Europe's ACTA Debate begins in Earnest

The American SOPA/PIPA legislation provoked an international campaign, for what Wikipedia itself described during the blackout as the defence of a 'free and open internet'.

Now the focus has shifted to the international copyright protection agreement, known as ACTA. Due to public pressure, through demonstrations & campaigns, a number of European nations have begun to back away from the proposals (The Guardian, 2012).

With Poland, the Netherlands, Bulgaria and Germany stalling for time before the debate on ratification of the treaty by the EU as a whole (Lee, 2012), ACTA looks to be on unsure foundations. Indeed, a petition of two million names was handed in by Avaaz to the EU in opposition to ratification (Washington Post, 2012).

From Thursday March 1st the debate will begin in earnest at the EU, with the International Trade Committee beginning its deliberations and various events arranged to gather the insights of experts and the public on the issue.

According to the European Parliament website, a number of these debates and submissions will be live streamed - meaning at least the debate on free information will be open and accessible via the internet.

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References:
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+ BBC's 'Wikipedia joins blackout protest at US anti-piracy moves'; 8 January 2012.

+ The Guardian's 'Acta loses more support in Europe'; 15 February 2012.

+ Dave Lee's 'Acta protests: Thousands take to streets across Europe'; BBC; 11 February 2012.

+ Washington Post's 'Opponents of ACTA anti-counterfeiting treaty present petition with 2 million names to EU'; 28 February 2012.

For more on ACTA.

*Corrected Wednesday to Thursday.

Anarchy: What's in a name?

Those who benefit from a centralised state have entirely succeeded in changing the public understanding of the word anarchy.

Governments who, for good reasons or ill, advocate a strong central authority - to support the assumption that change can be 'imposed from above' (Bogdanor, 1983) - have taken great care to discredit the anarchist ideology whose name, from its Greek origins, means without rulers (Goodway, 2011).

Politics common amongst anarchists can be summarised in Thoreau's (1849) words:

'The objections which have been brought against a standing army, and they are many and weighty, and deserve to prevail, may also at last be brought against a standing government. The standing army is only an arm of the standing government. The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it.'

As Proudhon put it, anarchism seeks 'Order Without Power'.

So how did this word, anarchy, change so much as to become a means to dismiss, sideline and discredit ideological movements?

Why have opponents of anarchist thought sought to make the words chaos and anarchy synonymous - to imply that the absence of rulers, a ruling class or hierarchy would lead to a collapse of social order?

The answers lie in the power of words to shape our perceptions. The word anarchism stands as a testament to the evolution of language that makes comprehending texts, purely in terms of itself as an isolated meaningful object, difficult.

With multiple authors engaged in Voloshinov's 'struggle for meaning' over a word, and multiple readers engaged with that word - bringing with them their own subjective baggage; the competition surrounding meaning will swamp a plain text analysis in competing contexts.

Finding a means of creating a text that can stand alone and convey its meaning without the need to constantly reinforce it, is the Holy Grail of literary and language theorists.

And that quest carries immense importance in politics, where the 'struggle for meaning' is used to shape words to 'justify' the assaulting peaceful protesters, such as Chilean student protesters affiliated to student leader Camila Vallejo Dowling; even when those peaceful campaigners are engaged in the legitimate opposition to and scrutiny of Government power & policy. It is of the utmost importance that vigilance be coupled with the tools necessary to see through political debate to what is underneath - in the case of anarchy, the attempt to discredit alternatives in order to ensure, for good or ill, the continued strength of central authority.

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References:
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+ Vernon Bogdanor's 'Multi-party politics and the Constitution'; Cambridge University Press, 1983.

+ David Goodway's 'What does it mean to be an "anarchist"?'; in The Guardian; 7 September 2011.

+ Henry David Thoreau's 'Civil Disobedience'; 1849.

+ Robert Booth's 'Anarchists should be reported, advises Westminster anti-terror police'; in The Guardian; 31 July 2011.

Papineau: Intentions & Outcomes

In October 1837, the British authorities were fearing an imminent rebellion - and with it, Canada following the Thirteen Colonies into open revolt.

The British fears centred on Saint-Charles, where Speaker of the Lower Canada Legislative Assembly, the Honourable Louis-Joseph Papineau was addressing the crowd. This gathering was known as the 'Assemblée des six-comtés'.

This Assembly was an open air public rally, the most influential of the popular assemblies held that year by supporters of the Parti Patriote. Assembled here were the leaders of their movement, each imploring them to challenge the 'pernicious, unconstitutional' governing power (Papineau, 1867).

Papineau was an outspoken advocate of challenging the Governor & Council through boycotts of British goods (Storrow Brown, 1872) - boycotts designed to humble the power of the colonial authorities by removing the provincial coffers from their grasp.

But others promoted a more extreme path, pushing for armed resistance (Wrong, 2009).

Monsieur Papineau, who had opposed arming against the colonial authorities, none-the-less found himself the subject of a treason warrant (Storrow Brown, 1872). Due to this act of victim blame, another of many on the part of the colonial authorities, Papineau spent the next decade in exile.

This struggle in Lower Canada raises the question: how far can an author be responsible for their audiences?

In reader-response criticism, the perspective and knowledge of the reader has serious influence upon the meanings extracted from a text (Davis & Womack, 2002). From Narnia author CS Lewis to Name of the Rose author Umberto Eco, proposals have been made to shift the focus of critique from the text itself to the reader. Lewis and Eco highlighted the experience of the reader as being influential in determining both the quality of the text and the meaning contained within it.

Those ideas have important implications for political thought. If Thomas Jefferson stands as an example of the extent to which authors can exert their influence, then Louis-Joseph Papineau stands as a warning that limitations exist - and that a great share of the responsibility lies on the shoulders of the reader to engage with and understand works.

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References:
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+ 'Speech of the Hon. Louis-Joseph Papineau before the Institut canadien on the occasion of the 23rd anniversary of this society'; December 17, 1867.

+ Thomas Storrow Brown's 'Brief Sketch of the Life and Times of the Hon. Louis-Joseph Papineau'; in Dominion Monthly; January 1872.

+ George M Wrong's 'THE Chronicles of Canada - Volume VII: The struggle for political freedom'; Fireship, 2009.

+ Todd F Davis & Prof Kenneth Womack's 'Formalist Criticism and Reader-Response Theory (Transitions)'; Palgrave Macmillan, 2002.

Jefferson: Careless Whispers

As the author primarily responsible for some of the most important words ever written, Thomas Jefferson has had a major impact upon political thought.

But how far does the responsibility of an author reach?

In the critical appraisal of texts, two schools of thought have dominated. The study of plain text itself alone and the study of the reader-response have large bodies of work, each heavily invested in understanding the systems contained within, and the effects of, artistic works. Authorial Intent, by contrast has seemed a much more difficult concept to pin down.

From 'delimiting' the scope of reader interpretation, to being the channel through which historical context shapes communication, the theories focus upon how much or how little influence an author has - with further investigation at risk of raising questions around the ethical responsibility of the author.

For Jefferson, embroiled in what he named 'hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man', it is a question of some relevance. While engaged in political contest with his Federalist opponents, the primary author of the Declaration of Independence also produced infamous works.

Jefferson opposed the efforts of John Adams & Alexander Hamilton to centralise the governance of the United States, by preparing the Kentucky Resolution (along with influencing its Virginia counterpart), against the Alien and Sedition Acts.

Those resolutions sought to counter what Jefferson saw as a Federalist attempt at an 'unconstitutional' expansion of central government authority. In his fight against the tyrannies he perceived, Jefferson laid the groundwork to enable what Washington described as 'coercion' by states acting in concord (Chernow, 2004).

And further, those mechanisms put in place by Jefferson's resolves were later put to work in support of other tyrannies over the individual - being used as leverage in maintaining slavery, which lead to constitutional crisis and played an integral role in secession & the civil war (Knott, 2002).

Jeffersonian Democracy has also developed into the basis for oppositionist stances against centralised government. From Whig disputes with Jacksonian Democrats over 'internal improvement', to the modern day Tea Party anti-government movement, Thomas Jefferson's works have generated inconsistent, or at least competing, narratives. Different factions struggling as claimants to a perceived Libertarian legacy - struggles that have mirrored Jefferson's personal complexity; as Temperley (1997) puts it:

'Jefferson's words continue to resonate in the appeals of oppressed peoples the world over. Whether, however, they accord with the private beliefs of their author is quite another matter.'

The struggles and inconsistencies of Thomas Jefferson highlight the difficulties of understanding works of intellectual property in terms of their author. How far is an author's intent culpable for what has been done with their work?

In a piece written at the BBC's behest, Alan Moore (2012) talked about the role he & David Lloyd's creation, V, has had in the recent protest activities:

'Today's response to similar oppressions seems to be one that is intelligent, constantly evolving and considerably more humane, and yet our character's borrowed Catholic revolutionary visage and his incongruously Puritan apparel are perhaps a reminder that unjust institutions may always be haunted by volatile 17th century spectres, even if today's uprisings are fuelled more by social networks than by gunpowder. Some ghosts never go away.'

Those ideas developed and disseminated, created in response to, in reaction or to resolve, the issues of the day; those ideas founded in the dynamics of their day; those ideas will all see those situations change and those principles applied to new struggles - history progresses and so to do those things we convey as language itself evolves.

As such the capacity of an author to manage the effect of their words is limited - but within those limits work must be done to help clarity where possible. But Rousseau's appeal is a fitting reminder - that with words 'the essential thing  is to know how to recognise them when they are used in their precise sense'.

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References:
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+ Ron Chernow's 'Alexander Hamilton'; Penguin, 2004.

+ Stephen F Knott's 'Alexander Hamilton and the persistence of myth'; University Press of Kansas, 2002.

+ Howard Temperley's 'Jefferson and Slavery: A Study in Moral Perplexity'; in Gary L McDowell & Sharon L Noble (eds.) 'Reason and Republicanism: Thomas Jefferson's Legacy of Liberty'; Rowman & Littlefield, 1997.

+ Alan Moore's 'Viewpoint: V for Vendetta and the rise of Anonymous'; BBC, 10 February 2012.

+ Jean-Jacques Rousseau's 'The Social Contract'; 1762.

Knowledge, Freedom & Control

For anyone who has encountered the Metal Gear Solid game series, its dedication to anti-nuclear proliferation is obvious. But its commentary goes much further. From the futility of violence & deterrence, to the effect that technological advancement is having upon people, Metal Gear Solid doesn't shy away from sensitive or political issues.

One issue of particular interest is the nature of control as portrayed within the series.

The malevolent and illusive enemies in the game are The Patriots. The original members sought to establish a system of control, with the aim of realising their mentor's vision of a unified world.

The focus of the Patriots' system is controlling the flow of knowledge; first by orchestrating what information the people could get access to and later by controlling language itself - in an extreme version of Voloshinov's 'struggle for meaning'.

From SOPA/PIPA & ACTA, to accusations of Countries engaging in internet censorship, the free flow of information is a sensitive subject. And one on which attitudes can shift as easily with geography as with ideology.

In January, for example, while author & theorist Umberto Eco promoted exchange programs that encouraged European integration, the American media & politicians were engaged in fevered bouts of fund-raising. Collecting colossal sums of money with which to buy the attention of the electorate, all in order to orchestrate public opinion towards this or that version of what it means to be a Republican.

The fears expressed in Metal Gear Solid are very real. Knowledge is something that can empower individuals when the flow of information is free, but is a powerful tool of oppression when controlled. The power of knowledge lies in how integral information is to decision making. Where one group is able to strictly manage the flow of information, they can gain the ability to dominate, not just what people can do, but also what they can conceive as possible to do.

Whether that domination comes in the form of censorship or through the influence of vast wealth, there remains a need to assure that all checks & balances against the concentration of power remain watchful & effective.

Ending Foreign Occuptation

Dr Ron Paul's campaign for the Republican nomination for President has contributed to American political discourse with one of the better political adverts produced.




Daily Kos have called for Ron Paul's campaign ad to go viral


It's a stark reminder of the incompatibility of free diplomacy & archaic colonialism - that international friendship & trade cannot prosper, while colonial policies of occupation & coercion by military force continue.