Open Source and American Protest

(Does Oklahoma have a "bad case of ‘reportitis’”? Check out DocHoc’s commentary this week in the Oklahoma Gazette.”)

This is an abbreviated version of the second and last part of my presentation at the Seventh Annual Conference on Diversity in Communities, Organizations & Nations in Amsterdam. I gave the presentation, launched a new Web site, and showed a short flash movie (this may take a minute or so to download; be sure to turn up your speakers) at the conference on July 4.

Allen Ginsberg’s work gives us a way to understand the frightening implications of a quasi-fascist United States.

So where are the protests in the United States? Where are the huge crowds demanding justice and an end to the immoral and botched occupation of Iraq? Where are the sit-ins and be-ins of Ginsberg’s time?

The answer, of course, is the protest has gone online. Inexpensive, open source code applications have allowed people, whom we now call citizen journalists, to speak up against the government. Judged by historical standards, this New Media renaissance has had a remarkable effect on the culture and is much larger than the widespread protests against the Vietnam War in the 1960s. Fewer people rely on corporate media for news. Newspapers are losing circulation. Its shills, so-called American “journalists” like Bill O’Reilly, most of whom were one hundred percent wrong about the Iraq occupation, are on the defensive. Yet, these imperial journalists still bask in a mythical hubris now countered by a growing protest against their immoral narratives and generic discourses. I hereby declare, and I am proud to do it here in Amsterdam on the Fourth of July, that The New York Times, like all corporate media outlets, is dying. It is an archeology dig that shows its crude celebration of the violent tools and leaders of the Oil Age, which will be a momentary blip in human existence. The newspaper no longer connects to humanity in any meaningful way. As Ginsberg writes, media outlets like The New York Times are the “places where the deepest and most personal sensitivities and confessions of reality are most prohibited, mocked, suppressed.”

So I speak out, and accept the risks, and along the way, I have made connections with people throughout the country and world who also struggle to speak out in hostile situations. We share similar experiences and problems. We share anxiety about our personal futures and anguish about our times. We recognize that we must share our knowledge and experiences, that, in the words of the great poet, W.H. Auden, “We must love one another or die.” Or, perhaps, at the very least, we must learn tolerance and acceptance.

So I come here to Amsterdam to this conference with very pragmatic ideas based on real-life experiences. I also come here with a new Web site that I hope can help people start to speak out in hostile environments, whether that is Archer City, Texas or Beijing, China. I want to share what I know, but I also want to learn from others who are doing the same work.

As I have mentioned, one of the most important New Media developments for promoting democracy is open source code. One of the mottoes of the open source code movement is that you should think of it as “Freedom of speech, no free beer.” Open source code is software that you can download for free and modify for your own purposes as log as you share your advancements with others in the community. Many open source code applications, such as Word Press, Joomla, Drupal, Moodle, and PostNuke, allow you to create interesting and lively Web sites without a lot of computer programming knowledge. Many hosting sites, which are quite inexpensive, simply allow you to click and download applications on server space you purchase. These hosts do not have to be in the same country as the site’s creators. In fact, in some cases, people can post under pseudonyms on international servers just as long as they can get their words outside the country.

The idea here is to create a free, open exchange of ideas outside the parameters of governments, whether it be the quasi-fascists of the Bush administration or a totalitarian government in the Middle East. The idea is to also challenge the relentless structures of the corporate Internet.

Here is a definition of open source culture from Wikipedia, a sometimes maligned but excellent source of information:

“Open source culture refers to creative practices that involve the appropriation and/or free sharing of found or created content. Examples of open source culture include collage, found footage film, music, and appropriation art. Open source as applied to culture defines a culture in which fixations are made generally available. Participants in such an open source culture are able to modify those products, if needed, and redistribute them back into the community or other organizations.”

While open source culture does not represent an all-consuming panacea, it does represent a practical opportunity. Hand-cranked computers based on open source code are now being distributed to Third World countries, for example, and Internet sites using open source code multiply on a daily basis.

Our new site, Greensunshine.org’s primary purpose is to help support diverse voices that will fight against the corporate-military complex that threatens democratic structures worldwide, keeps million of people mired in abject poverty, and systematically destroys the global environment on a daily basis. The site’s founders are especially interested in connecting with those people who want to speak out in hostile environments. They are committed to open source technologies that focus on shared software and community creation.

Greensunshine.org serves as a bridge between the political/content side of activist Web sites to the riches and complications of open source technologies. How can we help you? How might you help us?