Re: Excerpt - Hot, Fat, and Clouded

I'm not sure if you've seen this or if you recall the similar campaign against the Church of Scientology that began in 2008 and has gone on to a lesser extent since, but essentially an internet-based group called Anonymous recently engaged in a continual denial of service attack coupled with a campaign of general harassment focused on the Australian government in general and its online infrastructure in particular, with this being in retaliation for that state's increasing efforts to censor the content delivered via the internet, video games, and more traditional media. I've been studying Anonymous and associated groups for about four years now, and what I've observed leads me to believe that the group and its interlocking directorate constitutes an extraordinarily important development in human affairs; this is a system of corroboration that both allows and encourages like-minded individuals from across the globe to coordinate, say, against a shared enemy, which is of course how early forms of government got their start thousands of years back. The difference is that the nation-state and its predecessors came into being due to the circumstances of an earlier age, one in which proximity, politics, and linguistics determined one's ability to ally with others (a resident of China could hardly team up with an Irishman in any era before our own), whereas the online associations that are now coming into existence are organized around the structures of the information age, and thus nowhere near obsolescence. By the same token, the nation-state and the proximity-based structure of the world in general is already being undermined by the ability of any individual to coordinate with any other individual in a manner that would have been severely limited by the realities of geography and politics up until this century.

I did a brief introductory piece on the Australia/Anonymous conflict for The Huffington Post a few weeks back and ended by noting that I'd soon be making the case that this general phenomenon is not only proving a demonstrable challenge to the authority and relevance of the nation-state, but will someday almost certainly form a significant alternative to such institutions, perhaps even co-opting some of their functions and even their relevance and de facto power; again, this has already begun and is now most obviously visible in nations wherein media is dominated by the state and in which online associations and communicational structures are of particular significance, as well as particular potential to evolve into a viable "shadow government."

I'm also now in contact with the most influential member of Anonymous, the fellow who essentially started the Scientology attack by way of a YouTube video he created which received several million hits and thus basically set out the agenda in that particular instance; this person is also very active in organizing and perpetuating the portions of the Scientology campaign that are still ongoing by way of a couple of websites that serve as clearinghouses for information, discussions on tactics, etc. This person e-mailed me last month after having apparently been pleased with the relative accuracy of what I'd written about Anonymous (the character of the group is notoriously misunderstood, being amorphous and otherwise confusing to those who have not spent some great amount of time on certain websites). I've already interviewed this person via e-mail to some extent.

Let me know if you'd be interested in a piece along these lines or if you'd be interested in receiving other queries from me.

Thanks,

Barrett Brown

Brooklyn, NY

512-560-2302

On Mon, Mar 8, 2010 at 11:40 AM, Bates, Eric <Eric.Bates@rollingstone.com> wrote:

Hey Barrett --

Thanks for the offer, but we rarely run excerpts beyond the occasional music memoir.

Best,
Eric

On 3/5/10 6:05 PM, "Barrett Brown" <barriticus@gmail.com> wrote:

Hi, Eric-

I wanted to check and see if you might be interested in taking a look at a few excerpts from my upcoming second book, Hot, Fat, and Clouded <http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0982139144/ref=s9_simi_gw_s0_p14_i1?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-2&pf_rd_r=1Z0RYG59CYBZAVNP0E6T&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=470938631&pf_rd_i=507846> , which concerns the manner in which our nation's most respected columnists - Thomas Friedman, Charles Krauthammer, and Richard Cohen, for instance - have gained and maintained their positions of prominence despite having made all sorts of failed predictions, contradicted themselves on rather important issues, and otherwise contributed to the general public misunderstanding.

I'm a regular contributor to Vanity Fair, The Huffington Post, Skeptic, and True/Slant, and my other work has appeared in dozens of additional publications. My first book, Flock of Dodos: Behind Modern Creationism, Intelligent Design, and the Easter Bunny, was released in 2007 to praise from Alan Dershowitz of Harvard Law School and your own Matt Taibbi, among other swell folks.

Let me know if you'd like to see a selection of excerpts for potential publication.

Thanks,

Barrett Brown
Brooklyn, NY
512-560-2302

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