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Annual Mayday Report
for May 2004
Ben Seattle

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I believe it is useful for revolutionary activists to post, by
May 1st every year, a summary of their activity over the past
year and plans for the coming year.

Capitalist corporations give a public annual report to
stockholders every year. Our "stockholders" are the workers and
oppressed of the world who, by their own struggles, inspire us
and give us strength. An annual report can assist revolutionary
activists to better understand the work, activity and priorities
of other revolutionary activists. This can be a small step in
the direction of transparency and eventual greater coordination
of effort.

To set an example, and declare my work and priorities before
friend and foe alike, I submit the following:

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Contents:
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1) What I accomplished in the last year
----------------------------------------
a) Completion of my final installment of the
Anarcho-Leninist Debate on the State (ALDS)
b) Overhauled the forum at http://communism.org
to feature a series of ads for the ALDS and
the pof-200 email discussion list--and enlisted the
help of two volunteers to help moderate the list
c) Made some posts to the Seattle Indymedia site
(and internal email list) discussing the need for
an interactive news site fueled by the energy of activists
and readers and not controlled by social-democracy

2) What I plan to accomplish in the coming year
-------------------------------------------------
a) Make one post a week to the pof-200 discussion list
b) Organize distribution (to email lists and Indymedia sites)
of ALDS installments
c) Create a functional specification for an interactive forum
that allows readers to rate and filter posts and comments
and which includes some of the features of wiki's and blogs
d) Create a web site and discussion list focused on
the development of an interactive news site where
readers can rate and filter posts and comments

3) Problems that came up in my work
and solutions that were developed
----------------------------------------
a) Further postponement of efforts to distribute
ALDS installments
b) Further postponement of my bulletin board
infrastructure work

4) An invitation to participate in the work to create
a mass movement directed at the overthrow of
the system of bourgeois rule
----------------------------------------------------

OK--let's now review the above in detail:

============================================================
1) What I accomplished in the last year
============================================================

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a) Completion of my final installment of the
Anarcho-Leninist Debate on the State (ALDS)
-----------------------------------------------------------------

My final installment of the ALDS was completed in March. It is
titled "The World for which We Fight" and includes a 14 point
section titled "The Laws of Commodity Production for Dummies".
It also sums up the entire debate and is available online at
http://struggle.net/ALDS/part_7.htm .

This debate aims to popularize the theoretical foundations of the
mass movement that will be directed at the overthrow of the
system of bourgeois rule. The section on the laws of commodity
production (presented in a popular format without being
excessively "dumbed down") was necessary because anarchist-minded
and marxist-minded activists will _never_ be able to forge a
common view of our goal of a post-bourgeois society without
understanding the nature of the economy which the victorious
working class will inherit from the defeated bourgeoisie.

This installment totaled 35 thousand words, including my comments
in appendices A thru F. It includes the most comprehensive (if
speculative) description I have written of how, in the period
following the overthrow of bourgeois rule, the self-organizing
moneyless economy will outcompete the commodity economy and push
it aside over a period of decades (appendix F) and another
detailed refutation of the methods by which a cargo-cult Leninist
organization (the Communist Voice Organization) counterposes
their bankrupt fetish for centralization to the bankruptcy of the
anarchist marketplace (appendix C).

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b) Overhauled the forum at http://communism.org
to feature a series of ads for the ALDS and
the pof-200 email discussion list--and enlisted the
help of two volunteers to help moderate the list
-----------------------------------------------------------------

In December 2003 I modified the scripts which run the forum at
http://communism.org to include a series of 26 political "ads"
between every other post. These ads help to liven up the forum
with precise summaries of deeply thoughtful essays that explore
the kinds of questions and ideas that are of interest to many
progressive activists (and ordinary people) who visit the forum.
(One example of these is a micro-essay I wrote on "communism and
human nature" which replies to the most common line expressed by
anti-communist posters. This micro-essay includes theoretical
work which is unavailable anywhere else and which discusses the
movement around the Linux operating system as an example of
communist relations of production.) These ads highlite some of
the powerful installments I have written for the anarcho-leninist
debate on the state as well as some of my other theoretical work.
In addition, these ads invite progressive people who post to join
the pof-200 discussion list.

How many people see these ads? The traffic for the
http://communism.org (and the identical dot com) site totals a
bit less than 6,000 hits a month (mostly from bored high school
kids in the U.S. but also from activists and interested people
worldwide). Not all of these people see the ads but
approximately 400 people a month do post to the forum.
Approximately half of these 400 people a month who post are
progressive (with the remaining half divided between
anti-communists and people with intellectual curiosity).

About 125 people a month visit the page which describes the
mission and rules of conduct for the pof-200 list at:
http://struggle.net/ben/pof-200.htm . This is currently
resulting in a net influx (of subscriptions minus
unsubscriptions) of 5 new subscribers a month to the pof-200
list.

Since the demands of commodity production in the real world (ie:
a need to focus my time on matters related to my job) currently
restrict me from engaging in any online political activity except
on weekends--I have been fortunate to receive offers from two
subscribers to the pof-200 list to help moderate the list.
Moderation of the list has so far not been much of an issue but
this may eventually change as the list grows (the list currently
has about 40 subscribers and if the current rate of expansion
continues could have as many as 100 subscribers a year from now).

Online political forums are often full of bullshit, disrespect
and insincerity. Blatant disrespect and insincerity will not be
allowed on the pof-200 list (subscribers will be able to
challenge one another--but will be required to do so in a calm
and scientific way).

A certain amount of bullshit will be inevitable on the pof-200
list if only because the currently existing crisis of theory has
left even the most dedicated and serious activists ignorant about
basic theoretical questions. My hope is that eventually the list
will see the development of a core of activists who recognize the
need for calm and thoughtful intervention to create clarity on
the most fundamental questions which come up. I very much would
like to see this happen. If it does--then the quality of the
pof-200 list will be able to keep pace with the increase in the
subscriber base. If this does not happen--then eventually there
will be a need for another list which which would be restricted
to activists with more political experience or theoretical
clarity.

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c) Made some posts to the Seattle Indymedia site
(and internal email list) discussing the need for
an interactive news site fueled by the energy of activists
and readers and not controlled by social-democracy
-----------------------------------------------------------------

In the fall of 2003 I made a number of posts to the "open
publishing" forum of the Seattle Indymedia website as well as the
internal email list of the collective which runs the site. Some
of these posts are linked to from my web page at
http://struggle.net/ben (see "other antiwar work" in the "Antiwar
work" section).

It is clear to me that eventually a major front of work will need
to be opened up to capture the attention of and engage the more
radical section of Indymedia activists. Currently the Indymedia
sites are a mixture of militant activism and the
social-democratic pacifist and liberal swamp. Some sites have a
relatively high signal-to-noise ratio and other sites are flooded
with posts and comments from freepers (people organized from
http://freerepublic.com ) trolls and neo-nazis.

What we must recognize is that hundreds (or thousands) of
activists recognize the need for (and the possibilities of)
making use of the emerging revolution in digital communications
to create democratically-run interactive news sites with the
ability to compete with bourgeois and mainstream news
institutions. These activists are running into all kinds of
obstacles (mainly political) which they do not understand very
well and find intensely frustrating.

There is very much a need to assist these activists and enlist
their help in the creation of a news site which:

(i) makes use of the energy of readers to rate and filter posts
and comments from a wide variety of sources (ie: mainstream
bourgeois sources, reformist sources, radical sources and
individual RSS feeds) and also
(ii) is run by a core of activists who are determined to break
free from the typical liberal-labor reformist swamp

============================================================
2) What I plan to accomplish in the coming year
============================================================

Unfortunately my ability to engage in political work is currently
limited to a few hours a week--on a Saturday or Sunday. I hope
that this situation will eventually improve. Considering my
limited time--it is unclear if my plans for the coming year (see
below) are realistic.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
a) Make one post a week to the pof-200 discussion list
-----------------------------------------------------------------

This is my main goal for the coming year. I hope that I can
maintain this pace for at least the next six months if not the
entire year.

The wiki:
---------

I will also occasionally make a contribution to the "wiki" (ie:
software that allows a group of people to easily create and
modify a set of interlinked web pages without needing to know
html) that has been set up for use by pof-200 subscribers and
other progressive activists. The wiki can currently be viewed
at: http://203.219.153.46/tiki/index.php or (starting with one of
the entries that I created) at: http://struggle.net/wiki .

The coming period may eventually witness forms of "wiki warfare"
in which political trends fight over the entries for certain key
terms. It is unclear how this will develop but people who use
wiki's generally want to see disputes resolved in a democratic
way where readers have access to the views of all parties and can
play a role in determining which views may be given the most
emphasis in a page summarizing a range of opposing views.

It will certainly be useful for progressive activists to gain
experience in the use of wiki's and in both the collaboration and
competition that will shape the appearance of wiki pages and
topics.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
b) Organize distribution (to email lists and Indymedia sites) of
Anarcho-Leninist Debate on the State (ALDS) installments
-----------------------------------------------------------------

The ALDS installments have all been formatted for email.
Comments I have received indicate that many serious activists who
have read these installments consider them to be dynamite.
However a number of obstacles currently block the way to the
wider distribution to email lists and indymedia site which is
necessary.

The first obstacle is that wider distribution of these
installments will require that a core of activists conclude that
such distribution is necessary and decide to help with this
distribution. Related to this is the concern that was raised in
2003 by a number of subscribers to the pof-200 list that wide
distribution of these installments would be perceived as a form
of "political spam" and might be counter-productive.

Consideration of these concerns has led me to conclude that two
measures will be needed in order to begin a gradual process of
wider distribution:

(i) a joint statement, signed by a number of activists with
a range of political views, must be developed which
expresses the conviction that calm and scientific debate
focused on the ultimate goals of the progressive movement
is very much necessary at the current time and that
the ALDS represents serious motion in this direction.
Such a statement could then be included in the initial
post announcing the debate and requesting moderators
and/or readers to allow distribution to their elists and
forums.

(ii) the ability must be developed to meet a "service level
agreement" (SLA) to give an "initial response" within
48 hours and a "formal response" within 10 days to
every serious reply which requests a response.

By making use of these two measures I believe that distribution
of ALDS installments to dozens of email lists, indymedia sites
and online forums can take place in such a way that the
opposition to debate distribution from readers of many email
lists and web sites can be minimized. It will also be necessary
to give thought to methods of scouting elists and web forums
where receptivity to debate installment distribution will be high
and opposition will be low.

Serious activists understand, at some level, that serious
discussion and debate is needed in order for the revolutionary
movement to once again be deserving of the respect and attention
of millions of workers. I believe that the ALDS installments
represent a step in this direction and that serious activists
worldwide should have an opportunity to know about this debate
and, if they so choose, to read the installments. This is part
of building a revolutionary mass movement with an ability to talk
about and focus on the real long-term goal of ending the system
of bourgeois rule.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
c) Create a functional specification for an interactive forum
that allows readers to rate and filter posts and comments
and which includes some of the features of wiki's and blogs
-----------------------------------------------------------------

At this time there appears to be no forum software anywhere in
the world that fully meets the needs of serious discussion of
revolutionary politics. Such forum software may eventually
appear. Rather than wait for this, however, I believe that we
should take steps to help make it happen.

The poor quality of existing software is shown by many indymedia
news sites where excessive work by a realtively small number of
people is required to maintain a high signal-to-noise ratio. The
contradiction here is that there exists a largely untapped pool
of thousands of readers who would like to help rate and filter
news and comments but are largely shut out of this process by
software that rarely is better than the "randomly picked jury"
system used at http://slashdot.org .

The kind of software we need will:

(i) make it easy to delete posts that contain threats
or which promote neo-nazi views or websites
(ii) allow readers to rate and filter posts (including
software measures to make it difficult to cheat
the voting process)
(iii) include many of the features of blogs and wiki's
(including the ability to send and receive email
or RSS feeds)

The emergence of such an app is only a matter of time. In some
ways the current period is analogous to the period in the early
1990's, prior to the development of the first graphical web
browser, when many communications theorists knew that some sort
of breakthru in digital mass communications was near. Today
farsighted observers recognize that some sort of "killer app"
related to democratically-managed news and discussion with a high
signal-to-noise ratio is overdue.

I have made a number of attempts to create such software. Most
of my efforts failed to meet their objectives but in all cases I
have learned some valuable lessons.

My next effort will involve the creation of a functional
specification (ie: a description, from the point of view of the
user, of how the software would function) and efforts to involve
serious media, tech and revolutionary activists in the
development of this spec.

One of the subscribers to the pof-200 list has created a wiki
that, among other uses, would be perfect for developing a
functional spec.

The software scripts that are necessary are not terribly
difficult to write (the successful, if limited, forum at
http://communism.org is proof of that). A collaborative effort
to develop a spec may assist in developing software that has the
features that are most necessary (and postpones the development
of the features that are least necessary) and may help provide
the emotional energy that allows the successful creation, testing
and implementation of software scripts that step-by-step bring us
closer to our goal.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
d) Create a web site and discussion list focused on
the development of an interactive news site where
readers can rate and filter posts and comments
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Refer to section "1c" (above). Media activists who want to end
the domination of the news by bourgeois or
liberal-labor-reformist sources need an email discussion list
that goes beyond the email lists that can currently be found on:
http://lists.indymedia.org/

Readers who are interested in indymedia ideas and processes may
want to check out some of these indymedia wiki's:
http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Global/WebHome
http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Global/CommworkWg
http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Global/CommWishList

============================================================
3) Problems that came up in my work
and solutions that were developed
============================================================

-----------------------------------------------------------------
a) Further postponement of efforts
to distribute ALDS installments
-----------------------------------------------------------------

I was able to format the installments but encountered the
problems described in section "2b" (above). I was able to sort
out the solutions (see the same section above) but did not have
the time to implement them.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
b) Further postponement of my bulletin board infrastructure work
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Again--there was a total lack of time for this.

============================================================
4) An invitation to participate in the work to create
a mass movement directed at the overthrow of
the system of bourgeois rule
============================================================

(what follows is adapted from my previous annual report)

The antiwar movement has invigorated the general atmosphere of
opposition to some of the worst abuses of the system of bourgeois
rule. An increasing number of young people, in particular, are
thinking about ways to oppose the current imperialist national
mood. The necessity of a mass movement aimed at eliminating the
system of bourgeois rule will eventually make itself felt.

For those who may have found my work of interest--I invite you to
participate in this work. Check out my home page at
http://struggle.net/ben . Join the pof-200 email list
described at http://struggle.net/ben/pof-200.htm and join with a
growing community of media, tech and revolutionary activists who
are gradually developing a focus on the use of "information war"
(as a struggle for ideas organized on a mass scale) as a powerful
weapon to (i) raise the consciousness of millions, (ii) create a
mass organization deserving of the respect of the working
class--and (iii) coordinate the efforts of millions to bring
about an end to the system of bourgeois rule.

And, if you are too busy for all that, send email to
pof-100-subscribe@yahoogroups.com which will bring into your
email box two emails a year describing my progress (or lack of
progress) in discovering and applying the principles which will
lead to the rebirth of a genuinely revolutionary movement that is
deserving of the respect of the masses.

Sincerely and with revolutionary regards,
Ben Seattle
----//-// 1.May.2004
http://struggle.net/Ben (my elists / theory / infrastructure)

Send email to: pof-100-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
No Spam!--Just 2 emails a year to keep you updated about my work

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Annual reports (and mid-year reports) can be seen here:
-----------------------------------------------------------------

Annual report for May 2004:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pof-100/message/16

Mid-Year report -- December 2003:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pof-100/message/15
Annual report for May 2003:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pof-100/message/14

Mid-Year report -- November 2002:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pof-100/message/12
Annual report for May 2002:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pof-100/message/11

Annual report for May 2001:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pof-100/message/8
Annual report for May 2000:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pof-100/message/5
Annual report for May 1999:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/pof-100/message/4