The New Batman

 Hey, wait! What’s wrong with the old Batman?  Well, nothing, really, it’s just that he’s been confined to the comics and movies, and we are actually lacking him in real life where and when we really need him. But let’s look at the old boy, shall we?

Unique among the Superheroes, Batman is actually a human, and fully so. No super powers except his own brain which invents all kinds of crazy shit so that when he’s needed, he can really go to town. Get the job done right. A man of mystery, we know that he’s had a rough past, sporting money and a motive to avenge the murder of his parents. In the quest, he becomes the Caped Crusader, fighting crime on behalf of the citizens of Gotham City. His only enemies are the criminals. But for all his championed causes, he remains anonymous. 

Perhaps that’s the special charm of any of the Superheroes – not wanting the press, fortune or fame that could easily accompany their person. They are masked men. They perform on principle, on behalf of the public for justice. Funny, how in comic books, “right” and “wrong” are so easy to spot. We aren’t want to question the validity of a beating delivered by Batman, the morality of it, or even the method of it. All we know is that Batman doesn’t go after the people/public that he is seeking justice for. He’s always after the bad guy, and he always gets his man in the end. Then, it’s back to the Bat Cave, where he works on his projects, and awaits another Bat Signal.  

Apparently there is some appeal to this, because we’ve made Bruce Wayne another billion dollars in box office take for all the movies to his credit. But alas…Batman remains encased in celluloid, not to be heard from in our nation’s darkest hours. 

Until, perhaps, now. 

We have on the rise a new Superhero. Like Batman, s/he is human. Like Batman, s/he is technologically way ahead of the game. Like Batman, s/he is anonymous. But unlike Batman, this one is real. 

Our new Superhero is: ANONYMOUS.

Anonymous has some pretty humble roots – from what we know about it. What we know is that it’s not actually a WHO – it’s an IDEA – and that idea is that WE ARE ANONYMOUS. Something like, We, The People. There is no leader. There is no headquarters. There is no club. There are no meetings. Because we are all anonymous. Consider the accepted motto of Anonymous: "We are anonymous. We are legion. We do not forgive. We do not forget. Expect us."

So what at they “fighting” for? Same as Batman; Justice. Freedom from tyranny and enslavement. The rights of all men to live freely upon this earth, our common heritage. Equality for all. But how do you stand up against such things like this in the world today? There is a reason that Batman is still just a cartoon.  Avenging one person at a time, tackling one enemy at a time…Batman would be at work for years upon years, even with the help of the entire Justice League! You see, these Superheroes are rather outdated, because they were still fighting fire with fire – violence with violence – hand to hand combat, where people would get hurt, and there was actually quite a bit of collateral damage that they don’t show you because it’s just a movie. This just doesn’t work. War never does. It only serves to perpetuate the problem. 

So enter our modern day Batman. We have a distinct advantage over our fictional friend – and that is the Internet. In fact, that is where Anonymous was born. Being anonymous, we are not exactly sure just when, but Anonymous considers the internet his home. His Bat Cave, as it were. All things in the Bat Cave are for Anonymous. No one must enter the Bat Cave with the idea that they will take anything in it for themselves and keep it for themselves, except perhaps knowledge. That belongs to Anonymous…and remember…we are ALL anonymous. Anonymous’ battlefield now has become the Internet. The goal is to keep it and the people who use it utterly and completely free. This is everyone’s World Wide Web, and Anonymous intends to keep it that way. And I’m really okay with that. 

The government and big business? Not so much. They are crapping their pants over Anonymous, because they have thought for a long time that they had the buttons that control the internet. One switch, and it all goes off. Not anymore. Not with Anonymous at the ready. 

In recent years, Anonymous has been everything from playfully mischievous, to national- security-level dangerous. You’ve seen the reports on the news about the “dangerous hackers” who are taking down web-sites, accessing highly secure information, and causing some serious disruptions for business-as-usual. And the media wants you to be scared! “They’ve got your credit card information!” “They’ve got your Playstation account!” “They hacked into PayPal!”  Trying to get you to believe that they are out to get YOU. Here’s the fact: They are actually out to protect YOU, John Q. Public. Because YOU are also anonymous. They don’t want your money, your account numbers, or your business. The only financial motive they have is for you to be able to keep your money. The real motive is to disable the criminals on the battlefield that is ours, where there is no bloodshed, no violence, no tyranny, no hostile take-overs, no raping of the planets resources, no guns, bombs or weapons of mass destruction. They are quickly pointing out that money you don’t have in your pocket is no money at all. It’s a computer entry on a machine. If that machine goes down – your money goes with it. The only power that is wielded over us is monetary at its core, and it has been used to enslave us. Our freedom and survival on this planet are at stake, here. Those who have all the money, who create the money out of thin air have us believing that we are subservient to their debt, and the rules they have created to maintain our servicing of it. 

If we take up our torches and pitchforks, our signs and guns and make a play for our freedom, things will get messy. People will get hurt. And the whole goal is to get people free, and happy, and living in peace. What a better way to do this than to simply unplug those who wield such power over us? A level playing field, now. But it would seem that Anonymous has a better handle on cyber-space than the world governments, or even the elusive “terrorists”. Every act of terror that hurts, maims and kills other people is counterproductive to ANY cause. It will only perpetuate it. The idea that no man, no institution, no corporation and no government can offer us what is already ours – our Natural Rights and Freedoms – is the driving force here. And since every single human being on the planet, and the planet itself, has the Right to Life and Freedom, you can’t go killing people to acquire it. Won’t work. It’s like Jesus said, you lay the axe to the root of the tree. We have had too many years now of simply trimming the branches. Anyone who has a small household budget can figure out when you’ve reached the debt point of no return, where you will never, ever be able to repay money you keep spending that you don’t have. Except the governments around the globe. They have been suckered into taking money they – I mean WE - can never repay, and the good ol’ USA is no exception. 

This is an entire tree – the MONEY TREE – in fact, that needs to be cut down completely, for the fruit it yields is poisonous. It served us well for a while. We planted it in the house! We ate from it, hung swings in it, but now it’s become a monster tree, and it’s no giving tree.  No…it is the antithesis of Shel Silverstein’s “Giving Tree”. It the Taking Tree.  

And the population can no longer endure trading our very lives and well-being to keep watering this mutant tree. It needs to come down before it takes the whole house down. It has already grown through the roof, and the debris is cluttering up our living room, in the form of useless materialistic garbage, as well as literal garbage. We have eaten our fill from this tree, and have been trained to do so from birth, mindless consumers who eat and eat and eat, more than our fill, tossing out the scraps in the midst of our garden, until the stench surrounds the entire house. 

Our ingrained gluttony for this fruit has led to a monstrosity that is consuming the very planet we live on. We have demanded so much fruit from this tree that there was not enough to go around. So some clever individuals with a severe appetite for the homage due this tree decided to forge some new fruit. Just make up some new leaves and fruits, and then ration it out at will. A new development in this hybrid monster tree is that there is no room on the natural tree for more fruit, so they are using the computers and the internet to propagate more fake fruit, and lie to you about the reality of it. They transfer fruits from one account to the other with ease, but will not take fake fruit in return. Oh, no…they want the real stuff…the stuff you sweat for. They want your work to produce food for the tree, water for the tree, and you are really nothing more than compost to keep the tree fed. Digital dollars don’t feed the tree – your hard earned dollars do. Your gold and silver and homes and cars and TVs and stereos and cell phones and clothes and shoes and food and energy do. And the tree continues to grow and demand more, and it’s now in the process of destroying the very roof over our heads – our home – our Planet. 

And it’s time to come down. We will either cut it down, or our world will collapse around it. Our choice.

Without this tree, we would be able to take the things of real value – our lives, families, children, education, travels, arts – and apply it to an entire garden of living, viable things that give back to us, and can produce enough for all living beings.

Since this tree has now decided to use the internet, it is beginning to invade our personal space. The little that we have left for ourselves is embodied in cyber space. Our ability to share, to connect, to KNOW, to be informed, is now being threatened by the rogue branches of this ever-expanding tree. And it needs to go.

So how do we take it down without anyone getting hurt? What tool will accomplish this? A simple mouse-click will do it.  A small bit of technology that can serve as the axe, in the hands of an expert hatchet-man – Anonymous. 

We’ve all seen the comics where the Superhero encounters his evil alter-ego, and the consequences of same. And the media will try and tell us that the internet in the hands of the Hacktivists is a dangerous place for us, the consumer. Big surprise. Fear mongering, when THEY are the ones threatened. It’s not your freedom that’s being threatened. It’s their control of YOU that is threatened. For them to assume that the power of Anonymous is a power that will harm the populace is to see that they have ZERO understanding of the motives of Anonymous. If it were a grab for their power, Anonymous would have all the same trappings: leadership, a place to call headquarters, names, faces, addresses, bank accounts, payrolls. But there is nothing like that.

The principle behind Anonymous is simple: People should not fear their governments; governments should fear the people. 

Not for the same reasons. People fear for their lives and freedoms. The government fears a lack of money, power, and control. 

Governments have succeeded around the globe at dividing the people, in what is a simple plan that has worked throughout history: Divide and conquer. They are doing it as I type. But with the advent of the Internet and World Wide Web, we are reuniting. We can reconnect. We are all getting together on this invisible communication system, and we are starting to wake up to the fact that we are enslaved and controlled by a few. And we are the many. And this is not just in America – this is WORLD WIDE. This is our last chance. This is our last frontier upon which the human species can unite, and be heard. And when you threaten that…our last hope…well, them’s fightin’ words. And on the internet, we are ONE – we are ALL – and we are ANONYMOUS. Room for all. All belong. No censoring. No blocking. No monopoly. No cussed money. None rich, none poor, no lacks, no wants, no social barriers, no cultural barriers, no economic barriers, no educational barriers.  No race, no creed, no color, no sexual orientation, no country, no nation: Just Citizens of the World Wide Web.

Could all of this go horribly wrong? Could Batman turn on the people of Gotham City? I suppose. Exhibit A is the government of the United States of America becoming the laughing stock of the world, who started turning on its citizens a long time ago, eroding our freedoms with legislation, drowning us in debt and busy-ness and worthless educational systems. We are even being poisoned for profit. The only thing we have that the world still respects is our military –and now the government policies are turning the mighty US Military into the strongest group of terrorists on the planet. We are now responsible for more hurt, pain and terror on this globe than any cave-dwelling Middle Eastern group ever spewed upon the peoples of this planet. Turn their terrorist weapons over to read, “Made in the USA” on the bottom. But we made a buck off the deal, so who cares? 

Well, I do. And I think most people do if they stop to think about it long enough. And those who have are on-line, and are uniting their voices to say STOP IT!! This is NOT the will of the PEOPLE! Those of us who are first on the menu for the grab for world domination are already disconnected from the money tree. I can think of nothing that Anonymous could do to destroy what’s left of my life and well-being. My government is already doing that. World wide, people see something needs to be done, but we don’t want war. It’s much simpler to just unplug the machine. 

It’s a curious tale – history in the making. I am watching with fascination, and a subtle cheer, because a bloodless challenge is rising from the Anonymous Spider in the World Wide Web. And being a fan of the Underdog genre, I’m watching this one closely, with something that feels an awful lot like optimism rising as this one plays out. I certainly don’t see anything worse arising than what we have now. Perhaps there is an IDEA – an ANONYMOUS idea that can stop this train before we go over a cliff. I will be watching the unfolding.

Yeah…maybe I’m Bat-shit crazy. Maybe. But I’ll be tuned in – same Bat place, same Bat channel….