Ask most university students in the United States how they afford their education and the answer will be "student loans." I once had a discussion with a professor at a film school in California. He said that his students take out student loans of tens of thousands of dollars in order to fund their final film projects but upon graduation are often only able to land unpaid internships in Hollywood. "How do they cope?" I wondered aloud. "Well," my friend replied, "each year a couple of them commit suicide on campus." It turns out that for some students, suicide is the only way they'll ever repay their loans. Student loan debt is a chain that shackles our brightest minds to the consumer society and forces them to use their education to make money rather than benefit society. Those who are unable to make their payments are afforded few protections by the law.

In 1970, Ivan Illich wrote "Deschooling Society" in which he challenged us to rethink the role of compulsory education. Illich explained his position thus:

"Equal educational opportunity is, indeed, both desirable and a feasible goal, but to equate this with obligatory schooling is to confuse salvation with the Church. School has become the world religion of a modernized proletariat, and makes futile promises of salvation to the poor of the technological age. The nation-state has adopted it, drafting all citizens into a graded curriculum leading to sequential diplomas not unlike the initiation rituals and hieratic promotions of former times. The modern state has assumed the duty of enforcing the judgment of its educators through well-meant truant officers and job requirements, much as did the Spanish kings who enforced the judgments of their theologians through the conquistadors and the Inquisition. [...] Now we need the constitutional disestablishment of the monopoly of the school, and thereby of a system which legally combines prejudice with discrimination. The first article of a bill of rights for a modern, humanist society would correspond to the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: 'The State shall make no law with respect to the establishment of education.' There shall be no ritual obligatory for all."

If job discrimination was not permitted based upon previous education, but only upon ability to preform the task, then the drive to secure ever more expensive schooling would be undercut. Perhaps what we need is a movement to "deschool society" coupled with the formation of alternative, blackspot schools that impart knowledge in a radical (low-cost) manner.

What is your experience with student loans? How do you think we can revolutionize the educational model?

Micah White is a Contributing Editor at Adbusters Magazine and an independent activist. He is writing a book on the future of activism. www.micahmwhite.com

Attention: do you have a blackspot idea? I would like to print an occasional guest post on this blog and I am now looking for submissions, if you have something to share that will further the blackspot philosophy, write it up in under 500 words and send it to micah (at) adbusters.org.

I am a digital native, a member of the first generation to be born surrounded by computers. So when my generation was called to stop the impending war against Iraq, I joined together with my friends and did the one thing we trusted would be most effective: we built great looking a website.

We wanted to prove to the world that there were perfectly rational reasons to be antiwar. That is why we spent weeks, months and years coding and polishing an ephemeral reservoir of antiwar justifications. The result of our labor was a cutting-edge site accessible only via a computer with sufficient memory, plugged into to an Internet connection with enough bandwidth, using a browser upgraded to the latest version and -- most importantly – discovered via the right search query results ranked by the arbitrary decisions of the web censors, aka search engines.

All that time spent translating our activist spirit and youthful idealism into a website garnered us 20,000 anonymous visitors a month but didn't stop the occupation of Iraq. Those faceless fickle many, whose visits we eagerly monitored via our server logs, and not the residents living on our block became our litmus test of success. We never questioned whether activism premised upon putting all ones energy into binary data was the best use of our talents. It just made sense. Looking back on those lost hours, I think we missed an opportunity for social change.

Revolution, according to Michael Hardt, is a transformation of human nature that makes a transformation of human society possible. Of course, the Internet has, and will continue to, transform human nature in new and unexpected ways. Posting spoofs of Nike on YouTube, podcasting about politics from a bedroom or using text messaging to organize protests are uses of technology that alter social relations and consequently human nature. However, the question remains whether the changes in the human that the Internet is bringing about will allow us to usher in a positively transformed world. I believe the answer is no because the essential experience of the Internet, even at its most interactive, is of solitary individuals mediating all of their passion through a screen. If we want a world with strong communities able to fend off the intrusions of mega-corporations, diverse local culture that varies from place to place and neighborhoods with neighbors who know each other enough to feel safe at home then the paradigm of the Internet is leading us astray.

Internet based activism is a retreat from the local struggles of everyday life; it is a flight from our concrete streets to the fiber-optic superhighway. As such, Internet campaigning imparts the worst lesson of all: it teaches a generation of activists to forgo picking up struggles around them in favor of distant battles they have the least ability to impact. As Simon Critchley writes, "resistance begins by occupying and controlling the terrain upon which one stands, where one lives, works, acts and thinks."

This does not mean that we should abandon the Internet altogether or refuse to target evil Internet companies. On the contrary, I wish to suggest that a successful campaign against Google, for example, will necessitate offline actions. I would go so far as to say that the success of our campaign against Google will be directly proportionate to the amount of time we spend organizing offline. Why? For the simple reason that Google is weakest in the real world and entirely unprepared for a (metaphorical) "fight in the streets".

I understand now why my generation's previous efforts to stop the war in Iraq failed: activists, as a generation of digital natives, are losing the ability to effect change in their local communities because of an overreliance on the Internet. Door-to-door, face-to-face our differences disappear when confronted with an issue that equally affects us all. Friendships are made, residents are inspired and the world really does change for the better when activism returns to its roots: a community-based practice that transforms human nature by reshaping social relations. Only an activism of the streets can be transformative enough to bring about broad-based revolution.

Micah White is a Contributing Editor at Adbusters Magazine and an independent activist. He is writing a book on the future of activism. www.micahmwhite.com

In a blog post earlier this week, I proposed an activist solution to Google's announcement that they would expand their tracking of users. In a post entitled unClick Google, I suggested that we undermine Google's business model, and their justification for creating behavioral profiles of the websites we frequent, by using a Firefox plugin to automatically click on all the Google AdSense ads. In so doing, I released a storm of debate over the possibility of forcing Google to adopt a pro-privacy corporate policy.

Google is a massive data warehouse that most internet users share personal information with, knowingly or not, every time they open a web browser. As many readers pointed out, even Adbusters utilizes Google's services on our website. Since 2007 we have relied on Google Analytics to analyze our website traffic. And by doing so we have shared our website statistics with Google.

The primary critique we heard of the idea I put forward was that Google's AdSense system has accomplished a "democratization of advertisers" by bringing many small shop owners into the business of placing online ads. Therefore, our plan to click on ads without viewing them, struck many people as harmful to the very people we want to help -- small, local businesses.

For others, the solution to rampant online advertising and Google tracking lies in a technological, not activist, praxis. They proposed that we use Firefox and install Adblock Plus which removes advertisements or NoScript which block trackers. Others pointed towards the ability to "opt-out" of Google's behavioral profiling by installing a piece of Google software in their browser. Or maybe we should all use alternatives to Google like Scroogle and Clusty.

The most important question that this tussle with Google raises is whether a fight against Google is even possible. Or is Google too big, too intertwined in the fabric of the internet, to be critiqued and forced to bow to our collective protest?

Clearly we are in a new era of activism and there are not any proven tactical answers. But one thing is clear: Google may be the culturejammer's toughest adversary yet.

Weigh in below and let's work together to build a strategy to jam Google and reclaim our online privacy.

Micah White is a Contributing Editor at Adbusters Magazine and an independent activist. He is writing a book on the future of activism. www.micahmwhite.com

On March 11, Google revealed its latest plan to violate your privacy: they will now record the types of websites you visit in order to gather a behavioral profile of your interests purportedly so that they can send you targeted advertising. This policy is in addition to their current policy of keeping a record of every single web search you have ever made along with as much other personally identifying information as they can gather. Of course, these behavioral profiles and detailed search histories will also be made available to law enforcement personnel upon request. The disregard for user privacy is a long standing tradition at Google and one that should be challenged. Just as Facebook was recently forced to cave after protests, Google too can be made to backtrack from their creeping violations of our privacy. Every company has their weak point, for Facebook it is the fear that users will stop using the site, and for Google it is the necessity of increasing their advertising revenue. I propose that we collectively embark on a civil disobedience campaign of intentional, automated "click fraud" in order to undermine Google's advertising program with the goal of forcing Google to adopt a pro-privacy corporate policy.

As every internet user knows, the web is inundated with advertising. Many of these ads are generated automatically by Google. Unlike advertisements in newspapers or on billboards which are priced per impression (the more people that see an ad the more expensive it is), Google's ads are priced per click. Therefore, every time you click on a Google AdSense advertisement, some advertiser must pay Google. If the ad you clicked on was displayed on a website other than Google's then Google must also pay that website. As you can see, if ads are being clicked on automatically then the whole house of cards upon which the AdSense system is built on crumbles. Advertisers will refuse to pay Google and Google will refuse to pay websites.

Because Google ads are targeted, certain advertisers are willing to pay top dollar for clicks. Some keywords such as insurance, refinance and "IRS problem" are rumored to be worth more than $10 per click. Click fraud can very quickly do major damage to Google and its advertisers but the fact is there is nothing Google can do to stop it, if we work together.

The system I propose is quite simple and is accomplished in three steps: 1) Install Firefox and restart Firefox 2) Install GreaseMonkey (a useful plug-in for Firefox) 3) Install the Blackspot Google GreaseMonkey script or if you are on a slow network install the Blackspot Google Randomly script which will only click on one ad randomly.

Now, whenever you use Google your computer will automatically click on all the AdSense advertisements sending a message to Google to stop their privacy violations.

Note: If you are a techie and want to get involved with this campaign, we need a version of this script that will both remove the ads from our sight and click them automatically. The best would be integration of this script into Adblock Plus. Unfortunately, this script does not work with Adblock Plus so if you want to use Adblock Plus (you should!) then you must disable it on google.com in order to automatically click their ads. If you are a programmer, post your upgraded version of this script below. (Update: One person has already posted an updated version, but I haven't tested it yet.)

Special thanks to Alf at Hublog for designing the prototype of this script four years ago which I upgraded to work today.

Micah White is a Contributing Editor at Adbusters Magazine and an independent activist. He can be reached at www.micahmwhite.com or micah[at]adbusters.org

"The one who controls the search results controls the searcher" may be an apt motto for our era. The sad truth about the Internet is that what started as a liberating multiplicity of informational sources has dwindled to a handful of knowledge-monopolies with Google and Wikipedia leading the pack. While we cling to the founding myth of the World Wide Web – that an information society would mean a world informed by a diversity of information – the reality is a nightmare. The online world has become a trash heap of distorted information collected by soulless bots to serve advertising. And as declining numbers of Americans turn to libraries for wisdom, the Internet has increasingly become the primary, and sometimes only, source of education for whole communities. But relying on the Internet for all of our information needs is a dangerous development when it functions to homogenize thought.

When I encountered a dog-sized rodent digging in my compost bin one night I asked a friend if he'd ever seen such a creature. He told me that it was called a nutria and explained that it originated in South America, was originally imported as a source of cheap fur and now lived wild in the Pacific Northwest. Fascinated, I went online to learn more. A Google search led me to a Wikipedia page where I read, to my great alarm, the precise words and facts my friend had used to describe the animal. It was apparent that he had done the same Google search, clicked on the same Wikipedia page, and had simply recited to me the information he found there. Of course, I didn't blame my friend for telling me what he knew but I was troubled that we had both "discovered" the same facts written by an anonymous poster.

Wikipedia is a particularly unreliable source of knowledge and yet, because of a rumored secret-deal with Google, it ranks highly on many searches. But if you searched Google for knowledge about Theology and read any of the 16,000 Wikipedia pages edited by Essjay, an anonymous contributor who claimed to hold two PhDs, then you may wish to seek your nearest library... and fast. Because it turns out that Essjay was lying about his credentials: he is actually 24, doesn't hold any advanced degrees, and has no specialized knowledge of the subjects upon which he wrote. But the damage has already been done. Unknown millions are now walking the earth repeating the fabrications of an overzealous geek. And while Essjay's contributions may have been unmasked anonymous users continue to edit the 2,000,000 English pages in Wikipedia that are unreliably informing the curious at the same time as they homogenize thought. Even the U.S. military has joined in the Wikipedia fabrication game, one researcher recently revealed over 80,000 edits by users at military servers.

A couple years ago, the U.S. Government's National Center for Education Statistics conducted a nationwide survey and discovered that 87% of American adults are unable to "compare viewpoints in two editorials" because they lack the necessary reading proficiency. It was alarming news for which no one seemed to offer sufficient explanation. But maybe the answer is staring us in the screen: perhaps adults are losing the ability to compare multiple viewpoints because they are exposed to fewer viewpoints each day than before. To the growing number of people who read only the Internet there seems to be a tremendous agreement on truth: it's whatever Google and Wikipedia say. But if the one who controls the search results controls the searcher then we find ourselves approaching the danger of a tyrannical consensus.

We face a terrible future unless, with courage, we are willing to disagree, to ignore the easy truths and to search the hidden places for knowledge. What we need now are adventurers of truth and seekers of wisdom in the wilderness of thought who share their discoveries offline. When the most exciting truths can only be found with the computer off and in discussion with friends then we will have won the war against homogeneity and will be closer to controlling our future.

Micah White is a Contributing Editor at Adbusters Magazine and an independent activist. www.micahmwhite.com

What year is it? The question seems so obvious that to ask it is absurd. But, ignore the ridiculousness of the question for a moment, and provide an answer. "It is 1430" would be the reply of a citizen of a Muslim nation because it has been 1430 lunar years since Muhammad entered Medina. A citizen of a Western nation would disagree: today is 2009 years since the conception of Jesus Christ. If we could go back in time and ask someone from the Byzantine Empire then we would discover that it is actually 7518 (the number of years since the creation of the world). Three different answers each that tell us what event the culture of the answerer finds most important. At the beginning of each calendar is a Year Zero that refers to an event which inaugurates a new era. What, then, is our Year Zero?

If we wish to escape the frenzy of hyperconsumerism, perhaps we should inaugurate a calendar which leaves more time for leisure and less time for work. The typical arrangement of the week is into seven days, two of which are vacation. During the French Revolution, a calendar with a 10 day week was adopted which left less time for relaxation. Perhaps we should begin by imagining a calendar comprised of 5 day weeks, two days of which are vacation. That would increase the average number of weekends per month to 12 from the current number of 9. That may sound like too many days off, but keep in mind that during the height of the Roman Empire there were roughly 130 festival days a year!

Changing the number of days per week would slow down economic production and decrease consumption. Both of which are important ecologically.

But that doesn't resolve the question of what Year Zero would be in a Blackspot World. Perhaps Year Zero is in the future and we are currently living in the BC of Blackspot Time. Or it is also possible that the truth is the opposite, that Year Zero is behind us and we need only identify the specific event that inaugurated our era. What would that event be?

Or maybe we should reject a homogenous time altogether and say that each person has their own Year Zero: the moment of their anti-consumption epiphany? Or shall we instead embrace the timelessness of the present moment and reject the calculation of time altogether?

What does it mean to "Live Without Dead Time"?

Micah White is a Contributing Editor at Adbusters Magazine and an independent activist. www.micahmwhite.com

A series of university occupations that began in mid-January has continued with growing momentum. As of today, there have been thirty occupations at universities in the UK and the US. And, what is most surprising, is that many of the occupations have ended with victories for the student activists who dared to speak up. Are we witnessing the first stages of a global student uprising?

According to Occupations.org.uk, "To date there have been 28 UK university occupations. The universities occupied have been SOAS, LSE, Essex, King’s College, Birmingham, Sussex, Warwick, Manchester Met, Oxford, Leeds, Cambridge, Sheffield Hallam, Bradford, Nottingham, Queen Mary’s, Manchester, Strathclyde, Glasgow, Goldsmiths, Edinburgh, UEA, Byam Shaw, UEL, St Andrews, UWE, Plymouth, UAL and Cardiff. There have been 2 occupations of BBC buildings- one in Glasgow and one in London. There has also been two university occupation abroad that we know of at the University of Rochester in the USA and NYU." We can also add the New School occupation to their list making a grand total of 31 university occupations.

In other cities, students are engaging in activities that could lead to future occupations. In Philadelphia, for example, students from Penn State and Temple recently protested against budget cuts. Elsewhere, University of Buffalo students protested in Albany and in Binghamton, New York, graduate students are forming an alternative Graduate Student Employment Union.

With student protests increasing, middle-class dissent simmering, and a global economy in crisis it feels like the future might be up for grabs.

Micah White is a Contributing Editor at Adbusters Magazine and an independent activist. www.micahmwhite.com

Iceland was first and now Latvia has become the second European government to collapse as a direct result of the protests sparked by the global economic crisis (source). In Dublin, more than 120,000 workers protested outside of the Irish Parliament in a campaign organizers say is inspired by what was done to Iceland's government (source). And in the UK, the head of the Metropolitan police's public order branch, is warning of a 'Summer of Rage' that will involve mass protests by middle-class citizens fed up with the economic situation (source). A tsunami of dissent is coming and it is not clear what will remain and what will be remade.

The economic recession is now impacting the majority of people in most countries in the world. There is a growing sense of global solidarity among the people who see their governments spending billions of dollars to rescue the banks who are to blame for the crisis. With the visible success of protesters in Iceland and Latvia - who managed to topple their governments relatively nonviolently - the realm of possibility seems to be expanding.

It feels like the the time may be approaching for a global movement to take hold which intends to rethink capitalism and the systems of world governance. Instead of demanding the resignation of a Prime Minister, what if this global movement demanded the resignation of the whole system?

Micah M. White is a Contributing Editor at Adbusters Magazine and an independent activist. www.micahmwhite.com

February is becoming the month of anti-capitalist solutions to the financial crisis. In an earlier post I outlined a plan for a Blackspot Debt Collection Agency that would buy, then forgive, debt. Now others are calling for a Debtors Union and some activists associated with Enric Duran are organizing a Bank Strike. Here is a quick summary of these two big ideas.

A Debtor Union has been proposed by Keith at the Pirate Caucus. Keith writes that "A debtors union is open to all who are indebted—credit cards, car loans, mortgages, student loans, medical bills etc. and once we organize ourselves we can refuse to pay and organize a mass default and force the debt to be written off, or we could decide to renegotiate the debt at a steep discount maybe twenty cents on the dollar. That will be for the union members to decide for themselves. In any event, we can take our destiny into our hands --Let’s 'bailout' ourselves, lets 'recapitalize' ourselves, lets get out of debt!" (full post)

The daring anti-bank Spanish activist Enric Duran who reached international fame by borrowing and then refusing to pay half a million Euro is promoting the idea of a Bank Strike. His organization, Crisis, has already spawned a North American Bank Strike Chapter. Here is how they explain their plan for a Bank Strike:

"We must withdrawal our support for the financial system. Everyday it exploits our debts, our savings, and our paychecks—to fund speculation, predatory lending, environmental destruction, and corporate expansion. This will be an indefinite strike which will not end until people’s debt is cancelled just as Wall Street has been bailed out. It won’t finish until the current international financial system is abolished and alternatives are created that cover people’s needs and not those of speculators."

"If hundreds of thousands of people around the arranged to stop paying their debts—and if they supported one other—they could not be stopped. If there are a many more participating in this call by withdrawing the money from the banks, this system that enslaves us would be stopped."

"What meaning would a delinquencies list have if everybody was registered in it? What strength will the seizure of foreclosed property represent if they its affects millions of people? What will they speculate with if we take all of our money out of the banks? Let’s begin this indefinite strike! Let’s withdrawal our money from the banks and put it in alternatives that don’t speculate with our paychecks! We won’t pay our mortgages and we will stay in our homes; we will not pay personal debt. Let this crisis be paid for by the richest!" (more information)

Micah M. White is a Contributing Editor at Adbusters Magazine and an independent activist. www.micahmwhite.com