Confessions of a Hacktivist
by The Pull

The Chinese gonvernment censors the internet; they do not want their people to read certain things. They claim that if they let their people have an open internet, they will go spend all of their time downloading porn.

 The United Arab Emirate takes a similiar stance.

 If you have been watching world events you would see that 2.5 million people have been murdered in Sudan since 1983. This by their own government because their people did not abide by the State Religion. You would also see that in Sudan there are over a 100,000 slaves.

 Sudan is probably the worst case example of such behaviours in recent memory but similiar actions are going on in the United Arab Emirates and in China.

 And yet I am willing to bet that the general public has no knowledge that this is going on in Sudan yet I have documents from Human Rights groups and the United Nations that say this is so.

 These countries - and there are a lot of them - have the education, and indoctrination, of the people controlled up from when they are little children through adulthood. The press is controlled. You can be jailed or killed saying the wrong thing. Strong restrictions are placed on foreigners visiting these countries lest they lead a "rebellion"... which often means starting a church or expressing one's belief in freedom and truth.

 In years past we would smuggle documents across various borders, especially between Europe and the Iron Curtain. We would get these people this so-called rebellious information. They would organize; they would be caught; they would be jailed; they would be tortured; they would be executed.

 Their wives would be raped, their children put into mental asylums.

 "You can't make some omelette's without breaking some eggs", they would say.

 Seven hundred years ago they would say: "Confess, witch".

 Yesterday we had secret organizations, undergrounds, which would fight these powers. We would organize, we would meet. We would be killed, branded "athiests".

 Yesterday, we turned to the printing press to disseminate information. And the printers and the people alike were burned.

 Yesterday, we had microfilm which we would smuggle across the border.

 Today, we have the internet.

 If you compare the internet to books or to microfilm or to physically meeting in secret groups you are bound to see the massive advantage the internet has to offer.

 Today we have work. We have food. We have shelter. We have clothes. We have our lives. We have our families. We have the right to read porn if we wish to, or the Philokalia if we wish to, or the Talmud, or Confucious, or Buddha, or the Bhagavad Gita. We have our privilege of position.

 We can be communists. Or anarchists. We can be for democracy or against, for or against whatever we wish.

 We can read the news from many different sources. We do not have to abide by racism or hatred unless we want to.

 No one is going to knock on our doors and take us from our families because we didn't agree with what a morally-superior government wanted us to agree with.

 This is not the way it always was. If people did not organize, if they did not fight these powers... right now, all of the western world would be ruled by one person, one grossly self-righteous and hypocritical person.

 One organization behind that person. One mind which everyone would have to submit to.

 Today, we can live happily and contentedly under the blanket of our freedoms that others fought and died for. We can choose not be like those who've already fought, we can not rock the boat. We can sit still and realize that while these other countries do not share our freedom we have ours and really, who are they?

 We can argue that anyone fighting for such things are really just self-righteous. We can argue that, well, "Everything is as everything is".

 We can say: "If those people have such freedom they will surely just decide to believe in that which I do not believe in. So, why would I try?"

 We can say, "These are not my people, not of my race, not of my ancestors. Let them fight their own fight."

 I say man has little hope. I do not believe man can work together. I believe he has the pyramid of needs and that is all he cares about. Give him some sex, some food, some shelter... and he only wants more. In essence, man is incapable of charity. Utterly and completely incapable of it.

 Charity doesn't make sense. We have desires and these desires are contrary to charity for complete strangers.

 There is no rational explanation for charity. It is not scientific.

 But when you view people getting murdered because their murderer believes they are morally superior... when you see that men are enslaved because their slavemaster believes they are morally superior... such philosophical questions are meaningless. Foolish.

 So, we have the internet.

 Today... we have the internet.

The Pull
2002-05-13