Re: notes from the DIEM25 launch

[Alex Foti]

Dear Nina, Dear Geert,


thanks for your reports and views on diem25 - an event that is
ostensibly about setting up demoradical constituent power in europe
- lead by varoufakis, the only credible opposant of ordoliberal
austerity.

i agree it wants to try to be the Great Recession version of the the
Great Depression Popular Front - although not only we are living
under informationalism and not industrialism, but the geopolitics
is very different - political marxism is becoming residual in all
forms (reformist, revolutionary, hybrid) and european fascism is
not yet a unified threat - in a way it's like europe were a big
weimar republic based on the eroding power of the black-red-gold
alliance (Zentrum/CDU, SPD, FDP) threatened on the right by lega-like
parties and pegida-style movements whose fortunes are being boosted
by salafist threats to the European citizenry. Also, let's not
forget that the 1930s, even in England and France, were not open to
immigration and political refugees. But there is no fundamental threat
to European democracy like the one posed by Hitler+Mussolini (Putin
does not want to conquer the eurozone - although his patriarch is
plotting with the pope against gay marriage in europe).

Leaving historical parallelisms aside, the initiative is very
interesting, although flawed in a few aspects, some of which have
already been highlighted by Geert (who sounds supportive but
nevertheless critical of the media-savvy, informationally poor
semi-leninist set up) and Nina (who is much more dismissive of aging
men trying to reinvent european politics). I think itis flawed in
the remedy it proposes to presently disintegrating Europe. There is
the urgency, but the course of action suggested fails to adress it.
I just wrote an article in Italian (it should be published soon by
ilmanifesto - i sent it five days ago) on the matter.

If you want to defeat Bank, Commission and Merkel-Hollande, you need
to establish another Europe. This is what Diem is saying. And given
its alliance with Blockupy, the only transeuropean movement we have
at our disposal, its words are credible in the sense they will lead
to some form of political action. But how so? I'm afraid the how is
where all the hopes will be dashed. Germans and Italians (the Romans
and Venetians were there, Geert - the spaghetti movement is presently
in a downswing) look up to Barcelona and Madrid, to En Comu and
Podemos, for a radically populist answer to the Brussels Consensus
(based on the right to city, queer rights, antiracism, mobilization of
the precariat, urban ecology etc), capable of inspiring all movement
forces across the Continent so to finally challenge and dismantle
European neoliberalism. Yet not even the Spaniards have really
resolved the issue of the kind of Europe we want and need.

The article i wrote concurs with Simms that a constituent Europe
must be decided and fought for (it's not a process like the Monnet
guys told us, it's a disruptive event) and it can only be a European
Continental Republic (Res Publica Europae Continentalis? my Latin
sucks) which federates the eurozone and who else wants to join (many
would want to get out, too - starting with Britain and possibly ending
with Poland). I disagree with Simms it should be part of NATO: rather
it should be strongly neutral - capable of defending itself but, say,
reluctant to be dragged into war with Russia over Ukraine.

So this is my constructive criticism of diem. Be transparent and
radically democratic, certainly. But discuss and construct clearly
what the ultimate aim is in concrete terms. If we want to seize
power in Brussels and Frankfurt, we need to point out what kind of
European state we are fighting for. It should protect fundamental
rights (asylum, queer, labor, cyber, eco rights) and establish a
transnational democracy that curbs the powers of the nefarious
nation-states to empower autonomous regions (Catalunya, say) and
cities (Berlin, Paris, Madrid, Rome, Athens) - its monetary and fiscal
policies should be geared toward gender equality, the elimination of
unemployment and precariousness, the valorization of youth across the
union, and other crucial priorities advanced by the post-1999 and
post-2011 movements.

All this would be revolutionary in the present historical conditions.
In fact, you would really need a revolution to dislodge the eurocracy
from power. Will diem constitute a pan-european force for radical
political change in the eurozone and the EU? I certainly hope so, for
the alternative is dissolution and war also on the European continent.

best for the shabbat,

lx



On Fri, Feb 12, 2016 at 4:12 PM, Nina Temp  wrote:

> Hello all,
>
> I was also there and cannot share Geert's enthusiasm a tiny bit, as do
> many others that were there.
>
> Why?


<...>

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Re: notes from the DIEM25 launch

[Felix Stalder]

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Hash: SHA256

I was also there at the Volksbühne (though not like Geert during the day).

I completely agree with DiEM25's general analysis that the current
crisis in Europe is a crisis of democracy and not one of money. Europe
still is one of the richest, best resourced regions on the globe.
Consequently, this crisis must be countered with more, not less
democracy, and that this more of democracy has to find expressions
additional to occasional votes.

These, in many ways, are uncontroversial, procedural points. The only
element that distinguishes this from demands for more democracy coming
from the right (inspired, I'm afraid, by far right victories in Swiss
initiatives and referenda), is DiEM25's insistence that this needs
to happened on a European, rather than a national level and that the
retreat into the nation state is one of the drivers of the crisis.

On 2016-02-12 16:12, Nina Temp wrote:

> - It's interesting to see that all men I know are totally fond of
> it, while all women I know are highly unimpressed and couldn't
> help themselves breaking into stunned laughters given the populism
> and emptiness of a lot of the speeches - which were leaving parts
> of the audience behind with the feeling of being taken for dumb,
> uninformed, easily manipulable and therefore to be patronized,
> whereas this movement pretends to intend the opposite goals.

Perhaps it's because I'm male, but I found the top-down element not so
problematic, after all, this was the closing event in theater and much
debates, as Geert has pointed out, had taken place during the day. At
some point, it's good to come out on the stage and state what it is
that you want, that this requires someone to represent the multitude,
I can live with.

But the problem was, to me, that even in this conventional format,
there was very little in terms of demands, short or medium term goals
or proposals, or even ideas, what next steps would be. There was
lots of empty sloganeering, often not even particularly passionate.
In fact it was a dull evening and by the end of it, the theater was
considerably less crowded and at the beginning.

The only concrete demand, or action goal, was to increase transparency
in the ECB and the Eurogroup. This seems very pragmatic, actually
doable, so I would have expected some sense of how to do it: to
collect signatures, to call the all the MPs, block the ECB, march on
Brussels, or what not.

It was surprising, at least to me, that one of the best speeches of
the evening came from Zizek (delivered in a short video) who said
something like: Stick to a every simple demand, but pursue it
vigorously and to end and see how destabilizing this can be!

Given that the only concrete idea was to increase transparency,
this sounded really sensible strategy, something that a diverse
coalition could form around and then formulate more ambitious goals.
But there was no sense at all, how this even this relatively simple
and non-controversial demand could be energized, articulated and
executed beyond being voiced at talk shows.


> I do agree with Jacob Applebaum's call for secure communication,
> but must remind that this will make the bottom-up process yet more 
> difficult.

Here, I really totally disagree. Repressive orders crumble when people
start to loose their fear and act in large numbers, despite being
monitored not because they found ways to evade it. Security, in this
case, comes from social solidarity and collective action, not from
technology.

I'm not against encryption as such, of course, there are many
instances where it is vital, but this is not one of them (unless
one follows a kind of Leninist approach). In this case, to focus on
encryption seems more like a form of political procrastination.

Felix







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Re: notes from the DIEM25 launch

[mp]

On 13/02/16 11:29, Felix Stalder wrote:

> crisis in Europe is a crisis of democracy and not one of money.
> Europe still is one of the richest, best resourced regions on the
> globe.

can you elaborate (which resources, measured how)?

m


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Re: notes from the DIEM25 launch

[Stefan Heidenreich]

despite I would share amost all of the general goals of DiEM25, there
are some remarkable procedural inconsistencies:

- intransparency: how can you criticize the compositon of EU-closed
meetings and apply the very same practice with a totally intransparent
selection process for the core discussion group?

- closed meetings: where are the vidoes of the internal discussions
held during the day? how can we demand the EU to open their meetings
if we don't do it ourselves?

- paywall: how can you charge 12€ entry fee, excluding the poor, the
refugees ..., and demand more equality at the same time?

Stefan


Am 13.02.2016 um 11:29 schrieb Felix Stalder:

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I was also there at the Volksbühne (though not like Geert during the day).


<...>




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Re: notes from the DIEM25 launch

[Keith Hart]

Hi Felix,

I agree with your analysis completely. The European problem is democracy
not money. But where is the democratic push going to come from? I am a
europhile, I have lived in Paris for almost two decades. In recent years I
have begun to see that I may have backed the wrong horse.

In 1900 Europe accounted , 25% of the world's population, Europeans
controlled 80% of the land surface, for several centuries they lived off
unearned income extracted from the rest of the world. In 2100, 6% of the
world's population will live in Europe. The old predominate in every sense,
the young have higher education and no future. The people recruited from
Africa, the Middle East and Eastern Europe to do the work that pays for the
residents' pensions are harrassed and vilified. Most Europeans still hanker
for their own imperial dominance and despise non-Europeans. Europe has no
credible means of self-defence. A corporate logic of governance generates
as its only counterweight right-wing populism. The political trend is
inexorably towards fascism. And this is built on resolute denial of reality
at every turn.

If you read about such a society in first millennium Mesopotamia, you would
be thinking of the causes of collapse. Europe is the main and permanent
loser in the current world crisis. No wonder there is no serious attempt to
do something to reverse existing trends. The energy goes into denial and
social fragmentation is an excuse for doing nothing.

Keith



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Re: notes from the DIEM25 launch

[Pit Schultz]

so here i are my 2cents.. after a while. take it a duty free molotov
cocktail without the lighter.

yes, i listened to the stream, there were a few public and private
screenings, for a lower entry cost. and indeed my expectations must
have been too high, even if this volksbuehne event format successfully
shows a perceived need for mass media compatible "follow me" events,
it will later show how well it will have worked measured by its
results. "more livestreams from the EU, full access to the TTIP
files.." all in all the vocabulary was disappointingly similar to the
one of the ruling political class, NGOs and well meaning humanitarian
organisations who developed their own representational language games
of detachement combined with motivational phraseology. there were
still too many evangelists and celebrities rather than "experts" - as
if these "influencers" would trigger a larger audience to not only
join the movement, but to start risking to think critically - or
"out of the box". in this way it resembled more a talkshow on german
television and less a debate in an online discussion thread, with
its choreography of all-too-predictable statements. there were not
enough artists, hackers, activists, scientists - but instead mostly
professional mediators. to my knowledge and memory a movement is
not generated this way, it is based on an urgency of a struggle to
fight for an issue. the plethora of issues sounded too much like the
diffused radical liquid democracy outputs of the piratenpartei. so:
try harder. the event showed a sense of democracy as a search for the
lowest common demonimator which probably achieves the most likes. the
abyss of social media expected to applaude and follow made this event
almost boring and bordering the unbearable - to me at least, i wish
for the best, but learned again to expect less.

"start cooking". to go into details which could have been done better:
invite other people. from outside europe. from other struggles which
matter. from the gold mines in greece or chile. or from the neoliberal
blackhole in the uk (nina power, mark fisher) or the burned suburbs of
cizre in turkey and bring at least one of the whistleblowers onto the
panel. there is no more need for yet another "le monde diplomatique"
consensus building carnival of well meant opinions, instead there are
more than enough mind blowing suggestions and shocking testimonials to
bring up stage and document the urgency better than the introducing
stock-photo-image movie with a soundtrack by brian eno. just try
to shut up the old school double speak about more "realpolitik"
combined with the ideal of "a european supranational identity"
which made certain former leftists figures of the political class
look irreplaceable in brussels. the political horizon is global and
nothing else. if this was about basic radical democracy, then it
looked too much like the formation of a new political party than an
extraparlamentary, internationalist network of critical leftists.



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Re: notes from the DIEM25 launch

[Anne Roth]

A few unstructured thoughts from one who just went to see (and pay for)
the evening event:

There was a LOT of interest by German media, unsurprisingly, since
Varoufakis draws a lot of attention. No other left event intending to
start an initiative for whatever would have that effect.

No complaints. If it takes stars to shine some light on the fact that
there is an alternative - fine. The same goes for the format of the
event which under all other circumstances I would have found nothing but
painful.

Speeches about the general state of things, slogans, politicians'
general view of the world, for hours one after the other. In the name of
founding a movement - seriously? Eastern Europe mostly left out, far
less women on stage than men, hrm.

But, in the face of this dominant shift to the right which has finally
also hit Germany as a backlash to Merkel's handling of the refugee
situation I'm actually grateful for any initiative that draws attention
to the fact that there is life on the left side of politics. It's good
to get politicians, activists, intellectuals this different together to
show there is a need and the possibility for change.

In some areas of the German left there was criticism that all people on
stage support boycotting Israel or something of the kind (I don't know
if that's actually true) and therefore are all antisemites. That's a
given in German politics and to be expected. No need to agree with that
position necessarily but I wanted to add this observation as it was part
of the public mumbling during and after the event.

I left around midnight (next day was Wednesday, regular school/working
day: who was this event for, actually?) with some questions after 3,5
hours of speeches. I had stayed just long enough to hear the first
questions from the audience and, like them, would like to know: how?
What are the steps towards a movement, any activity, what will those
activities actually be? There will be events, and there will be
something digital, they said, but how? I admit I arrived already with
the strong belief that you can't 'found' a movement but since, I'm sure,
the people on stage understand that, I was very curious to hear what
they had in mind instead. Unfortunately that wasn't talked about really
and maybe the leaders of parties etc. simply aren't the right people to
come up with ideas for new movements.

At least some basic information about where, how, when, who, what next
would have been good to have and at this stage I don't even know how I'm
going to find out but I hope there will be more concrete steps and
information soon.

Another question concerns the non-public parts during the day: how did
that come to be actually? How did people get chosen, who chose them,
what was the aim, what were the outcomes? Again: what next?

My younger self would have totally rejected the whole thing simply for
its form but today, like I said, I'm all for almost any kind of
initiative that is just that: an initiative and not just words, against
the neoliberal-conservative-fascist monster we face.

Anne



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Re: notes from the DIEM25 launch

[morlockelloi]

The trend(s) that Europe is seeing itself dragged to are not result of 
'wrong' thinking and misbehaviour of supposedly powerful masses. They 
are the result of material circumstances, and no amount of magical 
(group)thinking will change that.


Material circumstances are mostly related to technologies of social 
control, and these can not be handled by 'not being afraid' and 
stampeding, which is what current proposals boil down to. That's like 
not being afraid of bullets - looks great the first 5 minutes. What can 
make the difference is (painstakingly slow) acquisition of 
counter-technologies which can change the landscape of material 
circumstances and make the change sustainable outside the stampede phase.


Privacy technologies are definitely party of this equation. For those 
that can't jettison the 19th century revolutionary scene from their 
minds, think meeting on dark street corners. That was a technology. 
Today's privacy is the same thing, but it looks a bit different and 
takes far longer to learn, and it has to be done.


Nothing will change until the would-be changers stop taking knives to 
gun fights (hoping that bravery and motivation will compensate - they 
won't). Privacy technologies, including encryption, are essential part 
of this armament.


Asking people to 'loose their fear' and stampede into the machinegun 
fire is short-sighted - and today 'we don't care that they know about 
our moves better than we do' is equivalent of this.


Absolutely nothing will change as a result of people gathering and 
talking themselves into this or that, and then regurgitating it in the 
social media. The modern society is immune to such knives. The proof is 
obvious - that event in Berlin was completely legal, as are others of 
its kind, while encryption is less and less legal.


The change may come only from the change in the material circumstances 
(it's not any more about material circumstances of production these 
days, as is all done by robots, but use of that phrase may help bridge 
the cognitive gap.)



On 2/13/16 2:29 , Felix Stalder wrote:


Here, I really totally disagree. Repressive orders crumble when people
start to loose their fear and act in large numbers, despite being
monitored not because they found ways to evade it. Security, in this
case, comes from social solidarity and collective action, not from
technology.

I'm not against encryption as such, of course, there are many
instances where it is vital, but this is not one of them (unless
one follows a kind of Leninist approach). In this case, to focus on
encryption seems more like a form of political procrastination.


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Re: notes from the DIEM25 launch

[Felix Stalder]

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA256



On 2016-02-13 19:05, morlockel...@yahoo.com wrote:
> The trend(s) that Europe is seeing itself dragged to are not result
> of 'wrong' thinking and misbehaviour of supposedly powerful masses.
> They are the result of material circumstances, and no amount of
> magical (group)thinking will change that.

> Material circumstances are mostly related to technologies of
> social control,

I think you are overrating technologies of control, neither the Stasi
nor the KGB could save their systems from collapse (though the ruined
a lot of lives).

The material circumstances that are dragging Europe (and the US) down
have more to do with geopolitical and demographic shifts, the kind of
stuff that Keith Hart is talking about. These are, at least in part,
related to technological changes, but are primarily embodied in
logistics, distribution of productive capacities and changing patterns
of the world economy (such as increasing "south-south trade") and not
in techniques of crowd control.


> Privacy technologies are definitely party of this equation. For
> those that can't jettison the 19th century revolutionary scene from
> their minds, think meeting on dark street corners. That was a
> technology. Today's privacy is the same thing, but it looks a bit
> different and takes far longer to learn, and it has to be done.


Sure, but the question is, when or how do you ever come out of his
corner. You cannot built a social movement in dark corner. And if you
want to sidestep this phase, because you think that the critical mass
of people are ultimately too stupid, brainwashed or what not, then you
are either going into the direction of envisioning a (benevolent)
dictator who will do the enlightened work of the unenlightened masses,
or some kind of vanguard party (what I called Leninist) that will do
the work. The historical record for both is dismal.


> Asking people to 'loose their fear' and stampede into the
> machinegun fire is short-sighted - and today 'we don't care that
> they know about our moves better than we do' is equivalent of
> this.

It really depends how you think repression works these days. If you
think that it's about repressing particularly dangerous individuals,
then both encryption (when they can be dealt with individually) and
large numbers (when they cannot be dealt with individually because you
cannot imprison, or shoot, a very large number of people) help. If you
think repression works by influencing the patterns of how people think
(e.g. creating an environment that incentivizes people to put all
emphasis on maximizing the number of useless "friends", or competing
in a rat race of faking their own happiness), then encryption won't
help much, but nothing much will.

Felix





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Community Radio News From Across India -- CRNFAI Feb 14, 2016

[Frederick FN Noronha फ्रेड्रिक न]

   _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
   _/
   _/ Community Radio News From Across India -- CRNFAI Feb 14, 2016
   _/ Compiled by Frederick Noronha [1]fredericknoro...@gmail.com
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   [5]http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/50327984.cms
   No formal complaint on Community Radio Station misuse: Govt 22.12.2015
   Minister of State for Information and Broadcasting Rajyavardhan Singh
   Rathore said that 188 Community Radio stations are active in the
   country.
   [6]http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/50282020.cms
   Second Term for Unseco's Chair at UoH
   [7]http://www.newindianexpress.com/cities/hyderabad/Second-Term-for-Uns
   ecos-Chair-at-UoH/2015/12/12/article3173092.ece
   Unesco renews community media chair at UoH 11.12.2015 HBL: Home
   The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation
   (Unesco) has renewed its chair on community media in the University of
   Hyderabad (UoH) for a second term.
   [8]http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/news/education/unesco-renews-com
   munity-media-chair-at-uoh/article7977297.ece
   Emergency community radio service launched in flood-hit Cuddalore
   district
   Cuddalore district administration has set up an emergency 24-hour
   community
   radio service (frequency 107.8Hz) to disseminate information relating
   to
   relief and rehabilitation of flood victims and to address their ...
   [9]http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/50142475.cms
   Centre sends right signal to the flood-affected 10.12
   [10]http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/centre-sends-right
   -signal-to-the-floodaffected/article7967696.ece
   Bizwomen share their success mantra on community radio 3.12.2015
   A group of eight budding women entrepreneurs on Wednesday shared
   stories of
   their creative works on community radio.
   [11]http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/50019621.cms
   Over 100 community radios operating 'illegally'in India
   [12]http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/over-100-community
   -radios-operating-illegally-in-india/article7856676.ece
   The seeds of revolution 30.10.2015 India Together
   Deccan Development Society (DDS) is transforming the lives of villagers
   of
   Zaheerhabad, Telangana. Ashish Kothari visited the place recently and
   writes
   about how DDS is successfully working with Dalit farmers towards
   ecologically sustainable farming, women empowerment and community-led
   communications.
   [13]http://indiatogether.org/articles/the-seeds-of-revolution-op-ed
    Why this popular Bengaluru community radio station needs your
   support
   25.10.2015 DNA: Popular News
   For three years DS Shamantha founder of 90.4 FM 'Sarathi Jhalak', a
   community radio channel in rural Karnataka, had successfully managed to
   put
   out content that was beneficial to the locals and popular among
   listeners.
   However, the channel which operates from just 70 kms away from
   Bengaluru,
   suffered a financial crisis and had to discontinue its shows as the RJs
   left
   owing to low salaries. But due to its popularity among its audience,
   Shamantha and team were forced to put a few shows back on air again
   within
   just three days. "Villagers from around Malur and Hoskote were very
   upset.
   It shows the radio has had an impact on them," said Shamantha. The
   channel
   educates the listeners on health, agriculture, folklore, legal matters,
   social welfare etc. It has lighter content in the evenings. It also
   caters
   to problems of the youth by 

Re: notes from the DIEM25 launch

[Conservas]

El 12/02/16 a las 21:33, Geert Lovink escribió:

<...>

> Vital European energies are coming from Spain, and in particular
> Barcelona. The program centered around Spain. 

I like to remark that there was a repeated mistake during all the sessions: 
Podemos was
seen like a reference, like The reference for Spain. In fact in Spain, since the
Indignados's, we are doing an amazing r-evolution despite of Podemos, surely 
not thanks to
Podemos.

The rebel cities of Barcelona and Coruña where yes represented in the DiEM 
"show", but
Podemos was omni-presented in the discussions which will bring all this newly 
"founded
movement" (¿?) to the starting point of killing the energy and action that are 
really
making the deference (in Spain or elsewhere) carried out but the civil society 
organized
(in Spain PAH, Partido X, Barcelona en Comú, 15MpaRato, Agua es vida, Mareas, 
Marea
Blanca...) , to replace them by a poor and banal (yes, Podemos is mainly banal 
and
inefficient, exept some very residual good people there)/macho
centric/dogmatic/tech-incompetent/selfpreserving/narcisistic top-down leftish 
movement :),
very poor in realistic ideas and practices. Really nothing new I'm afraid.
I'm not sure that this is what we need to have the job of democratizing Europe 
done ;).

And what I'm saying is not an opinion :D. It's science :D, and more precisely 
statistics:
the DiEM event in Madrid is completely cooptated by Podemos. There is no room 
for anybody
else except the useful fools that will represent a devoted and fan-boys like 
civil
society; the real active civil society is expelled by this (see, for example: 
the camarade
Ada Colau, great fighter and maire of Barcelona now, is less and less been part 
of it; as
she said in the video in the soirée, she "welcomes" the new movement, but she 
doesn't say
anymore she is part of it). And no one from the launchers of DiEM (Yanis, can 
you ear me?)
is taking the responsibility to not let this happen in Madrid.
Because I think that to have the things done (what was? oh! ya! To have Europe
Democratize) good ideas are not enough, specially not ONE good idea. Democracy 
is only the
ability to be together in diversity, to manage diversity, nothing else.
We will need someone taking responsibility on the "how" despite of the leftish 
myths of
the openess as a solution (in which the big fish eat the small one = no 
diversity) and the
need to be united (merging in an TM in which, once more, the big fish eat the 
small one).
We should take a great care of diversity to have really new things happening.
There were some voices and very interesting people in the meeting during the 
afternoon
previous the show, but what they were proposing, like all the distributed 
organization
that Geert proposes, were really undermined being all the attention driven to 
the
seduction of words and oratorial competition.
So watch your back, Podemos could be there ;) and long life to the free culture 
and hacker
philosophy!
I hope DiEM get there and become a networked structure with strong methodology. 
Let me
dream :).

Simona [thank you, like always, to have been patient with my tragic english]


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Re: notes from the DIEM25 launch

[Alexander Karschnia]

   As a person who watched the evening on live-stream, but spend the day
   in the Volksbühne to listen to the discussions of the âworking groupâ
   I just want to add: the âworking groupâ was not working â too many
   people who spoke too short, no real discussion. BUT it was good to get
   an impression on who-is-who of the activist scene in Europe. Not big
   names (âIs Negri not coming?â), but groups and initiatives. To catch
   the spirit of the Catalanian municipalities, the determination of the
   Irish RIGHT2CHANGE-movement, the Belgian Alter Summit (to name only a
   few). Their contribution made it very clear that an European
   democracy-movement has to combine both: pushing for the transformation
   into a transnational democracy AND strengthening the local level at the
   same time (municipalities, town hall meeting etc.) Striving towards a
   constitutional assembly to turn the EU into a real republic AND working
   on the ground in assemblies. Peaceful co-existence between a sovereign
   European parliament (not just a loose collection of national parties
   vaguely working together) AND a network of ârebel citiesâ (like
   Barcelona) as well as a wide-spread network of smaller assemblies: a
   âthird wayâ between representative democracy and direct, basic or
   âpresentistâ democracy. This is also a question for the âthought
   collectiveâ that Geert proposed.

   So much about the future, now about the past - the future of the past.
   I want to mention Boris Buden's contribution who spoke very strongly
   about the far-right government of Croatia, pointing towards their
   mission of historical revisionism. The discourse on âtotalitarianismâ
   that was developed in Germany during the 80's to relativize the German
   guilt-question, now has become a political weapon in the hands of the
   successors of their former collaborators. Buden's resumee: âIt is not
   yet clear anymore who won the second world war: ANOTHER PAST IS
   POSSIBLE!â It is clear who were the forces that had a vision for a
   democratic Europe: the antifascist resistance-movements. A movement to
   democratise Europe ought to be â no: IS an antifascist movement! It is
   the merit of Stephane Hessel to have called this legacy back into mind.
   Hannah Arendt had written about that long before. It was also her who
   worried that a pan-European movement would inevitably develop into an
   anti-American one. The anti-American affect was not very present at all
   at DiEM, that is already a lot taking into consideration how strong it
   is in some of the contemporary movements: the so-called âpeace-movement
   2.0â (around Ken Jebsen) in Germany has been mentioned before, there
   are other examples of right-wing movements who want to join forces with
   left-wing movements to form a so-called âQuerfrontâ (political
   crossover-front). DiEM might be an alternative to this
   left-right-crossovers by trying to open a âpopular front 2.0â from
   liberals and greens, socialdemocrats and socialists to the
   post-autonomous movements such as blockupy, anarchists with the little
   @) or Bookchin-style democratic federalists. I hope my impression is
   correct, because that is what is urgently needed from my point of view.

   A central theme was, of course, the ârefugee-crisisâ: Europe once was
   not a place to escape to, but to escape from. The concept of âfortress
   Europeâ has this background: Nazi-Germany at the end of WWII. In the
   late 70's a book was published by the new nazi-networks in Germany
   called âEurofascismâ which elaborated on how many European volunteers
   came to Germany to join the German army to fight against Russians and
   Americans. The author distanced himself from Hitler and most of the
   nazis for being too german-centric, but he praised some fringe of the
   German army to develop a âEuropean visionâ. The concept of âfortress
   Europeâ has to be seen as the manifestation of what Buden called
   âanother pastâ.

   Last, not least: EU-colonialism. It was a Belgian artist Sven
   Augustijnen who pointed out that the EU was not only founded by civil
   servants who made their experiences as administrators in Congo, but
   also the EU-flagg resembles the flagg of Belgian-Congo! The EU was a
   neocolonial project. And it is our duty to change it into a
   postcolonial one. For these reasons I am hoping for a DiEM25 meeting in
   the near future in Brussels and I would suggest to invite Sven
   Augustijnen. All in all there were not enough artists involved, I felt.
   But most of all: there was a real lack of involving
   Europeans-without-European-background for a movement that says: ANOTHER
   EUROPE IS POSSIBLE!

   2016-02-13 20:42 GMT+01:00 Felix Stalder :

 -BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
 Hash: SHA256

 On 2016-02-13 19:05, morlockel...@yahoo.com wrote:

 > The trend(s) that Europe is seeing itself dragged to are not result
 > of 'wrong' 

Re: notes from the DIEM25 launch

[morlockelloi]

> I think you are overrating technologies of control, neither the Stasi
> nor the KGB could save their systems from collapse (though the ruined
> a lot of lives).

I think that the conclusion that nothing really changed and that power 
grabbing and re-grabbing mechanisms are the same as they were (and will 
stay the same in indefinite future) is grossly wrong (as is the notion 
of immutability of 'human nature'.)


This school of thought is essentially waiting for the next successful 
'organizing of masses and revolt' to make things right again. The 
organizers have just to say the right words and tweets, publish the 
right pamphlet, which somehow they missed to figure out so far (in all 
previous failed revolts), but they will find the magic words eventually, 
and then the Revolution will happen. It's all about words.


It is going to be a long wait, as it's a classic example of Einstein's 
Insanity.



It really depends how you think repression works these days. If you
think that it's about repressing particularly dangerous individuals,
then both encryption (when they can be dealt with individually) and
large numbers (when they cannot be dealt with individually because you
cannot imprison, or shoot, a very large number of people) help. If you
think repression works by influencing the patterns of how people think
(e.g. creating an environment that incentivizes people to put all
emphasis on maximizing the number of useless "friends", or competing
in a rat race of faking their own happiness), then encryption won't
help much, but nothing much will.


Neither of the above. Targeted repressing or influencing is not 
relevant, it's too expensive and ineffective. That's smokescreen and 
useful for PR.


It works by inferring correct forecasts, from exposed communications, 
about group behaviours, before groups themselves understand them. The 
rest is easy. The biggest obstacle is that this is hard to understand by 
those who haven't been exposed to the data. It's not intuitive - it's 
statistics and number crunching, it's a new phenomenon. The way around 
is to look for secondary tell-tale signs, for example what's legal and 
what's illegal, what goes into standards, etc.


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Re: Life on Autopilot?

[John Hopkins]

Hallo Brian -- (sending this a third time to nettime and cc'ing it to you as it 
seems to be delayed by the moderators that are letting other things through...)


I had read about the Amurikan tourist in Iceland, and your notes, and thought to 
re-reflect/meditate on that from a personal/historical Icelandic context:


Naming of location is an old social process. It is an association of place with 
event (long- or short-term). Event may be natural or social. The naming process 
was once local, embodied, idiosyncratic, or personal. Local means that the 
naming is contextualized by a specific human experience of the place. Embodied 
means that the naming was propagated by verbal expression, and stored in human 
memory. Idiosyncratic in that it was the inverse of global — it was understood 
by and carried situated meaning for an individual or small grouping of people 
*who lived there*.


Located story-telling:

Physical signage is perhaps the first step in externalizing the naming process. 
As social structures become more and more global (de-localized), naming 
structures have evolved that are more and more 'universal'. (Exactly the same 
process as any kind of socially-driven standardization in engineering, language, 
and such). GPS, as a numeric cataloging of discrete points on a (socially) 
abstracted mathematical surface is a specific form of representation. Whydo we 
struggle to associate events with those places? Are we continuing the inexorable 
alienation process that separates our social self from non-standardize be-ing? 
Is there a praxis that can bring these two systems together without the seeming 
inevitable separation promulgated by a forced deference to standardization?


When I lived in Iceland, I quickly grew frustrated with the local cultural 
system for locating ones-self in the landscape. Coming from a long experience of 
DMA (Defense Mapping Agency)-based mapping and location activities —  USGS topo 
orienteering, geological and geophysical mapping, remote sensing (low-altitude 
to satellite-based) — the process of reading, comprehending, and makingthe leap 
from the ‘coordinated’ map to the territory was a learned but very comfortable 
intuitive process. Approximating distance, direction, and azimuth vectorsfrom 
paper to topography was practiced. Watching the stars and sun and making 
accurate estimations of location and time based on those observations wasalso 
standard. Iceland presented a radically different paradigm of location.


When I would come back to town after a weekend hiking trip, the occasion might 
arise that I would need to describe where I had been. A typical description 
would be:


"You know the Hellisheidi road?"

"Já"

"Well about four kilometers past the turnoff to Thorlákshöfn we turned due north 
and went along a valley on the west flank of a low ridge (the western flank of 
the mid-Atlantic Ridge!) for 6 kilometers and then crossed a small river and 
followed it west about a kilometer to the top of a valley leading southeast 
towards Hvergerdi."


This kind description, one which would have been enough to locate one quite 
accurately in the (contemporary socio-cultural) landscape/orienteering schema of 
the Sonoran Desert, never elicited much of a response. It was not until after 
some years of traveling in the remote landscapes of Iceland with native friends 
that I realized I could simply say that I had gone to Grensdalur. That localized 
name precisely located a particular place in what is often a disorienting 
fractal landscape. And indeed, the more I traveled in the country, the more I 
came to understand that virtually every location — creek, molehill, ridge, wash, 
cinder cone, hot spring, forested area, and (ancient or present) farm hada 
specific name. The more local the people one traveled with, the more precise the 
located naming (where each name itself represented a more-or-less comprehensive 
story that ‘mapped’ the human occupation of and interaction with thatlocation). 
The names came out of embedded human understanding of that exact place atthat 
exact time (or over a period of time).


One key to this anecdote is that this system cannot be simulated except at a 
loss. The loss comes from the separation by greater degrees of mediation between 
the embodied experience of the place and the means of social transferenceof the 
experience that ‘names’ it. It would seem that the embodied, lived experience is 
the primary source of placement, but equally important is the propagationmethod 
that locks a nam(e)ing / story to the place in the collective memory.


Using a newer system will not allow a utopian ‘return’ to another, older, 
system. They exist in parallel to some degree, and they are different paradigms 
and ultimately different living socio-cultural practices.


As to GPS:

"The global positioning system is all about self-reliance and helping people 
find their own way." -- from a NYT article shilling GPS units for Christmas in 2007


Wow, 

Re: notes from the DIEM25 launch

[David Garcia]

   Where is the British Labor party's new radical leadership under Corbyn
   in relationship to the Diem initiative?

   Is it my imagination or is it non-existent? This is not simply a
   parochial question as within months a

   generational in/out referendum will be taking place in the UK and the
   result could change the shape of the EU.

   It is at this key moment that the Corbyn team appears to be allowing
   the discussion of our membership to be conducted

   entirely in terms set by business leaders who are setting the agenda.
   Only the Greens under the redoubtable Caroline Lucas

   appears to have a sense of the importance of a wider, regional picture.



   Allthough the British Labor party are not as openly fractured on this
   issue the nature of their contribution

   to the campaign feels at best "luke warm", meekly trailing alongside
   the "in" campaign. No wonder as it is

   directed by former boss of Marks and Spencer, Stuart Rose, a fact that
   gives some idea of the parameters within

   which the case for remaining part of the EU will be made.

   I had hoped that possibly "Momentum" the organisation that represents
   the grass roots activists instrumental

   in bringing Corbyn to power, would seek to radicalise Labour's
   position. But in their list of campaigns on the

   Momentum website the European question appears entirely absent.

   It is worth recalling that Corbyn's mentor, Tony Benn, the leading
   standard-bearer for Labour's left in exile, was

   a long time opponant of Britain's membership. But although, after some
   delay, Corbyn agreed that Labor should

   campaign as part of the "in" group, though there is a strong sense of
   him "holding his nose".

   So I am struggling to see where Corbyn/Labor (as oppose to the Labour
   MPs who mostly detest the Corbyn

   insurgency) really stand on this. Lately he has been travelling accross
   Europe meeting fellow Socialists but I have

   no idea whether this extends to support or discussions that would
   connect him with Diem or whether the goal of

   democratising the asphyxiating European institutions is even on his
   radar. This would at least give Labor something

   other than folowing Cameron's fig leaf reforms to fight for. But my
   fear is that Corbyn's vision (on this issue) remains

   as parochial and "conservative" as ever and is worrying at a time when
   an opportuinity arises to be part of a radical

   European movement it looks like he just isnt that interested. I hope
   I'm wrong.

   ---
   d a v i d  g a r c i a

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