Blog Art! The Death of Email (or Death by Email)

Hi all…some radical thoughts on radicals,

Yer, this following stuff stresses me to no ends. How about CHOGM and how
the self-appointed ‘radicals’ are now planning to attack democratically
elected governments of some of the World’s poorest countries. Sure, I was
at S11, I backed the blockading of the WTO and I even supported the
activists are Genoa. But now they have lost the plot. Since when have the
grandmothers of the commonwealth been part of the global elite? Maybe in
1910. It was this institution that was the main cause that apartheid was
defeated in South Africa.

The WEF and the WTO are not democratically elected, but governments are.
They are representative, they are not corporations and to say that they are
is nihilistic stupidity, we should target the things beyond governments.
Australia was one of the few (or even only country) in the world that
through referendum actually voted to be a democracy. Sorry, I like
democracy, it has served us well.

It is not government and corporations that are the same thing, it is some
servile activists who are pawns in the global game plan. Many activists now
are just doing what the corporates want them to do, attack democratically
elected governments, be ‘deregulated’ citizens only out for them selves,
clocking Blair’s ‘Third Way’ politics in anarchist drag.

Many citizens are interested in the globalisation debate, problem is that
it has been hijacked by the Nike brownshirts, the hitler McYouth, the bored
undemocratic political margins who think that kicking the grandmothers at
CHOGM is somehow radical. The corporate elite want us to attack our
governments because they will ultimately profit from it. Since when has
being misinformed and targeting the wrong people been radical? Targeting
CHOGM is just a cynical attempt to keep the show on the road by a section
of bored activists that need a good spanking by their grand mothers. The
GDP of all the CHOGM countries is about the same as the US’s top 5
corporations, but these activist 60’s throw backs wouldn’t dare think about
attacking the real mutha country would they?
Rehashed American elite baby-boomer radicalism from the 60’s used to target
our own democratic institutions, this smells like imperialism to me.

radically yours,

I have a few thoughts on email lists, and email, and information, and too
much of all the above. I wonder just how ‘democratic’ the world will become
when everyone has email and everyone can publish? If everyone talks at
once, then no one can hear. There are already too many books, too many web
sites, and too many lists. Too much information means no time to think and
no time to think means no knowledge. Just cause someone publishes, does it
means that we all have too? This is the American individual view of
democracy. There are just so many assumptions being made about the Internet
and democracy that we need to sit down and have a glass of whiskey and
think about it. Sure, it doesn’t take a genius to ask who decides who
publishes, but it is also equally naive to assume that the free flow of
information is leading towards a more equitable existence. The opposite
true. The world is more unequal now than it has ever been in history,
perhaps 200: 1 from richest country to poorest country (say Switzerland and
Mozambique).
Now that I told you this (I am not a theorist so it is true, I have
evidence What are you going to do about it?

Information obesity is like hamburger obesity. It is American.

I tend to agree with your comments. It would be great to hear stories from
the dot.com world. I have a story from a friend who just got fired form a
job in Silicon Valley that I will forward to people individually if they
wish. Also, I tend to agree with more contributions apart from academic or
new-media arts. It would be great if other individuals could respond to
this discourse in their own voice because it all get a bit slippery
sometimes. Context is King and most of the problems that we as individuals
and citizens exist out side of the technology and the technology merely
replicates this. The only way to understand power and how power is used and
abused is to understand context.

I think that we need to define a few key issues, political issues and
power-contexts that we can depart to a broader public so that they can
challenge and engage with the world in which we live. Information rich and
information poor is not that helpful, we need to move beyond this. What is
information and why does it make you rich? What are we as the middle-class
political elite getting from this medium that makes us rich that our fellow
citizens at Footscray meat works aren’t?

Sovereignty in Australia (where equality is negotiated) is in decline and
it is partly our fault. Sorry, I don’t have my sovereignty meter on me, but
I am taking a punt here. Middle-class people have always hated Australia,
if they weren’t sucking up to the English they were sucking up to
west-coast libertarians. There is nothing new about this. There are two
Australias’ and this medium is merely replicating this. Quiet nationalism
is the enjoyment of lots of every-day people and it has served us well. If
we understand a few of the broad strokes that make up the set of ideas that
we call Australia, then we can understand this medium and our political
goals a little more. There is nothing global about the Internet, it is
American. Every bit of this medium reeks of Yankee propaganda. Yanks are
technically sophisticated and socially stupid. We need to civilize the
bastards and their Yankee technology.

I note that this list was started with a goal of building a critical
discourse in Australia about the Internet. But what does this mean in
reality? Don’t you have to at least like Australia first and a few of the
values and achievements of this nation-state? I am not sure about what
direction to go in, there are just so few people I trust who use this
medium and every one I seem to meet is a shonkey, self-serving cretin who
sold their soul to the devil and don’t even seem to know it. Just some
ideas, perhaps self-reflexive.