
An open letter to the media, by Anonymous - r0h1n
http://pastebin.com/sK6Zi3EM
======
detcader
The following quote is relevant here:

“WOULD ANY SANE PERSON think dumpster diving would have stopped Hitler, or
that composting would have ended slavery or brought about the eight-hour
workday, or that chopping wood and carrying water would have gotten people out
of Tsarist prisons, or that dancing naked around a fire would have helped put
in place the Voting Rights Act of 1957 or the Civil Rights Act of 1964? Then
why now, with all the world at stake, do so many people retreat into these
entirely personal “solutions”? Part of the problem is that we’ve been victims
of a campaign of systematic misdirection. Consumer culture and the capitalist
mindset have taught us to substitute acts of personal consumption (or
enlightenment) for organized political resistance. An Inconvenient Truth
helped raise consciousness about global warming. But did you notice that all
of the solutions presented had to do with personal consumption—changing light
bulbs, inflating tires, driving half as much—and had nothing to do with
shifting power away from corporations, or stopping the growth economy that is
destroying the planet? Even if every person in the United States did
everything the movie suggested, U.S. carbon emissions would fall by only 22
percent. Scientific consensus is that emissions must be reduced by at least 75
percent worldwide.

Or let’s talk water. We so often hear that the world is running out of water.
People are dying from lack of water. Rivers are dewatered from lack of water.
Because of this we need to take shorter showers. See the disconnect? Because I
take showers, I’m responsible for drawing down aquifers? Well, no. More than
90 percent of the water used by humans is used by agriculture and industry.
The remaining 10 percent is split between municipalities and actual living
breathing individual humans. Collectively, municipal golf courses use as much
water as municipal human beings. People (both human people and fish people)
aren’t dying because the world is running out of water. They’re dying because
the water is being stolen.

…Personal change doesn’t equal social change.” — Forget Shorter Showers: Why
Personal Changes Does Not Equal Political Change

Even if every Guy Fawkes mask were made at Foxconn itself, a boycott wouldn't
do anything to the working conditions. Teens would still purchase them based
on the movie (or, heaven forbid, the actual comic book). What is necessary is
restructuring the world to make Foxconn impossible.

[1]
[http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/4801...](http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/4801/)

~~~
raverbashing
"wah wah wah corporations are bad, growth is bad"

Corporations and economic growth are directly responsible for the possibility
that this discussion is happening: the internet, cheap and powerful computers,
etc

Or even better:
[https://twitter.com/Kasparov63/status/391943773963304960](https://twitter.com/Kasparov63/status/391943773963304960)

~~~
VikingCoder
"wah wah wah monarchy is bad, empire is bad"

The British government is directly responsible for the possibility that this
discussion of "taxation without representation" is happening; colonization,
trade, etc.

Sometimes when you stand on the shoulders of giants, you realize that the old
ways were lousy. America as it is today wouldn't exist without slavery and
Native American genocide.

I'm not comparing Capitalism to Genocide, but I am saying the form of argument
you used is ridiculous, because I can use the same argument to defend awful
things.

If you stop and listen for one minute, people like me are saying, "Maybe the
current system is TOO excessive, and should be reigned in, in some ways." We
think laws should help fight the excesses of unchecked capitalism.

We're not proposing the "share everything" that Kasparov ridicules, and posing
our argument that way is an absurd straw man.

That said, I don't represent a united front of people who believe identically
to me, but your argument is so absurd that I think it might practically be
targeted at only a tiny minority of people currently saying anything negative
about corporations and our current means of economic growth.

~~~
raverbashing
"but I am saying the form of argument you used is ridiculous, because I can
use the same argument to defend awful things."

Except you just used a straw man. Of course it's ridiculous then.

"America as it is today wouldn't exist without slavery and Native American
genocide."

Of course not. But those things went away, and the USA is still there.

But you can't have the internet without equipment, without servers built by
guess who? Corporations. Take that away: no internet.

~~~
dasil003
> _But you can 't have the internet without equipment, without servers built
> by guess who? Corporations. Take that away: no internet._

Now you're the one strawmanning by painting it as corporations existing or not
existing.

It's not a binary issue. A corporation is just an organization of people with
a specific legal status. There will always be organizations of people.

However, I don't think we need to confer the rights of personhood to a
corporation even though they don't have the same responsibilities or
vulnerabilities. Similarly, it doesn't need to be the case that corporations
should be able to extract value from the commons at the expense of the poor so
that the privileged upper-middle class can have the cheapest possible gadgets.

It is definitely possible to draw a better line between individual freedom and
the wholesale rape of the environment. For starters, those things aren't
represented in GDP, and so it's of no real concern to those in power. What
gets measured gets improved.

~~~
raverbashing
"However, I don't think we need to confer the rights of personhood to a
corporation even though they don't have the same responsibilities or
vulnerabilities. Similarly, it doesn't need to be the case that corporations
should be able to extract value from the commons at the expense of the poor so
that the privileged upper-middle class can have the cheapest possible
gadgets."

Good, I agree with that.

But the issue with cheap gadgets goes both ways. Chinese factories allow
people in India and other 3rd world countries to have a cheap (read:
affordable) mobile phone.

Yes, they could pay more and give better conditions, the profit gains coming
from economies of scale would still be there.

~~~
autonomy77
>>But you can't have the internet without equipment, without servers built by
guess who? Corporations. Take that away: no internet.<<

Partially correct - we need equipment, but mesh networking is becoming a
reality. No corporate involvement beyond the hardware.

have a look:

[http://www.dailydot.com/politics/greek-off-the-grid-
internet...](http://www.dailydot.com/politics/greek-off-the-grid-internet-
mesh/)

------
veganarchocap
I don't understand people who are even against sweatshops, do they really want
to deprive these areas of the only jobs they do have?

The middle-class westerners have good intentions, sure. Do they really think
though, but starving sweatshops to the point of closure, all the staff will
walk into well paid work? No, in all probability, the lack of competition and
the low budgets will mean they have to fight over even worse jobs, if not...
starve.

If you really want to take the moral high-ground, you should _only_ buy from
sweat shops, because the more they profit, the more you're contributing to
bettering their lives and working conditions.

Buy all the masks you need!

~~~
nisa
That's cynical and easy to write from a warm chair in a western country.

The problem are the conditions that make sweat-shops the least worst
alternative for a lot of people. It's power, money and corruption.

There is no financial gain for western corporations or governments to really
solve these problems. We profit from the political and economical instability
in these countries and therefore from the suffering these people have to
endure. We make ugly deals using the World Bank and the IMF to destabilize
their markets. We help to keep corrupt politicians in place and happily
exploit natural resources in these countries.

But nobody cares.

~~~
skylan_q
_The problem are the conditions that make sweat-shops the least worst
alternative for a lot of people. It 's power, money and corruption._

If the least worst alternative is taken away from them, then they have only
the next least worst alternative. Asking to take this away is asking to take
away the best thing they have.

It's easy to write from a warm chair in a western country that people should
have better job conditions considering the availability of jobs that allow for
consumerism.

~~~
nisa
I should have written that in a more neutral way. What I wanted to say is: Our
corporations and our governments can and should be held partially responsible
for these conditions. I'm not saying that it's only the fault of "evil corp"
in the USA or any other western nation but saying it's their problem and
sweat-shops are fine is in my opinion not the whole truth.

------
droidist2
People are too in love with the idea of seeing others get "nailed" for being
hypocrites. All you have to do is say something that sounds vaguely clever or
ironic in a snarky manner and people go "Ooooh, snap" even if it really makes
not much sense. For instance: "Julian Assange of Wikileaks wants to protect
his _own_ privacy." "Ooooh, snap."

~~~
socillion
Accusations of hypocrisy are a form of ad hominem, so I agree it's amusing
that so many people think they are good arguments.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_quoque)

~~~
VikingCoder
I think hypocrisy is a valid argument specifically when someone claims that
they should be trusted with political power because they behave in a puritan,
unassailable manner, while their opponent is merely human.

When it turns out they're a hypocrite, it strikes at the core of why they were
elected.

Moreover, it SHOULD remind people that the guy who claims his morals are
unassailable is lying to you.

------
ThePinion
"Unfortunate" is definitely the word for the fact that these masks that hold
such great symbolism to Anonymous (and other groups) are owned by the
companies that want to control the internet.

So they've called out the media for using products by Foxconn, okay. What do
they expect to come from that? I'm really not sure.

The main thing I got from this is that we should find another mask, or face,
for Anonymous and activism/protesting in general. One that maybe holds more
significant value in freedom of mankind, and one that is free of copyright. As
much as I love Alan Moore, I think it's time Anonymous finds/creates an open-
source mask.

~~~
pera
What is actually "unfortunate" in my opinion is that so many people are using
the v/guyfawkes mask without any knowledge of its origin (efg, /b/) and its
meaning (a joke)

~~~
icebraining
When David Lloyd created the Guy Fawkes mask, /b/ didn't even exist.

[http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120918184420/marvel_...](http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20120918184420/marvel_dc/images/4/4a/V_001.jpg)

------
paulvalley
How does Ms Gill know that all those masks are made in the same factory and
that all of them pay royalties?

It would have been fair to mention that in the west at least 3d printers are
becoming more and more common and anyone can download a Fawkes mask model and
3dprint it at home. [http://tf3dm.com/3d-model/v-for-vendetta-guy-fawkes-
mask-481...](http://tf3dm.com/3d-model/v-for-vendetta-guy-fawkes-
mask-48144.html)

Or if you're feeling environmentally friendly, out of recycled cardboard. It's
no rocket science really. Or how about this one as an origami?
[http://www.instructables.com/id/Guy-Fawkes-Mask-in-
Origami/](http://www.instructables.com/id/Guy-Fawkes-Mask-in-Origami/)

It took me 5 seconds to find these on Google. Ms Gill comes across as
particularly lazy and not very well intentioned.

------
KyeRussell
Can we please stop with all this Anonymous BS? The point of the 'movement' is
that it's decentralised. 'Anonymous' can't write 'open letters'. This is just
pathetic.

~~~
alextingle
Well, "Anonymous" didn't write that letter. Some specific activist wrote it,
and has posted it under the Anonymous "brand". If the wider movement likes it
(and they should because it's well written and spot on target) then they will
promote it and adopt it as theirs.

We don't know who wrote the piece. The author is anonymous, but their words
will probably reach a far, far wider audience than if they _had_ published
under their own name.

That's the way the movement works. It _is_ decentralised. I'm sorry that you
think it's pathetic.

~~~
floobynewb
Yes! Not enough people get this. Anonymous is a name for a loose, evolving
affiliation of ideas, it is not a specific group of people. It personifies a
set of beliefs, a view of the world, it allows a hive mind to express itself
as an individual. It allows the ideas to speak for themselves. In so doing it
allows those ideas to evolve more rapidly.

I am not well versed in history, so I can't say if this is novel, but it is a
fabulous idea.

It is clear to me that, just as thought can emerge from the movement of charge
between networks of neurons so can it emerge from the chatter of a million
people. The same processes are at work, you might call it 'emergence' but I
suspect that our mathematics does not yet capture it's description adequately.

This is the kind of system we need to develop and enhance if we are to create
a better world. Our social structure is prescriptive and too rigidly
hierarchical, it has broken away from it's dynamic, organic roots and lost
touch with the magic that seems to generate flexible and resilient structure
out of nothing.

If you accept the isomorphism between the mind and society, then you may see
that the internet is radically disruptive. It has made communication orders of
magnitude faster and it has changed the topology of the network described by
society. This is changing us, quickly. For better or worse remains to be seen.
But I suspect the effects of the internet revolution are only now beginning.

Perhaps I'm just seeing what I want to see...

The battle outside ragin' Will soon shake your windows And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'

(attribution should not be needed)

------
nonchalance
Are the Guardian, the Telegraph and the New Statesman notable for their fair
and balanced journalism (or are they the fox news of europe)?

~~~
anigbrowl
A famous quote from the satirical political TV comedy _Yes, Minister_ sums up
the British press fairly well. Amusingly, one of the characters is named Jim
Hacker.

Hacker: Don't tell me about the press. I know exactly who reads the papers:
the Daily Mirror is read by people who think they run the country; The
Guardian is read by people who think they ought to run the country; The Times
is read by people who actually do run the country; the Daily Mail is read by
the wives of the people who run the country; the Financial Times is read by
people who own the country; The Morning Star is read by people who think the
country ought to be run by another country; and The Daily Telegraph is read by
people who think it is.

Sir Humphrey: Prime Minister, what about the people who read The Sun?

Bernard: Sun readers don't care who runs the country, as long as she's got big
tits.

(The Mirror is a leftish tabloid, the Sun a rightist tabloid, both are
strident and stupid. The Guardian is a lefty broadsheet, very 'liberal media'
by American standards. The Times is center-right, the Daily Mail is middle-
class outrage and celebrity gossip (and outrage about our culture of celebrity
gossip). The Financial Times is like the WSJ without the axe-grinding
editorials; the Morning Star is now defunct but used to be a mouthpiece for
the USSR communist party. The Telegraph, sometimes referred to as the
Torygraph for its unflinching support of the Tory party, is basically a
serious newspaper for people who are convinced the country has gone to the
dogs, global warming is nefarious plot, and so on. There's also the
Independent, which didn't appear until some years later, which can best be
summed up as 'worthy but boring.')

~~~
sebkomianos
Here is a the clip:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGscoaUWW2M](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGscoaUWW2M)

~~~
nextw33k
The really amazing thing about that show is that all the jokes apply to day as
much as they did in the 80's when they first aired.

I am not sure if that scary or a good thing...

------
ch215
Defending the Press is almost universally unpopular. However, I think there's
a important distinction to be made here. Namely that Martha Gill's piece is
comment and not news. Hence it's filed under 'blogs'. Opinion is free to be
responsible or irresponsible, informed or misinformed, constructive or
destructive but, by definition, it cannot be true or false. I don't see
anything wrong with someone expressing an honestly held view based on
photographs. It seems hundreds of Anonymous supporters have done exactly that
beneath the column.

~~~
Zikes
“You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own
facts.” ― Daniel Patrick Moynihan

Just because it's filed under "blogs" does not make it above refutation.

~~~
ch215
I'm not saying it's above refutation, quite the contrary. What I'm saying is
the article is opinion--not fact--and it's presented as such.

~~~
Zikes
Saying something is an opinion and that thing actually being an opinion are
two fairly different things. It's sort of along the lines of saying "no
offense, but" and then saying something obviously offensive.

Regardless, Martha's piece is publicized and therefore open to criticism and
debate.

------
aluhut
If I would be part of them, I would create a 3D-printer model of the mask and
share that all over so people can organise their own distribution...

~~~
Ygg2
Or you know, papercraft the suckers, its not like there aren't papercraft
versions of it. My roommate made me one.

~~~
raverbashing
Thanks, this gave me a smile

People think "oh let's build a startup for 3d-printing model this on the
cloud, blah blah blah"

Where anyone with modest skills can build this using scissors, some cardboard,
or Papier-Maché or some other technique.

~~~
ehmuidifici
But this kind of mask won't protect your face against rubber balls shot by
police - in Brazil, for example. Yeah, neither resine mask will do, but its
slightly better.

~~~
Ygg2
In that case you need a gas mask. And kevlar. But those kind of protest
require more organization.

------
acromankillah
The Daily Telegraph is owned by the Barclay brothers who also own Shop direct,
which transferred its call centers to Serco which outsourced them to India and
South Africa because it is cheaper. Profit. You can connect anything to low
wages and "poor conditions." The point is completely overhauling the corporate
government and finding real freedom, real true freedom. The issue is finding
people who are aware that the government and media have failed us in their
original watchdog approach. Media employees have been sucked into the same
trap, that maybe they can get ahead if they stick to the winning side. They
are only winning because we, the people, are too comfortable with settling
instead of opening our eyes to the truth. You cannot trust the media; it is
ran by corporations that influence what we can see and what we can know. It
influences what we think. The world must wake up, or we will all be hypnotized
by the newest marketing ploy.

------
Anonheadlines
Great Work my brothers and sisters at Yan It is indeed an outrage how they
spread liez about us to get the world against us. we will cont To expose
justice and light on there corrupt world and Make action many more times Our
fight is far from over they cant ignore us forever seeing many more have came
to join us after Nov 5 and will cont to do so with each passing day ---
@AnonHeadLines

------
kelvin0
What if Anon was a 'covert' branch of the NSA? Or Wikileaks a CIA sub-
contractor? Wouldn't that be an awesome twist on an already convoluted saga?

I just like imagining such possibilities, of course this is probably not the
case, but the implications ... I guess I have been watching too many Homeland
episodes lately. :)

------
foucault
The masks represent: Unity Equality Struggle against oppression

That is all. Fuck warner brothers

Guy Fawkes was the only person to enter the houses of parliament with
honourable intentions

~~~
mhurron
There is little honourable about Fawkes intentions, however the actual quote
is "the last man to enter Parliament with honest intentions."

Which makes a lot more sense. He said he was going to blow things up, he went
in to blow things up.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Fawkes](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guy_Fawkes)

------
evilrevolution
Naww their feels got hurt.

