tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939915290794973654.post4758040613540154149..comments2024-03-08T14:23:31.503-05:00Comments on A Puff of Absurdity: On ThinkingMarie Snyderhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13872774009526266579noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939915290794973654.post-89453349407369955552015-05-29T06:52:25.928-04:002015-05-29T06:52:25.928-04:00Yes, we need to run a D-Day strategy for every iss...Yes, we need to run a D-Day strategy for every issue. Some will get followed and intimidated, but if the waves continue relentlessly, it could work. But there's something stopping people. Something other than fear. I think it has to do with that managerial model that we've grown use to. <br /><br />I run a gender equity club, and yesterday they were outraged that a girl got sent home for short shorts that everyone wears (because it's what's sold these days). I suggested everyone wear short shorts tomorrow - like what happened in Toronto recently. They were convinced it would take a few weeks to organize something like that. I countered, just get on facebook and twitter and walk the halls talking it up and it could happen tomorrow! They looked at each other and shook their heads: no, they need more time. Time for what?? The time is now; just make it happen!! They say I don't understand, and I don't. At all. Marie Snyderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13872774009526266579noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939915290794973654.post-10867425909711785232015-05-29T02:28:52.864-04:002015-05-29T02:28:52.864-04:00Marie, we're talking about computers, not huma...Marie, we're talking about computers, not humans. The modern surveillance state is light years beyond the human-intelligence systems of the 40s, 50s and 60s. Their biggest choke point is the computer-human interface. The comps intercept and store far more data that, even with the best software, they can only scratch the surface for their masters. <br /><br />I long ago concluded that saving democracy will demand nothing less than numbers. We simply need to overwhelm them with numbers beyond their coping limit. They're already falling victim to their own prowess. Our cheapest, easiest and most promising route to defeating them isn't from running away but in running headlong toward. <br /><br />Take, for example, the Kinder Morgan security/intel crews prowling Burnaby Mountain for 'suspicious types' that may be opposed to the expansion of their pipeline. They don't have to distinguish between dissent and those who might actually seek to damage them. That line is irrelevant. It's enough to follow the person, get a licence plate number and, from that, a name and address. Hand that over to Harper's mutated RCMP and they'll pay a 'courtesy call' on the suspect, intimidate them with questions, let them know they're known and being watched. What democracy does that?<br /><br />The answer, however, is to have a hundred fresh students and dissenters go, each day, to the same location. Take cameras and plenty of photos. Simply overwhelm the Kinder Morgan/RCMP intimidation apparatus by sheer weight of numbers.<br /><br />We're going to need that very same approach on more problems than just bitumen pipelines. What I appreciated in Hedges is his lament that, while revolution of some sort is inevitable and imminent, the cure could be worse than the disease.<br /><br />We need change that doesn't leave chaos in its wake. Social licence is key to this. I should expand on this in a post but...The Mound of Soundhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09023839743772372922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939915290794973654.post-16054568157112320692015-05-28T18:44:13.965-04:002015-05-28T18:44:13.965-04:00Wow, Mound, that's shocking that your websites...Wow, Mound, that's shocking that your websites were taken! I still feel like I'm way too small to be noticed by anyone tracking insurgents. These are truly frightening times. But I feel like we're near the beginning of it all, and now is the time to rebel before too many have lost too many freedoms to act. But you're right that Trudeau and Mulcair have no solutions to this. We'll see if October just brings more of the same, or if we should gather our pitchforks and torches. <br /><br />Mulcair is holding a rally a block from my house in about 20 minutes. I'm staying home regardless. My kids are out getting me a six-pack right now, and my garden is far lovelier, and my children far better company than what I might find at the rally. Marie Snyderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13872774009526266579noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939915290794973654.post-23324965499835293872015-05-28T18:28:17.545-04:002015-05-28T18:28:17.545-04:00The gains take a while for people to realize, so t...The gains take a while for people to realize, so they're not sought often enough, I fear. Marie Snyderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13872774009526266579noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939915290794973654.post-25088839623255747022015-05-28T18:27:33.388-04:002015-05-28T18:27:33.388-04:00Thanks, Anon!Thanks, Anon!Marie Snyderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13872774009526266579noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939915290794973654.post-54710247503195123232015-05-28T13:41:21.663-04:002015-05-28T13:41:21.663-04:00Happy birthday, Marie. What you're describing...Happy birthday, Marie. What you're describing goes right to the top. Perhaps it's integral to neoliberalism - the triumph of technocrats and the demise of statesmen. Managers, administrators are all that's required for a regime founded on market fundamentalists. Statesmen, practitioners of diplomacy and vision, are anathema. We've become conditioned to this paltry standard for almost four decades now, ever since the Reagan/Thatcher/Mulroney era. Social safety nets are shredded, political and economic inequality prevail unchecked and actually facilitated by the political caste. The public, of necessity, becomes complacent, submissive in part the consequence of leaders who use fear and appeals to basest instincts against their own supporters.<br /><br />I doubt that our democracy can long survive the corrosive effects of this new order with its government by secrecy and manipulation, the modern surveillance state. Is it possible there's a computer out there that has logged your repeated reference to "Chris Hedges"? Have you advanced to some electronic watch list?<br /><br />Before I stopped monitoring my blog last year I was quite regularly visited by US Army intelligence, US Naval intelligence, Lockheed Martin and occasionally even the CIA. I finally realized there was nothing I could do except ignore it. I even had two Go-Daddy domains (thedisaffectedlib.com/disaffectedlib.com) until both were stolen and shut down. Go-Daddy said some guy named Ruiz from Kansas City, Missouri, notified them he'd purchased the domains from me. He even had the account identifiers and code that could only have been gotten by hacking into my computer. The company put the onus on me to prove that I hadn't sold these domains to Ruiz. There was nothing I could do. Having stolen my web sites, they were never used again under my domain names or any other. The sites were merely taken down and I had to retreat to BlogSpot. Kind of chilling.<br /><br />That, however, is the world in which we live and it demands a certain submissiveness of us. When Kinder Morgan can dispatch RCMP officers to interrogate (intimidate) anyone they don't like without any suggestion of wrongdoing much less criminal conduct we need to ask what we've become. The state is waging a campaign against law-abiding citizens and I don't hear Trudeau or Mulcair coming to our aid.The Mound of Soundhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09023839743772372922noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939915290794973654.post-88748574306854739082015-05-28T12:15:39.812-04:002015-05-28T12:15:39.812-04:00Happy Birthday! Thinking is the key to knowing yo...Happy Birthday! Thinking is the key to knowing you're alive. Non thinkers do not know they are alive, which is why they have a stong need to belong, protected by the herd. Thinkers are not afraid to stand alone on their own two intellectual feet.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07842215982128591742noreply@blogger.com