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America was founded on the principles of freedom, democracy, and opportunity. A vibrant and strong grassroots democracy is essential to those principles weaved into the fabric of our society. The founders of our great nation felt it essential to provide a system of government of the people, by the people, and for the people. The thing is, like most things in life, we get out what we put in. Put another way, we reap what we sow.

I founded the Grassroots Democracy of Idaho, a 501(3) charity, because I believe our state and nation are in distress. The overwhelming majority of the citizens in our state are disconnected, unaware, and apathetic to the awesome gift and responsibility of being part of a participatory democracy.

I am amazed at the number of young adults I meet who dont know what the state Legislature does, or that we have county commissioners.

Moreover, way too many are surprised by the statement that a supermajority of the laws and decisions that affect our daily lives are made at the city, county, and state level. Most alarming is that only about 50 percent of Idahoans even show up to vote. We are at a crossroads Idaho, wake up or be complicit in the destruction of our democracy.

The goal of the Grassroots Democracy of Idaho is to help inspire the disconnected, unaware, and apathetic citizens of our state. Inspire them to care enough to follow and interact with local government. Inspire them to take more seriously the awesome responsibility of being a citizen of this great state. Once inspired we will strive to connect them to political and/or civic action groups that can help harness that passion we cultivated.

I believe that this inspiration is essential to survival of our democracy. I want this organization to help inspire everyone, regardless of political affiliation or ideology. Because of this, and our 501(3) status, we will not be getting involved with specific issues, broadcasting positions on the serious challenges facing our state, or holding rallies in support or opposition of candidates.

This is essential to the goals of the organization because I absolutely believe: It does not matter if someone is Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, or none of the above; if they are willing to participate, we will show them how. My organization is in the business of civic education, grassroots cultivation and support, and community Service.

While this organization is new, we have a lot of passion for seeing a better Idaho. We are dedicated to bridging the gap between knowledge and action. We believe if we show people the value in connecting with government, people will get involved in political parties, community groups, and other organizations focused on the issues they are passionate about.

People keep asking me what is the grassroots democracy? A better question is WHO is the grassroots democracy. The answer, all of us. Together, as all the citizens of Idaho, we make up the grassroots democracy of the state and communities we are part of. I really believe that with some education and inspiration we can again have a strong and vibrant grassroots democracy in Idaho.

Remember, we reap what we sow. Whether you are passionate about the work of this organization and want to help or not. I implore you all to stay connected to our local governments, hold our elected state & local officials accountable, and most importantly make your voice heard. Learn how by joining us for our Grassroots Conference in Pocatello Idaho on Saturday, July 15, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Marshall Public Library in Pocatello.

This event will feature valuable workshops on our local government, civic rights, voting rights, and other important topics. You can also learn more about the Grassroots Democracy of Idaho (and our upcoming events) on our Facebook Page (fb.com/grassrootsofidaho).

I also welcome your feedback, send me an email (grassrootsofidaho@gmail.com) or give me a call (208-380-8673).

J.D. Wardell is the president and founder of the Grassroots Democracy of Idaho. Its a 501(3) non-profit public charity focused on civic education and supporting the Grassroots of Idaho. Learn more on its Facebook page (www.facebook.com/grassrootsofidaho).

Original post:
Grassroots Democracy, Say What? - Idaho State Journal

Sergey Brin, co-founder of Google, with his Google Glass. Photograph: Bloomberg/Getty Images

It seems like only a few years ago that we began making wry jokes about the doofus minority of people who walked down the street while texting or otherwise manipulating their phone, bumping into lamp-posts and so forth. Now that has become the predominant mode of locomotion in the city, to the frustration of those of us who like to get anywhere fast and in a straight line. Pedestrian accidents are on the rise, and some urban authorities are even thinking of installing smart kerbside sensors that alert the phone-obsessed who are about to step into oncoming traffic. New technologies, asAdam Greenfields tremendously intelligent and stylish book repeatedly emphasises, can change social habits inunforeseen and often counterproductive ways.

The technological fixes to such technology-induced problems rarely succeed as predicted either. It was, after all, to address the issue of people staring at handheld screens all day that Google marketed its augmented-reality spectacles, Google Glass. It rapidly turned out, however, that most people didnt much like being surveilled and video-recorded by folk wearing hipster tech specs. Early adopters became known as Glassholes; the gizmo was banned in cool US bars, and it was eventually abandoned.

Early adopters became known as 'Glassholes'; the gizmo was banned in cool American bars, and it was eventually abandoned

It is a story, as Greenfield shows, repeated in many different contexts: our visionary tech masters suppose that things can be disrupted by a single new device or service, only to learn belatedly that unexpected things happen when technical novelty rubs up against established social mores, embedded structures of power and money, and sometimes even the laws of physics. There is an excellent discussion here, for example, of how the verification of bitcoin transactions works through the enormous expenditure of energy on computing deliberately useless problems: it is probably doomed asa currency, Greenfield suggests, by simple thermodynamics. Meanwhile, the emancipatory dream of 3D printers enabling everyone to make anything they want is currently economically unlikely, and besides the one thing that is very popular in 3D printing is untraceable parts for assault rifles.

Greenfield calls all these things radical technologies because they could usher in vast changes that lead to very different potential futures: either what is known sexily as fully automated luxury communism, or a dystopia of total surveillance and submission to the networks of autonomous computerised agents that might replace human governments altogether.

Greenfield, indeed, believes that some kind of machine sentience is coming down the pipeline sooner rather than later: in this, he implicitly agrees with the Singularity theorists who yearn for the coming of true artificial intelligence something that historically, like nuclear fusion, has always been 30years away. (Greenfield, though, is rightly perturbed by those thinkers haste to become post-human and shuck off the flesh.) At the end of the book he offers some detailed sci-fi sketches of such possible futures. The bad ones are dismayingly plausible, but there is also a delightful one he names Green Plenty, where material scarcity is a thing of the past, and sweet-natured machines do all the work. (I for one welcome our new robot underlords.) Its very reminiscent, in fact, of the fully automated luxury communism portrayed in Iain M Bankss classic Culture novels. But howcan we get there from here?

By paying intense and critical attention, Greenfield suggests. His book melds close readings of the small experiences of normal life as mediated by new technologies (how, for example, time has been diced into the segments between notifications) with techno-political-economic philosophical analyses of the global clash between Silicon Valley culture and the way the world currently works. Its about what Greenfield calls the colonisation of everyday life by information processing, and this new colonialism, in the authors view, is so far no better than past versions. He gives excellently sceptical accounts of wearable technologies, augmented reality like Pokmon Go (now an inbuilt feature of the iPhones operating system), the human biases that are always baked into the ostensibly neutral operation of algorithms; or theworld of increasingly networked objects, about which he waxes humanistically poetic: The overriding emotion of the internet of things is a melancholy that rolls off of it in waves and sheets. The entire pretext on which it depends is a milieu of continuously shattered attention.

What seem to be potentially anarchic, liberating technologies are highly vulnerable to capture and recuperation by existing power structures just as were dissident pop-culture movements such as punk. Greenfield makes this point with particular force when discussing automated smart contracts and the technology of the blockchain, a kind of distributed ledger that underlies the bitcoin currency but could be used for many more things besides. Despite the insurgent glamour that clings to it still, he points out, blockchain technology enables the realisation of some very long-standing desires on thepart of very powerful institutions. Much as he scorns the authoritarian uses of new technology, he also wants to warnprogressives against technological utopianism. Activists on the participatory left are just as easily captivated by technological hype as anyone else, especially when that hypeis couched in superficially appealing language.

Critical resistance to all these different colonial battalions is based on Greenfields observation, nicely repurposing the enemys terminology, that reality is the one platform we all share. If we want to avoid the pitiless libertarianism towards which all these developments seem to lean unsurprisingly, because it is the predominant political ideology among the pathetically undereducated tech elite then we need to insist on public critique andstrategies of refusal. Radical Technologies itself is a landmark primerand spur to more informed andeffective opposition.

Radical Technologies: The Design of Everyday Lifeis published by Verso. To order a copy for 16.14 (RRP 18.99) go to bookshop.theguardian.com or call 0330 333 6846. Free UK p&p over 10, online orders only. Phone orders min p&p of 1.99.

Originally posted here:
Radical Technologies by Adam Greenfield review luxury communism, anyone? - The Guardian

"All I know is if I don't pay, these people disappear."

Miguel Cabrera loves his homeland, and there is much to love about it. Venezuela is a wonderful nation filled with wonderful people.

But right now, its being held hostage by a dictatorial, communist regime. And while he is not the type to spout about politics, today the Detroit Tigers superstar first baseman decided hed had enough. The video is in Spanish, but were going to embed it anyway along with key passages translated below:

Cabrera splits most off his time between Detroit during the season and his home in Miami in the offseason. He only gets to Venezuela a few weeks out of every year, but he has many family members who still live there, including his mother, and apparently he is forced to pay protection money to keep his mother from being kidnapped:

I am tired of hearing that they are going to kidnap my mother, and I dont know whether it is a policeman or a bad guy, I dont know who they are. All I know is if I dont pay, those people disappear.

Cabrera also called for free elections, and while he didnt mention Nicolas Maduro by name or necessarily side with anyone, its clear from this passage what he knows needs to happen:

I am Venezuelan and I protest for the truth. Communism in Venezuela has to come to an end. I cant speak any plainer. I am not with a dictatorship, I am not with anybody. We have to fight for our country. We have to find a solution.

And: Hello to the people of the resistance. You are not alone. We continue to support you.

Cabrera apparently catches some heat for having made millions in America. There is no reason he should apologize for that. Hes in the midst of a 10-year contract with the Tigers that pays him about $29 million a year. Despite the fact that hes having an off year this year (for him), hes earned every penny of that money as one of the best players in baseball and probably the best hitter in Tigers history. If Al Kaline says so (and he does), that pretty much settles it.

But while Cabrera doesnt often set foot in Venezuela these days - and its hard to blame him for that - he has sent considerable aid there in the form of food, medicine and other supplies. Now, he says, people are asking him to send weapons.

That requests comes as the death toll from the anti-government protests has reached 92, with more than 1,500 injured. This was all entirely avoidable, of course, but the Maduro regime choose to consolidate its power and oppress dissidents rather than reverse the socialist policies that have led to widespread deprivation and misery.

And I cant remind you often enough: If the Democratic Party was able to impose whatever policies it preferred in America, it would impose the exact same socialist policies that have devastated Venezuela. Miguel Cabrera is right. Communism in Venezuela has to come to an end. And the notion that socialism or communisim would be in anyones best interests needs to come to an end throughout the world.

But especially in the United States.

Dan Calabreses column is distributed by CainTV, which can be found at caintv.com

A new edition of Dans book Powers and Principalities is now available in hard copy and e-book editions. Follow all of Dans work, including his series of Christian spiritual warfare novels, by liking his page on Facebook.

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Excerpt from:
Miguel Cabrera in Instagram video: 'Communism in Venezuela has ... - Canada Free Press

Capitalism is an empire rooted in white supremacy, patriarchy, chattel slavery and genocide of Black and brown people.

Capitalism is a system in which the means of production are privatized and held by corporations and other powerful groups of people, is founded on the idea of the free market (laissez-faire), privatized personal gain and is reliant on imperialism to exist. The Taino of Hispaniola were among the first to feel the wrath of Spanish imperialism and exploitation for the construction of the white supremacist empire founded on stolen commodities from the Taino and their forced labor along with the enslavement of Africans who were forced to the region.

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Capitalism, imperialism and colonialism resulted in the development of capitalism itself as a system, the shift from precolonial communism to capitalism, the mass genocide of the Taino people, the exploitation of Taino resources for the socio-economic gain of European imperialist nations, the establishment of white supremacist racial hierarchies on the island, and the shift from precolonial matriarchy to capitalist patriarchy.

Primitive communism is a Marxist term referring to precolonial societies in which the inhabitants lived communally through hunting and gathering, there was no private property, no currency, no state, no class system, and people lived with and for the rest of their communities.In"The Traffic in Women: Notes on the Political Economy of Sex," Gayle Rubin states that inThe Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State,Friedrich Engels discusses the existence of matriarchal, primitive communist societies particularly in non-Western regions; Friedrich Engels'The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State documents the existence of matriarchal societies for thousands of years.Thoroughly researching what he calls 'primitive communist societies,' Engels shows that for the bulk of the human timeline, women were in positions of power in the family and community.

Primitive communism upheld matriarchy and woman dominance in sociopolitical aspects of the respective society.Moreover, an essential instance of primitive communism was the Taino society of Quisqueya/Ayiti, also known as Hispaniola, which is the contemporary Dominican Republic and Haiti. Furthermore, the Taino did not use currencya crucial aspect of communismand one of the most notable characteristics of their society was the prevalence of social solidarity, particularly among clan members, and the social structure perpetuated tribal unity.Ties between clans, groups and tribes strengthened as families grew and marriages increased-all due in part to the matrilineal order.

In regards to Taino political organization, they all spoke a common language and shared a common religion and there were intertribal marriages between caciques of at least two of the five confederate Taino tribes.The five confederate Taino tribes on Hispaniola were led by caciques Guarionex, Caonabo, Behechio, Goacanagarix, and Cayoa.The flatlands and over seventy leagues in the center of the island were controlled by Guarionex meanwhile Behechio governed the western region. Former Carib cacique Caonabo governed the kingdom in the mountains and he also married Behechio's sister Anacaona.

According to historian Frank Moya Pons in his bookThe Dominican Republic: A National History,Caciques were the heads of the government and their assistants were called nitainoswho were the noblemen within Taino social structure.Nitainos were usually the closest maternal relatives of the caciques or notable clan chiefs who formed the vital link between the caciques and the people.Cacique power was exercised through assistance by nitaino chiefs from confederate tribes who would then legitimize the cacique and their decision. A servant class called the naborias served the caciques and nitaino class and their existence helped explain testimonies of early chroniclers who stated that all land was communally owned through primitive communism.The naborias were dedicated to supporting the caciques and their families and permitted the majority of the population to share goods and services publicly as opposed to working for wages in order to support the caciques.

Prior to European invasion, Hispaniola had a relatively low density in population and a favorable person-to-land ratio, which enabled the Taino to obtain abundant food from their environment with ease; however, forced labor at the hands of the colonizers, along with exposure to European diseases, abortions and mass suicides with the purpose of escaping slavery, resulted in a rapid decline of the population to near extinction.

With European invasion came a counterrevolution to Taino primitive communismwhich came in the form of the birth of capitalism, the enforcement of private property, the development and incorporation of chattel slavery, and the construction of a white supremacist empire fueled by colonialism and stolen Taino and African goods; Eric Wolf makes this case inEurope and the People Without History,Wallerstein's explicitly historical account of capitalist origins and the development of the 'European world economy.'This world-economy, originating in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, constitutes a global market, characterized by a global division of labor.The search for profit guides both production in general and specialization in production. Profits are generated by primary producers, whom Wallerstein calls proletarians, no matter how their labor is mobilized.Those profits are appropriated through legal sanctions by capitalists, whom Wallerstein classifies as bourgeois, no matter what the source of their capital.

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Dominican Republic Deportations and the Global Economy

The free and cheap forced labor of Taino people and enslaved Africans are what were used to fuel the private means of production of capitalism, through which the Spanish bourgeois colonialists would appropriate the profits of the oppressed nationalities' labor as well as forcefully import their goods such as gold to Spainwhich is also evidence of how capitalism and imperialism go hand in hand, capitalism is an empire rooted in white supremacy, patriarchy, chattel slavery and genocide of Black and brown people.

Here is the original post:
How Capitalism and Spanish Imperialism Served as a Counterrevolution to Taino Primitive Communism - teleSUR English

Supporters of Labour party leader Jeremy Corbyn at a campaign event. Labour pulled off a spectacular election turnaround largely thanks to social media. Photograph: Danny Lawson/PA

Socialism is stubborn. After decades of dormancy verging on death, it is rising again in the west. In the UK, Jeremy Corbyn just led the Labour party to its largest increase in vote share since 1945 on the strength of its most radical manifesto in decades. In France, the leftist Jean-Luc Melenchon recently came within two percentage points of breaking into the second round of the presidential election. And in the US, the countrys most famous socialist Bernie Sanders is now its most popular politician.

The reasons for socialisms revival are obvious enough. Workers in the west have seen their living standards collapse over the past few decades. Young people in particular are being proletarianized in droves. They struggle to find decent work, or an affordable place to live, or a minimum degree of material security. Meanwhile, elites gobble up a growing share of societys wealth.

But grievances alone dont produce political movements. A pile of dry wood isnt enough to start a fire. It needs a spark or several.

For the resurgent left, an essential spark is social media. In fact, its one of the most crucial and least understood catalysts of contemporary socialism. Since the networked uprisings of 2011 the year of the Arab spring, Occupy Wall Street and the Spanish indignados weve seen how social media can rapidly bring masses of people into the streets. But social media isnt just a tool for mobilizing people. Its also a tool for politicizing them.

Social media has supplied socialists with an invaluable asset: the building blocks of an alternative public sphere. The mainstream media tends to be hostile to the left: proximity to power often leads journalists to internalize the perspectives of societys most powerful people. The result is a public sphere that sets narrow parameters for permissible political discourse, and ignores or vilifies those who step outside of them. Thats why social media is indispensable: it provides a space for incubating new kinds of political thinking, and new forms of political identity, that would be inadmissible in more established channels.

Every movement needs a petri dish for developing the specific contagion with which it hopes to infect the body politic. The Reformation had the printing press. The French revolution had the coffeehouse. Todays new new left has Twitter and Facebook.

Last months election in the UK offered a stark illustration of this dynamic. Much of the British media attacked Corbyn relentlessly in the weeks leading up to the election. An analysis from Loughborough University found that Labour received the vast majority of the negative coverage, while a study from the London School of Economics concluded that Corbyn had been the victim of a process of vilification.

In another era, such an assault mightve proven fatal. Fortunately, social media gave Corbyns supporters a powerful weapon. Banished from the public sphere, they built one of their own. They didnt merely use social media judging by the number of tweets and Facebook engagements, they dominated it. Pro-Labour memes, slogans, videos and articles saturated online networks. Some were funny, such as a viral video of Corbyn extemporaneously eating a Pringle. Others were serious, drawing on independent leftwing outlets such as Novara Media to advance an analysis of austeritys corrosive effects on British society. Together they made millions of people feel connected to a common project. They made Corbynism feel like a community.

Crucially, this community didnt just exist online. Contrary to the old refrain about the internet not being real life, the digital ferment paid analog dividends. Young people the heaviest users of social media turned out in greater numbers than usual, and they voted overwhelmingly for Labour.

Whats so bracing about the British election is how many elite assumptions it overturned. These include the belief that social media is bad for democracy. The notion that Twitter and Facebook play a toxic role in our political life has become a pillar of elite opinion in the era of Brexit and Trump. Its a familiar argument: online platforms deepen polarization by enclosing us in echo chambers where were only exposed to views we already agree with. Partisanship flourishes. Compromise becomes impossible.

The French Revolution had the coffeehouse. Todays new new left has Twitter and Facebook

This analysis has some truth to it, but largely misses the mark. Theres no doubt that social media can be a cesspool. It can spread misinformation, abuse and all manner of extremist hatred. After all, social medias defining trait is its capacity to connect like-minded people. It follows that the communities it creates vary widely by the kind of people being connected.

But this aspect of social media is also what makes it useful for todays socialists. Bubbles can be beneficial. They can provide an emerging movement with a degree of unity, a sense of collective identity, that helps it cohere and consolidate itself in its fragile early phases.

Of course, movements cant stay bubbles if they want to win. They have to move from the margins to the mainstream. But social media is the soil where they can begin to take root, where they can cultivate a circle of allies and agitators who will carry their ideas out into the wider world. And this is good for democracy, because it enables genuinely popular political alternatives to emerge. It weakens the power of elites to police the limits of political possibility, and amplifies voices that could not otherwise make themselves heard.

Instead of sealing people off into echo chambers, social media can serve as a stepping stone for movements that aspire to achieve mass appeal. Just because social media helps midwife a movement doesnt mean that movement is fated to insularity. Labour began its campaign trailing the Tories by more than 20 points. In seven short weeks, the partys activists pulled off the most dramatic turnaround in modern British history. Powered in large part by social media, they closed the gap quickly enough to wipe out the Conservative majority. Labour now enjoys an eight-point lead in the polls a stunning reversal from a few months ago.

If polarization were as absolute as many mainstream observers believe, such an upset would be impossible. But political preferences are far more fluid than is often assumed. Many people are up for grabs, especially at a time when anti-establishment feeling is running high. As a result, social media doesnt necessarily strengthen existing partisan divisions. It can also scramble them, by surfacing new political possibilities. This is especially helpful in luring the large numbers of non-voters to the polls. Its no coincidence that the British election saw the highest turnout in 25 years.

The prospects for turnout-driven victories are even greater in the US, where political alienation is particularly pronounced. Only 55.7% of the voting-age population cast ballots in the last presidential election. Given these numbers, the model of an electorate split down the middle, locked into their irreconcilable Facebook feeds, is misleading. You cant have a country divided in half when half the country doesnt vote.

These are the people that the rising American left must win if it wants to replicate the success of its British comrades. Non-voters already form a natural constituency for progressive politics: they tend to be younger and poorer, and broadly support redistributive policies. But organizing this silent social-democratic majority will require more partisanship, not less.

Tepid centrism will not politicize people who believe that politics has nothing to offer them. Only a strongly defined alternative can. Social media offers a way to articulate that alternative, and to push it into public view. Tweets alone wont put socialists in power. But given the scale of the lefts ambition, and the obstacles arrayed against it, theyre not a bad place to start.

Read the original:
How social media saved socialism - The Guardian