Library Juice 1:11 - for March 25, 1998
Contents: 1. Request for Bioinformatics resources 2. Links from the Progressive Librarians Guild homepage 4. Mary Parker Follett's "The New State" 5. Free Course, "Privacy in Cyberspace" 6. Two Occupational Resources From BLS 7. Boris Nemtsov's Information Server 8. Scout Report for Science & Engineering 9. REFORMA Resolution on the Unz Initiative 10. Q's and A's on Libraries and Infoshops (Responses to a query on Librarians[at]tao.ca) 11. On Electronic Civil Disobedience; Paper for Socialist Scholars Conf. (Long) ________________________________________________________________________________________ 1. Request for Bioinformatics resources A reader has sent me a request for bioinformatics resources on the web. She has a limited internet connection and apparently has difficulty doing research for sites via the web. If you are strong in the area of bioinformatics, send me some information to pass on. I will include it in a future Library Juice. The reader did not elaborate on the type of information on bioinformatics she is seeking. Some cursory browsing led me to: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ The National Center for Biotechnology Information http://bioinformatics.weizmann.ac.il Weizmann Institute Genome and Bioinformatics Page http://www.bioplanet.com Bioplanet. An introductory-type resource covering the intellectual and industrial (job related) aspects. http://www.syqua.com SYQUA - directory of bioinformatics people, information, products and companies ________________________________________________________________________________ 2. Links from the Progressive Librarians Guild homepage http://home.earthlink.net/~rlitwin/PLG.html Street Librarian http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/Cafe/7423 Progressive Librarians Around the World http://www.germany.net/teilnehmer/100/115158/adresse.htm SRRT http://www.jessamyn.com/srrt Daniel Tsang's Alternative Research Page http://sun3.lib.uci.edu/~dtsang Anarchist Librarians http://burn.ucsd.edu/~mai/librarians.html Counterpoise http://www.lib.lsu.edu/hum/counterpoise.html MSRRT Newsletter http://www.cs.unca.edu/~davidson/msrrt/ ________________________________________________________________________________ 3. SDGateway - Sustainable Development Institutes Greetings All We've just launched a new 'no frames' version of SDGateway. http://sdgateway.net/noframe/ This site has integrated information from a network of some of the world's leading sustainable development institutes. I'd be interested in any feedback you may have. Thanks Stacy Matwick Information for Sustainable Development Project International Institute for Sustainable Development 161 Portage Ave., E 6th floor Winnipeg, Manitoba Canada R3B 0Y4 Voice: (204)958-7755 Fax: (204)958-7710 E-mail: smatwick[at]iisd.ca WWW home page: http://iisd.ca ------------------------------------------ To unsubscribe from NetInLib-Announce, see http://www.targetinform.com/netinlib/ ------------------------------------------ ________________________________________________________________________________ 4. Mary Parker Follett's "The New State" From: Vigdor Schreibman - FINS <fins[at]access.digex.net> Subject: The New State - now online! To: GOVDOC-L[at]LISTS.PSU.EDU Special new addition to Fins Information Age Library! http://sunsite.utk.edu/FINS/Mary_Parker_Follett Mary Parker Follett (1868-1933), was one of the most unique women of the early 20th-century, a timeless leader for global citizens of the 21st-century and the next millennium. More insightful than the most progressive American founders. Follett also offered scientific understanding of the practical problems and opportunities of group organization, community life and the social process affecting law, workers and capital. She was, perhaps, the most brilliant philosopher of democracy ever. Follett's classic work on democracy and many of her other works pertaining to management science, were celebrated by the Harvard Business School Press Classic, edition of 1996, "Mary Parker Follett: Prophet of Management" (P. Graham ed.). The sage management authority, Peter Drucker observed in an introduction to that volume, "[Follett is] the brightest star in the management firmament." Now, Fins Information Age Library, is bringing online, Follett's classic work, "THE NEW STATE: Group Organization The Solution of Popular Government" (1918). This work explains the organizing principles of democracy, as no other publication in world history. Part I: The Group Principle, can now be browsed online--free of charge. URL: http://sunsite.utk.edu/FINS/Mary_Parker_Follett ________________________________________________________________________________ 5. Free Course, "Privacy in Cyberspace" Link at: http://www.networx.on.ca/~jwalker Select: --> Internet Resources --> Special Announcements (time sensitive) A new course at Harvard Law School, entitled "Privacy in Cyberspace" is a first for the nation's most famous law school: a free, non-credit law course open to the public that exists completely online. ## You'll have to move quickly on this one. Course is limited to the first 500 applicants. --------------- ------------------------------- Excerpt from CSS Internet News (tm) ,-~~-.____ For subscription details email / | ' \ jwalker[at]networx.on.ca with ( ) 0 SUBINFO CSSINEWS in the \_/-, ,----' subject line. ==== // / \-'~; /~~~(O) "On the Internet no one / __/~| / | knows you're a dog" =( _____| (_________| http://www.networx.on.ca/~jwalker ------------------------------- ------------------------------------------ To unsubscribe from NetInLib-Announce, see http://www.targetinform.com/netinlib/ ------------------------------------------ ________________________________________________________________________________ 6. Two Occupational Resources From BLS Occupational Employment Statistics http://stats.bls.gov/oeshome.htm _1998-9 Occupational Outlook Handbook_ http://stats.bls.gov/ocohome.htm US occupations are featured in these two information-rich resources from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The first is highlighted by the 1996 Occupational Employment Statistics Survey, which differs from previous surveys in that it includes wage data by occupation for the first time. The site contains a description of the survey and complete national and state data for 760 occupations in seven major areas. Included are occupation title, number of employees, hourly mean and median wage, and an OES code number that provides information about the occupation and its employment distribution by wage range where surveyed (distribution is for the national survey only). An occupational search engine is forthcoming. The site also contains information about previous OES surveys back to 1988. The _1998-9 Occupational Outlook Handbook_ provides the latest edition of a guide to 250 occupations from able seaman to zoologist. Users can browse an alphabetical index or any of eleven occupational clusters, or search the resource by keyword. Each occupation contains a thumbnail sketch of important features as well as information about the nature of the work, working conditions, employment, training, the job outlook, earnings, and related occupations. This is an excellent source of relevant, condensed occupational information. [JS] Internet Scout Project: http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/ _______________________________________________________________________________________ 7. Boris Nemtsov's Information Server http://www.nemtsov.ru/english/index.html In a development that would have been unimaginable even ten years ago, the First Deputy Prime Minister of Russia, Boris Nemtsov, has opened a web site. He claims to be the first incumbent Russian state official with a frequently updated site. The site content, available only in Russian at present (English translation of selected site content is forthcoming), includes news from Nemtsov's press service, his political positions, and selected statements and activities. There is also a link to what appears to be a site with more personal information. [JS] Internet Scout Project: http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/ ________________________________________________________________________________________ 8. Scout Report for Science & Engineering http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/report/sci-engr/ Vol. 1, Number 13 of the Scout Report for Science & Engineering is available. It annotates over twenty new and newly discovered Internet resources in the physical & life sciences and engineering. The In the News section annotates nine resources related to _Pfiesteria piscicida_. [JS] Internet Scout Project: http://scout.cs.wisc.edu/scout/ ________________________________________________________________________________________ 9. REFORMA Resolution on the Unz Initiative A RESOLUTION ON THE ANTI-BILINGUAL EDUCATION INITIATIVE(AKA THE UNZ INITIATIVE) WHEREAS, REFORMA's stated purpose is "to promote library services to the Spanish-speaking"; and WHEREAS, bilingual education is a beneficial transitional program from Spanish-language ability to English-language learning skills; and WHEREAS, we believe the anti-bilingual education initiative is lacking well researched rationale and/or reasonable alternatives for this beneficial program for language minorities, particularly Hispanics; and WHEREAS, the American Library Association supports linguistic pluralism and "opposes all language laws, legislation, and regulations which restrict the rights of citizens who speak and read languages other than English, and those language laws, legislation, and regulations which abridge pluralism and diversity in library collections and services" Library Bill of Rights 53 .3.1); and WHEREAS, REFORMA believes that all students are entitled to equal access to all educational opportunities; and WHEREAS, REFORMA believes that students without English proficiencey are denied equal access unless appropriate educational support is provided: THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that REFORMA actively opposes Proposition 227, the Bilingual Initiative, ( Unz Initiative); and BE IT RESOLVED, that REFORMA actively opposes all laws and regulations that restrict the language (or languages) of instruction as they are contrary to the educational well-being of all students; and FURTHER BE IT RESOLVED that REFORMA supports publicizing its opposition and providing financial support to defeat the Initiative. Approved by the National REFORMA Executive Committee March 11, 1998. (4 yeas, and 1 no response) Thank you to the drafters of the resolution. _______________________________________________________________________________________ 10. Q's and A's on Libraries and Infoshops Friends: _American Libraries_ is running my infoshops article ("Street Libraries") in their May issue. I need some feedback from as many of you as possible (and right away) on these questions: 1) Does the existence of infoshops indicate a failure on the part of libraries, and, if yes, how so? 2) What might libraries learn from infoshops? Short responses would be greatly appreciated ASAP (by the end of the week at the latest) for possible quotation in the article. All replies earn 500 Brownie Points (redeemable at participating infoshops). CMUNSON replies: 1) Does the existence of infoshops indicate a failure on the part of libraries, and, if yes, how so? Yes, for a variety of reasons. Public libraries these days are very much like newspapers: they cater to an older middle-class clientele. Anybody who goes into a public library and heads for the periodicals section to find zines is going to be disappointed. You might find Utne Reader, but are you going to find Punk Planet, Factsheet Five, Alternative Press Review, or any one of the hundreds of zines that have published for over 5 years? You also won't find very many political zines of an narchist, leftist, radical, or even environmental persuasion? Can you find Earth First? Most infoshops have zine libraries that are amazing in their scope and they have mostly titles ignored by the local public library. Then there are the books. Does the library have books from AK Press, Loompanics, RE/Search, or any of the presses whose books you'll find at the local Tower Records? Infoshops don't always have book collections, but when they do they often have titles ignored by public libraries. There are two other ways that infoshops indicate a failure of public libraries. One is the fact that folks often have problems distributing free literature at public libraries. Either the literature gets lost in the piles of capitalist crap or the library has restrictions on what can be left by the front door. Last, but definitely not least, public libraries fail as a community space. Activist groups have a very difficult time these days finding meeting rooms to meet. Libraries used to be an alternative but they have implemented new restrictions on content of meetings, they charge for registration for meetings, or they provide a chill reception for the activist looking for meeting space. The biggest factor causing this problem is simply the fact that many public libraries close early in the evening, if they are open at all. Activists have found that infoshops are more responsive to their needs for metting space and organizing space. Infoshops have community bulletin boards that aren't filled with commercial crap. 2) What might libraries learn from infoshops? The list of things that they could learn is long, since libraries are in real need of some revolutionary changes. Some of the lesson I have detailed above, but libraries need to be more aware how they DON'T serve all members of their community, in fact their service is oriented towards middle-class individuals and families. Their fines policies discriminate against the poor and the working class. The hours that they are typically open discriminate against the working class. Their collections are uninviting to young people and people from alternative communities. Libraries also function to much as agents of the state, enforcing laws and acting as morals police, instead of acting as a community institution. Why isn't there any porn in libraries? Who decided this? Why do public libraries cater their collections and services to the businessman and not to the activist or the local punk collective? Charles Willett, founding board member of the Civic Media Center and Library, Inc. in Gainesville, Florida, replies: 1) Infoshops demonstrate the deep intellectual and political bias of most public and academic libraries, which just "follow the money," turning a tin ear and a jaundiced eye to whatever ideas and publications appear outside America's narrow commercial mainstream. 2) Learn to work with us! The Civic Media Center and Library, Inc. was founded largely in reaction against the uncaring corporate values of the University of Florida. Although we have existed practically next door to UF for almost five years, its librarians have never sought us out. But the headquarters staff of the Alachua County Library District downtown have welcomed us. Indeed, the county library and the CMC have just completed a two-year contract adding 1100 CMC titles to the library's online database for a reasonable fee, thus giving the people of Gainesville and the surrounding rural area access to the holdings records of what amounts to a self-run, circulating, alternative branch library. Jean Heriot replies: > 1) Does the existence of infoshops indicate a failure on the part of > libraries, and, if yes, how so? It's librarians not libraries that fail and learn. Thinking of ourselves that way (sort of like the institutional 'we' instead of the royal 'we') is I personally think a dangerous habit and I'm begging you don't do that in your essay! But on to your question: There's a slight streak of megalomania or something in librarians, the way we want to lay claim to or 'own' all the info processes! I don't think the infoshop that I staffed in in Portland was concerned about libraries very much - they were more concerned about the failure of mainstream big media machine. If anything libraries were seen as a symptom more than a cause. > 2) What might libraries learn from infoshops? One thing I noticed at 223 was the excitement of some of the staffers in reinventing things like subject "classifications" and collection "policies" - I had to really bite my tongue at times to avoid spoiling it with my 'expertise' Whatever librarians might learn from infoshops, I don't think we could ever duplicate them in their full authenticity, unless we were ready for a revolution in our ideas about professionalism, preservation of materials, bibliographic control, the whole shooting match. Julie Herrada replies: I'd just like to add that for many years librarians fought to be treated as "professionals." One result is that we are often under pressure to BE "professionals," and this necessarily has an effect on how we conduct themselves, how we think, and what we collect. If library administrators were willing to encourage a sense of creativity and freedom among their library staff (particularly in the area of collection development and community outreach) librarians might be better able to serve their communities. (And shouldn't that be the case will ALL administrators?) Another point I want to make is that people CAN change the way their local branch libraries collect, by making it clear what they want. If the only people who request new materials from libraries are families and older "mainstream" patrons, that's what the library is going to collect. It might take more than a solitary voice, but if people want a voice in the collection development process, they should start by asking libraries to carry the materials they want to see. Libraries should not have to be the only sources of knowledge and information for the people in their communities. Infoshops have a valuable role not the least of which is to bring like-minded people together to develop a sense of social unity, especially in larger cities, where feelings of isolation can run deep. People who run infoshops do so not only because they see a need for it, but they also have the desire to contribute something significant to their community. Public libraries are good venues for some of that, but they are generally too understaffed and underfunded to be the local community center for everyone. ______________________________________________________________________________________ 11. On Electronic Civil Disobedience; Paper for Socialist Scholars Conf. (Long) Date: Sat, 21 Mar 1998 20:39:32 +0200 From: Ilan Shalif <gshalif[at]netvision.net.il> Subject: (en)On Electronic Civil Disobedience; Paper for Socialist Scholars Conf. ________________________________________________ A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E http://www.ainfos.ca/ ________________________________________________ From: Stefan Wray aut-op-sy[at]jefferson.village.Virginia.EDU "As hackers become politicized and as activists become computerized, we are going to see an increase in the number of cyber-activists who engage in what will become more widely known as Electronic Civil Disobedience." - On Electronic Civil Disobedience. PLEASE FORWARD THIS MESSAGE ************************************************************** ANNOUNCING -> A PANEL ON ELECTRONIC CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE IN NEW YORK 1998 Socialist Scholars Conference Borough of Manhattan Community College 199 Chambers Street, New York City Panel on Electronic Civil Disobedience Sunday, March 20, 10:00 a.m., Room N-406 Sponsor: Z-TV (aka Zapatista TV) Chair: Stefan Wray - New York Zapatistas L.A. Kauffman - Lower East Side Collective Ricardo Dominguez - Thing.net ************************************************************** CALLING FOR -> COLLABORATION TO PRODUCE NEW PAMPHLET ON ELECTRONIC CD We are considering the possibilility of producing a pamphlet (or small book?) based on this panel on Electronic Civil Disobedience. The text below might serve as an introductory section, as might text from the other two presenters. Ricardo Dominguez will speak on Digital Zapatismo, discussing existing and emerging computer-based tactics of resistance. L.A. Kauffman will share concrete experience of the Mighty Email Army, a project of the Lower East Side Collective. If you can contribute a section, please get in touch. It seems that, increasingly, on-line activists are becoming interested in doing more with their computers than merely sending email messages and creating web sites. If you are a computer whiz full of all sorts of tricks that push the envelope of contemporary on-line activism, please share those ideas with us. Most interesting are ideas that merge the strategies and tactics of mass civil disobedience - like trespass and blockade - with computer technology. Also interesting to us would be conceptual pieces that deal more with the theory of electronic civil disobedience. Contact Stefan Wray at sjw210[at]is8.nyu.edu **************************************************************** TEXT -> DRAFT OF PAPER FOR PANEL PRESENTATION On Electronic Civil Disobedience by Stefan Wray Paper presented to the 1998 Socialist Scholars Conference Panel on Electronic Civil Disobedience March 20, 21, and 22 New York, NY I heartily accept the motto, -- "That government is best which governs least;" and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out it finally amounts to this, which I also believe, -- "That government is best which governs not at all;" - Civil Disobedience, Henry David Thoreau. Civil disobedience has been part of the American political experience since the inception of this country. But today, as we enter the next century, we are faced with the possibilities and realities of different, hybrid, electronic forms of civil disobedience. A fusion of computer technology with the more traditional forms of American civil disobedience has created new electronic and digital varieties of CD that take place in cyberspace, on the Net, or in the matrix. The term electronic civil disobedience is borrowed from a book by that same name. The Critical Art Ensemble's (1996) Electronic Civil Disobedience provides us with a useful benchmark or launch pad from where we can travel back to the historical practice of civil disobedience in the United States and travel forward to the imagined practice of civil disobedience in the near future. One thing is certain, we have only begun to realize the full potential of how computers will change political activism. Another thing is also clear; electronic civil disobedience will be part of this trajectory. One hundred and fifty years ago, in 1848, the same year that the Communist Manifesto was published in Europe, Henry David Thoreau delivered a lecture titled "Resistance to Civil Government," which was later published as an essay called "Civil Disobedience." Thoreau's essay on civil disobedience emerged from his own personal refusal to pay a poll tax as an expression of his opposition to the United States' war against Mexico. (Thoreau 1968) Since Thoreau's time the tactics of civil disobedience have become woven into the fabric of dissent in this country, as individuals at the grassroots have continually attempted to participate in civil society. Thirty years ago, in 1968, evolving out of the experience of activists in the Civil Rights movement, civil disobedience became an important and widespread tactic used by the opposition to yet another imperialist war, the United States' war against Vietnam. In 1971, as historian Howard Zinn describes, "twenty thousand people came to Washington to commit civil disobedience, trying to tie up Washington traffic to express their revulsion against the killing still going on in Vietnam. Fourteen thousand of them were arrested, the largest mass arrest in American history." (Zinn 1995, 477) Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the tactics of civil disobedience and direct action were taken up by a number of social movements. The anti-nuclear movement began to engage in mass civil disobedience starting in the mid 1970s - with large arrests at the Seabrook Nuclear Power Plant in New Hampshire - and continued using this tactic through to the end of the 1980s - with mass arrests at the Nuclear Test Site near Las Vegas, Nevada. In the 1980s, the radical wing of the environmental movement, represented by groups like Earth First!, reinterpreted notions of civil disobedience in order to apply these tactics to rural and isolated settings where old growth forests were being devastated. Thoreau's ideas were brought to life again by authors like Edward Abbey, who paid him homage in an essay called Down The River with Henry Thoreau. (Abbey 1981) Other radical groups, like ACT-UP, made sure that civil disobedience maintained an urban presence. Using shock tactics, such as forcing ones way onto the set of a live national news broadcast, ACT-UP activists pushed civil disobedience more in the direction of in-your-face politics as a way to emphasize the urgency of the AIDS crisis. In an odd twist of irony, by the late 1980s and more so in the early 1990s, even groups on the right began to adopt tactics of trespass and blockade. The so-called "pro-life" movement started to physically block abortion clinics. At the beginning of the 1990s, the Gulf War - or more appropriately the U.S. war against Iraq - was yet another moment in which opposition was expressed in acts of individual, small group, and mass civil disobedience. In the fall of 1990, a small group of 14 anti-Gulf War activists, mostly students from U.C. Berkeley and San Francisco State, occupied and held for several hours an Army Recruiting Center in San Francisco before being arrested. Also that fall, an adhoc coalition opposed to the war, called the Bay Area Direct Action Network, began to strategize about different ways to block building entranceways and highways. When the United States started to drop its "smart bombs" on Baghdad tens of thousands of people poured into the streets of San Francisco. One notable action at this time was the occupation and blockage of the Bay Bridge that connects San Francisco to Oakland and Berkeley. Following a physical blockade that delayed the opening of the U.S. Federal Building in San Francisco, thousands of protesters started to march downtown toward the financial district. At the last minute, these protesters turned, took another route, and easily pushed pass the dozen or so Highway Patrol attempting to protect the bridge. This throng of people made it nearly all the way to Treasure Island, the mid-way point on the bridge, before being met with a massive show of force by the Oakland Police Department. While unreported by the mainstream media, similar acts of blocking government buildings and major highways occurred all up and down the west coast. So, over the course of the last 150 years, since the publication of Thoreau's Civil Disobedience, we have seen the tactics of individual, group, and mass civil disobedience applied to varying degrees by a quite a number of social movements in the United States. In the second half of the twentieth century, civil disobedience has been practiced in every decade. Sometimes it has been successful. Other times it has failed. Given that the objective realities of U.S. society are not likely to alter radically any time soon, we can safely assume that radical social movements, in one form or another, will continue to adopt the strategies and tactics of civil disobedience into the 21st century. But, in the next century, most of us will witness, and some of us will perhaps directly experience, a striking difference in the form and manner of civil disobedience. Unlike in Thoreau's time, when the telegraph had barely gotten off the ground, and even unlike during the tumultuous 1960s, when the Vietnam War was televised - but when computers were still monster-sized machines off limits to most people - we, today, live in the age of the personal computer. We live in a computer-based information age. As hackers become politicized and as activists become computerized, we are going to see an increase in the number of cyber-activists who engage in what will become more widely known as Electronic Civil Disobedience. The same principals of traditional civil disobedience, like trespass and blockage, will still be applied, but more and more these acts will take place in electronic or digital form. The primary site for Electronic Civil Disobedience will be in cyberspace. In the next century, for example, we on the left will witness or be part of an increasing number of virtual sit-ins in which government and corporate web sites are blocked, preventing so-called legitimate usage. Just as the Vietnam War and the Gulf War brought thousands into the streets to disrupt the flow of normal business and governance - acting upon the physical infrastructure - future interventionist wars will be protested by the clogging or actual rupture of fiber optic cables and ISDN lines - acting upon the electronic and communications infrastructure. Just as massive non-violent civil disobedience has been used to shutdown or suspend governmental or corporate operations, massive non-violent email assaults will shutdown government or corporate computer servers. Given the expected continued rapid growth and development of computer technology, and given the increasing knowledge, sophistication, and expertise of a growing body of cyber-activists, there is no telling exactly how electronic civil disobedience will play itself out in the future. But we can be certain that electronic civil disobedience will undoubtedly become an important element in the emergence of new radical social movements in the years ahead. There are already examples now in existence of the theory and the practice of electronic civil disobedience, as well as evidence of government and corporate awareness of the potential threat posed by sophisticated cyber-activism. To gain some understanding of emerging theory on Electronic Civil Disobedience it is probably best to first look at several short pieces by the Critical Art Ensemble. In 1994 the Critical Art Ensemble produced a work called The Electronic Disturbance and in 1996 they produced a sequel called, not surprisingly, Electronic Civil Disobedience. Both works argue that capitalism has become increasingly nomadic, mobile, liquid, dispersed, and electronic. Moreover, they argue that resistance needs to take on these very same attributes. Instead of physically blocking a building entranceway, or occupying a CEO's office, Critical Art Ensemble argues that we need to think about how we can blockade and trespass in digital and electronic forms. Not only do these works by the Critical Art Ensemble begin to establish a language with which we can develop ideas about and continue to practice electronic civil disobedience, they also make a case that practicing electronic civil disobedience has become imperative because increasingly traditional forms of CD have become less and less effective. They argue that the streets have become the location of dead capital and that to seriously confront capital in its current mobile electronic form, then resistance must take place in the same location where capital now exists in greatest concentrations, namely in cyberspace. While the second part of the Critical Art Ensemble's argument makes sense, the statement that the streets are completely useless needs to be qualified. For example, we can not discount the role that street protest played in the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. This adds credence to the notion that rather than pure electronic civil disobedience, we are likely to see a proliferation of hybridized actions that involve a multiplicity of tactics, combining actions on the street and actions in cyberspace. The intellectual roots of the Critical Art Ensemble's work, especially in relation to their nomadic conceptions of capital and resistance, can be first traced to Hakim Bey's (1991) T. A. Z. The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism, who in turn borrows ideas about nomadology from Gilles Deleuze's and Felix Guattari's (1987) A Thousand Plateaus. Bey's temporary - and nomadic - autonomous zones, existing in cyberspace, become the launch pads from where electronic civil disobedience is activated. The influence of A Thousand Plateaus, especially the chapter called "Treatise on Nomadology and the War Machine," can be seen running throughout the Critical Art Ensemble's work. All of these works just mentioned should be required reading for the serious student and practitioner of electronic civil disobedience. Besides examining hypothetical ideas in these theoretical works, we can actually see that incipient electronic civil disobedience has started to be practiced. One site for discovering such practice is within the global pro-Zapatista movement that has come into being since the January 1, 1994 Zapatista uprising in Chiapas, Mexico. Since just days after the emergence of the EZLN onto the global political scene, computers, and more specifically, computer-based communication over the Internet, primarily and originally in the form of email, have become key and central to the existence of this global Zapatista inspired movement against neoliberalism and for humanity. With each passing year, since 1994, the level of computer sophistication has increased. What began as mere transmission of EZLN communiques and other information via email became also a network of hypertext linked web sites. In borrowing another term from Deleuze and Guattari's A Thousand Plateaus - in addition to nomadic - the movement of information through these various cyber-nets of resistance has been said to have occurred rhizomatically, moving horizontally, non-linearly, and underground. Rhizome is word that comes from botany and is used to describe certain types of tubers, that as a system of roots expands horizontally and underground. The adjective rhizomatic have been used in a political context as a way to describe the distribution, spread, and dispersion of information on the Net about the Zapatistas. Rather than operating through a central command structure in which information filters down from the top in a vertical and linear manner - the model of radio and television broadcasting - information about the Zapatistas on the Net has been said to be moving from node to node, horizontally and non-linearly. This is relevant in that the method of announcing and distributing information about electronic civil disobedience actions has occurred in this rhizomatic fashion. For example, arising out of this increased cyber-activism around the Zapatistas, and following the recent Acteal Massacre that took place in Chiapas just this past December, a group calling themselves the Anonymous Digital Coalition, which we believe originated in Italy, began to post messages onto the Net calling for cyber attacks against five Mexico City based financial institution's web sites. The intent of their plan, which was promulgated far and wide via this rhizomatic system of distribution, was for thousands of people around the world to simultaneously load these web sites on to their Internet browsers. The idea was that repeated reloading of the web sites on to numerous people's browsers would in effect block those web sites from so called legitimate use. The only evidence available to me that this action worked is an email message I received from someone who said that they made repeated attempts to access these sites during the aforementioned time, but could not do so. Another example is even more recent. Last month, when it looked as if the United States was going to launch another bombing campaign against Iraq, a national news story appeared describing how the Pentagon had allegedly noticed an increase in the number of hacking attempts into Department of Defense computers. Whether these cyber assaults are real or a figment of the Pentagon's imagination is irrelevant. The point is that this level of cyber-activism directed against a government institution is yet another potential scenario that we will in the future either be witnesses to or participants in. As is to be expected, the roots of future government crackdowns against electronic civil disobedience already exist in the present. Since as early as 1993 there were warnings coming from RAND of impending netwar (Arquilla and Ronfeldt 1993). Soon thereafter, the U.S. military establishment began to worry about netwar or its more universal term, information warfare. In 1996, The Nation published an article describing a report produced by the Pentagon's office on Special Operations Forces in which they make recommendations to counter or contain possible netwar or information warfare. But as attempts to prevent people from engaging in traditional civil disobedience have failed before or have at least not been universally successful, we can expect that whatever net the government creates in attempts to capture future cyber-activists will be strewn with holes and ways of evasion will be possible. One possible technical solution that will enable cyber-activists to flood government or corporate email servers - potentially to the point of these servers crashing - is the off-shore spam engine, a web-site form-based means of directing multiple email messages to targeted email addresses, anonymously. To conclude. While it may be partially true, as the Critical Art Ensemble claims, that participation in street actions has become increasingly meaningless and futile and that future resistance must become primarily nomadic, electronic, and cyberspacial, it is doubtful that physical street actions, involving real people on the ground, will end any time soon. What is more likely is that we will see electronic civil disobedience continue to be phased in as a component of or as a complement to traditional civil disobedience. In the near future, we can expect to see hybrid civil disobedience actions that will involve people taking part in electronic civil disobedience from behind their computer screens while simultaneously people are engaging in more traditional forms of civil disobedience out in the streets. As we consider the trajectory of resistance in the United States and as we envision the possibilities of resistance increasingly taking place in cyberspace, it is important to remember that civil disobedience has been an important part of the history of political growth and change in this country. Thoreau's contribution, by example and by word, influenced generations that followed. But today, we stand at a new crossroads, one in which these older forms of resistance and protest are being transformed. While it is useful to consider the path that civil disobedience has taken up until now, we also need to be aware that our political terrain is changing dramatically. In the 21st century, electronic civil disobedience will occur. - End - Word Count: 2,830 (Stefan Wray is a doctoral student in the Dept. of Culture and Communication at NYU. His dissertation research focuses on international grassroots political communication on the Internet. He received an M.A. in Journalism from the University of Texas at Austin. His masters thesis, "The Drug War and Information Warfare in Mexico" is available at http://www.nyu.edu/projects/wray/ You can send email to him at: sjw210[at]is8.nyu.edu) References Abbey, Edward. 1991. Down The River. New York: Plume. Arquilla, John and David Ronfeldt. 1993. "Cyberwar is Coming!" Comparative Strategy 12: 141-65. Bey, Hakim. 1991. T. A. Z. The Temporary Autonomous Zone, Ontological Anarchy, Poetic Terrorism. Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia. Corn, David. 1996. "Pentagon Trolls the Net." The Nation, 4 March. Critical Art Ensemble. 1994. The Electronic Disturbance. Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia. Critical Art Ensemble. 1996. Electronic Civil Disobedience and Other Unpopular Ideas. Brooklyn, NY: Autonomedia. Deleuze, Gilles and Felix Guattari. 1987. A Thousand Plateaus. Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Trans. by Brain Massumi. Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press. Thoreau, Henry David. 1968. The variorum Walden and the variorum Civil disobedience. New York: Washington Square Press. Zinn, Howard. 1995. A People's History of the United States. 1492- Present. New York: Harper Perennial. --- from list aut-op-sy[at]lists.village.virginia.edu --- ***A-INFOS DISCLAIMER - IMPORTANT PLEASE NOTE*** A-Infos disclaims responsibility for the information in this message. ******** The A-Infos News Service ******** COMMANDS: majordomo[at]tao.ca REPLIES: a-infos-d[at]tao.ca HELP: a-infos-org[at]tao.ca WWW: http://www.ainfos.ca/ ________________________________________________________________________________________
Web Page created by Text2Web v1.3.6 by Dev Virdi
http://www.virdi.demon.co.uk/
Date: Thursday, October 29, 1998 12:12 PM