Bruce Sterling on "Dumb Mobs"

"It's a crisp November day in Florence. The city's clear blue skies are clouded by black police helicopters anticipating the 2002 European Social Forum, a rally of the international protest movement the Italians call No Global. This European complement to the annual World Social Forum in Brazil counterbalances meetings of the WTO, G8, and other secretive capitalist overlords. As 60,000 delegates meet within the Fortezza da Basso convention center, a rabble 1 million strong gathers outside.

The forum is billed as the premier talking shop for No Global's rainbow coalition of blacks, greens, reds, and pinks, along with feminists, Luddites, and Euro-Linux geeks hoping to persuade their governments to dump Microsoft. Plans call for the event to culminate in a vast march through the city, promising a remarkable show of technology-assisted activism - and proof that P2P is the wrong topology for a political party."

An interesting article by writer Bruce Sterling, in which he takes a look at the protests in Florence last November, and wonders what the point is of being able to get all of those people onto the streets if there is no unifying agenda for the protestors. The title is a play on the idea of smart mobs, a meme which describes something that was most recently one of the deciding factors in the South Korean elections.

Read the whole piece here.

posted by Michael Curry at 9:34 PM

Senator Byrd speaks out (again)

"To contemplate war is to think about the most horrible of human experiences. On this February day, as this nation stands at the brink of battle, every American on some level must be contemplating the horrors of war.

Yet, this Chamber is, for the most part, silent – ominously, dreadfully silent. There is no debate, no discussion, no attempt to lay out for the nation the pros and cons of this particular war. There is nothing.

We stand passively mute in the United States Senate, paralyzed by our own uncertainty, seemingly stunned by the sheer turmoil of events. Only on the editorial pages of our newspapers is there much substantive discussion of the prudence or imprudence of engaging in this particular war."

Last week Senator Robert Byrd made a stirring speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate, taking his colleagues to task for avoiding any debate on the upcoming war against Iraq. It was a speech that was, at best, poorly reported by the mainstream media, which seems determined to give as little coverage as possible to those who are against the war.

Read the Senator's whole speech here.

posted by Michael Curry at 9:21 PM

Fearmongering can be funny

Today's Boondocks was a great comment on the recent terror alerts.

Read it here.

posted by Michael Curry at 9:16 PM

Osama must be snickering

"To get Saddam, the Bush administration is even willing to remind the American public that it failed to get bin Laden. Its fixation on Saddam seems to have blinded it to the possibility that Osama might be perversely encouraging America in this war."

A very nice piece by Maureen Dowd reminding us that Osama bin Laden actually wants the U.S. to go to war with Iraq, as it will do nothing but aid his cause (which was pointed out last year by this tompaine.com op-ed ad).

Read the whole piece here.

posted by Michael Curry at 8:45 PM

The people say no to war

"The fracturing of the Western alliance over Iraq and the huge antiwar demonstrations around the world this weekend are reminders that there may still be two superpowers on the planet: the United States and world public opinion.

In his campaign to disarm Iraq, by war if necessary, President Bush appears to be eyeball to eyeball with a tenacious new adversary: millions of people who flooded the streets of New York and dozens of other world cities to say they are against war based on the evidence at hand."

There's a reason why Bush wanted to attack Iraq last year, and that reason is now becoming clear as opposition to the war builds and builds around the world. He wanted to start the war before opposition had time to organize and grow. In case the leaders of many of those countries who have expressed support for the war have forgotten, they're the leaders of democracies (at least nominally) and they are supposed to be the servants of the people. They are not supposed to pat their own citizens on the head, as though they are small children who simply don't understand what's best.

Anyway, the rest of the NY Times article from above can be found here.

There is a lot of coverage of this past weekend's worldwide protests to be found around the net, both from media sources and blogs of people's personal experiences, so here are a few links to get you started:

Millions join global anti-war protests [BBC]

Pictures of protests around the world [BBC]

Millions March Worldwide To Denounce Bush's War Plans [IMC]

Report From New York (along with an article about the city's attempts to stop the protest)

posted by Michael Curry at 8:21 PM