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View Full Version : I've Been Thinking For A While Now...



MarxistPC
31st December 2014, 04:55
So since we know that from the Snowden revelations that every resistance and anti-government message board has government employees with multiple sock puppet accounts to distort and disrupt discussions, I decided that I might as well voice my desires and aims here on this forum.

Before I begin however I would like to take to task the hosts of this site along with it's managers for not encrypting and securing the lines between RevLeft users and activists and Revleft.com. Especially over a year after Snowden's revelations, this site along with it's hosts have simply ignored or refused to encrypt traffic here. Even when signing up and including all sorts of sensitive information there is no encryption or privacy involved. This is wholly unacceptable and has made me consider closing my account here as I can only imagine that my along with thousands of other users data is kept in plain text with no protections whatsoever on them.

Secondly I would like to call out this community writ large. I have been a dedicated Leftist my entire intellectual life and after looking out at the world and seeing the quite literal class war (Greece, France, Italy, Spain, and the United Kingdom, along with the United States and countless of other impoverished third world countries), I am appalled that this site is but a place for rants, half-baked essays, and grandiloquent discussions on "theory". Though I am not saying important work has not gone on here for the Left and awakening some, I fear this site is the exact issue that the "Intellectual Left" took upon itself after WWII: we just allowed the world to walk over us and we ran into our books of "theory", writing all sorts of simple understandings of what goes on in capitalism, government and other systems of power in cryptic language that you need a week and a Ouija board for connecting to past Leftists souls to understand.

We are not talking about the problems that mean most to our cause: who owns stuff and who has power in a society. On this argument it is clear both "theoretically", historically, and quite clearly in a modern context that the ruling classes have taken control of society, the economy, government, and the environment for their own private gain. But what is also abundantly clear, and where the Left seems to have a hard time getting its message together, is this: the people no longer need their masters to survive or to have a "civilization". We have created the means both industrially, scientifically, and intellectually to have our own society where we may not only survive but thrive as human beings.

That very point is where I begin to make the point of this post, I am in the beginning phases of creating a website where all of the hundreds of thousands of organizations around the world can come together to discuss, educate, and most importantly, organize people to make change. The activist community, certainly among the Left, is far too fragmented and hysterical (sites like these that look like they haven't been upgraded since the early 2000s, where people come to vent and then go back into the machine).

I am looking to create a place where a hub of all of the activities, organizations, rallies, and causes can be taken from the advantage point of the organizations themselves and the people who want to become involved in changing the world around them and take control over their lives. Where organizations can create a platform free from censorship and having to water down their messages to garner attention, in order so that they can directly engage with the communities that they're working in and reach those who are interested and enlist them in the fight. Where people can go and see what demonstrations, activities, and organizations are in their area; how to sign up, where to go, who to talk to, and how to get involved.

Not to "manage the bewildered herd" and garner them into the correct corners where they should stay, but a place where people can be placed into direct, secure contact (most likely using PGP) with the organizations and communities that they are interested in servicing. Individuals and organizations will dedicated and open places to put contribute vital and extremely important input on how to better optimize the connection between individuals and organizations, and how they schedule events and activities.

I want to bring activism and engagement into the twenty-first century, with a new way to talk to and organize people using the most secure methods possible. Not plain text, not 64-bit, not 128-bit, but 192 or 256-bit AES encryption standards. I want to partner with organizations and news sites like Alternet and it's subsidiaries, Democracy Now! and Pacifica Radio, NPR, The Real News Network, The Young Turks News Organization, and even Vice News; in order to direct listeners and viewers to places in their own communities to make change either in existing organizations or to create wholly new ones custom tailored to the needs of those around them. Then to link up to national and even international organizations where funds, volunteers, and organizers can come together to fight the good fight.

There is an entire edifice that needs building, as Noam Chomsky said to an interviewer who asked ,"who's going to carry the torch after you're gone" , he replied with a smile and said, "There's plenty of work that needs doing and there are plenty people who want to do it and need to do it... You and everyone who watches or reads this interview are going to do the work long after I'm gone. The world is a much better organized and educated place than when I entered the scene. I hope that you'll continue that work".

We can build this catalyst for the revolutionary flames, educate people, get them mobilized, have people organize and take control over their lives. This is all possible, we have nothing to lose, people to empower, and a world to save. What's there to stop us but our own inhibitions and caveats?
We have a world to win.

Please message me or post on this forum if you're interested, have any ideas or criticisms.

Os Cangaceiros
31st December 2014, 15:44
I am looking to create a place where a hub of all of the activities, organizations, rallies, and causes can be taken from the advantage point of the organizations themselves and the people who want to become involved in changing the world around them and take control over their lives. Where organizations can create a platform free from censorship and having to water down their messages to garner attention, in order so that they can directly engage with the communities that they're working in and reach those who are interested and enlist them in the fight. Where people can go and see what demonstrations, activities, and organizations are in their area; how to sign up, where to go, who to talk to, and how to get involved.


The internet kind of already fills that role, does it not? At least in nations where access to the internet is fairly open and widespread.

I too wish that the left was some kind of well-oiled machine that wasn't bogged down but, in the eloquent words of my friend's mother, "shit in one hand and wish in the other and see which one fills up first"

MarxistPC
31st December 2014, 17:44
The internet kind of already fills that role, does it not? At least in nations where access to the internet is fairly open and widespread.

I too wish that the left was some kind of well-oiled machine that wasn't bogged down but, in the eloquent words of my friend's mother, "shit in one hand and wish in the other and see which one fills up first"

The internet does do this to an extent, however it is far too fragmented and dated With only sites like activists.org and a few rag-tag message boards such as Revleft, where news is reported. I'm looking to create a site where the plug meets the socket so to speak. So the connection between people's activism and desires, are combined with the socket of organizations and the current of activism and work can form.

However the Left doesn't have to be a well-oiled machine, but it worked much better when it wasn't shrouded with "theory" and grandiloquent language that obscures simple facts about the world and the way that it works. I don't think there is anything in all of the humanities, especially political theory, that couldn't be understood by a senior in high school.

Zealot
31st December 2014, 22:21
What if this website is actually owned by the US government? It's a stretch but it would be a good way of tracking leftist activity. Plus, how many people have ever seen the site-owner make a post here..? In any case, your project sounds interesting and worth a shot.

BIXX
31st December 2014, 22:37
What if this website is actually owned by the US government? It's a stretch but it would be a good way of tracking leftist activity. Plus, how many people have ever seen the site-owner make a post here..? In any case, your project sounds interesting and worth a shot.
Uh... I saw the site owner make a post. You're insane.

Also it isn't really a good way to track leftist activity if ever debate turns into "MUH USSR" or something similar.

MarxistPC
1st January 2015, 15:45
Uh... I saw the site owner make a post. You're insane.

Also it isn't really a good way to track leftist activity if ever debate turns into "MUH USSR" or something similar.


What if this website is actually owned by the US government? It's a stretch but it would be a good way of tracking leftist activity. Plus, how many people have ever seen the site-owner make a post here..? In any case, your project sounds interesting and worth a shot.

I don't actually think he's too "insane" to doubt me. As I said this site is completely unencrypted and is failing the security of it's users, and considering the revelations that Edward Snowden made (if you looked past the mainstream headlines), it is very possible that on this forum there are several agent of the NSA monitoring and pretending to be active users. I think that concern, especially in light of Snowden's leaks, does not reflect a bout of insanity on behalf of those we call "tin foil hatters", but instead display the level of draconian measures that the United States government is willing to engage in.

However, for what it's worth, I am not an agent of the NSA or United States government. I have posted here before under the Anti-Fascism thread about the American Tea Party, it's rise to power, and it's effects on our democracy (or what's left of it). I am currently working on my next piece which I hope to post here before I go back to school Monday. I'm hoping it will be the outline for a book I want to write about Fascism in the United States.

However I am still awaiting those of you who know how to code and want to join me on this project as I am beginning to seriously think about it as a need that should be filled as a vital part of whatever movement or revolution that should come about in the United States or elsewhere in the world.