::fibreculture:: The Leisure Class as Lynch Mob (Scientology vs. Anonymous)

[Mathieu O'Neil]

Here is another take on the Anonymous War.
The main text is in French but there are a lot of links to youtube  
videos and other websites which look interesting:
http://infoblog.samizdat.net/le-point-sur-les-actions-d-anonymous- 
contre-la-scientologie

Cheers,
Mathieu

On 29/01/2008, at 3:23 PM, Christian McCrea wrote:

> Thanks Mathieu,
>
> The 1990s push against Scientology was interesting because it split
> people interested in anti-corporate activism but for whom protesting a
> specific "religion" was difficult to reconcile with their political
> economy. Its quite hard to position anti-Scientology, anti-Landmark
> Forum or anti- Alpha Course positions as, say, active leftism - at
> least in English speaking countries. Not least of which because every
> time a sociologist or academic researcher has so much as looked askew
> at the group, they are declared 'Fair Game', and come under massive
> pressure.
>
> Also because to become 'Anti' these groups is to devote your life to
> it; a passing interest in commentary simply doesn't pay.
>
> However, I believe its worth keeping the candle lit on this because
> each of these groups give substantial money to right-wing governments
> and organsations, wield significant influence on the operation of
> social programs (in which they are primarily interested) and of
> course, free speech.
>
> In Australia we also have the Exclusive Brethren, which is an entirely
> different kettle of insane fish.
>
> I'm not interested in attacking Scientology at all, but I think that
> these incidents (grown exponentially since I made the first post, by
> the way) tell a social narrative of the internet that I think is worth
> tracing. For every initiative to build a Smart Internet, there is a
> Stupid Internet growing on its own. Anonymous is perhaps one of the
> least organised, least effective group actions in history but we so
> used to asking 'well where are the burning tyres in these online
> spaces, where is the activism?', that we may be missing it. This is a
> massive distributed denial of service attack being organised by
> teenagers who came together over videogames, racist jokes, image
> macros and mind-boggling japanese pornography. Some action groups are
> forming in ways we didn't expect,  or still don't have a language for.
>
> So on one hand you have this amorphous weird entity formed in the most
> bizarre way, and on the other you have Scientology. Its a bit like a
> duel between bezerk bureaucratic monsters; a T-Rex and a Stegosaur in
> the Land Which Reason Forgot.
>
>
> -Christian McCrea
> Swinburne University of Technology
>
> ::posted on ::fibreculture:: mailinglist for australasian
> ::critical internet theory, culture and research
> :: info: http://fibreculture.org/mailman/listinfo/list_fibreculture.org
> :: FIbreculture website: http://www.fibreculture.org
> ::please send announcements to separate mailinglist:  
> announce at fibreculture.org
> :: Announce List info page:  
> http://fibreculture.org/mailman/listinfo/announce_fibreculture.org
>