At the same time that [some] actual Iranians are authenticly trying to protect their political rights, some Western right-wingers are attempting to co-opt their efforts.
A website called nedanet.org has been formed by a network of [probably mostly] right-wing hackers who are offering bandwidth for communication and Internet identity-obscuring technologies to assist “the Iranian revolutionaries.”
Who is nedanet? All of it’s participants are super-secret deep cover ‘interested citizens’ who wish to remain anonymous, but one brave man (turn on the fan so the wind blows in his hair) has opted to be the public face of nedanet: Eric S. Raymond.
Here’s Raymond’s Wikipedia page, and here’s his Cato Institute profile.
Raymond is in charge of Nedanet’s “operational security,” and no doubt has a history of derring-do. For insight, here’s Raymond giving advice on “How to type with a foreign accent,” a useful skill no doubt when you are on a mission under “deep cover.”
Herewith, some instructions on how to type with an accent. All the examples I will give are utterances I have observed in the wild.
To sound generally foreign, omit elisions and contractions normally used by native speakers. Type “I do not think I have the time” rather than “I don’t think I have time”.
To sound German, put commas in places that do not correspond to speech pauses in English. “I do not know, how he could have believed that.”
To sound Russian, omit definite or indefinite articles. “No, you cannot have cheeseburger.”
To sound like a speaker of Hindi or Urdu or one of the related languages, emit wordy run-on sentences that begin with “Esteemed sir”, like: “Esteemed sir, I would be grateful if you could direct me towards a good book on Python because I am attempting to learn programming.”
Raymond has a peculiar threat for spies from the other side that want to have a face-to-face meeting with him: “And for any agent or proxy of the regime interested in asking me questions face to face, I’ve got some bullets slathered in pork fat to make you feel extra special welcome.”
Jonathan Allen 8:23 am on July 2, 2009 Permalink |
In Mr Raymond’s defense, anarcho-capitalism is hardly run-of-the-mill right wing-ism, and I’m pretty sure he would not be welcome among any neo-con circles. I suppose you could call an anarcho-capitalist a “right-winger” in a very broad sense, but most right-wingers in this country would vehemently reject anyone associated with any thing with the anarcho- prefix.
johnpi 9:32 am on July 6, 2009 Permalink |
Fair comment.
What makes me deeply suspicious of Mr Raymond is that his biggest fan seems to be Glenn “Instapundit” Reynolds. Raymond’s blog is on the Pajamas Media blogroll, and I find that Reynolds frequently quotes and links Raymond’s blog, including a recent admiring plug for the nedanet project.
Reynolds interest in nedanet’s efforts are obviously hollow and devoid of any interest in human rights, democracy or good will towards the Iranian people. Here’s Reynolds’ comments on the Iranian nuclear issue from early 2007:
Here’s Glenn Greenwald (another GG link this morning!) summing up Reynolds view here:
The extent of Reynolds support was a circumstantial, but important and relevant fact in my assessing Raymond to be a right-wing carpetbagger.