Tonight I was a guest (one of a mob, really) on the Vince in the Bay radio podcast, talking about the Jeremy Hammond plea deal that was announced today.I didn’t do too badly, considering I haven’t slept since Sunday. Once again I think how nice it is to talk with people who don’t jump out of their skins when you talk about the coming revolution. Although it’s doubtful some of the more conservative people I work with will be thrilled to the very core of their beings at some of what I said. Take a listen to me, Vince, Subverzo, allshiny, Andrew “Panda” Blake, ShadowDXS, FuxNet, Hammurabis Code, Nicole Powers, Neal Rauhauser, and shokufeyesib.
If you don’t know who Sabu is, this post isn’t going to clarify a single damn thing, except that you, my friend, do not want to be Sabu right now, or ever, really. And you certainly don’t want to have been Sabu during the Stratfor hack, because reasons.
If you don’t know who Jeremy Hammond is, allow me to refer you to this post and this article, and now that you’re all up to speed, I’d like to paste in here for posterity a post I made over on the completely impartial Julian Assange Fancier’s Guild.
I resent Sabu’s turning more than Lamo’s because Lamo never actually turned. He didn’t betray a movement that he’d been part of. He wasn’t One of Us, as it were. He’s said that politically we are complete opposites.
Sabu could have been a great man if he hadn’t ratted out his brothers-in-arms. I honestly don’t care about his children. I don’t. He did more harm to the world they’ll grow up in than can be conceived of. And god help me, but he really HAD IT; he had what it took to fire up tens of thousands of people and create an inspired force working for the cause of freedom. And he turned. I don’t care about his reasons: I’m sure they’re nice kids, but in a hundred years they’ll be dust just like all the rest of us. And if the US is still a prison state, it will be in part because of his failure of courage.
Let him explain that to those children he’s doomed to grow up in that state.
“#Dorner killed two civilians. But the State is making it about much more than that. This is a message about social control. #wakeup” L3ft-Libertarian
Mainstream media and the general public reacted with understandable consternation to the news that Anonymous, or at least parts of the famously fractious internet hive mind, adopted accused spree killer the now-late Christopher Dorner as a new icon, a rallying point if not a hero. Dorner, a former University football star, LAPD officer and Navy pilot, was on the run from the police and accused of killing three people when he died of a single, allegedly self-administered gunshot as police burned the cabin in which he was hiding to the ground. A million-dollar bounty had been put on his head, and in a contentious move the government authorized the use of drones to locate, if not assassinate, him, one of the first times drones have been used against American citizens on American soil.
“One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist.”
Jeremy Hammond
Dorner’s fame stems not primarily from his actions, but rather from his powerful manifesto shared on Facebook in which he stated his intention to kill as many police officers as he could, in what he said was revenge for institutionalized racism among the LAPD and the way he himself was victimized. His first two claimed victims, however, were guilty of nothing more than being related to an officer who had drawn his ire. Meanwhile, the LAPD seemed like a more-malevolent Keystone Kops, having failed to located Dorner, mistaking two little old ladies for the so-called “Chocolate Rambo” and firing on them.
At first glance, Dorner seems little different from many another political revenge killer, from Andrew Kehoe to George Sodini: above average intelligence, good training, strong work ethic, and a powerful moral center. A man, in short, with every reason to expect success in life, who nonetheless tragically failed at the goal closest to his heart, and snapped as a result. For Dorner, it was a career as an LAPD officer.
For Guy Fawkes, it was bringing about a Catholic revolution in Protestant England by blowing up Parliament.
Unlikely icons for any movement, however splintered and self-contradictory, but it is their very failure which makes them eligible for the role.
“Guy Fawkes, as far as Anon is concerned was chosen because he failed. Fight Club is much closer to Anon’s culture. If people wonder whether Anon supports Dorner (no, just the LAPD meltdown) because of Guy Fawkes, G.F. was always a joke. What’s clear here: the subtext. Drones, fear, Erin Burnett the shark jumping drone hawk, this is like with Kony: war mind games, the whole lot of it. We cut thru dog and Kony show early on. Same here. Dorner is LAPD’s karma. Guy Fawkes a failure.” Hectoring Hegemon
Anonymous’ public “face” was once a faceless stick figure cartoon known as Epic Fail Guy, a self-deprecating identifier for 4chan members, a group which at the time largely saw itself as basement dwelling wankers. But awesome basement-dwelling wankers. Anonymous emerged from 4chan, essentially evolving into its internet pranking arm. Not long after his creation, Epic Fail Guy stumbled across a Guy Fawkes mask, put it on, and the rest is history. Truly: English history.
Once OpChanology, the in-person protests against Scientology, was initiated in 2008, Anons needed a way to identify themselves as Anons while hiding their faces, and facelessness of the shiny green morph suit (another 4chan/Anon favorite) was not accessible to many people. The Guy Fawkes mask was chosen because, thanks to the anarchist (originally anti-Thatcherite) movie V for Vendetta, it was both affordable and ubiquitous worldwide. Revolutionary echoes handed down from Fawkes himself added to its appeal, as long as you didn’t look at the history too closely; however, the semiotics of the mask were actually directed at Scientology, intended to brand it a failure. Fawkes, after all, had to replace his gunpowder stock when the first stash deteriorated, failed in his attempt to get Spain to invade England or support his revolution, failed at this ultimate attempt to take out Parliament, and at last succeeded in killing himself. Score one for the revolutionary.
Instead of registering as a symbol of “Fail,” the heroic/outsider aspects of the mask were taken to heart by the public at large (who had no knowledge of 4chan’s history) and ultimately by Anonymous itself, which is not immune to the warm fuzzies given to our cultural icons. It’s better to be a lost, noble cause than a basement-dwelling wanker, no?
Remember: Epic Fail Guy = failure. Guy Fawkes = failure. Christopher Dorner?
A colleague and friend of Dorner’s was interviewed on KPFA’s Hard Knock Radio, and claimed the benefit of small-A anonymity, calling himself “Ben.” When asked why, he said, “I have an interest in raising my children. Someone might have an animus against me for speaking the truth, and that’s what I don’t want to happen.” And that is what Chris Dorner was talking about.
A new Facebook manifesto, written by former LAPD officer Joe Jones, has surfaced, and echoes many of the accusations of racism and nepotism that Dorner made. Jones, however, repeatedly stresses that taking lives is not the answer, is never the answer, and is clearly not about to “go rogue.” Respect for the rule of law is currently unfashionable, and is insufficiently controversial to make Jones a renegade hero, however much courage was involved in speaking out with honor about dishonorable truths.
Was anyone, ever, willing to put money on Dorner’s achieving the goals of his manifesto? To eliminate institutional racism in the United States, to retroactively win his police hearing, to clear his name, and yet to simultaneously die while killing as many LAPD officers as he could? Would he ever have been embraced, even conditionally, if people truly believed that there were any chance of his ultimate success? People prefer dead (or obviously doomed) martyrs to live, inconvenient revolutionaries. They are easier to incorporate into political narratives. They are less likely to repudiate their earlier beliefs.
They are simply more convenient.
Christopher Dorner the man had already passed into legend long before his mountain hideout was surrounded and burned.
“Whatever pre-planned responses you have established for a scenario like me, shelve it. Whatever contingency plan you have, shelve it. Whatever tertiary plan you’ve created, shelve it. I am a walking exigent circumstance with no OFF or reset button.
The only thing that changes policy and garners attention is death.”
Christopher Dorner
“The real story here is that methods of oppression by our corpos are now coming home. From PERF to drones, we. let. it. happen.” Hectoring Hegemons
But when it comes to what Hunter Thompson used to call the shitrain it’s always easier to watch a movie than to look in a mirror.
That’s what I like about Anonymous: yes, NYPA, but ask and ye shall (sometimes) receive. This started in a thread on the OpLulzcart page on Facebook, where some Anons were tossing around ideas for a new Free Anons video, to support those incarcerated. Lulzcart, for instance, needed several hundred dollars to get to court, stay in a hotel overnight, and get back, and he’s needed it every month since his arrest. Not easy, for somebody in Romania ten hours away from court. Free Anons also helps with bail, with lawyers, and with postcards and other forms of support, as we’ve mentioned previously, and has a store selling Anon-related gear where all proceeds go to support the incarcerated Anons.
So there I was, hanging out in the thread wishing I had mad video skillz, and I said I’d always wanted to make a vid out of Canadian band Soul Side In‘s cover of Pat Benatar‘s “Invincible,” which is a fantastic song. And the next thing you know:
LulzSec hero Jeremy Hammond had his bail hearing (denied) last week, and now the transcript has been uploaded to Issuu, so here it is. Sixty-five pages, but they seem to be mostly about half full, so it’s not as intimidating as it seems.
And here’s video from the press conference once it was revealed that the judge’s husband is a Stratfor client (Stratfor, as you may know, was allegedly hacked by LulzSec, a circumstance which may lend some skepticism to the concept of a fair and impartial trial).
raincoaster 