Sapere Aude!

"Revolution 2.0"

Truth-Telling as Resistance

The clamp down on journalism in Egypt made me think of this passage.

"What does the parrhesiast, the person who practices parresia, do when parresia exists but the master is mad and wishes to impose his madness?  Well, precisely, he will stand up, speak, and tell the truth.  He will tell the truth against the master's foolishness, madness, and blindness, and thereby limit the master's madness.  When parresia is lacking, men, citizens, all are doomed to the master's madness" (Foucault, The Government of Self and Others, pg. 161).

Telecomix Message to Egypt and North Africa

Telecomix appears to be another collective of internet citizens like "Anonymous."

I came across this picture on Twitter today.  It's reportedly from the Egyptian protests.

 

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is looking into cyber attacks on opponents of WikiLeaks and companies that have stopped doing business with it, Attorney General Eric Holder said Thursday.

Holder made the comment at a news conference following a meeting with European Union law enforcement partners on cybersecurity, counterterrorism and data protection.

Hackers launched attacks on MasterCard, Visa, Swedish prosecutors, a Swiss bank and others who have acted against the WikiLeaks site and its jailed founder Julian Assange.

"We are aware of the incidents ... and we are looking into them," Holder said.

The attorney general said he is hopeful that the people responsible for the WikiLeaks disclosures of classified information will be brought to justice.

via www.huffingtonpost.com

 

Operation Payback : A Letter From Anonymous | Deathwing00's Space. 

Mitch McConnell thinks he is one.  I wonder McConnell will rethink his position now that Julian Assauge is giving Obama an ultimatum?

MADRID — President Barack Obama should resign if it can be shown that he approved spying by US diplomatic figures on UN officials, the founder of WikiLeaks said in an interview published Sunday.

"The whole chain of command who was aware of this order, and approved it, must resign if the US is to be seen to be a credible nation that obeys the rule of law. The order is so serious it may well have been put to the president for approval," Julian Assange told Spanish daily El Pais.

"Obama must answer what he knew about this illegal order and when. If he refuses to answer or there is evidence he approved of these actions, he must resign," he added during an Internet chat interview published online.

SNL's take on WikiLeaks was pretty funny.

The philosophy department and the world-renowned Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy are to close. Recruitment for new courses has been terminated and all programmes wound down. The centre may have attained the highest results in the university in its most recent Research Assessment Exercise - yet vice-chancellor Michael Driscoll still sent a letter to academic staff informing them that his decision was ‘simply financial’ as staff had been unable to ‘present a credible case for a sustainable future for teaching and research in philosophy’. The philosophy department at King’s College London is also under threat.

However, the Middlesex decision has not been justified to students. A meeting to brief the students about the closure was postponed, says the university, because of pressing coursework deadlines. Perhaps trying to justify the decision to 60 students well versed in the art of logic was too daunting for the university authorities. According to second-year philosophy undergraduate Johann Hoiby, it was this ‘complete lack of respect’ shown by the dean of arts (Professor Edward Esche) and the university management which ‘fired up’ the students who decided spontaneously to take a stand, occupying the meeting room of the grand ‘Mansion’ building at Trent Park on the university’s leafy campus in north London.

[. . .]

The students are determined to make full use of the occupied mansion, transforming it into what they describe as an ‘open hub of culture, politics, thought and creativity’. Inside, the walls have been covered with slogans such as ‘Make time stand still’ and ‘Revolt’. The students have been holding daily events and weekend workshops, open to the public, which they have dubbed ‘Transversal Spaces’ where ‘the boundaries between disciplines and the relations between students and teachers are blurred’. Events so far have included lectures on the history of calculus, panel workshops discussing the nature of voting, reading groups discussing Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project, and poetry readings.

via www.spiked-online.com

Made in the USA

I came across this picture on Twitter today.  It's reportedly from the Egyptian protests.

 

Egyptian Protesters Defy Government

Holder: DOJ Investigating Pro-WikiLeaks Cyber Attacks

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department is looking into cyber attacks on opponents of WikiLeaks and companies that have stopped doing business with it, Attorney General Eric Holder said Thursday.

Holder made the comment at a news conference following a meeting with European Union law enforcement partners on cybersecurity, counterterrorism and data protection.

Hackers launched attacks on MasterCard, Visa, Swedish prosecutors, a Swiss bank and others who have acted against the WikiLeaks site and its jailed founder Julian Assange.

"We are aware of the incidents ... and we are looking into them," Holder said.

The attorney general said he is hopeful that the people responsible for the WikiLeaks disclosures of classified information will be brought to justice.

via www.huffingtonpost.com

 

A Letter From Anonymous | Deathwing00's Space

Operation Payback : A Letter From Anonymous | Deathwing00's Space. 

Is Julian Assange a Cyber-Terrorist?

Mitch McConnell thinks he is one.  I wonder McConnell will rethink his position now that Julian Assauge is giving Obama an ultimatum?

MADRID — President Barack Obama should resign if it can be shown that he approved spying by US diplomatic figures on UN officials, the founder of WikiLeaks said in an interview published Sunday.

"The whole chain of command who was aware of this order, and approved it, must resign if the US is to be seen to be a credible nation that obeys the rule of law. The order is so serious it may well have been put to the president for approval," Julian Assange told Spanish daily El Pais.

"Obama must answer what he knew about this illegal order and when. If he refuses to answer or there is evidence he approved of these actions, he must resign," he added during an Internet chat interview published online.

SNL's take on WikiLeaks was pretty funny.

Foucault Lolz

‘Yes we Lacan’: a revolt of philosophy students | spiked

The philosophy department and the world-renowned Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy are to close. Recruitment for new courses has been terminated and all programmes wound down. The centre may have attained the highest results in the university in its most recent Research Assessment Exercise - yet vice-chancellor Michael Driscoll still sent a letter to academic staff informing them that his decision was ‘simply financial’ as staff had been unable to ‘present a credible case for a sustainable future for teaching and research in philosophy’. The philosophy department at King’s College London is also under threat.

However, the Middlesex decision has not been justified to students. A meeting to brief the students about the closure was postponed, says the university, because of pressing coursework deadlines. Perhaps trying to justify the decision to 60 students well versed in the art of logic was too daunting for the university authorities. According to second-year philosophy undergraduate Johann Hoiby, it was this ‘complete lack of respect’ shown by the dean of arts (Professor Edward Esche) and the university management which ‘fired up’ the students who decided spontaneously to take a stand, occupying the meeting room of the grand ‘Mansion’ building at Trent Park on the university’s leafy campus in north London.

[. . .]

The students are determined to make full use of the occupied mansion, transforming it into what they describe as an ‘open hub of culture, politics, thought and creativity’. Inside, the walls have been covered with slogans such as ‘Make time stand still’ and ‘Revolt’. The students have been holding daily events and weekend workshops, open to the public, which they have dubbed ‘Transversal Spaces’ where ‘the boundaries between disciplines and the relations between students and teachers are blurred’. Events so far have included lectures on the history of calculus, panel workshops discussing the nature of voting, reading groups discussing Walter Benjamin’s Arcades Project, and poetry readings.

via www.spiked-online.com