Robert David Steele is a former CIA operations officer and senior civilian responsible for creating the Marine Corps Intelligence Center. In 1988 he realized that the US Government was spending all of its intelligence money on secret technical collection and virtually nothing on open sources of information. He became the global proponent for Open Source… Continue reading
Date archives "June 2011"
Democracy 4.0 #spanishrevolution
Democracy 4.0 An anonymous user has posted the following information online. The post proposes allowing citizens to directly vote in Congress should they deem it necessary. It is an innovative proposal and read currently being distributed via email and social media in Spain. This is a manually revised online translation of the original introductory text… Continue reading
Jane Jones on going through postmodernism to a p2p relationality
“Modernity…based on a autonomous self in a society which he himself creates through the social contract, has been changing in postmodernity. The individual is now seen as always-already part of various social fields, as a singular composite being….Atomistic individualism is rejected in favour of the view of a relational self, a new balance between individual… Continue reading
How a new type of social movement is transforming Detroit
What has developed through both conscious organizing drives and the actions of many individual residents is a significant urban agricultural movement in Detroit. All over the city there are now thousands of family gardens, more than two hundred community gardens, and dozens of school gardens. All over the city there are garden cluster centers that… Continue reading
Refuting the ideological warfare used to justify the invasion of Greece
First, thanks for reading this important quote, which doesn’t require absolutizing national sovereignty to see its essential truth: What is going on in Athens at the moment is resistance against an invasion — and this invasion is being justified with the extensive use of mythology. What is going on in Athens at the moment is… Continue reading
The First Social Cyberwar as the class warfare of the 21st cy: On the convergence of hacktivism with social movements
1. Make no mistake- this is not a minor struggle between state nerds and rogue geeks- this is the battlefield of the 21st Century, with the terms and conditions of war being configured before our very eyes. Given the significant economic disruption online activism and hacking can cause, and the power online tools have to… Continue reading
Insights into the Spanish assembly movement
Interesting details in this must-see interview of David Marty, conducted on June 16 by Chris Spannos, giving an inside view of the Spanish events and mobilizations: (if the video does not show up, as something seems wrong with the embed code, click here) You need to install or upgrade Flash Player to view this content,… Continue reading
Catalan Police Sabotage Peaceful Protesting
June 15th saw a demonstration in front of Barcelona’s regional Parliament as politicians took to their jobs which, apparently, turned violent. Events have been broadly used to discredit the #15M Spanish protest movement by politicians and media channels. Most aware of the movement have felt frustrated and outraged, adding to the general indignation, first because… Continue reading
We Volume 5: special issue on ‘flat’ leadership
Here’s the editorial introduction to the special issue: “In this issue we turn to the question of how the WE correlates with leadership in a networked world. At first sight the dynamic, self-organizing amorphous “WE” might seem a strange bedfellow to the strict, unbending, authoritarian ideas of “leadership” mainly found in business. But in a… Continue reading
An Analysis of Social Media’s Power for Social Change
There is a lot of discussion around trying to understand the power (or not) of social media to achieve social change. This article looks to link to tweet density with on-the-ground social protests in Europe. Its an interesting idea, but without the data behind it, it is hard to say if this is a pattern… Continue reading
The state of the art for Widely-Distributed Batteries for Renewable Energy
As grid parity looms, the new “holy grail” is the discovery of ways to store millions of watts of excess green electricity for times when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine. The day when such large-scale energy storage becomes practical and cost-effective now too seems within reach The status so far, excerpted… Continue reading
The Philosophy of Peer Learning: Educational Philosophy and Theory
Editors: DANIEL ARAYA, MICHEL BAUWENS & FRANCO IACOMELLA Description Peer production has become an important organizing logic for a network-driven era. Social networks like Facebook, LinkedIn, Ning, flickr, YouTube and Wikipedia, are facilitating social connectivity on a massive scale. Developments in ICT networks now define and shape information production and potentially transform the organization of… Continue reading
The emergence of a ‘nuclear knowledge movement’ in Japan
1. The Japanese political scene is being drastically shaken up by the massive demonstrations and meetings that took place on June 11th throughout Japan; and also by the Italian people’s victory at referendum the following day. The day Italy made a decision against nuclear power, a Japanese poll finally reached 70% for “abolishing nuclear power… Continue reading
Spanish Citizens Reject Pact of the Euro
A very convinced Spanish citizen explains why the Pact of the Euro must be rejected. Yesterday, Sunday 19th saw massively attended demonstrations in all major cities against the Pact of the Euro among the rest of grievances being protested in the country since #15M. #19J felt especially important as the Pact of the Euro is… Continue reading
Debunking Gladwell’s ‘The Tipping Point’
This is an interesting article that looks at counter-views to Malcolm Gladwell’s best-seller, The Tipping Point, which argues ‘The Law of the Few’ where a select group of ‘influencers’ have a key influence over the trends of society at large. Herb Schaffner’s article argues that Gladwell kind of missed the point – in that yes… Continue reading
Activism Without Leadership: the Invisible Network of Britain’s Eco-Activist Subculture
If every protestor is as valuable as another, then oppressors must eliminate every single one in order to quell the movement. * Article: Creating the Impossible. The Invisible Network of Britain’s Activist Subculture. by Avery Oslo. Civil Society Zine. Excerpts from Avery Oslo: “In this essay I will explain how the invisible network of environmental… Continue reading