'Primal Leaks: For Julian Assange'

PRIMAL LEAKS

FOR JULIAN ASSANGE

‘as to the evil which results from a censorship,

it is impossible to measure it, for it is

impossible to tell where it ends…’

– Jeremy Bentham

at 14:55 Johannes Gutenberg goes online
with the first PDF, portable document format folio
in individually cast icons of lead, tin & antimony
transmitting explosively subversive technology that
will snatch control from monarchs, popes & emperors
from the exclusive hands of priestly cabals
who exercise power through incomprehensible
incantations of contradiction & hypocrisies by
disseminating information through print-viral replication
inconvenient truths accessed cheaply for the first time
democratising radical opinion fit to transform worlds
blowing apart old hegemonies forever
in codes without borders, beyond censors
leading to wars, revolutions & modern science,
it’s not Gutenberg’s intention to uptilt authority
he doesn’t anticipate the Reformation
can’t envisage the shock of modern science
or the rise of new dissident classes and agendas
not he, nor anyone else at the time, ever dreams
just how profound the new media will impact
he just moves type, that’s all
yet unleashes everything, a database of
more books published in 50 years from
multiple servers than in a previous 1000,
paradigms shift & will not be unshifted
what’s invented will not to be uninvented,
new lines will not be undrawn
new accommodations will be made…