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Students create a machine that turns pop bottles into 3D printing materials | Inhabitat... - 0 views

inhabitat.com/les-into-3d-printing-materials

cradle to recycled pop bottles 3d printing feedstock

shared by Kurt Laitner on 11 Mar 15 - No Cached

Forget the Foundations - In These Times - 0 views

inthesetimes.com/...forget_the_foundations

Madonna Thunderhawk financing foundation activism paper

shared by Kurt Laitner on 06 Jun 14 - No Cached

Their “actions” didn’t involve writing grant proposals, discussing their concerns with a board of directors or contacting state agencies. They tested water samples themselves, and, in 1979, produced a study revealing high levels of radioactive contamination, a high percentage of pregnancies complicated by excessive bleeding or terminated in abortion and large numbers of children born with birth defects. Despite their work, the Centers for Disease Control and Indian Health Services discredited the study, and WARN wasn’t vindicated until the South Dakota School of Mines substantiated their claims that same year.
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But unlike Erin Brockovich, this tale of local activists fighting against faceless institutions doesn’t have a happy ending: The Nuclear Regulatory Commission simply raised the level of “acceptable contamination,” and Indian Health Services started providing bottled water in one area. Congress authorized a new water pipeline to the reservation in 2002–only to have the funding diverted by the financial demands of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
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who defer responsibility onto do-nothing organizations, only later to complain about their lack of agency
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that foundations perpetuate First World interests and free-market capitalism, thus preserving many of the problems radical activists wish to eradicate, such as the unregulated concentration of wealth.
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Foundations were created in the early 20th century by multimillionaire robber barons, such as John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie, to evade corporate and estate taxes.
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foundations divert money away from the collective tax base
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who are more interested in supporting milquetoast reformers than social-justice organizations
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federal and state funding for education and healthcare has shrunk
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This is a culture of noblesse oblige, Ahn writes, where the “privileged are obliged to help those less fortunate, without examining how that wealth was created or the dangerous implications of conceding such power to the wealthy.”
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is the power those with money wield over community leaders.
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consequently realigning their interests (i.e., maintaining their jobs) with maintaining the system
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This allegiance keeps community leaders from challenging the root causes of social inequities–the social-change work–at the same time that they pedal to keep up by providing for the needs of individuals devastated by institutional exploitation.
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Kivel concedes this is valuable work, but points out the inherent injustice of this paradigm: “When temporary shelter becomes a substitute for permanent housing, emergency food a substitute for a decent job … we have shifted our attention from the redistribution of wealth to the temporary provision of social services to keep people alive.”
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University of Southern California Professor Ruth Wilson Gilmore urges contemporary grassroots activists to stop seeking a “pure way of doing things.” “Many are looking for an organizational structure and a resource capability that will somehow be impervious to co-optation,”
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transitioning from foundation support to a volunteer collective reliant solely on grassroots dollars
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