This week I told her students about the Guardians of Peace, the agency that hacked into Sony, spilled all the gossip on the movie stars and Hollywood executives, changed international policy and held a movie hostage. They were duly impressed, and in accordance with the way I described the group, they thought of them as a combination of God, Santa Claus and G.I. Joe. I asked each child to write a letter to the Guardians of Peace, and these are a few of my favourites:
Dear Guardians of Peace:
Are you related to the Guardians of the Galaxy??
My mother took me to that movie in the summer and it was AWESOME! There was a raccoon that shot a machine gun and a tree-person! It was the best. If you haven’t seen it, you should go as soon as you can! Anyway, do you think you two could work together, and if not, perhaps you could fight against one another and it could be made into a movie? I would buy all the action figures.
S. Age 9
I have a cat named Tinker. The other day she caught a mouse! It was disgusting and cool at the same time! I felt bad for the mouse but I also felt excited! Is that what it’s like to be a terrorist? Is Tinker a terrorist?
M. Age 8
Dear Guardians of Peace:
This year I asked for a cape for Christmas but I did not get it. I was good all year long and really deserved the cape, but still, Santa forgot it. I think he’s getting old and is slipping. It’s time for him to go. You seem to be very powerful, would you consider taking over Santa’s job? If so, I would like a cape for Christmas, the game Grand Theft Auto and to be allowed to watch Game of Thrones.
W. Age 10
Dear Guardians of Peace:
Why did you say the bad things about Angelina Jolie?
She’s pretty, and all she wants to do is adopt babies and make the world a better place. My father says that you are terrorists and cowards, and that everybody in North Korea is short. I have included a drawing of a short person.
S. Age 9 ½
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but recently he’s been opening up a lot of Chatbox windows, always asking strange questions and speaking in an absolutely bizarre voice. At first I though it was a joke, something he liked to do when high, but today I think I put the pieces together.
I recently wrote about the Guardians of Peace, the organization responsible for the massive hack on Sony,
and one of the results of this is that they started to follow me on Twitter. I have to say, this has been unnerving, but perhaps not as unnerving as learning that US Law enforcement has been actively gathering intelligence on the Guardians of Peace through undercover operations on Facebook. I now suspect that the FBI has hacked into Rob’s Facebook account and is now using it to try to gather information about my relationship with, and knowledge of the Guardians of Peace.
What follows are some of the Facebook Chatbox sessions “Rob” and I have had over the last couple of weeks:
Rob: Hey, big guy! How are you favorite sport’s teams today?
Me: The fucking Canadiens were beaten by the Senators! Lost $150!! Please don’t tell Rachelle! She’d kill me if she knew I was still gambling!
Rob: A secret gambling vice, that’s a real exploitable vulnerability, Michael! I bet your enemies could ruin you with that information! Anyway, sure would be nice if the Guardians of Peace hacked into the Canadiens and taught them a lesson or two about football! Can you make that happen, Michael?
Me: Rob, it’s pretty early for bourbon, isn’t it?
Rob: I like our friendship, Michael, it is good that we share! We must go to a strip club soon! You have a Korean fetish, right?
Rob: Who is your favourite sexy actress? I like the way that Miley Cyrus twerks!
Me: Her dancing is cultural appropriation, Rob!
Rob: America is a land of freedom that grants equal opportunity for all, do you not agree with this premise?
Me: No, not really.
Rob: Mike, can I call you Mike? You know what treason is, don’t you? Is treason or revolution something you would support?
Me: I would like to commit various treasons with Jessica Simpson.
Rob: If you had to pick a country to invade, what country would it be?
Me: I don’t know, Russia? Somebody’s gotta make Putin put on a shirt.
Rob: So are you saying that Russia is the next to suffer a major cyber attack???
Rob: The Eagles are a great band. What do you think they would make of the Guardians of Peace and their hack on an innocent corporation (Sony) working within the free market? Do you think if the Eagles knew anything about the terrorist organization The Guardians of Peace, that they would turn that information over to the authorities? I do. I think that the Eagles, your favourite band, would do the right thing.
Me: The Eagles aren’t my favourite band. The Doobie Brothers are.
Rob: The Doobie Brothers always do the right thing. They hate North Korea, love freedom and always give the government useful information in the war against terror!
]]>For years there’s been an obdurate, official position that there is to be no negotiating with terrorists. Negotiation, or worse, capitulation would lead to utter catastrophe and societal ruination.
It was a mantra that echoed, even boomed in our heads, and to so much as question it was to let the terrorists win. It’s all a little bit counter-intuitive, because on an personal level, we all know that if somebody we loved were taken hostage, we would negotiate, doing whatever we could to bring that light safely back into our lives. When the stakes are intimate and truly meaningful to us, we only care about the results, not the precedent we’re setting in achieving that result.
In acquiescing to the Guardians of Peace demands and agreeing not to release the movie The Interview, Sony was acting in self-interest.
They were not concerned with freedom of speech or following the US government’s rulebook on dealing with terrorists, or even protecting the vulnerable part-time employees who’d be working in the threatened cinemas over Christmas, or anything else that wasn’t a part of their bottom line.
A corporation is not a moral agency, and it exists for the singular purpose of making money, and whatever serves that interest, whether it’s long-term or short-term, serves the corporation. In tatters and reeling, their internal system almost destroyed, Sony made a rational, tactical decision. Put the movie on the shelf for now and see how it all played out.
What’s interesting is that when money, when the unencumbered progress of private enterprise was put in peril, objectives were met. Now, all sorts of smoke and mirrors surround this, but it reduces to the valuation of corporations over actual humans.
One could argue that the dominant species on the planet are actually corporations. Single-minded and constantly feeding, they’re boundless, traversing and devouring landscapes and cultures like a predatory science fiction behemoth. They must feed, and in so doing behave in a very reptilian, even predictable (if strategic) fashion. Although they may, very weirdly, have some of the same rights and responsibilities as human beings, they’re not human beings and don’t serve the broad interests of the species—they’re just seeking to metastasize, and any concessions that are made to modernity, social progress or environmental stewardship, for instance, are done purely to ensure they’re continuing to maximize profit within an evoloving host.
The lesson to learn here is that when an economic system is disordered, as was Sony’s, then a meaningful tactical response was achieved. Our hearts might break to see hostages taken in a coffee shop in Sydney or journalists executed in a faraway desert, but the terrorist’s goals are not achieved until what really matters is threatened, and that is the free market. Corporations, massive, powerful and ubiquitous, perhaps more powerful than nations, remind me of dinosaurs, and the cyber attacks now threatening them are a virus to which they might be vulnerable, and could ultimately cripple the entire species.
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This is the email that I received from them:
“You feel the terror Murray? It come for you.
Your blog is no good. It is the worst and a great offense to all. You must stop your mediocre immediately or we will rain fire hell down upon you, making all your secret public. You like for that? We think not. If you post one more stupid thought piece on something you know-nothing, or write long, bad joke sketch, we drop bomb on your world! “
I am not the type to be cowed by terrorists, so the very next day I posted a dating advice column for prisoners as written by Charles Manson. It was fucking hilarious. If we don’t have humour, we have nothing. The terrorists will not take humour away!!
The response from the Guardians of Peace was swift and unequivocal. They changed the passwords of my fantasy hockey teams, thus locking me out and putting me at a VERY serious competitive disadvantage within my leagues.
I admit, that really hurt, but the next day I posted this photograph and caption, just to show them that I wasn’t cowed by their schoolyard bullying and that if it was a fight they wanted, well, it was a fight they were going to get.
Yippee ki yay mother fucker.
Their response:
“You real cracker jack. You dirty apple pie. Have you checked ugly blog today?”
This was the blog:
This is Michael Murray Stupid Blog:
Password folder: all passwords = IamExcellent#1
Banking: $59.80
Credit: $13.46
Investments: $828.03 USD $0.00
Total: CDN$901.29 USD $0.00
Excerpts from email:
From Michael Murray to Brodie Bigold: “ Really, your last name is French?!? I fucking hate the French!”
From Michael Murray to Phillippe Zeller, Ambassador to France: “We used to have a cheap ass chain department store in Canada called Zeller’s. You know what happened to them? They went out of business. You know what will happen to France? Out of fucking business.”
From Michael Murray to Jessica Simpson: “Why weren’t you included in the great celebrity nude sex photo thefts? You should have been. I mean, I wouldn’t have looked because I respect your privacy and wouldn’t want to violate you unless you were willing to be violated and stuff, but I’m just saying, you really should have been included. The Fappening just wasn’t what it should have been without you.”
Brilliant Idea Box
–Come up with game like Cards Against Humanity, make millions, see Jessica Simpson perform live.
–Make app that can tell when waitress is flirting with you
–Write think piece on what it’s like to be black in America
–Buy book on magic and then apply new knowledge to everyday life
Netflix queue:
- The Hillz
- Private Valentine: Blonde & Dangerous
3.Down Periscope
4.Wild Hogs
5. A Night at the Roxbury
6. Failure to Launch
7. Season Three of Dawson’s Creek
8. Season Four of Dawson’s Creek
9. Demolition Man
10. Spice World
Potential Tweets
I wouldn’t wait in line for anything! ( add example)
Don’t you hate poseurs! ( make more subtle)
Writing. #GoingWell
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