Society has already splintered – why shouldn’t the Lib Dems split?

 38 Degrees, Avaaz.org, choice, Legal Aid, Lib Dems, McMenu, NHS, on a high, politics, single-issue campaigning, Splinternet, Tories, welfare  No Responses »
Mar 012012
 

Labour List had an interesting post yesterday from the always attuned Mark Ferguson.  In it, he suggested there was serious evidence the Lib Dems would be splitting after the 2015 general election.  I hardly think this is surprising.  Society, after all, began to splinter quite a while ago.

And I don’t mean this is a negative way: this is not broken-backed Britain we’re dealing with but a simple recognition that the united society of yore was actually, probably, in reality, a bit of a lie anyway.  The media have always loved to create perceptions which hardly correspond to ordinary people’s lives.  Journalists have deadlines to meet – and a startling angle, however inaccurate it may be, makes their jobs, editors’ jobs and newsagents’ jobs so much easier to do.

On the occasion of the recent Netroots North West event, I came to the following conclusion:

[...] Coordinating the actions of thinking people never predisposed to singular mindspeaks was never going to be an easy objective to achieve.  We are on the left precisely because we often disagree with each other.  So are we prepared, after two years of Coalition ideology, to take our principles in our hands once more and entirely trust a political party?  Or is the way forward some other different (and splintered) approach far more suited to the instincts of the 21st century?

I don’t know.

But I am inclined – if you ask me to bet on the future – that the answer for the progressive left will lie one day far more in the latter than it ever could any longer lie in the former.

So what should we do in the face of Lib Dem initiatives such as these?  Is it our responsibility to circle like vultures, looking to take advantage of easy pickings?  I think quite roundly not.  The rumblings in the Lib Dems could quite easily be interpreted as being entirely due to the strains of Coalition government.  But it would be simplistic to come to such conclusions.  Society, far more widely, for far longer, has become far more discrete and disintegrated than ever before in recent British sociocultural history.

From the strains on the Union and those calls for Scottish independence to the very fact that the Tories were quite unable to win the last general election, the vultures – if we must see them that way – which are gathering round the British body politic should not be traditional political parties looking to carve up the pie that is the British electorate.  The success of single-issue campaigning – from organisations like Avaaz.org and 38 Degrees to the recent social media-engendered movements against the Welfare, NHS and Legal Aid bills currently going through Parliament – just goes to show that getting people involved isn’t, in the future, going to be simply the old trick of putting them all in the same leaflet-delivering sack.  The old political parties will still be needed – but just like the content industries struggling to understand the Internet, they will have to change their business models, downsize their reach and learn how to work with hundreds of different interests.

Interests, incidentally, they will not be able to control in the managerialist ways they have been used to.

If the Lib Dems do split, then, it will be a sign all the other parties should take note of.  To interpret it as a weakness of Lib Dem structure would be to sadly – as well as dangerously – mistake the effect for a cause.  All parties, however well led, will soon have to face the (for them) sickening reality that there are far more ways of getting involved in politics and democracy these days than either joining or even simply supporting one of the existing political groupings.

McMenu comes to politics?  Don’t knock it.  At least, not before you properly understand its implications.

Choice is a powerful harbinger of change.  And change, from now on, is what it’s all going to be about.

"ACTA: The new threat to the net"

 a con, ACTA, Avaaz.org, free-market capitalism, FreeTheInternet, Internet, PIPA, SOPA, unclassifiable  No Responses »
Jan 302012
 

I’ve just received this email from Avaaz.org – it’s well worth a read as it highlights how large corporations and wealthy interests continue to try and game the free markets and our wider economies in their favour:

Dear friends,

A new global treaty could allow corporations to police everything that we do on the Internet. Last week 3 million of us successfully pushed back the US censorship bills – if we act now, we can get the EU Parliament to bury this new threat to all of us: 

Last week, 3 million of us beat back America’s attack on our Internet! — but there is an even bigger threat out there, and our global movement for freedom online is perfectly poised to kill it for good.

ACTA — a global treaty — could allow corporations to censor the Internet. Negotiated in secret by a small number of rich countries and corporate powers, it would set up a shadowy new anti-counterfeiting body to allow private interests to police everything that we do online and impose massive penalties – even prison sentences — against people they say have harmed their business.

Europe is deciding right now whether to ratify ACTA — and without them, this global attack on Internet freedom will collapse. We know they have opposed ACTA before, but some members of Parliament are wavering – let’s give them the push they need to reject the treaty. Sign the petition — we’ll do a spectacular delivery in Brussels when we reach 500,000 signatures:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/eu_save_the_internet/?vl

It’s outrageous — governments of four-fifths of the world’s people were excluded from the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations and unelected bureaucrats have worked closely with corporate lobbyists to craft new rules and a dangerously powerful enforcement regime. ACTA would initially cover the US, EU and 9 other countries, then be rolled out across the world. But if we can get the EU to say no now, the treaty will lose momentum and could stall for good.

The oppressively strict regulations could mean people everywhere are punished for simple acts such as sharing a newspaper article or uploading a video of a party where copyrighted music is played. Sold as a trade agreement to protect copyrights, ACTA could also ban lifesaving generic drugs and threaten local farmers’ access to the seeds they need. And, amazingly, the ACTA committee will have carte blanche to change its own rules and sanctions with no democratic scrutiny.

Big corporate interests are pushing hard for this, but the EU Parliament stands in the way. Let’s send a loud call to Parliamentarians to face down the lobbies and stand firm for Internet freedom. Sign now and send to everyone you know:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/eu_save_the_internet/?vl

Last week, we saw the strength of our collective power when millions of us joined forces to stop the US from passing an Internet censorship law that would have struck at the heart of the Internet. We also showed the world how powerful our voices can be. Let’s raise them again to tackle this new threat.

With hope and determination,

Dalia, Alice, Pascal, Emma, Ricken, Maria Paz and the rest of the Avaaz team

More information:

European Parliament member resigns in ACTA protest
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-16757142

If You Thought SOPA Was Bad, Just Wait Until You Meet ACTA
http://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2012/01/23/if-you-thought-sopa-was-bad-just-wait-until-you-meet-acta/

ACTA vs. SOPA: Five Reasons ACTA is Scarier Threat to Internet Freedom
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/286925/20120124/acta-sopa-reasons-scarier-threat-internet-freedom.htm?cid=2

What’s Wrong With ACTA
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number10.1/whats-wrong-with-ACTA

The secret treaty: Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) and Its Impact on Access to Medicines
http://www.msfaccess.org/content/secret-treaty-anti-counterfeiting-trade-agreement-acta-and-its-impact-access-medicines


Support the Avaaz Community!
We’re entirely funded by donations and receive no money from governments or corporations. Our dedicated team ensures even the smallest contributions go a long way.

Get used to it, get real or get off?

 38 Degrees, Anthony Painter, Avaaz.org, CND, Greenpeace, in a hole, Labour, LabourList, political parties  No Responses »
Sep 052011
 

If I had to choose, I think right now I’d rather be the Salvation Army.  Anthony Painter would argue otherwise:

Labour rose from community social action and now that is to be recognised in its constitution. But there’s a problem in all this. Everything that Labour has secured has been through becoming an electoral force. It is not community action and election. It is social justice secured through election.

That is the means through which political parties secure their aims. That is why you have a Labour Party as opposed to just trade unions, christian social action, or community activism. So the proposed new Clause I, while containing worthy elements, just doesn’t get it right. Labour people are part of their local community in a myriad of ways and they bring that into the party. The party reaches out to the local community and serves its needs. It does so through representative democracy. Actually, the current Clause I is better because at least it makes it clear that Labour is a political party:

“Its purpose is to organise and maintain in Parliament and in the country a political Labour Party.”

(Incidentally, more opinion on the proposed new Clause 1 can be found in yesterday’s post over at Though Cowards Flinch.)

Meanwhile, Painter goes on to underline the following:

[...] A political party is a means not an end. To secure social justice? Sure. To serve local communities? Absolutely. Is power an end in itself? Absolutely not. That’s why we have a statement of our values in the constitution. It’s why we present ideas and policies in the form of a manifesto. You just muddy things if you make ‘collective action’ a foundational function of the party. It’s not the Salvation Army. It exists to advance a set of values through electoral success.

And yet I still find the idea of the Salvation Army more attractive.  Well.  Not the Salvation Army itself – but something more resiliently wholesome and acceptable in that grander moral scheme of things than the political parties we must choose from.

Painter’s argument seems to be that in the real world of Western politicking we must accept the dirtiness and dishonesty which all that – of late – would seem to lead to and inevitably invoke.  It’s as if political parties and sincerity cannot go together.  And it is therefore our responsibility as realistic participants to accept that dirty money, marketing-ridden lies and spin after spin after spin are simply going to be givens in our daily existences.

Our sad environments.

Our envelope-stuffing cannon-fodder foot-soldier lives.

Get used to it.  Get real.  Or get off.

That seems to be the message.

But surely that’s entirely missing the point. 

If people find the connect between organisations such as 38 Degrees and Avaaz.org so much more convincing and are prepared to sign up in their millions to defend a rolling sequence of causes, where exhortations to support political party campaigns rarely reach their tens of thousands, surely we need to ask the following question: what can we do to make political parties more 21st century and as effective organisational tools as these other campaigning institutions?

For 38 Degrees and Avaaz.org are not the single-issue groupings of yore – the CNDs and Greenpeaces that welded certain profiles in tight-knit enthusiasms.  They are, rather, hybrids – halfway between a Greenpeace and a political party.  A hybrid which is very 21st century – and properly designed to work as most of us need.

How, then, do we gauge exactly what 21st century could mean – and how might we design a new kind of political party on the back of it? 

This is a question which may lead us to conclude that the openness and sincerity, the absence or presence of dirty money and the general impression that everything’s above board are all elements we should continue to keep firmly in mind – as we decide how to properly recover the initiative which, arguably, Painter’s understandable realism has nevertheless led us to so comprehensively lose.

A damn good email from Avaaz.org

 Avaaz.org, on a high, social media, sorted  No Responses »
Apr 192011
 

This is social media at its best.  I received an email from Avaaz.org today.  A massive email.  The full text below:

Dear friends,

Avaaz is on fire. The pace of our activity, our growth, and our victories is intense! Scroll down through this email to see highlights of the last few months — it’s astonishing what we’re building and achieving together.

There are over 8.2 million of us now, growing by 100,000 people per week! Two weeks ago, 650,000 Indians joined our campaign for a powerful new anti-corruption bill, and we won!! We’re racking up major victories every month — fighting political corruption in Italy, media-corruption in the UK and Canada, environmental destruction in Brazil and more. And across the Middle East, brave democracy activists are getting vital equipment and communications support funded by donations from almost 30,000 of us.

From people-powered revolutions in the Middle East to national anti-corruption movements, you can feel it and see it everywhere today — democracy is on the march, and together we are beating the drum. The press is noticing in hundreds of stories, with one 2000 word feature in the Times of London calling us ‘One of the most important new voices on the global stage’. Here’s a quick summary of the last few months in our amazing people-powered community…

RECENT CAMPAIGN HIGHLIGHTS

Anti-Corruption Campaign Explodes in India
Two weeks ago, Anna Hazare, a 73 year old Gandhian activist, declared a fast unto death until the government agreed to let civil society draft a powerful new anti-corruption law. In just 36 hours, an unprecedented 500,000 Indians joined Avaaz’s campaign to support Hazare’s call for sweeping reform. In 4 days, the public outcry forced India’s government to sign a written submission to all of Hazare’s demands! We won!! Today, a new India is being born — and just as last year in Brazil with landmark anti-corruption legislation, Avaaz is helping to breathe life into it.
 
Breaking the Middle East Blackout
Funded by donations from almost 30,000 Avaazers, an Avaaz team is working closely with the leadership of democracy movements in Syria, Yemen, Libya and more to get them high-tech phones and satellite internet modems, connect them to the world’s top media outlets, and provide communications advice. We’ve seen the power of this engagement — where our support to activists has created global media cycles with footage and eyewitness accounts that our team helps distribute to CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera and others. The courage of these activists is unbelievable — a skype message from one last week read ‘state security searching the house, my laptop battery dying, if not online tomorrow I’m dead or arrested’. He’s ok, and together we’re helping to get his and many other voices out to the world.
Huge Win on Hilton Hotels vs the Rape Trade
24 hours after 317,000 Avaazers called on the Hilton CEO to sign a code of conduct on the rape trade or face hard-hitting ads in his hometown, we got a frantic call from his vice-president. ‘You’re going to WHAT?’, she asked. Hilton had dragged its feet for months. We gave them four days, and they signed. Now 180,000 hotel employees will be trained to spot and prevent the horror of of sex slavery of women and girls.
UK — The People vs Murdoch’s Media Monopoly
Global media kingpin Rupert Murdoch’s bid to tighten his stranglehold over the UK press faces a relentless challenge from Avaaz members, who’ve run adverts, staged public stunts, delivered massive petitions, and organised phone-ins week upon week in an effort to safeguard public debate. An Avaaz-commissioned independent poll found that only 5% of Brits take Murdoch’s side — and new criminal charges for hacking politicians’ phones are further eroding the momentum of the Murdoch media machine. The government has been forced to extract concessions from Murdoch, and has now delayed a decision on the deal — costing Murdoch billions and giving us more time to stop him for good.

Libyan Massacre Prevented — one million messages to the Security Council
Our messages called for sanctions, asset freezes, and an internationally enforced no-fly zone to protect civilians in Libya. Our voices got through: the UN Ambassador from the US, one of the last hold-outs to back the motion, publicly thanked us for our messages. International action began just as Qaddafi’s tanks encircled the rebel-held city of Benghazi — and is widely credited with preventing a likely massacre of large numbers of civilians.
Berlusconi’s Censorship Bill, Defeated
Italy’s Silvio Berlusconi, facing souring political winds and a trial for statutory rape expected to coincide with general elections, tried to force a censorship law through parliament that would have silenced his critics on independent TV shows. But Italian Avaaz members fought back — powering a 70,000-strong petition and thousands of phone calls to parliament at the crucial moment that helped swing the final vote. The law was blocked, in a huge victory for Avaaz members and for the future of Italian democracy and free speech.
The ‘Angel’ Tackling Corruption in Spain
This week a Spanish newspaper trumpeted Avaaz as its ‘Angel of the Day’ for battling corruption — one highlight of a nationwide torrent of media coverage of Avaaz’s 100,000-Spaniard petition and theatrical stunts calling for Spanish politicians with records of corruption to be barred from upcoming elections. The rising pressure is fuelling a national debate on corruption, and political parties are feeling the heat.
Brazil: Blocking an Amazon-Destroying Mega-Dam
The proposed Belo Monte dam complex, an environmental catastrophe in the making, has been delayed — thanks in part to the spectacular delivery led by indigenous tribes-people of more than 600,000 petition signatures from Avaazers in Brazil and around the world. The Organization of American States has now joined the opposition to the dam, saying it violates human rights — and the momentum is building to cancel it and focus on clean renewable energy sources instead.
A Million-Strong Swarm to Save the Bees
Over a million people, including 200,000 in France, signed an explosive petition to ban pesticides that are mass-killing bees the world over — and, standing with a team of French beekeepers, delivered the petition to the French Agriculture Minister at a major conference. The campaign continues, building pressure for action in France, the EU, and around the globe.
Victory Over ‘False and Misleading’ News in Canada
Conservative officials in Canada have been working to launch a Murdoch-style propagandistic TV network — but in February, when they moved to strike national journalism standards against false or misleading broadcasts, they brought down a firestorm of opposition. 100,000 Canadian Avaazers signed in opposition, and the outrageous proposal to undermine balanced reporting was withdrawn.
Worldwide Solidarity for Egypt
In the darkest hours of their struggle for liberation from Mubarak, Egyptians told the world they needed solidarity — and Avaaz members answered the call. 600,000 of us around the world signed messages of support carried by Al Jazeera broadcasts straight into Tahrir Square — helping to sustain a movement fueled by hope through some of it’s darkest and most uncertain hours.
Mubarak’s Billions, Frozen
When Mubarak left power in Egypt, he tried to take his stolen fortune with him — but within days, more than half a million of us petitioned the G20′s Finance Ministers to immediately freeze his billions, delivering the message with a ‘protest pyramid’ built opposite the Eiffel Tower during the ministers’ meeting. In the weeks following, the EU and countries around the world agreed to freeze the assets of Mubarak and his top aides.
Under Pressure, South Africa Begins to Confront ‘Corrective Rape’
When a local group in South Africa launched a petition demanding that their government address ‘corrective rape’ — the sickening epidemic of rapes of lesbian women to ‘turn them straight’ — they were, at first, ignored. But when their petition reached 170,000 signatures, the government noticed — and now, with nearly a million of us signed on and massive media attention, the pressure for meaningful action is becoming unstoppable.
Delivering 1 million voices for food safety
Before the ink even dried on an exciting new tool for direct democracy in Europe, over one million people from every country in the EU took part in the first-ever European Citizens’ Initiative — a process where people can lodge official petitions that require a response. Avaaz members called for an immediate freeze on genetically modified crops entering the EU until objective studies free from industry influence could show they were safe. The initiative had a spectacular delivery directly to the EU Commission that flooded the media with coverage and sent a clear message to officials.
… And All of This is 100% Funded by Avaaz Members Worldwide!
All of these campaigns are demonstrations of the promise of people power — of what’s possible when we come together to do what’s right. And all of them were funded entirely by small donations from Avaaz members, including almost 250,000 of us who have donated to Avaaz campaigns and 10,000 of us who have become ‘sustainers’ and donated a few dollars or euros a week or month to cover all of Avaaz’s core costs — click here to join in giving. Because of these small donations, Avaaz doesn’t have to answer to corporate sponsors, large individual donors, or government grantmakers. Instead, Avaaz is accountable only to its members, and all our dreams of a better world for all.

With hope and enormous appreciation for the service of every person in this amazing community,

Ricken, Ben, Saloni, Alice, Graziela, David, Shibayan, Morgan, Tihomir, Emma, Giulia, Rewan, Kien, Luis, Alex, Mia, Stephanie, Milena, Heather, Veronique, Iain, Pascal, Benjamin, Yura, Laura, Saravanan, JC, Alma, Dominick, Brianna, Sam, Mohammad, Tricia, Janet, Laryn, Aleksandr, Maksim, Denis and all the volunteers, translators, and all the members of the Avaaz team. 

SOURCES:

Avaaz feature article, Times of London
http://avaaz.org/times_of_london_feature

India corruption campaign coverage, The Hindu
http://avaaz.org/the_hindu_hazare_launch

Hilton joins anti-trafficking agreement, ECPAT-USA
http://avaaz.org/ecpat_release

Murdoch poll coverage, The Guardian
http://avaaz.org/murdoch_poll_guardian

‘Angel of the Day’ article, La Republica (in Spanish)
http://avaaz.org/republica_angel_of_the_day

European Citizens’ Initiative lauded, Le Monde (in French)
http://avaaz.org/le_monde_eci

See more Avaaz media hits here:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/media.php

Avaaz also partially funded and housed a project which conducted the first-ever public opinion survey of refugees from the brutal conflict in Darfur, Sudan. Here’s the poll result:
http://avaaz.org/darfur_report


Support the Avaaz community! We’re entirely funded by donations and receive no money from governments or corporations. Our dedicated team ensures even the smallest contributions go a long way — donate here.