[fc-uk-discuss] fc-uk meeting on saturday 10th of december in london

[MJ Ray]

"David M. Berry" <d.berry at sussex.ac.uk>
> I must admit to becoming increasingly disenchanted by the naive  
> belief in the power of web-pages and email lists to change the world  
> that is manifested in hackivism and other idealist attempts to  
> achieve real political change.

Why would you hold such a bizarre belief? It's no wonder that
you're getting disenchanted with it. Those things are nothing
more than organisational aids that can help with real work.
Use them, but please help with the action too.

Personally, I'm more irritated by out-of-context comments like:

> The Treasury committee to look into  
> copyright extensions has called for papers and suggestions for input  
> into their investigation, this would have been the perfect  
> opportunity for a constructive collective challenge to the proposals  
> for copyright extension.

Where have they called for this? If you're talking about the
Gowers review, they've only just published contact details and
I've not seen any call for papers yet. What have you seen?

I asked you for information about select committee enquiries, but
you ignored my request to date. Why won't you share information?
Hacktivism has one thing right: priests mean problems.

> I fear it is another lost opportunity from  
> a group that seems to me to exhibit an ignorance of the fact that  
> real political change only takes place under collective organisation  
> and that instead is committed to highly individualistic and  
> libertarian values that condemn it to the dustbin of history.

I think calling "real political change only takes place under
collective organisation" a "fact" shows either an astonishing
ignorance of English politics, or a desire to use "real" as a
weasel word: would we share the same view of what change is real?

Is such destructive criticism meant to rally us all to form soviets?
It just makes David sound like an old red knocker to me.
I think this needs to be far more constructive.  If anyone
wants to build a collective organisation for those who believe
such structures benefit them, go ahead.  Show us how it's done.
Prove the anarchists wrong.  I feel any group would still
benefit from participating in wider voluntary campaigns.

Best wishes,
-- 
MJ Ray - personal email, see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/email.html
Work: http://www.ttllp.co.uk/  irc.oftc.net/slef  Jabber/SIP ask