November 2015 - P2P-Foundation - lists.ourproject.org

Fwd: Support Nosotros: the Free Social Space in Athens
by Michel Bauwens 17 Nov '15

17 Nov '15

dear Penny, sorry I saw only to late it was still confidential, so it is only posted to the p2p-f list for now, Michel ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Penny travlou <sp.travlou(a)gmail.com> Date: Tue, Nov 17, 2015 at 4:30 AM Subject: Support Nosotros: the Free Social Space in Athens Dear All, I would like to share some (still confidential) information about Nosotros: the Free Social Space in Athens with regards to their current financial situation. It would be great if you read their text below and circulate it to any groups/initiatives/individuals who may be interested in supporting and/or donating to Nosotros (http://www.nosotros.gr/) I've been known the space quite well and used it for various events, meetings and activities (including the African collective pop-up kitchen). The people who run the space work there - without exaggeration - 24/7! What they have achieved so far is remarkable, but as they argue in their text below the current Greek crisis has made their efforts to sustain the space almost impossible. * PS : This call is not for public use at the moment !"* Best, Penny -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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Fwd: Path to Paris Issue 3: Climate change threatens food security
by Michel Bauwens 17 Nov '15

17 Nov '15

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns <ogc(a)maryknoll.org> Date: Tue, Nov 17, 2015 at 5:55 AM Subject: Path to Paris Issue 3: Climate change threatens food security To: michelsub2004(a)gmail.com [image: header image] <http://salsa4.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=B92%2BS4V1NNHr2CkRkP8jHmcwF…> “Whenever food is thrown out it is as if it were stolen from the table of the poor” – Pope Francis, *Laudato Si'* We're now another week closer to the historic UN Climate Summit in Paris, starting November 30, where nearly 200 nations will gather to solve the climate crisis. To help you join the millions of people worldwide praying and acting for the care for the earth, the Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns now offers Issue 3 of *Path to Paris*. <http://salsa4.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=9zYbIkaw%2Bx%2BPYTwT%2BRhiy…>*Download Issue 3 of **Path to Paris * <http://salsa4.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=wiqCxHeosxWsruCYCfIy02cwFr7…> The third issue of *Path to Paris* examines the impact of climate change on food security, especially for smallholder "family" farmers in Peru. It also offers ideas for making a personal commitment to lifestyle changes, for taking action, and for meditation. We offer *Path to Paris* in response to Pope Francis’ call: “Our goal is not to amass information or to satisfy curiosity, but rather to become painfully aware, to dare to turn what is happening to the world into our own personal suffering and thus to discover what each of us can do about it.” (*Laudato Si'*) Find all four issues of *Path to Paris* at *www.maryknollogc.org/tag/path-paris* <http://salsa4.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Nvc8nqbhkKSb8fajRtHTmmcwFr7…> Share each issue of *Path to Paris *with your parish and friends; and use it for personal reflection. * Photo: Indian fields and wind turbines,**Yahoo! Blog <http://salsa4.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=PYomMcKMP9zq97Nc7ncPbWcwFr7…>** from Sunnyvale, California, USA / Licensed CC BY 2.0* ------------------------------ *Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns* <http://salsa4.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=7IM2PDJievi6cKuUSmXqfWcwFr7…> 200 New York Avenue, NW Washington DC 20001 You are subscribed to this organization's email list as michelsub2004(a)gmail.com. If you did not subscribe, or would no longer like to receive email updates, unsubscribe here <http://salsa4.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=%2Ffln7gOEQvqhGIFPTZT6tGcwF…>. Note: this will unsubscribe you from *all* MOGC lists. If you would like to be removed from a specific list, please contact ogc(a)maryknoll.org. [image: empowered by Salsa] <http://www.salsalabs.com/?email> -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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Re: [P2P-F] Fwd: The Church of Economism and Its Discontents (GTN Discussion)
by Eric Hunting 16 Nov '15

16 Nov '15

The religious character of economics and finance has been apparent to me from childhood simply from the finance industry's choices of architecture, which has often tended to borrow the same classical themes used by states and for the same reasons; using the typology of sacred spaces to create impressions of power, authority, permanence, and reverence; New York Stock Exchange - https://timsanchezdotnet.files.wordpress.com/2013/10/new-york-stock-exchang… Royal Stock Exchange London - http://www.bugbog.com/images/galleries/london-pictures/City-of-London/royal… Early 20th century banks of Chicago - http://www.heyhochicago.com/2013/10/why-do-old-chicago-banks-look-like.html Even our stereotypes or iconographic representations follow this form, the more contemporary type of bank being too indefinite in stereotype; stock graphic bank - http://thumbs.dreamstime.com/z/bank-building-isolated-white-d-render-356783… Sacred design has very specific psychological impact such use clearly seems intended to exploit. Unable to directly use the symbols and architecture of established religions for state use, America and Europe appropriated the sacred design of obsolete yet still western culture to symbolize their modern governments' roots in Greek and Roman Republicanism. Banks and others in finance seemed to borrow this in order to relate themselves to the state and its authority while also cultivating a religious reverence for their activity. The bank became a place of holy communion where everyone speaks in hushed tones and cues up in lines like supplicants. This manipulation seemed quite blatant to me, after the fashion of fascist architecture or the similarly scary architecture of the Mormon church. An attempt to craft a kind of mystical Neoplatonism built on capitalism and the state as godhead or divine source of order. As a young nerd, I knew just how one should deal with such divine pretenders; http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y28/Sir_Lance/Ad28.jpg On 11/16/15 5:08 AM, p2p-foundation-request(a)lists.ourproject.org wrote: > Subject: > Re: [P2P-F] Fwd: The Church of Economism and Its Discontents (GTN > Discussion) > From: > Denis Postle <denis.postle(a)gmail.com> > Date: > 11/16/15, 5:07 AM > > To: > p2p-foundation(a)lists.ourproject.org > > > A Must Read and the Norgaard essay referred to as well. > > All very welcome not least because some decades ago I tried to get > 'capitalism as a religion' on the agenda of science and society media > series but the Marxist scholar we were working with dismissed the > notion, 'back to the drawing board' I was told. It shut down that line > of inquiry for a long time. > > I'd offer a caveat re the Noorgard article, he writes as though he > believes we can somehow get outside nature. Might it also be > sacreligious to try to insist that along with us capitalism and all > its artefacts are intrinsicly a part of nature? An essential > perspective I now find personally. But has it perhaps become an > orthodoxy I haven't noticed? > Denis Postle -- Eric Hunting erichunting(a)gmail.com

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Re: [P2P-F] unMonastery Update
by Michel Bauwens 16 Nov '15

16 Nov '15

On Mon, Nov 16, 2015 at 5:37 PM, Ben Vickers <ben(a)vickers.tv> wrote: > large unMonastery update - > https://medium.com/@unmonastery/unmonastery-the-year-ahead-2f082b000a7a > Dear Ben, will most certainly do, Michel -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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Fwd: [opennetcoalition] Together in Sorrow, Looking at the Future
by Michel Bauwens 16 Nov '15

16 Nov '15

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: La Quadrature du Net <contact(a)laquadrature.net> Date: Mon, Nov 16, 2015 at 6:36 PM Subject: [opennetcoalition] Together in Sorrow, Looking at the Future To: opennetcoalition(a)laquadrature.net Themes: DEMOCRACY, LIBERTIES, PARIS La Quadrature du Net – For immediate release Permanent link: https://www.laquadrature.net/en/together-in-sorrow-looking-at-the-future Together in Sorrow, Looking at the Future *** Paris, 16 November 2015 — Together with the people from France and from all around the world, La Quadrature du Net mourns the dead. After the attacks on Friday 13 November in Paris and Saint-Denis, the group is committed to contribute to a political response that is based on a careful assessment of what has led us to this tragedy. *** Friday 13 November, criminal acts of astounding violence hit Paris, striking French society at its core. La Quadrature du Net's board and operational team wish to express their condolences to the victims' loved-ones and share their deep sorrow. Obviously, France is no longer safe from the massacres occurring on a daily basis in many parts of the world, in particular in the Middle East. In the face of such a tragedy, we must now take a hard look at reality and not be afraid of facing the complex causes that led to these events. It would be completely absurd and simply ineffective to react with more emergency measures and new generalised restrictions to civil rights. Unfortunately, given recent political statements, we fear that the only response will lie in further bombings in the Middle-East and the escalation of security measures evermore harmful to fundamental rights. But when will we take the time to carefully analyse the failed policies carried on for the past fifteen years on a global scale, and through dozens of laws in France? In the light of the declaration of the state of emergency and of political statements made over the weekend, La Quadrature du Net solemnly asks political leaders to take the time to reflect and engage in a rigorous, critical and transparent evaluation of France's international, diplomatic, military, geo-strategic and commercial commitments; to think about the strategy of intelligence services and to complete a thorough examination of their workings; to defeat a warmongering rhetoric drive us towards a "clash of civilisations" doubled with an internal civil conflict within our society; to also address the tensions that ripple through French society, the identity-related tensions stirred by a part of the political and media elite, the shared responsibilities into the largely misunderstood phenomenon of violent radicalisation, the dissolving of perspectives for social progress. La Quadrature du Net defends fundamental rights and liberties in the digital sphere. If today we are inviting a debate on issues that might seem removed from our usual concerns, it is because we are convinced that they directly affect the very conditions of citizenship, of peace, and are currently largely missing from the public debate. We are also convinced that freedom and security are mutually reinforcing. To overcome these challenges, we are calling for a collective, wide-ranging reflection. These debates must be carried out transparently vis-à-vis citizens and must draw from the expressions, doubts, criticisms, hopes and expectations of all, without fear. In one word, we are calling for more democracy. ** About La Quadrature du Net ** La Quadrature du Net is an advocacy group that defends the rights and freedoms of citizens on the Internet. More specifically, it advocates for the adaptation of French and European legislations to respect the founding principles of the Internet, most notably the free circulation of knowledge. In addition to its advocacy work, the group also aims to foster a better understanding of legislative processes among citizens. Through specific and pertinent information and tools, La Quadrature du Net hopes to encourage citizens' participation in the public debate on rights and freedoms in the digital age. La Quadrature du Net is supported by French, European and international NGOs including the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the Open Society Institute and Privacy International. List of supporting organisations: https://www.laquadrature.net/en/they-support-la-quadrature-du-net ** Press contact and press room ** contact(a)laquadrature.net, +33 (0)972 294 426 https://www.laquadrature.net/en/press-room _______________________________________________ Opennetcoalition mailing list Opennetcoalition(a)laquadrature.net https://laquadrature.net/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/opennetcoalition -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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Fwd: After Paris: A deeper analysis & Strategy than you'll find in the media
by Michel Bauwens 16 Nov '15

16 Nov '15

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Rabbi Michael Lerner <magazine(a)tikkun.org> Date: Mon, Nov 16, 2015 at 7:39 PM Subject: After Paris: A deeper analysis & Strategy than you'll find in the media To: Michelsub2004(a)gmail.com <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=aD9exT%2FIYABdMAuJHswOUiDJEyEH…> Read this online at http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/25711 <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=7XySsEMAXzKb8wCeX%2FN8wCDJEyEH…> and feel free to paste this onto your home page, on your social media and twitter, and encourage your friends to read it and share it with everyone they know.--Tikkun magazine Paris: A World That Has Lost Its Ethical Direction & Spiritual Foundation and a Media that Cheerleads for Fear and Militarism By Rabbi Michael Lerner For many years, we at Tikkun and the Network of Spiritual Progressives have warned that the domination and power-over strategies to achieve “homeland security” have been tried for over 7,000 years and all they have produced is more wars and violence, interspersed with short periods of peace that have, with the help of the sensationalist and natioanlist media and professional apologists for the existing inequalities, managed to hide from public view the degree of covert structural violence that every system of inequality and domination embodies. (Please read Cynthia Moe-Lobeda's important study *Resisting Structural Evil--Love as Ecological-Economic Vocation* published by Fortress Press to get a full understanding of how deeply our own daily lives in Western societies are built on the exploitation and impoverishment of people around the world). We have called for a new approach to “homeland security”—the Strategy of Generosity, as manifested in part in our proposed Global Marshall Plan (please download the full version and read it atwww.tikkun.org/gmp <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=BNZTWJBL%2BMrrGt41A2edxiDJEyEH…>). Until the powerful countries of the world are seen as mainly driven by a desire to care for the well-being of everyone else on the planet and the wellbeing of the planet itself, and care not only out of self-interest but also out of a new consciousness in which we all come to truly understand our mutual interdependence and oneness, what we saw in Paris this past week is destined to be an increasing reality in the coming decades. The Global Marshall Plan we support would have the U.S. take the leadership with the advanced industrial countries of the world in working with local communities throughout the developing world, donating 1-2% of our Gross Domestic Product each year for the next twenty to once and for all end (not must ameliorate) global poverty, hunger, homelessness, inadequate education, and inadequate health care--and repair the damage done to the environment of 150 years of irresponsible forms of economic development sponsored by colonial and imperialist and materialist oriented capitalist, socialist and communist societies alike. This is a central part of a Strategy of Generosity, but it goes well beyond this to involve a massive recentering of our energies toward healing and repairing the damage that our global economic system has generated, changing our international trade agreements so that they no longer disadvantage the poorest people in the world while advantaging our multinationals, and many other reparative steps. Instead, we are moving toward doing more damage in response to terrorism. The more fear of “the Other,” the more resentment and anger those others will have toward us, and the cycle of violence will become more a part of daily life not only where it already is (mostly in the countries of the Global South and East), but also in the advanced industrial countries. As fear grows, fascistic and racist right-wing forces will grow more popular, their anti-immigrant policies will be portrayed as “common sense,” their empowering of domestic intelligence forces to invade our private lives will receive greater support, because people will never have heard an alternative path to security as supposedly liberal leaders seek to show that they too can be “tough.” You need only listen to Hillary and Bernie competing for who can sound more like the most interventionist and pro-militaristic response to the horrendous loss of human life in Paris to see the foreign policy future of the U.S. Yet for those of us in the spiritual or religious world, the Torah command to “love the stranger” still resonates, so we are impelled, even while condemning unequivocally the terrorist acts of ISIS, to seek to understand how we might limit the ability of these haters to win new support as the US, France, Russia and others engage in drone attacks that have already killed more innocent civilians in Syria and Iraq than were killed by the terrorists in France. Healing of our world requires psycho-spiritual sophistication to combat tthe terrorists' appeal to those who have suffered from the West's past militarism and the structural violence built into the global capitalist system, on the one hand, and to combat the way that the terrorists generate support in the West for new levels of fear-generated militarism which then keeps the cycle of violence repeating and intensifying. That path is a path of love toward the people of the world and then policies that embody that love. Not policies of hunting for and expelling from the U.S. or European countries the many "undocumented workers" who escaped the economic or political violence in their own countries only to become suspects and hunted in the advanced industrial countries, yet that is what many out of fear are supporting in Western countries even before the Paris carnage, and more so now. We saw how the legitimate grief and upset at the horror of 9/11 was channeled into a set of wars and narrowing of our rights to privacy and protection from invasive governmental power. Those wars created the prelude to ISIS/Islamic State. We are today at another moment of choice about how to respond. We already see supposedly liberal leaders embracing militaristic solutions and reducing freedoms in order to prove that they are “tough” as the right-wing militarists insist is needed. But we, the people of the world, could reject this approach if we were to embrace an alternative consciousness to the drumbeats of fear and revenge that the Western political leaders think they must support lest they be thrown out of office. You in the media personally could play a role in resisting the dominant discourse by exposing Americans to a different voice--the voice of those of us in the spiritual and religious world who believe that the militarist approach has failed and that it is time to make a sea change in our direction and embrace instead a Strategy of Generosity. . That new consciousness must include a powerful commitment to nonviolence and to genuine caring for the wellbeing of everyone on our planet. And it will require rejecting the ethos of the competitive economic marketplace with its inevitable fostering of selfishness and materialism, and its powerful way of infusing in all of us a narrow utilitarian or instrumentalist way of seeing other human beings who increasingly are valued to the extent that they satisfy our needs or interests rather than as beings who are intrinsically deserving of love and respect, and its way of seeing the Earth and the universe solely as vehicles to fulfill our immediate needs rather than as the sacred reality that has given birth to life on this planet and as deserving a response of awe, wonder and radical amazement at the magnificence and mystery of all being. This new consciousness is not some utopian ideal—it is the survival necessity for human life on this planet. My heart mourns for the latest victims of our world’s craziness—the hundreds wounded and the over 130 murdered in Paris this past Friday. Every life lost to senseless violence is a tragedy. If, as Jewish tradition teaches, “she who saves one life is as if she saved the entire world,” then the converse must also be the case, that “those who cause the death of even one person are destroying the entire world, bit by bit.” And when one of the members of our Tikkun editorial board told me that she was scared that the violence in Paris might soon become a norm in the U.S. as well, I had to agree. What lies ahead if we keep going in the direction we've been going since 9/11 is an ever increasing cycle of violence that will inevitably manifest in the U.S. and other Western countries as well as those outraged by our policies, our drones, our economic exploitation, and our cultural imperialism, and the impact of our global system on the lives of people they know or witness through the media drives some to the immoral and criminal acts of terrorism. No, I don’t believe that ISIS, the Islamic State, or the other hate-filled fundamentalists, racists, misogynists, anti-Semites, xenophobes, and ultra nationalists will disappear the moment we start acting from a new spirit of generosity. We will need to take measures to protect ourselves. But as long as our resources (and here I include not only the U.S. and the West, but also China and Russia) are primarily focused on military, economic, cultural and political domination of the world, what we saw in Paris will become an increasing reality worldwide. As long as we in the most powerful countries of the world persist in supporting a global system that inflicts daily violence on the people of the world, there will be consequences that are predictable and yet unstoppable no matter how much force, violence, control of borders, spying on everyone’s emails and phone conversations, imprisonment or torture is used to protect us. “What, us…violent? It’s always the others who do that to us, and we only defensively respond.” That’s the story the media daily reinforces, and turns into a pervasive mantra whenever there are acts of others that are responses to the suffering we’ve created. Yes, some politicians have pointed to the war in Iraq started by President Bush, but also supported by most Democrats in Congress who continually voted for the funding for that war year after year, and by President Obama who supported a surge in the fighting, and continued it for 3 years into his presidency, and then left American armaments in the hands of a Shi’ite government more interested in repressing Sunnis than in establishing a society that could give equal rights and respect to all of its diverse groups. Rarely do they mention the documented atrocities committed by U.S. troops or the torture that our military and intelligence forces implemented not only in Abu Ghraib and which continued in Guantanamo, but also in more secret torture locations around the world, sometimes run on behalf of the U.S. by torture-friendly regimes in other countries. Yet this is only the tip of the iceberg. The United Nations estimates that somewhere between 6,000 and 9,000 children under the age of five die every single day from starvation or diseases related to malnutrition or that could have been cured with adequate health care available—so somewhere between 2-4 million children a year. And that’s not counting those who are older who similarly die from inadequate nutrition or health care. The UN estimates that 2.8 billion of the worlds 7 billion population live on less than $2 a day. We, the rich countries of the West, barely let this information into our consciousness, yet there is every reason for the media to tell us every day the stories of those thousands who have died the day before from malnutrition that could have been cured had we in the West shared our food with the hungry of the world. This is what we call “structural violence,” and all of us in the advanced industrial societies that vote for candidates who do not address this issue directly are morally implicated in the resulting suffering that our global economic system generates. The unequal distribution of wealth and the resulting extremes of poverty, combined with the violence done by the regimes of elites who need to suppress dissent in order to keep their power, are a leading cause of global suffering. Add to that the trade agreements that we have implemented that benefit a small elite in the global South and East while destroying the ability of small farmers in those countries to make a living, forcing them to move to huge urban areas where they often find that they have to sell some of their children into sexual slavery in order to feed the rest of the family, or alternatively to risk their lives to get to the richer countries where as “undocumented” workers they might be able to feed their children, and you get another part of the picture. And as the environmental crisis deepens, a recent study predicts that we will soon be faced with over 100 million environmental refugees in addition to all the economic and political refugees. Equally important is the way many people feel dismissed, their suffering of no consequence to the rest of the world. They see people like themselves being daily harassed or humiliated, whether that be in US torture chambers in Iraq and Guantaamo or at the Israeli checkpoints in Palestine, in the tendency of global media to blame all Muslims for the extremism of the few, in the way that the mass murder and genocide perpetrated by Western countries in Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen (not to mention the First and Second World Wars where tens of millions of people were killed) or by Russia and China, are forgotten while the crimes of the jihadis are described as a threat to civilization itself. The hypocrisy of the West infuriates people around the world who have suffered from the Western-imposed inequalities of wealth and resulting inequalities in health. They feel outraged and humiliated...a slippery slope toward violence. The cumulative effects of a world lacking generosity of spirit and generosity of action plays an important role in shaping the psychological underpinning that leads people to act out in various ways, of which ISIS is only one manifestation. The ruthless and immoral character of their actions seem to them (not to me) internally justified in their own self-understanding because they have been either personally subjected to humiliation, or watched as others with whom they identify being mistreated and systematically disrespected and can see no way to change that given the absence of any recognition of what they see being re-presented to them in the media or in public or political discourse. None of this excuses the behavior, but it is critical to understand it in order to develop strategies that can actually be effective in the way that more bombings and more suppression have not been. Add to this the inner suffering of hundreds of millions of people in Western socieites reared in competitive market societies where they are taught to distrust each other, to believe that human nature inevitably leads to “looking out for number one” and that hence the only rational way to live is to advance one’s own interests without regard to the consequences for others, and who then find themselves surrounded by others who are just looking out for themselves and who therefore can’t really be trusted to be true friends of allies when circumstances get tough. These ways of thinking, now increasingly exported to the rest of the world through Western media and Western movies and television and computers, play an important part in undermining communities and solidarity among people--and resisting the West is in part about resisting this aspect of Western culture. Our societies have been amazingly successful in channeling the boiling up anger and outrage that so many people feel into self-blame, psychological depression, and other self-destructive paths: addictions to alcohol, drugs, television, sexual conquests, social media, endless consumption of material goods, nationalistic and religious chauvinisms, and you can add more to this list. For the most part, all this internalization creates unhappy people, and then manipulative politicians often succeed in channeling their unhappiness into anger at some external group —African Americans, women, homosexuals, immigrants, Latinos, Muslims, Jews, liberals—and the same pattern repeats itself around the world with a rotating “Other” depending upon the ruling elites of a given country. If you happen to be in Islamic countries, Sunni or Shiite Muslims are the “Other,” if you’re in Europe or America, African Americans and Muslims are the “other,” if you’re Jewish, it’s the Palestinians and if you’re Muslim or Christian, it has historically been the Jews. The legacy of ignoring global pathologies generated by global capitalism and other systems of domination that preceded it has led to the current reality—and it will be with us for many years to come. If we continue to respond to only the immediate threats without the awareness of the context that creates them, generations into the future will be paying the price. But if we start now to embrace a Strategy of Generosity, build the Caring Society (Caring for Each Other and Caring for the Planet) the current crop of haters will not grow but diminish in strength and ability to attract others. It will be harder and harder for the haters to convince their neighbors and young people that the world as currently constituted is evil if that world is deeply involved in manifesting genuine love and caring not only for themselves but for every person on the planet and caring for the planet itself. Instead of letting politicians focus solely on what to do now, we could insist that right now they take steps that involve articulating publicly and beginning to implement a long-term strategy of generosity. As two concrete steps in this direction, please help build support for our Global Marshall Plan and our ESRA, our proposed Environmental and Social Responsibility Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which not only will require public funding of all state and national elections and ban every other source of money, but will also require that large corporations operating in or selling goods or services in the U.S. (those with incomes over $50 million/yr) be required every five years to prove a satisfactory history of social and environmental responsibility to a jury of ordinary citizens who will hear testimony from people all around the world who have been impacted by the operations, products, services, environmental behaviors and economic policies of these corporations. Sound utopian and fanciful? No, what is utopian and fanciful is believing that somehow through more militarism, more repression, more thought-control in our schools and media, more self-serving demeaning of others, more capitalism, and more infringements in privacy, we can avoid the terror and other manifestations of hatred that will dominate public life in the years ahead. And why is it not utopian to believe that we can build a different kind of world? Because most human beings actually would love to live in a world based on love, kindness, generosity, environmental sensitivity and awe and wonder at the grandeur of the universe (what we at Tikkun and the NSP Network of Spiritual Progressives call The New Bottom Line). Please read our vision of what this would look like by going to www.spriitualprogressives.org/covenant <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=lDoOp0hQVRTtPetZ6cXECiDJEyEHE4…> and then join as dues paying members our interfaith and secular humanist and atheist-welcoming Network of Spiritual Progressives www.spiritualprogressives.org/join <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=nzBm3%2BEKD99JRzvr6VRaNiDJEyEH…>. So don’t ever say that “I didn’t know what to do,” because joining our movement is what you actually can do—so do it now! And by the way, insist that any candidate asking for your support (in the coming elections in whatever country you reside) be explicitly committed to implementing the Global Marshall Plan and explaining to the people of her or his country why the Strategy of Generosity is far more likely to succeed than the Strategy of Domination. And outreach to your local city council, state legislators and Congressional reps to endorse both the Strategy of Generosity (by that name) and the Global Marshall Plan and the ESRA. Rabbi Michael Lerner is editor of Tikkun Magazine www.tikkun.org <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Kk5i1ZgHGQ6zJ%2F3jJaVh7iDJEyEH…> (winner of the Best Magazine of the Year Award from the Religion Newswriters Association both in 2014 and again in 2015), chair of the interfaith and secular-humanist and atheist-welcoming Network of Spiritual Progressives, and author of 11 books including two national best-sellers *The Left Hand of God: Taking Back Our Country from the Religious Right* and *Jewish Renewal: A Path to Healing and Transformation*. His most recent book, *Embracing Israel/Palestine* shows how to apply the strategy of generosity to one of the world’s seemingly most intractable struggles, his book with Cornel West *Jews and Blacks:Let the Healing Begin* shows a path to renew the alliance between these two groups, and his book *The Politics of Meaning* presents some of the ideas that Hillary Clinton was claimed to have embraced when the media in 1993 mistakenly dubbed Rabbi Lerner “the guru of the Clinton White House.” If this analysis moves you, please join the Network of Spiritual Progresssives or make a tax-deductible contribution to Tikkun at www.tikkun.org/donate <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=QhSwE8vVEXcCMU%2BA7P5B%2FyDJEy…> and then contact RabbiLerner.tikkun(a)gmail.com to discuss how you can help build this movement for a world based on love and justice. ------------------------------ Click here to unsubscribe <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=vnep5l2%2BlDx9vrtqGSyMFyDJEyEH…> if you are having trouble unsubscribing Click here <kay(a)tikkun.org> Copyright 2015 Tikkun Magazine. Tikkun is a registered trademark. 2342 Shattuck Avenue, #1200 Berkeley, CA 94704 510-644-1200 Fax 510-644-1255 [image: empowered by Salsa] <http://www.salsalabs.com/?email> -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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Fwd: The Church of Economism and Its Discontents (GTN Discussion)
by Michel Bauwens 16 Nov '15

16 Nov '15

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Great Transition Network <gtnetwork(a)greattransition.org> Date: Mon, Nov 9, 2015 at 10:22 PM Subject: The Church of Economism and Its Discontents (GTN Discussion) To: michelsub2004(a)gmail.com >From John Barry <j.barry(a)qub.ac.uk> ------------------------------------------------------- “Economists—the prophets and priests of this new religion—preach about and have a major impact on public policy and our institutional arrangements. Economics therefore provides an alternative faith tradition, complete with values, ideas of welfare and of progress—usually defined in terms of quantitative economic indicators, which dominate public discourse and which seek to reshape our institutions and organisations. With their influence on government, economists are the new theocracy, the contemporary manifestation of Plato’s guardians.... In ancient times, seers entered a trance and informed anxious seekers of the mood of the gods and whether the time was auspicious for particular enterprises. Today, the financial media are the diviners and seers of THE MARKET’s moods, the high priests of its mysteries. THE MARKET has become the most formidable rival to traditional religions, not least because it is rarely recognised as a religion.” (Boldeman, 2007: 279). Norgaard's timely essay follows nicely from some of the previous essays this year - from Kallis, Daly and Bellamy Foster for example - in offering another critical perspective on the ideological dimensions of dominant economic thinking. While I agree 100% with the analysis offered by Norgaard, I feel he pulls his punches. Everything he describes as 'economism' can be easily and equally described as 'capitalist economics' or - to give its more usual nomme de guerre - neoclassical economics. 'Economism' is, after all, simply the ideology of capitalist economics, the capitalist economic imaginary that has now achieved almost full spectrum ideological and imaginative domination in how we define and describe the economy and this how we conceptualise 'economics'. Thus it is not the ‘Anthropocene’ we now live in (which conveniently elides and deliberately obscured issues of class, power, global and national inequality, and injustices between peoples and places), nor is it the ‘Ecocene’ as Norgaard suggests. No, rather than either of these terms, a more accurate description for the current age is the ‘Capitalocene’ (Moore, 2014). After all, what we witness is not the 'humanisation the world', nor has our planet been ‘economised’, but rather the earth has been 'capitalised'. And it has been capitalised, rendered into commodities, monetised, and valued right from the micro-level of DNA through biotechnology to the macro-level of the entire planet becoming negatively affected through climate change by capitalism and its addiction fossil fueled endless orthodox economic growth. Similarly, when Norgaard talks of 'economists', I do not think he is talking about feminist economists, ecological economists, Marxist or heterodox economists, or green political economists such as myself. No, he is correctly talking about those who are members of the dominant economic orthodoxy, capitalist, that is, neoclassical economists, so let's call a spade a spade. And, of course, it is economics as doxa that enables it to be interpreted as form of religious thinking. In everything from the nonsense of a 'value-free', objective 'science' of the human economy to myths of endless economic growth on a finite planet, we can correctly ascertain the ideological and mythic characteristics of modern capitalist/neoclassical economics. So I ask if it looks like a pig, smells and walks like a pig, why not simply state that what we're talking about is capitalism, its ideological power and inherent tendencies to ecological irrationality and social injustice? Why be coy? On this issue, I've been always struck with the reticent of American scholars from invoking the C word, in a way we in Europe find odd given how criticism of capitalism and suggestions for possible post-capitalist political economies and social orders has long been a perfectly legitimate form of scholarly inquiry. It is almost as if some people can accept the end of the world more readily than the end of capitalism....Here, economism as used by Norgaard is closer to the way it was defined by Lenin (quoted in the essay) as a reformist rather than transformative political project in its unwillingness to explicitly propose the replacing of capitalism...but this is perhaps a minor quibble (but one perhaps worthy of a future Great Transition discussion). I have myself long been convinced of the ideological character of modern economics. Here, I make two related points. The first is that there is no ideology-free conceptualisation of the economy and economics: all forms of economic thinking are at root forms of 'political economy' a fusion of ethical, political, and normative prescriptions and principles with empirical economic proposals in terms of policies or suggestions for public policy. Political economy is of course what Adam Smith and the great classical economists practiced, fully aware of the political and ethical dimensions of their ideas and proposals. It's a pity most modern economics students have very little idea of the political economy roots of the discipline they study . Instead, modern students of neoclassical/capitalist economics (since there is little to no pluralism in modern economics teaching) are completely ignorant of either the normative or historical foundations of discipline. In this context, what we in the universities churn our year after year in our economics programmes are nothing short of 'technically competent barbarians' (Barry, 2012). The second point relates more to the religious invocation used by Norgaard to describe modern capitalist economics. Here, viewing this religious dimension as essentially ideological in another sense - that is masking and occluding power relations or hidden normative assumptions conveniently smuggled in as 'axioms' for example - is a really important starting point for the dethroning of this false religion of 'economism'. Here we need to ask ourselves, in whose interest is this form of 'knowledge/power' deployed and inscribed in university curricula, and what does it hide and why? How fragile as the assumptions behind market economics? asks Norgaard rightly. Here are some more suggestions to add to the ones he outlines. ‘Twelve Theses on Neo-Classical Economics’. 1. the fact that the ‘economy’ is the material/metabolic foundation/bridge/link between the human and non-human worlds also affects relations of power within human societies; 2. neo-classical economics’ purported objectivity, ‘scientific’ status, or ‘value neutrality’ is false since it is as value-laden and based on ethical and political judgements, as other ethical or political position and prescriptions; 3. related to that, this lends economics the illusion of being able to definitively establish the ‘truth’, mostly through its use of quantitative and numeric methods, what Stephen Marglin (2008: 136) calls the algorithmic ‘ideology of knowledge’ of economics; 4. modern capitalist economics regards itself as defined by its methodology and approach, which has (almost) universal application to all human affairs, rather than a subject matter, ‘the economy’ per se ; 5. the ‘naturalising’ of the institutions of the modern market economy – such as ‘the market’, ‘private property’, ‘competition’, ‘efficiency’ etc. – in such a way that these are both ‘natural’ (beyond the capacity of humans to alter) and also ‘good’, if we want economic growth and material well-being; 6. which in turn establishes ‘economics’ and ‘economists’ as the professional ‘experts’ on how the economy works, thus ‘crowding out’ or marginalising ‘non-economic’ and thus ‘non-expert’ commentary on or views about the economy; 7. allowing its analyses and aims – most crucially the concept and objective of orthodox ‘economic growth’ – to be accepted within a pluralist social context, i.e., it is something almost all value/normative and political positions can accept, endorse, and support as a self-evident ‘common good’ (think of how both left and right promote orthodox undifferentiated economic growth uncritically); 8. its capacity to deliver (albeit unequally) material benefits to enough people often comes via hiding, externalizing, or sequestering the social and environmental costs of economic growth, but nevertheless it is regarded and promoted as a form of knowledge that ‘works’; 9. its supposed ‘non-political’ character –related to 2 above, which; 10. supports powerful interests, groups, forms of thinking, and institutions within society, and allows the by-passing of ethical, political debate, and perhaps more crucially of all; 11. its position as the ‘master discipline’ or form of knowledge within policy-making and political decision-making by the state such that all discourse and debate must ultimately be translated into a form acceptable to neo-classical economics. 12. which means that as well as ‘crowding out’ rival accounts of the economy, as well as political and ethical debate, neo-classical economics ‘colonises’ non-economic areas of life, such as health, family, the domestic sphere, community, and politics, i.e. , it moves outside its own subject area. While all of these ‘theses’ are interlinked, it is the imputed ‘value-free’ (and therefore supposedly non-ethical and non-political) character of modern neo-classical economics that I particularly wish to focus on here. Simply put, the study of the economy is not, and never can be, either a politics- or ethics-free zone. My own work on critically examining orthodox, undifferentiated GDP-measured economic growth as a permanent feature of the economy has led me to analyse not just growth but neoclassical/capitalist economics as by turns a form of ideology, myth, religion, and cultural meme (Barry, 2015). Revealing the ideological core of capitalist/neoclassical economics is of course central to Norgaard’s essay. The ideological power of capitalist economics cannot and should not be underestimated. Its comprehensive failure to predict the current global economic crisis has led neither to its displacing as a useful paradigm nor to the reforming and reformulating of the paradigm (Barry, 2012). Rather, we have witnessed what John Quiggin provocatively but correctly denotes as 'Zombie economics' (Quiggin, 2010). That is, dead, analytically useless (but politically and ideologically powerful) ideas and nostrums that still reign over us in terms of informing everything from 'commonsense' and everyday understandings of the economy, to state economic policy, to the political platforms of political parties (Barry, 2012). This entails recognizing the ‘commonsense’ and ‘taken for granted’ nature of capitalist economics and its emphasis on growth, i.e. that almost everyone seems to at least tacitly, if not explicitly, accept it. Thomas Homer-Dixon captures this well in his statement that: “The tacit arrangement among our elites, our experts, and the rest of us is essentially symbiotic - a mutually gratifying and self-sustaining cycle of denial and delusion. Through our acquiescence in and often active support of modern capitalism, we legitimize our elites' and experts' status and power, while those elites and experts give us an overarching ideology of permanence, order, and purpose that lends our lives a sense of place and meaning. According to this ideology, economic growth is a panacea for all our social and personal problems. Growth equals health. Unfortunately when we’re in denial, we can't think about the various paths that we might take into the future. Nor can we prepare to choose the best path when the opportunity arises. Radically different futures become literally inconceivable - they are ‘beyond imagining’ in the same way the heliocentric cosmos was inconceivable to many people prior to the Copernican revolution.” (Homer-Dixon, 2006: 219) And we need to always remember that orthodox, capitalist economists are called up to comment on the media not because what they say is correct or true, but because they are asked, because they are presumed to be and present themselves as the authority on ‘the economy’. That is, it is from the fact that orthodox economists have privileged access to some objectively verifiable truth that their power and authority stems. Rather, it is because ideologically we all accept that they so possess this power: the power to discern whether the ‘market fundamentals’ are sound, to detect the prevailing or anticipated moods of the Gods of the market. How different is this from shamanism? Indeed, how different is the dogma of austerity as cure for our current economic woes from other societies that sacrificed their children to assuage the Gods and ensure the harvest? I see Norgaard's article as an important contribution to the project of dethroning and delegitimising capitalist/neoclassical economics - similar to the view of scholars such as Princen who have advocated the effective delegitimisation of fossil fuels as an indispensable element in decarbonising the economy and combatting climate change (Princen et al, 2015). We need to see neoclassical economics /economism for what it is—a form of groupthink—and we need more like Norgaard to point to the emperor and say he has no clothes. And as for what new clothes we need, what new 'ism' as Norgaard put it, we need, my own suggestion (and in keeping with Norgaard) is that we need an old/new political economy of sustainability based on pluralism. We need context-specific not one-size-fits-all logic, and one in which the myth of endless economic growth is replaced with sufficiency, a sense of ‘enoughness’, and (as the degrowth position has it) a focus on redistribution of resources, economic wealth and opportunities. And perhaps above all else, a new model of progress and prosperity beyond orthodox economic growth which has done its job in the overdeveloped world (Wilkinson and Pickett, 2009), and now passed the point where it is causing more costs than benefits. It is high time we call a spade a spade and move on from not just the dangerous myth of perpetual economic growth, but the entire dominant economic system of thinking (which can be viewed as form of religious, ideological and indeed mythic thinking) and practices behind it - namely, carbon-fueled, consumerist-dependent capitalism. To paraphrase, 'It’s capitalism stupid'. And to invoke religious language, ‘the truth will set us free’. And here we might best begin by recognising that the enemy of truth is not falsehood but myth and fantasy. As JF Kennedy noted: “The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie - deliberate, contrived and dishonest - but the myth - persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Too often we hold fast to the clichés of our forebears. We subject all facts to a prefabricated set of interpretations. We enjoy the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. Mythology distracts us everywhere - in government as in business, in politics as in economics, in foreign affairs as in domestic affairs.” And so Norgaard’s essay helps us see past the beguiling and comforting myths of capitalist economics and to recognise both the painful truth of economic mythic thinking (allied to a powerful myth of techno-optimism and the capacity of human beings to control the world). And thus begin to live in sustainability as a consequence of recognising the multiple dangers and risks of such false mythic thinking. But he also rightly points out in his essay that we need alternatives to the latter’s religious mythic doxa. After all, without vision the people perish. In this way, I think the task before us is to 'live in truth', as Vaclav Havel wisely put it, and equally importantly to co-create and co-imagine new visions for how we want to live in truth, justice, sustainability and solidarity with one another in our particular places and storied residences, as well as our more collective species story of living in peace on and with our planet, our 'common home' as Pope Francis has recently put it. Capitalism or our ‘common home’? (Pope Francis, 2015). That is our choice. References Barry, J. (2012), The Politics of Actually Existing Unsustainability: Human Flourishing in a Climate Changed, Carbon Constrained World (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Barry, J. (2015), What's the Story with Growth?: Economic Growth as Ideology, Myth, Cultural Meme and Religion available at: www.researchgate.net/publication/280489369_Whats_the_Story_with_Unsustainab… Boldeman, L (2007), The Cult of the Market: Economic Fundamentalism and its Discontents (Canberra: ANU) Homer-Dixon, T, (2006), The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity and the Renewal of Civilization, (Toronto: Alfred A. Knopf). Marglin, S. (2008), The Dismal Science: How Thinking Like an Economists undermines Community, Harvard: Harvard University Press. Moore, J.W. (2014), ‘The Capitalocene Part I: On the Nature & Origins of Our Ecological Crisis’, available at: www.researchgate.net/profile/Jason_Moore3/publication/264457281_The_Capital… Pope Francis (2015), Encyclical Letter Laudato Si’ of the Holy Father Francis on Care for Our Common Home, available at: w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html Princen, T. Manno, J. and Martin, P. (eds), (2015), Ending the Fossil Fuel Era (Boston: MIT Press). Quiggin, J (2010), Zombie Economics: How Dead Ideas Still Walk among Us, (Princeton: Princeton University Press). Wilkinson, R. and Pickett, K (2009) The Spirit Level: Why more Equal Societies Almost Always do Better, (London: Allen Lane). --John Barry-- Queen's University Belfast ********************************************************************* Friday, October 30, 2015 >From Paul Raskin <praskin(a)tellus.org> ----- GTN Friends: I write to launch our NOVEMBER DISCUSSION, which will consider Richard Norgaard’s new GTI essay, “The Church of Economism and Its Discontents.” Please read it at www.greattransition.org/publication/the-church-of-economism-and-its-discont…, and consider commenting. Is orthodox economics akin to a secular religion? Are we living in the “Econocene”? Is there a way out? Norgaard, a founder of ecological economics, argues yes, yes, and maybe. In so doing, he guides us further into the terrain of alternative economics we’ve explored recently in our discussions of GTI pieces by Herman Daly, Giorgos Kallis, Peter Barnes, and John Bellamy Foster. I wonder, though: * Is economism still a monolithic ideology? Or are critical currents within the economics mainstream increasingly questioning its reductionist framework and false predictions? * As a framing for our contemporary condition, is “the Econocene” a useful corrective to the geologic emphasis of “the Anthropocene”? How do these compare to GTI’s term, “The Planetary Phase of Civilization,” which aims to convey the multi-dimensionality of the globalizing social-ecological system? I’d appreciate hearing your thoughts on these and other issues raised by Norgaard’s stimulating essay. Comments are welcome through NOVEMBER 30. Looking forward, Paul Raskin GTI Director NOTE ON GTI’S PUBLICATION CYCLE: GTN discussions occur in ODD-NUMBERED months, and GTI publishes in EVEN-NUMBERED months. Each discussion takes up a new essay or viewpoint prior to its publication. After the discussion closes, GTI publishes the piece, edited comments from the discussion, and a response from the author (along with other new articles). You can review all GTN discussions at www.greattransition.org/forum/gti-forum. ------------------------------------------------------- Hit reply to post a message Or see thread and reply online at http://www.greattransition.org/forum/gti-discussions/171-the-church-of-econ… Need help? Email jcohn(a)tellus.org -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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Fwd: [commoning] query about communication commons portal?
by Michel Bauwens 15 Nov '15

15 Nov '15

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Armin Medosch <arminmedosch(a)gmail.com> Date: Sun, Nov 15, 2015 at 2:32 PM Subject: Re: [commoning] query about communication commons portal? To: Michel Bauwens <michel(a)p2pfoundation.net> Cc: Becky Lentz <roberta.lentz(a)mcgill.ca>, michael gurstein < gurstein(a)gmail.com>, Rachel O' Dwyer <rachel.odwyer(a)gmail.com>, Kevin Flanagan <kev.flanagan(a)gmail.com>, COMMONING LIste engl < commoning(a)lists.commons-institut.org>, Commoning discussion list < commoning(a)lists.wissensallmende.de> Hi Becky, over the past 18 months I have written a draft book on the network commons, in particular groups creating wireess community networks. Michel has put some excerpts on the p2p-wiki, which is okay, but you find the more coherent format here, a Drupal book with all the chapters from top to bottom. http://www.thenextlayer.org/NetworkCommons I am still hoping to turn this into a proper book, btw, any ideas? Lateley, I have written an article that takes a more philosophical approach and is not yet part of the book structure, that's this one: http://www.thenextlayer.org/node/1358 Some of the topics that you are looking for are addressed but of course not in the kind of overview form that you probably would like, since it was just me doing the research with limited time and resources (such as almost no travel budget). So the answer to the question if there are such repositories, the answer is yes and no. There is not one global one that covers everything, but there are several. There is of course the free network foundation https://thefnf.org/ but cfor more finely grained ninformation you will probably have to a) collect that information yourself or with a research group, b) dig into your language skils because a lot of information is in German, Spanish, Greek, etc. all best Armin On Sat, Nov 14, 2015 at 4:48 PM, Michel Bauwens <michel(a)p2pfoundation.net> wrote: > Armin's work on wireless commons can be found here: > > > http://p2pfoundation.net/index.php?search=Armin+Medosch&title=Special%3ASea… > > Rachel's work on the spectrum commons: > http://p2pfoundation.net/Rachel_O%27Dwyer_on_the_Role_of_Commons_in_Contemp… > > On Sat, Nov 14, 2015 at 10:45 PM, Michel Bauwens <michel(a)p2pfoundation.net > > wrote: > >> Michael Gurstein should know a lot about community networks, he's in cc, >> >> Michel >> >> On Sat, Nov 14, 2015 at 10:44 PM, Becky Lentz <roberta.lentz(a)mcgill.ca> >> wrote: >> >>> Questions came up yesterday from someone at the IGF from Scandinavia >>> asking whether there was a site for community networks that offered best >>> practices. I asked about the various institutional models being used, i.e., >>> coop, NGO, social enterprise (possibly B-corp) and other revenue models for >>> costs; also curious about governance models. >>> >>> ---------------------- >>> Becky Lentz, PhD >>> Associate Professor of Communication Studies >>> Department of Art History/Communication Studies >>> McGill University >>> 853 Sherbrooke Street West, Arts Building, W-265 >>> Montreal, QC, Canada H3A 0G5 >>> Phone 514.398.4995 >>> Fax 514.398.8557 >>> Email: becky.lentz(a)mcgill.ca >>> http://www.mcgill.ca/ahcs >>> >>> From: <michelsub2004(a)gmail.com> on behalf of Michel Bauwens < >>> michel(a)p2pfoundation.net> >>> Date: Saturday, November 14, 2015 at 10:39 AM >>> To: Becky Lentz <roberta.lentz(a)mcgill.ca>, Armin Medosch < >>> arminmedosch(a)gmail.com>, Rachel O' Dwyer <rachel.odwyer(a)gmail.com>, >>> Kevin Flanagan <kev.flanagan(a)gmail.com> >>> Cc: commoning <commoning(a)lists.commons-institut.org>, Commoning >>> discussion list <commoning(a)lists.wissensallmende.de> >>> Subject: Re: [commoning] query about communication commons portal? >>> >>> dear Becky, >>> >>> I am adding two people , Armin and Rachel, who have been respectively >>> working on the meshwork and spectrum commons, and may know the answer, >>> >>> ideally, you could do a joint tag search at >>> http://www.diigo.com/user/mbauwens >>> >>> combining P2P-Media, P2P-Research, P2P-Commons (or pairing the first >>> alternatively with one of the two next ones) >>> >>> the wiki at p2pfoundation.net also has combined category searching, >>> that Kevin knows more about so >>> >>> [[Category:Media]] paired with [[Category:Commons]] should do the trick, >>> >>> Michel Bauwens, http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:Media >>> >>> >>> >>> >>> On Sat, Nov 14, 2015 at 10:32 PM, Becky Lentz <roberta.lentz(a)mcgill.ca> >>> wrote: >>> >>>> >>>> [Please excuse any unavoidable cross-postings] >>>> >>>> Hi everyone, >>>> >>>> I’ve spent the last week at the 2015 Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in >>>> Brazil and there was a very useful session Friday on community >>>> technology/networks. The community that met at the IGF was a bit uneven in >>>> that some in the room seemed to know that community networks started as far >>>> back as the 1990s or earlier; some seemed not to know about community radio >>>> but just tech (wireless mesh networks). I mentioned this community >>>> (commoning) but no one seemed to pick up on it. >>>> >>>> So, I’m wondering if this community knows of a portal/platform that >>>> aggregates communication commons work, i.e. Radio commons, spectrum >>>> commons, telecom commons, internet commons? I teach media governance at >>>> McGill and organize my course around the notion of the commons applied to >>>> the field of media/comm/technology (including internet) studies. If we can, >>>> it would be helpful to build out the commoning.org site to include >>>> portals/platforms where comm/tech/media/internet commons work is aggregated >>>> for general information purposes. I’d be happy to help with this, but just >>>> wondering what’s already out there as the various platforms >>>> (media/tech/internet, etc.) tend to build their own sites/communities. >>>> >>>> Thank you, >>>> Becky Lentz >>>> McGill University >>>> >>>> >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> Commoning mailing list >>>> Commons-Institut e.V. Germany >>>> Commoning(a)lists.commons-institut.org >>>> https://lists.schokokeks.org/mailman/listinfo.cgi/commoning >>>> >>>> >>> >>> >>> -- >>> Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: >>> http://commonstransition.org >>> >>> P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - >>> http://blog.p2pfoundation.net >>> >>> <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: >>> http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens >>> >>> #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/ >>> >>> >> >> >> -- >> Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: >> http://commonstransition.org >> >> P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net >> >> <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: >> http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens >> >> #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/ >> > > > > -- > Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: > http://commonstransition.org > > P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net > > <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: > http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens > > #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/ > -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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Fwd: [NetworkedLabour] Creative resistance?
by Michel Bauwens 14 Nov '15

14 Nov '15

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Bob Haugen <bob.haugen(a)gmail.com> Date: Wed, Nov 11, 2015 at 11:04 PM Subject: [NetworkedLabour] Creative resistance? To: "networkedlabour(a)lists.contrast.org" <networkedlabour(a)lists.contrast.org > https://www.jacobinmag.com/2015/11/tsipras-syriza-austerity-greece-debt-eur… Combinations of economic and political programs, vs the opening for the fascists. <excerpt> There are no empty spaces in history, so if we do not do this, the nationalists and fascists — with their militarized way of performing these basic functions — may step in to finish off the decline. In Greece, a left government that implements austerity creates fruitful conditions for the nationalists and fascists to grow, especially in the poorest regions and neighborhoods. </excerpt> _______________________________________________ NetworkedLabour mailing list NetworkedLabour(a)lists.contrast.org http://lists.contrast.org/mailman/listinfo/networkedlabour -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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Fwd: [NetworkedLabour] The Threat Of The New TPP Agreement On Communication Rights
by Michel Bauwens 14 Nov '15

14 Nov '15

here's an attack on the media commons for you, Michel ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Steve Zeltzer <lvpsf(a)igc.org> Date: Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 12:53 AM Subject: [NetworkedLabour] The Threat Of The New TPP Agreement On Communication Rights To: "<networkedlabour(a)lists.contrast.org>" < networkedlabour(a)lists.contrast.org> The Threat Of The New TPP Agreement On Communication Rights https://wikileaks.org/tpp-ip3/WikiLeaks-TPP-IP-Chapter/WikiLeaks-TPP-IP-Cha… BREAKING: TPP text leaked Last week, WikiLeaks released the final text of the TPP’s intellectual property rights chapter and it is absolutely terrifying. These are just a few of its most dangerous pieces: • Compel ISPs to take down websites without any sort of court order, just like SOPA. (Appendix Section I) • Extend the US’s copyright regime to require copyrights stand for life plus 70 years, preventing anyone from using works that belong in the public domain. (Article QQ.G.6) • Criminalize whistleblowing by extending trade secrets laws without any mandatory exemptions for whistleblowers or investigative journalists. (QQ.H.8) • End anonymity online by forcing every domain name to be associated with a real name and address. (Article QQ.C.12) • Make it illegal to unlock, modify, or generally tinker with a device you own. (Article QQ.G.10) • Export the US’s broken copyright policies to the rest of the world without expanding any of the free speech protections, like fair use. (Article QQ.G.17) The worst part is that this is just one of the TPP’s 30 chapters. The final text confirms our worst fears — click here to take action demanding Congress vote NO on the TPP. For years, governments have held critics of the massive Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement in a perfect catch 22. Officials brushed off public outcry and concern by claiming that the dissenters didn’t have all the facts. This was by design—the 12 country trade deal was negotiated entirely behind closed doors by industry lobbyists and government appointees, and even now the text of the agreement is still classified. But late last week, WikiLeaks released the final text of the Intellectual Property chapter, meaning those excuses won’t work anymore. We’re planning to go all out against the TPP, but the first step is to make sure Congress knows just how many people oppose the TPP. Click here to take action demanding Congress vote NO on the TPP. Taking action today is just the beginning, because if all we do is send emails and make phone calls, Congress is not going to reject the TPP. Too many giant industries are seriously invested in making sure Congress ratifies the TPP. If we’re going to win, we need to go big. Which is exactly what we’re going to do. So take action right now. Contact your Congresspeople now and tell them to vote against the TPP. Then get ready to do more because we’re going to unleash some of our strongest campaigns ever. https://www.fightthetpp.org/?t=dXNlcmlkPTU1OTI3NTUyLGVtYWlsaWQ9MTAwMzE= Already we have plans to work with hundreds of different groups as a massive coalition to fight the TPP, coordinate gigantic on-the-ground protests in key cities across the country, and produce compelling content to spread the word to as many different audiences as possible just what is at stake in the TPP. To do all that, we need your help — if you can, pledge to chip in $5 every month between now and when the TPP fight ends so that we can run our biggest, boldest, and best campaign yet. Thanks for all you do, Charlie P.S. Want to read the text of the chapter for yourself? Check it out on WikiLeaks here, or read their overview of it here. It’s long and complicated, so maybe you'll see something that we didn't. If you do, send us an email. _______________________________________________ NetworkedLabour mailing list NetworkedLabour(a)lists.contrast.org http://lists.contrast.org/mailman/listinfo/networkedlabour -- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

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