There are lots of politics discussed -- ha! I mean ranted about -- on the net. What many newbies are surprised to find is the number of radical political perspectives.
At first, they think there's just a disproportionate number of "oddballs," but it's not the case. What's different is they get to hear/read a disproportionate number of alternative views.
In the "real world," the mass media game is structured to deliberately marginalize alternative political voices. Monitor any mainstream paper/broadcast and editorial slants become evident. Something called the "conventional wisdom" dominates. Journalism likes to claim "objectivity," but that's hype. It's extremely ideological. (See Noam Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent or Visualizing Deviance: A Study of News Organizations by Ericson, Baranek and Chan.)
The horizontal structure of the net means radical political perspectives aren't automatically "edited out" per verticalized corporate ideology. This is unfamiliar to newbies, thus it appears that radical political views -- such as social anarchism -- are more prevalent on the net than in "real life." Many think "anarchism" means bomb-throwing, nihilistic barbarism and chaos. This is centuries-old ruling class disinformation. In crudest terms: anarchism is the belief that human beings naturally engage in mutually beneficial social interaction if hierarchical power structures are not allowed to pervert innate social instinct. The state isn't corrupt because it attracts lots of "immoral" people; the system breeds corruption by protecting class, strata and privilege.
One of the strongest anarchist voices on the Internet is Spunk Archive, started in late '92. It's only fitting that its founders found each other through net.activism.
"We largely met online, via the Anarchy Discussion list and other fora," says Ian Heavens That mailing list is still moderated by Holland's Jack Jansen (jack.jansen@cwi.nl). Americans Chuck Munson and Mikael Cardell, editors of Practical Anarchy Online (mjmc@fullfeed.com), rounded out the original crew. This Spunk editorial collective can be reached at spunk@lysator.liu.se .
Spunk's numbers have grown, members often recruited from Jansen's email list -- which is "a good way of people getting involved," Heavens says. "Discussion is sporadic but focused."
Their goal is to amass vast digital libraries of famous (and not-so- famous) works with an anarchist bent, and use the power of the net to distribute them far and wide. It holds hundreds of files -- available free -- by and about Mikhail Bakunin, William Godwin, Emma Goldman, George Orwell, Hakim Bey, Peter Kropotkin, Alexander Berkman, Max Stirner, Malatesta, Abbie Hoffman, etc. -- including, among my faves, those proponents of enlightenment and entertainment through mindfuck, the Situationist International.
Heavens hopes radical publishers will store works in Spunk sites. "At the Glasgow summer school on anarchism a few weeks ago, I got an encouraging response, and we'll give some U.K.-based radical publishers their own directories in Spunk archives," he told eye. These archives are reachable via anonymous FTP at etext.org in /pub/Politics. (Note: This site carries loads of alternative political material!)
Jansen believes Spunk is unique. "As far as I know, we're the only group working this way -- i.e., distributing globally by using the net as our communications medium. There are other groups with similar subject matter, but they tend to be one-person projects. There are also groups who make documents available, like Project Gutenberg, but they are funded." Jansen's Anarchy Discussion list can be joined via anarchy-list-request@cwi.nl; Spunk Archive list, spunk-info-request@lysator.liu.se. There's an anarchist web page at http://www.cwi.nl/cwi/people/Jack.Jansen/anarchy/anarchy. html which will take you to the Spunk page.
There are also lots of electronic publications (ezones). Autonome Forum has several (aforum@moose.uvm.edu); Love & Rage (lnr@blythe.org); Baklava Autonomist Collective, Wind Chill Factor paper/'zine (thak@midway.uchicago.edu); Libertarian Labor Review (jbekken@igc.apc.org); Industrial Worker, IWW or Wobblies (jditz@igc.apc.org), or Canada's IWW (indwrk@web.apc.org); Arm The Spirit (ats@etext.org); Ireland's Workers' Solidarity Movement (anflood@macollamh.ucd.ie).
One of the most notable American anarchists (or social libertarians) today is MIT linguistic prof Noam Chomsky. In July, a Chomsky Archive "officially" came online -- though transcripts of his works have circulated the net for years. You can get to it via ftp.cs.cmu.edu in the directory usr/cap/chomsky/ (note: no slash at beginning of pathname). Via WWW, jump to http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu:/usr/tp0x/chomsky.html .
You'll also find lots of Libertarians (big-L) on the net, claiming to be "anarchists." In actuality, Libertarians are a laissez-faire capitalist party, only seeking to roll back the state enough to serve their capital interests. They adhere to current property relations and desire politicos/police enough to ensure they keep their economic position. Read alt.politics.libertarian for lots of capitalist apologia.
Oh ya, gotta mention these guys. The net is loaded with .edu sites, so you get scads of just-outta-high school kiddies who fancy anarchism is telling one's teacher to Eat Shit or fiddling with chemicals in a friend's basement. Easily spotted -- nothing but slogans and visions of "anarchist society" as some vague artisan, pre-capitalist barter society. Take 'em in stride. Often WareZ d00dZ in disguise.
An interesting source of alternative/controversial reading material is Port Townsend, Washington publisher Loompanics Unlimited (loompanx@pt.olympus.net -- no orders by email). It maintains a vast catalogue of underground stuff at The Well's gopher site -- gopher.well.sf.ca.us .
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