Viktor's Manifesto: Part 1
One may as well begin with a tired cliché: if you are reading this, let us call it a manifesto-cum-inventory schedule, than I am likely apprehended or dead. I shall hope for the latter, for if I’ve learned anything in my years alive on this glorious planet, it is a deep respect and love for complete and utter freedom. The prospect of anything less is now but an element of infrequent nightmares.
Alas, let us continue to the true purpose. Yet, before one may begin with their purpose there must be an introduction of context, which demands the expenditure of a few words, and which I shall commit herein. For a man, such as myself, so enraptured by the interconnectedness of lives, events, time and space, it is difficult to choose a landmark from where we may embark on this journey. While one could begin with the origin of the known universe, the holographic or fractal nature of the same, the fundamental nature of consciousness, or even the cyclical nature of time itself, I shall refrain. In the interest of brevity, I will begin in 1985 with the signing of the Plaza Accord. Admittedly, it is an arbitrary point, neither the beginning, the end, nor the most significant occurrence of relation to the matter at hand, but it will provide a fine frame of reference given the constraints of time and space. (Pun intended.)
My research into the Accord, among other items I was exploring at the time, led to a simple realization; the solution and the problem are one, and always have been. Granted, it was a simple idea, the mental recitation of which invoked great doubt, in the way a monk practices a Zen Kōan, and yet it’s stickiness in the mind forced me to explore the idea further. What did it mean? And why was it this specific incident, the signing of a document, which infected me with this virus of an idea? Not having a typically obsessive-compulsive personality, my inability to discard this idea was a mental disturbance in the truest sense. One whose exploration has led to the culmination of materials you now find in your hands today.
The Plaza Accord was a failed response to the recession of the early 1980s. That recession was caused, at least in part, as every recession since and many prior have been, by central banks pursuing contractionary monetary policies, increasing the cost of borrowing and sending buyers of stocks and bonds scurrying for the hills. The federal funds rate had reached its apex in the early 80s, causing a reduction in the money supply and significantly strengthening the dollar against foreign currencies. This in turn weakened American exports, as they became more expensive than their competitors. Never letting a crisis go to waste, the central planners determined to intervene.
I shall interject at this point, that for all their reputations of being in favor of free markets, free trade and capitalism, the thought of the economy diverting from the state-sponsored economists’ and central bankers’ plan is loathsome to those at the helm. It can, of course, be argued that this illusion of a wayward economy itself is an ingenious ploy. Many have argued that every swing, both upward and downward, is meticulously orchestrated to achieve the goals of the global aristocracy, but we’ll leave that speculation to speculators. It will suffice to say that a special group of exempt citizens and corporations does always seem to rise out of the ashes of disaster refreshed, renewed and strengthened by public support.
Now, returning to the matter at hand. Completion of the Plaza Accord negotiations set off a devaluation of the US dollar against the Deutsche Mark, Japanese Yen, French Franc and the British Pound, invigorating the economy as the creation of new money always does in the short term. Considering the figures we’re now accustomed to when discussing interventions by central banks, it seems almost appalling that a measly $10 billion dollar injection of new money was enough to help devalue the dollar by nearly 50%. The effect on the counterparties of the agreement was of course the opposite, and they watched their currencies appreciate greatly. The Bank of Japan, in response, was forced to lower interest rates to combat their ensuing recession, boosting asset prices until their collapse in 1990 which, miraculously coincided with monetary tightening. Back across the Pacific, the Federal Reserve reversed course as well and caused the Savings and Loans Crisis which began in 1989, bringing down the sector that benefitted the most from the previous period of low interest rates.
The solution to this crisis, as always, was to lower interest rates and spur even more leveraging. The illness of indebtedness was prescribed more debt. The sector to benefit the most in this next turning of the merry go-round was Information Technology. As far as I can guess, the reason behind it was simple.
Whereas most other industries have predictable growth patterns and thus predictable valuations, such was not the case with dotcoms. There was no predictable measure of the value of a click, an eyeball, or a membership; in other words, it was a sell-side analyst’s dream. Almost any number could be justified for a public offering, merger or acquisition, as long as everyone continued to ignore the ample assumptions that were made to project the unknowable future.
Once again, the central bankers pulled away the punch bowl. Perhaps, they felt the guests would linger even without the spiked juice for which they arrived in the first place. In either case, investors once again fled the markets and like clockwork, the central bank determined to provide the required emergency assistance. That same emergency assistance led to the real estate bubble (which, granted, had been several decades in the forming), the bursting of which required even more emergency assistance. It begs the question, has there been a single economic boom in recent history which wasn’t pumped and primed by active monetarists? I’ll leave this for the reader to answer. It should be noted that the interventions were not limited to America, the modern economies of the world were all more than willing to march to the beat of the same drummer, no shocker considering all the bankers were ruled by the central bank of central banks: the secretive Bank of International Settlements. And so the global economy trudged forward, boom followed by bust, followed by greater and greater financial interventions by the overlords, against whose preordained outcomes the markets regularly rebelled.
There is an argument to be made that this is an illusion, and that in fact the market is simply dancing to a tune played in a pitch us commonfolk simply can’t hear. Much like the cobra dances to the thumping of the snake charmer’s feet while the audience listens to his pungi.
Either way, the problem of a sluggish economy due to onerous debt burdens was repeatedly prescribed the same medicine, that of more and cheaper debt. The centrally planned interventions became nominally larger, bolder and more cunning in their execution, but the solution always resulted in more of the problem.
Around the same time I was coming to this realization, a growing community online was waking to the grand con that was being perpetrated on the global populace. This realization united the community of the shortchanged. Those that had been cheated out of the promise they chased, a promise fed to them, in the first place, by their overseers to fuel a hidden agenda.
We malcontents, bonded over our mutual dissatisfaction with the status quo. It began in earnest, with outrageous, subversive, offensive and often preposterous posts made to the 4chan forum by anyone who chose to withhold their identity. Taken together, this globally dispersed hive mind came to be recognized as Anonymous, the title listed for these private individuals in the nomenclatura. A casual visitor might stumble upon the 4chan site and remark that there was a dark, insidious, humorous individual named Anonymous, seeking with greater and greater effort to spark a reaction in the greater community. It was this quest for relevance, undertaken by the invisibles of society, which sparked a movement. Irreverence is the first step towards insurrection, after all.
This hive mind congealed into, more or less, an online, freedom-fighting collective. As members of Anonymous, we stand for freedom, of speech and action both, the power of the people, and the ability to protest against anything we feel to be unjust or simply undesirable. Anonymous represents chaotic freedom, the distributed power to right wrongs and perpetrate general mischief. Among its members are men and women from all strata of society, located worldwide, with no hierarchy or fixed leadership.
The collective is made up of nameless, faceless individuals united by their desire to affect change, but without the self-serious, self-serving and ultimately self-defeating methodology of NGOs, IGOs, charities and the like. This rascally nature combined with the need for anonymity would manifest itself years later in the iconic Guy Fawkes masks donned by its members in real life. Our goal, stated most simply, was to reverse the tide, whereby the subjects were increasingly living in fear of their government. In our view, the government, if it must exist at all, should fear the populace.
We have been called many things: unpatriotic, terrorist sympathizers, cyber bullies, anarchists, religious bigots, the rude boys of activism, and even just a bunch of grown men living in their parents’ basement.
The monikers are not entirely unjustified, but as a collective we are more accurately a political movement of real consequence. This is a fact that cannot be hidden by reactive and childish name— calling. There is a reason we cannot be pinned down into any political or philosophical school: the ability to be anything and everything is the power of Anonymous. Disobedience and irreverence are our greatest assets.
If we are to get down to brass tacks, as they say, Anonymous is a series of relationships between thousands of people actively collaborating over the internet, with varying skill sets and differing issues they wish to advance. Anonymous is like a Rorschach Test, Kaleidoscope and Prism all rolled into one.
There are many different facets and sides to Anonymous, but as you gain familiarity with us it becomes apparent that the overall structure and intention of the beast is non-random. We engage in activities which may not be technically or legally correct, but our actions have an ethos of goodwill towards the proletariat, and of humiliating and exposing those that seek to subjugate them. We share a common name, we share information, we even share tools and techniques. We are Anonymous: we do not forgive, we do not forget, and this is just the beginning.