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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsChris Hedges: Feeding the Flame of Revolt
from truthdig:
Feeding the Flame of Revolt
Posted on Nov 17, 2013
By Chris Hedges
NEW YORKI was in federal court here Friday for the sentencing of Jeremy Hammond to 10 years in prison for hacking into the computers of a private security firm that works on behalf of the government, including the Department of Homeland Security, and corporations such as Dow Chemical. In 2011 Hammond, now 28, released to the website WikiLeaks and Rolling Stone and other publications some 3 million emails from the Texas-based company Strategic Forecasting Inc., or Stratfor.
The sentence was one of the longest in U.S. history for hacking and the maximum the judge could impose under a plea agreement in the case. It was wildly disproportionate to the crimean act of nonviolent civil disobedience that championed the public good by exposing abuses of power by the government and a security firm. But the excessive sentence was the point. The corporate state, rapidly losing credibility and legitimacy, is lashing out like a wounded animal. It is frightened. It feels the heat from a rising flame of revolt. It is especially afraid of those such as Hammond who have the technical skills to break down electronic walls and expose the corrupt workings of power.
People have a right to know what governments and corporations are doing behind closed doors, Hammond told me when we met in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Manhattan about a week and a half before his sentencing.
........(snip)........
I disagree with Hammond over tactics, but in the end this disagreement is moot. It will be the ruling elites who finally determine our response. If the corporate elites employ the full force of the security and surveillance state against us, if corporate totalitarian rule is one of naked, escalating and brutal physical repression, then the violence of the state will spawn a counter-violence. Judge Preskas decision to judicially lynch Hammond has only added to the fury she and the state are trying to stamp out. An astute ruling class, one aware of the rage rippling across the American landscape, would have released Hammond on Friday and begun to address the crimes he exposed. But our ruling class, while adept at theft, looting, propaganda and repression, is blind to the growing discontent caused by the power imbalance and economic inequality that plague ordinary Americans at a time when half of the country lives in poverty or near poverty. ..........(more)
The complete piece is at: http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/feeding_the_flame_of_revolt_20131117
xchrom
(108,903 posts)RKP5637
(67,108 posts)pipoman
(16,038 posts)of fringe "protesters" either violent or non-violent, which can actually effect policy. When a protest is tiny, no attention is given it. When it grows to encompass thousands or millions of people it begins to get recognition. This has played out many times in US history. The excessive price paid by Hammond may result in a form of martyrdom recruiting others who are of like mind. If there is an uptick in like "protests" they may actually start the process of change forced in effort to mitigate the disenfranchisement of those most likely to participate..
Laelth
(32,017 posts)-Laelth
BelgianMadCow
(5,379 posts)bookmarking for later.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)is that potential organizers of resistance can be quietly disposed of before that resistance ever materializes, and the public need never know.
When you have extensive databases on everyone's daily activities and associations, it's not hard to find SOMETHING to warrant a quiet visit and removal.
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)woo me with science
(32,139 posts):kick:
cantbeserious
(13,039 posts)eom
Plucketeer
(12,882 posts)That serve as their nooses and tools of torture.
L0oniX
(31,493 posts)tavalon
(27,985 posts)Because revolts are bloody. I want to avoid revolt. I don't know that we can. But, as a nurse, I will be at the barricades, trying to stanch the blood.