PornoLeaks

It should have been obvious to us all that the practice of leaking and the
power of the web would come together in a terrible, childish and unstoppable
tantrum of the kind described in this article.

Anywhere sensitive data is collected; where mentally-unstable, unhappy or
vindictive people might work; is vulnerable to self-righteous "leaking" that
may or may not align with any rational moral calculus.  If we've experienced,
over and over, the phenomena of the disgruntled shooter, mass murdering
rampages against so-called "enemies" in the workplace, home or school... how
much lower is the rage threshold for a revenge leak?

If we support the anti-establishment leakers of incriminating info about the
bigwigs and mucky-mucks, how do we confront leakers whose social alignment is
different from our own? How does that affect our  cheerleading lyrics?

Or is this another CIA plot in disguise!?

Adult industry enraged as 'Porn Wikileaks' gives stars' real names
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/love-sex/sex-industry/adult-industry-enraged-as-porn-wikileaks-gives-stars-real-names-2258874.html

Friday, 1 April 2011

By Guy Adams in Los Angeles

Erotic stars such as Jenna Jameson, her male counterpart Seymore Butts and
Charlie Sheen's latest inamorata, 24-year-old blonde former centrefold Bree
Olson, are all so mainstream that their lives are detailed in Wikipedia.

But the 1,500 or so performers in the seedier end of the pornographic film
trade, predominantly based in California, often sought to conceal their

The Wind of the South - Unicommon March in Tunisia [7-12 April] ::unicommon.org::

Japan – Fissures in the Planetary Apparatus

*Japan ? Fissures in the Planetary Apparatus*
http://jfissures.wordpress.com

While we are observing the new impetus of global uprising against 
capitalism and the state, the catastrophic situation is arising in 
Japan. Triggered by the earthquake and tsunami of maximal scale, 
Northeastern part of Honshu has been devastated by the increasing number 
of losses and refugees, and the worsening nuclear disaster. The activity 
of the planet has shown not only its unequivocal nonhuman force but also 
the degree in which our societies and their apparatuses forged by 
capitalism are relying on, merging with, implicated in and expanding 
over the planet in an extremely ominous manner. What the so-called 
natural disaster is showing on this occasion is nothing but the 
implication of the apparatus in the environment and its fatal effects.

In this situation, we intend to translate, quote and analyze as much 
information as possible from Japanese into English, and translate your 
encouragements, comments, suggestions, analysis, proposals and anything 
written in English into Japanese for the vantage point of the people 
struggling there and everywhere.

At the moment in Japan, the government is trying to make the situation 
look as normal as possible, by veiling crucial information on the degree 
of radiation and the calamitous condition of the reactors. This menacing 
situation notwithstanding, it does not show any intension to terminate 
its pro-nuclear power policy. In accordance with the benefit of TEPCO 
(The Tokyo Electric Power Co), it is instigating temporal blackout in 
large areas outside central Tokyo, as if sending the message to the 
people: ?no nuclear power, no electricity.? It also makes tremendous 
efforts to isolate and contain the stricken areas and the increasing 
number of refugees, by mobilizing massive number of the Self Defense 
Forces, mainly for driving the business as usual of the capitalist 
operations. Meanwhile the media is seeking to reproduce the image of a 
society without dissent by orchestrating the campaign to ?Save Japan in 
Unity.? Some proxy intellectuals are inflaming patriotism even by 
awakening the nationalist sentiment from the fascist regime of the past.

Nonetheless, as the contamination worsens and expands, resident 
foreigners have begun to leave Japan, and some Japanese who are able to 
have begun their exodus to the west. The agony, anger and angst of the 
people, especially those who have to sustain their livelihood in Tokyo 
and northward therefrom, are unimaginable. It is a reminder of the 
stories from the Cyber Punk era in terms of dystopia finally realized.

Meanwhile activists of anti-authoritarian vein are striving to begin 
various campaigns: a call for de-nuke general strike, a new anti-nuclear 
movement, protests against the government and TEPCO, establishment of 
refugees? communes in metropolis such as Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka, and 
sending the ?People Rescue Troops? to the stricken north. A mass 
mobilization is yet to be seen.

 Facing the imminent possibility of catastrophe, the people are also 
expecting a long long term struggle, for survival and break-out of the 
pro-nuclear governance. Taking into consideration the situation in 
Japan, we find it necessary to establish a global network to create a 
current of both resources and persons in and out of Japan, accursed and 
confined archipelago. To begin with, we are preparing a place for 
exchanging critical voices from there and elsewhere, to find a way out 
of the dystopian cul-de-sac, and create a path to undo and reorient the 
course of the world whose worst effects are manifest there at the moment.

Pauline van Mourik Broekman on ACE's 100% finding cut for Mute

This is really heartbreaking. 

Mute might merit passing mention in ritualistic histories of nettime,
but I doubt the list would still exist if it weren't for the Mutants'
collective efforts. To call those efforts 'sustained' risks sounding
like some awful award; but in a field where many have flitted around
from one project to another, sixteen years of publishing some of the
best writing in the field is absolutely sustained -- and sustaining. 

T

<http://www.metamute.org/en/mute_100_per_cent_cut_by_ace>

   [256] Mute's 100% cut by ACE - a personal consideration of Mute's
   defunding, by co-founder Pauline van Mourik Broekman [257] Editorial
   content | [258] Articles

   [259] Share

   ___ reads | [260] view pdf | [261] Printer-friendly version
   Submitted by [262] mute on Friday, 1 April, 2011 - 15:34

   By Pauline van Mourik Broekman

   Please send us your comments and feedback on Mute's 100% cut by ACE
   this week. We are hoping to set this in the context of the broader cuts
   across the arts and society, which represent a sustained assault on the
   conditions for free expression, critical thinking, and independent
   production - be that directly or indirectly. You can do that on
   [263] http://metamute.org , Facebook [264] http://linkme2.net/p5 ,
   [265] http://twitter.com/mutemagazine [266]  <at> mutemagazine , on our list,
   Mute-social [267] http://lists.metamute.org/mailman/listinfo/mute-social
   , or email, [268] mute@... Thanks!

   **

   We are very sad to announce that, on Wednesday, Mute Publishing found
   itself in the category of 'losers' as these emerged from ACE's National
   Portfolio Organisation decisions. The magazine had presented to ACE a
   programme that combined a web and print magazine, books and events,
   community self-publishing, education, and digital strategy support and
   advocacy work, but faltered in the second stage of the assessment
   process, where its financially precarious position and 'weak'
   governance structure - as well as the perception other organisations
   were better placed to deliver to ACE's strategic goals - proved fatal,
   resulting in a 100% cut to core funding.

   We regard the process of being placed in competition with other arts
   organisations as poisonous and distracting: while we will privately
   question the sizeable uplifts granted to large, established
   organisations (which, in the greater scheme of things, need further
   funding about as urgently as Paris Hilton needs another handbag), in
   the end we recognise it as a familiar part of the divide-and-rule
   principle that has long marked the operations of support agencies like
   ACE, where a chronic reliance on the parent body for the basic
   apparatus of organisational reproduction nurtures fear among the
   'dependents' - slowly but surely stripping them of all sense they can
   do anything for themselves, let alone together... The spectacle of
   slavish gratitude for the spoils of public funds, in which even
   organisations cut or killed felt compelled to reiterate the basic
   tenets of ACE's funding paradigm (excellence, innovation, global
   leadership and creativity), were truly depressing in this regard - not
   one voice standing out for offering a different vision or lexicon of
   practice.

   For us, the relevant story is elsewhere, as it has always been, and is
   effectively being obscured by a smoke-screen of rhetoric: it is said
   that 'adventurous and risk-taking programming is being rewarded', and a
   'resilient' arts portfolio composed. Although we concertedly
   participated in the process, adapting our organisation's operational
   model to that demanded by ACE's 'Achieving Great Art for Everyone'
   agenda (within which we happily chose to deliver to the Excellence and
   Innovation Aims), the relevant story lies in the devastation being
   wrought upon the social in general. Here, in the name of prudent
   economic management, Government's disinvestment in art and education
   (two fields with which Mute interfaces most intimately) appears as a
   symptom of a larger programme of creative destruction, launched in the
   name of an aggressively kickstarted, entrepreneurial Britain that we
   all know is doomed to fail, but not without wrecking the lives of
   millions.

   To be a 'winner' in the arts variant of this competition (and that
   means those who, as The Guardian dubbed it, 'won big'; not the hundreds
   kept on on a shoestring), several kinds of compliance are required.
   Firstly, a near religious belief in the power of art to 'deliver'
   personal transformation. Second, a normative and by now entirely
   standardised model of art-organisational development, where success is
   measured via the ability to diversify funding sources (via trading
   activities, rights management, sponsorship, philanthropy and a variety
   of non-public sources), have 'reach and impact' (loose catch-alls
   combining audiences, media reception, influence), and offer
   'engagement' - all of which, it is reiterated, can only be achieved by
   bodies in possession of larger executive boards, which have represented
   on them 'experts' from the realms of Finance, Legal, Development and
   Artistic Vision, and who watch Income and Expenditure lines like hawks,
   assuring they mitigate risk, execute their mission and stay on a number
   of targets, as these encompass financial, audience and strategic
   partnership projections. As Mute - and many others, such as the
   Scottish based Variant magazine (another 'loser' of late) - has
   attempted to discuss in a series of articles stretching back decades,
   the backdoor this structure has offered to an entirely corporatised
   version of art, wherein genuine diversity and antagonism is replaced by
   superficially different versions of doing the same thing (and many
   platforms for critical discussion gradually desist from analysing
   culture as a whole to discussing the ins, outs, rights and wrongs of
   particular art forms), is one of the great untold stories of mainstream
   contemporary culture.

   As a critical platform seeking to understand culture in the round -
   i.e. in the many and various ways it exemplifies, illuminates and
   engages with larger processes (be they, to put it cheesily, part of the
   'macro' dimension of global economics, or the 'micro' level of
   subjectivity) - we have attempted to shore up our core editorial work
   with a range of others that could help subsidise this. OpenMute, our
   consultancy and tools agency, through which we also facilitate the
   publishing activity of many other independent producers, has been the
   most visible result. But the free-content economy of the web, which
   felt like a natural home for our discussions, eventually became Mute's
   nemesis, as sales and subscriptions decreased at the same speed our web
   readership grew, and a growing international community of readers
   slowly and unwittingly dealt our 'business model' a death-blow.

   We must now figure out what to do about this, as all of us who've
   worked on the magazine for so long have no intention of stopping our
   work because of a funding decision. Many different working models can
   and are already being imagined. Others in the many small to medium
   sized digitally-led organisations which have been cut will be trying to
   figure out their futures similarly, as will, it seems, many comparable
   small organisations whose governing remits aren't deemed essential in
   the current round. We are particularly perplexed by the blow dealt to
   diversity-led organisations, who engage with questions we imagine will
   increase rather than decrease in urgency in 'Austerity Britain'.

   We will attempt to continue the discussion in a number of places. One,
   on our website, Metamute.org, which publishes weekly and where we will
   open space for responses to ACE's funding decisions, on Mute Publishing
   as well as other organisations, as well as the Googlegroup,
   acedigitaluncut and media arts discussion list CRUMB*, where many are
   hoping to marshall a more specific discussion about the apparent
   disinvestment in the still badly understood area of digital practice.
   ACE's decisions reflect a presumption digital has been 'dealt with' by
   conceiving of it as integrated in routine organisational development
   processes, rather than demanding to be explored as a highly
   self-reflexive area of work with a long and rich history linking into
   video, performance, independent publishing, installation art, software
   development, literature and more. Given the consolidation, surveillance
   and privatisation happening in the digital realm as we speak, now seems
   exactly the wrong time to be making such a move. The fact that ACE (and
   partner organisations like the BBC) are seeking to align themselves
   with digital innovation and broadcasting at exactly the same time just
   demonstrates further ignorance and shortsightedness.

   Yours sincerely,

   Pauline van Mourik Broekman

   Director and co-founder of Mute, with Simon Worthington, and writing on
   behalf of brilliant staff, Editorial and Advisory Boards, namely
   Josephine Berry Slater, Caroline Heron, Howard Slater, Darron Broad,
   Laura Oldenbourg; Omar El-Khairy, Matthew Hyland, Anthony Iles, Demetra
   Kotouza, Hari Kunzru, Mira Mattar, Benedict Seymour, Stefan Szczelkun;
   Sally Jane Norman, Andrew Seto, Sukhdev Sandhu and Andy Wilson.

   *Those wishing to subscribe to acedigitaluncut should go to:
   [269] https://groups.google.com/group/acedigitaluncut?hl=en

References

 255. http://www.metamute.org/en/subject/cyberspace/wap
 256. http://www.metamute.org/en/mute_100_per_cent_cut_by_ace
 257. http://www.metamute.org/en/content_type/editorial_content
 258. http://www.metamute.org/en/content/articles
 259. http://www.addtoany.com/share_save
 260. http://www.metamute.org/en/html2pdf/view/20
 261. http://www.metamute.org/en/print/20
 262. http://www.metamute.org/en/user/mute
 263. http://metamute.org/
 264. http://linkme2.net/p5
 265. http://twitter.com/mutemagazine
 266. http://twitter.com/mutemagazine
 267. http://lists.metamute.org/mailman/listinfo/mute-social
 268. mailto:mute@...
 269. https://groups.google.com/group/acedigitaluncut?hl=en

Re: The Wind of the South - Unicommon March in Tunisia [7-12 April] ::unicommon.org::

I commend you for what are you doing. I also would like to use this opportunity ask all of you to share this
emergency news ASAP.
I will also go ahead and post it as an individual link at nettime.

What I am posting here is the link from The Real News Network:
Brutal Repression in Honduras Targets Teachers, Popular Resistance
Weeks of demonstrations continue against de-facto regime and its plans to privatize public education 
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=6530

:sorry for any cross posting:
www.unicommon.org
We are students, precarious, unemployed, a young generation that is too much skilled for a job... We are the
'generation without future' of a Europe in crisis that we don't like and we want to change. We are students
of Rome and London who have taken the streets to reclaim a better future. 
In these months we have learned a lot from what is happened in Tunisia and Egypt, events that we have followed
with attention, curiosity and apprehension. The struggles of Maghreb and Mashreq have inspired us
because we have identified ourselves in the slogan of a young generation and its high expectations, that
are too high for the future that corrupted regimes and government in crisis want to offer us. In these
months we have learned that the struggle of Tunisi and Egypt are our struggles!
For this reason we want to go to Tunisi, to meet the protagonist of the revolt and build up together a new and
different Europe, that is able to go into the other side of the Mediterranean Sea: a new space full of
projects and common struggles.
Inventing a new geography breaking the borders, setting up new directions, discovering new traces: the
students of the UniCommon network will be in Tunisia starting from the 7 April 2011 together with the
project United for Freedom, a caravan that will go to Lybia border in order to help who are escaping from
bombs and mercenaries, to shout "no war": humanitarian war or not. 
>From Tunisi we will move until the Refugees Camp of Cita Benghardane bringing medicines and first-aid
materials, because flight is a right, because flight the war is everytime an act of courage!
Days in Tunisi from the 7th to 12th of April will be very intense. New relationships, learning a lot from
those have made the revolt, showing a solidarity beyond the rethoric. Inventing a new compass of
struggle, a new language and grammar for the movement: this is the challenge of this march. For this reason
we have decided to move and we would like to invite all students and precarious of Europe to joint us!

Unicommon
info: 2011caravan@...
*******
[French version] Nous sommes les ??tudiants, les pr??caires, les ch??meurs, les jeunes qui ont le malheur
d?????tre  ?? trop qualifi??s ??  pour trouver un emploi. Nous sommes la ?? g??n??ration sans futur ??
d???une Europe en crise, que ne nous  n???aimons pas et que nous voulons changer. Nous sommes les
??tudiants de Rome et Londres qui ont descendu dans la rue pour prendre en main leur  futur. Dans ces mois,
nous avons beaucoup appris des ??v??nements qui se sont d??roul??s en Tunisie et en Egypte, ??v??nements
que nous avons suivi avec attention, curiosit??  et appr??hension. Inspir??s des luttes dans le  Maghreb
et dans le Mashreq nous nous sommes reconnus dans les mots d???ordre d???une g??n??ration dont les
attentes sont trop ambitieuses pour le futur que des r??gimes pourris et des
  gouvernements en crise nous r??servent. Dans ces mois, nous avons appris que les luttes tunisiennes et
??gyptiennes sont les n??tres ! ???Justement pour ces raisons nous avons d??cid?? de n
 ous mettre en voyage  pour aller ?? Tunis et rencontrer les protagonistes de la r??volte et construire tous
ensemble une Europe diff??rente, capable de franchir la M??diterran??e pour g??n??rer un espace
nouveau riche de projets et de luttes communes.
Rompre les fronti??res pour inventer tous  ensemble des g??ographies et des directions nouvelles,
d??couvrir des nouvelles traces :  les ??tudiants du r??seau Unicommon seront ?? Tunis ?? partir du 7 Avril
2011 en soutenant le projet Unis pour la Libert??, une caravane qui ira jusqu????? la fronti??re libyque
pour donner de l???aide ?? ceux qui se sauvent des bombes et des mercenaires, pour dire ?? non?? ?? toute
forme de guerre, plus ou mois ?? humanitaire ??. Apr??s Tunis, on ira vers le champ de r??fugi??s de Cita
Benghardane, en portant avec nous des m??dicaments et tout ce qui peut servir au premier accueil, car la
fuite est un droit, car repousser la guerre est toujours un acte de courage |
Ce seront des jours intenses ceux que nous vivrons en Tunisie entre 7 et 12 d???Avril, pour tisser des
nouvelles relations, apprendre par ceux qui ont  anim?? les r??voltes, montrer une solidarit?? qui
d??passe la rh??torique d???habitude. Tout ??a signifie inventer une nouvelle carte des luttes, des 
nouveaux langages et grammatiques de mouvement : voil?? le d??fi de cette caravane. Justement pour cette
raison nous avons d??cid?? de partir et nous appelons tous les ??tudiants et les pr??caires d???Europe ??
faire pareil et ?? partir avec nous.

Unicommon
info: 2011caravan@...
*******
[Spanish version] Nosotros somos estudiantes, precarios, desempleados, jovenes que tienen la
malasuerte de ser ???demasiado calificados??? para buscar un empleo. Somos la ???generaci??n sin
futuro??? de una Europa en crisis, que no nos gusta y que queremos cambiar. Somos los estudiantes de Roma y
de Londres, que se fueron a la calle para volver a tomarse en sus manos su propio futuro. En estos meses hemos
aprendido mucho de los acontecimientos de Tunisia y de Egipto, acontecimientos que hemos seguido con
atenci??n , curiosidad y aprenci??n. Las luchas en el Magreb y en el Mashrek nos han cotidianamente
inspirado porque nos hemos reconocido en ?????? de una generaci??n que tienen unas esperas demasiado
ambiciosas para aquel futuro que los regimenes corruptos y los gobiernos en crisis nos of
 recen. En estos meses aprendimos que las luchas tunisinas y egiptianas son tambien las nuestras! 
Por esto queremos meternos en viaje y ir a Tunis para encontrar los protagonistas de las revueltas y
construir juntos una Europa diferente, que sepa cruzar el Mediterraneo: un nuevo espacio lleno de
proyectos y luchas comunes.
Romper las fronteras para inventar nuevas geograf??as, direcciones, y descubrir trazas nuevas: los
estudiantes de la red Unicommon ser??n a Tunis desde el 7 de abril de 2011, apoyando al proyecto Unidos para
la Libertad, una carovana que se ira hasta la frontera l??bica para llevar una ayuda a los que se fuyen de las
bombas y de los mercenarios, para decir ???no??? a cualquiera forma de guerra, que sea humanitaria o
menos. Desde Tunis, de hecho, iremos hacia el 
Campo de refugiados de Cita Benghardane, llevando con nosotros medicamientos y todo lo que puede servis a
una primera acogida, porqu?? la (fuga**) es un derecho, porqu?? escaparse de la guerra es siempre un acto
de coraje! 
Ser??n d??as intensos los que viviremos en Tunisia entre el 7 y el 12 de abril, para tejir nuevas relaciones,
aprender de los que han dado vida a las revueltas, demonstrando una solidaridad que vaya m??s all?? de la
ret??rica habitual. Todo eso significa inventar un nuevo mapa de las luchas, un idioma nuevo y una nueva
gram??tica del movimiento: aqu?? est?? el desaf??o de esta carovana. Para esto hemos decidido salir y
invitamos a todos las estudiantes, las precarias de Europa a hacer lo mismo y ponerse en viaje con nosotras.

Unicommon
info: 2011caravan@...
# distributed via : no commercial use without permission # is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, #
collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info:
http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact:
nettime@... 		 	   		  

"Data.gov & 7 Other Sites to Shut Down

Hi all,

I can't resist a good quote from Oh Brave New World:

'Art, Science- You seem to have paid a fairly high price for your
happiness', said the Savage, when they were alone. 'Anything else?'
'Well, religion, of course,' replied the Controller. 'There used to be
something called God -... Brave New World (Aldous Huxley)

We believe that influence is the ability to drive people to action --
"action" might be defined as a reply, a retweet, a comment, or a click. -
http://klout.com/

Announcer enters the stage: breaking news from the house of Power:  I am a
Rock, I am an Island

Bystander: Can you define power?

Street cleaner: The claim of states to rightfully assign arbitrary numbers
to people, animals and plants and lampposts wedded to the claim of
corporations to arbitrarily assign copyright and intellectual property
over simple blocks of data that were simple noise, freely booming loud to
all. Power is to hold the decision to decide what is data and what is
noise.
All power is temporary.

Announcer enters the stage: Well, this is the breaking news:

"Data.gov & 7 Other Sites to Shut Down
After Budgets Cut
By Marshall Kirkpatrick / March 31, 2011 2:45 PM / 30 Comments
Two years ago the incoming Obama administration launched a  number of
ambitious websites (http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives
/datagov_finally_launches_looks_nice_but_short_on_d.php) , most  notably
Data.gov (http://data.gov) , that were dedicated to offering public and 
government data to the outside world. The stated intention was to foster
transparency  and offer a platform for the development of new software and
services. It appears  those experiments may be over for now.  Today the
Sunlight Foundation (http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2011/03/31/budget-
 technopocalypse-deepens-transparency-sites-will-go-dark-in-a-few-months/)
and Federal  News Radio
(http://www.federalnewsradio.com/?nid=35&sid=2327798) reported that the 
public projects Data.gov, USASpending.gov, Apps.gov/now, IT Dashboard and 
paymentaccuracy.gov as well as a number of internal government sites
including  Performance.gov, FedSpace and many of the efforts related the
FEDRamp cloud  computing cybersecurity effort would be taken offline in
coming weeks due to budget  cuts by Congress. Perhaps things like
electronic government, software platforms and  public accountability were
just fads, anyway.

Update:. We're hearing from several places that there's a potentially
viable effort to  save these sites and organizations. Here
(http://bit.ly/i16ldO) is one perspective on that and you can also see the
Sunlight Foundation's Save the Data 
(http://sunlightfoundation.com/savethedata/) petition.  Data.gov & 7 Other
Sites to Shut Down After Budgets Cut
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/datagov_7_other_sites_... "

Chorus: So what are we looking at here?

"What we are looking at here is the decline of imperial powers which had
once stretched around the globe. In these circumstances, the inquisitorial
bureaucracy which we have observed, bedevilled by minutiae which by any
objective standards are meaningless, seems incomprehensible. Yet the
emphasis on the steady accumulation of pieces of paper betrays a mentality
unable to deal with the reality before it: the reality was of an empire
and society in precipitous decline: unable to face it, the inquisitorial
mentality took refuge in useless documents designed the honour and
nobility of the nation.

In such circumstances opinions which diverged from the chosen picture of
reality were unwelcome. The truth perhaps hurts most - and provokes most
anger in - those whose are increasingly distant from it. Thus in Spain in
particular the broad current of European though groping towards the
Enlightenment in the latter 17th century was unpalatable and had to be
prevented from polluting the nation. The movement of scientific enquiry,
raised on the shoulders of Bacon, Desc artes, Locke and Spinoza, was a
direct challenge to the inquisitorial world view. The Inquisition could
sense from afar that there was an ideology which could deal it a mortal
blow in a way that the conversos and the moriscis never had.

The Inquisition was right to be suspicious, for some of the more
importnant roots of this ideology did indeed penetrate back to the very
people whom the inquisitors had pursued remorselessly for so long, the
conversos. The development of the scientific world view was in fact deeply
connected with the waves of persecution which the Inquisition had first
unleashed in Spain at the end of the 15th century, 200 years before this
era of decline." (Green, Toby. Inquisition, Reign of Fear. Pan Books,
2008, p. 257)

Bystander: Oh my, I think you are a few hundred years off! ha ha

Street sweeper: After all, it is quite logical that these programs would
stop. At one point you run up against a wall when you ask for opening up
databases. At that moment you will hear that this particular kind of data
cannot be 'open' or 'disclosed'. After two years of opening up what can be
opened up according to 'officials' you seem to hit a glass wall. That wall
is 'state interest'. Then we ask: Hey but aren't we the state? Ah not
quite, it seems.

Just keep asking and the beast will eventually have to show itself.

Singer: (Van Morrison: paraphrasing:

You can take all that data from the USA
put it in a big brown bag for me
sail it right round these seven oceans
drop it straight into the deep blue sea

she's as sweet as Tupelo Honey
just like honey baby from the bee

you can't stop us on the road of freedom

and while you at it closing all your fences, leave the lights on in
Bradley Manning's cell and give him a good nights sleep

then go look for the bees

they are leaving

salut! Rob

Re: Japan – Fissures in the Planetary Apparatus

Don't know if this is appropriate to post here. No, I am not  
interested in getting into a protracted discussion about this. But  
every day we have to fend off this kind of crap, and I'm so sick of  
it. C'mon nettime. You want to do media criticism? How about  
critiquing the shitstorm of disinformation swarming the globe after  
3.11, rather than fostering it.

Sorry Stevphen. I beg to differ.

Three weeks ago, we in Japan were hit with an earthquake, and people  
along the eastern seaboard were hit by a tsunami that flooded an area  
six times the size of manhattan in a country the size of california.  
This dramatic event destroyed a lot of life, human and otherwise. But  
it didn't *mean* to do it. As awful of a tragedy as this was, this  
stuff has always happened in a country created at the merger of four  
tectonic plates.

What has been hard to stomach ever since been all of the drama queens  
trying to make this, and the consequential failures in uneventfully  
shutting down the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, all about  
themselves. There is not a "catastrophic situation arising" in Japan.  
There is not an "increasing number of losses and refugees" (there have  
not been diseases or fires that burned and created further  
casualties). Rather, assessing the full account of damages takes a  
certain amount of time, and the numbers have risen. We are coming to a  
grasp of the extent of what has gone wrong, and what can be done in  
the immediate, mid- and long-term. There is nothing ominous about  
this. Shit happens. It's full impact is not always known to its full  
extent. So? Some of us move directly towards doing what we can to  
alleviate the suffering of others, others go off into some delirious  
wet dream world in which all of their favorite conspiracies join into  
one. If something like this helps you deal with your own emotional  
state, fine. Everybody here has some level of PTSD. But please let's  
not confuse these things with reality. File "Fissures in the Planetary  
Apparatus" under poetry.

Time and again our mindshare, and the media-space is taken over by yet  
another person who somehow claims that the government is "veiling  
crucial information on the degree of radiation or calamitous condition  
of the reactors". The IAEA is on location. Experts and representatives  
of pretty much every nuclear research organization in the world are  
involved. Yet amazingly these Glen Beck-like figures still somehow  
claim to know something more... The experts are cautiously,  
constantly, reviewing and developing strategies, and contingencies. I  
don't know what world you live in, but in my day to day things do  
sometimes go wrong. People knew there was a big one coming, but they  
genuinely did not expect a 9.0. So things get out of hand. You try to  
keep a cool head, keep appraised of a changing situation, and do what  
you can about calibrating your short, mid- and long-term strategies  
for dealing with it. That's all they're doing. What are you doing,  
Stevphe?

A nuclear power policy is hopefully not something adopted in a moment,  
just as it is hopefully something not to be dropped in a moment. It's  
hard to imagine anyone with any sense of responsibility suddenly  
abandoning a decades old policy with no real alternative in the middle  
of a crisis. I would hope that a lot of very public deliberation about  
energy policy takes place once the current situation is under control.  
Can't imagine it not happening. But to do so now (or insist on that  
kind of discussion now) would be an irresponsible exploitation of the  
crisis.

There have been no blackouts of large sections of tokyo. In fact, of  
the 23 central wards, the only one with any kind of regular blackouts  
has been in Koto City, and the reason for their 90 minute outages has  
mostly to do with the fact that there are fewer major manufacturing  
centers in Koto-ku, and so it was decided on a more-or-less consensual  
basis that this is would be the logical place for that to happen.  
Otherwise, Greater Metropolitan Tokyo, all 36.7 million of us, have  
been amazingly resilient about cutting non-essential power, making a  
lot of other early estimates for blackouts completely unnecessary.  
Many factories had back-up caloric generators as a matter of policy.  
It's worse on the air, but business goes on, and all basic amenities  
are functioning. But given that this is the reality, it's hard to  
image how this could be construed as some kind of hostage taking  
promotion of nuclear power. How could you not know this? Are you even  
in Japan? Yes, a great number of foreigners abandoned Tokyo. Almost  
immediately. You can't blame anyone for doing whatever they see as  
necessary to protect their loved ones, but the lines were pretty  
clearly divided by nationality (7 of every 10 french persons in Japan  
left, for example), so one also imagines that the various information  
sources, and "common sense" at home had a lot to do with their  
communal, rather than individual, decisions to leave. People with  
access to Japanese information on-line (=who can read Japanese, and  
verify data for themselves), for example, tended to stick around.

The containment of stricken areas has been in accordance with  
international law and common sense. (Again, no, there is no  
"increasing" number of refugees. They don't multiply in the moonlight,  
you know.) The number of Self Defense Forces, massive or not, is as  
many as could be alloted to the task of helping these people out. I  
don't see the problem with trying to get as much logistical help into  
stricken areas as possible, and I find it beyond cynical to state that  
this is "mainly for driving the business as usual of the capitalist  
operations". What would you have them do? A lot of people, SDF and  
otherwise, are engaged in the business of getting these people warm  
and safe shelter and food, and yes, getting them back to the lives  
that they chose to live before the disaster, including doing jobs  
which make them self-sustaining, rather than living off of the good  
will of others. But you apparently have a problem with that.

I would say that yes, there probably is a concerted effort to avoid  
panic and give the impression that we're all pitching in to help each  
other in the media. Again. Your advice is that we do exactly what,  
now? Yes, the a national crisis necessarily will carry some sentiments  
of nationalism with it (one of the Tokyo mayoral candidates ran on a  
platform of "expel the foreigners", a slogan from the last days of  
Edo, and the Boshin wars, but he was roundly belittled in the media.  
We'll have the number of votes he received in a few days. That should  
be a good enough indication of nationalism, don't you think?), but  
those people are always around. I've seen no analysis that there is an  
increase in nationalist sentiment, or other aspects that could  
possibly be tied to the fascist themes of the 1930s. The tea party in  
america, for example, is far nastier to immigrants and women and  
teachers, etc. than what anyone here is saying or introducing into  
policy.

And finally, pardon my French, but *fuck you*. Japan is not an  
"accursed and confined archipelago". We have had a couple of very  
large natural disasters. That sucks, but we're getting on with things.  
We're currently in the middle of bad shut down of a nuclear power  
plant. Again, that sucks. But the only feral zombies running around  
tokyo eating people's brains are people like you, Stevphen. Most of us  
are busy with getting people out of harm's way and back to self- 
determined existences, and then will move on to public forums and the  
democratic development of clear-headed consensus about everything  
learned from the crisis and what to do next to make a better life for  
our children. The last thing we need is more drama queens creating a  
stigma around us and our lives so that they can feel self-important.  
Oh damn! I just wasted another :30 minutes on one of them.

Re: Critiquing the media shitstorm

I rarely post on nettime lately, but David D'Heilly's recent comments 
raised my attention. I have been critiquing the media shitstorm over the 
Fukushima nuclear plant this past two weeks, with a visual graphic of 
the spread of radiation.
The graphic and commentary on news reporting can be found here:
http://www.rchoetzlein.com/theory/?p=171

On of the greatest concerns, mentioned in the article, is the vastly 
different amounts of focus placed on radiation levels in the West versus 
East. In the US, minute amounts of radiation 2x above normal are 
reported as if they were an imminent threat. Meanwhile, Ibaraki 
prefecture lies outside the 20km evacuation zone but is receiving the 
equivalent of nuclear worker levels of radiation. Some perspective 
appears to be a difficult thing to maintain unless you're actually in 
the affected areas. Fortunately, these levels are gradually declining, 
but the media storm doesn't seem to be.

On 4/3/2011 8:13 AM, david d'heilly wrote:
> Don't know if this is appropriate to post here. No, I am not
> interested in getting into a protracted discussion about this. But
> every day we have to fend off this kind of crap, and I'm so sick of
> it. C'mon nettime. You want to do media criticism? How about
> critiquing the shitstorm of disinformation swarming the globe after
> 3.11, rather than fostering it.
>
> Sorry Stevphen. I beg to differ.

Re: Japan – Fissures in the Planetary Apparatus

hi,

i can second the sentiment david is talking about here.

as an expat from tokyo, ever since the 3:11 earthquake/tsunami happened, i have been busy, most of the time
against my own will, trying to calm down the people around me who have been swept into the mass media
hysteria in europe and america.  every time the hysteria happens, my impression is things get worse for
those who actually live in japan.

the hysteria was at its worst when the us nrc chairman g. b. jaczko publicly put forward his speculation on
reactor 4.  this created huge mass hysteria abroad; britain, for example, whose news up until then had been
much more sound than american counterparts, changed its attitude. this was followed by the british
embassy's sudden recommendation to its citizens to flee tokyo.  just a day before, the embassy had laid a
recommendation to its citizens that was in line with the policy of the japanese government.  now
everything changed.  the message was somehow clear : "do not trust the japanese government."

being abroad and having opportunities to check into japanese news and press conferences as well as bbc,
skynews, cnn, nbc, and swedish news,  i was shocked by the gap between the japanese news and the news outside
japan.  to my ears, the news abroad sounded much more emotional and panicky while the japanese news drily
concentrated on the facts, numbers, etc.  this despite the fact that many outside japan believed people in
japan were not being adequately informed. 

following all of this, i posted daily what i have heard on nhk on my fb wall just to show what kind of
information those in japan were receiving.  this seemed to have calmed down some, at least did away with the
impression japanese were being excluded from the crucial information about the fukushima daiichi
plant.  but now when it is clear  containment of the plant has not been as easy as it was first believed and high
radiation being detected around the plant, the hysteria started once again. and this time even with a
greater force.  not only the japanese authorities' but also IAEA's and WHO's integrity and credibility
are being questioned this time.  many anti-nuclear activists seem to try to grasp this opportunity for
their own agenda by forgetting the fact there are real people involve
 d here.

as david says here, we are all trying to get back to normal, even us who don't live in japan but have families
there.  i have earlier stopped following the news, trying to get on with my life - but friends in america and
sweden (where i live atm) keep sending me links to articles, etc., making it exceedingly difficult to do
just that, especially when some of the info described there are complete gibberish or misinformation.  

sachiko

Re: Japan – Fissures in the Planetary Apparatus

Hellos…

A quick response. First off, I am not an expert on Japan. I admit to 
knowing very little about Japan except for some things I have read here 
and there.

The message I sent, however, was not something I wrote but an 
announcement of a new site that Sabu Kohso and other have put together 
for the purposes translating materials coming from anarchist and 
autonomist social movements in Japan. They would be the "J-Fissures 
Editorial" folks, not me.

I'm honestly not in a good position to judge the accuracy of the claims 
made or ideas expressed in the site. But I can see a great deal of value 
in getting out in the information sphere kinds of social movement 
perspectives and voices that are not being heard within the drama 
clutter of the media spectacle.

So if you want to know what I'm doing (which was the question asked), 
it's simply conveying along information about a project that a comrade 
is carrying out that I thought seemed timely and interesting.

As for the questions you raise about the rhetorical approach pursued in 
the site, those are interesting questions, but ones that would be best 
posed to the folks who actually wrote them (i.e. not me).

Cheers
Stevphen

On 03/04/2011 02:13, david d'heilly wrote:

> Don't know if this is appropriate to post here. No, I am not
> interested in getting into a protracted discussion about this. But
> every day we have to fend off this kind of crap, and I'm so sick of
> it. C'mon nettime. You want to do media criticism? How about
> critiquing the shitstorm of disinformation swarming the globe after
> 3.11, rather than fostering it.
>
> Sorry Stevphen. I beg to differ.
 <...>

--

-- 
Stevphen Shukaitis
Autonomedia Editorial Collective
http://www.autonomedia.org
http://www.minorcompositions.info

"Autonomy is not a fixed, essential state. Like gender, autonomy is created through its performance, by
doing/becoming; it is a political practice. To become autonomous is to refuse authoritarian and
compulsory cultures of separation and hierarchy through embodied practices of welcoming
difference... Becoming autonomous is a political position for it thwarts the exclusions of proprietary
knowledge and jealous hoarding of resources, and replaces the social and economic hierarchies on which
these depend with a politics of skill exchange, welcome, and collaboration. Freely sharing these with
others creates a common wealth of knowledge and power that subverts the domination and hegemony of the
master’s rule." - subRosa Collective