FionaK |
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| I don't disagree. I am not going to pretend that democracy is working at present: though it is not wholly lost either, at least I hope not. But I am not in favour of "something must be done: this is something: therefore this must be done"
There is some value in making plain the sheer level of dissent: it cannot be ignored when it is on this scale, and the front line defences have been breached. The powers that be cannot any longer present a vision which denies that dissent; or pretends it only a very small minority of malcontents and disturbed or disaffected people. That is progress.
There is also value in demonstrating that the dissent is not confined to one country; not predicated on national fecklessness or governmental recklessness: a second line of defence for the globalisers: for this is global too, though at different levels for now.
But having said that what more is there? I seem to have seen such footage before. Ordinary people facing police forces and/or armies. Unarmed and unorganised, they stand against trained and well equipped forces. The story we are told is that they never win. Obviously that is not true: that is a narrative which serves the existing rulers. But I think it is is true more often than not, sadly. In the end I think it is the poor and powerless who pay the price: if they riot they pay in blood: if they don't they pay in poverty. But always they die.
You seem to be excited by the technology which allows us to see this in almost real time: though that is not exactly new it is different in that the people themselves can show us rather than the more usual media channels: and that my be a qualititative difference: I think it probably is. You are keen on this as shown in your support for the shadow networks initiative: I am not sanguine about that, as you know.
But what I wonder is this: this technology is new and not yet fully controlled. At the same time I have been thinking about resistance when democracy fails. I have views about when it is legitimate to challenge the rule of law: and I think this may well be one of those times: certainly the people on the streets appear to think so: or at least are nearly there. The violent response will achieve its aim of suppressing dissent: or it will fail and the people will reject the rule of law.
But I seem to see only one form of rejection and it occurs to me that this very technology should give us scope for a new or different response. We have seen that tradional armies cannot win against guerilla armies supported by and embedded in the population. We have seen examples of passive resistance and of "terror", and it seems to me that this is what really worries the existing power. At present they are using it to keep us onside, and to further their ends for oil or hegemony. But it is a tool and it need not be theirs alone
What I am thinking about is what guerilla tactics divorced from violence can achieve: if we look to our masters it seems quite a lot. I am not techie: but they must make their deals through computers, and if they fail there are consequences for their systems: and we the people make them work. There are already "cyber attacks", so this idea is out there already. They do not seem to have much defence as yet: and I am sure that such tactics can be better organised and better targetted if we can develop a fuller understandng of how the system works. We have the means to do that too. For we are legion.
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