Hello iPad, Goodbye Internet As We Know It

Cheers to Richard from the excellent Third Estate blog for alerting me to this fab piece. He promises he's going to write more in the Internet, and from an Arendtian position (?!) - is that a sort of post-Heideggarian technology/nature stance then? Anyway, totally looking forward to it.

The US launch of the iPad marks a historic moment. Not ‘the end of books’ as some doomsayers would have it, or the even the start of the great Books vs Internet wars. No, today Apple has reversed the flow of their business model. And with it, the internet.

Some explanation. Ever wondered why most people have PCs, even though Apple Macs look nicer, work better and are more cutting edge technologically? There’s a very simple answer. It’s because when Microsoft and Apple were starting up, they used two different business models. Microsoft franchised: they’d produce the software, and would actively help anyone else build the hardware. Apple, on the other hand, was to always make the software and the hardware together, and allow no sharing or copying of either part of the design. This is exemplified by the iPod and iTunes.

This started to change a few years ago with the release of the MacBook (bear with me here, all will be revealed). The switch from Motorola to Intel microchips means that any Mac can run Microsoft Windows as well as Apple’s own software. Today, the iPad is released on the US market – and expressly enables other companies to develop their own software (‘Apps’) for the iPad. While Apple has got its own ‘iBooks’ (yes, really), there’s also going to be Apps from Amazon, Barnes & Noble and, when the iPad gets released in Britain later this month, undoubtedly iWaterstones and eFoyles will make appearances as well.

All those best sellers just lining up to be best sold

As you can tell, the big plus about the iPad is that it supports ebooks like never before. Even though Amazon released the Kindle last year, whose screen is actually seen by many as superior to the iPad’s, the book über-emporiorum stated that they “look forward to making Kindle available for iPad very soon.”

What? ‘But Kindle’s a piece of hardware!’ I hear you say. ‘How can a piece of hardware be made available on another piece of hardware?’ A very good question indeed. What Amazon means by this enigmatic little nugget is that they’re going to be releasing software called something naff like iKindle, to be used on iPads to buy eBooks. This burgeoning market of small letter software is about two main things: adverts and publishers.

What the Times sees as a great deal for consumers, in which a price war makes ebooks cheaper and cheaper, is actually a really good method for ensuring that big publishing houses increase their control in the market, not just be being able to offer ebooks at a price that cuts below that needed by any publisher to support writers and researchers. I don’t want to give an impression here that this is about starving novellists, poets writing in the garret by the light of the moon and the glow of the screen. This is about journals, newspapers, magazines. It’s about high quality independent research and cutting comment.

Already we’ve seen over the past 6 months alone all sorts of clamp downs on the unadulterated free content promised by the internet. From the Digital Economy Bill to Google Books, from Sky News to the New Yorker, the days of free online content are coming to an end. ‘Hey, there are always ways to get round these things!’ I hear you interject again. ‘I mean Napster and Pirate Bay might be hounded by big governments and corporations, but we’ll find a way, right?’

Wrong. Because, just like with big book stores, most people aren’t going to be using the small independent software on their iPad – their going to be relying on big business to give them access to the world of words. But this time it’s all digital, which means its a lot, lot easier to control and manipulate.

When I read history essays or NEF reports online, no one interferes with my experience at the moment. But just as we’ve seen that change with music, so it might well change with books. Youtube videos now come with pop up adverts and dollar signs; Spotify seems to be increasing its advert to music ratio each day. All these new ebook reading applications are going to support these kinds of tie-ins: buy three volumes of Freud and get a pop-up ad for Lady GaGa.

The Communist Manifesto ebook: now with added rotation!

But most importantly, the technological control of information allows for the clawing away of that access in a state of emergency. This doesn’t just mean the effective banning of radical texts, something which, remember, we’ve seen in the last few years both on the left and on the right. It can also be for the smallest, most ridiculous-seeming reasons: it’s worth recalling that the first call for state monopoly of the printing presses came from an Italian humanist to the Pope in 1471 (a mere ten years after Gutenberg’s invention), complaining that the quality of the Latin texts produced were so poor that the Vatican should legislate all printing activity immediately.

While the rest of the world is Pope bashing, maybe we should stop and examine the activities of our own growing church of ideas – all hail the Corporations of the Text! Maybe to elucidate a bit more where I’m coming from on this, here’s the excellent James Boyle:

“I care about the Web not because I want to live my life there, but because of what it has allowed us to achieve, what it represents for the potential of open science and culture… In place of what we have today, I think…we are trying to reinvent a tamer, more controlled Web and to change the nature of the underlying networks on which it operates. We would restrict openness of access, decrease anonymity, and limit the number of actions that a network participant could perform.

“The benefits would be undeniable. It would cut down on spam, viruses, and illicit peer-to-peer file sharing. At the same time, it would undercut the iconoclastic technological, cultural and political potential the Web offer, the ability of a new technology, a new service to build on open networks and open protocols, without needing approval from regulators or entrenched market players, or even the owner of the Web pages to which you link.”

I’m not saying there’s anything in particular we can do about all this: at least, no one’s told me a course of grass-roots action we could take yet. I’m certainly not about to go on a bout of boycotting. But at the least we should be aware of this almost inevitable drive towards the restriction of the free information age.

Related Posts:

• How can philosophers change history if they can’t read it?
• Coercion and the defunct
• Murdoch’s proposals are good for journalism and good for us
• The Price of Philanthro-Capitalism
• We need to talk about the future of the creative industries.

A Party to Win? Clare Solomon's expulsion from SWP

(written on my iPhone so I can't see the whole post at the same time-sorry if it's too rambling)

Dear comrades, friends & fellow travellers,

Two months ago myself and James M were suspended from the SWP. James has had his suspension lifted and is able to participate in party debates at conference although is not able to sell the paper, attend branch meetings, central London, Soas or otherwise. It is a great shame that the party has enforced restricted membership on such a dedicated revolutionary.

On Saturday, however, I was expelled. (addition to original post) I was expelled for 1) putting on an event called Mutiny which they claim was autonomist 2) for sending 6 friends a private email and 3) I was accused of 'lying', ie for not accepting that this was a factional email or event.

I have been a member for four turbulent years. My sister and I joined the SWP at Marxism 2005, the year of the London bombings which had me penned in my Brunswick Centre flat in Russell sq, a mere 100yds from the bus bomb.

How glad I am that I was amongst people such as you all at this difficult time and that my distress was channelled into becoming a revolutionary. Through learning from and participating in discussions about how to change the world I was won to the idea of having to do this collectively.

The seed of this was sown in my mind in 2003 when the local Stop the War branch used my restaurant (Char Bar in Cromer St) to hold planning meetings. Coming from a military family background (my dad was in the Military Police!) meeting these people and seeing their desire to fight back against the impending war on Iraq was certainly a life changing experience. My first ever demo was the 2m people one on 15 July 2003. I attended with my own homemade banner with the Gandhi quote 'an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind': my, how I have changed.

After joining the SWP in July 2005 I threw myself into activity at SOAS university, central London, with an unquestioning commitment. I was consequently elected as Co-President of the Students' Union on a Student Respect platform in March 2006 having built up a layer of support through our activity. The people in the SWSS group were extremely dedicated, and we regularly had new people attending the weekly planning meetings and engaging in activity.

And we soon turned the union on it's head. General meetings went from attendence of around 30 people twice yearly to now between 100 and 150 of a student body of only 3,000 on campus every 6 weeks. Election turnouts have become the highest in the country (30-33%) with many candidates standing on highly political manifestos. We did all this not just by handing out tons of leaflets in the rain but by making the links between local issues and national, indeed international, happenings. We also built so successfully by doing a combination of protests, meetings, filmshowings, socials and by getting involved in other societies; by attempting to relate to people on many different levels. This was my first experience of building anything political and this was, I still feel, a very succesful strategy.

Soon after I began my first term I was also elected to the National Council of Respect. Needless to say electoral politics was what I was most familiar with so the transition to revolutionary socialism came about through this process. Although I am not arguing for a 'stageist' approach, it is clear to me that one does not necessarily become a revolutionary overnight: the relationship between activity and theory is continually affected by external influences (and vice versa).

The Respect split of 2007 was very upsetting for me. I remember crying when George left the NC meeting. I had even been on Big Brother's Little Brother as one of his defenders for the upcoming eviction shows. Even as an NC member I was, to be honest, unclear of what had happened in Respect so it is of no suprise to me that many other people have come to lots of different conclusion-it is nigh on impossible to ensure an equal distribution of information. And being remote by either time or space from an event or happening only adds to potential distortions. Luckily the Internet is changing all this, and changing the way we relate to each other. (I am presenting a paper on this topic at HM this weekend-see http://mercury.soas.ac.uk/hm/conference2009.htm for registration details).

Just prior to returning to being a student after my 2 term stint in the SU I was asked to be Central London organiser of the SWP for a month, taking the reigns from the previous person who is well known as being a more-than-fulltime revolutionary! I learnt a hell of a lot in this time. It is an extremely hard job both mentally and physically. I focused on changing the way we did paper sales and we had 11 new people attending branch meetings within 2 weeks. We recruited about 7 or 8 to the party in a space of 3 weeks.

Coming back to Uni I was in the strange and disturbing situation of not having any established comrades from the previous year. Some had left SOAS and those that did return we had not retained. We had a new and very different organiser and a whole new National SWSS office team. The anger at the collapse of the banking sytems helped us rebuild a vibrant swss group; we recruited 8 people and retained 6 of them (which is a very high percentage).

SOAS was the first Uni to go into occupation over Gaza and we were central to a number of other occupations. Whilst on one hand this strengthened our already great relationships with a wide layer of people, on the other it left us behind in our school work and slightly fragmented as a group. None-the-less we learnt a great deal from these actions and are all still dedicated to building the party this year.

The combination of having new organisers, of underlying differences in both the party and on the wider left and of having a wide millieu of anti-capitalists around us proved very diffilcult for me to carry out hard party arguments and turn new students into convinced revolutionaries. The doors were also opened to new activist groups having inspired them into getting active. This has given us even more to contend with.

However 3 more Soas people have joined the party since last year.

In the summer myself and a few friends (including James M), both SWP and others, organised a very successful event called Mutiny-Money on Trial which aimed to play around with culture and politics, blurring the boudaries and looking for new ways to attract young people. As far as we were concerned what we did was exactly what revolutionaries should be doing: we took our cue from the post conference bulletin which encouraged us to take creative initiatives. We spoke to the cc prior to the event and took on board their feedback. As a consequence two people joined the party and Mutiny attendees were central to setting up a new branch. Five people that we know of wanted to get more involved and were only put off from joining once they heard of our suspensions. Just to be clear, far from being told not to be involved, a member of the CC said 'if it goes well come back to the party and we can see how to take it forward'.

And now I have been expelled.

I tell you these things not because I want pity or to win your support but because I think it is important to contextualise my involvement in the movement and hence help understand the trajectory which has landed me where I am today.

Being expelled is upsetting to me not just because of any personal attachment to the party but because I understand the need for a coordinated attack on the ruling class and that this can only come from below. We need a strong organisation to be able to carry this out and we only get a strong organisation through constant debate, discussion, disagreement and, hopefully, democratic decision making. There needs to be debate in a revolutionary party to get clarity. The history of ideas is, afterall, the history of the clash of ideas.

Whilst my case has become the source of a lot of distorted tittle tattle for reasons not always clear to people I am pleased that comrades are at least debating the direction of the party and the effect that this will have on the wider movements.

I have great respect for the SWP and do not wish any internal problems to become problematic for building a strong resistance in what looks set to become a period of increasingly deeper recession. The left faces huge challenges for the future both fighting the BNP and organising working class resistance. We need a united fight back and any problems the SWP have will impact on the possibility of this happening.

I reject ALL the accusations against me and I believe thy have made a mistake in expelling me. What concerns me is that it may mark a change in the kind of party the SWP wants to be.

I do reserve the right to appeal to conference in January and I trust comrades to be fair in their assessment of the situation.

Thank you again and I look forward to having these debates in the open.

In solidarity.

Ps. I have obviously been following with great interest the discussions on various blogs and will continue to do so. I would like to thank you all for your lively and lovely contributions (even from you Sacha!) and I welcome any more constructive criticism. Please respect the fact my blog is about building not internal squabling. Some of the analysis you guys have been offering is really rather good-we can all learn so much from each other and these forums have provided a place for us to do this.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iphone ]

The case of the missing Blogfather: Soas takes up Hossein Derakhshan's case

Today marks the one year anniversary of the detention and imprisonment by the Iranian authorities of my good friend and fellow Soas student Hossein Derakhshan.

I am very pleased to see that Soas media department has now taken up his campaign and I urge all fellow bloggers to do the same.

He spoke out against wars and brought attention to many attrocities in the world. He is more famously known as 'the blogfather' of Iran for setting up and guiding thousands of blogs in Iran leading Iranians to be at the forefront of the cyberbattle.

You can read more about his activities and the details of his detention at the new Soas blog here: http://www.projectcarousel.org/2009/11/mind-medium-message/

We hope to raise the profile of his campaign so please use these messages to get you started.

I am blogging this from my iPhone so haven't worked out how to link to my previous posts yet but will do so once at a computer. Type his name in the search bar for previous articles.

In solidarity.

=====

UPDATE: coz someone is cybersquatting my .net address it is no longer possible to access my old link-GGGGRRRR

So, here's one that I also posted to my overflow blog

[Posted with iBlogger from my iphone ]

What would YOU ask Chomsky?

If you had 15 minutes to interview noam chomsky what would you ask?

What a question! Here is what me and my friends came up with:

Something about how students shud fight against marketisation?

How do new forms of media-facebook etc, impact upon our political organisation?...

God knows. Never read much Chomsky (read more of his linguistics than his politics, weirdly). How about something about prospects for future of NATO if lose in Afghanistan? Or about prospects of losing in Afghanistan? Or ask how progressives should respond to recession? (Though answer to that will prob be a bit crap.)

it's a tough one. he is a brilliant mind, but almost a wasted brain for the left. because he insists that revealing facts and only facts is enough. He ignores entirely the questions of ideology, belief, and worst of all, the way fiction structures reality. How come a linguist can ingore those questions? That's what i would ask. i'd love to know what he said if something on those lines gets asked.

Does the ruling class have any answers to the current global economic crisis?


What is key Impact of new networking tools on the struggle for change (similar to my q).

What impact does text talk have on our cognitive development?

Also, there's a few more good ones on my facebook status.

Mobile Blogging from here.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iphone ]

5 things Vestas sit in is teaching us...

From the great blog River's Edge found HERE.

1. Capitalism is such a crazy profit-driven system that it does utterly ridiculous things, like closing a plant producing wind turbine blades at the precise time when the need for such technology has never been higher. If capitalism is allowed to continue in this unplanned and chaotic way, we will never achieve even the weak climate change targets agreed by world governments.

2. The social class that is most conscious of the threat to our environment, and best placed to do something about it, is the working class, because it does not share the insane lust for profit at the cost of anything else that is driving the owners of industry and the oil and energy companies to pollute and despoil our planet.

3. Workers who take militant action, like occupying a closing plant, are winning massive support and understanding from their community, and solidarity from around the world.

4. While the police, courts and legal system are designed to defend the right of a company to make profits ahead of the right of workers to work, and the need to save our planet by reducing carbon emissions, a strong campaign mobilising thousands can win victories, even here.

5. The Labour government has utterly failed to defend these jobs, or the plant, despite all their professed policies on climate change and the environment. Labour has abandoned the working class and is in the pocket of the big business polluters. Labour's commitment to the environment is an empty husk. We need a political alternative to Labour, and the Vestas workers could be key players in building and leading such an alternative.

Joe Glenton - Serving Soldier refusing to return to Afghanistan

From Counterfire.org

Joe, all I can say is that you are truly a brave an courageous man. You brought me close to tears when you spoke out. You spoke from the heart and we all really appreciate this.

Our hearts and thoughts are with you while you stand up against this war, whilst you fight the powers that be and whilst you fight to get your life back.

Thank you very much from all of us campaigning for an end to this occupation and war.

Collective hat-trick on calling MP's to account. Hear Gordon Brown on Vestas & more

Although I didn't get to talk to the brilliant Malalai Joya last night (and therefore complete the hat-trick on questioning MP's this week) comrade Des Mannay, Bolshevik super hero, tackles Gordon bloody Brown and Department of Works and Mensions minister on Vestas occupation, tuition fees, the Welsh Assembly scrapping Tuition Fee Grants and job losses at London Met.

http://mediaweb.musicradio.com/Show.asx?Episode=101402

mediaweb.musicradio.com

Source: mediaweb.musicradio.com

Unfortunately I have no sound on my computer so can't tell you exact;y which minute it starts at so please comment below once you have listened and let us know.

Apparently he is the first person to ask a question, and is referred to as "the gentleman in the yellow shirt".

Des told me this:

It was a bit of a shock, nobody knew who was going to be on the platform on the radio talkshow, until I got there and they announced it. Up until then they just said there would be a 'senior cabinet minister'.

I'm presuming Des was awsome so well done!!!

Official school statement-disgusting

(Bold my own)

Dear colleagues

Officials from the Border Control Agency visited SOAS this morning

with a warrant to enter the premises and to carry out checks on

employees of our cleaning contractor ISS who were suspected of working

illegally.

We understand this must have been distressing for those involved, and

indeed our own colleagues. However we believe the checks were carried

out quickly and in a sympathetic manner.

We have been informed that nine people have been detained for further

questioning and ISS is liaising directly with the Border Control

Agency at this stage.

SOAS is legally obliged to co-operate fully with the authorities

regarding such matters and we would like to thank staff for their

cooperation and understanding at this time. We have received

assurances from ISS that the standard of cleaning in School buildings

will be maintained.

Alan Smith

Interim Secretary and Registrar

Brutal cop's badge number is 5042U.

Great to see this taken up by  the mainstream media. This would not have been done without pressure from below.

Copied this from Indymedia:

Guardian link to indymedia

14.04.2009 19:16

The Guardian are linking to the photos on this indymedia posting! Normally the other way round!!

All power to the people and the power of citizen/democratic journalism. Has anyone come up with a better name for it than this?

Internet for Activists conference at SOAS. All activists welcome

We would like to invite you to our conference on the 14 March entitled "The Internet for Activists 2009". We are students who have seen internet tactics build successful campaigns and gain publicity for important issues.

Our aim is to set up a free conference where advanced internet activists can share their expertise with others and different activist groups can meet to share their own experience, both

of the web and the street.

A one day conference on how to effectively use the internet for activism. Experts in their fields will give seminars, workshops, Laptop urgery and there will be stalls and food. 

Full programme to be published once it has been finalised.

To book a stall or for further details please email 

See our blog for details

Danny - age 11 | Protest For Gaza, Against BBC Charity Broadcast refusal

Protest For Gaza, Against BBC Charity Broadcast refusal. Shame on the BBC who reported 'hundreds' protesting!

Even the police and SKY reported that there were 'thousands'.  

Watch the video to see who you believe.

The BBC have also lied saying that:

ITV and Sky have also said they will not show the appeal, with an ITV spokesman saying that no consensus could be reached.

Tariq Ali's argument for a One State Solution

Sorry about the wobbly filming, i was trying to juggle 2 cameras at once!

SOAS ACADEMICS DEFEND MASH JOY

Dear Mash,

It has been good to make your acquaintance, though I deeply regret the circumstances. Thank you for your kind words, but the situation in which you found yourself should never have happened. It was dereliction of the School’s duty of care towards you that you were intimidated like this on SOAS property.

Thank you for showing such restraint in the face of unwarranted provocation, and such courage in raising this issue publicly.

I shall forward an email that I sent to all UCU(Lecturer Union) members yesterday evening that has engendered a flood of emails from academics expressing shock at your treatment.

Your measured account chills me, particularly your statement that “you could tell by the way that the police kept staring at me that they did not consider this matter over”.

It is such a restrained account of appalling intimidation that all academics and senior admin staff in the School cannot fail to be utterly shocked at what has been allowed to happen to you on the SOAS campus.

I assure that SOAS UCU will not cease until the Director has addressed this issue, I will be raising it at a number of SOAS Committees on which I sit. UCU and I, personally, will be writing to the Met to complain of the appalling treatment you received at the hands of these policemen.

I apologise unreservedly for this outrageous behaviour towards you and the School’s failure to protect you.

With sincerest best wishes
Mash Joy

Dear Mash,
You have absolutely nothing to feel ashamed of.

You dealt with these institutional bullies (police) with calm and restraint in the face of obvious provocation. Four burly policemen arrived at SOAS in relation to just one student. They arrived in a car with a police van in tow. They obviously intended to use it. Angered at failing to find the student who’d dared to exercise his right to “freedom of speech”, they were obviously trying to provoke an incident with you.

You dealt with it brilliantly, and were brave enough to put forward a motion at the Students’ Union AGM yesterday that was supported unanimously. That is the action of a brave man.

Many academics have been talking about your situation and have expressed shock that you have been exposed to this treatment.

You are the catalyst that will bring about change. That is something of which you can be enormously proud.

Thank you for agreeing to let me to put out your statement.

Many thanks,

Stop the Gaza Massacre Rally in London | 8 January 2009

More videos from yesterday's brilliant, packed public rally will be found at Ady's channel throughout the day

Watch this fabulous analysis from Tariq Ali


Tony Benn


George Galloway