Forum Post: Viva la Internet!
Posted 12 years ago on Jan. 18, 2012, 9:27 a.m. EST by occupypuppies
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This content is user submitted and not an official statement
My occupy essays I wrote this morning. For your inspiration and anger. Please enjoy.
VIVA LA INTERNET! WE WILL NEVER LET THEM TAKE YOU AND YOU ARE THE KEY TO OUR POWER!
So it's just so obvious who is in power right now. It's us. By token of the fact that our generation grew up with the internet, took computer classes in elementary school, and intuitively interact in the digital world, while the people in the government probably still don't really understand it, that means
WE ALREADY WON!
They are drowning, it's incredible. They are whittling away all credibility. Either way, we will win and win and I'm starting to think the government might be replaced by us, but maybe that's a fantasy.
WE ACTUALLY HAVE MORE POWER AND MORE INTELLIGENCE THAN THEM because of the internet. It's all up to us now, not them. We have to keep going out and marching and they'll eventually just lose it completely. I think we are in for a really interesting year.
Think about it, SOPA makes them look incredibly out of sync with the times and with how things work. The law makes no sense, and it makes them look bumbling, old, out of touch, and illegitimate.
They're so screwed. It's amazing to read about how angry they get when we forced them to table a bill. It's amazing because they aren't used to it, but soon they will be. This is just the beginning.
I just imagine these old, out of touch suits in some big flashy government building that none of us could care less about, discussing the technology awkwardly. I noticed that some of the older college professors at my school would start discussions about the internet, mispronounce twitter, and then lose all credibility. ALL OF IT. It's like, suddenly it's about US, not their deals and them getting paid off! I can't even wrap my head around the amazing justice of this moment. Every time they try to assert power, they are showing a weakness, a fear, further proving our point. Whatever they do, we are right, because we are more evolved. Every move they make further drives home our power over them and their complete illegitimacy and irrelevance in this global, peaceful, sophisticated, evolving society. They're whittling away all credibility. Either way, we will win.
So. What do we do?! It's all up to us now, not them. Which is sort of scary. The way to not mess this up is to enjoy every second of it.
They're so scared. It's poetic. They probably thought twitter was some frivolous thing, "Oh, I'll never need that..." And when they use technology it seems so awkward because the internet is all about transparency which is fundamentally strange to them.
In one fell swoop, they lost all their credibility and it must just break their rich little hearts that things will never be the same after this. Every move they make further drives home their complete illegitimacy and irrelevence in modern society! A A TI A TI CAPITALISTA!
"IF THEY SHUT DOWN YOUR INTERNET, SHUT DOWN THEIR GOVERNMENT"
I personally believe religiousness and critical thinking skills are mutually exclusive.
The legitimacy of governmental authority is on thin ice, I believe, thanks to Occupy and J17 and anti-SOPA, so let's hope it cracks under the weight of us coming out and demanding our rights and thinking independently. :)
I don't, and have never, agreed with being represented by another person except myself. Why would I? We are two different people, with totally different brain cells, different wardrobes, we likely grew up in completely different eras. There is enormous, incredible power in the fact that our representatives did NOT grow up with the internet, while we did. We might be smarter than them. After studying for a few days, I find Noam Chomsky borders on boring and elementary. Do we really need these people? The internet has assured that we are already much smarter and more powerful than them and they know that. Hence SOPA. Well, the powers that be are going to be in quite a bind because, like the Egyptians, if they shut down our internet, we will shut them down.
So we come from different generations. Also, in most contexts, I am an outsider. There's no way this person could possibly understand the associations I make, they're too strange. Not to mention that I would never voluntarily give up my own decision-making agency to some basically random, arbitrary, career politician, who is most likely corrupt, or crazy in some way, not to mention that this person I am giving my agency to is a man, inherently privileged and blind to that privilege, and therefore unsympathetic to my particular issues, violence against women, choice, periods, the pressure to be beautiful and passive. He just has no idea and it makes me smile that this antiquated, outdated model of government, that is really a relic from before women could vote, still exists today! I mean it's completely irrelevant at this point, with women's rights and global connectivity, the solidarity of people who have traditionally been oppressed, who are now banding together and demanding a voice.
I love men, but the idea of voting for a man is laughable to me. He cannot possibly conceive of the things that are important to me. Why do we invest so much attention in this strange ritual of choosing an illegitimate ruler to make decisions for us? If we had a few very smart females with whom I had things in common with, then...no, actually, I still would not want to participate in this game. Why does it makes sense for me to give power to someone I have never met, who I have no desire to meet ever in my lifetime, who I do not exist to? I wouldn't even give that power to my husband, ha! literally nothing in common with me whatsoever, who has never heard of nor met me, who cannot even imagine me or what I stand for because we are so completely different. It's just silly to me that adults do this and still believe they are free.
No, fuck him, fuck reform, WE WANT REVOLUTION NOW. He says near the end of that spiel, he says "these policies undermine the social-democratic, welfare states that have been developed, undermine the power of labor, create an unegalitarian structure and put greater power in the hands of the corporate sector and the wealthy which is a failure of design." So he's saying our society is set up incredibly wrong, but we should reform it. I know I'm not the only one who has thought since the beginning that we should start a new way of doing things and that's why this is so exciting. But I guess eventually the movement will break up into different groups. I don't know. I don't know anything. My utopian vision is and has always been of a revolution, a completely new organization of people and power, horizontalism, complete mutiny and uprising. Because that's all I know and understand and I know that there are many out there like me, uneducated on politics but with passion and empathy and certain anti-authoritarian values. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I want the government gone. I don't care. It's not anything I want to reform. It's all men, it's a patriarchal structure, it's corrupt, it's gotten away with way too much and it has dug us into a hole and is obsessed with war.
Anarchy is love. Small groups of self-governed, like-minded people of people. I am energized by my completely ideological and unrealistic goals, but they are the only thing that keep me fighting, not the idea of reform!Representatives should be recallable and accountable to the group.
I'm going to make a sign that says "WHY THE FUCK WOULD I VOTE FOR YOU?????? LOLOLOLOLOL PLEASE!"