Cyber Allies

It’s been a fun day on the internet. I got to help take part… I mean innocently witness the taking down of the Koch Brother’s website as the fight for unions in Madison was joined by Anonymous (the amorphous group of online vigilantes who have been defending WikiLeaks, ridiculing Scientology, and making fun of the families of kids who kill themselves).

It’s fun, watching the youth of today work themselves up into the politically active malcontents of tomorrow. While I hate most of you fossils who limp through here regularly, my 27 year old self is downright ancient compared to those who orchestrate these sort of “attacks” (it’s more like a virtual sit-in than an attack).

This largely teenage hodge-podge of outcasts, nerds, geeks, dorks, dweebs, and losers have made themselves a force to be reckoned with, not in the actual damage they do, but in the attention they can bring to an event (though in the case of the already hyped Madison protests, Anonymous is small potatoes and their involvement will probably go largely unnoticed).

I don’t know how anyone can see some of the things going on in the world and not feel compelled to really do something. Not post a stupid video where somebody else gets angry, or quote from an editorial written by a do-little desk jockey without any real connection to reality.

It’s not enough for me to read about someone who says they have their thumb on the pulse of the nation, I want to stick a needle in its vein and shoot it so full of speed it wakes up from the fast food and beer coma (Charlie Sheen, we need whatever the hell you’re on).

It’s not about convincing yourself or anyone else that you’ve done anything, because pride and prestige mean fuck all in the face of oppression. It’s about at least trying. Most people have given up, especially the tired old yuppies. The day you stop trying to change what’s wrong with the world is the day you’ve become part of the problem.