters going for the outsider-ish progressives,Vinehout orLaFollette.Similarly, conservatives who might otherwise have voted for Huber just tomess with the Democrats might feel some pressure to spend their vote on theRepublican side for Walker because of Kohl-Riggs. If he were to attract evena five-digit vote total, Kohl-Riggs, the future/throwback candidate, mightgarner more media attention embarassing to Walker, and therefore (though weknow that Walker himself plays the unflappable zombie to inhuman perfection)further damage the Republican brand. I can imagine conservative activiststhinking it more important to put on a display of overwhelming support forWalker than throw vote wrenches into the Democrats¹ race by marking thearrow for Huber.* As in an epic sporting contest in which the bad breaks, bad calls, and badbounces on both sides cancel each other out, perhaps the tactical manuveurswill ricochet through all corners of the contest, leaving no perceptibleeffect. Or, maybe it is all even until the very end, leaving a finalsurprise to stand as the defining controversy that shifts a race this way orthat. Of course, unlike in sports, political candidates feel no specialobligation to respect the rules. They bend or challenge them all along theway. And that, of course, only guarantees the expansion of cynicaltendencies‹ie, that platoons of lawyers searching for technicalities end updeciding the contest for the parties while ordinary voters throw up theirhands and wonder, why did we even bother doing this.My armchair dissection may not clarify the elections themselves, and likelyfurther confuses one¹s predictions. But the very futility of sorting throughthe permutations and possible outcomes of tactical versus naïve voting makesapparent the larger but hardly abstract problem of legitimacy as it relatesto elections in general, and to this election in particular. Because of theunavoidable cynicism and calculation inherent in voting, there canbe no moral legitimacy gained or lost in an election victory, period. TheWisconsin movement must be very clear about this. No matter who wins orloses, we will not accept the victory as the final stamp of legitimacy‹anyoutcome is in essence illegitimate on the level of values. An election is anon-violent contest for control over the state¹s levers of coercion‹and thatis all it is. This is a crucial statement to broadcast because should hewin, whether it be fairly or by theft, Scott Walker will wear the victory onhis sleeve, using its aura of legitimacy as a bludgeon. Make no mistake,Walker and his GOP cabal have a second, more horrible act of legislativeaggression at the ready, to be unveiled just as soon as he beats back therecall. To the good people of Wisconsin: be prepared to fight a governorunafraid to rule by emergency executive decree‹and everyday forward, he willremind everyone that this is what the voters decided. Such will be theemboldened Scott Walker we will face after his victory. Thus, it goes without saying that we must defeat Walker in June. This is nosmall task given that Walker will have amassed a war chest that guaranteesdominance of television and radio advertising, and has the support of anynumber of third party groups, flush with cash and a willingness to lie. But should this much-desired defeat come to pass, whoever the Democrat iswill have earned no legitimacy on a values level. The movement grassrootsmust view and treat the new governor as distrustfully as any otherambitious, ego-driven careerist politician all too capable of selling outthe public interest once in office (which is, of course, a specialty of theDemocrats). The values of the movement will only be expressed by the electedleadership if the movement remains large, vital, visible, and beyond thereach of both union and Democratic Party control‹or, in other words,dangerous, hydra-headed, and untamed. How to be that movement and yet engagein the most difficult and momentous electoral contest most Wisconsiniteswill have ever seen is the paradox within which the Uprising now exists. Letus embrace it. *My last thought concerns the mentality and commitment of a winning movement.The last and perhaps most meaningful victory gained in the Wisconsinmovement was the successful blockage of new mining up north‹a key item onGOP¹s corporate agenda. The victory was gained at the Capitol through astate senate vote, but was won over a translocal theater of activism andcoalition-building, binding together numerous groups and constituenciesacross different parts of the state.http://www.progressive.org/why_mining_companies_got_beat_in_wisconsin.htmlOf complementary significance was the willingness and even resignation amongcoalition members regarding the likelihood of having to fight an eventualground war up north, pitting our bodies against their machines. Without thiscoalition, led by the native peoples of the Bad River Band Chippewa, thevictory could not have been won. Without the latent militancy, spiritualdedication, and specter of nihilism belonging to a people who recognize abattle for survival when they see it, the victory could not have been won.Without the ability to simultaneously: lobby legislatorspolitely and agitate on the streets angrily; collect independent,scientifically-sound research and launch barbs of wit and ridicule at GOPtargets; pack the assembly hearings in person and disseminate informationthrough social media, the victory could not have been won.The lesson is clear. Prepare for the worst. Work for the best. Make ourappeals to the hearts and minds of the unconvinced while standing firm at athreshold of ultimate defense. And deal with whatever comes.No, Brian, no neutrality here.Dan w. 

Prototyping Futures / Occupying the Presenthttp://www.prototypingfutures.net/======================================================Saturday, May 19th: 10:00 - 18:00 Lectures, Discussions & Book Launch: Sniff, Scrape, Crawl???======================================================Sunday, May 20th: 10:00 - 17:00 Workshops 17:00 - 17:30 Book Launch Post-Digital Print by Alessandro Ludovicowith Evening Screenings at WORM======================================================Monday, May 21st: Workshop documentation for online publication with selected participants& workshop leaders======================================================See full schedule & venues at:http://www.prototypingfutures.net/schedule/======================================================Lectures & Workshops are free & open to the publicFor those of you wishing to participate in a workshop please register before May 12th as there is limited space.http://www.prototypingfutures.net/sample-page/======================================================Prototyping Futures / Occupying the Present, is a three-day conference with workshops initiated by the Piet Zwart Institute. The event gathers scholars from diverse disciplines to explore strategies of resistance, intervention, and critical production in response to the crises of the present. Rather than foregrounding critique, the focus will be on experimental practices that work towards the production of alternative narratives and the imagination of different futures. The term ???media??? is at the center of the symposium???s conceptual frame and is interpreted in its broadest sense so as to encompass a variety of methodologies and approaches that materialize ideas through technological, spatial, ephemeral, and poetic forms.Key to the event is the notion and ethos of prototyping. Used in fields such as architecture, software programming, and design, the word has a range of meanings from simple working models to developmental processes. The prototype???in its etymological and theoretical senses???is an original form, an archetype. But it is also???in the applied fields of software development, design and architecture???the alpha version, made to test a concept and with the expectation of flaws, bugs, kinks, and failures. Rather than hammering down prototyping to a single definition, this symposium seeks to embrace its tentative, iterative, and speculative qualities, with the aim of promoting interdisciplinary exchange and collaboration.The conference will also be a participatory occasion through which to launch an alternative to the traditionally edited essay collection. Working with Active Archives and other multimedia, our aim is to create an online publication that documents and reflects upon the various issues raised.======================================================Contributors: Inke Arns / Bik Van der Pol / Karin de Jong of PrintRoom / Alessandro Ludovico / Danja Vasiliev / Julian Oliver / Paolo Davanzo & Lisa Marr of Echo Park Film Center / Michael Murtaugh / Failed Architecture / Jan Jongert of 2012Architecten / Mitchell Joachim of Terreform ONE / Gordan Savi??i?? / Florian Cramer of Creating 010======================================================Editorial Team: Renee Turner, Rita Raley, Carolyn Guertin & Allison Carruth======================================================The Piet Zwart Institute is an international postgraduate programme dedicated to study and research in the fields of art and design. It is a part of the Willem de Kooning Academy Rotterdam University. As an educational programme and cultural centre, the notion of 'making public' is core to our activities. These public moments are an important resource for students, faculty members and guests, serving as a bridge to the city, a framework for exploring timely and relevant issues, and building a community around areas of interests.The Piet Zwart Institute: http://pzwart.wdka.nl======================================================For application deadlines and information for the PZI Media Design & Communication: Networked Media & Lens Based Programmes, see:http://pzwart.wdka.nl/media-design/category/apply/application/

Privacy, Moglen, < at >ioerror, #rp12I gave a talk with Jacob Applebaum at last week's Re:publica conference in Berlin.It seems it had fallen to us to break a little bad news. Here it is.- We are not progressing from a primitive era of centralized social media to an emerging era of decentralized social media, the reverse is happening.- Surveillance and control of users is not some sort of unintended consequence of social media platforms, it is the reason they exist.- Privacy is not simply a consumer choice, it is a matter of power and privilege.Earlier at Re:publica, Eben Moglen, the brilliant and tireless legal council of the Free Software Foundation and founder of the FreedomBox Foundation, gave a characteristically excellent speech.However, in his enthusiasm, he makes makes a claim that seems very wrong.Moglen, claims that Facebook's days as a dominant platform are numbered, because we will soon have decentralized social platforms, based on projects such as FreedomBox, users will operate their own federated platforms and form collective social platforms based on their own hardware, retain control of their own data, etc.I can understand and share Moglen's enthusiasm for such a vision, however this is not the observable history of our communications platforms, not the obvious direction they seem to be headed, and there is no clear reason to believe this will change.The trajectory that Moglen is using has centralized social media as the starting point and distributed social media as the place we are moving toward. But in actual fact, distributed social media is where we started, and centralized platforms are where we have arrived.The Internet is a distributed social media platform. The classic internet platforms that existed before the commercialization of the web provided all the features of modern social media monopolies.Platforms like Usenet, Email, IRC and Finger allowed us to do everything we do now with Facebook and friends. We could post status updates, share pictures, send messages, etc. Yet, these platforms have been more or less abandoned. So the question we need to address is not so much how we can invent a distributed social platform, but how and why we started from a fully distributed social platform and replaced it with centralized social media monopolies.The answer is quite simple. The early internet was not significantly capitalist funded, the change in application topology came along with commercialization, and it is a consequence of the business models required by capitalist investors to capture profit.The business model of social media platforms is surveillance and behavioral control. The internet's original protocols and architecture made surveillance and behavioral control more difficult. Once capital became the dominant source of financing it directed investment toward centralized platforms, which are better at providing such surveillance and control, the original platforms were starved of financing. The centralized platforms grew and the decentralized platforms submerged beneath the rising tides of the capitalist web.This is nothing new. This was the same business model that capital devised for media in general, such as network television. The customer of network television is not the viewer, rather the viewer is the product, the "audience commodity." The real customer is the advertisers and lobby groups that want to control this audience.Network Television didn't provide the surveillance part, so advertisers needed to employ market research and ratings firms such as Neielson for that bit. This was a major advantage of social media, richer data from better surveillance allowed for more effective behavioral control than ever before possible, using tracking, targeting, machine learning, behavioral retargeting, among many techniques made possible by the deep pool of data companies like Facebook and Google have available.This is not a choice that capitalist made, this is the only way that profit-driven organizations can provide a public good like a communication platform. Capitalist investors must capture profit or lose their capital. If their platforms can not capture profit, they vanish.So, if capitalism will not fund free, federated social platforms, what will? For Moglen's optimistic trajectory to pan out, this implies that funds can come from the public sector, or from volunteers/donators etc? But if these sectors where capable of turning the tide on social media monopolies, wouldn't they have already done so? After all, the internet started out as a decentralized platform, so it's not like they had to play catch-up, they had a significant head start. Yet, you could fill many a curio case with technologies dreamed up and abandoned because they where unable to be sustained without financing.http://www.dmytri.info/privacy-moglen-ioerror-rp12/Give the continuous march of neoliberal public sector retrenchment, the austerity craze and the ever increasing precariousness of most communities, it seems unlikely the public or voluntary sectors will be the source of such a dramatic turnaround. Given the general tendency of capitalist economies toward accumulation and consolidation, such a turnaround seems even less likely.Thus, there is no real reason to believe Moglen's trajectory will come about. The obstacle to decentralized social media is not that it has not been invented, but the profit-motive itself. Thus to reverse this trajectory back towards decentralization, requires not so much technical initiative, but political struggle.So long as we maintain the social choice to provision our communication systems according to the profit motive, we will only get communications platforms that allow for the capture of profit. Free, open systems, that neither surveil, nor control, nor exclude, will not be funded, as they do not provide the mechanisms required to capture profit.Facebook is worth billions precisely because of it's capacity for surveillance and control. Same with Google.Thus, like the struggle for other public goods, like education, child care, and health care, free communication platforms for the masses can only come from collective political struggle to achieve such platforms.In the meantime, we have many clever and dedicated people contributing to inventing alternative platforms, and these platforms can be very important and worthwhile for the minority that will ever use them, but we do not have the social will nor capacity to bring these platforms to the masses, and given the dominance of capital in our society, it's not clear where such capacity will come from.As surveillance and control is enforced by the powerful interests of capital, privacy and autonomy become a question of power and privilege, not just consumer choice.It's not simply a question of choosing to use certain platforms over others, it's not a question of openness and visibility being the new way people live in a networked society. Rather it's a fact that our platforms are financed for the purpose of watching people and pushing them to behave in ways that benefit the operators of the platform and their real customers, the advertisers, and the industrial and political lobbies. The platform exists to shape society according to the interests of these advertisers and lobbies.As such, how coercive these platforms are largely depend on the degree to which your behaviour is aligned with the platform-operators' profit-driven objectives, and thus privacy and autonomy is not just a feature any given platforms my or may not offer, but determine the possibility of resistance, determine our ability to work against powerful interests' efforts to shape society in ways we disagree with. As Jake said at our talk "We can't have post-privacy until we are post-privilege"http://www.dmytri.info/privacy-moglen-ioerror-rp12/Eliminating privilege is a political struggle, not a technical one.I'll be at Stammtisch as usual around 9pm, please come by, anybody still hanging around after #rp12 is more than welcome to join us. You can find us here: http://bit.ly/buchhandlungA sharable version of this text can be found here:http://www.dmytri.info/privacy-moglen-ioerror-rp12/