Head To Head
Log In
Register
U-Know! Forum »
Calling Grufty Jim (& the rest of you 2)
Log In to post a reply

Pages: 6 – [ 1 2 3 4 5 6 | Next ]
Topic View: Flat | Threaded
YerArseInParsley
365 posts

Calling Grufty Jim (& the rest of you 2)
Nov 08, 2002, 01:32
You promised you'd revist my 'oil blockade' call to action. If you don't demolish my arguments in the next month then I have a choice of doing it anyway without your moral consent, or going to prison like a wuss for the minor dissent I have pursued. Give me satisfaction -argue !

I mean it! Talk me out of it or the UK has no fossil fuel for the Winter I promise. I have a plan that will work and is close to foolproof. If anyone wants to help then email me pleae or else state your genuine reasons why I should hold my fire. Your help isn't really necessary but may swing the balance. Riot Gibbon ! Necropolis ! Anyone - I promise a real solution ( no thats wrong, a real good strategy is all I promise ).

Long term solutions aren't enough given the current situation. Possible deaths impress me less than they would impress the fire brigades unions considering strikes, and more people might die if you won't volunteer.
marr
marr
61 posts

Re: Calling Grufty Jim (& the rest of you 2)
Nov 08, 2002, 09:51
>>If anyone wants to help then email me please<<

Steganography, pgp and similar recommended methinks. Or is that just my paranoia?
grufty jim
grufty jim
1978 posts

Re: Calling Grufty Jim (& the rest of you 2)
Nov 08, 2002, 11:37
Hi YAIP.

Don't have a comprehensive article written on the subject (yet)... got sidetracked by other stuff when i sat down to write it, wouldn't ya know?

If i get the chance over the next few days, i will devote a couple of hours to it.

However, if you want to email me your idea, i will at least give you a critique of it (and don't worry - it'll not get "leaked" to anyone :-)

My public PGP key can be downloaded from:
http://www.tengai.co.uk/jim/docs/jim_pgp.asc

if you wish to use it.

Groove on,

jim.

PS: as i say; i will try to find a few hours soonly to revisit my arguments against a fuel blockade.
YerArseInParsley
365 posts

Knockando
Nov 09, 2002, 01:35
Jim,
I can't email you even with encryption. Even if you were here I would write down what I had to say and then burn the paper afterwards due to the current security services abilitys and scruples.

Lets just say my pacifist friends have already discounted my methods ( why is the peace movement handicapped by so many pacifists ? That is a joke btw).

However, my plan is good tactically if not strategically. I on my own could stop temporarily the flow of fossil fuels in Scotland at least, if I wasn't committed to NVDA. And I personally might, since I don't see violence against property as violence, and I would also accept a few possible indirect British deaths if it would stop many many Iraqi deaths.

Now if lots of people want to help ( perhaps 30 people nationwide) I have a plan to stop the flow of oil using purely pacifist non violent direct action techniques, in the whole of the UK for perhaps a week.

Just like the last oil blockade but with different more appropriate tactics. If I get some support then I will visit you personally and write down the plan of action, but people who are interested would have to be prepared to be be beaten up and arrested and villified.

As for your critique, then you should be able to write it without me being anymore specific, it is your philosophy that I seek. Say my tactics do stop the flow of fossil fuels in the UK - what do you think of that strategically? And don't try to appeal to the possible local loss of life, that concerns me little compared to the big picture. Bear in mind if I do this I will never get out of prison until the current regime falls. I expect even acting alone to cause fewer local deaths than a firemans strike for example.

It will not be my intention to take life, but to save it, and I am prepared to be reckless saving lifes.
YerArseInParsley
365 posts

Its senseless to trust.
Nov 09, 2002, 01:39
My paranoia towards my baby, this plan, would mean that I would have to visit you personally and write down what I want and burn the paper after. Standard Operating Procedure nowadays, at least in my neck of the woods

That might be paranoid thinking, but it keeps my baby safe.

Encryption has its place. Steganography has its place. But theres no substitute for being sure.
grufty jim
grufty jim
1978 posts

Re: Knockando
Nov 09, 2002, 15:08
Hey YAIP,

firstly - a side issue. I personally believe that 2048-bit PGP encryption is more than adequate to secure communications between activists. I understand that you don't, and am not seeking to change your mind; i merely wish to present an alternate viewpoint lest those unfamiliar with encryption read your message and assume it is inherently unsafe.

secondly - there is a crucial sentence in your message...
>
> And don't try to appeal to the possible local
> loss of life, that concerns me little compared
> to the big picture
>
As we differ on this fundamental issue, i see no point in my trying to dissuade you from your course of action. You instruct me not to pursue what i consider to be *the* vital ethical / philosophical reason not to attack the vital resource supporting millions of people.

I believe that if you oppose an activity on ethical grounds (in this case, the primary ethical transgression is the death of innocent people in pursuit of a political goal); then one cannot legitimately oppose it by committing the same crimes. You state that "killing a few innocents" is acceptable to save many, without really taking on board the reality that "killing a few inocents" turns you into the very monsters you wish to resist.

So you don't have the money and weapons to do it on as big a scale as Dubya. Poor you. But so long as you can justify treating people's lives as your personal political capital, based on "acting for the better good", then you set yourself up to be viewed in an identical ethical light to Bush, Blair and Saddam.

In my life, people i love have died. I'm sure the same can be said for you, and most people reading. I know how that felt. And i know that to deliberately inflict *that* pain on another human being is crime enough. But to deprive someone of a future, of the chance to achieve their dreams? To do that is to reject all i believe worth saving about humanity. To reject that is to say that actually, the people in Iraq are not your motivation - cos they'd be expendable for some "other, larger" cause i presume. Your real motivation therefore becomes just as suspect as the people you resist.

Now, i understand how hopelessly idealistic this sounds... though i'll thank you not to use the word "naïve" - that implies i'm unaware of the arguments against my position, and believe me when i say i'm aware of them.

I have simply taken an ethical position with regards to what i believe are the limitations upon my right to act in the world. You have chosen a different limit - and i guess all the oil / resource analysis i can provide will not alter that.

As an aside, having spent a while researching this industry, i can think of several ways to cripple the UK's fuel distribution network. It's actually a very fragile thing, and remarkably volatile. I cannot think of a single one that would not result in some loss of life. And that - as i say - is unacceptable to me.
YerArseInParsley
365 posts

Encryption
Nov 09, 2002, 16:27
"Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right"

Encryption is good to use.
Everyone should use it for everyday messages.
Never rely on it though.
I remember how they predicted 1024 key encryption would take 10 million years to break.
Some kid broke it in 6 hours at a hackers convention.
It does slow down the security service, and it does stop most of the other groups of people who currently read your data. However the NSA can break any publically available encryption.
Generally the police don't bother decrypting though. They either grab your keystrokes, or just coerce your keys from recipients with the threat of heavy prison sentences.
If they slap an order on me to reveal your key, I wouldn't even be allowed to warn you about it.
Encryption software was legally classed as a weapon, probably still is.
YerArseInParsley
365 posts

Fight the beast
Nov 09, 2002, 16:48
I accept that I may kill someone everytime I get into a car. I may indirectly kill someone through sitting in the street. Life is about minimising the risks to yourself and to others, but the risks remain.

I don't condemn your attitude as you are following principles I have signed up to and followed scrupulously so far.

However, it does leave me open to the charge of being a bleeding heart liberal, someone who uses gesture tactics that really only serve to ease my own conscience while other people die. I find it frustrating that I could have a real effect on the USuk killing machine and yet I hold my fire out of respect for the saintly consciences of those I work with. If the current war on Iraq intensifies then I would condemn no attack on the UK from those we persecute, not even if my own family is killed.
You say that you would kill from a biological imperitive to save your own kin. That is my reasoning too, I see this war as a threat to everyone I know.

Gandhi said he could have defeated Nazism using nvda though he admitted the casualty rates would have been enormous.
I think he was wrong, I think Nazism should have been fought violently, and I feel like the Bavarian you previously descibed me as.

My taxes are spreading death in the middle east.
I have been made complicit in many massacres, and I am very resentful of that. I remain non-violent in the hope my country comes to its senses, but I have been waiting a long time and I am getting restless.

I would kill Saddam if I had the chance, and I don't think he is much worse than our own leaders.


As for the belt buckle philosphy of 'battle ye not with monsters lest you become a monster', I have no respect for that line at all, it is a holier than thou philosphy of passive compliance.
grufty jim
grufty jim
1978 posts

Re: Encryption
Nov 09, 2002, 17:04
>
> I remember how they predicted 1024 key
> encryption would take 10 million years to
> break. Some kid broke it in 6 hours at a
> hackers convention.
>
That's not how i recall the story. Reference please?
YerArseInParsley
365 posts

Chomsky on violence
Nov 09, 2002, 17:25
"I'm of course opposed to terror, any rational person is, but I think that if we are serious about the question of terror, serious about the question of violence, we have to recognise that it is a tactical and hence moral matter.
Incidentally tactical issues are basically moral issues as they have to do with human consequences and if we are interested in reducing the amount of violence in the world it at least arguable and perhaps even sometimes true that a terroristic act does diminish the amount of violence in the world hence a person who is opposed to violence will not be opposed to that act."
Pages: 6 – [ 1 2 3 4 5 6 | Next ] Add a reply to this topic

U-Know! Forum Index