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thinkahol *

To Occupy and Rise - 0 views

shared by thinkahol * on 30 Sep 11 - No Cached
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    The Occupy Wall Street movement is well into its second week of operation, and is now getting more attention from media as well as from people planning similar actions across the country. This is a promising populist mobilization with a clear message against domination by political and economic elites. Against visions of a bleak and stagnant future, the occupiers assert the optimism that a better world can be made in the streets. They have not resigned themselves to an order where the young are presented with a foreseeable future of some combination of debt, economic dependency, and being paid little to endure constant disrespect, an order that tells the old to accept broken promises and be glad to just keep putting in hours until they can't work anymore. The occupiers have not accepted that living in modern society means shutting up about how it functions. In general, the occupiers see themselves as having more to gain than to lose in creating a new political situation - something that few who run the current system will help deliver. They are not eager for violence, and have shown admirable restraint in the face of attack by police. There may be no single clear agenda, but there is a clear message: that people will have a say in their political and economic lives, regardless of what those in charge want. Occupy Wall Street is a kind of protest that Americans are not accustomed to seeing. There was no permit to protest, and it has been able to keep going on through unofficial understandings between protestors and police. It is not run by professional politicians, astroturfers, or front groups with barely-hidden agendas. Though some organizations and political figures have promoted it, Occupy Wall Street is not driven by any political party or protest organization. It is a kind of protest that shows people have power when they are determined to use it. Occupy Wall Street could be characterized as an example of a new type of mass politics, which has been seen in
thinkahol *

Keeping a Curious Bush Secret | Consortiumnews - 0 views

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    Exclusive: One of the strange mysteries from the Reagan-Bush era is where did George H.W. Bush go on one Sunday in October 1980 when some witnesses placed him meeting with Iranians in Paris. More than three decades later, Bush's supposed alibi remains a state secret, Robert Parry reports.
Parycek

Innovative and Creative Applications (INCA10) - 0 views

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    applications that contribute to overcoming exclusion, and improving economic performance, employment opportunities, quality of life, social participation and cohesion. In keeping with the European spirit of the competition, this refers to the 2006  declaration on 'ICT for inclusive society (Riga)
Parycek

Can social media cure low student engagement? - 0 views

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    Keeping college students and their professors connected through social media outlets could be key in boosting graduation rates, education technology experts said during a panel discussion at Social Media Week in New York.
thinkahol *

WikiLeaks - 0 views

shared by thinkahol * on 05 Jan 11 - No Cached
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    WikiLeaks is a non-profit media organization dedicated to bringing important news and information to the public. We provide an innovative, secure and anonymous way for independent sources around the world to leak information to our journalists. We publish material of ethical, political and historical significance while keeping the identity of our sources anonymous, thus providing a universal way for the revealing of suppressed and censored injustices.
thinkahol *

Psychology, Ideology, Utopia, & the Commons - 0 views

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    The failure of social scientists to seriously question their own ideological and methodological assumptions contributes to the complex interrelationship between global ecological and individual psychological problems. Much of the literature on the tragedy of the commons focuses on saving the global commons through increased centralization and regulation, at the expense of the individual's autonomy and psychological sense of community. "Utopian" speculation in general and anarchist political analysis in particular are necessary correctives to misplaced attempts to merely rearrange the elements of the status quo rather than to radically alter it in a direction more in keeping with both survival and human dignity.
thinkahol *

Who is Peter Joseph? | Watch Free Documentary Online - 0 views

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    In late 2009, Charles Robinson was able to interview Peter Joseph, the creator of Zeitgeist: The Movie, Zeitgeist: Addendum, Zeitgeist: Moving Forward, several lectures and a presentation; Founder of The Zeitgeist Movement and a friend of Jack Fresco, in his home. He described himself and his life in details in what is likely a rare interview. He was kind enough to provide him with previously unreleased media and video and in turn Charles did his best to create a documentary (albeit kinda poor in quality compared to his work!) that would help express who this person is. Peter Joseph was born in North Carolina to a middle class family. He has said in interviews that his mother's role as a social worker helped shape his opinion and impressions of American life. He later moved to New York to attend art school. Currently he lives and works in New York City as a freelance film editor/composer/producer for various industries. Due to the controversial content of his films and a desire to keep his day job private, he has not released his full name to the public.
thinkahol *

It's Official: Tunisia Now Freer than the U.S. | Informed Comment - 0 views

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    An Arab country with neither secret police nor censorship is unprecedented in recent decades. Tunisia is inspiring similar demands in Egypt and Jordan. When skeptics wonder if the Revolutions of 2011 would really change anything essential in the region, they would be wise to keep an eye on these two developments in Tunisia, which, if consolidated, would represent an epochal transformation of culture and politics. Arguably, Tunisians are now freer than Americans. The US government thinks our private emails are actually public. The FBI and NSA routinely read our email and they and other branches of the US government issue security letters in the place of warrants allowing them to tap phones and monitor whom we call, and even to call up our library records and conduct searches of our homes without telling us about it. Millions of telephone records were turned over to George W. Bush by our weaselly telecom companies. Courts allow government agents to sneak onto our property and put GPS tracking devices under our automobiles without so much as a warrant or even probable cause. Mr. Obama thinks this way of proceeding is a dandy idea.
thinkahol *

The Birth of the People's Party - 0 views

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    ook at the outrage in Madison, Wisconsin. Look at the crowds in DesMoines, Iowa. Look at the demonstrations in Indiana and Ohio and elsewhere around America. Hear what they're saying: Stop attacking unions. Stop making scapegoats out of public employees. Stop protecting the super-rich from paying their fair share of the taxes needed to keep our schools running.
thinkahol *

Tomgram: Barbara Ehrenreich, On Americans (Not) Getting By (Again) | TomDispatch - 0 views

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    The big question, 10 years later, is whether things have improved or worsened for those in the bottom third of the income distribution, the people who clean hotel rooms, work in warehouses, wash dishes in restaurants, care for the very young and very old, and keep the shelves stocked in our stores. The short answer is that things have gotten much worse, especially since the economic downturn that began in 2008.
thinkahol *

Are jobs obsolete? - CNN.com - 0 views

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    According to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization, there is enough food produced to provide everyone in the world with 2,720 kilocalories per person per day. And that's even after America disposes of thousands of tons of crop and dairy just to keep market prices high. Meanwhile, American banks overloaded with foreclosed properties are demolishing vacant dwellings to get the empty houses off their books. Our problem is not that we don't have enough stuff -- it's that we don't have enough ways for people to work and prove that they deserve this stuff.
thinkahol *

A Primer on Class Struggle | Common Dreams - 0 views

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    When we study Marx in my graduate social theory course, it never fails that at least one student will say (approximately), "Class struggle didn't escalate in the way Marx expected. In modern capitalist societies class struggle has disappeared. So isn't it clear that Marx was wrong and his ideas are of little value today?" I respond by challenging the premise that class struggle has disappeared. On the contrary, I say that class struggle is going on all the time in every major institution of society. One just has to learn how to recognize it. One needn't embrace the labor theory of value to understand that employers try to increase profits by keeping wages down and getting as much work as possible out of their employees. As the saying goes, every successful capitalist knows what a Marxist knows; they just apply the knowledge differently. Workers' desire for better pay and benefits, safe working conditions, and control over their own time puts them at odds with employers. Class struggle in this sense hasn't gone away. In fact, it's inherent in the relationship between capitalist employer and employee. What varies is how aggressively and overtly each side fights for its interests.
thinkahol *

The Legacy of the Lodges: Mutual Aid and Consumer Society - 0 views

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    The basic purpose of the orders was to enable working people to pool their financial resources to supply each other with essentials that the state and the capitalists would not, including life insurance, pensions, cradle-to-grave medical care, and homes and schools for destitute family members. Members paid dues, usually modest, to support these services, which sometimes included their own hospitals, clinics, orphanages, and schools. And unlike private employers, the orders fought hard and usually succeeded in keeping their promises to their members even when times were bad.
thinkahol *

The Diaspora Project - 0 views

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    We're building the future we want to see -- a new social web that keeps you in control of your data, giving you the freedom to do what you want and have fun. We're a tiny core team of developers working our tails off, and we're also a huge community effort, with more than 150 people having contributed code to our open-source software, hundreds of others engaged in community organizing and spreading the word, and thousands of people providing feedback and financial support. We can't do this without you. Please give what you can. Thank you.
thinkahol *

Facing Reality, The "New Monogamy" Is Keeping Relationships Together | | AlterNet - 3 views

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    Affairs outside of marriage are nothing new, but this take on monogamy is.
Parycek

SMALL CHANGE Why the revolution will not be tweeted - 2 views

  • The world, we are told, is in the midst of a revolution. The new tools of social media have reinvented social activism. With Facebook and Twitter and the like, the traditional relationship between political authority and popular will has been upended, making it easier for the powerless to collaborate, coördinate, and give voice to their concerns
  • There was no Twitter Revolution inside Iran.” The cadre of prominent bloggers, like Andrew Sullivan, who championed the role of social media in Iran, Esfandiari continued, misunderstood the situation. “Western journalists who couldn’t reach—or didn’t bother reaching?—people on the ground in Iran simply scrolled through the English-language tweets post with tag #iranelection,” she wrote. “Through it all, no one seemed to wonder why people trying to coordinate protests in Iran would be writing in any language other than Farsi.”
  • The platforms of social media are built around weak ties. Twitter is a way of following (or being followed by) people you may never have met. Facebook is a tool for efficiently managing your acquaintances, for keeping up with the people you would not otherwise be able to stay in touch with. That’s why you can have a thousand “friends” on Facebook, as you never could in real life.
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  • “Social networks are particularly effective at increasing motivation,”
  • But that’s not true. Social networks are effective at increasing participation—by lessening the level of motivation that participation requires
  • social media are not about this kind of hierarchical organization. Facebook and the like are tools for building networks, which are the opposite, in structure and character, of hierarchies. Unlike hierarchies, with their rules and procedures, networks aren’t controlled by a single central authority. Decisions are made through consensus, and the ties that bind people to the group are loose.
  • There are many things, though, that networks don’t do well. Car companies sensibly use a network to organize their hundreds of suppliers, but not to design their cars.
  • The drawbacks of networks scarcely matter if the network isn’t interested in systemic change—if it just wants to frighten or humiliate or make a splash—or if it doesn’t need to think strategically. But if you’re taking on a powerful and organized establishment you have to be a hierarchy.
  • it is simply a form of organizing which favors the weak-tie connections that give us access to information over the strong-tie connections that help us persevere in the face of danger. It shifts our energies from organizations that promote strategic and disciplined activity and toward those which promote resilience and adaptability
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    Twitter, Facebook, and social activism : The New Yorker by Malcolm Gladwell
Johann Höchtl

Open Knowledge Foundation Blog » Blog Archive » Rethinking Open Data: Lessons... - 0 views

  • You can build it but they won’t come. All successful open source projects build communities of supportive engaged developers who identify with the project and keep it productive and useful.
  • Ongoing maintenance and distribution of the data hasn’t been budgeted for almost all the data sets we have today. This attitude has to change, and new projects give us the chance to get it right, but most existing datasets are unfunded for maintenance and release.
  • there are at least five different types of Open Data groupie: low-polling governments who want to see a PR win from opening their data, transparency advocates who want a more efficient and honest government, citizen advocates who want services and information to make their lives better, open advocates who believe that governments act for the people therefore government data should be available for free to the people, and wonks who are hoping that releasing datasets of public toilets will deliver the same economic benefits to the country as did opening the TIGER geo/census dataset.
Johann Höchtl

OpenGovernment: Empower individuals and organizations to track government at every leve... - 1 views

  • As a joint project of two 501(c)3 non-profit organizations, the Participatory Politics Foundation and the Sunlight Foundation, OpenGovernment will empower individuals and organizations to track government at every level.
  • You can support the open-source work on OpenGovernment by becoming a Booster of the non-profit Participatory Politics Foundation (a tax-exempt recurring donation of $1/day), giving a one-time charitable gift, or by forking the code on GitHub and start hacking.
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