Posted by
Steve Smith on
Jan 04, 2011; 4:57pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Wikileaks-Mirror-Taken-Down-Host-Buckles-Under-Demands-from-Upstream-Provider-Electronic-Frontier-Fon-tp5887442p5889388.html
Glen Ropella wrote:
Douglas Roberts wrote circa 01/03/2011 08:00 PM:
Fuck 'em. There are 1,426 other mirrors, plus uncounted "stealth"
mirrors out there ready to go live if needed.
That misses the point, though. It's not about Wikileaks. It's about
the (some particular, not all) corporations and the systemic culture of
fear.
And I think that singling out the specific individual corporations
or people who get caught out acting in the manner which is otherwise
generally approved and accepted misses the point as well.
BP's gulf spill was not (merely) a simple reflection of their
personal, specific bad behaviour, it was a consequence of an entire
industry, of the very nature of capitalistic, consumerist industry
(what our world, the first world is built upon) and it *intrinsic*
search for higher profits through increased volumes and
exported/denied risk.
It has always been the case that industry has arranged for the
majority of the risk or consequences to fall somewhere besides
inside their boundaries. This is generally (to owners/shareholders
called good business). The coal miners lungs were only the mine's
problem insomuch as they needed to replace those individuals in the
mines no longer able to work effectively. Exxon Corporation was
only risking the loss of a shipful of crude oil and the ship when
they allowed the Valdiz to be grounded/punctured as it was. Union
Carbide was risking only the loss of a highly profitable plant in
Bhopal India when they took the industrial risks (which the Indian
Government allowed because they were only risking the loss of a
single community if a disaster struck) that lead to the 1984
disaster.
Do we buy gasoline or other petroleum products that ultimately came
from BP and Exxon, or industrial chemicals/products from Union
Carbide still? Many boycotted them as best they could at the time
of the accidents, but then either returned to patronizing them after
a suitable period of mourning/indignation or pushed their products
into wholesale markets where we never see the source but continue to
reap the convenience/benefits/marginal-effeciencies of their
risk-taking (at other's expense). Exxon-Mobil, BP, and Union
Carbide are all still doing swimmingly... in fact I suspect most
everyone here with money invested in mutual funds or similar profits
(poorly these days) hold part ownership in all three... and probably
Amazon too.
I'm not trying to defuse the righteous indignation against these
things, or the desire to not reinforce bad behaviour, but rather
trying to point out that the problems we face are deeper and more
systemic than the specific behaviour of specific corporations/groups
in specific circumstances.
The Swedes complicity with the Assange thing may implicate them
specifically, but probably doesn't absolve most of the first world
who would very likely cooperate with the USA in the same
circumstances. And the third world as well, maybe more quickly to
avoid being declared a "rogue state" and offered up their own
helping of "shock and awe".
Buy.Com is not necessarily a better place to throw your one-stop
online shopping than Amazon simply because they don't offer hosting
services and didn't have the opportunity to decline Wikileaks
hosting, etc. I'd guess they'd do the same in a heartbeat! And
Itsy.com for all it's wonderful handmade goods doesn't offer what
most of us think we need.
I strongly agree with Glen's last statement, the only challenge is
to not stop with the most obvious or recent offenders, but to apply
it even more deeply.
But I'd rather make my life more interesting or simple, than reward
people for their bad behavior.
We are a crowd with at least one thing in common... most of us are
rabid technophiles and very likely (over?) optimizers... my
experience is that the vocal ones here are generally
liberal/progressive in their social ideals, but we have such huge
heads that we try to know everything. I'm surely doing it right
here, noticing that for every Amazon, PayPal, Visa, MasterCard or
SiteGround/SoftLayer there are thousands more that have not had the
opportunity (yet) to show their ugly stripes, and we are likely to
blindly throw our support to them in indignation over those who got
caught before we will actually question the underlying assumptions
of what these industries (convenience in purchasing, online/virtual
goods, internet services, etc.) imply for us. I know plenty of
folks who diss WalMart but live for their trips to Target and Whole
Foods. It really only barely computes... or not.
I wonder sometimes why, in the frictionlessness of our new economy
and virtual marketplaces that we don't have more voluntary,
collectivism? Why are there not CoOperative ISPs, Virtual
Marketplaces, Credit/Purchase-Card systems, Gasoline/Oil/Mineral
exploration/production systems, Insurance (Life, Auto, Health)
Systems? Even Itsy and Craigslist are privately held, even if they
are not conventional in their profit motives.
If we vote more with our $$ than our votes, why can't we have at
least as (hopefully much moreso) righteous options for how we spend
those $$ and obtain those services/products as we do for electing
officials... wait! Why don't we have as good of choices for our
elected officials as we do for our acquisition of goods and
services? Wait... it all sucks! Why?
Surely there is more we can do than shift around subtly in the
shades of grey, moving our votes from one evil to a (currently
perceived to be) lesser one. Or not?
Is it as simple as economies of scale? Is it as simple as "Power is
Corruption" joined with "Money is Power"?
More questions than answers.. I know. But I can't watch these kinds
of things unfold without asking them of myself, and sometimes I
can't listen to the conversations here without wanting to ask the
larger group the same questions.
- Steve
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