Monday, February 6, 2012

Will Anonymous Ever Achieve Formal Political Party Status

I know that my limited and unstructured educational path has shaped my comprehension of abstract references, but one in particular stands out amongst the spotlights being shined upon the concept of sustaining a level of identity disassociation, culturally referenced in the short form of Anonymous.

For years, it has been my understanding that to become a member of a political party, all one has to do is adopt such a classification and that’s that.  No registration required, no entry exams, no licensing necessary…one does not even need to exhibit behaviors that toe the party line for membership to be of official merit from a historical position.

With each political party inheriting a perpetual Recommended Reading Index – once passed along a straight and narrow distribution route, now produced sometimes in the millions, if not billions in certain cases – I find nothing to tether myself to while brain cells bounce around towards a theory that perhaps Anonymous has been a political party of its own clearly measurable standards and merits throughout the centuries.

Over the years, I have adjusted my understanding of “politics” to be geared more towards a state of mind, a position within the total mental accounting structure of another in which a conclusion has been drawn and therefore all future calculations will include such a position, which is only a belief born from a hefty dose of faith in ourselves that our senses did not somehow severely fail us somewhere in the past.

And despite my last paragraph perhaps appearing like a cryptic mess, there are few that are skilled and well-versed with interpreting what behaviors fall under the scope of political leanings relative to any other labeling option available to record that a behavior happened.

With Benjamin Franklin offering an example of someone applying anonymous activities for socio-political engineering purposes by adopting an illusionary identity as the source of the content, thereby disconnecting anyone from having opportunity to actively engage in debate with the author for what the content portrayed.

However, it is within the proposition there is a self-evident portion of our existence that provides a platform for historical juxti-positioning the performance of an act with a state of mind driven by a socio-political sense of purpose such as Franklin’s efforts to have his written word distributed entirely absent from the perceptions and perspectives that would otherwise be drawn had his name been signed at the bottom compared to the feminine airs the name suggested. 

Was his mind-set intentionally aligned with any existing political party identity while he wrote or did he temporary disassociate from all existing parties so he could temporarily join the Anonymous Party to accommodate his most intimate political linking tendencies?  What is the harm of a false signature in the face of such tarot-card type projections being present, right? 

Also, the assumption and subsequent assignment of economic damage of any kind for the act was delivered from figures holding government job titles, which makes it a political response to an alleged strike by a member of an earlier version of our modern day Anonymous Party, Mr. Benjamin Franklin.

With the power of hind-sight and historical oversight of such activities, mew information frequently can present opportunity for new decisions to be made…but for what purpose?  Whereas intentionally hitting the archives for something intentionally damning is of the more sinister horizon, it is the perpetual

Geography has never been a strong method of prevention political viewpoints and ideology from transporting itself from one location to another.  It’s been an active inhibitor and even with the web co-existing around us, it still poses an ability to lock down points of view from entering – or exiting – a potential position of state of mind influence…in any direction.

And although I am not skilled in communicating in the abstract, let alone recognizing it, it does not escape me that the current legacy being built associated to the Anonymous concept in many ways is no different from activities similar in nature being attached to existing political parties – including the off-spurt of the currently well-known Tea Party as a spur built amongst(?) the Republican branch.

This does not mean that a possible political party status for the moniker means all activities performed wearing such a label bear the markings of a reasonable threshold comparable to the Franklin publications or even the tea party.  Franklin didn’t release data that could directly harm the well-being of others on an individual identity basis and vehement and perhaps vitriolic as the original tea party was, the physical event course became centered around the destruction of tea leaves and what the loss would/could/should represent to those who learned of the event…

Neither of which posed the same individual risks now presented by those who continue to opt to adopt this more ghost-like explanation for their behaviors.  “I am not the one doing something wrong here.  I am only reporting of proof of something being wrong by showing how it is happening.” as a generic summary mind-set works no matter what century an act of disassociation of identity occurred.  Women frequently were forced to face the hurdle of whether or not they were willing to adopt a male persona in order to receive monetary compensation for their works and as Franklin demonstrated with his temporary gender swap, common social perceptions and perspectives trigger at-a-glance biases.  Where those biases fall is of contemplation when evaluating an event in a historical context, for such biases is the basis for a great many examples of where an identity alteration just doesn’t meet a reasonable threshold for justifying acts tipping towards the super extremes, which includes physical harm.

The concept of identity disassociation carries with it a thick library of materials providing means and methods of molding and modeling such acts and activities to typically be first filtered with a sense of flaw above and beyond all other conscious determinations, which is contrary to the current threshold of the general social acceptance of such acts to represent a reasonable and logical safety and security method when broadcasting via technology.  Nothing wrong with having a screen name with your legal name

So whether or not my inklings and hints towards Anonymous as more than just a simple political movement is accurate in a political scholar context, we are all equipped with the ability to sign our names as anything but our legal names.

It doesn’t seem to be in the opportunity itself that creates the ghostly facets of an anonymous state of mind being of a lurking shadow needing to be perpetually feared one and all.

It would seem to be more about what is manifested while such a state of mind has been adopted.

Think of it this way.  When was the last time you cared about the creator of a television commercial?  Sat through the entire credits list attached to a movie?  Read the full sleeve inserted into a musical CD?  We all tend to absorb a large quantity of content with Anonymous slapped all over it, so what makes certain anonymous situations more political than others stems more from what it represents to the rest of mankind.  But paying someone to strategically leak data about a pharmaceutical via a television screen is far different than leaking data attached to police department databases, let alone the government sectors and yes, even the private sectors.

It’s not often I remain uncertain of my own finish line when I sit down to write about something drifting around in my mind (even in the political realm) but this topic definitely has a certain kind of stopping power over my own intellect and interpretation of not just my own personal experiences, but what it is I absorb every time I hop around the web looking for some little slice of information to satisfy my own curiosity.

So for now, I guess its back to thoughts disassociated with acting in a relatively Anonymous manner…but I’m sure it will remain lurking around somewhere in this cavernous imagination of mine.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Content Transfer from the 2nd V Decision Tree - One Teeny Tiny Little Issue

***This entry was transferred from The 2nd V Decision Tree due to its content being more relevant to the 4th compared to the 2nd.  This was originally published January 23, 2012 entitled "One Teeny Tiny Little Issue With the MegaUpload Challenge."***

Since I know my writings have a reputation for receiving the TL,DR (Too Long, Didn't Read) stamp, I feel it important to take expand the title by first disclosing I have put one teeny tiny little issue with the MegaUpload Challenge somewhere within this teeny tiny post, although even I'm not exactly sure where it's at.  I wrote so many notes for this blog, I had to split the content into five separate parts.

Okay.  I am originally from the State of Illinois.  Most recently, the nation was given a glimpse into one of the more legendary legal landmarks for Illinois, that of a guilty verdict being passed down upon former Governor Rod Blagojevich.  Mixed reviews still remain a point of contention amongst those who choose to banter about such topics, including questions surrounding how he was elected not just once, but twice.

It is this kind of colorful, rich and diverse history of humanity that has been generated from within the pen-drawn boundaries representing Illinois  on a map that, at least for myself, these books and stories continue to provide rhyme and reason to remember that just because something (or someone) has been endorsed by a member of any community does not mean such an endorsement is untouchable and impervious to impeachment. 

Hence, my own teeny tiny paper tiger trail with virtually no knowledge of the evidence behind the lawsuit published and available in an online format.  This doesn't mean I haven't absorbed a great deal of unadulterated comment and conversation, rather there are other parallels above and beyond worth risking a little emotional heat being directed towards a suggestion I will make a little further on in the content.

In the meantime, Governor George Ryan and Governor Scott Walker are two more names that come to mind in terms of a guilty verdict being on the books and yet this is the same state that has been host to one of its favorite adopted sons, Abraham Lincoln.  Illinois records have a dash of Capone and a dose of Dillinger, along with long lists of protest upon protest for a variety of rights-related conflicts. ..most not performed in a courtroom setting and not designed for a judicial audience.

It's a state that has mandatory mental health screening being paid for by taxpayers to take a quick statistical sample from the youth of the state as to what their "mental health state" is when they are sat in front of a computer and asked a series of yes or no questions, while no clear recall mechanisms exist at the state level, let alone a local level. 

It still feels like there is virtually no one other than myself demanding these leaders to take the same tests the children in their community's are being demanded to take through legal mandate and I know there have been legal cases in other state's challenging the law, such as Illinois' neighbor to the right.

In fact, if you ever wonder where people end up extrapolating statistics such as "X number of people currently are undiagnosed for ADD or ODD and need medical treatment," don't doubt for a moment these mandatory mental health screening scores are being added to the mix, along with all of the gaming stats being generated, etc. 

And whether a pill or a pillow will "cure" the ADD or ODD statistical percentages showing up in reports, papers and marketing materials, Illinois continues to make movements towards shifting those with a label of reduced mental capacity to integrate these individuals into a more community-like setting while closing down the dedicated facilities designed at least on paper to employee individuals who went through a school system long enough and well enough to have a chance to make at least a living, if not a life-time career delivering what outsiders could reasonably classify as quality care. 

What this shift of American citizens will do emotionally to stock-holders in this particular industry is anyone's guess, but I still haven't forgotten what appeared to be raw feelings between government and the private sector in another state when government decided not to privatize the mental health community combined with awareness of how some patient's are more manufactured by the medical community rather than any real wiring issue of a biological and/or emotional circumstance.

Yes, no matter what the online stats might reflect at any given time, it has been my experience that Illinoisian's have never shied away from hot and heavy debates surrounding virtually any topic, trial or tribulation.  Battles, battles and more battles.  You want to see a copy of a municipal code book?  Get ready for a possible battle.  You want to see a copy of an invoice or contract?  Gear up for a long one and not necessarily a cool one, either.  You want to see a copy of board meeting minutes for the past 3 years?  Get ready to take on the colors of being a true enemy of Government.  My once again tossing out my pill versus pillow demonstration online?  I don't even have to be living in Illinois any more to effect at least a sigh from a few readers already sick and tired of being reminded that being tired is not always a signal someone is sick and in need of immediate medical interference and influence before any other option is considered.

But to those who are unfamiliar with my hand-crafted, keyboard enhanced contributions over the past 15 years or so, how does someone explain their own decision tree and how it works to an outsider is a topic well-familiar to those who have had direct exposure to the mental health instruction manuals floating around in their various versions.

(continued from Part II) So why I would find such a strong attachment to this latest effort to challenge an online structure on a legal versus illegal foundation all goes back to being so exposed to events in the history of the state of Illinois?

Just because a group of entertainers are associated with a group of business people, the product must therefore be nothing but credible and any assault upon the character of the product and the people backing the product is just plain nuts.  The music industry is not perfect by any means and payola shifting to Independent Whatever's and promotional items having the stamp of a brand or two explaining away the transference of a walkman or even a coffee mug.  Super-Pac.  'Nuff said, right?

After all, what could MegaUpload possibly have done to draw the ire of the Big G (not Google mind you, but the Government Big G association) with such public endorsements of the service, right?

With the SEC bringing about what at least on the surface appear to be house-keeping actions against the upper echelon of the private investment sector, why shouldn't the Fed's have equal opportunity to demand of someone to explain the existence of evidence...assuming the evidence isn't designed with a fix in mind. 

This case will not decide the fate of the Internet as many are blowing it up to be, no matter how many Denial of Service attacks are launched in protest.  The DNS assaults only adds another reason in the PIPA/SOPA/OPEN breadcrumb trail Congress continues to leave behind in a written format for a public forum to view as to whether or not such legislation is really necessary to reign in absurd levels of abuse of public trust being imposed by a relative few in many settings, which is what the MegaUpload case represents.

This case will provide another opportunity to determine what commercial practices are entirely against the grain of proprietary and proper means and method to attract both free and paid contributions of materials no one from a typical end-user side can ever know how exactly such materials are being bought and sold, let alone traded or stolen.

The yelping and kvetching of the more influential voices with the word "entertainment" somehow attached to their resume also detracts from what the MegaUpload case represents compared to this continued effort for Congress to attempt to hone in further on key buzz words to keep the buzz up and about as to how an ordinary person is to discern the copyright of a digital work, let alone how to read such a stamp.  If people were busy reporting evidence to the MegaUpload organization about potential copyright violations, they are no more immune to the legal system than YouTube is, let alone the recent Universal Music Group/YouTube contribution to the legal books.

Who has been playing who in a MegaUpload context may have some major players associated with the current set of circumstances, but Governor Walker, Governor Ryan and Governor Blagojevich were also  once considered major players and people associated to them were inescapably colored by the choices of these individuals intermixed with their own choices.

(continued from Part III) And yet it ultimately remains up to each individual to determine if the influence of the Big G crunched an otherwise viable and rational set of large financial schematics designed to intentionally stay below standard measurements, such as is available for review with the following individuals:

Tom Petters - Minneapolis businessman
Kevin Cohen - Attorney Baby Broker schematic
The Tran Organization - Casino-cheating schematic
Kenneth Starr - Accountant to entertainers
Arthur Nadel - stole more than $150 million from 300 people
Marc Dreler - Attorney - hedge fund theft via executive impersonation
Stefan Wilson and Lawrence Salander - Art dealers
Art Williams Jr. - Counterfitter
Alberto Vllar and William Del Blaggio  - NHL team purchased with stolen money
Scott Rothstein - Attorney - multi-billion dollar theft
TJX/Albert Gonzales - Hackers
Tri Energy - International diplomat - fraudulent gold deal
Troy A. Titus - Stole millions from vulnerable groups including the sick and the elderly

And short as that list just was, the online fraud catalog has an even longer list of potentials, which I'll save for another time and none of this particular list was the direct fault of someone within Illinois' boundaries...but the state will still suffer for such acts. 

How you decide to feel about that is up to you, however I could not help but be disturbed with the volumes upon volumes of demands for auto-outrage to course through the neuro-networks to somehow make it clear that any government interference with the unfettered operation of an organization operating for the clear intent of turning a profit will be met with nothing but a signal bombardment with an inescapable political message attached "Don't Trust Them!  Trust US!  Down with Big G!  Up with MegaUpload."  What a racket to rustle up with the muscles of an artist's heart and soul, their bread and butter, their peaches and cream, their chocolate and vannila,

I think this is a great opportunity for Congress to have fair reason to step back even further from the pads of paper being used to sculpt out even more verbiage that only continues to confuse the whole rights and responsibilities nature of someone being a copyright holder and what tools are available to prevent unauthorized distribution of their materials. 

They have as much of a right to leverage commercially-driven boundaries as the next business owner and these cries and whines about "Sucks to be you, Artist.  Now shut up and get back to composing because your content still sucks and isn't worth even a few cents" being inserted into millions of comment sections while a few manage to squeeze out a "Make it so it makes sense and maybe we'll see" message being broadcast from locations across the world that are attached to money-generated linking schematics.

(continued from Part IV) Because the online community permits everyone having opportunity to voice their opions (let alone options) I believe Congress should consider letting the MegaUpload case work its way through the legal system before beginning to revisit any tinkering the Big G should impose upon the history books covering the evolution of the copyright industry in its current setting.  Perhaps it is the legal community that needs to step up not its copyright skillset but its affilate marketing knowledge and understanding of the mechanics involved with such a necessary component of permitting someone of my status and stature to be permitted to not only publish as I see fit, but to also read and review content until my head hits my keyboard due to exhaustion...all for the cost of accessing a connection with my hardware (which is quite old-fashioned and outdated, but I still like it!). 

Sure, my simplification of the financial cost of such a broadcast in terms of my ability to broadcast freely might cause some to shudder with dread, however the cost of publishing something to the Internet has its own set self-evident responses/results that continue to be absent from the PIPA/SOPA/OPEN path.  There are far more symptoms of ailment available in the lawsuit as talking points needing to be addressed than in the current set of notes for proposed legislation.

I can't ignore this view of more legislated permission for private enforcement organizations to receive Official Deputy of Speech status and the subsequent authority to impose a far more pervasive and powerful verdict upon someone, which is derived from the multiple stigmas attached to someone being banned from an online setting, let alone in trouble with The Law.

Just visit a forum or two and see what kinds of conversations transpire regarding the appearance of a negative comment, going back to the "You suck as an artist" quote I left somewhere back towards the beginning of this contemplation.  I don't see how more laws are going to help individuals better attach themselves to process and procedure when violence is being shown on the Internet any more than someone getting the boot from an affiliate marketing system like AdSense for having more than the permissible number of sightings of advertisements that in some ways represent hope and possibilities beyond our wildest imaginations.  Just think!  How many people have improved their health because they spent time reading materials available for free in an online setting?  That's a a good thing and something worth fighting for, but does it really need more words to be added at a Federal level? 

The MegaUploads lawsuit is falling under a different set of measurements that just so happen to include cyberlocker copyright issues and I think it would do members of Congress a bit of good if they gave the lawyers involved in this case a little room to pull their paperwork together so the best presentations can be put forth.  It may not have the potential for fireworks as a Congressional Hearing can promise, but if MegaUpload leaders have done no legal wrong, hopefully they will have legal counsel capable of putting a quick end to this suit through short and sweet evidence brought before a judge in a courtroom setting so that such a conclusion can be reached using existing laws as the foundation for the fraud allegations.

Don't forget.  If the Fed's actually "goofed" in some way, there's always the option in the next chapter of MegaUpload to return to its cyberlocker activities with the support and sympathy of a much wider audience it would have never otherwise reached in defending the rights of one and all cyberlocker providers against The Big G.

This issue should have an interesting, if not surprising turn out of expression for and against and it's just another hurry up and wait moment sitting in the Queues of Justice.

Happy Monday!