Brainstorm: Nonviolent but Actually Effective Dissent Ideas

[Joe Hillshoist]

Are there examples of violence working that don't end in Mao-tastic nightmares?

The "Eureka rebellion" might be considered such a thing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eureka_Reb ... orm_League

It could be debatable tho, and I don't have time right now, but will over the next few days, so read up about it and give us your take on it.

Yeah, that's kind of why I initially chose the word "Equally-effective", to bypass any need to debate when or if violence has ever been effective. This isn't the thread for that debate.

The Eureka uprising was a violent action (in response to other violent action) that challenged a colonial power and was followed by the adoption of "universal" (ie male) suffrage. It changed the way parliament functioned in Victoria and led to shortening the terms between elections, introduction of secret ballots and removal of the limitation that only landholders could be elected to parliament.

Anyway someone asked this question:

Are there examples of violence working that don't end in Mao-tastic nightmares?

Clearly there are and that is one of them. There is no "if violence has been an effective form dissent" cos it has. i agree there is no need for debate on the issue.

Of course if you want to pretend it didn't happen so you can keep the false idea that violence can never be effective as the basis for this thread, go for it. And if you'd prefer we didn't answer other posters' genuine questions with facts feel free to state that up front.

[Joe Hillshoist]

Also, for those of you engaged in a non violent campaign, especially wrt to mining, this is the sort of thing of thing you're up against.



This is one method for dividing communities against themselves. A divided community is easier to defeat cos while the consternation is happening there is a window of opportunity to start drilling, chopping, digging or whatever, and once that shit starts it is so much harder to stop.

[Canadian_watcher]

It's ALL about money.
It's all about money.
If you aren't going to take away their money then they won't care.
And, at this point, you'd have to take away a fuckload of it, since they've already managed to take away so much of the people's money, all over the world.

The idea of a boycott isn't original, but I'll tell you what would be - a boycott that moved beyond theory!
I contend that (at least before the PTB got as rich as it currently is) if the people could successfully boycott a corporation and bring it down you'd see a massive change in the way things were run, at least for a while. AND you'd reinvigorate a populace that thinks it can never win against the machine.

[Joe Hillshoist]

It's ALL about money.
It's all about money.
If you aren't going to take away their money then they won't care.

This is very true. The actions in Northern NSW cost companies hundreds of thousands of dollars a day and prevented them from beginning the process of generating profit. We demolished the share price of the company responsible (Metgasco) and in the long run this scared other companies away, especially as the universal public outcry did effect legislation. Th weather helped too. But thats understandable as the weather doesn't like that sort of environmental vandalism.

[DrEvil]

I don't know if this would even be possible. I have to make a lot of assumptions (yeah, yeah, I know), but it could be fun to try.

All the major banks, and a whole host of other critical businesses, use GPS for time-stamps and synchronization of financial transactions. For something like algo-trading it is probably quite essential.

Another thing about algo-trading is that every millisecond counts, so physical proximity becomes important. Ergo - the major banks have data-centers where all this crap happens, and I would be willing to bet money that the GPS antennas they use for time-keeping are on the roof, as close to the computers as possible.

What if you could spoof that signal? Override it with an identical (but more powerful) signal, and then, oh so slowly, start shifting the time-stamp.

In theory, all you would need is a transmitter where you crank up the wattage a couple of notches, and a directional antenna, plus some simple software for spoofing the signal, and line of sight. Or you could use a quad-rotor drone and just stick it on top of the antenna and intercept and mess with the signal. A drone in the middle attack.

If that doesn't work, steal a boat and go trawling with a sharp anchor at a certain location off the east coast.

[FourthBase]

I don't know if this would even be possible. I have to make a lot of assumptions (yeah, yeah, I know), but it could be fun to try.

All the major banks, and a whole host of other critical businesses, use GPS for time-stamps and synchronization of financial transactions. For something like algo-trading it is probably quite essential.

Another thing about algo-trading is that every millisecond counts, so physical proximity becomes important. Ergo - the major banks have data-centers where all this crap happens, and I would be willing to bet money that the GPS antennas they use for time-keeping are on the roof, as close to the computers as possible.

What if you could spoof that signal? Override it with an identical (but more powerful) signal, and then, oh so slowly, start shifting the time-stamp.

In theory, all you would need is a transmitter where you crank up the wattage a couple of notches, and a directional antenna, plus some simple software for spoofing the signal, and line of sight. Or you could use a quad-rotor drone and just stick it on top of the antenna and intercept and mess with the signal. A drone in the middle attack.

If that doesn't work, steal a boat and go trawling with a sharp anchor at a certain location off the east coast.

Forgot to also say: Legal, people, legal.

[justdrew]

stick to street theater and guerrilla gardening

(anyway there's easier ways to synch with the atomic clock standards, and the computers probably have extra-robust internal time keeping (most computers drift relatively a lot really (which is why they all do NTP clock synchronization these days (in fact I feel modern computers drift more than they used to)))

[DrEvil]

Disclaimer: My above post is of course meant as a thought experiment. Please don't try it.

And justdrew is probably right anyway. Google uses atomic clocks to synch their databases on a global scale for instance.

But the trawling bit could work. There's something like 25 dedicated cable-repair ships going 24/7 all year just to keep things running smoothly. It can take days, even weeks to fix a single broken fiber cable. Which is why you never hear officials talk about it.

But long term, the best way is probably just continued exposure of the banks' dirty laundry by any (legal) means available.
At some point the glass will be full.

[Canadian_watcher]

so... a non violent, LEGAL way to trump the people who have a monopoly on violence and create and maintain the law.

hmmmmm... lemme see.....

[FourthBase]

so... a non violent, LEGAL way to trump the people who have a monopoly on violence and create and maintain the law.

hmmmmm... lemme see.....

Great contribution. [green] [/green]

[justdrew]

so... a non violent, LEGAL way to trump the people who have a monopoly on violence and create and maintain the law.

hmmmmm... lemme see.....

a population voting in decent elected officials would go a long long way, we should try it while we still can. People are breaking free from the Murdock Agenda, the time is right. Maybe non-conservative Canadians could even retake their government from the Murdock empire's Canadian proconsul?

[Joe Hillshoist]

so... a non violent, LEGAL way to trump the people who have a monopoly on violence and create and maintain the law.

hmmmmm... lemme see.....

a population voting in decent elected officials would go a long long way, we should try it while we still can. People are breaking free from the Murdock Agenda, the time is right. Maybe non-conservative Canadians could even retake their government from the Murdock empire's Canadian proconsul?

Yes, and that becomes more difficult the higher the percentage of media that's owned by the prick. Hence in Australia we have a population that hates its PM for a variety of bullshit reasons (despite valid reasons to criticise her, which are there but never mentioned by Murdoch's rags) and thinks AGW is a scam or a conspiracy of the scienticians, instead of a thing that happens.

On the plus side the "new media" is independent to an extent but the old , especially newspapers, still sets the agenda for radio and tv, which are still important and will be till my generation karks it.

However ... the new media offers interesting opportunities too. Look what happened with that tweet last week saying there had been an explosion at the white house.

[Joe Hillshoist]

And this earlier in the year in Australia:

EMBATTLED mining magnate Nathan Tinkler lost $180 million in two minutes yesterday after an activist played an elaborate hoax pretending to be the ANZ bank pulling funding.

Whitehaven Coal lost more than $276 million in market value after coal activist Jonathan Moylan issued a fake press release suggesting that ANZ had withdrawn its $1.2 billion loan to help Whitehaven build a new mine, because of environmental concerns. Within minutes Whitehaven shares plunged spectacularly by 31c, or 8.8 per cent, from $3.52 to $3.21 shortly after midday. Mr Tinkler stood to lose up to $50 million from his 19 per cent stake.

of course people that do that have to pay...

The Australian Securities Investment Commission said it would be investigating whether there had been a breach of Corporations Act rules on false or misleading statements.

The maximum jail terms in such cases for individuals is 10 years, with fines of up to $495,000. Organisations face fines of up to $4.6 million.

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/nation ... 6549159715

http://theconversation.com/asic-and-the ... hoax-11669

Will anti-coal activist Jonathan Moylan receive justice if he is charged over his hoax?

ASIC, which will formally interview Moylan next week, is under enormous pressure to “make an example” of the 24-year old. It is expected he will be charged with breaching Section 1041E of the Corporations Act, which outlaws false and misleading statements designed to affect share prices. The maximum penalty is a fine of $495,000 or 10 years imprisonment.

The chorus of outrage from the big end of town has been deafening. Nikki Williams, chief lobbyist for the coal industry, was one of the first into print. Fulminating against “deliberate and fraudulent manipulation” and the use of “blatant dishonesty” to “destroy one of Australia’s biggest industries”, she later claimed the hoax has “potentially harmed an unknown number of mum and dad investors”.

Williams did not say how she knew those who lost money were parents. Others closer to the markets, including an ASX spokesman, have argued that investors (in the market for the longer term) are unlikely to have lost money. Only “high-frequency traders” who sold impulsively within the 39 minutes between the issuing of the media release and the trading halt lost money.

There you have it. High frequency trading is a weak spot that can be exploited.

[justdrew]

it's such bullshit. No "money" was "lost" a share price went down, a little bit. No doubt it recovered.

[DrEvil]

Another quick thought on high frequency trading. Would it be illegal to create algorithms whose only purpose is to make other algorithms lose money? Something that figures out their patterns (like "the Knife"), and interrupts them.