November 2016 - P2P-Foundation - lists.ourproject.org

Fwd: The Data Prevention Manifesto
by Michel Bauwens 19 Nov '16

19 Nov '16

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: <birds(a)dataprevention.net> Date: Fri, Nov 18, 2016 at 6:28 PM Subject: The Data Prevention Manifesto To: birds(a)dataprevention.net http://dataprevention.net/ The Data Prevention Manifesto ...by the Plumbing Birds The privacy discourse sputtered out of steam. This has lead to the current stalemate: we know we're observed, traced and tracked, but pretend it's not happening or nothing to fret about. The question is not when the repressed will return but how? Hackers have been proclaiming that privacy has been dead for decades, that everything can and will be captured, stored and analyzed. And they were right. So, what's to be done? What's the best way to protect one's self if not prevent to transmit data in the first place? Effectual hindrance of data coming into being. How to convene a collective dimension of "social networking" without being aggregated in huge data silos extraneous to us, yet profiting on us? How can we reclaim autonomy in our everyday life, knowing that all sorts of sensors, bots and algorithms are active? How can these technologies ever be decommissioned? Are we perhaps waiting for a Great Showdown, a WorldWar, a millennial cyber attack that brings down the entire infrastructure, a bad solar flare or an electronic magnetic pulse knocks out the power grid and erase all hard drives? Or are we about to fall asleep and be numbed forever, having accepted that everything we do, think and desire, can and will be stored, and can be used against us? We need to de-codify contestation in order to multiply the lines of flight outside of calculated settings. We need to ask the hard questions, too. Adblockers, filters, firewalls, close-reading of terms & conditions and online protests against the collection and reselling of private data merely mitigate the problems that are at stake. More to the point, what logic does data protection participate in? Is it, effectively, the same logic it aims to cloak and hide from? Why do we think life can be informationalized? What desire feeds the notion that big data can be transformed into a knowable, manipulated, gamed, anticipated, preempted, capitalized and controlled life? Are we hedging and feeding Unicorns or Frankensteins? We're not talking about the weather. Let's move from protection to the design of an anti-serum, or rather a deep serum that not merely responds. Our credo is: do not feed the platforms. We're proposing creative sabotage, concrete forms of prevention that undermine the 'big data' regime on all levels, from the molar to the molecular. Let's take concrete steps towards an overall data reduction. We will no longer feed the data-hungry Minority Report machines that are programmed to identify emerging erratic behavior. Data prevention is a direct response to top-down 'smart' city technologies. We aim to uphold a preventive-strike. The 'smart' discourse is only trying to cover up the fact that these are spying technologies. Prevention sounds innocent, but make no mistake, it is not. In many cases prevention itself is already seen as a crime. Do we only talk about preventing events from happening, or are we also generating new scenarios? Data prevention is part of a longer history, we recall the opposition of native Indian Americans to having pictures of themselves taken, the punks in the streets of London punching fashion photographers for commodifying their looks. Ted Hughes once spoke of the grin hat was trying out faces. Well, that's real. In our case it is fear attempting to become integral. Fear is trying out all human capabilities. Fear can trick us into living a nudged and predictable life. This has come to pass as generation after generation corrupt, spineless, greedy people have been in the drivers seat. We cannot call it leadership. These people, let's say Bilderberg, Fortune 500 and MBA globally have facilitated anything ‘easy', outsourcing anything ‘hard' to places that could be exploited. So now there is no more place to exploit. Hence the fight for the internal space, the very notion of what it means to be human. We live in a world where people can not be exploited and enslaved, yet for the shame some would feel of having been deceived for so long about what use is made of their data, hara kiri would be their only option. Most people cannot wake up as there is no longer a self to wake up to, just consumed refractions of a zombified and spectacularised self. We intend to launch a campaign to gather ideas about designing products and services that do not gather data. To us is important to say farewell to the premise that data is the oil of the 21st century. All data can and will be financialized, this is the inevitable step programmed deep inside most data architectures themselves. We want to disassociate ourselves from the dark side of financialization of data. We also question the 'mining' aspect of the data mining metaphor of resource extraction. Digging up resources is a devastating environment crime that ruins our planet, from tar sand mines to coal pits and digging for cobalt. Mining comes with a high price. Mind the metaphors you use. We need to get rid of the idea that data traces are things that we ‘leave behind' in some careless way. It not only legitimates the drag net, but it diverts attention from the rather aggressive techniques that inspect our browsers, networks, and devices. We therefore need to reshape the possibilities of data production. This also means we need to stop drawing parallels between computation machines and the human brain, between data and grey matter. If it is true that the machine only works when all the relevant people are convinced, we need to tell other tales. Convictions are not innocent; they are about re-making worlds. You invest in it. Let's stop celebrating the invisible, de-activation, retreat. Let's quit the visualization of data centers, data points, data pattern, data collection and recognition algorithms. We're tired of being smeared with how Big Data might smell, feel, look or sound. We do no longer want to play into the game or change its rules. Data prevention is not a strike, it is only perceived as sabotage by the apparatus needing to be fed by data. We do not believe in safe ways to deal with ‘big data' collected to monitor, and control, populations. What we prevent here is a conditioned, ultimately boring life that limits itself. Let's get rid of the guilt to do the forbidden and then feel the heavy presence of Big Brother, the all-seeing God that will remember every tiny move or bad thought. Let see it as consensual sex without consequences: data prevention creates space for pleasure and possibilities, it is not done to save precious space on our hard disks. Being in the space for possibility is breaking free from the dual pole of production (of data) and paranoia (for the same dynamic). Let us err. Collectively. We need to materially engage with the enigmatic, the flawed, the partial, the impure, the surprise, the transgressive, the Black Swan. These days prevention is an offensive strategy that questions hidden power relations. It's not just passive hiding but taking action. Let's prevent this political tech design initiative from ending up in the offline Romanticism section. All actions, gestures, thoughts and movement can and will be captured and caught in the data trap. This can make us depressed, but this fate can also be turned upside down. There was and always will be an abundance of data. Let's break free from the prospect to lock ourselves up in voluntary monasteries and other tribe-like inward looking social structures. There is no need to save data, let alone recycle them. Data prevention makes a fresh start and leaves behind a tiring discourse. The idea is no longer merely to filter, install blockers and build walls, protecting ultimately instable and open architectures. We create new design principles. Data prevention goes in the offensive. We're tired having to protect ourselves. Join in this new design movement! Make people aware of what happens, and switch off what needs to. Engineers are taking us to real-time, thinking that it is an empty space. But we live there in dreamtime. We were ever caught by surprise in the plains. The rain dance went limp. Authorities caught us fishing, labelled aboriginals and slaughtered us filled our minds with cluttering noise and meaningless chatter chatter chatter. Counting on this we would lose the open line. This time, this time we occupy that space with our tools and dreams as we live and we eat your tools and ‘logic'. We, the Platform Plumbers, want you to tell us about your favorite things. Describe them any way you want. We record the richness of your emotions and feelings for your favourite things. We are getting used to doing with less. After all the sensors just measure light, motion, temperature, magnetic fields, gravity, humidity, moisture, vibration, pressure, electrical fields, sound, stretch, glucose level, oxygen level, or osmolality, anything else? Probably a few things, but you can do much better. Don't you forget that. Practice. Start now and join us in shaping the Dionysian design genre. Do not be afraid: we will work with you and your structures. We do need to appreciate the ethos of bureaucracy. All your assets, as you call them, belong to us to none no one. You my friend who is evil keep yourself evil still, the four horsemen and the jumper are hurrying down. So it is up to us to make things find the hard road again. This is not a mass movement. It can only be done with those who are on the path already. If you are, read on. If you are not, don't feel bad, there are plenty things left to do and who knows you may break through one day. We will see you when you see us. You'll see us when we see you. The Platform Plumbers Platform of the Plumbing Bird Platform Plumbers we know what hides behind walls and how to drill all the necessary holes for good and bad to fix, to change and maintain the pipes to flood, disrupt, deny the waters. Responsibility is not control Awareness is a mercyfull weapon for the wise. Is better to be aware today (brothers and sisters) and awake at night as we must standing for responsible data pregnancy, and fair data under a fairer sky/ Plato holds data (doxa) accountable of confusion and all wrong opinions and Episteme he calls the field of the wise, that knows how to mark the land. We don't need faith into some theoretical dogma We stay on the side of the platform -on wich opinions falls as droplets- and we sum up -upon us- the ability to collet these waters knowing what to share, to store, to let go. Because we are willing to use the source wisely in the time of the drought for humans, animals and woods alike Because we share the point of view of the whole ecosystemical bunch Citizens! Hold up to this notion of belonging hold up to your refined data politeness over their agendas of hidden data policies and know what you can then well teach to hold on before what you can only preach well They say: money money -without us- has no economical trust we can better put trust into money that we bake ourselve up and get on the path uphill to "other ideas" that are good. Better. Virtualised economies fueled up by remote notions of debt are obsolete by design, and going to be worthless Citizens, conspire to unfullfill the one way exploitation to grow ecosystems of polite automatic conversations between pairs instead of feeding motorised pushers of unwanted sleeping pills and snake oil and allow these drops to be clean water for all of the living souls on this plain while we learn, and sleep and love, outside, the un-attended trap of tracked down, data-silos stored, overvalued, obviousness works against us WE KNOW we have no agency on the data, and we should and WE KNOW and the data is not the truth but her shadow, we know to be used at will by self hypnotised puppetteers to create fictions that does not compile into histories; advertising for unwanted goods; bed time stories for the lust of self loving politicians; serving the one ideals of "the one percent" We should have agency on data because every shadow is a shadow of a body hit by the light under the sun we shall be close to these droplets and their sources and the melting ice in spring and say no thanks when we must and please no when we feel is our right/ We shall meet again (brothers and sisters) on the verges of this gorgeous green land once a desertified mud-bowl each of us able to speek the language of choice to amuse the friends and make the childrens laugh ad we will be called the platform plumbers the designers of the garden's grid the layers of the pipes, of filters, of the recycling ponds the choosers of the right seeds to keep the letter-go of wild grasses and bees -because no design holds the whole- we will be remembered as the observers of the waves the happy carvers of algorithmic stones that needed to grow into no pyramidal graves Let the policies of the politeness-poets speek tonight in, above and below the grid -- 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: UPDATE: Notes Fringe Meeting on Mapping, Brussels November 16
by Michel Bauwens 19 Nov '16

19 Nov '16

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Silke Helfrich <Silke.Helfrich(a)gmx.de> Date: Sat, Nov 19, 2016 at 7:33 AM Subject: UPDATE: Notes Fringe Meeting on Mapping, Brussels November 16 To: commonswatch(a)lists.p2pfoundation.net Sorry everybody! This happens for writing e-mails offline. Here is an update with the links you'll need. Dear participants of the mapping-meeting, please find the notes of our fringe meeting on mapping in Brussels here: https://europeancommonsassembly.hackpad.com/Mapping-Meeting- Brussels-Nov-16-q8GZpK9xGok You'll find a few agreement/commitments at the end. PLEASE ADD YOURS. As you can see, these are rough notes (tnx Lea!). All those who intervened are kindly asked to edit their respective text in the pad, so that I can produce a final version and share it with everybody. Furthermore, it would be great to get your feedback on the Mapping as a Commons Manifesto. This is the link: https://discourse.transformap. co/t/mapping-as-a-commons-manifesto/1181/1 You can send me your feedback individually via e-mail or comment directly on discourse. This manifesto might be a common platform for mapping we all share (I guess that given the institutional diversity we all need, we cannot share more than basic principles.) Despite the pretty awkward conditions: our mapping meeting was well worth it! Thanks a lot for sharing your time and thoughts All the best Silke > > > -- 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] CfP: Journal of Peer Production: Urbanism
by Michel Bauwens 17 Nov '16

17 Nov '16

dear vasilis, for blog as research announcement ? ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Johan Söderberg <johan.soderberg(a)sts.gu.se> Date: Thu, Nov 17, 2016 at 7:41 PM Subject: [NetworkedLabour] CfP: Journal of Peer Production: Urbanism To: "networkedlabour(a)lists.contrast.org" <networkedlabour(a)lists.contrast.org > Call for Papers - Journal of Peer Production #11 CITY Editors: Penny Travlou, Nicholas Anastasopoulos, Panayotis Antoniadis ABSTRACTS DUE 31 JANUARY 2017 One of the welfare state’s key jurisdictions was to tend to housing and public space in benevolent ways. However, under the neoliberal dogma, commodification and gentrification threaten both the right to housing and the right to the city. In recent years, cities have become increasingly militarized and surveyed, resembling battlegrounds where freedom and democracy are under attack. At the same time, recent economic, political, and social crises have activated many counter-forces of resistance and creative alternatives for the grassroots production of food, health services, housing, networking infrastructures, and more. The role of technology has been contradictory as well. On the one hand, the Internet has enabled some of the most remarkable peer production success stories at a global scale, such as Wikipedia and Free and Open Source Software, among many others. On the other hand, it has empowered huge corporations like Facebook and Google to fully observe and manipulate our everyday activities, and oppressive governments to censor and surveil their citizens. At the city scale, technology offers opportunities for self-organization, like wireless community networks and numerous bottom-up techno-social initiatives, but also animates the top-down narrative of the ?smart city? and the commodification of the ?sharing economy" as a service provided by globally active platforms such as Airbnb and Uber. In this situation, peer production in space emerges as a vital bottom-up practice reclaiming citizen participation, and inventing new forms of community. In this context, some core challenges arise: * If we choose not to rely on global players to provide peer production support at a local scale, how could different areas of peer production in the city, digital and physical, interact and support each other? * What types of governance models can adequately support peer production in the city? To address those challenges one needs to take into consideration the following: * Lessons learned from the Internet and how they may be incorporated in the context-specific realities of the city. * Knowledge-transfer methodologies across different localities. * Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaborations (urban studies, media studies, sociology, architecture, cultural geography, informatics, etc.). * Possible collaborations and synergies between activists that fight for the “right to the city” and those that fight for the “right to the Internet”. * Knowedge/experience transfer between non-urban settings (i.e. intentional communities, ecocommunities, the Transition movement, etc.) and the urban movements. * Inquiry into research methods and methodologies to be developed and used for analyzing ICT-mediated peer production in urban space. This special issue of JoPP aims to explore a wide variety of alternative and innovative peer practices, such as urban agriculture, food sustainability, the solidarity economy, right to the city movements, cooperative housing, community networks, P2P urbanism tactics, co-design practices and more, that are directly reflected in the production of urban space. We are particularly interested in novel combinations of theory, methodologies, and practices that can contribute to peer production in the city and enable new synergies between projects and communities. Topics may include, but are not limited to: * Urban commons and peer production * Case studies of innovative peer practices approached from different perspectives ? Comparative case studies on patterns of commoning and think-global / act-local methodologies * The regional dimension: examples from the Americas, Europe, Asia, Africa, Australasia * Political issues of autonomy, hegemony, labour, gender, geopolitical and post-colonial perspectives * Alternative forms of education and learning tools for promoting self-organization and community * Innovative governance tools for peer production in the city * Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary methodological approaches * Urban studies and the right to the (hybrid) city * Open source urbanism/architecture * Recycling/upcycling vs buying: making, consuming or prosuming the city *Important dates* Abstract submission: 31 January 2017 Notification to authors: 15 February 2017 Submission of full paper: 15 May 2017 Reviews to authors: 15 July 2017 Revised papers: 15 September 2017 Signals due: 10 October 2017 Issue release: October/November 2017 *Submission guidelines:* Abstracts of 300-500 words are due by January 31, 2017 and should be sent to <city(a)peerproduction.net>. All peer reviewed papers will be reviewed according to Journal of Peer Production guidelines. See http://peerproduction.net/peer-review/process/. Full papers and materials are due by May 15, 2017 for review. Peer reviewed papers should be around 8,000 words. We also welcome experimental, alternative contributions, like testimonies, interviews and artistic treatments, whose format will be discussed case by case with the editors. *This special issue was initiated during the Hybrid City III (Athens) conference and developed further during the IASC Urban Commons (Bologna) and Habitat III (Quito) conferences.* _______________________________________________ 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: More than a thank you
by Michel Bauwens 17 Nov '16

17 Nov '16

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Trebor Scholz <scholzt(a)newschool.edu> Date: Thu, Nov 17, 2016 at 10:33 PM Subject: More than a thank you To: Trebor Scholz <scholzt(a)newschool.edu> Cc: Isabel Naturman <natui199(a)newschool.edu> *Dear all , *November 17, 2016 Four days have passed since our event. I immediately jumped back into teaching but now I have a moment to thank you for your contribution. But this is more than the usual “Thank-Yous.” More than 2000 people watched the video live stream and the archived videos are now available here <http://livestream.com/internetsociety/platformcoop2016> and in the Internet Archive just like in previous years <https://archive.org/details/platformcoop16>. In the end of this email, I’m linking to a lovely *Shareable* article by Darren Sharp about our gathering. A few photos taken on Friday by Christopher Chavez are available on Flickr <https://flic.kr/s/aHskLp8Fa5>. And unsurprisingly, there are hundreds of tweets at hashtag #platformcoop. <https://twitter.com/hashtag/platformcoop?src=hash> Before the end of the year, we’ll also make a short documentary on platform cooperativism available to you. Last week, the people who had committed to the consortium met <http://platformcoop.newschool.edu/index.php/2016/10/31/directory-of-contrib…>, got to know each other, and were able to start planning future actions. I promised you that this consortium will not be another academic bullshit center. And indeed, you will see concrete actions coming out of it in 2017 already. Apart from the upcoming #platformcoop events in Melbourne, London, Québec, Berlin, Naples, Barcelona, Boston, Amsterdam, as well as Brussels, all scheduled for the winter 2016 and spring of 2017, we also made concrete plans to establish legal foundations for platform co-ops in the United States. Out of our long list of planned activities on the Consortium website <http://platformcoop.newschool.edu/index.php/activities/>, we will prioritize three most urgent projects for 2017. We also discussed and identified people who will be on the board of the consortium. For now, these include Mayo Fuster, Six Silverman, Sasha Costanza-Chock, Micky Metts, Felix Weth, Fredrik Soderqvist (still working on him), and yours truly. The idea is to have representatives from unions, academe, platform co-ops, policymakers, traditional co-ops, technologists, and designers. Down the road we should vote on this. This group was not elected. Next, I’d like to invite all of you to financially support the Platform Cooperativism Consortium. If you’d like to donate, just email me. It’ll be a painless and quick process. And on that front, I already have some good news. *#Platformcoop newsletter* It just took a few days, and we already managed to raise funds and hire one half-time researcher who will start next week! This person will 1) create a #platformcoop newsletter and distribute that in our network, informing people of current developments in the ecosystem. If you would like to feed this researcher information about your project, we would really appreciate it. 2) This person will also work on fundraising and communication (responding to people who need advice, connecting them, etc), and 3) keep the platform.coop website up to date. Do keep us updated about your events so that we can promote them on platform.coop and cover stories about your projects. *Feedback* Gathering like ours always have the inevitable tension between squeezing in as many relevant people/projects as possible while not creating an overly exhausting schedule. As if that was not enough, this is also a meeting of various cultures: technologists, scholars, social entrepreneurs, and policy makers. I would appreciate if you send me some feedback: What worked well and what could we do better in November 2017. I’d think, for example, that we should have more focus on discussion throughout the event and a slightly more relaxed schedule. Also let us know what you think about relatively banal things like snacks and drinks. Was there enough of it and would you have preferred other food? Did you think that the room worked out or would you rather be in a more traditional auditorium? When you send your feedback, please also include suggestions for speakers for next year’s event already. Issues that I already identified for the 2017 event include cooperative investigative reporting (e.g., Banyan Project, Positive News). *Sponsor the 2017 Event *Please consider becoming a sponsor of next year's event. So far we have a $15,000 commitment from the university. That covers coffee and bagels and the program. These events cost roughly $35,000. If you are committed to these events, please let us know if your organization or you personally could co-sponsor our next gathering. As promised, you can read Darren's *Shareable* article here. <http://www.shareable.net/blog/international-consortium-launched-at-second-p…> Thank you all for your contributions. Warmest, Trebor ______________ R. Trebor Scholz @trebors -- 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: what we can do
by Michel Bauwens 17 Nov '16

17 Nov '16

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Institute for the Future <invites(a)mailer.surveygizmo.com> Date: Fri, Nov 18, 2016 at 1:51 AM Subject: what we can do To: michel(a)p2pfoundation.net [image: Institute for the Future] Dear fellow traveler, Like many of you, we at Institute for the Future have been shocked and distressed by the election results and the uncivil acts that are already unfolding in its wake. I have talked to many of you directly about how we can engage and what we need to do—right now, together—to assure that we maintain a free and open civil society. We would like to formalize these conversations a bit by returning to our roots and conducting a *Delphi <https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Shakila_Thangaratinam/publication/2299…>* survey with those of you who have been our inspiration over the last many years. The goal of this survey is to gather and prioritize* 100 ideas for the first 100 days*—ideas about how we can create a future that truly works for everyone and to catalyze a shared public agenda for a free and open society. The survey will take place in 3 rounds, starting immediately. We hope to have results by Jan 16, ahead of the Jan 20 inauguration. The survey is anonymous (even to us) and will take advantage of the *encrypted security <https://help.surveygizmo.com/help/surveygizmo-security-faq#Data%20Encryption>* of the SurveyGizmo platform. *Will you join us in creating an alternative vision of the first 100 days? *You can start here: *Start Survey <http://s-a733ad-i.sgizmo.com/s3/i-m7YDPyTVwXZi5MZNY-1582562/?sguid=m7YDPyTV…>* Thank you for your ongoing commitment to the future. Marina *Marina GorbisExecutive Director, Institute for the Future* This message was sent by Institute for the Future, 201 Hamilton Avenue, Palo Alto, CA 94301. To unsubscribe, click below: Unsubscribe <http://s-a733ad-i.sgizmo.com/s3/i-m7YDPyTVwXZi5MZNY-1582562/unsubscribe?uid…> -- 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: [CommonGood] FYI: Interesting view on American Elections
by Michel Bauwens 12 Nov '16

12 Nov '16

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Birgit Daiber <bir.dai(a)hotmail.com> Date: Fri, Nov 11, 2016 at 6:48 PM Subject: [CommonGood] FYI: Interesting view on American Elections To: "commongood(a)listi.jpberlin.de" <commongood(a)listi.jpberlin.de> ------------------------------ *From:* Daniel Cirera <dcirera(a)gabrielperi.fr> *Sent:* Friday, November 11, 2016 12:34 PM *Subject:* Fwd: Quick Reflections on the November 2016 Elections Bonjour. Pour information ces premières réflexions à chaud d'un ami américain, sur les élections de ce mois de novembre 2016. Bonne journée. DC <http://portside.org/> Quick Reflections on the November 2016 Elections <https://portside.org/2016-11-09/quick-reflections-november-2016-elections-0> Bill Fletcher Jr. November 9, 2016 billfletcherjr.com <http://billfletcherjr.com/2016/quick-reflections-november-2016-election/> *It is important to recognize that the Trump victory was far from a slam-dunk; the election was very close. One might not get that impression, however, when one looks at news headlines as well as Electoral College maps. Bill Fletcher shares some quick reflections. * , Pablo Martinez Monsivais / Jacobin <https://www.jacobinmag.com/2016/11/trump-victory-clinton-sanders-democratic…> , Had it not been for the Electoral College, at this moment we would be discussing the plans for the incoming Hillary Clinton administration. That’s right. She actually won the popular vote. Thus, once again, that institution created by the founding slave owners has risen from the grave and prevented our exit from the cemetery. I begin there to put the election into context and to suggest that commentary needs to be quite nuanced. No, I am not trying to make lemonade out of lemons. But I do think that it is important to recognize that the Trump victory was far from a slam-dunk; the election was very close. One might not get that impression, however, when one looks at news headlines as well as Electoral College maps. What are some of the conclusions we can arrive at from this election? *The election was a referendum on globalization and demographics; it was not a referendum on neo-liberalism*: It is critical to appreciate that Trump’s appeal to whites was around their fear of the multiple implications of globalization. This included trade agreements AND migration. Trump focused on the symptoms inherent in neo-liberal globalization, such as job loss, but his was not a critique of neo-liberalism. He continues to advance deregulation, tax cuts, anti-unionism, etc. He was making no systemic critique at all, but the examples that he pointed to from wreckage resulting from economic and social dislocation, resonated for many whites who felt, for various reasons, that their world was collapsing. It was the connection between globalization and migration that struck a chord, just as it did in Britain with the Brexit vote. In both cases, there was tremendous fear of the changing complexion of both societies brought on by migration and economic dislocation (or the threat of economic dislocation). Protectionism plus firm borders were presented as answers in a world that has altered dramatically with the reconfiguration of global capitalism. *The election represented the consolidation of a misogynistic white united front:* There are a few issues that need to be ‘unpacked’ here. For all of the talk about the problems with Hillary Clinton-the-candidate and the failure to address matters of economics, too few commentators are addressing the fact that the alliance that Trump built was one that not only permitted but encouraged racism and misogyny. In point of fact, Trump voters were prepared to buy into various unsupported allegations against Clinton that would never have stuck had she not been a woman. Additionally, Trump’s own baggage, e.g., married and divorced multiple times; allegations of sexual assault, would never have been tolerated had the candidate been a woman (or, for that matter, of color). Trump was given a pass that would only be given to a white man in US society. All one has to do is to think about the various allegations, charges and history surrounding Donald Trump and then ask the question: *had the candidate been a woman or of color, what would have happened?* The answer is obvious. Also in connection with this matter is that for all of the talk about economic fear, there is this recurring fact that many people seem to wish to avoid. Just as with the Tea Party, the mean income of the Trump base is higher than the national mean (and was higher than the mean for Clinton supporters and Sanders supporters). Thus, we were not dealing with the poorest of the poor. Instead, this was a movement driven by those who are actually doing fairly well but are despairing because the American Dream that they embraced no longer seems to work for white people. This is critical for us to get because had the Trump phenomenon been mainly about a rejection of economic injustice, then this base would have been nearly interchangeable with that of Senator Sanders. Yet that was not the case. What we can argue, instead, is that this segment of the white population was looking in terror at the erosion of the American Dream, but they were looking at it through the prism of race. *Hillary Clinton, as candidate, was flawed but we should be careful in our analysis:* Though Clinton had expected a coronation, the Sanders campaign pushed her to be more than she expected. The platform of the Democratic Party was shifted to the left in many important respects. Yet Clinton could not be champion of an anti-corporate populist movement. Yes, she correctly argued to tax the 1%. Yes, she articulated many progressive demands. But in the eyes of too many people, including many of her supporters, she was compromised by her relationship with Wall Street. That said, what also needs to be considered is that Trump had so many negatives against him. Yes, he was an outsider, so to speak, and used that very skillfully to argue that he would bring another pair of eyes to the situation. Yet, this is the same person who is in the upper echelons of the economy; refused to share his tax returns; has numerous allegations against him for bad business with partners and workers; and engages in the same off-shoring of production as many of the companies he criticized! Yet, none of that haunted him in the way that various criticisms haunted Clinton. Fundamentally this was a matter of sexism, though it is certainly true that Clinton’s being perceived as an insider did not help. *We don’t know whether Bernie Sanders would have done any better but we do know that his message is the one that needs to be articulated:* It is impossible to accurately predict whether Sanders would have done better in the final election. He certainly would have been subjected to an immense amount of red-baiting and suggestions of foreign policy softness. Yet his message did resonate among millions, especially younger voters. And it was younger voters who did not turn out in force to back Clinton. In entering the Trump era it is the movement that Sanders was part of coalescing that becomes key in building a resistance that has a positive vision. One of the weaknesses of the Sanders message was its failure to unify matters of class with race and gender. This is not an academic exercise. This is about telling the right story about what has been happening in the USA. It is also a matter of taping into significant social movements, e.g., Occupy; immigrant rights; LGBT; environmental justice; movement for Black Lives. These are movements that are focused on the future and a future that is progressive. This, in fact, is where the hope lies. ****** I have argued for some time that right-wing populism—with the Trump campaign exemplifying an aspect of this—is a revolt against the future. It is a movement that is always focused on a mythical past to which a particular country must return. In the case of the USA, right-wing populism seeks a return to the era of the ‘white republic,’ and it is this that the Trump campaign was so successful in articulating. It did so through disparaging Mexicans, suggesting them as a source of crime, completely ignoring criminal syndicates that have historically arrived in the USA from Europe. It did so through demonizing Arabs and Muslims, suggesting them as sources of terror, completely ignoring that the greatest sources of political terror in the USA have been white supremacist formations. Right-wing populism has grown as a result of both the ravages brought on by neo-liberal globalization as well as the demographic and political changes within the USA. It is the latter—demographic and political changes—that have unfolded over the decades as previously disenfranchised groups have asserted themselves and articulated, to paraphrase the poet Langston Hughes, *we, too, sing America.* Yes, let us lick our wounds and reflect on the future. This election result was one that more of us should have anticipated as a real possibility. In either case, that the results were so close and that we did not have the ideal candidate to represent the new majority emerging in the USA remains for me a source of immense hope. The struggle certainly continues. VIEW ONLINE <https://portside.org/2016-11-09/quick-reflections-november-2016-elections-0> PRINT <https://portside.org/print/node/12920> SUBSCRIBE <http://portside.org/subscribe> VISIT PORTSIDE.ORG <http://portside.org/> TWITTER <https://twitter.com/portsideorg> FACEBOOK <https://facebook.com/Portside.PortsideLabor> Portside aims to provide material of interest to people on the left that will help them to interpret the world and to change it. Submit via web <http://portside.org/submit> Submit via email <portside(a)portside.org> Frequently asked questions <http://portside.org/faq> Manage subscription <http://portside.org/subscribe> Search Portside archives <http://portside.org/archive> To unsubscribe, click here <http://&*TICKET_URL(portside,SIGNOFF);>. -- Co-editor of "Claim No Easy Victories: The Legacy of Amilcar Cabral" See: http://www.codesria.org and http://www.daraja.net Author of "'They're Bankrupting us' - And Twenty other myths about unions" See: http://www.beacon.org/Theyre-Bankrupting-Us-P916.aspx Co-author of "Solidarity Divided: The Crisis in Organized Labor and A New Path Toward Social Justice" See: http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/11121.html Follow me on Facebook and at www.billfletcherjr.com -- Daniel Cirera Secrétaire général du Conseil scientifique Fondation Gabriel Péri Tour Essor 14, rue Scandicci 93500 Pantin France Tel: 33 (0) 1 41 83 88 50 Fax: +33 (0) 1 41 83 88 59 www.gabrielperi.fr _______________________________________________ CommonGood Mailingliste JPBerlin - Politischer Provider CommonGood(a)listi.jpberlin.de https://listi.jpberlin.de/mailman/listinfo/commongood -- 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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WEBCAST FRI/SAT – Platform Cooperativism Conference 2016 #platformcoop @NewSchool
by Joly MacFie 11 Nov '16

11 Nov '16

Platform Coop 2015 was a huge and unmanageable multitrack aminal. The 2016 version is a scaled down to one quality track + an unconference. There's a lot of talk of Africa, where many new coop models are being explored. joly posted: "On Friday-Sunday November 11-13 2016 the 2nd annual Platform Cooperativism Conference takes place in New York City. This year's event has the theme “Platform Cooperativism: Building The Cooperative Internet” and will consist of a 2 day plenary followed by" [image: Livestream] <https://livestream.com/internetsociety/platformcoop2016>On *Friday-Sunday November 11-13 2016* the 2nd annual *Platform Cooperativism Conference <http://platformcoop.net/2016>* takes place in New York City. This year's event has the theme “*Platform Cooperativism: Building The Cooperative Internet*” and will consist of a 2 day plenary followed by an unconference. The plenary sessions will be livestreamed on the *Internet Society Livestream Channel <https://livestream.com/internetsociety/platformcoop2016>*. *What: Platform Cooperativism Conference <http://platformcoop.net/2016> Where: New School, NYC When: Friday-Sunday November 11-13 2016 Program: http://platformcoop.net/2016/schedule <http://platformcoop.net/2016/schedule> Webcast: (Fri/Sat only) https://livestream.com/internetsociety/platformcoop2016 <https://livestream.com/internetsociety/platformcoop2016> Twitter: https://twitter.com/hashtag/platformcoop <https://twitter.com/hashtag/platformcoop>* Comment <http://isoc-ny.org/p2/8788#respond> See all comments <http://isoc-ny.org/p2/8788#comments> *Permalink* http://isoc-ny.org/p2/8788 -- --------------------------------------------------------------- Joly MacFie 218 565 9365 Skype:punkcast -------------------------------------------------------------- -

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Fwd: FW: REUTERS: Trump win will not derail global climate effort, activists vow
by Michel Bauwens 10 Nov '16

10 Nov '16

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Hazel Henderson <hazel.henderson(a)ethicalmarkets.com> Date: Thu, Nov 10, 2016 at 7:18 PM Subject: FW: REUTERS: Trump win will not derail global climate effort, activists vow Trump win will not derail global climate effort, activists vow The rest of the world will not risk a global climate catastrophe because of one man's opposition, activists at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Marrakesh said. [image: US president-elect trump]US President-elect Donald Trump. Image: Gage Skidmore, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/> Thomson Reuters Foundation <http://news.trust.org/item/20161109140732-3eqqf/> Wednesday 9 November 2016 Grim-faced activists at U.N. climate negotiations in Morocco pledged on Wednesday that the election of Republican Donald Trump as U.S. president would not derail global action to curb climate change and deal with its worsening consequences. “It’s clear Donald Trump is about to be one of the most powerful people in the world… but even he does not have the power to bend and change the laws of physics,” said Alden Meyer, policy director for the Union of Concerned Scientists. As climate change exacerbates extreme weather and other problems including sea-level rise, Trump will have an obligation to protect U.S. citizens, activists say, and could miss key opportunities to create the millions of new jobs he has promised, if the country backs off renewable energy expansion. “Droughts, flooding and other types of extreme weather events are becoming stronger and more frequent, and the United States is not immune,” said Kelly Stone, a policy analyst for the charity ActionAid. “This is a global crisis that President-elect Trump will have to address.” With joint action on climate change having helped build stronger and more positive relationships with countries like China, Trump also faces undermining his international power on issues from trade to fighting terrorism if he walks away from acting on climate change, Meyer said. “If the United States is seen as going rogue nation on climate change, it will have implications for everything else he wants to do - and I think he will understand that,” he said of Trump. But Trump’s solid election victory casts doubt on the level of progress that might be made at the two-week negotiations in Marrakesh, aimed at putting into practice the landmark Paris Agreement on climate change, crafted last year. The pact came into effect last week, more than three years ahead of schedule, as the United States and around 100 other countries ratified it in advance of the Marrakesh meeting - some with an eye on Trump’s potential election. “ Droughts, flooding and other types of extreme weather events are becoming stronger and more frequent, and the United States is not immune. This is a global crisis that President-elect Trump will have to address. Kelly Stone, policy analyst, ActionAid “We are confident the nations of this world gathered here in Morocco will keep focused on the work that needs to go ahead,” said Mariana Panuncio-Feldman, a climate expert with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). In the world’s cities and communities “the momentum for climate action has never been stronger”, she said. Li Shuo of Greenpeace China said that, regardless of what happens with the United States, other countries would push ahead with plans for action “out of their own self interest”. “China will continue to work on climate change not because of international relations or diplomacy but out of its own very genuine domestic concerns” over air quality, water security and other issues, he said. Funding fears But experts warned the $3 billion the United States has pledged to the international Green Climate Fund, which aims to transform the world’s energy systems, curb emissions and help the vulnerable adapt to climate shifts, could now be at risk. The United States has so far handed over only a sixth of that money, and a potential refusal to deliver the rest would leave a gaping hole in developing-country efforts to tackle climate change, which depend on international assistance. “The momentum (for change) cannot be there without having enough money in the system,” said Harjeet Singh, who heads climate policy for ActionAid. If the United States backs away from its financial promises, “that will definitely create a vacuum”, he said. Worse than that, Geoffrey Kamese of Friends of the Earth Africa warned “Africans will pay with their lives for the results of the U.S. elections” as climate impacts strengthen. A more measured President? Meyer said Trump’s conciliatory acceptance speech raised hopes that the fiery campaigner who has vowed to pull the United States out of the Paris Agreement might prove “more measured and responsible” once in office. “I hold out hope, as a person of faith, that he can grow into this job and be a different president than he was a candidate,” Meyer said. Under the rules of the new climate deal, Trump would not be able to withdraw the United States for at least four years, Meyer and other experts at the U.N. talks said. More importantly, a strengthening U.S. drive toward renewable energy and other action on climate change by states, cities and companies “will continue regardless of what a U.S. President Trump does”, Meyer said. Still, some at the negotiations expressed fears that the goal agreed in Paris last year of holding global temperature rise to “well below” 2 degrees Celsius, and potentially to an ambitious 1.5 degrees Celsius, could now be unachievable if Trump’s election chills momentum for action on climate change. “I do not think this is dead,” said Panuncio-Feldman of WWF. But “the window of opportunity is indeed short and we are all very worried about that.” Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said the world “cannot expect any positive climate action” from Trump, and must now “move forward without the United States on the road towards climate-risk mitigation and clean-technology innovation”. Mohamed Adow, who leads on climate issues for development charity Christian Aid, said “the rest of the world will not risk a global climate catastrophe because of one man’s opposition”. *This story was published with permission from Thomson Reuters Foundation <http://news.trust.org/item/20161109140732-3eqqf/>, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, climate change, women’s rights, trafficking and property rights. Visit http://news.trust.org/climate <http://news.trust.org/climate>.* Share this story

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Fwd: Trump's Victory - Mourning and Analysis
by Michel Bauwens 10 Nov '16

10 Nov '16

I strongly agree with Michael Lerner's approach here: " http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/projects/cp/opinion/election-night-2016/… "The right has been very successful at persuading working people that they are vulnerable not because they themselves have failed, but because of the selfishness of some other villain (African-Americans, feminists, immigrants, Muslims, Jews, liberals, progressives; the list keeps growing). Instead of challenging this ideology of shame, the left has buttressed it by blaming white people as a whole for slavery, genocide of the Native Americans and a host of other sins, as though whiteness itself was something about which people ought to be ashamed. The rage many white working-class people feel in response is rooted in the sense that once again, as has happened to them throughout their lives, they are being misunderstood. So please understand what is happening here. Many Trump supporters very legitimately feel that it is they who have been facing an unfair reality. The upper 20 percent of income earners, many of them quite liberal and rightly committed to the defense of minorities and immigrants, also believe in the economic meritocracy and their own right to have so much more than those who are less fortunate. So while they may be progressive on issues of discrimination against the obvious victims of racism and sexism, they are blind to their own class privilege and to the hidden injuries of class that are internalized by much of the country as self-blame. The right’s ability to portray liberals as elitists is further strengthened by the phobia toward religion that prevails in the left. Many religious people are drawn by the teachings of their tradition to humane values and caring about the oppressed. Yet they often find that liberal culture is hostile to religion of any sort, believing it is irrational and filled with hate. People on the left rarely open themselves to the possibility that there could be a spiritual crisis in society that plays a role in the lives of many who feel misunderstood and denigrated by the fancy intellectuals and radical activists. The left needs to stop ignoring people’s inner pain and fear. The racism, sexism and xenophobia used by Mr. Trump to advance his candidacy does not reveal an inherent malice in the majority of Americans. If the left could abandon all this shaming, it could rebuild its political base by helping Americans see that much of people’s suffering is rooted in the hidden injuries of class and in the spiritual crisis that the global competitive marketplace generates. Democrats need to become as conscious and articulate about the suffering caused by classism as we are about other forms of suffering. We need to reach out to Trump voters in a spirit of empathy and contrition," ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Rabbi Michael Lerner and Peter Gabel at Tikkun magazine and the Network of Spiritual Progressives <cat(a)spiritualprogressives.org> Date: Thu, Nov 10, 2016 at 7:07 AM Subject: Trump's Victory - Mourning and Analysis To: Michelsub2004(a)gmail.com [image: Tikkun] <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=%2BJB%2BqqE3DzpAid0bqs2EtI0bZ2…> SUPPORT TIKKUN <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=YBvcbvZ3GnSFo89CpWs5rY0bZ2Z1n%…> GET THE MAGAZINE <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=4HRxj4rQES8KhB8TBdJT840bZ2Z1n%…> ADVERTISE <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=s9BWxLrG%2FiTbQ0pJT1sxz40bZ2Z1…> JOIN THE MOVEMENT <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=sI04gxh%2FC5MitWAOAla%2Fjo0bZ2…> I too am mourning and grieving the election results. This is a sad and scary time for our country. Like many of you, I am stunned at the results. We need to take time to grieve and mourn, to express our shock and even our rage in community where we are held. And we need to mobilize now more than ever. If ever there was a time when Tikkun's voice is needed, now is that time. Please read the analyses below by Rabbi Lerner and Peter Gabel to hear a perspective not available elsewhere. We need your support, please make a super generous tax-deductible donation at www.tikkun.org/donate <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=%2F3xThjHgex%2BnmBORQywVD40bZ2…>. We are also holding a conference this weekend to explore - What's Next - please consider joining us. To register go to: www.tikkun.org/ 30thcelebration <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=M0%2FH5zIqKsHIlcRTzcOjyI0bZ2Z1…> . ~ Cat Zavis <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=wcs%2Fdr7swUQ3u0fapmNJO40bZ2Z1…> Click here to share this on Twitter <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=BarlpsSO6HUMDFyhVg08AI0bZ2Z1n%…> Click here to share this on Facebook <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=iQ%2BtdHMNQ%2FXIvdOSLQFx6Y0bZ2…> --- *Stop Shaming Trump Supporters* By Rabbi Michael Lerner [*This article originally appeared in The New York Times. You can read it online **here* <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=VoYZD9t540fVX7rvXlzkHo0bZ2Z1n%…>*. Below the article, Rabbi Lerner adds some of the ideas that the N.Y. Times took out in order to make it fit for their blog space.*] It turns out that shaming the supporters of Donald J. Trump is not a good political strategy. Though job loss and economic stagnation played a role in his victory, so did shame. As the principal investigator on a study of the middle class for the National Institute of Mental Health, I found that working people’s stress is often intensified by shame at their failure to “make it” in what they are taught is a meritocratic American economy. The right has been very successful at persuading working people that they are vulnerable not because they themselves have failed, but because of the selfishness of some other villain (African-Americans, feminists, immigrants, Muslims, Jews, liberals, progressives; the list keeps growing). Instead of challenging this ideology of shame, the left has buttressed it by blaming white people as a whole for slavery, genocide of the Native Americans and a host of other sins, as though whiteness itself was something about which people ought to be ashamed. The rage many white working-class people feel in response is rooted in the sense that once again, as has happened to them throughout their lives, they are being misunderstood. So please understand what is happening here. Many Trump supporters very legitimately feel that it is they who have been facing an unfair reality. The upper 20 percent of income earners, many of them quite liberal and rightly committed to the defense of minorities and immigrants, also believe in the economic meritocracy and their own right to have so much more than those who are less fortunate. So while they may be progressive on issues of discrimination against the obvious victims of racism and sexism, they are blind to their own class privilege and to the hidden injuries of class that are internalized by much of the country as self-blame. The right’s ability to portray liberals as elitists is further strengthened by the phobia toward religion that prevails in the left. Many religious people are drawn by the teachings of their tradition to humane values and caring about the oppressed. Yet they often find that liberal culture is hostile to religion of any sort, believing it is irrational and filled with hate. People on the left rarely open themselves to the possibility that there could be a spiritual crisis in society that plays a role in the lives of many who feel misunderstood and denigrated by the fancy intellectuals and radical activists. The left needs to stop ignoring people’s inner pain and fear. The racism, sexism and xenophobia used by Mr. Trump to advance his candidacy does not reveal an inherent malice in the majority of Americans. If the left could abandon all this shaming, it could rebuild its political base by helping Americans see that much of people’s suffering is rooted in the hidden injuries of class and in the spiritual crisis that the global competitive marketplace generates. Democrats need to become as conscious and articulate about the suffering caused by classism as we are about other forms of suffering. We need to reach out to Trump voters in a spirit of empathy and contrition. Only then can we help working people understand that they do not live in a meritocracy, that their intuition that the system is rigged is correct (but it is not by those whom they had been taught to blame) and that their pain and rage is legitimate. Michael Lerner, the rabbi of Beyt Tikkun Synagogue in Berkeley, Calif., is the editor of Tikkun magazine and chairman of the Network of Spiritual Progressives. [*Up to here is what the NY Times printed in their blog. Lerner adds a bit more below, so as to deepen one's understanding.*] We need to retool the discourse on the Left and train hundreds of thousands of people to become part of an "Empathy Tribe" that can reach out to Trump supporters to apologize to them for the ways they've felt "dissed" by the liberal and progressive world and to help people understand that what the actual causes of their suffering are the perverse spiritual distortions and twisted psychodynamics of a global competitive marketplace. We can and must help people understand that the inequalities in this society are not a function of who is or is not talented, smart, or works hard, but instead are a function of the class structure which will only allocate economic security and jobs that feel fulfilling to a small percentage of the population while the rest of the population is scrappling for the leftovers. What we do not want to do is deny or lessen the importance of the struggles against racism, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and xenophobia. Rather, what we want to do is insist that those struggles must be carried out in ways that do not negate but rather affirm the pain and suffering caused by classism and the internalization of the materialism, selfishness and "looking out for number one" consciousness of our society. We want to avoid the kind of discourse that we so often hear in liberal and progressive societies in which one identity politics group fights with another over who is most oppressed while simultaneously demanding that others defer to their will on question a, b, or c. Please read Peter Gabel's piece below to get a fuller sense of what we are talking about here. In fact, if we could learn to listen to the life experiences and work experiences of middle income working people and the working and unemployed poor, empathically validate their experiences, and really hear their grievances, we would be in a much better inner place to build a transformative movement that included people who yesterday voted for Trump. In part, this means compassionately challenging those in the liberal and progressive world who are now talking as though everyone who voted for Trump is racist, sexist, homophobic, stupid and/or evil. Some fit into that description but many do not, and when they hear themselves described by liberals or progressives reacting to the 2016 election by demeaning or shaming everyone who voted for Trump, they become even more attached to the Right, and even more outraged at what they perceive to be the arrogance and elitism of the Left. What I'm describing here is a massive project, but one which is absolutely necessary if the movements for environmental sustainability and a slowing of global climate change, human rights, anti-racism, peace and nonviolence are to have any chance of achieving the political power they need to actually change our society. And the first step is one that YOU can be personally involved in by circulating this analysis and Peter Gabel's analysis, bringing your friends together to talk about it, and then becoming an activist with us in Tikkun's interfaith and secular-humanist-and-atheist-welcoming NSP-- Network of Spiritual Progressives. So if you are not able to come to our conference this weekend, at least join the NSP www.spiritualprogressives.org/join <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=RTR%2FLuBVi94TkNodlu8IhY0bZ2Z1…>, and help us create a group in your local area to help promote this consciousness! Rabbi Michael Lerner rabbilerner.tikkun(a)gmail.com ***** *Coercive Deference and Double Bind Politics on the Left * by *Peter Gabel* Many white working -class communities feel robbed of much of their sense of worth and recognition by the impact of the global economy on the conditions of their life and on their culture. They see elites...millionaires, billionaires, tech wizards, bi-coastal cultural sophistocates...benefiting from an economy that their prior economic communities have been eviscerated by (in the rust-belt states of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, for example, all of whom voted in large numbers for Trump). And they feel this marginalization and cast-asideness not just because of its material or economic aspect, but also and in some ways more importantly because of its denigration of their own sense of worthiness, recognition, and sense of communal belonging and value. In this latter sense, they feel spiritual suffering and the loss of human solidarity and love. .. Instead of responding to this with compassion and concern, the liberal world has communicated to this community that the world is or would be fine if these whites had exercised their "equality of opportunity" to pursue their god-given right to fulfill their dreams through successfully competing in the marketplace... except for minorities, women, the LGBT community, disabled people, and other designated groups who must be given "special benefits" due to past discrimination so that they can gain the same "equality of opportunity" that the so-called "white" community already has. This liberal attitude reflected in the mainstream of the Democratic Party not only denies the spiritual pain of the white working class...it also blames the white working-class for failing to succeed themselves and for somehow contributing to the oppression of African-Americans, women, and all the other groups whom the liberal world (correctly) wants to extend more rights to and more benefits to. Thus the liberal world in effect flaunts their own success as elites, blames the working class for their own failures, and then holds them responsible as "whites" for the oppression of other oppressed groups, requiring them to deny their own sense of marginalization and spiritual pain, their own invisibility, and to defer to the orthodoxy that it is the other oppressed groups who are deserving of concern and recognition. And even more, the white working-class communities are not allowed to comment upon this whole process because that would be racist, or sexist, or otherwise not politically correct for them to do. Understandably this makes these white working class communities feel they are simultaneously in pain and silenced from commenting on their pain, an untenable and explosive hurt that Donald Trump perfectly spoke to in his campaign. What we saw in the election results, furthermore, was that this dynamic was not limited to to the white working-class, but also to white college-educated men* and women *who voted for Trump in large numbers, in spite of his derogatory comments about women. While these "whites" don't face the identical socio-economic conditions of the white working-class, they also suffer the spiritual pain of not being affirmed in a loving and valuing way within our alienated culture, and they also are expected to direct all their concern to designated oppressed others and deny the pain of their own spiritual isolation. And they too are not allowed to comment upon this because they are supposed to be guilty about the pain of others rather than crying out themselves. This is the coercive deference, the double-bind, that has undermined the Left's appeal for the last forty or so years since the Left abandoned a universalist view of human liberation in favor of an exclusive focus on the extension of liberal rights to previously discriminated-against groups, and on identity politics based on the past and continuing injuries to each victimized identity group for which a designated oppressor group ("whites") are responsible. . The solution to this is a new spiritual politics that sees all of us as suffering from a capitalist social world that fails to affirm all of us as worthy of love, respect, and recognition, and seeks to build an economy and a culture that carries forward that loving affirmation to all human beings. Of course this must include compassion for the historical and continuing particular suffering inflicted on African-Americans, women, the LGBT community and others who have been harmed, demeaned, and unrecognized, but it must also extend a loving solidarity to the "whites"--that is to *all of us* as universal beings with particular histories and circumstances who long for a world based on love, care and the embrace of truly being supported and valued. . Bernie Sanders did a great job of showing such a politics is possible right now, even though he focused only on economic issues as carriers of spiritual care and concern rather than on a fuller truly spiritual-progressive program that would have addressed a broader array of spiritual and communal needs. Until we move our politics in this universalist healing direction, others like Donald Trump will continue to succeed with messages that speak to "white" people's pain in distorted ways with likely harmful consequences. . Peter Gabel is Editor-at-Large of Tikkun magazine, co-founder of the Project for Integrating Spirituality, Law, and Politics, and the author most recently of* Another Way of Seeing: Essays on Transforming Law, Politics, and Culture.* MAGAZINE <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=pvOILEspKir7JgS8F9LEdo0bZ2Z1n%…> ADVERTISE <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=PTr%2FJMMJy3vr%2BM0zUHiuho0bZ2…>JOIN THE MOVEMENT <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=al54APlux0bZHlYa7wt6uY0bZ2Z1n%…> 2342 Shattuck Avenue, Suite 1200, Berkeley, CA 94704 Phone: 510-644-1200 | Fax: 510-644-1255 | www.tikkun.org <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=WliVQZoapVWZHb1YZXAkQo0bZ2Z1n%…> Unsubscribe <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Tg7kS5Kx40XPA2TCY660440bZ2Z1n%…> | Contact Us <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=ZIM%2Bep6RU3VNwblFgir%2B0o0bZ2…> | Intern or Volunteer <http://org.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=xYzQ0%2FtHBFtk%2F47PjOB5oY0bZ2…> [image: empowered by Salsa] <http://www.salsalabs.com/?email> -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

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Harun Farocki film screening & book launch "Hate Spin"
by Christian Fuchs 10 Nov '16

10 Nov '16

Harun Farocki film screening & book launch "Hate Spin" University of Westminster Friday, November 18, 2016 4pm-9pm Fyvie Hall (ground floor) 309 Regent Street London W1B 2HW The event is free, please register in advance: https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/book-launch-hate-spin-harun-farocki-and-the-… Hosted by the Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies This double-event features the launch of Cherian George's (Hong Kong Baptist University) book "Hate Spin: The Manufacture of Religious Offense and its Threat to Democracy" (MIT Press) that shows how right-wing movements in India, the USA and Indonesia incite hatred and nationalism. It also features a screening of short-films by the experimental film-maker Harun Farocki, followed by a discussion featuring Claudio Celis Bueno (Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies) and Michael Cowan (University of St Andrews) of how these films relate to the contemporary changes of labour and the economy in society. Programme 4-6pm Book launch: Cherian George: Hate Spin: The Manufacture of Religious Offense and its Threat to Democracy (chaired by Daya Thussu) 6-6:30 Break with tea, coffee, cake 6:30-9 Screening and talk: Harun Farocki and the Question of Cognitive Labour (chaired by Christian Fuchs): With Claudio Celis Bueno and Michael Cowan Wine reception -- Subscribe to the Westminster Institute for Advanced Studies' newsletter: https://www.westminster.ac.uk/newsletter

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