Radical media, politics and culture.

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December 13, 2002 - 11:05am -- hydrarchist

I've seen things you people wouldn't belive. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-Beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser gate. All those moments will be lost... in time... like tears... in the rain. Time to die.

December 12, 2002 - 10:27am -- hydrarchist

"There followed on the birth of mechanisation and modern industry.....a violent encroachment like that of an avalanche in its intensity and its extent. All bounds of morals and nature, of age and sex, of day and night, were broken down. Capital celebrated its orgies."

Karl Marx, Capital, Volume One.

December 12, 2002 - 9:24am -- hydrarchist

No dream. I have been broadening Quandary's horizons. I have started listening to New Wave -- not to be confused with New Age, which is merely elevator music for the upwardly mobile. I frequent Charlotte Russe's only record store, rubbing leather shoulders easily with punks and New Romantics, Gothics and casuals. Dressed in fashions that disappeared five years ago, we pick through albums by bands who broke up before their music ever appeared in Charlotte Russe. It was the names of the bands that first intrigued me. Dead Kennedy's. Primal Scream. The Vaselines. Ten Thousand Maniacs. Wet Wet Wet. The Slits. Butthole Surfers. (Who, in truth, have little apart from their name to distinguish them.) Names have come a long way since Quandary's youth, when Gerry and the Pacemakers or Herman and the Hermits were the dernier cri. Despite the attractive iconoclasm implicit in the names of today's louder bands, I must admit that it is the more lyrical and reflective music that attracts me -- The Blue Nile, Everything But The Girl -- songs of irrevocable harsh words and obsessions with past lovers. The more pain the better. I can suck melancholy from a song as a weasel sucks eggs. At first this lyrical tendency worried me, but it would be a mistake to expect everything in my life to be dark and forceful. Nevertheless, I make it a point to play only the Sex Pistols and the Dead Kennedy's when I am in my office. And loudly.

December 12, 2002 - 6:13am -- hydrarchist

... the language of entitlement to information that I describe in this book is both apologetic and critical. It is far from being a monoloithic aid to the powerful, an immutable system of oppression, a functionally determined expression of the interests of a particular class, or the dynamics of a particular stage in economic development. In fact, one of the more interesting things revealed by this study (and by the study of history in general) is the polysemic and open quality of languages of entitlement. This indeterminate and multivocal quality of our moral traditions seeems to me to be a good, rather than a abd, thing. in fact, it may have a positive but theoretically neglected role to play in cultural criticism. if there is indeed a sybiotic relationship between social praactices and the systems of thought that describe for them and prescribe for them, now can we ever criticize? Why doesn't norm simply follow the contours of fact, like a chair cover following the outline of a chair? Part of the answer I think, is that there is not just one set of cultural practices, one set of norms, and one set of interpretations. To put it another way, the indeterminacy within justificatory systems and the simultaneous existence of conflicting justificatory systems are two important reasons thatb we can make normative criticisms in the first place. Freedom is often to be found in the tension between traditions. this could be called the postmodern qualification.

SSS p.190

December 12, 2002 - 4:56am -- hydrarchist

Analaysis of science under capitalism in a historical perspective. Like many Italian accounts at the moment it adopts terminology taken from the discussion of fordism v postfordism.

December 11, 2002 - 8:36am -- hydrarchist

.... and some easing of the intense_feelings_of_physical_discomfort which caharcterised the initial fourty eight hours. For example, the involntary trembling of the thumb of my left hand has now abated, and my jaw no longer feels as if I'm coming down off three Es and in bad need of a spliff to *cane*.

Yesterday (yes, this is from a mail to n) What was a gentle redimensioning of my nicotine habit has now reached its logical conclusion: total abstinence. Somebody appears to have tied ropes around my shoulder and collar-bones, and subjects them to persistent strain. Further, I notice that I now have a tic between the ridge of my nose and my right eye and my left-hand thumb trembles. In addition strange noises emanate from my stomach where there also appear to be a gang of miniature interior designers/bio-engineers reorganizing something important. Itching and sweating too. all this feverish denial of temptation leaves me feeling smugly Nietzchean and more than a little catholic!

December 11, 2002 - 8:24am -- hydrarchist

"....; it seems to me that until the beginning of the nineteenth century and even during the French rvolution, popular uprisings were led at one and the same time by peasants, small craftsmen, by the first labourers and then by that category of restless elements poorly integrated into society that might be highway robbers, smugglers and so on- at any rate all who had been rejected by the reigning system of legality , the law of the state. And in the nineteenth century, in the course of political struggles which permitted the proletariat to have itself recognised as a power with compelling demands...

.....the proletariat was obliged in some way to establish a speration between it and that other ‘agitated’ population. When labour unionisation was founded , in order to have itself recognised, it needed to dissociate itself from all the seditpous groups and from all those who refused the legal system: we are not the murderes, we are not attacking eoither people or goods; if we stop production , it is not in an outburst of absolute destruction, but inconjunction with very precise demands. Family morality which had absolutely no currency in popular circles at the end of the eighteenth century had become by the beginning of the nineteenth century one of the means by which the proletariat was able in some way to establish its respectability. Popular ‘virtue, the ‘good worker’, good father, good husband, respectful of the legal system, that is the image which since the eighteenth century the bourgeoisie proposed and imposed on the proletariat in order to turn it away from any form of vilent agitation, insurrection and any attempt to usurp power and its rules.”

Foucault, 1972

December 11, 2002 - 6:46am -- hydrarchist

You could not make this shit up.

In a press release today, where they gloat at the fact that they have three prosecutions in course against children for warez activity, they also impart some real pearls of business ideology. And some cautionary words for parents:

Young people are often enthusiastic users, particularly of interactive services like email, chat and instant messaging. These are great tools that have been developed by the software industry so we do not want to limit children’s learning and enjoyment of the Internet. In short, the danger of ‘hanging-out’ in cyberspace is the same as loitering in the wrong part of town. Teenagers can just as easily fall in with the wrong crowd and unintentionally become involved in other serious crimes.

The software industry has been determined to refashion social norms around copyright for quite a while now, and they even managed to have it endorsed as State Doctrine (fear!) during the assembly of the National Information Infrastructure Report between 1993 and 1995. Somewhere out there exist hilarious websites dedicated to teaching children that sharing is wrong. Theft. Criminal.

Then they produce a stooge, one 'Alun Lloyd Jones, a Cabinet Member for Ceredigion County Council in Wales with responsibility for Trading Standards'[wow!] who dropped this piece of passive agressive crap:

"It is never pleasant to have to take action against young people but ...... Research indicates that some parents think such activities can be harmless and therefore they turn a blind eye. In fact, the consequences are broad; these young people end up with criminal records and their parents incur significant fines. Organisations like BSA are making an effort to educate young people about the risks but this will only succeed with the co-operation of parents."

In other words, parents tie down your kids or we'll fuck up their lives and take money out of your pockets - really subtle, eh?

You can find the whole of the press release here. The tips for parents stuff though is to priceless to omit here.....

BSA’s cyber tips for parents:

1.In addition to the general Internet safety advice already widely available, parents should also:

2. Check that your children understand that downloading pirate software from the Internet is theft and is against the law

3. Check that they understand that selling pirated copies of software is illegal

4. Consider screening terms such as Warez in your Internet filter

5. Get to know the services and websites that your children use to ensure they avoid visiting sites offering illegal software (which often contain additional unsuitable content)

6. Double-check any online purchases that your children make, a web site may appear sophisticated but consumers can be duped into buying illegal software

7. Include the tips above in your own set of family rules about Internet usage and after discussing them, stick them at the side of the computer

December 11, 2002 - 6:14am -- hydrarchist

The Terrorists by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo

Always on the hunt for gems of noir I strumbled upon The Locked Room by these two swedes a couple of months ago, ever since I've eagerly foraged for the other books in this series. The writers employed the detective fiction form and the contradictory character of their protagonist Martin Beck to document and critique both swedish society and capitalism in an incisive and humorous way. Wahloo died after they had completed The Terrorists, tenth and final episode of the saga, in the 1970s.

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