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Alan Moore on V For Vendetta and the Rise of Anonymous
First time accepted submitter tmcb writes in with a piece by Alan Moore about the influence his comic has had on the hacker group Anonymous. "On Saturday protests are planned across the world against Acta — the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. The treaty has become the focus of activists associated with the Anonymous hacking network because of concerns that it could undermine internet privacy and aid censorship.
First published in 1982, the comic series V for Vendetta charted a masked vigilante's attempt to bring down a fascist British government and its complicit media. Many of the demonstrators are expected to wear masks based on the book's central character.
Ahead of the protests, the BBC asked V for Vendetta's writer, Alan Moore, for his thoughts on how his creation had become an inspiration and identity to Anonymous."
I'd be lying if I didn't admit that whatever usefulness they afford modern radicalism is very satisfying.
Wow, that's the first time I think I've ever heard Alan Moore expressing anything remotely akin to...dare I say..."happiness."
This article *must* be a hoax.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
...the V for Vendetta guy had the decency to die for what he believes in.
When will we see Anonymous punks start offing themselves? I suggest they do self immolation. Doesn't hurt anyone else really and the spectacle is great!
I expected any external use of his writings whatsoever to cause him to roll-over in the grave which I can only assume he sleeps in every night.
Moore sounds like he is satisfied with his contribution to the movement, but not as satisfied or validated with the achievements of modern radicals (yet).
I love seeing symbols and characters borrowed from history and re-used, or re-purposed. It reassures me that our actions could potentially matter to future generations.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaghetti_tree_hoax
Indeed, instead of opposing a fascist government its now about opposing a government controlled by big corporations.
except that even as a non-pirate I can see that the means employed to stop these "anonymous thieving pirates" are becoming increasingly fascist and removed from the principles of enlightenment. Take special note of how "trade agreements" which "must" be agreed upon in secret are used to introduce laws in a step to side-step national parliaments, the overwhelming police brutality and tactics (like transporting people 20km away from a city center and dumping them by the roadside, in the middle of the night if they so wish to, without needing to ensure that they have any means to get home safely. In fact we have had at least one death due to this already as a man froze to death. All perfectly legal) used to make sure protesters can't be there to voice their displeasure at avenues (such as trade summits) covered by the media.
I've spotted him laughing along at a couple of comedy gigs in Northampton of late. And showing a great deal of bonhomie with the acts too.
Guess what, we're all human.
To be honest, i never thought that i would see such thoughts and philosophies, and such awareness about the depravity of the current system in mainstream in my lifetime.
im quite pleased in the direction the awareness is going. i think, even if i dont see the full materialization of these ideals immediately in my lifetime, i can still die a happy camper. however, at this rate things are going, i may actually see the realization of those ideas before i bite the dust.
its exciting. i thank everyone who is participating in these awareness movements to change the world for the better.
Read radical news here
Don't worry, once ACTA passes the police will own the copyright on such videos and they'll be taken down posthaste to prevent piracy.
Nah, the news would show some guy taking a dump on the flag, some smashed windows, not cover the rest of the story. The viewers would be telling the trigger-happy police "Atta boy!"
Was that intentional? Like in "King of the Hill" where a character says something along the lines of: I'm not sad, I just feel sense hopelessness and depressed mood. If it was intentional, very funny.
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There would be some news reports about alleged police brutality with no facts, images, or video, but with a few interviews of older white middle class people saying that they are glad the police are protecting society from the dirty hobo looters.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
Really.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_England_riots
or perhaps this.... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_England_riots#Police_shooting_of_Mark_Duggan
Doesn't matter where you live, people can still lose it...
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." -- Benito Mussolini
I assume that's the quote you wanted! And since we see Monsanto execs running the FDA and regulatory officials literally sleeping with BP execs, it sure seems spot on.
I think in some ways the UK police are as bad as anything the US can bring. Note the OC mentions kettling. This is a very distinctly European (and especially London/British) police behaviour and terminology.
Moore didn't draw it. David Lloyd did.
until anyone wearing or owning one of those masks can be arrested for "suspicion of activities detrimental to state security"?
We play the game with the bravery of being out of range
I find it interesting how so many movies were labelled as "propaganda against the Bush administration" just because they had an evil politician in them...
Yes, but the masks used by protestors are very much based on the version drawn by Alan Moore (and which the movie intentionally used, being a cinematic version of Moore's work). Had they been directly drawn from the original source, they would have looked more different.
...and not subject to royalties.
Anonymous, thanks for inflating the profits of one of the big media companies you are protesting against.
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Actually, Moore agrees with you. The film was different from the graphic novel:
I've read the screenplay, so I know exactly what they're doing with it, and I'm not going to be going to see it. When I wrote "V," politics were taking a serious turn for the worse over here. We'd had [Conservative Party Prime Minister] Margaret Thatcher in for two or three years, we'd had anti-Thatcher riots, we'd got the National Front and the right wing making serious advances. "V for Vendetta" was specifically about things like fascism and anarchy.
Those words, "fascism" and "anarchy," occur nowhere in the film. It's been turned into a Bush-era parable by people too timid to set a political satire in their own country. In my original story there had been a limited nuclear war, which had isolated Britain, caused a lot of chaos and a collapse of government, and a fascist totalitarian dictatorship had sprung up. Now, in the film, you've got a sinister group of right-wing figures â" not fascists, but you know that they're bad guys â" and what they have done is manufactured a bio-terror weapon in secret, so that they can fake a massive terrorist incident to get everybody on their side, so that they can pursue their right-wing agenda. It's a thwarted and frustrated and perhaps largely impotent American liberal fantasy of someone with American liberal values [standing up] against a state run by neo-conservatives â" which is not what "V for Vendetta" was about. It was about fascism, it was about anarchy, it was about [England]. The intent of the film is nothing like the intent of the book as I wrote it. And if the Wachowski brothers had felt moved to protest the way things were going in America, then wouldn't it have been more direct to do what I'd done and set a risky political narrative sometime in the near future that was obviously talking about the things going on today?
(Emphasis mine)
http://www.mtv.com/shared/movies/interviews/m/moore_alan_060315/
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The creator of Zero Wing explains how his game served as an inspiration to Anonymous.
For every cut Warner gets, Moore gets a cut.
Nope. He had his name taken off the film and directed that all profits he might be due from the film be given to Lloyd instead.
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So.
Although the government of today (In England) is a progressive bureaucratic creeping state of regulation and control, V for Vendetta makes the evil government a Christian Dictatorship? Yeah...that's a believable outcome.
The Hero tortures the Heroine to get her on his side in the grand fight? And he's the good guy?
The glorifying of Guy Fawlkes for his attempt to blow up parliment? What?
V for Vendetta is a stupid movie.
If you want to see a great movie about standing up to an evil state watch "The Lives of Others" A movie based in a believable world, one that really exists. Set in the ex-communist East Germany. It is a beautiful movie with sadness throughout but redemption at the end. Including bravery and doing what is right.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lives_of_Others
blah
Here in America, the police would just mow down the crowd with machine-gun fire and call it a day.
There in the USA, the crowd would show up armed to the teeth, and the cops would be running for their lives if they weren't fragging their superiors.
"Tongue tied and twisted, just an Earth bound misfit
It appears that Mussolini never actually said that. http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Talk:Benito_Mussolini
The REAL Irony to him getting satisfaction that the V is being used in protests, is that most people would not of even known of his work if not for the movie (which he didn't want made). Sure there were plenty of comic book fans that were well aware of Alan's work, but not as many outside the medium. Not for the last 20-ish years (Same with Watchmen).
Oh, that's ironic. Not a very effective protest of corporate greed, paying royalties, buying something made in China. Stopping fascism is in large part done by people being aware of their participation in the system and opting out of it. Someone needs to make a free version. Maybe base it off the original. Not the movie version.
Something nicer than some DIY versions.
I suppose you could illegally copy the design...
Are these originals? mask1 mask 2
Ah, here are some more. And another kind.
another and another.
more
another
Or you could base it on a portrait of Guy himself.
As plot lines are usually driven by conflict as opposed to happy, fluffy bunnies, and as conflict is usually a relatively negative thing, a moderate tendency towards a more negative worldview helps in dramatic writing.
That is all.
The London protester said his brethren are trying to counter Warner Bros.’ control of the imagery. He claims that Anonymous UK has imported 1,000 copies from China, and the distribution goes “straight into the pockets of the Anonymous beer fund rather than the Warner Brothers. Much better.”
source : http://www.theblaze.com/stories/heres-the-history-behind-occupy-wall-streets-creepy-guy-fawkes-mask/
-- It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it. -- Aristotle
I think in some ways the UK police are as bad as anything the US can bring. Note the OC mentions kettling. This is a very distinctly European (and especially London/British) police behaviour and terminology.
You know, having lived for years in both countries, and being a dual citizen, I can unequivocally say that the police in the UK are nowhere near as bad as the police in the US.
Not even in the same universe, much less the same ballpark.
Yes, UK police use kettling, yes, they shoved a newspaper man to the ground (but did not subsequently beat to within an inch of his life) whose internal injuries from the later killed him, yes, they are imperfect, and can be as myopic or provincial as anyone. Yes, the chief of police can get buy for years with flagrant corruption and keep his post long past his sell-by date by deftly playing the ethnicity card over and over again, until a victim of his own ethnicity finally outs him in court, yes to all of that.
But that pales in comparison to the harshness of the US police that is part and parcel of daily policing here. Unarmed people here are shot dead in their own home, with alarming regularity, and the police get away with it by saying they 'thought he was armed.' There was just another instance of that in the tri-state area this past week, and dozens more in the 18 months or so I've been back in the states.
The UK police can be criticized plenty, but until you've lived on this side of the pond, you really don't know how good you have it. Your police are positively humane and polite, sometimes to a fault, by comparison.
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Alan Moore doesn't feel happiness. He just gets so pissed that his feeling loop back around to the other end of the emotional spectrum.
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Absolutely agree 100%.
I always vote third party out of principal. Even if I don't agree with what they say. Even if I know they won't win. The US voters have got into a mindset that there are only two parties.
My vote (and yours, anyones) for a third party is not a wasted vote- it is a vote towards establishing the legitimacy of ANY viewpoint- not just two.
The more people vote 3rd party- the more people will see it as a legitimate stance- which hopefully one day will lead to more than two parties.
I'm actually a huge fan of sortition- or an election/sortition hybrid- I believe that will truly give government the full-spectrum of political beliefs of the country- something that isn't represented in our two-party system.
I also am opposed to political party being listed on the ballot- or the option to vote "straight party ticket". We are electing people- not parties. The party should not show up on the ballot- nothing in our constitution says we are electing parties or that parties should be listed on the ballot. This creates an unfair environment and an unlevel playing field.
If you don't know what party someone belongs to- do you really know enough to be voting for them?
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Well... we already know the V mask version of Guido Fawkes and where it came from... but what about the Lulz characters?
Both LulzSec and that new one- whats it called something "S" Sec- the one that got FoxConn recently use a snobby looking character with a top-hat. The two logos are different- but there are obvious similarities... the black tophat for one.
The only thing I can think of is "black hat"- although they're not really black hat hackers... Personally, I think they should be called "Red Hat" because they don't fit the white hat or grey hat definitions either. Red is the symbol for revolution and activism.
Nonetheless- I thought the colour hat referred to Westerns- you know the cowboy in white was the good guy- the guy in black was the bad guy. No?
Anyhow- back on subject- what is the origin of that guy- is it just a coincidence the new groups logo looks similar to Lulzsecs logo?
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
They can't own the mask; it predates the corporation.
No, it doesn't.
"What few people seem to know, though, is that Time Warner, one of the largest media companies in the world and parent of Warner Brothers, owns the rights to the image and is paid a licensing fee with the sale of each mask."
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I can't sort out how an image that dates back to the 17th century can possibly be copyrighted by anyone.
Where did you get the idea that the V for Vendatta mask is a 17th century image?
The mask in use is based on a copyrighted comic book image, not a generic Guy Fawkes image.
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No, Washington is often quoted as saying that, but it actually comes from the first Treaty of Tripoli, which goes back to the Barbary Coast pirates. American ships were being attacked by pirates, and thus, the U.S. Marines went to Libya to go take care of it. (That's why the Marine's Hymn goes, "From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli.") What resulted was the first Treaty of Tripoli, which ended the war. It was signed in 1796 by the Tripolians, and in 1797 by the U.S. Congress. In the English version, which was the version signed by the Americans, Article 11 of which stated that the United States of America is not a Christian nation:
As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen, [Muslims]—and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan [Muslim] nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
Interestingly, this was not in the Arabic version, which was the version the Tripolians would have been looking at. Even more strangely, there was no Article 11 in the Arabic translation at all. So then why was it put in the English version?
Even more interestingly, when the second Treaty of Tripoli was signed several years later in 1815 (the pirate problem persisted), neither translations stated anything about the U.S. being or not being a Christian nation. The closest is Article 15:
As the Government of the United States of America has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility of any nation, and as the said States have never entered into any voluntary war, or act of hostility, except in defence of their just rights on the high seas, it is declared by the Contracting parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of Harmony between the two nations; and the Consuls and agents of both nations, shall have liberty to Celebrate the rights of their respective religions in their own houses.
For more information, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tripoli.
Then you're obviously on the wrong site: this is news for nerds, i.e., people who can figure out how to use a URI even if it's not hyperlinked. News for hapless, brain-dead idiots is thataway. (Or even thataway.)
Now go away and let the grownups talk. :p ;)
I find it ironic in much the same way Michael Moore talks about benefiting from capitalism because it is amoral and doesn't if you are protesting it or fighting against it so long as you can make a buck.
I previously worked for a company that interfaced with police agencies all over the country (we were there database software provider). I can tell you that there's really not as much bad shit going on as you think. Yeah, there's some, but most cops just want to punch in and punch out safely, just like you. I can't compare to the UK.
There are so many police officers in this country that of COURSE you're gonna get some racists, nutjobs, or power-trippers, just like any other large enough group of people. Getting up in arms over police abuses isn't the right fight, as those cops are degenerate assholes anyway and would be committing crimes if they were cops or not (the position of authority does make many crimes more egregious though). The right fight is going after the stupid laws and lawmakers that allow these behaviors to continue without removing these officers.
without much effort:
http://pyrotechnics.no-ip.org/files/astra%20advert%20-%201965-01%20trade%20-%203d%20for%20the%20guy%20(due%20to%20a%20rise%20in%20cost%20of%20living)%20(small).jpg
I've seen old versions of that mask in photos dating many years before the comic.
Not that the old ones looked exactly the same. Like Santa Claus, some corporation takes the image and makes it into 1 icon. BTW, Santa's red/white fatness being THE image of santa is from Coca-Cola, I read about the history of that back before the internet in this thing called a book.
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