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Steal This Book Part 2

Posted: June 30th, 2006, 1:03 pm
by firsty
this is announcement of the soft launch of:

Steal This Wiki:

http://stealthiswiki.nine9pages.com

The goal is to build a collaborative, sort of second edition, update to "Steal This Book," that Yippie handbook written by Abbie Hoffman in 1970. Ultimately, I'd like to have it available for anyone to print, distribute and, of course, steal.

The entire text of "Steal This Book" is displayed on the site, and anyone can visit and add or revise it. The information and format need a lot of work in order to make it relevant to today's America, but I hope to remain true to Hoffman's revolutionary spirit, "Revolution is not something fixed in ideology, nor is it something fashioned to a particular decade. It is a perpetual process embedded in the human spirit."

Despite the original text's references to weapons and violence, this site has been launched by a pacifist (me) who does not advocate violent methods of change. This is a project I've wanted to do for some time. I think the time is right.

This site is intended, however, to support and distribute information that is relevent to this day and age, which can be reasonably defined as one in which Americans are forced to deal with difficult issues, such as a military led by an unwise and unreasonable group of people, and in which we are forced to deal with real and dangerous threats.

Most importantly, there is an enormous part of our population greatly dissatisfied with not only the precise mistakes of our current administration, but also the direction the country is heading in, as defined by lobbyists, corporations and otherwise immoral, greedy and deceptive parties.

And there was a wide range of other important topics covered in the original, such as tips for living free and cheap, where to find medical help, how to protest, etc.

Hopefully as the content on this site evolves, while it is not intended to mirror the original work, it will become a new and similarly useful work, holding true to the spirit of the original, and providing useful information to those who value freedom, peace and justice in this great nation of ours and around the world.

This will be a group effort, so all are invited.

I plan to roll this out to blogs for promotion starting Tuesday, July 4, in celebration of the independence of the great nation of America. Feel free to sign up and get started, because YOU ARE SPECIAL!!!

Posted: July 2nd, 2006, 2:44 pm
by Lightning Rod
firsty,

I wish you luck with this project. I think it is a terrific idea. I'll try to help in any way I can.
(You might have to walk me through this wiki thing from the contributor side)

I would love to see this become the new textbook of revolutionary behavior.
Revolution is based on information.

Posted: July 3rd, 2006, 10:30 am
by firsty
the wiki is very easy. you sign up following the links, and then you can edit or discuss each page. dont worry about making mistakes, the wiki keeps track of all the content changes, so it's easy to revert to a previous version if necessary.

once you're signed up, treat it as your own site. you own the content by virtue of your being signed up.

revolution is, in fact, the idea.

:)

Posted: July 5th, 2006, 10:36 am
by firsty
hey hey hey wicked cool yo.

we got a very positive write up at boingboing dot net:

http://www.boingboing.net/2006/07/05/st ... _the_.html

"Firsty has posted the full text of Abbie Hoffman's seminal Steal This Book to a wiki so that it can be collaboratively updated for today's world. Steal This Book was a kind of extended HOWTO for living for free in the American counterculture, with information of scamming or salvaging everything from meals to accommodation to new identities. It was written in a highly engaging, wisecracking style, like Hints from Heloise reinterpreted by Bugs Bunny. I love the idea of producing a contemporary edition."

the site will probably start seeing a lot of traffic now. get in while the gettin's good and start making some contributions!

Posted: July 5th, 2006, 12:42 pm
by firsty
well, as a point of interest, the site has made the list of most popular bookmarks on del.icio.us.

on the downside, my host is having a hard time with the traffic, and there are some errors and pages that arent loading. so, if you're experiencing that, please be patient. this should NOT have happened, as the site is fully hosted on my otherwise basically unused domain.

but, theyre working on it.