Posts tagged activism
A new quarterly glossy magazine Die Kehre (The Turning), published this month, which describes itself as a “magazine for natural protection”. It draws its title from the writings of anti-modernist philosopher Martin Heidegger and tries to reclaim environmental concern as a reactionary cause. In its editorial, the magazine describes ecology as the “crown jewels” of the right “robbed” by the leftwing green movement in the 1970s, and argues for redefining the subject away from Klimaschutz (climate protection) towards Heimatschutz (homeland protection). Several articles warn of the danger to Germany’s “native” bird species and “fairytale forests” posed by windfarms. Another column cites a manifesto by far-right thinktank Recherche Dresden, “Seven theses for a conservative-ecological turn”, written in the wake of the German Green party’s triumph at the 2019 European elections
via https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/28/german-far-right-infiltrates-green-groups-with-call-to-protect-the-land
German far right infiltrates green groups with call to protect the land
(via https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/28/german-far-right-infiltrates-green-groups-with-call-to-protect-the-land)
“If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”
–Aboriginal activists group, Queensland, 1970s
The Open Philanthropy Project’s mission is to give as effectively as we can and share our findings openly so that anyone can build on our work. Through research and grantmaking, we hope to learn how to make philanthropy go especially far in terms of improving lives.
via http://www.openphilanthropy.org/
The techniques that are unfolding are hard to manage and combat. Some of them look like harassment, prompting people to self-censor out of fear. Others look like “fake news”, highlighting the messiness surrounding bias, misinformation, disinformation, and propaganda. There is hate speech that is explicit, but there’s also suggestive content that prompts people to frame the world in particular ways. Dog whistle politics have emerged in a new form of encoded content, where you have to be in the know to understand what’s happening. Companies who built tools to help people communicate are finding it hard to combat the ways their tools are being used by networks looking to skirt the edges of the law and content policies. Institutions and legal instruments designed to stop abuse are finding themselves ill-equipped to function in light of networked dynamics.
via https://points.datasociety.net/hacking-the-attention-economy–9fa1daca7a37
A reading list created by a group of Black, Brown, Indigenous, Muslim, and Jewish people who are writers, organizers, teachers, anti-fascists, anti-capitalists, and radicals.
via http://thenewinquiry.com/features/a-time-for-treason/
qaul.net implements a redundant, open communication principle, in which wireless-enabled computers and mobile devices can directly form a spontaneous network. Text messaging, file sharing and voice calls are possible independent of internet and cellular networks. Qaul.net can spread like a virus, and an Open Source Community can modify it freely. In a time of communication blackouts in places like Egypt, Burma, and Tibet, and given the large power outages often caused by natural disasters, qaul.net has taken on the challenge of critically examining existing communication pathways while simultaneously exploring new horizons.
http://www.qaul.net/text_en.html
For correspondents who report from conflict zones or on underground activism in repressive regimes, the risks are extremely high. Recently, two excellent investigative series—by The Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg News—and the release of a large trove of surveillance industry documents by Wikileaks dubbed “The Spy files,” provided a glimpse of just how sophisticated off-the-shelf monitoring technologies have become. Western companies have sold mass Web and e-mail surveillance technology to Libya and Syria, for instance, and in Egypt, activists found specialized software that allowed the government to listen in to Skype conversations. In Bahrain, meanwhile, technology sold by Nokia Siemens allowed the government to monitor cell-phone conversations and text messages.
http://www.cjr.org/feature/the_spy_who_came_in_from_the_c.php?page=all