Wonderful video-statement from Plaza Catalunya, Barcelona:
Kfé Innovación – a simultaneous distributed P2P discussion
A simultaneous, distributed discussion on the topic of “Cities of Learning” will be taking place today in 48 places around the world from La Pobleta de Bellveí in the Catalan Pyrenees to Washington DC via Agentina, Mexico & Colombia. These various conversations can be followed and participated in through the twitter hashtag #kfe04 allowing people… Continue reading
Guy Fawkes in Egypt: the cultural role of Khaled for Vendetta movies prior to the uprising
What is certain is that the idea for change has been firmly planted and cannot be eradicated. Ideas after all, as V proclaims, are bulletproof. The struggle continues. The Guy Fawkes mask lifted from the comic book series and film V for Vendetta has been a staple of the page and the movement from the… Continue reading
Changing Models of Ownership
In societies saturated by hyper-consumption, the joy of acquiring, of holding the new object in your hands and knowing with satisfaction that it’s yours, is familiar. Equally recognizable, though, is that creeping anxiety when the sheen starts to fade and your mind gets distracted with a new, better, life-improving version, and at this intersection, ownership… Continue reading
The new student rebellions in the UK and beyond
* Book: Springtime: The New Student Rebellions. Edited by Tania Palmieri, and Clare Solomon. Verso, 2011. A book wirst-hand accounts and analysis of “the momentous student movement that shook the world”. For atmospherics of the one-million march on March 26 in London, look at the brilliant video below. This is the publisher’s summary: “The autumn… Continue reading
Umair Haque on Building a 21st Century Economy
Web recording on the occasion of TEDx Oxbridge: Watch the video: Building a 21st Century Economy from Umair Haque on Vimeo.
Sketsites, gender violence, and the misogyny of Facebook
Excerpted from Jane Jones: “There is a deeply shocking, and somehow, at the same time, shockingly credible story in today’s Guardian about the rising rates of violence, intimidation, control and general abuse directed by teenage boys and young adult men against their female counterparts. The piece follows a warning this week by Keir Starmer, the… Continue reading
Grassroots mapping
It is easy these days to go on google maps and see any part of the earth… at varying and but always rather coarse resolution. To get a better look, some people thought to do their own maps. Grassroots mapping How it started In January 2010, Jeff Warren worked with a series of organizations and… Continue reading
The resurgence of autonomous farming in Mexico and Latin America
Excerpted from Gustavo Esteva : “Mexico now imports more than half of the grains it needs. Many Mexicans were forced to emigrate, and a fifth of Mexicans now live in the US. In 1974, the US minister of agriculture Earl Butz coined the expression “food power” – food pragmatically used as a political weapon. Hunger… Continue reading
Voces con Futura – P2P poster bank for the #revolutions
Voces con futura is a free poster bank for the #worldrevolution #europeanrevolution #europeriseup #DRY #democraciarealya #takethesquare #worldcamp #spanishrevolution #greekrevolution #italianrevolution #frenchrevolution #chileanrevolution etc movements. Here is their call for participants (also available in Catalan, Italian & Spanish) – they are also looking for translators. Update: recently the Guardian did a post about posters from May… Continue reading
María Carrión on Camp Sol’s lessons for true democracy
The depth and dimensions of the event are simply astounding. People from the whole town bring food and materials every day. They come to work for a couple of hours after their jobs. The place explodes with ideas. There is no one flag, no one party, no one ready-made discourse seen or heard anywhere -not… Continue reading
Analysis of Blue Labour: From Individual Morality to Ethical Institutions
Blue Labour is an attempt to revitalize the British Labour Party through a community-orientation, as proposed by Maurice Glasman. Here are excerpts from an analysis by Alan Finlayson: “Glasman is what political philosophers call a ‘virtue-theorist’. For him, generalised moral rules make little sense. What matters is the quality of all of our actions in… Continue reading
Scenarios for Future Transitions: A P2P response to Global MegaCrisis scenarios
This was written as a response to an Invitation to respond to “Global MegaCrisis: Four Scenarios on the Future of Progress”, for a Special Issue, Journal of Futures Studies, Dec 2011, upon request of Jose Ramos. Michel Bauwens: “The world today is confronting not one crisis, but possibly several at the same time. Each crisis… Continue reading
Tahrir Square as a meme uniting the new cycle of struggles
We can think of the internet as a bank of ideas, and the really successful meme occurs when one of those ideas chimes massively with the population it encounters, summing up a shared or individual experience or viewpoint to the extent that users wish to perpetuate it as somehow representative of their position, often amending… Continue reading
#SpanishRevolution on multistory
Mark O’ Cúlar has been curating reports about the #SpanishRevolution on multistory. Multistory is an alternative news service with a focus on investigative journalism and news which the mainstream doesn’t give much attention to. It also aims to be a place where analysis is given on the failings of mainstream media. Check out the posts… Continue reading
Tummelvision – engaging and collaborating in a networked age
Tummelvision is a weekly salon-style podcast about the art and science of engaging and collaborating in a networked age. Each week we explore how to connect and create a world that puts people at the centre of business, technology and culture with the smart folks creating this new world. Check it out here