p2p news / p2pnet: The People’s Republic of China without question qualifies as one of the most repressive regimes in the world. There, Net censorship is a given. Literally thousands of public and secret Net police run the largest and most sophisticated IP blocking and content filtering system anywhere, and it’s all about stopping the Chinese people from accessing the information and news that’s freely available online …

… thanks largely to expertise and technologies developed and supplied by firms large and small based in supposedly democratized nations.

Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are getting it in the neck at the moment, but sadly, they’re far from being unique in dealing with what p2pnet has been calling Communist China. And we started doing that because most mainstream media reports simply say something like, ‘X’ or ‘Y’ company has announced it’s opening a research company in China, as though the PRC were just any country.

But it isn’t. So we added ‘Communist’ to try to underscore that point.

However, we’ve been questioned on this policy several times, the most recent critic being Andy Gianniotis, 34, from a Sydney, Australia, suburb known popularly as the Punchbowl.

He used to sell futons but these days, he says, he works under contract, in particular creating and maintaining databases and running desktop publishing jobs for various activist organisations, including his local peace group.

"I’m a bit of a computer head – my major project to date has been the ‘Windows 98 Seven Years Later edition’ which can be found on msfn.org, and I also created and maintained for four years one of the world’s largest online collection of revolutionary political imagery," he says, going on, "I’ve been involved in politics to the point of running for office – the Queensland State Senate – where our clearly left-wing policies garnered us 4300 votes!

"I’m now more into mass-action politics and I say to anyone who wants to listen that my main job in life is to help overthrow capitalism, which I’ve been trying to do for 10 years now."

Not only but also, Gianniotis says he’s been file-sharing since the days of the original Napster, and is also in a garage band which will "soon to take the world by storm (we hope)".

OK. So? Well, here’s why he takes issue of p2pnet’s (former ; ) practice of calling China ‘Communist China’ >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

The ‘C’ word
By Andy Gianniotis

I’m a veteran file-sharer who is quite serious about his file-sharing, especially the library of media files I make available. I consider my collection simply the finest collection of political documents currently openly shared on the emule network (the library network). Well, maybe not the ‘finest’ (but I haven’t found its equal so far) but it’s good. I’m passionate about human freedom and human rights (eg, I have a huge Noam Chomsky collection that I share) and I quite like your stance on the issues of the day, as most ‘progressive’ people in general would.

If there’s a political issue connected with file-sharing, I know where to look for good info. p2pnet. Love the site …

… except when the "C" word gets involved. Then it’s not-so-good. The word is ‘Communism’.

The p2pnet article on ‘Cuba’s Net hunger striker‘ I suspect was included more because it seemed it was about those terrible Communists being all dictatorial again instead of an article of interest due to the link to the internet and net freedom. Although I could be wrong. But in every report on China, you never fail to attach the evil-sounding word Communist to the word China which is exactly what the mainstream press does. When they do it, even China’s missiles are called ‘Communist missiles’ – as if machinery can have an ideology.

Jon, I am a communist. That is, I believe social classes are an abomination and are by far the largest cause of human suffering in the world. In a class society, one class lives upon the labour of another and does so by dictatorial means. In any society that has a government, classes exist. Right now, in 2006, in every case except Cuba, Venezuela, Vietnam, and just recently Bolivia and Chile, the government that is in power is a tool of the rich minority class. China especially. In the five countries I mentioned as an exception, their governments are ideologically opposed to class divisions between rich and poor, ie, they’re true socialists/communists. And that’s especially true in Cuba, an island economically blockaded for 40 years by the richest and most powerful nation on earth. The government of Cuba represses those trying to restore the power of the rich minority class. I support Cuba’s repression of these attempts to destroy the gains of the social revolution that started in 1959 and continues to this day. The vast majority of Cubans recognise the gains of the revolution and what would be lost in the return to a free market system and don’t go on hunger strikes claiming that the lack of internet access is due to repressive measures by the government trying to silence dissent. They rightly point the finger at the blockade, and at capitalism in general.

Country by country, the peoples of Latin America are choosing clearly left-wing candidates – Venezuela has already been won over, and now recently Bolivia and Chile – and what do these governments do? They immediately side with the Castro government and denounce US imperialism! Go team !! And, like me, they wouldn’t piss on the Chinese government if it was on fire but then again, they are under no illusions that the Chinese government has any socialist character left at all.

And Communism? There’s never been a communist country because we’ve been defeated in every attempt so far to end the 8,000 year old reign of the social class.

A really quick check to test if a country is communist or not is to check if it has a government. Ping! There’s no communism to be found.

What’s really happening is that there’s an attempt to rubbish the ideas of the second greatest thinker of the millenium (as voted by half a million BBC voters) which the greatest thinker of the last millenium supported as well. The greatest thinker was Albert Einstein viz ‘Why Socialism’ which he wrote in 1948. The second greatest thinker was Karl Marx and it was his understanding of social classes that inspired millions upon millions to become communists themselves, including Einstein. And me.

So that’s why I’m writing. It’s a bit of a blind spot you’ve got, Jon, that could use some illumination.

In the same way you don’t prefix the word ‘capitalist’ before ‘USA’ (even though it is), if you can just avoid doing the same for Communism and China (because it’s clearly not), that would be tops. You can say the ‘oppressive’ government of China by all means or even better – the government of class betrayal, whatever fits best.

Jon, you can say whatever you want, I’d just thought if nobody’s pointed this out to you before, well someone’s got to be the first to do it … someone did it for me.

Cheers,
Andy Gianniotis or, Andy G, as I’m known in the movement.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 7th, 2006 at 6:31 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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