Bob Dylan - Bleeding Shadows
17 minutes ago
Thursday, 6 October 2011
The Future of West Bank Terrorism Is Jewish
I was having a conversation with my mother on Sunday. Like many American Jews of her generation, her politics are to my left on pretty much everything -- except Israel. We got to talking about the settlements in a future/hypothetical State of Palestine. She asked: Post-statehood, why can't Israel just tell the settlers that now they're citizens of Palestine? If you live on one side of the border, shouldn't you just be Israeli; and on the other side, you're Palestinian?
And I sympathize! Life should work like that. And to some extent, it will: both sides agree in principle to negotiated land swamps during final-border negotiations, in order to -- for the purposes of this conversation -- incorporate the biggest and most contiguous settlement blocs (Ma'ale Adumim, for instance) into Israel. Lots of settlers live in the West Bank because successive Israeli governments made it financially sensible to settle there, rather than out of an ideological project of preventing the State of Palestine from ever existing.
But here's why Israel really does have to uproot most of the settlements.
They are not ethnic separatists in a traditional sense. They don't merely believe that they ought to live in the political entity known as Israel -- actually, in many cases they don't recognize Israeli political authority. They believe they must live in the West Bank for religious purposes. And their premiere political project is to stop the West Bank from falling under Palestinian sovereignty. Failing that, their premiere political project will be to roll that Palestinian sovereignty back. The only way to do that is the way that Palestinians have tried for decades on Israel: terrorism.
What Israelis, Palestinians, Americans and all other interested parties need to consider is what happens after the first incidents of Jewish terrorism inside the State of Palestine. Palestine will need to retaliate, as any state does. You can imagine a Palestinian defense or interior minister even picking a deliberately provocative title for an operation to uproot Jewish terror cells, like, say, Operation Defensive Shield. You can also imagine what will be on the minds of those Palestinian security forces: payback.
Suddenly we can imagine televised images of Palestinian cops in riot gear and soldiers in armor attacking people who look like -- and, probably, in many cases, are -- Jewish civilians. Women and children. The pressure on any Israeli government to retaliate will be overwhelming. The race to the violent bottom will accelerate.
Uprooting settlements will be emotionally wrenching work. We know this because the IDF already does it. And for its efforts, the settlers vilify the IDF; they also infiltrate it in the hopes of preventing settlement destruction. There will be many cries about making this-or-that part of the West Bank "Judenrein," designed for maximum emotional resonance. (It's been a standard settler tactic for decades.) But outside of incorporating select settlements into Israel through negotiated land swaps, the alternative is a continuation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after a (hypothetical) final status deal.
*When I was younger, my father had an apartment on Avenue J in Brooklyn's Midwood neighborhood. It's one of the commercial hearts of a rather, ah, conservative part of Jewish Brooklyn -- during the Second Intifada, you could see wheatpasted posters of Meir Kahane on streetlamps and the sides of buildings. When we'd go to get sandwiches at the deli, we'd see tzedakeh (charity) boxes on the counters. The small placards accompanying the boxes had pictures of snarling dogs. Their legends advertised that donations were needed to help our fellow Jews in Judea and Samaria defend themselves against the Arabs.
"Huh," I remember once saying to my dad after we left the deli, "so they buy Rottweilers for the settlers?"
"Are you kidding me?" he responded. "That's to buy them AK-47s."
Spencer Ackerman @'Attackerman'
And I sympathize! Life should work like that. And to some extent, it will: both sides agree in principle to negotiated land swamps during final-border negotiations, in order to -- for the purposes of this conversation -- incorporate the biggest and most contiguous settlement blocs (Ma'ale Adumim, for instance) into Israel. Lots of settlers live in the West Bank because successive Israeli governments made it financially sensible to settle there, rather than out of an ideological project of preventing the State of Palestine from ever existing.
But here's why Israel really does have to uproot most of the settlements.
After setting the fire in the early-morning hours, vandals spray-painted the words "revenge" and "price tag" on the walls of the mosque in the Bedouin village of Tuba-Zangaria.Monday's mosque attack didn't happen in the West Bank. It happened in northern Israel. But what's happening there is a lagging indicator of what's happening in the West Bank. So says the Shin Bet. This is from a September 13 Ha'aretz piece:
Similar messages have been left in the West Bank, where attackers have burned mosques, cars belonging to Palestinians and olive trees. They have also vandalized an Israeli army base and the Jerusalem home of an Israeli anti-settlement activist.
Extreme right-wing Jewish activists in the West Bank have moved from spontaneous acts against Arabs -- following the demolition of Jewish homes by Israeli authorities, or terror attacks against Jews -- to organized planning that includes use of a database of potential targets, according to new analysis by the Shin Bet security service.This is a potential future, if the IDF and Israeli intelligence do not treat these settlers like they do Palestinian terrorists: imagine a Palestinian state that incorporates thousands of Israeli settlers as part of a final-status deal. Suddenly, the State of Palestine includes among its citizenry lots of wealthy, ethnically separate people who live in enclaves and stockpile weapons*. Unless Palestine bulldozes lots of access roads, they will have access to numerous transit routes.
The small groups of Jewish extremists are difficult to infiltrate and carry out surveillance on Arab villages and collect information about access points and escape routes in the villages. They are also collecting information about left-wing Israeli activists.
They are not ethnic separatists in a traditional sense. They don't merely believe that they ought to live in the political entity known as Israel -- actually, in many cases they don't recognize Israeli political authority. They believe they must live in the West Bank for religious purposes. And their premiere political project is to stop the West Bank from falling under Palestinian sovereignty. Failing that, their premiere political project will be to roll that Palestinian sovereignty back. The only way to do that is the way that Palestinians have tried for decades on Israel: terrorism.
What Israelis, Palestinians, Americans and all other interested parties need to consider is what happens after the first incidents of Jewish terrorism inside the State of Palestine. Palestine will need to retaliate, as any state does. You can imagine a Palestinian defense or interior minister even picking a deliberately provocative title for an operation to uproot Jewish terror cells, like, say, Operation Defensive Shield. You can also imagine what will be on the minds of those Palestinian security forces: payback.
Suddenly we can imagine televised images of Palestinian cops in riot gear and soldiers in armor attacking people who look like -- and, probably, in many cases, are -- Jewish civilians. Women and children. The pressure on any Israeli government to retaliate will be overwhelming. The race to the violent bottom will accelerate.
Uprooting settlements will be emotionally wrenching work. We know this because the IDF already does it. And for its efforts, the settlers vilify the IDF; they also infiltrate it in the hopes of preventing settlement destruction. There will be many cries about making this-or-that part of the West Bank "Judenrein," designed for maximum emotional resonance. (It's been a standard settler tactic for decades.) But outside of incorporating select settlements into Israel through negotiated land swaps, the alternative is a continuation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict after a (hypothetical) final status deal.
*When I was younger, my father had an apartment on Avenue J in Brooklyn's Midwood neighborhood. It's one of the commercial hearts of a rather, ah, conservative part of Jewish Brooklyn -- during the Second Intifada, you could see wheatpasted posters of Meir Kahane on streetlamps and the sides of buildings. When we'd go to get sandwiches at the deli, we'd see tzedakeh (charity) boxes on the counters. The small placards accompanying the boxes had pictures of snarling dogs. Their legends advertised that donations were needed to help our fellow Jews in Judea and Samaria defend themselves against the Arabs.
"Huh," I remember once saying to my dad after we left the deli, "so they buy Rottweilers for the settlers?"
"Are you kidding me?" he responded. "That's to buy them AK-47s."
Spencer Ackerman @'Attackerman'
Wednesday, 5 October 2011
Slow Scan to Moscow (1986)
Joel Schatz has wire-rimmed glasses and an Old Testament-sized beard. A big head of curly black hair flecked with gray adds a few extra inches to his sixfoot-two frame. "This trip we're about to take," he says enthusiastically, "is so important that I've even gotten a haircut." Its effects are not noticeable.
Joel is sitting in the study of his San Francisco apartment, where most of the furniture consists of pillows on the floor. The largest thing in sight is an enormous reflector telescope, which can be pivoted around on its pedestal and aimed out a high window, Joel explains, "to remind me of my place in the cosmos. We're all voyagers out there.
"If I had millions of dollars I'd build neighborhood observatories all over the world. And at each one I'd have good conga drums, so people could drum together as well as observe."
The object of Joel's attention at this moment, however, as it is much of the time, is his four-pound, briefcase-size Radio Shack Tandy Model 100 portable computer. "I bought this machine for $399. For $1.82 a minute - $1.82! - I can send a telex message to Moscow. This technology is going to revolutionize human communications! Think what it will mean when you can get thousands of Americans and Soviets on the same computer network. Once scientists in both countries begin talking to each other on these machines they won't be able to stop. And we'll be taking a running leap over the governments on both sides.
"I'm not a scientist," Joel adds. "I've only owned a computer for four months. I don't understand how they work. I'll leave that to other people. I'm just interested in how they can improve communication on this planet."
Joel has already made three trips to Russia in the last year and a half to work on two types of U.S.-Soviet electronic exchanges. One has been large screen two-way TV broadcasts, known as "space-bridges." The other has been a link between a Moscow apartment and a southern California radio studio, in which an odd assortment of people ranging from TV mogul Ted Turner and an Oakland, California, fireman to poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko and a Moscow faith healer have talked to one another live, over U.S. and Canadian radio stations. In a few days, Joel is leaving for Moscow again. Intrigued by the novelty of his various missions, I have invited myself along. A day or two before our departure, I stop in at Joel's apartment again, and find him staring at the display screen of the Radio Shack computer. He is stumped by the latest message to appear in his "electronic mailbox": LOOKING FORWARD TO SEEING YOU. PLEASE BRING SLOW-SCAN TV EQUIPMENT AND TECHNICIAN.
"Slow-scan television!" says Joel. "Jesus! Where are we going to get one of those!"
Slow-scan television is an inexpensive technology that has been used by American scientists for 20 years or so. Basically it allows you to send a still picture over a telephone line. This means you can send visual images long distances without buying time on a space satellite, which costs thousands of dollars an hour.
"Well," Joel scratches his head, "if they want slow-scan, we better give them slow-scan. "
During the next day Joel arranges for the loan of a slow-scan from a Colorado manufacturer who is interested in world peace (and would also doubtless like to sell some of his machines to the Soviet Union). The manufacturer assures him that the equipment is simple to operate, and that all the instructions are in the box.
"If the Soviets want a technician," says Joel, "we're going to have to bring him in by TV.
The slow-scan apparatus is sealed in a waist-high cardboard carton. We are to change planes in London, but at the San Francisco airport, Joel checks the box directly through to Moscow. He then squeezes into a phone booth, connects his Radio Shack computer to the receiver, and dials his electronic mailbox to check for messages one last time before we leave the country. On the flight to England I ask Joel, who is 48 years old, about his life before he started doing U.S.- Soviet electronic exchanges...
Joel is sitting in the study of his San Francisco apartment, where most of the furniture consists of pillows on the floor. The largest thing in sight is an enormous reflector telescope, which can be pivoted around on its pedestal and aimed out a high window, Joel explains, "to remind me of my place in the cosmos. We're all voyagers out there.
"If I had millions of dollars I'd build neighborhood observatories all over the world. And at each one I'd have good conga drums, so people could drum together as well as observe."
The object of Joel's attention at this moment, however, as it is much of the time, is his four-pound, briefcase-size Radio Shack Tandy Model 100 portable computer. "I bought this machine for $399. For $1.82 a minute - $1.82! - I can send a telex message to Moscow. This technology is going to revolutionize human communications! Think what it will mean when you can get thousands of Americans and Soviets on the same computer network. Once scientists in both countries begin talking to each other on these machines they won't be able to stop. And we'll be taking a running leap over the governments on both sides.
"I'm not a scientist," Joel adds. "I've only owned a computer for four months. I don't understand how they work. I'll leave that to other people. I'm just interested in how they can improve communication on this planet."
Joel has already made three trips to Russia in the last year and a half to work on two types of U.S.-Soviet electronic exchanges. One has been large screen two-way TV broadcasts, known as "space-bridges." The other has been a link between a Moscow apartment and a southern California radio studio, in which an odd assortment of people ranging from TV mogul Ted Turner and an Oakland, California, fireman to poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko and a Moscow faith healer have talked to one another live, over U.S. and Canadian radio stations. In a few days, Joel is leaving for Moscow again. Intrigued by the novelty of his various missions, I have invited myself along. A day or two before our departure, I stop in at Joel's apartment again, and find him staring at the display screen of the Radio Shack computer. He is stumped by the latest message to appear in his "electronic mailbox": LOOKING FORWARD TO SEEING YOU. PLEASE BRING SLOW-SCAN TV EQUIPMENT AND TECHNICIAN.
"Slow-scan television!" says Joel. "Jesus! Where are we going to get one of those!"
Slow-scan television is an inexpensive technology that has been used by American scientists for 20 years or so. Basically it allows you to send a still picture over a telephone line. This means you can send visual images long distances without buying time on a space satellite, which costs thousands of dollars an hour.
"Well," Joel scratches his head, "if they want slow-scan, we better give them slow-scan. "
During the next day Joel arranges for the loan of a slow-scan from a Colorado manufacturer who is interested in world peace (and would also doubtless like to sell some of his machines to the Soviet Union). The manufacturer assures him that the equipment is simple to operate, and that all the instructions are in the box.
"If the Soviets want a technician," says Joel, "we're going to have to bring him in by TV.
The slow-scan apparatus is sealed in a waist-high cardboard carton. We are to change planes in London, but at the San Francisco airport, Joel checks the box directly through to Moscow. He then squeezes into a phone booth, connects his Radio Shack computer to the receiver, and dials his electronic mailbox to check for messages one last time before we leave the country. On the flight to England I ask Joel, who is 48 years old, about his life before he started doing U.S.- Soviet electronic exchanges...
Continue reading
Adam Hochschild @'MotherJones'
Former Mossad chief: Iran far from achieving nuclear bomb
Former Mossad chief Meir Dagan said Monday that a military strike on Iran was "far from being Israel's preferred option," telling the Council for Peace and Security that "there are currently tools and methods that are much more effective."
Dagan also said Iran's nuclear program was still far from the point of no return, and that Iran's situation is "the most problematic it has been in since the revolution" in 1979.
But Israel's strategic situation is also "the worst in its history," he warned, adding that Israel itself has contributed a lot to this deterioration. As an example, he cited Deputy
Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon's decision to humiliate the Turkish ambassador last year by demonstratively seating him on a low chair.
Dagan made his remarks on the same day that visiting U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta passed on a clear message from his boss in Washington: The United States opposes any Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.
At a joint press conference with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Panetta stressed that any steps against Iran's nuclear program must be taken in coordination with the international community.
The United States, he said, is "very concerned, and we will work together to do whatever is necessary" to keep Iran from posing "a threat to this region." But doing so "depends on the countries working together," he added.
He repeated the word "together" several times in this context.
Panetta cited Iran's nuclear program as number one on the list of issues he had discussed with Barak. He voiced concern not only about the nuclear program, but also about Iran's support for terror, its efforts to undermine regional stability and the fact that it had supplied weapons that were used to kill American soldiers.
At the press conference, which took place at Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv, Panetta also stressed America's deep commitment to Israel's security.
His message for Barak, at their second meeting in two weeks, appeared to be simultaneously embrace and restrain: America is standing by Israel, but an uncoordinated Israeli strike on Iran could spark a regional war. The United States will work to defend Israel, but Israel must behave responsibly.
Washington has been worried by statements various senior Israeli officials have made recently that seemed to take an aggressive line on Iran. The issue has taken on new urgency because, in the view of many Western military experts, the window of opportunity for an aerial assault on Iran will close within two months.
In normal winter weather conditions, it would be very difficult to carry out such a complex assault.
During his visit, Panetta also urged Israel to conduct negotiations on a two-state solution with the Palestinian Authority. Earlier, in a conversation with American journalists on the flight over, he had warned that Israel was suffering regional isolation following the crises in its relations with Turkey and Egypt.
Asked by reporters why the United States refuses to free Jonathan Pollard, who is serving a life sentence for spying on Israel's behalf, Panetta replied merely that there is much opposition to freeing Pollard from within the administration, given the serious crimes of which he was convicted. Consequently, he said, U.S. President Barack Obama "and others" have made it clear that it won't happen.
Panetta also met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as with senior PA officials in Ramallah. He made his way Tuesday to Egypt, where, according to reports in the Arab media, he will also discuss the release of Israeli-American Ilan Grapel, who was arrested a few months ago on suspicion of espionage.
Amos Harel @'Haaretz'
Dagan also said Iran's nuclear program was still far from the point of no return, and that Iran's situation is "the most problematic it has been in since the revolution" in 1979.
But Israel's strategic situation is also "the worst in its history," he warned, adding that Israel itself has contributed a lot to this deterioration. As an example, he cited Deputy
Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon's decision to humiliate the Turkish ambassador last year by demonstratively seating him on a low chair.
Dagan made his remarks on the same day that visiting U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta passed on a clear message from his boss in Washington: The United States opposes any Israeli attack on Iran's nuclear facilities.
At a joint press conference with Defense Minister Ehud Barak, Panetta stressed that any steps against Iran's nuclear program must be taken in coordination with the international community.
The United States, he said, is "very concerned, and we will work together to do whatever is necessary" to keep Iran from posing "a threat to this region." But doing so "depends on the countries working together," he added.
He repeated the word "together" several times in this context.
Panetta cited Iran's nuclear program as number one on the list of issues he had discussed with Barak. He voiced concern not only about the nuclear program, but also about Iran's support for terror, its efforts to undermine regional stability and the fact that it had supplied weapons that were used to kill American soldiers.
At the press conference, which took place at Defense Ministry headquarters in Tel Aviv, Panetta also stressed America's deep commitment to Israel's security.
His message for Barak, at their second meeting in two weeks, appeared to be simultaneously embrace and restrain: America is standing by Israel, but an uncoordinated Israeli strike on Iran could spark a regional war. The United States will work to defend Israel, but Israel must behave responsibly.
Washington has been worried by statements various senior Israeli officials have made recently that seemed to take an aggressive line on Iran. The issue has taken on new urgency because, in the view of many Western military experts, the window of opportunity for an aerial assault on Iran will close within two months.
In normal winter weather conditions, it would be very difficult to carry out such a complex assault.
During his visit, Panetta also urged Israel to conduct negotiations on a two-state solution with the Palestinian Authority. Earlier, in a conversation with American journalists on the flight over, he had warned that Israel was suffering regional isolation following the crises in its relations with Turkey and Egypt.
Asked by reporters why the United States refuses to free Jonathan Pollard, who is serving a life sentence for spying on Israel's behalf, Panetta replied merely that there is much opposition to freeing Pollard from within the administration, given the serious crimes of which he was convicted. Consequently, he said, U.S. President Barack Obama "and others" have made it clear that it won't happen.
Panetta also met with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as with senior PA officials in Ramallah. He made his way Tuesday to Egypt, where, according to reports in the Arab media, he will also discuss the release of Israeli-American Ilan Grapel, who was arrested a few months ago on suspicion of espionage.
Amos Harel @'Haaretz'
Occupy Wall Street’s Web Team Finds Anarchy Ain’t Easy
“Hi, everyone. I’m Drew. With the Internet.”
It’s midway through the General Assembly down at Occupy Wall Street. Radiohead failed to show up and overrun the revolution, but the park is still packed. Two rows of people behind me echo Drew’s words – “with the internet” – serving as a human mic, as cops have forbidden the protestors the use of amplified sound. Liberty Plaza is allowed a generator, which runs the laptop and webcam that’s livestreaming the Assembly.
Now that he’s been introduced, Drew continues for us and the cameras, pausing after each few words to give the human mic a chance to keep up: “Right now. Our website. Is having some problems. If you know how to fix those kinds of things. Come find me. After the GA.” The General Assembly crowd is thick, and as soon as he’s done speaking, Drew is lost within it. One night he gives his report back on the Internet Committee while wearing a hideous holiday-inspired sweater, so he’s easier for potential volunteers to spot.
For a protest movement born of the internet, Occupy Wall Street’s technical situation is at times precarious. There are always three or four people hunched over laptops at the center of the camp, circled by cables, hard drives, and on occasion, fresh netbook boxes. If the rain is pelting down, they’re still there working with umbrellas drawn over their faces and keyboards, posting meeting minutes, tending to blog comments, and archiving massive amounts of video. But for the first few days, Occupy Wall Street didn’t even have their own internet connection in the park. Anonymous reportedly hooked them up with a little wifi to tide them over until hotspots were deployed.
It was through Anonymous that Brian, one of the guys who’s now holding down the internal online communications, first found out about the occupation. Almost immediately, he started hitch-hiking here from Washington state, and a month later, he arrived at Liberty Plaza, where he’s been staying for the last eight days.
Brian served in the Marine Corps, he tells me, and he’s skilled in “security and strategic tactics.” On Sunday night, when we meet, he has an earpiece dangling from his neck and his plastic poncho covers a bulky backpack. He and Drew have convened an internet committee meeting just off-site at a friendly bar. They both sit at what ends up being the head of the table. Like others who speak up here, they don’t want to be seen as leaders, even if they hold the WordPress login info.
Who controls the Occupy Wall Street web presence, at this point, probably doesn’t matter. Even if the official website, which is nycga.net, was hit by a denial of service attack, the protest still occupies enough hashtags, twitpics and YouTube videos to get the message out. The idea is, if you don’t rely on a single gatekeeper, you also don’t have one person bearing all the vulnerability — which mostly works.
On Saturday, when news arrived at the park that hundreds of protestors faced imminent arrest on the Brooklyn Bridge, a member of the media team asked any of us who held a phone with a video camera to install an app on the fly and head down to the bridge to bear witness by livestreaming it. The work of monitoring potential arrests was now shared among the few dozen of us who made our way to the bridge, tapping through unfamiliar and seemingly unending sign-up screens as we hustled towards a potentially volatile confrontation.
The next night, when I ended up at Brian and Drew’s internet meeting, the group is far more racially and gender diverse than your everyday New York internet event, but the white dudes still dominate the conversation. One guy’s suggestion that we promote a Twitter hashtag to ask for material donations to the camp is met with pushback from another guy who wants us to abandon “corporate tools” for a custom Drupal solution developed by the occupation’s Open Source team. It’s kind of charming: instead of the usual circular debate on the minutiae of different strands of anarchist thought, these guys are having it out over GPL licenses and RSS scraping. Meanwhile, online supporters across the country and the world just want to know how to send us socks and pizza.
Chris, who’s been at the park for five days, joined the internet committee after the mass arrests on Saturday, as he watched people on the Occupy Wall Street Facebook page – which is not officially administered by the occupiers – freak out when updates stopped coming. “They thought we’d been removed from the park,” he says. In reality, it was just a glitch with the official Occupy Wall Street site, which cross-posts to Facebook.
Late that night after the meeting, Julie, a 21 year old New York University student from Harlem, launches a Tumblr to aggregate firsthand stories from occupiers. She’s studying globalization, which took her to London last winter, just as the student occupation against budget cuts took hold. What she’d been studying in the classroom –the Egyptian and Syrian uprisings – was now playing out in the streets below. “So over the weekend,” she says, “when I saw there had been over 800 arrests, I knew I had to come down and try to help.”
Still, that we connected at all in the park is mostly an accident. “Yesterday I just came down to the media table and asked if I could get more involved,” says Julie. “The internet meeting was the one happening next.”
As we talk at the perimeter of the media table, we notice a guy next to us with a clapperboard and another guy holding a shotgun mic. One mentions an internship he had at Comedy Central.
“Who are you guys shooting with?” Chris asks them.
“For the website, I think,” the former intern says.
“You know, we’re working on that,” Chris replies. “We should exchange information.”
Melissa Gira Grant @'BetaBeat'
It’s midway through the General Assembly down at Occupy Wall Street. Radiohead failed to show up and overrun the revolution, but the park is still packed. Two rows of people behind me echo Drew’s words – “with the internet” – serving as a human mic, as cops have forbidden the protestors the use of amplified sound. Liberty Plaza is allowed a generator, which runs the laptop and webcam that’s livestreaming the Assembly.
Now that he’s been introduced, Drew continues for us and the cameras, pausing after each few words to give the human mic a chance to keep up: “Right now. Our website. Is having some problems. If you know how to fix those kinds of things. Come find me. After the GA.” The General Assembly crowd is thick, and as soon as he’s done speaking, Drew is lost within it. One night he gives his report back on the Internet Committee while wearing a hideous holiday-inspired sweater, so he’s easier for potential volunteers to spot.
For a protest movement born of the internet, Occupy Wall Street’s technical situation is at times precarious. There are always three or four people hunched over laptops at the center of the camp, circled by cables, hard drives, and on occasion, fresh netbook boxes. If the rain is pelting down, they’re still there working with umbrellas drawn over their faces and keyboards, posting meeting minutes, tending to blog comments, and archiving massive amounts of video. But for the first few days, Occupy Wall Street didn’t even have their own internet connection in the park. Anonymous reportedly hooked them up with a little wifi to tide them over until hotspots were deployed.
It was through Anonymous that Brian, one of the guys who’s now holding down the internal online communications, first found out about the occupation. Almost immediately, he started hitch-hiking here from Washington state, and a month later, he arrived at Liberty Plaza, where he’s been staying for the last eight days.
Brian served in the Marine Corps, he tells me, and he’s skilled in “security and strategic tactics.” On Sunday night, when we meet, he has an earpiece dangling from his neck and his plastic poncho covers a bulky backpack. He and Drew have convened an internet committee meeting just off-site at a friendly bar. They both sit at what ends up being the head of the table. Like others who speak up here, they don’t want to be seen as leaders, even if they hold the WordPress login info.
Who controls the Occupy Wall Street web presence, at this point, probably doesn’t matter. Even if the official website, which is nycga.net, was hit by a denial of service attack, the protest still occupies enough hashtags, twitpics and YouTube videos to get the message out. The idea is, if you don’t rely on a single gatekeeper, you also don’t have one person bearing all the vulnerability — which mostly works.
On Saturday, when news arrived at the park that hundreds of protestors faced imminent arrest on the Brooklyn Bridge, a member of the media team asked any of us who held a phone with a video camera to install an app on the fly and head down to the bridge to bear witness by livestreaming it. The work of monitoring potential arrests was now shared among the few dozen of us who made our way to the bridge, tapping through unfamiliar and seemingly unending sign-up screens as we hustled towards a potentially volatile confrontation.
The next night, when I ended up at Brian and Drew’s internet meeting, the group is far more racially and gender diverse than your everyday New York internet event, but the white dudes still dominate the conversation. One guy’s suggestion that we promote a Twitter hashtag to ask for material donations to the camp is met with pushback from another guy who wants us to abandon “corporate tools” for a custom Drupal solution developed by the occupation’s Open Source team. It’s kind of charming: instead of the usual circular debate on the minutiae of different strands of anarchist thought, these guys are having it out over GPL licenses and RSS scraping. Meanwhile, online supporters across the country and the world just want to know how to send us socks and pizza.
Chris, who’s been at the park for five days, joined the internet committee after the mass arrests on Saturday, as he watched people on the Occupy Wall Street Facebook page – which is not officially administered by the occupiers – freak out when updates stopped coming. “They thought we’d been removed from the park,” he says. In reality, it was just a glitch with the official Occupy Wall Street site, which cross-posts to Facebook.
Late that night after the meeting, Julie, a 21 year old New York University student from Harlem, launches a Tumblr to aggregate firsthand stories from occupiers. She’s studying globalization, which took her to London last winter, just as the student occupation against budget cuts took hold. What she’d been studying in the classroom –the Egyptian and Syrian uprisings – was now playing out in the streets below. “So over the weekend,” she says, “when I saw there had been over 800 arrests, I knew I had to come down and try to help.”
Still, that we connected at all in the park is mostly an accident. “Yesterday I just came down to the media table and asked if I could get more involved,” says Julie. “The internet meeting was the one happening next.”
As we talk at the perimeter of the media table, we notice a guy next to us with a clapperboard and another guy holding a shotgun mic. One mentions an internship he had at Comedy Central.
“Who are you guys shooting with?” Chris asks them.
“For the website, I think,” the former intern says.
“You know, we’re working on that,” Chris replies. “We should exchange information.”
Melissa Gira Grant @'BetaBeat'
Panel discussion: 100 Fanzines/10 Years of British Punk: 1976 - 1985
PUNKCAST1953-02 Panel discussion: '100 Fanzines/10 Years of British Punk: 1976-1985', associated with the We Are The Writing On The Wall exhibit at The NY Art Book Fair, MoMA PS1, Long Island City, NYC on Oct 1 2011
Panel
Toby Mott
Victor Brand
Michael Gonzales
Moderator:
Vivien Goldman
(Thanx Joly!)
Panel
Toby Mott
Victor Brand
Michael Gonzales
Moderator:
Vivien Goldman
(Thanx Joly!)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
