Search results for 'activism'

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Chelsea Manning Begins Hunger Strike to Protest Bullying by Prison and US Government 

Today, [September 9] after years of requesting the care she needs for gender dysphoria, Chelsea Manning has released a statement about the start of her hunger strike.

Chelsea is demanding written assurances from the Army she will receive all of the medically prescribed recommendations for her gender dysphoria and that the "high tech bullying" will stop. "High tech bullying," is what Chelsea describes as "the constant, deliberate and overzealous administrative scrutiny by prison and military officials."

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Out now: Art Leaks Gazette 3: Artists Against Precarity and Violence 

Resistance Strategies, Unionizing, and Coalition Building in a Time of Global Conflict and Contradiction.

This third issue of the ArtLeaks Gazette brings together art workers dealing with these urgent questions about models of organizations, unionizing, and strategies of resistance, and helping us to illuminate new ways of production and coalition building in international and local environments.

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Justice for Cecily 

Cecily McMillan was brutally arrested at an event marking the 6 month anniversary of Occupy Wall Street on March 17, 2012. In the course of her arrest she sustained a violent police beating resulting in bruised ribs and a seizure. Cecily was hospitalized for those injuries. The egregious incident received extensive media coverage. Cecily was later charged and convicted with felony assault of a police officer, Assault 2nd degree, a Class D felony in NY, which carries a sentence of up to 7 years in prison.
A support campaign for the Occupy Wall Street organizer and activist is raising media attention and financial support.

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Blackout-proof the protests 

"Dear friends,

Across the Middle East -- in Bahrain, Libya, Yemen, and more countries every day -- autocratic regimes are trying to crush unprecedented peaceful protests with brutality and blackouts. These countries are poised on the brink between liberation and enormous bloodshed -- and the protesters' ability to reach the eyes of the world could determine the outcomes.

Avaaz is working urgently to "blackout-proof" the protests -- with secure satellite modems and phones, tiny video cameras, and portable radio transmitters, plus expert support teams on the ground -- to enable activists to broadcast live video feeds even during internet and phone blackouts and ensure the oxygen of international attention fuels their courageous movements for change."

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No Border Campaign / Network 

The no border network is a tool for all groups and grass root organizations who work on the questions of migrants and asylum seekers in order to struggle alongside with them for freedom of movement, for the freedom for all to stay in the place which they have chosen, against repression and and the many controls which multiply the borders everywhere in all countries. This network is different from lobbying groups and NGOs because it is based on groups of grass root activists and intends to stay so. The coordination between the groups is done through two meetings every year and a working list on e-mail.

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Bank of America still not yours... yet. 

April 19, 2012 - FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ON-THE-BRINK BANK STILL NOT YOURS (YET)
Dow Jones posts fake release for two hours; bank gets fake website blacklisted, briefly

Bank of America executives, investors, and opponents alike reacted with surprise to yesterday's news - posted for two hours on Dow Jones Newswire and elsewhere - that the mammoth financial institution, realizing it was heading for a taxpayer bailout, was asking Americans to start thinking about what they'll do with the bank once they own it, and to start advertising that vision too.

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WikiLeaks: The Spy Files 

Mass interception of entire populations is not only a reality, it is a secret new industry spanning 25 countries.

It sounds like something out of Hollywood, but as of today, mass interception systems, built by Western intelligence contractors, including for 'political opponents' are a reality.

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Utopian Promises-Net Realities 

The need for net criticism certainly is a matter of overwhelming urgency. While a number of critics have approached the new world of computerized communications with a healthy amount of skepticism, their message has been lost in the noise and spectacle of corporate hype-the unstoppable tidal wave of seduction has enveloped so many in its dynamic utopian beauty that little time for careful reflection is left. Indeed, a glimpse of a possibility for a better future may be contained in the new techno-apparatus, and perhaps it is best to acknowledge these possibilities here in the beginning, since Critical Art Ensemble (CAE) has no desire to take the position of the neoluddites who believe that the techno-apparatus should be rejected outright, if not destroyed. To be sure, computerized communications offer the possibility for the enhanced storage, retrieval, and exchange of information for those who have access to the necessary hardware, software, and technical skills. In turn, this increases the possibility for greater access to vital information, faster exchange of information, enhanced distribution of information, and cross cultural artistic and critical collaborations. The potential humanitarian benefits of electronic systems are undeniable; however, CAE questions whether the electronic apparatus is being used for these purposes in the representative case, much as we question the political policies which guide the net's development and accessibility.

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We Make Radical Media You Make Adverts 

A corporate media group has trade-marked the phrase "Radical Media" and is trying to ban Peace news, New Internationalist, Red Pepper and others from using it in the title of a conference?

Following a recent Diary item in the Guardian, indymedia is today reporting on the story that a corporate media group has forced us to change the name of our conference. Readers are invited to attend a demonstration outside @Radical Media's London office, Tuesday, 3rd May 2011, 5pm, London W1T 7AA.

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Art Rant 

Geert Lovink wrote:

A gap is now in danger of getting bigger: old school video journalism, done by political activists, versus a thriving technology based network of media artists. Complaints about an 'eighties' style of amateurism of video works are on the rise. On the other hand, a depolitization of electronic arts is apparent as well. Or do we speak here about a mutual non-understanding? A return of the outworn difference between activist and artist? Can the concept of 'tactical media' present itself as a easy synthesis?

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Electronic Civil Disobedience, Simulation, and the Public Sphere 

What counts in the long run is the "use" one makes of a theory....We must start from existing practices in order to retrace the fundamental flaws.
--Felix Guattari, "Why Marx and Freud No Longer Disturb Anyone"

In 1994, when Critical Art Ensemble first introduced the idea and a possible model of electronic civil disobedience (ECD) as another option for digital resistance, the collective had no way of knowing what elements would be the most practical, nor did it know what elements would require additional explanation. After nearly five years of field testing of ECD by various groups and individuals, its information gaps have become a little more obvious and can finally be addressed.

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World Charter of Free Media 

Tunis March 2015
We, communicators and activists committed to multiple emancipatory communication practices across different regions of the world, freely assembled in March 2015 in Tunis, on the occasion of the 4th World Forum on Free Media, organized in the framework of the World Social Forum 2015, adopt this World Charter of Free Media, as the result of our collective reflection initiated in 2013, and as an expression of our resistance, and our commitment to just and emancipatory communication, and our engagement with world developments and humanity.

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