The New Frontier

President Putin of Russia made an address to his bereaved countrymen in the wake of this week’s infanticidal attack in Beslan---Putin Says Russia Faces Full 'War' to Divide Nation:

In a rare address to his nation at a time of grave crisis, President Vladimir V. Putin said on Saturday that the school siege in the southern city of Beslan was an attack on all of Russia and called for the mobilization of society to resist what he called "a total and full-scale war" to splinter the country.

"This is challenge to all of Russia, to all our people," he said. "This is an attack against all of us."

All of us indeed. It is an attack against civilization---Russians, Europeans, Americans, Israelis, Australians---all of the secular world. Russia’s problems with Chechnya are our problem too; our problem with Iranians is Russia and Europe’s problem too. While each country responds to an attack under the code of sovereignty, the attackers launch strikes from the nether regions beyond borders and laws. Our world of carefully constructed rules within geographic borders is dueling with a world of no rules.

Frontiers usually are fraught with lawlessness and the rule of the sword. Beating back anarchy is not a new task---the old west has many examples of how the wild frontier days slowly gave way to the sheriff and the judge, the stockade and the noose.

Today’s frontier is not a place, but rather, it is a mindset. This New Frontier is simply a way of seeing the world from a fixed view, shared by likeminded people unified by global communication. It is as though the attackers in Ossetia came from another world, appearing from the sky. Their nationalities were irrelevant to their murderous cause. They need only share a common purpose, and a common enemy to strike.

Putin’s self-criticism of the Russian system is telling:

Calling the siege "a horrible tragedy," he sought to answer the seething anger that many here have expressed after a series of terrorist acts that in 10 wrenching days have killed more than 500 people.

Speaking of the sweep of Russia's post-Soviet history, he criticized corruption in the judiciary, the inefficiency of law enforcement and the difficult transition to capitalism that he acknowledged had left few resources to secure Russia's borders in a changing and dangerous epoch.

For Mr. Putin, who projects the image of unswerving leadership, it was a striking acknowledgement that not all was well under his watch.

Blow up a few hundred children, get a regime change in Russia. Blow up some trains in Spain, get a regime change there too. Threaten the lives of a few Filipino hostages, and The Philippines withdraw from Iraq. The civilized world will have no shortage of doubt and revisions to its laws in the face of unspeakable atrocity. Laws are the foundation of our civilization. Putin is on the defensive because killers from the New Frontier killed women and children and he couldn't stop them. Ironic, since the attackers' motives were to destroy Russia’s laws. Yes---we hear that the Chechens have a legitimate beef with Moscow over the sovereignty of Chechnya, and that they simply want to build their own Shari’a civilization in the Caucuses. To accomplish their political goal, they will pursue Armageddon if they don’t succeed.

How will the citizens of the New Frontier handle the proverbial Red Button when it is, at long last, at their disposal? Even diametrically opposed cultures like the Soviet Union, the United States and the People’s Republic of China apparently played by the rules of civilization when it came to nuclear weapons. Sovereign nations---even Communist empires---maintained a very high threshold for unleashing Armageddon. Bombs coming from the New Frontier will be smuggled under a low bar, not launched over a high one. Such a scenario should be avoided at all costs.

Lord of the Flies

In the Middle East, we see young people between about 15 and 35 years old throbbing in crowds, fists in defiance. They douse themselves in blood, burn flags and hand Kalashnikovs to their children. Sometimes the defiance is against America, other times the Zionists, and at times even against their own Arab masters.

In America, we see at the Republican Convention young Americans literally drawing lines in the street, daring the other side to cross. And sometimes there's violence in the transgressions they goad. To say that these people are spitting mad is an understatement. If there ever was comity between opposing political adherents, it is certainly gone the way of chivalry. Especially among the youth.

In Europe, the natives are restless, and the immigrants are marauding. Europeans identify with a self image of post-historical repose; they want to show the world that they have given history its funeral, and now they pursue benign socialist pastimes. They pretend that all life's problems can be thwarted by eating really good cheese and drinking fabulous wine, while fattening the termites chewing at their civilization’s foundation with entitlements. But their splendorous self image is a delusion. Synagogues burn; swastikas appear in the dead of night; hostages part with their heads. Look at the faces of the restless in Europe, whatever their cause: Young. Inexperienced. Ferocious. Ideological. And mad---very, very mad.

In China, look at the caldron of people who seem to be stomping and clambering over each other into one vast human pyramid of 1.3 billion souls. Perhaps a human pyramid best describes their lot; the losers are at the bottom, who are the vast majority. Only the top of the pyramid touches the light. And those souls are enraged too, caught in a merciless drive to---well, somewhere, they all hope.

In North Africa, in places like Darfur, Sudan, Arab youth of the north harry and butcher negroes from the south. Descriptions of the genocidal attacks sound almost like children at play, but gone terribly wrong. For the killers, there is some kind of release taking place. There is more than killing and butchering. There is glee.

On the network news, 'Left' and 'Right' are deliberately arrayed in opposition for maximal entertainment value, as though in a cock fight. The most polarized opinions (formerly known as people) are carefully hand-picked to represent the most conflicting issues of the hour. Shows entitled Hardball and Crossfire delight in the debased spectacle of their own making. Ratings climb. Sides are reinforced. Opinions proliferate at the expense of unanimity. The media reinforces the mob, not the electorate.

Mob rule appears to be the enduring social movement enabled by contemporary media, across the world. Perhaps the information age is at the root. As chivalry gave way to barbarity beneath the tank treads of Verdun, comity and debate has given way to mobbing beneath the satellite dishes and broadband connections of the Internet. We live in a densely populated world of young people, who were promised a golden future over some very clever media in their childhood. Take a stand, strike a pose---be defiant, an army of one. All or nothing. To be extreme is its own reward---so let it be nothing.

The 21st century world might be best described by William Golding's Lord of the Flies. Chapter 4 describes how Roger’s eventual cruelty to his mates began:

Roger gathered a handful of stones and began to throw them. Yet there was a space round Henry, perhaps six yards in diameter, into which he dare not throw. Here, invisible yet strong, was the taboo of the old life. Round the squatting child was the protection of parents and school and policemen and the law.

The children are still constructing their culture, guided by civilized instincts that dominate their bestial instincts. Roger wishes to torment poor Henry with stones, but he is held back by the remnants of socially imposed behavioral codes, preventing him from caving-into his savage impulses. Eventually, Roger and most of the children lose their respect for civilization’s forces, resorting to violence and savagery.

We can look at current events in a similar light. Slowly, the curtains of civilization peel away. Timidity gives way to temerity as the deconstructionists steady their grip and yank the curtains down. How many curtains that remain is anybody’s guess. And what is on the stage may only be fury, and the sword.

From Chapter 4:

His mind was crowded with memories; memories of the knowledge that had come to them when they closed in on the struggling pig, knowledge that they had outwitted a living thing, imposed their will upon it, taken away its life like a long satisfying drink.

Jack’s mental state after killing his first pig marks another milestone in the boys’ decline into savage anarchy. Jack exults in the kill and is unable to think about anything else because his mind is ‘crowded with memories’ of the hunt. Jack’s exhilaration mixes with his feelings of power and superiority. Jack is excited for having ‘outwitted’ another creature and “imposed” his will upon it. The previously more civilized Jack claimed that hunting was important to feed the boy castaways; but his obsession with hunting merely satisfies his primal instincts---it has nothing to do with contributing to the common good.

Subjugation feels good, and is a means to an end. Jack could be the Palestinians, the Jihadists and the Ba’athists; or the nihilists of the West---even the bullhorn pundits mounted front-and-center before our living room couches. Living rooms, indeed.

Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of a true, wise friend called Piggy.

Near the end of the novel Ralph sees the rescuing naval officer. His sudden realization that he is safe and will be returned to civilization plunges him into a reflective despair. The rescue is not joyous; Ralph realizes he will never be the same. He has lost his innocence and delighted in the evil that lurks within all mankind.

We have come to the end of innocence. 9/11 in a networked world accomplished what no other despot could throughout history: Our savage instincts have come up from the bottom of history, up here to the ‘end of history’. And so there really is no end of history, only a new beginning.

Our savage instincts lurk within all of us, even at civilization’s apex. Fringes everywhere seem to have found a new voice, having obtained empowerment that is afforded by modern means. The fringes become mobs; their flames are fanned by a world made small in the Internet Age. We can only pray that there is an officer of civilization en route to rescue our world from the growing anarchy.

Conscience

The convergence on New York, the barking pundits on television, and the blogosphere of sharp opinions demonstrate that these are not times of unity before a common foe. For we cannot be sure who the foe is when our own system of laws is used against us. Some of us would like to believe that the foe is obvious: he wears a beard and hails from the Orient, planning attacks while sipping strong tea in a tent somewhere in the mountains of Pushtunistan.

We can pull-up stakes, consult allies, consult enemies, consult pundits and lay before psychologists. We can dispatch President Carter to Iran and North Korea and apologize for what we are to anyone who cares to listen. We can share the psychologist's couch with the whole world, and hope that all of humanity actually wants and will respond to political psychotherapy.

Since 1945, American conflicts have been wars of choice. American life and limb was not imperiled by the North Koreans in 1950; nor were American lives immediately at risk in 1963 when advisors trickled into South Vietnam. Our ventures into Grenada, Lebanon and Iraq have not been incursions responding to direct attacks on our soil. Wars are no longer declared in Congress; rather, our involvement in foreign conflicts have been cold calculations made in the geopolitical landscape of the Cold War, and now the era of terrorism. Wars are risk assessments gamed-out in think tanks, moving the geopolitical chess pieces.

As calculations, the undeclared wars that America has fought since 1945 have had their strategic merits. Thwarting the expansion of communism in Asia was prudent in an era of swaggering chairmen like Mao and Khrushchev, at least on paper. Realpolitik has its place in the global chess board of our small planet. But therein lies a flaw: expecting Americans to see the patriotism of fighting calculated wars is an elusive bargain, at best.

Conservatives remind us that America was attacked this time around, on 9/11: 'Pearl Harbor II'. But we were attacked by an elusive, non-sovereign enemy, lurking in the shadows; not by waves of planes with a national flag painted on their wings. Fighting terror is akin to fighting the drug war, where 'enemy' and 'friend' are unclear, shifting concepts. The realpolitik of the current conflict is built on the logic of establishing a base in the heart of the terrorists' homeland, and ridding the region of a poisonous regime by laying the framework for a healthy alternative to tyranny in the Middle East. It's a calculated risk, a gambit---not a direct response to a cold, hard attack. Under such conditions, there is more than enough room for doubt. Eliciting patriotic support will be fleeting, even if the left-right divide weren't so deep.

It is naïve to think that we can have global wealth and influence without being engaged in the world's conflicts. And involvement is both diplomatic and resolute. Diplomacy without the threat of force is not diplomatic, for there is nothing to negotiate. It is equally naïve to believe that loyal, patriotic Americans will follow any experimental policy without question. Wars like Iraq and Vietnam were experimental attempts to change the geopolitical equation. Wars like World War II were forced upon the United States, and there was no option other that to fight them. The mission was clear.

Anyone with power---such as within a large family, or in an organization---knows that there's a steep price to pay for influence, and that it does not come free. Power can be blinding. The powerful often overreach, an lose their vision. The powerful must wage wars of conscience, and make measured choices.

The main crux of this war is that it is primarily waged within ourselves. Bin Laden simply lit the fuse. Perhaps he knew what he was doing; perhaps not. And so now we confront ourselves---our deepest fears, our cultural flaws, summoning our strength.

The essence of this war is not against terrorism. Though we face a terrible enemy, we choose the battles we fight. We must understand who we are and where we are going to wage wars of choice. We are at war with our own conscience.

The Baptism of Fire

The streets of New York represent the alternative to George Bush, in one large throng. Many of the marchers are good people. They're scared and wonder where this country is headed. They have good intentions, and are earnest. Other marchers are consumed with the nihilism that has gripped the Left. They wish only to bring down the establishment, for any reason, at any price. They are the Brown Shirts of our time---brutal, thuggish and uncompromising---the mob from the 1930s.

As the week unfolds, we should keep in mind that the real convention is on the streets of New York City. The protestors have come voluntarily, and are acting upon conscience. Whereas inside the convention hall there will be the pretension of political formality and speech-making by party luminaries, on the streets are the voices of the future, whatever we think of them.

What they say and do will create waves that will extend far into our future's horizon. And we should be listening, and asking people on both sides of the barricades: What is your vision for the future? Is our way of life worth defending? Who do you want your children to become? Are you participating in a conversation, or resorting to the mask, mace and bullhorn?

Now begins the baptism of fire.

The War Within and Without

In many cities people have been using forwarded e-mails to coordinate ‘flash mobs’ that appear and dissipate within a matter of minutes. Flash mobs are mainly a form of Dadaist art, where people anonymously participate in the breaking of norms in daily life. One case of flash mobbing took place in Bombay, India last year---Flash it and scram: The mob is here:

A group of about 60-odd people descended on the glitzy CrossRoads Mall at Haji Ali in downtown Mumbai today evening and engaged themselves in a series of pointless but amusing acts as stupefied security guards and shoppers watched. Then, they dispersed as suddenly as they had arrived. It all happened in two minutes.

All the rage in the US and Europe, flash mobs are an inexplicable social phenomenon that involves its organisers bringing together — via mass e-mailing — large crowds that gather in public places. The flash mobbers act out a series of short, swift actions, usually according to a written script, and then disperse as soon as they materialise.

The Mumbai flash mob, organised by Rohit Tikmany, 25, too stuck to the same fundamentals. The flash mobbers, most of them in their mid-20s, crowded around the mall’s entrance, cell phones to their ear, shouting out instructions such as: “Infosys becho ek hazaar”, and “SBI gheun tak don she”.

Even as onlookers, shoppers, and even the mall’s security guards tried to comprehend this pre-online trading stock-market skit, the flash mobbers broke into a wild dance accompanied by loud hooting. Thirty seconds or so into the dance -- an amalgam of bhangra, disco, and garba -- they all froze in various positions for another half a minute.

The end came as soon as the flash mobbers flicked opened their bright umbrellas and melted into the crowd their antics had attracted.

The inexplicability of this emerging art form vexed the powers-that-be in Bombay, detecting something vaguely sinister in an Indian neo-Dada movement. Apparently, doing a “predetermined act that will shock people” is incongruent with policing a city smarting from terrorist bomb blasts, even if they are just a “yuppie, simple, fun act.”---Indian police force flash mobs out of Bombay:

BOMBAY, Oct 9 (AFP) - Flash mobs will not be seen again on the streets of the western Indian city of Bombay following a police crackdown on public gatherings, organisers said Thursday. A flash mob -- a group of people mobilised by email, who materialise in a public place and then fade away -- had appeared for the first time in the city outside a shopping mall on October 4. A group of 70 people, known as "mobsters," suddenly appeared, talked loudly about stock prices and danced for a few minutes outside the mall, disappearing before bystanders or security guards could react. The craze caught on in the United States earlier this year and Bombay organisers were planning more gatherings. But the police have introduced stricter security measures following a series of bomb blasts in the city, including two bombs on August 25 which killed 52 people and left more 150 injured. "Due to prohibitory orders in Bombay, there cannot be such large gatherings of people," said Bombay joint police commissioner Ahmad Javed. "Secondly, in case a group of people are meeting for a common cause, they have to take police permission." "There will be no more flash mobs in Bombay," said flash mob organiser Rohit Tikmany. He said a senior police officer had contacted him and asked him not to organise any further acts. "The police say that any gathering of more than five people needs prior police permission. This goes against the very concept of the flash mob." He said he was now supporting similar mob events in other cities, particularly the capital New Delhi and IT hub Bangalore. "Apart from these two cities, I am getting calls from practically every city in the country to support such flash mobs," he said. Tikmany said the mob gathering was coordinated over the Internet "to do a predetermined act that will shock people." "The key aspect of flash mob is that the participants are total strangers. We remain strangers at all times and then disappear immediately after the act. It's a yuppie, simple, fun act."

One of the perceived strengths of the international jihad movement is that the headless structure of Islam is symbiotic with the Internet’s decentralized configuration. Naomi Klein has identified the swarming phenomenon that is the hallmark of contemporary anti-globalization protests in her essayFarewell to ‘The End of History’: Organization and Vision in Anti-Corporate Movements:

...the protests, from Seattle to Quebec City, look unfocused because they are not demonstrations of one movement at all but rather convergences of many smaller ones, each with its sights trained on a specific multinational corporation (like Nike), a particular industry (like agribusiness) or a new trade initiative (like the Free Trade Area of the Americas), or in defense of indigenous self-determination (like the Zapatistas).

...Rather than a single movement, what is emerging is thousands of movements intricately linked to one another, much as ‘hotlinks’ connect their websites on the Internet. Although many have observed that the recent mass protests would have been impossible without the Internet, what has been overlooked is how the communication technology that facilitates these campaigns is shaping the movement in its own image. Thanks to the Net, mobilizations are able to unfold with sparse bureaucracy and minimal hierarchy; forced consensus and laboured manifestos are fading into the background, replaced instead by a culture of constant, loosely structured and sometimes compulsive information-swapping.

What is emerging is an activist model that mirrors the organic, decentralized, interlinked pathways of the Internet -- the Internet come to life as a network of ‘hubs and spokes’. The hubs are the centres of activity, the spokes the links to other centres which are autonomous but interconnected.

On the ground, the results of these miniature protests converging is either frighteningly chaotic or inspiringly poetic -- or both. Rather than presenting a unified front, small units of activists surround their target from all directions. And rather than build elaborate national or international bureaucracies, temporary structures are thrown up instead: empty buildings are hastily turned into ‘convergence centres’, and independent media producers assemble impromptu activist news centres. The ad hoc coalitions behind these demonstrations are frequently named after the date of the planned event -- J18, N30, A16, S11, S26 -- and when the date is passed, they leave virtually no trace behind, save for an archived website.

The traditional institutions that once organized citizens into neat, structured groups are all in decline: unions, religions, political parties.

...the Zapatistas waged ‘a war of the flea’ that, thanks to the Internet, the encuentros, and the global NGO network, turned into a ‘war of the swarm’. The military challenge of a war of the swarm is that it has no ‘central leadership or command structure; it is multiheaded, impossible to decapitate’.

At all levels, established structure is facing disruption. In the business of high technology, it can referred to as ‘leveling the playing field’. Small but stealthy Internet companies began to destroy the hegemony of large established corporations through opportunities afforded by the Internet. Technology often subverts established norms and monopolies, through a creative process of reinvention. In many ways, this is good. Hegemonic institutions tend to exist at the expense of creativity and competition; modern technology provides the wedges that need only driven with the right hammer. Organizing people into regular, conformed groups around a common consensus is dated and deemed ineffective in the face of an emerging trend of hubs and spokes. Indeed, stealthy businesses of our era are capitalizing on the hub-and-spoke organizational approach to get ahead. The more esoteric businesses seem almost like caravans meeting at an oasis. Short term space rentals are made; most of the workers are contractors, as temporary hires; company structuring is horizontal, and meeting is largely virtual; when done, everyone dissipates.

There are many storage rental spaces that serve as warehouses for vendors on eBay, the online auction flea market. Business people ‘set up shop’ virtually on eBay’s website, perhaps selling stuffed teddy bears made in China. A shipment of teddies is secured, and warehoused at the rental storage unit. The virtual storefront is dressed up, and the teddies posted for sale online. The storage rental serves as an inexpensive, low-commitment warehousing and shipping center to move product from. When the teddies are sold out, the storage unit is paid up and the business dissipates into thin air. Bricks-and-mortar businesses competing the old fashioned way---paying rent on long-term leases, paying utilities, insurance and employees---are at a disadvantage to the swarm technique of moving product.

The global jihad movement operates on similar precepts of decentralization. Islam is a religion with no head---there is no equivalent to the Dali Lama or the Pope. Islam has a cellular structure where men learned in the Koran---imams---run local mosques. They can issue fatwas, which are pronouncements legal within the context of the Koran. Every imam has his own interpretation of the Koran. Because there is no central Islamic priesthood, there is also no unanimously accepted method to determine who can issue a fatwa and who cannot. Mosques are similar to Catholic parishes, with regional influences, but the Internet has changed the scope of an imam’s theocratic influence.

In a previous post on this blog, the hubs-and-spokes culture of constant, loosely structured information-swapping has created a new virtual ummah---or Muslim community---The Terror Web:

The Internet provides confused young Muslims in Europe with a virtual community. Those who cannot adapt to their new homes discover on the Internet a responsive and compassionate forum. “The Internet stands in for the idea of the ummah, the mythologized Muslim community,” Marc Sageman, the psychiatrist and former C.I.A. officer, said. “The Internet makes this ideal community concrete, because one can interact with it.” He compares this virtual ummah to romantic conceptions of nationhood, which inspire people not only to love their country but to die for it.

The Internet is the key issue -- it erases the frontiers between the dar al-Islam and the dar al-Kufr. It allows the propagation of a universal norm, with an Internet Sharia and fatwa system, administered by the clergy. Now one doesn’t have to be in Saudi Arabia or Egypt to live under the rule of Islamic law. Anyone can seek a ruling from his favorite sheikh in Mecca. In the old days, one sought a fatwa from the sheikh who had the best knowledge. Now it is sought from the one with the best Web site.

Islam now is less centralized around the ancient mosque, and instead conveys Koranic advice from the ‘on-demand imam’. Osama bin Laden’s fatwas were the prime beneficiaries of the new virtual umma. Flying planes into buildings might have been done 40 years ago; but strategizing, organizing and executing such a complex suicide mission was made possible by the Internet. Islamic terrorists are flash mobbers too, only with box cutters and instructions to commit destructive suicide.

It is hard to know what this war is about, and who or what we are fighting. On the surface, we are fighting terrorism, and in particular Islamic fascists who have organized a hub-and-spoke culture of attacking the underpinnings of the secular establishment. But this is apparently the era of breaking down the establishment, even within the establishment itself. It can be seen in flash mob art that disrupts environmental normalcy; it is apparent in a business climate that has become globalized and rewards virtual businesses with the flattest costs. It is also a meme that is transforming Islam. Antiestablishmentism is transforming art, culture, business and religion alike. Even a benign downloading of an MP3 from a P2P network, or copying a friend’s disc of Microsoft Office contributes to antiestablishmentism.

We are all antiestablishists now.

Are we fighting antiestablishmentism? In so doing, are we attacking the source of our own ingenuity, and competitive edge? Will our defense mirror the same tactics? To thwart catastrophic rogue attacks, will we deploy a system that only rewards hegemony, preserving the establishment? Hegemony largely plays defense, with offensive maneuvering. In the defense of our established order, how much of our cultural verve will be committed to keep what we have merely intact?

All eyes will be on New York this coming week, where the Republican convention is to be held. And 21st century battle plans are being laid. On the one side is the establishment, attempting a political rally, vetted through a time-honored process. On the other side are the disrupters in the streets of New York, who are promising mayhem as outlined in Shawn Macomber’s The Left's Battle for New York:

The “RNC Not Welcome” website’s 30-year-old founder and self-described anarchist, Jamie Moran has made it clear it is violence he intends to bring to the Big Apple. Moran was even more forthcoming in the Guardian. “We want to make their stay here is miserable as possible,” he told the British paper. “I'd like to see all the Republican events -- teas, backslapping lunches -- disrupted. I'd like to see corporations involved in the Iraq reconstruction get targeted -- anything from occupation to property destruction.” Moran's group promises to “liberate” New York City from Republicans.
 
In the New York Times, the world's most influential newspaper, he branded all police precautions about the protests as “fear mongering.” But in the same article, Moran praised the success of the violent 1999 WTO protests in Seattle, boasting that “direct action gets the goods.” Perhaps that gives a hint as to what he has planned.

Sixties radical activist and Occidental College professor Tom Hayden has also chimed in with his own op-ed suggesting that the more chaotic the protests, the better. Hayden should know: he is an expert in manufacturing violent protests -- like the infamous riot he maliciously engineered at the 1968 Democratic Convention.

With the Republican Convention approaching, it's not really surprising that Hayden chafes at the idea that "protesters are supposed to behave themselves lest they throw the election to Bush." Instead, loyal to his traditions, he would prefer to have police "defending the GOP convention as if it is the Green Zone in Baghdad." He also notes that while many protestors "may think of New York as the apocalypse itself," the fight must go beyond the convention, following George. W. Bush wherever he goes -- intimidating and disrupting his campaign in Brown Shirt and Red Guard style. This will show voters that if Bush wins in 2004, "he will plunge the country into strife not seen since the '60s."

As a society and a culture, we celebrate and profit from simultaneously maintaining and deconstructing our own establishments. As a result, our cultural dichotomy puts all of us on both sides of this war. We like the cheap goods, the free music, and the good life the Internet affords us. But we don’t like the bombs, and the threats to our way of life. And yet, we continually resort to means that come from a place that is anywhere but our way of life. Only ten years old, the World Wide Web is transforming and deconstructing our entire past. Let no stone go unturned. If any part of anyone represents the establishment, they are at war with the future.