Peer2Politics

How will agriculture have to change if we are going to successfully navigate past Peak Oil and address climate change? A new film documentary, Voices of Transition, provides plenty of answers from Transition-oriented farmers in France, Great Britain and Cuba.

We recently featured Open State cc as a “Project of the Day” on the P2P blog. I first heard about it while watching Dominik Wind’s excellent presentation at this year’s Ouishare Fest. As I expressed in that earlier post, “In talking with others afterwards, we agreed that it had been amongst the most powerful. While other sharing initiatives mentioned environmental conservation as a “positive element” of the mutualization of resources, there was precious little specific talk about restoration or active environmental engagement. Dominic’s talk particularly hit home within this context, as he presented it from a very intimate, familiar standpoint.”

DIWO Co-op is a worker-owned co-op located in Madrid, Spain. Recently, they were featured on the Spanish TV program “La Aventura del Saber“. This program forms part of a larger project, “La Aventura de Aprender“, which analyses the ways in which communities learn from each other and give back to the Commons.

“Come Back” is a full-length documentary film detailing the aftermath of Spanish activist Enric Duran’s notorious action against 16 major banks. In case you’re not familiar with his act of “financial civil disobedience”, Duran attained roughly half a million Euros in bank loans and subsequently distributed the funds to support anti-capitalist activist movements. This documentary revisits the years-long preparation for the action itself, and interviews the various groups of activists who consequently benefited from the money. The action also led to the foundation of the revolutionary Catalan Integrated Cooperative, a transition-minded post-capitalist community, which is currently thriving. You can read more about Duran and the CIC in this recent interview with Duran, conducted by Michel Bauwens, John Restakis and Neal Gorenflo.

If you’ve ever contemplated organising a crowdfund campaign, this video lecture by Startmesomegood’s  Tom Dawkins is an excellent place to start. Tom makes the all important distinction between “crowd” and “peer” funding, arguing that most project-specific funding is partaken by the existing communities that propel those same projects. He also highlights the importance of narrative coherence and storytelling in any campaign.

Stefan Geyer interviews our good friend Josef Davies-Coates about open cooperatives, permaculture, United Diversity and the joys of being a cybrarian.

Journalist and activist David Bollier talks about his most recent book, co-written with legal scholar Burns Weston, GREEN GOVERNANCE: Ecological Survival, Human Rights, and the Law of the Commons. Then we re-air our 2010 interview with him about the digital commons, VIRAL SPIRAL.

We met Rachel O’Dwyer a couple of weeks back, at the Open Everything 2014 Convergence, celebrated in Cloughjordan Ecovillage, Ireland. We really enjoyed talking to Rachel and listening to her contributions in the Q&As and, in fact, we’re hoping to work with her in the near future. Until then, please check out this podcast, originally published as part of a series called “Contemporary Capitalism”

Work on developing Commons Based Reciprocity Licenses (or CBRLs, for short) continues apace here at the P2P Foundation. When speaking of the types of licenses, we often find it hard to explain how they fill a niche in the alt. license spectrum, falling somewhere between the straight up copyleft and the popular Creative Commons Non-Commercial License.

Alain Ambrosi from Remix the commons collective discussing in Finnish autonomous radio program Totuusradio (“The Truth Radio”) on Monday, 9th June 2014, about the commons, cultural revolution, and revolution in culture.

The problem with the Commons is that they can be enclosed. – Howard Rheingold

Reposted from the C-Realm podcast, KMO starts off with a discussion of David Graeber’s 2012 essay, “Of Flying Cars and the Declining Rate of Profit”, part of which we’ve recently featured of the blog.  The bulk of the Podcast comprises a fascinating conversation with G- Paul Blundell on the workings of his Commune.

Our friend Douglas Rushkoff is in fine form once again in this 15 Minute recap of some of the themes expressed in “Present Shock”. As he says in the blurb for the video: “I like this very brief talk I did for PSFK about Present Shock. It doesn’t explain the whole book, but it definitely conveys the “gist” of it, in presentist style. See what I mean.”

“KMO welcomes Michael Goodwin, author of Economix: How Our Economy Works (And Doesn’t Work) In Words and Pictures to the C-Realm to talk about money, history, the interplay between corporations and government, and Adam Smith’s actual words on the trustworthiness of capitalists. The conversation touches on the NYC soda ban, which Michael favors and KMO disdains. Michael will be the featured speaker at the third Full Circle Series event. KMO concludes with some remarks about the struggles of a small hog farmer in Michigan who is fighting against the Michigan state government, which favors corporate CAFO over the humane animal husbandry of small”

For over 17 years Furtherfield has been working in practices that bridge arts, technology, and social change. Over these years we have been involved in many great projects, and have collaborated with and supported a variety of talented people. Our artistic endeavors include net art, media art, hacking, art activism, hacktivism and co-curating. We have always believed that it is essential that the individuals at the heart of Furtherfield practice in arts and technology are engaged in critical enquiry. For us art is not just about running a gallery or critiquing art for art’s sake. The meaning of the art is in perpetual flux, and we examine its changing relationship with the human condition. Furtherfield’s role and direction as an arts collective is shaped by the affinities we identify among diverse independent thinkers, individuals and groups who have questions to ask in their work about the culture.