Introduction
First of all, please read The Emergence of Noopolitik, published by RAND.
The Internet is the one asset that the anti-war movement has which will enable it to win the “narrative” battle. Through our use of the Internet we can successfully build a global anti-war movement that is based on rapidly dispersed news and opinions, creating a cohesive and complex “story” of the war that refutes the government’s propaganda. All attempts on the side of governments to try and control the dispersal of information about this war are going to fail because anyone with an Internet connection is able to log onto the Internet and read the words of the anti-war movement and see the pictures of suffering around the world. This ability to see the disparity between the government’s rather unsophisticated and shallow story and the anti-war movement’s deep, complex, and transnational narrative will ultimately be the downfall of America’s quest to become an empire. For this reason alone we are fortunate that such a resource exists and if used properly this anti-war movement can soundly defeat the military objectives of America.
However, this is a conclusion not lost on many people. It seems that everyone within the movement is asking themselves how to use the Internet to successfully organize. My hope is that this document will serve as a jumping-off point for your organizing efforts. Although many of these ideas are untested, and some require more effort than others, I believe each of them, if refined, can work to successfully undermine the government’s narrative and win support of people worldwide. To be direct, I’m offering a three step plan: 1) we should exploit the Internet to the fullest, using every trick and technique that we can, in order to win over every subculture on the Internet 2) (most importantly) I’m proposing a new protest strategy that relies on the Internet’s ability to spread information quickly 3) and finally, I propose a way that American propaganda can be countered, and suggest that such a tactic should be prepared for now and unleashed on important days such as our inevitable “pre-emptive” strike on Iraq.
Part 1: Aligning Ourselves with the Internet
The first step to building the movement is to spread our version/analysis of world events. The large number of progressive political websites available on the Internet today makes this task easier — since there is plenty of information already digitized that offers comprehensive political analysis. The problem, of course, is how to bring people to these websites. Fortunately, unlike in the real world where every bit of public space has an advertisement price-tag attached to it, the Internet offers free opportunities for creative advertising — the secret is to seek out and target specific subcultures on the Internet. These subcultures are likely already sympathetic to our message because of the already anti-authoritarian slant of the Internet (i.e. the pro-privacy, pro-encryption underpinning of much of the politics of the people who maintain the Internet). My goal here is to suggest only a few of the ways that we can associate ourselves with Internet subcultures, to try our best to align the Internet community with the general ends of the “anti-war movement.” Before going on I’d also like to add that it is important for the movement to fully embrace the use of high encryption; not only will this protect us from government intrusion, but it will also act to acclimate ourselves to new and different ways of running organizations.
The Peer-to-Peer Crowd
These are the people who use file-sharing programs such as Kazaa, Morpheus, Edonkey2000, and many others. Their time is spent downloading mp3s, pornography, divx movies, and random pictures. One of the easiest things to do is masquerade anti-war art as pornography by renaming files so that they appear to be an explicit picture. Using SearchEngineWatch.com as a reference guide to the top Internet search words we can effectively trick people into downloading and distributing anti-war slogans. This will have a jarring effect for those who had hoped to download a picture of their favorite porn star and instead are greeted by the words “Question the War.” Specifically, this is done by creating anti-war media files (jpgs, mp3s, and avis) and naming them based off of the current top 50 key words. Aside from renaming pictures, which may turn off people who don’t like random ideological advertisements, sharing a large number of mp3s — all renamed to include the website address of a “leftist” site such as indymedia.org (i.e. changing david bowie - I'm afraid of Americans.mp3 to david bowie - I'm afraid of Americans - indymedia.org.mp3) are effective ways to spread our message. It may also have the psychological effect of drawing people to the anti-war movement because people within their music “culture” are suggesting a website.
The Warez Scene
The “warez” scene is a beautiful part of the Internet. It isn’t necessary to agree with their agenda of pirating software to appreciate their ability to run widely dispersed networks that effectively transmit not only files but a specific culture. There are “scene” newsletters, celebrities, groups, and even rankings. The warez scene should be highly attractive for the anti-war movement for two reasons: 1) it is completely global and 2) it has perfected the transmission of files to millions of Internet users. Convincing even one of the smaller warez or courier groups to distribute a list of anti-war websites at the end of their .nfo files would be a huge boon for the anti-war movement and would align ourselves with a whole community of computer savvy, government-cynical individuals. Aside from gaining indirect warez group support a concerted effort by one or two people to upload a list of anti-war sites to every “dump” or “distro” site that they find would be effective — and legal.
The Computer Security Scene
We have much to learn from this community. They have accomplished tangible political goals and have largely been undefeated governments who have either tried to outlaw their software (i.e., PGP) or arrest them (i.e., the large number of “black hat” hackers who evade capture). My assumption here is that based on the history of the computer security, cryptology, and privacy movements as being opposed to government intrusion and the limitation of free speech and thought, they should prove to be easy “converts” to our side (if they aren’t already). This is likely the most important Internet community that the anti-war movement can learn from and efforts should be spent on befriending and getting to know the prime movers in this community. They will prove especially useful in the planning of part two of this document.
Online Gaming
For one example, see: “Make Love, Not War Games,” from Wired News. I think a lot more is possible in this realm however, particularly because of the strong friendship and clan-ship bonds that are developed in online gaming.
The IMers
This one is pretty obvious: why not try to convince as many anonymous Instant Message users that the war is wrong as possible? Unlike in real life there are no repercussions if they get angry, and it may actually be good practice for discerning which anti-war arguments are the best.
Summary
I haven’t listed every subculture on the Internet but I hope that I’ve provoked a few ideas. Each of us knows where we spend our time on the Internet, what communities or subcultures we understand. Likewise, each of us should be translating our real world politics into online politics — if only because the Internet offers the opportunity for a lone anti-war activist to advertise the movement in ways never before thought of.
Part 2: Swarming, A New Protest Tactic
As noted before, the Internet allows for the rapid dispersal of information. The question, then, is how best to use this aspect of the Internet to the advantage of the anti-war movement. I propose a concept called “swarming.” Here is what it can look like:
Five friends who are sick of watching the children in Palestine and Israel be murdered, sick of the escalation of the war, and tired of the movement being ignored decide to secretly plan an event that cannot be ignored. Through radical, nonviolent civil disobedience they plan to disrupt the ability of thousands of people in New York from getting to work. They are just five anonymous people, they don’t tell anyone of their plans, and they don’t rely on any outside support. This makes their plan almost unstoppable, particularly if they only discuss their plans in person or while using very strong encryption. Their plan, by the way, is quite simple: they are going to use lock boxes to blockade the exit of the Wall Street subway stop, forcing hundreds of people to find an alternate way to work. They are dedicated to nonviolence and will hold the blockade as long as possible.
In order to hold the blockade, however, they need to enlist the help of hundreds of other people who are not willing to be arrested but who will form the basis of the second wave to protect them from the police for as long as possible. A third wave will comprise the media, and the increasingly blocked up passengers in the subway. Each additional person who is forced to stand around and watch the protestors is one more obstacle for the police to use their pain tactics in forcing the protestors to move out.
How will they get a second wave of a hundred sympathetic individuals without alerting the police to their plans?
For this purpose Why War? is creating a “swarming” section of the website, which will be completed shortly. In this section of the website people can submit their e-mail addresses (most will likely use quasi-anonymous ones such as Hotmail) and the largest city they are near. Signing up for the list entails that you are willing to go, within the hours of availability that you can also specify, to any area within a reasonable distance from your location in order to act as a peaceful witness to the civil disobedience. Everyone understands that they are not expected to be arrested, only that their presence will serve as a distraction for the police and elongate the time the blockade is in place.
Since the website is open to everyone anyone can alert people in their area about their plans — but the list is not used for the solicitation of participants (there are likely FBI agents on the list); only as a mailing list for when the action has engaged. The second wave, then, will be at the location within 30 minutes or sooner which means that the police have very little time to force the blockade to end before people from all over, and every direction, begin showing up and chanting their support.
To attract more people into the second wave the five people (smartly) send out an e-mail once all of their plans have been made and preparations are complete that notifies everyone in the area that any day within 3 weeks they will be called on for their support in the blockade of a building. Once the blockade is set up one of the five members, who will act as the media liaison for the other four, calls her buddy who sends out the e-mail. The four members hold on tightly and wait for their supporters to arrive.
Some specifics:
What is a new, and actually very simple idea, is the use of a public list of individuals who are willing to serve as a “second wave” for the main core of participants. The movement should develop infrastructure for mobilizing large amounts of people within an hour to engage in a “second wave” that defends the core group and draws media attention. Imagine the potential of having a list of only two hundred activists in any given city who are willing, at the drop of a hat, to swarm the location of an active civil disobedience. Furthermore, being a witness to police tactics, and acting as moral support, will further galvanize the movement itself — each witness may in turn decide to organize their own small group that will carry out civil disobedience. Creating peaceful disruptions (spectacles) is the goal here, and the organizational structure employs the Internet to become unstoppable. Unless the government is willing to clamp down on the activities of a large number of unconnected autonomous activists who are planning nonviolent actions (which they may do at the risk of further validating the movement’s claims of a police state and thereby motivating the movement as a whole) they’ll be unable to stop highly coordinated peace actions whose inner details are never told to anyone outside of that group.
The list of targets is limitless for this technique and almost any location, with enough planning, could become the site of a successful disruption. Before the Internet it would have been impossible for a small group of people to successfully hold down a large, or important, location — but as long as the planned second wave is large enough any number of places could be brought to a stop. This, I think, is the most important aspect of swarming. The ability to quickly mobilize a large number of people is alone a major breakthrough for the movement. Before the Internet it is understandable that an organization’s status would be based on its ability to successfully plan a large scale march that would be conducted months away. But if we are instead optimizing our tactics in order to draw a crowd quickly the whole concept of protesting can change. We can, in fact, begin to accomplish things with a relatively small number of people that wouldn’t even be feasible in a “large scale protest.” One needs only to ask: what could I shut down with 200 hundred people who were willing to swarm to a location?
The underlying idea of swarming has also already been tested by the numerous people who have thrown spontaneous street parties, or critical mass demonstrations, before the police were able to stop it.
The beauty of the whole idea is that the list will be 100% public. Anyone, anywhere, can plan and execute a protest and with the proper planning have enough people swarm the location that the police will be unable to respond quickly enough. The police will have no idea which people on the street are actually sympathetic, or how many people will actually show up.
The real question here is: who is going to be the first group to hold a take over the offices of Lockheed Martin for 24 hours?
Part 3: Counterattacks
We’ve all been reading the papers and we know that Iraq will be attacked. The administration has been holding this “carrot” in front of our noses for a long time (perhaps to distract us from the countless other horrible advances in this war).
What will you do on the day of the attack?
Protests are already planned, but how are we going to get the message to the American people? I suggest we use one of the oldest tricks of the Internet: let’s spam the American public’s e-mail accounts with pictures and stories of the last ten years of sanctions. Let’s sidestep the media and let’s speak directly to the people. The morning of the attack when people frantically check the Internet for updates from the corporate media website they will also find in their mailboxes a few pictures of Iraq children, or maybe a list of quotes by high ranking officials who deny there are WMD in Iraq, or maybe some other juicy tidbit to slowly gnaw away at Bush’s vision. All we need to do is convince people that Iraq has little to do with Sept. 11 other than settling old grudges — which is a relatively simple task.
But in more general terms, I think that information “counterattacks” in the form of anonymous spam can be quite effective. The e-mails shouldn’t contain any of the buzzwords “of the movement” but instead should honest and casual talk about the effects of this war.
There are numerous “e-mail harvesters” that will search the Internet for e-mail addresses. This doesn’t need to be a coordinated effort but many of us should take the initiative to begin preparing a mass e-mail list and the means to spam.
Part 4: Conclusion
This paper was brief, but hopefully still sparked some ideas. Instead of summarizing what I said below here are a list of questions that I think I left unanswered.
- How can the movement best use the current unbreakable encryption that is available for free on the Internet?
- (more to come)