The Greanville Post —Vol. VII- 2013

Something to think about—(put cursor over scroller to stop it)

We're engaged in a protracted mass communications battle, a contest of propagandas, Their object is to prop up the system's legitimacy; ours precisely the opposite. The core of a system's illegitimacy is nothing more nor less than its easily demonstrable Orwellian nature. If it claims to be a democracy it must be a plutocracy; if it proclaims to defend the safety of its population, it actively endangers it; if it struts around loudly shouting its allegiance to freedom and the rule of law, it is in actuality a cynical hidden dictatorship; If it brags about its "free press", then you know for sure that it is an abject, servile tool of the power elites. Of course the most infamous contradiction is that when this hypocritical scum kneel before the altar of peace they are actively engaged in making war. On and on. Always the opposite of what it claims. In America, especially, anyone awake can see that readily. But unfortunately the majority are still asleep.—Sean Lenihan •••The cowardice and duplicity of Congress, above all, the Democrats, and the subservience of the media, exhibited in their response to the exposure of the NSA spying programs, encourage the military and intelligence agencies to go even further in their drive toward dictatorship. Mark Udall, the Democratic senator presented as the most “outspoken” critic of the spying programs, began his interview Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” program by pledging his support to the “war on terror” and denouncing leaks of classified information.—Barry Grey••••From Athens to Paris to Brazil, there is growing realization that politics as usual just won’t cut it anymore. We will always lose if we play by their rules rather than invent new forms of struggle, new social movements, and new sensibilities. The defense of the earth requires immediate and decisive action: logging roads need to be blocked, driftnets need to be cut, and cages need to be emptied. But these are piecemeal and reactive measures, and in addition to these tactics, radical movements and alliances must be built that unites struggles on behalf of humanity, nonhuman animals, and the earth in a politics of total liberation. Resistance is the oxygen of the future. Live to resist, resist to live.—Steve Best••••For over a century now US ambassadors have acted as fifth columns in the nations they are embedded in, their role chiefly to foster corporate and plutocratic power and coordinate machinations against any truly pro-democratic government.

Get Internet Access When Your Government Shuts It Down

ACTIVISTS & HEROES, ALERTS, AMERICAN STUDIES, ANTI-CORPORATISM, ANTI-NEOLIBERALISM, ANTIWAR, CITIZEN TOOLS, CITIZENS' MEDIA, CORPORATE OWNED PARTIES, ENVIRONMENTAL STRUGGLES, FALSE DEMOCRACY, PUTRID CORPOMEDIA, REAL DEMOCRACY, REVOLUTION, TACTICS & STRATEGIES, TECHNOLOGY Comments Off

May 272013

From our archives: Revolutionary How-Tos
From PCWorld
We thank the editors of PCWorld for this service

By Patrick Miller, David Daw, PCWorld, Jan 28, 2011

These days, no popular movement goes without an Internet presence of some kind, whether it’s organizing on Facebook or spreading the word through Twitter. And as we’ve seen in Egypt, that means that your Internet connection can be the first to go. Whether you’re trying to check in with your family, contact your friends, or simply spread the word, here are a few ways to build some basic network connectivity when you can’t rely on your cellular or landline Internet connections. Continue reading »

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Social Networking and the Death of the Internet

AMERICAN STUDIES, ANTI-CORPORATISM, BETTER HUMANITY, CULTURE & CRITICISM, REVOLUTION, SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, THE PENTAGON-MEDIA COMPLEX Comments Off

May 082013

How Do You “Like” That?

by ALFREDO LOPEZ

This Summer, a team at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) has undertaken a remarkable project: to recreate the first web site and the computer on which it was first seen.

It’s a kind of birthday celebration. Twenty years ago, software developers at the University of Illinois released a web browser called Mosaic in response to work being done at CERN. There, a group led by Tim Berners-Lee had developed a protocol (a set of rules governing communications between computers) that meshed two basic concepts: the ability to upload and store data files on the Internet and the ability of computers to do “hyper-text” which converts specific words or groups of words into links to other files.
Continue reading »

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Another Internet is Possible

AMERICAN STUDIES, ANTI-CORPORATISM, BOUGHT POLITICIANS & PHONIES, CORPORATE CRIMINALITY, CORPORATE OWNED PARTIES, TECHNICAL, TECHNOLOGY Comments Off

Apr 072013

Some Questions for the New FCC Chairperson

by DAVID ROSEN

Julius Genachowski’s recent announced that he will step down from his post as FCC chairman. This provides an opportunity to raise important questions about the future of U.S. telecommunications policy to both Pres. Obama and his potential appointee. One of these questions concerns the future of the U.S. Internet and broadband service. Continue reading »

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Culture & History: Naval Warfare in the Age of Sail

AMERICAN STUDIES, HISTORY, TECHNOLOGY Comments Off

Jan 252013

Composed by J. B. Calvert
Last revised 9 January 2007

HMS Warrior (1860), was the first armour-plated, iron-hulled warship, built for the Royal Navy in response to the first ironclad warship, the French Gloire, launched a year earlier.
When completed in October 1861, Warrior was the largest, fastest, most heavily armed and most heavily armoured warship the world had seen. At 127m in length, over a block long, she was almost twice the size of Gloire and thoroughly outclassed the French ship in speed, armour and gunnery. It was calculated that she could sink every single warship afloat in its day.

Theodore Roosevelt’s The Naval War of 1812 vividly made me aware of how sailing ships fought at sea, and dispelled many erroneous impressions that I had held. Among my more correct impressions is the supreme importance of maneuver. The ship could be moved only by the wind pressing on its sails or hull, by currents, by lines attached to anchors, docks, or the shore, or by oars, either sweeps of its own, or in small boats towing it. All these methods were used, sometimes desperately, to retain advantage of position, without which the ship was lost. The warship of 1800 had grown too large and unwieldy to be effectively managed by rowers. A ship sought weather gage of its enemy, so that it had freedom of maneuver, and could close if it wished. In every encounter of sail, wind and position were of supreme importance. Continue reading »

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Nader: On Apps Inanities and Dependencies

AMERICAN STUDIES, SICK SOCIETY, TECHNOLOGY Comments Off

Jan 142013

Consumers Beware!
Apps: Inanities and Dependencies

by RALPH NADER

Redundant, trivial, overcomplicated and dependency-inducing apps (computer applications) are flooding the internet. Some apps associated with deceptive and harmful claims are even drawing the attention of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

Consumers beware! Continue reading »

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US government shuts down file-sharing site MegaUpload

ANNOTATED NEWS, ASSHOLES, BASTARDS & CRIMINALS, CITIZEN TOOLS, TACTICS & STRATEGIES, TECHNOLOGY Comments Off

Jan 222012

By Patrick Zimmerman, SEP

DOJ’s chief Eric Holder has shown vigor in going after the 99% but has acted like a limp noodle in prosecuting the 1% interests. Typical of the Obama administration’s priorities.

Operating at the behest of the major media conglomerates, the US Department of Justice moved against one of the most popular file-sharing Internet sites, MegaUpload, on Thursday, shutting down the site, seizing millions of dollars in assets and arresting four people.

The operations spanned eight countries and included the crucial assistance of the New Zealand government, where the four individuals were seized, including the site’s founder and former CEO, Kim Dotcom (Kim Schmitz). There are still three accused who have not been arrested. The seven each face a maximum sentence of 55 years in prison. Continue reading »

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Matt Mullenweg on SOPA

ACTIVISTS & HEROES, ANNOTATED NEWS, INDECENT SLIMEBALLS, TECHNOLOGY Comments Off

Jan 202012

BBC VIEWPOINT ON BLACKOUT

Below we reproduce Matt’s contribution on the anti-SOPA Internet blackout, as collated by BBC.

I’ve built my life on a free and open internet. As the co-founder of WordPress.org, a free software project that aims to democratise publishing, and the founder of Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com that hosts blogs from around the world in pursuit of the same goal, the proposed US legislation to regulate and censor the free and open foundation of the internet makes my mouth go dry with fear.

The rise of the web over the past two decades and the freedom to publish and express yourself online will be looked back upon as a cultural revolution.

We have gone from a world split between gatekeepers and media “consumers” to a world in which anyone regardless of geography, finances, social class, race, gender, or any other demographic identifier is free to engage with the rest of the world on their own terms. Continue reading »

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Is WordPress Free, Priceless or Both?

ANNOTATED NEWS, TECHNICAL, TECHNOLOGY Comments Off

Jan 172012

By Melanie Lamport
Or How WordPress Doesn’t Make Money

Matt, with his toothy grin, and the guys at Google who want to “make money without doing evil” are just a bunch of geeks who got morally and ethically born again by Richard Stallman, pastor at the Open Source Software Community Church. Matt and Google, get over it. The Christians thought they were making the world a better place when they launched the Crusades and the Inquisition.
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Editor’s Note: We found this article fascinating for what it focuses on, and not too much in technogeek, but we are uncomfortable with the ambiguity of the author’s position: is Ms. Lamport being cynical? Is she laughing at the cybergeeks’ effort at de facto communitarianism? Is she making a backdoor plea for the after-all-we-have-said-about-corporations they ain’t so evil? Frankly I can’t tell for sure. Maybe our readers can sort it out—and let us know.—PG

“WordPress is web software you can use to create a beautiful website or blog. We like to say that WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time.” Matt Mullenweg Click here to watch a video about the inventor with the cherubic face of the WordPress blogging software. WordCamp is the name given to a series of community sponsored blogging events centered on discussions relating to the WordPress blogging platform.

Matt Mullenweg travelled to India for the WordCamp event in 2009. Someone surprised Matt with the “money” question. “How Does WordPress Make Money if you give it away free? Continue reading »

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Many topics to choose from

There’s violence and there’s violence

Revolutionary Violence vs Institutionalized Violence

"There were two 'Reigns of Terror,' if we could but remember and consider it; the one wrought murder in hot passions, the other in heartless cold blood; the one lasted mere months, the other had lasted a thousand years; the one inflicted death upon a thousand persons, the other upon a hundred million; but our shudders are all for the "horrors" of the minor Terror, the momentary Terror, so to speak; whereas, what is the horror of swift death by the axe compared with lifelong death from hunger, cold, insult, cruelty and heartbreak? A city cemetery could contain the coffins filled by that brief terror that we have all been so diligently taught to shiver at and mourn over; but all France could hardly contain the coffins filled by that older and real Terror - that unspeakable bitter and awful Terror which none of us has been taught to see in its vastness or pity as it deserves..." —Mark Twain, writing about the French Revolution.