A Call For Projects & Solutions

February 13, 2014 (LocalOrg/Tony Cartalucci) - After much neglect, it is time to start putting effort back into LocalOrg - responses to the work featured here throughout the past have been both positive and enthusiastic. People are beginning to realize what the problems are but are now wondering what to do about them. People are hungry for real solutions - not politics, not elections, not even mere protests.

Image: Building local institutions to solve local problems, of the people, by the people, for the people. 

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Starting with organic rice farming initiatives in Thailand featured this month - LocalOrg will begin examining and promoting projects from around the world that focus on pragmatism and localism. If you have a project or proposal, please send it either through the contact form here, or to cartalucci@gmail.com.

To give readers some ideas of what sort of projects, proposals, or concepts LocalOrg is looking for, consider the following categories:

• DIY projects like found on Instructables or Hack-a-Day
• Opensource software/hardware
• Hackerspaces/Makerspaces/FabLabs 
• DIYBio
• Community gardens 
• Organic farming/hydroponics
• Farm-to-city markets
• Farmers' Markets 
• Charity/social welfare 
• Health/Medicine 
• Infrastructure 
• New technology 
• Cottage industries
• Open course education
• Opensource entertainment and arts

There is no preferred format for submissions - simply state whether you would like to use your real name or a pen name. This is not an all inclusive list. All proposals and projects will be reviewed. An upcoming feature includes a reader-submitted concept regarding permaculture vs. GMO mega-agriculture, including a look at practices in Thailand and some thoughts from a biotech expert. 

The War on 3D Printing Begins

May 11, 2013 (LocalOrg) - It was inevitable. A technology like 3D printing that essentially puts cheap labor, manufacturing, and retail all in the same place - upon one's desktop - spells the absolute, utter and permanent end to the monopolies and unwarranted power and influence of the corporate-financier elite who have lorded over humanity since human civilization began - a permanent end the elite will fight against with the total summation of their ill-gotten power and influence.

The pretext being used to begin this war, is a 3D printed gun built and demonstrated by Defense Distributed in Austin, Texas. After designing, printing out, and firing the 3D printed gun, the US State Department demanded that the designs, distributed for free on the Internet, be taken down - claiming tenuously that by posting the designs on the Internet, arms export bans may have been violated - this the same government that is on record, openly shipping arms, cash, and military equipment to its own listed terrorist organizations from the Mujahedeen e-Khalq (MEK or MKO) in Iraq and Iran, to the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) in Libya, to Al Qaeda's Syrian franchise, Jabhat al-Nusra.

In the Independent's article, "US government orders Cody Wilson and Defense Distributed to remove blueprint for 3D-printed handgun from the web," it's reported that: 

The US government has demanded the removal of online files which allow users to 3D-print their own unregistered gun at home.

The blueprint has so far been downloaded more than 100,000 times since Defense Distributed - which spent a year designing the “Liberator” handgun - made it available online.

Last week Defense Distributed built the gun from plastic on an industrial 3D printer bought on eBay for $8,000 (£5,140), and fired it.

The Office of Defense Trade Controls Compliance wrote to the company's founder Cody Wilson demanding the designs be "removed from public access" until he could prove he had not broken laws governing shipping weapons overseas.

3D Printing: The Sum of All Corporate-Fascist Fears 

NDItech: In Bed with CISPA Sponsors, Seeks Hacktivists to Spread Corporate Fascism Worldwide

Seeking to co-opt the tech community, NDItech opens doors and taxpayers' pocketbooks to lure in talent. 

Image: A visual representation of the corporate-financier interests represented on the National Endowment for Democracy's (NED) board of directors. NDItech falls under the umbrella of NED. While NED and NDItech pose as fighting for "democracy," their corporate-financier interests lie poorly disguised just beneath the surface. Surely Goldman Sachs, Exxon, and the SOPA-sponsoring US Chamber of Commerce don't care about democracy or freedom - on the Internet or elsewhere. 

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May 1, 2013 (LD) - The National Democratic Institute (NDI) is one of many tentacles descending from the US State Department and its National Endowment for Democracy (NED) front. Despite NED and NDI's lofty mission statements about "promoting democracy worldwide," the interests they represent are clearly those of the Fortune 500, including big-oil, retail, media, banking, and defense. This convergence of corporate-financier interests pervade the US government from the top, via corporate-funded policy think tanks that direct US policy at home and abroad, and out the bottom through corporate-chaired and funded NGOs that oversee the execution of this policy.

NED, for example includes the following directors:

William Galston: Brookings Institution (board of trustees can be found on page 35 here).
Moises Naim: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (corporate funding here).
Robert Miller: corporate lawyer.
Larry Liebenow: US Chamber of Commerce (a chief proponent of SOPA, ACTA, and CISPA), Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE).
Anne-Marie Slaughter: US State Department, Council on Foreign Relations (corporate members here), director of Citigroup, McDonald's Corporation, and Political Strategies Advisory Group.
Richard Gephardt: US Representative, Boeing lobbyist, Goldman Sachs, Visa, Ameren Corp, and Waste Management Inc lobbyist, corporate consultant, consultant & now director of Ford Motor Company, supporter of the military invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003.
Marilyn Carlson Nelson: CEO of Carlson, director of Exxon Mobil.
Stephen Sestanovich: US State Department, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, CFR.
Judy Shelton: director of Hilton Hotels Corporation & Atlantic Coast Airlines.

Does Boeing, Goldman Sachs, Exxon, and the SOPA, ACTA, CISPA-sponsoring US Chamber of Commerce care about promoting democracy abroad? Or in expanding their corporate-financier interests under the guise of promoting democracy? Clearly the latter. 

Earth Hour 2013 - Still a Despicable Hoax (repost)

Earth Hour: A Despicable Hoax
"Earth Hour" special by Tony Cartalucci,

Originally posted March 26, 2011 - Nothing embodies the corporate hijacked environmental movement more than the despicable hoax that is "Earth Hour." Once a year, we are bombarded worldwide by a feel-good advertising campaign on TV, radio, billboards, fliers, in the newspaper and in every other conceivable way for an event that involves turning off the lights for one hour per year, to "take a stand against climate change."

Image: What Al Gore doesn't tell you: CO2 has been 1000's of times higher during the Cretaceous period and sea levels have been so high North America featured an inland sea. Antarctica was covered in temperate forests and dinosaurs.

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Not only has science failed to prove that anthropogenic climate change is happening - to the extent proponents like the White House's John Holdren have relabeled "Global Warming" to "Global Climate Change" to the now most ambiguous version, "Global Climate Disruption," but the evidence suggests that the "scientists" peddling this theory have defrauded the public again and again. Worth noting, is that John Holdren himself is a creature of Harvard's Belfer Center, which is named in fact, after corrupt oil tycoon Robert Belfer. Much of the policy coming out of the Belfer Center ends up in front of delegates attending the very fraudulent and ineffective climate change summits held, most recently in Copenhagen and Cancun.

Climate Change: The Folly of "Demanding" Action

February 19, 2013 (LocalOrg) - At a recent Washington climate change rally, who is demanding action? Demanding action from whom? What action?

In reality, the diminutive, corporate-media inflated rally in DC was organized by the very corporate-financier special interests that have been wreaking terrible havoc on both the human population and the environment of this planet for decades. They are demanding action from a government that already represents their interests. Their demands are policies, particularly financial tax schemes that they themselves created and are are best positioned to benefit from while making no discernible impact on the very real environmental threats we collectively face.

Image: Rampant CO2, high global temperatures, rising sea levels. A look into the future? No, this is Mesozoic North America 250-65 million years ago. Climate change has happened long before humanity's emergence, it will happen again, with or without us. The key to preserving what we as humans value, including not only our cities, towns, and countrysides, but also ecosystems and species - is to devise technical, pragmatic solutions to ensure no matter what the climate does, we can not only survive, but thrive.

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It was an exercise in manufacturing consent for policies already long-ago devised and simply waiting for piecemeal implementation. 

Yahoo! News' report, "40,000 People Reported at Climate Change Rally," mentions 350.org as one of the rally's organizers and key representatives. Upon 350.org's "Friends & Allies" page, an extensive list of human rights and environmental racketeers can be found, all either linked, or directly connected to big-oil, big-finance, big-agri, and big-defense.

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and its "Earth Hour" for instance, includes Fortune 500 corporations (page 24, .pdf) (and here) Walmart, Unilever, Coca-Cola, draconian intellectual property racketeer Christopher Dodd representing the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) as a director, Bank of America, Google, and others.

Quickest Way to Kill 3D Printing - Get the Government Involved

February 14, 2013 (LocalOrg) - The US State of the Union speech made by US President Barack Obama excited many across the tech community. Obama mentioned 3D printing as one of several emerging technologies that might help revitalize US industry.

Image: A screenshot taken from the "enhanced broadcast" of President Obama's State of the Union speech. Seen napping and slumped in their seats, are the vanguards of corporate special interests, ever ready in bi-partisan fashion to betray their voters in the service of big-business special interests, and who, along with whoever occupies the Oval Office, are the cause of America's decline in the first place.

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Aaron Swartz protesting SOPA. (Demand Progress)

Unfortunately, what many in the tech community seem not to realize, or have forgotten in their moment of presidential aggrandizing, is that Obama represents bi-partisan servitude to corporate-financier interests, the very interests that off-shored the planet's most advanced and capable manufacturing base in human history in the first place. They also seem to have quickly forgotten that additionally, Obama represents the same big-business interests that hounded one of the tech community's own, Aaron Swartz, literally to death in an intellectual property witch-hunt that allegedly drove Swartz to commit suicide.

The PirateBox & Internet Freedom

January 21, 2013 (LocalOrg) - There has been a big response regarding the PirateBox mentioned in "WiFi + USB Drive = Your Own Mini-Internet (Freedom)" ranging from mostly excitement to some confusion and many questions in between - especially on how to get involved.

The PirateBox is software that can be used to turn your WiFi enabled computer into a local router. It can also be used to make actual "PirateBoxes," which are stand alone devices that likewise create a local network. The advantage of a local network, not connected to the Internet is that you can file share and communicate your way around the draconian restrictions and regulations being increasingly put into place on the Internet.

Q: How is this different than my router-based LAN?

A: PirateBox doesn't require a router. It takes any device with a WiFi modem, and turns it into the router. This includes mobile devices - meaning that unlike your typical router, it can create a network anywhere you can carry your mobile device - from your home or office, to a train, or even on a jetliner.

Additionally, any device wishing to connect to your local network, doesn't need to be configured. The PirateBox network shows up in your WiFi connection list like any WiFi network you would normally encounter (like in a cafe).

You simply connect to that network, open your web browser, and the PirateBox interface shows up as your homepage where you can share files and chat inside the browser - users do not need to install or configure anything at all on their computers - and it works across platforms (Apple, Windows, Linux). If you want to connect to the Internet, you simply open up your WiFi connection list again, and pick the network you usually use for the Internet. Switching back and forth takes seconds.

WiFi + USB Drive = Your Own Mini-Internet (Freedom)

Editor's Note: There seems to be some confusion over the concept of the PirateBox. The entire point is not to be connected to the controlled, restricted, & monopolized Internet, and begin using local alternatives leveraging technology to go around draconian laws and regulations. 

 

A PirateBox is the smallest, but easiest way to connect with others locally and wirelessly,as well as anonymously, without connecting at all to the Internet. It is the first step to building larger local mesh networks, and eventually a parallel Internet built using mesh architecture designed, maintained, and used by the people, for the people - no government or corporate infrastructure would be required, and the means of monopolizing and controlling a decentralized people's Internet made nearly impossible. 

Think of the PirateBox as a prototype of a building block for something bigger and more significant. In the fight for freedom, we will not find complete solutions, prepackaged and waiting for us on the shelves of WalMart. We will have to research and develop our own solutions, patiently, incrementally, and in collaboration with our friends, family, neighbors and local community. Our problems were not created overnight, neither will the solutions. -Tony Cartalucci.

 

January 19, 2013 (LocalOrg-Tony Cartalucci) - Worried about draconian Internet laws? Creeping surveillance? The inability to share with others without being criminalized? The Internet is still a tool of tremendous power, but a deep rot has set in. We have caught it early and we are fighting to stop this rot, but there are other options we can begin exploring to hedge our bets, enhance our current efforts of fighting against corporate monopolies, and eventually, build an Internet of the people, by the people, for the people - big-telecom monopolies not welcomed.

Image: The PirateBox in use on a handheld device. Once the PirateBox is up and running, either on a standalone device like the one pictured to the right (background), or on your laptop as described here, it will appear as another WiFi network for people in range to connect to. Once connected files can be freely shared, and there is even a chat client users can communicate with. It is just as useful as a file server for a small business, as it is for circumventing the draconian criminalization of Internet file sharing. 

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3D Printed Guns Render Gun Control Moot

January 17, 2013 (LocalOrg-Tony Cartalucci) - Forbes has recently published an article about New York Congressman Steve Israel's promise to ban 3D printed high capacity ammunition magazines. The congressman's comments come after Defense Distributed, an open source DIY gunsmith group working to manufacture both guns and their accessories using 3D printing technology, successfully printed and tested a 30-round AR-15 magazine.

Congressman Israel stated:

“Background checks and gun regulations will do little good if criminals can print high-capacity magazines at home. 3-D printing is a new technology that shows great promise, but also requires new guidelines. Law enforcement officials should have the power to stop high-capacity magazines from proliferating with a Google search.”

It seems that Congressman Israel doesn't realize that background checks and gun regulations both in the United States and just over America's border with Mexico, already don't work - without advanced manufacturing and open source paradigms even playing a role. Criminals intent on breaking laws have existed since laws themselves. Additionally, technology like 3D printing, as Forbes correctly points out, will pose a serious challenge to gun control advocates in terms of enforcement. Forbes stated specifically: 

"But for either [Congresswoman Diane]  Feinstein or Israel’s bill, the same problem arises: How to enforce that prohibition in every garage and workshop in America that houses a 3D printer?"

Fighting Back Against the "Intellectual Property" Racket

Aaron Swartz protesting SOPA. (Demand Progress)

January 13, 2013 (LocalOrg/Tony Cartalucci) - In your standard dictatorship, activists are brought out back and shot.

In the United States' crypto-dictatorship, activists are bullied by the state until they go bankrupt, are buried under a mountain of legal woes, are publicly discredited or humiliated, or as in the case of activist and Reddit co-founder Aaron Swartz, made to crack under the constant pressure, and commit suicide.

While superficially the United States may seem more progressive, a dead activist bullied to death for his political views, is a dead activist - whether it was a bullet in the back of the head by SS officers, or a mountain of litigation dumped upon someone by the US Department of Justice.

We are All Aaron Swartz.

Swartz was an active opponent of the media industry's various assaults on Internet freedom and sharing, including the scandalous SOPA/PIPA and ACTA bills. He was the director of Demand Progress, which pursued the following campaigns:

1. Congress Wants To Make Streaming A Felony

The big business lobbyists who are behind the Internet Blacklist Bill are already making the sequel. The “Ten Strikes” bill would make it a felony to stream copyrighted content — like music in the background of a Youtube video, movies and TV shows — more than ten times.

Click here to read the text of the bill and voice your opposition.

How to End the "Gun Debate" Forever

UN's 2011 Homicide Study - .pdf available here.

January 11, 2013 (LD) Violence is driven by socioeconomic and cultural factors, not the mere presence of firearms. The statistics clearly show this, and the very same statistics manipulated by so-called "gun control advocates" irrefutably contradicts their agenda's premise when put into proper context. Worse yet, the obsession over gun control sidelines the urgency needed to address issues like poor education and dismal economic prospects for those living in the most destitute and violence-stricken neighborhoods in our country.   

UK vs. Japan: 2 Unarmed Societies, 2 Vastly Different Homicide Rates.

Despite both nations being disarmed and having almost no "gun-related homicides," according to UN statistics*, Japan and the UK still have an astronomical gap in homicide rates. Why? A visit to either country reveals an entirely different culture, education system, infrastructure, and socioeconomic paradigm. This is why despite Japan having a much larger population, even total homicides are lower than the comparatively more violent but less populated United Kingdom - with homicide rates in the UK nearly 3 times higher than those in Japan.

According to the UN's study, which includes the most recent annual data available, Japan, with a population of roughly 130 million, had a mere 506 homicides over the stretch of a single year. Conversely, the UK, with less than half of Japan's population (53 million) had 722 homicides. The rates per 100,000 people for Japan and the UK are 0.4 and 1.2 respectively. The UK, despite being an unarmed population, and having virtually no gun violence, still has 3 times the murder rate than the nation of Japan. Those that are murdered in the UK or Japan, are just as dead as any human being murdered by a gun in the United States. And clearly, this indicates that the presence of guns, or their banning, is not a significant factor driving homicides and violence.  

Tell the System: You're Not Getting the Guns. Period.

Draw the line - have the local organizational capacity to back it up.

December 18, 2012 (LD) - It goes without saying that the mass media lies - they lied about Iraq in the lead up to a war that in total, killed over 2 million people. They lied about Libya, they are lying about Syria. They lie about vaccines and intentionally try to sell parents the idea of purposefully injecting their children with mercury. Their lies have a single purpose - to serve the special interests that hand them their talking points.

Now the mass media is lying about gun violence. The New York Times wrote a particularly outrageous piece titled "In Gun Debate, a Misguided Focus on Mental Illness," where a "medical doctor" is given space to willfully bend statistics to make the case for banning guns, period.

Unfortunately for this "medical doctor" who claims that the vast majority of the mentally ill do not commit violent acts, the last several mass shootings in the US were committed by mentally ill individuals, all confirmed to be on psychotropic medication. Shooter Adam Lanza was said by relatives (needs to be confirmed by police/autopsy) to be on Fanapt (Iloperidone) - an anti-psychotic prescribed for people suffering from schizophrenia. The US National Institute of Health describes schizophrenia in its Iloperidone drug profile as:

"...a mental illness that causes disturbed or unusual thinking, loss of interest in life, and strong or inappropriate emotions). Iloperidone is in a class of medications called atypical antipsychotics. It works by changing the activity of certain natural substances in the brain."

Clearly a suicidal mass killer who targets little children is a mentally unhinged individual who has "lost interest in life" and was directed by "strong or inappropriate emotions." Like Lanza, the Aurora Colorado theater shooter was also on  prescription medication - Vicodin (Hydrocodone). Before that, the Tuscon Arizona shooter, Jared Loughner was not only mentally ill - but spent most of his trial on heavy medication. Likewise, the Fort Hood shooter, Major Nidal Malik Hasan had shoeboxes stuffed with prescription medications he had prescribed for himself (he was a US Army psychiatrist).

Solutions: 3D Printing

December 19, 2012 (Corbett Report)

Published on Dec 17, 2012

SHOW NOTES AND MP3: http://www.corbettreport.com/?p=6458

Episode 251

Ever dream of a future free from the shackles of mindless mass-produced consumerism? A future of complete freedom, instantaneous manufacturing, and self-designed made-to-order one-of-a-kind goods? With additive manufacturing, that future is now. Join us today on The Corbett Report as we explore the 3D printing revolution.

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Decentralize Big-Retail

How to Uproot Walmart & Bring Jobs Back Home. 

December 11, 2012 (LocalOrg) - In many towns across America, Walmart, or a similar mega-retailer, is the only option you have when you need (almost) anything. Big-retail is a monopoly in its truest form and it has become so, not through "free market" economics, technological innovation, supply and demand, or healthy competition, but rather through a combination of pro-monopoly rules and regulations, human exploitation, outsourcing labor overseas, while preventing labor domestically from unionizing for better wages, job security, and benefits. 

The sub-par trinkets, poisoned food and beverages, and slave-made goods that line the corporate consumer troughs at Walmart are the result of a global network taking advantage of socioeconomic disparity, consumer ignorance, and deplorable labor conditions to bring the very lowest prices possible to consumers.

The consumers pushing their carts through the aisles of Walmart scarcely realize the conditions within which workers overseas toil to line those aisles. They may not realize that the polo shirts they are buying came from overcrowded, deplorable factories in Bangladesh, where a fire recently claimed the lives of 112 workers. The doors were locked, the fire extinguishers non-functional - conditions that would not be tolerated in an American factory.

These aren't "always low prices" because Walmart has mastered supply and demand or production efficiency through innovation - these are "always low prices" because people the average Walmart customer has no idea even exist, are paying the rest of the price out of sight, out of mind.

Along every step of Walmart's supply chain, abuses, exploitation, deceit, and harm is being done to both labor and consumers. The only benefactors are the handful of shareholders and executives that run Walmart - who live a life entirely isolated from the paradigm their spanning monopoly has created. Below, an infographic depicts this supply chain - starting at overseas sweatshops, brought through domestic ports where workers struggle for job security, fair wages, and benefits, and end up on the shelves of Walmart, where likewise, labor must struggle to improve their lot.

Sharing is Not a Crime: A Battle Plan to Fight Back

December 7, 2012 (LocalOrg) - The Battlefield: Christopher Dodd was at one point an alleged elected representative of the people. As a US Senator he was charged with upholding the Constitution and laws of the people, and representing the interests of voters in his state of Connecticut - for 30 years. In reality, Dodd didn't represent the people, and instead, represents corporate special-interests - and unfortunately, Dodd is not the exception.

In early 2011, it was announced that Dodd - after retiring from 30 years in the Senate - would take up a leading role at the Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA) for a $1.5 million annual salary. Immediately, the retired Senator would lead the charge to pass the notorious Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), with his incestuous business-government ties visibly rippling through the US House and Senate as well as through the corporate-dominated media.
 

Despite the obvious conflict of interests and dangerous precedent set by corporations commandeering elected representatives to leverage their influence and bend the law of the people to the will of big corporations, Dodd has been allowed to continue on with the charade. It was recently reported in Wired's article, "Hollywood’s Total Piracy Awareness Program Set for January Launch," that: 

The DARPA Vacuum

December 6, 2012 (LD) - A conscious, pragmatic movement, as well informed as it is technically competent, pursuing advanced localism, post-scarcity and the reduction of disparity, elitism, insidiously imposed social engineering, and economic interdependency, has little to fear as it moves forward. However, as the paradigm-shift exists now - there lacks any clear vision for the future, or situational awareness of the present.

Makerspaces, hackerspaces, community labs, and open source collaborations of all varieties run the risk of being subtly manipulated, their good intentions and naivety exploited, compartmentalized, and tasked for diabolical endeavors the individual participants could hardly fathom. In "Decentralizing Telecom," it was noted that D.C. hackerspace, HacDC was part of a crowd-sourced US State Department project to help develop "suitcase Internet" systems for US-backed opposition movements during the US-engineered "Arab Spring."

Another such scheme was announced by DARPA in a Wired article titled, "Pentagon's New Factory: Your DNA" which stated:

A recent call for research by the Pentagon’s mad science agency proposes a new program called “Living Foundries.” The idea is to use biology as a manufacturing platform to “enable on-demand production of new and high-value materials, devices and capabilities.”  

In other words, let’s engineer life to make stuff we want.

It continues: 

To jumpstart the process, Darpa wants to open the playing field to people from outside the biological sciences, recruiting designers, engineers, manufacturers, computer scientists, academics and anyone else who has an idea. By democratizing the biological design and manufacturing process, they hope to speed up the development of a reliable factory for all sorts of kind-of-living things.

Wired, which has increasingly become a clearinghouse for Pentagon propaganda aimed at "geek" culture - and even hosts corporate-financier funded Brookings Institution "fellows" as contributors, attempts to make DARPA's plans sound exciting and fun. In reality, DARPA is assembling an arsenal of  biotechnology constructed of various individual parts contributed by participants who have no idea what they are involved in or the bigger picture they are helping to shape. These will be biotechnological implements only DARPA understands the true configuration and characteristics of, and implements DARPA and its affiliates alone can wield at will.

Don't Survive the "Collapse" - Prevent It

December 5, 2012 (LocalOrg) - Cuba, Thailand, New York City. All three have faced either economic or natural disasters. The adversity and degree to which each was affected varies, but all have lent us invaluable lessons and warnings about future, inevitable collapses and disasters. With this knowledge in hand we can begin preparing ahead of time, so not only do we "survive" the collapse, but we create thriving, advanced communities that remain entirely unaffected by such collapses - after all, prevention is the best medicine.

Cuba: In 1991, the Caribbean nation, after the fall of the Soviet Union upon which its economy hinged, found itself so destitute it was unable to feed its own people. The writing had been on the wall, particularly when Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev began instituting "glasnost" economic reforms, but little was (or could be) done in time to head off the consequences of collapse.

With no other choice, the people of the city of Havana began tearing up empty lots, reclaiming abandoned buildings, and planting "urban gardens." Neither "communist" nor "capitalist," the spurt of survival-driven local enterprise brought a people teetering on the edge of starvation back to a degree of stability. Journeyman Pictures, in their 2003 documentary "Seeds in the City - Cuba (23 mins)," tells the story of Havana and the urban gardening revolution that took place there.

Decentralizing Telecom

December 2, 2012 (via LocalOrg) SOPA, ACTA, the criminalization of sharing, and a myriad of other measures taken to perpetuate antiquated business models propping up enduring monopolies - all have become increasingly taxing on the tech community and informed citizens alike. When the storm clouds gather and torrential rain begins to fall, the people have managed to stave off the flood waters through collective effort and well organized activism - stopping, or at least delaying SOPA and ACTA.

However, is it really sustainable to mobilize each and every time multi-billion dollar corporations combine their resources and attempt to pass another series of draconian rules and regulations? Instead of manning the sandbags during each storm, wouldn't it suit us all better to transform the surrounding landscape in such a way as to harmlessly divert the floods, or better yet, harness them to our advantage?

In many ways the transformation has already begun.
While open source software and hardware, as well as innovative business models built around collaboration and crowd-sourcing have done much to build a paradigm independent of current centralized proprietary business models, large centralized corporations and the governments that do their bidding, still guard all the doors and carry all the keys. The Internet, the phone networks, radio waves, and satellite systems still remain firmly in the hands of big business. As long as they do, they retain the ability to not only reassert themselves in areas where gains have been made, but can impose preemptive measures to prevent any future progress.

With the advent of hackerspaces, increasingly we see projects that hold the potential of replacing, at least on a local level, much of the centralized infrastructure we take for granted until disasters or greed-driven rules and regulations upset the balance. It is with the further developing of our local infrastructure that we can leave behind the sandbags of perpetual activism and enjoy a permanently altered landscape that favors our peace and prosperity.

Decentralizing Telecom 

As impressive as a hydroelectric dam may be and as overwhelming as it may seem as a project to undertake, it will always start with but a single shovelful of dirt. The work required becomes in its own way part of the payoff - with experienced gained and with a magnificent accomplishment to aspire toward.
In the same way, a communication network that runs parallel to existing networks, with global coverage, but locally controlled, may seem an impossible, overwhelming objective - and for one individual, or even a small group of individuals, it is. However, the paradigm has shifted. In the age of digital collaboration made possible by existing networks, the building of such a network can be done in parallel.
In an act of digital-judo, we can use the system's infrastructure as a means of supplanting and replacing it with something superior in both function and in form.

1. Mesh Networks: The first shovelful of dirt is to building a dam, as developing a rudimentary mesh network is to building a parallel "second Internet." It is a small project a small group of people can work on, with a lot of resources already out there to start with.

Image: A visual depiction of Project Byzantium's ad-hoc wireless mesh network. More information can be found on their website here. Such networks are being funded and passed out by the US State Department for use by "activists" to oust dictators in exchange for new ones, who coincidentally are US-backed. However, such networks also possess the ability to effect pragmatic change on a technical and local level.

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Syria's Internet Outage & the Future of Information Warfare

December 1, 2012 (LD) - It's not that Syria's government didn't prepare for war. They perhaps, simply prepared for the wrong kind of war.

This week when sweeping outages in Syria's communication networks were reported, the Western media immediately accused the Syrian government of being behind the move. However, it should be noted that NATO-backed terrorists operating inside of Syria have been openly given advanced communication equipment (also here and here) by Western nations, including the United States, allowing militants to create their own, independent communication networks. This includes radio, satellite, and cell networks, as well as the under-reported existence of "suitcase Internets" (also here and here).

The reason a communications blackout in Syria would not effect NATO's primary proxy forces is because any node or bottleneck in Syria controlled by the government has already long since been circumvented, either through independent networks, or satellite links.

Image: New York Times depicts what is called a "mesh network," or an independent internet that uses computers and phones not only as interfaces, but as actual nodes to create the network Imagine in this case, that the "country border" is that of Turkey and Syria. Such networks can be set up virtually anywhere, and the development of methods and software to do so have been the subject of US State Department funding and implementation.

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The New York Times in their article, "U.S. Underwrites Internet Detour Around Censors," stated in June, 2011 that:

The Obama administration is leading a global effort to deploy “shadow” Internet and mobile phone systems that dissidents can use to undermine repressive governments that seek to silence them by censoring or shutting down telecommunications networks.

The effort includes secretive projects to create independent cellphone networks inside foreign countries, as well as one operation out of a spy novel in a fifth-floor shop on L Street in Washington, where a group of young entrepreneurs who look as if they could be in a garage band are fitting deceptively innocent-looking hardware into a prototype “Internet in a suitcase.”

Therefore, the Syrian government would gain very little by shutting off the Internet to neutralize networks working entirely independent of infrastructure within state control. Conversely, if NATO has shut the Internet off at nodes leading into Syria, as appears to be the case, NATO and their proxies operating inside of Syria can begin spreading false information, uncontested, via radio, SMS, and even ad hoc WiFi networks.

With NATO's proxies possessing their own communication networks, their own ability to co-opt and control signals in and near their areas of operation, in particular along the borders where NATO forces themselves are directly involved in disrupting and controlling communications, according to Reuters, a disruption in Syria's communication networks would only serve to blind, hinder, and disrupt the government and the vast majority of Syria's civilians. 

Walmart & 112 Dead Factory Workers

How many more tragic disasters await so multinational corporations can offshore jobs, exploit deplorable working conditions overseas, and continue filling the corporate-consumerist troughs? 

November 27, 2012 (LD) - 112 Bangladeshi workers perished in a factory fire last week - the cause is still under investigation. And as the tragedy made its way across international news headlines, it quickly became clear the factory was producing clothing for mega-retailer WalMart in the United States.

Image: (Getty Images) The price others pay for American consumerism. Walmart claims it didn't know the factory was still producing goods for its stores. It also claims it will work to improve conditions for overseas workers - but if this were true, and overseas workers were working with similar wages under similar "acceptable" conditions found in America, why outsource jobs in the first place? Clearly Walmart is just paying lip service.

....

Associated Press (AP) reported in their article, "Walmart Admits Bangladesh Factory Was Making Clothing For Retailer Before Fire," that: 

The garment factory in Bangladesh where a weekend fire killed at least 112 people had been making clothes for Wal-Mart without the giant U.S. retailer's knowledge, Wal-Mart said.

The report also stated: 

"Today, we have terminated the relationship with that supplier," America's biggest retailer said in a statement Monday. "The fact that this occurred is extremely troubling to us, and we will continue to work across the apparel industry to improve fire safety education and training in Bangladesh."

Regarding the conditions of the factory, AP reported: 

Survivors of the weekend fire said an exit door was locked, fire extinguishers didn't work and apparently were there just to impress inspectors, and that when the fire alarm went off, bosses told workers to return to their sewing machines. Victims were trapped or jumped to their deaths from the eight-story building, which had no emergency exits.

However, what Walmart hopes the public never figures out is that if ever the mega-retailer manages to bring standards and wages up to what the West would consider "acceptable," their offshore supply chain would no longer benefit them and their profit margins - jobs would be better off kept on American soil, where they began in the first place. Clearly Walmart has no intention of "improving" anything except perhaps better obfuscating their supply chain from the general public.