Thanks for ^

So, re them outing this TPP shit, and organising the petition - what might be their motivation?

If there's a chance it will make a difference, it's got to be worth a go, don't you think?

Gilly wrote:
It depends. If it's the only thing people do to bring about change (and I suspect this to be the case for the majority of signatories) then 'no'. If it's appealing to politicians then 'NO!', that's about as empowering as voting!

oioioi wrote:
What do you think would be the best course of action, Oioi?

Speaking of online petitions... just ran across one that involves a US military woman asking for asylum in Canada because she has be threatened with deportation and prosecution because she refuses to go to war for the government. I think Canada should grant it and flip the US off while many others are calling her a criminal for going AWOL.

StarsChildren wrote:
I think joining the military then being shocked when asked to go to war is.... well.... a bit thick!

I was meaning in the instance of this TPP revelation in the OP.

I'm not trying to put anybody on the spot btw, but often I think I'd like to do something effective, except I'm not sure how to. So any suggestions could prove helpful.

Gilly wrote:
www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Avaaz

Founders: Riken Patel (Rock­er­fella Foun­da­tion), David Mad­den (World bank), Eli Pariser (Demo­c­rat Party/​Barrack Obbanma’s staff), Tom Per­riello (House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives), Andrea Wood­house (Wordl bank)

Avaaz’s lat­est 990 form,(3) from 2010, raises a num­ber of ques­tions. Avaaz has only 16 employ­ees, and is listed as a ‘cor­po­ra­tion’ for the pur­poses of the 990 sub­mis­sion. Oddly, for an organ­i­sa­tion that receives no gov­ern­men­tal or cor­po­rate funding,(1) Avaaz received over $6.7 mil­lion in 2010, and paid its Pres­i­dent over $180,000 as a salary (still feel good about donat­ing?). On top of this, in 2010 Avaaz gave Res Pub­lica (more on them later) a $100,000 grant. Avaaz is doing extremely well con­sid­er­ing this and the fact that it was estab­lished rel­a­tively recently, in 2006. Where is all of this money com­ing from?

"Since 2009, Avaaz has not taken donations from foundations or corporations, nor has it accepted payments of more than $5,000 (£3,100). Instead, it relies simply on the generosity of individual members, who have now raised over $20m (£12.4m)."[2] In 2011 it had around 50 staff.[2]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avaaz


Just some reminders...

www.prnewswire.co.uk/news-releases/roths...arket-154464275.html

Oh and of course the Goldman Sachs too, we know their tentacles are everywhere www.goldmansachs.com/citizenship/environ...w-carbon-future.html

And the majority institutional shareholders of Goldman Sachs on the NYSE are Vanguard and Blackrock Inc.




Now atm i am too lazy to scroll down find the 'tweets' ...but some of the things i quoted above, including getting rid of animal production, (if not meat for the plebs altogether lol, which I and others here like WUB think is their ultimate goal) , I recall these things being constantly repeated here...

twitter.com/DRexplore

here...

twitter.com/BJGoldsmith

and here...

twitter.com/ZacGoldsmith

Hmmm...Just saying.

I can only speculate, but power struggles perhaps?

I do think there is a group of very wealthy people that want to de-industrialize us to an extent...or at least wind back some things that have happened the last 100 years...along those lines anyway... I posted their twitters. Been looking at them for a while now...agendas straight from the horses mouth so to speak.

Perhaps there is another group of wealthy people who dont want that to happen, as their faces have been put on the dartboard too, and the others want to bring them down.

So perhaps this is rich peoples war

And this is about trying to mobilise the masses, get them onside with the first group.

Just a guess.

Firstly, don't discuss or arrange anything online!

Get a group of like-minded people together and see what your like-minds can come up with.

oioioi wrote:
Your that paranoid to think anything you say on line will be used against you in a court of law.

Fuck!!

everything and I mean everything you have done is logged somewhere if thats the how you think. The echelon system has been place since 1950.

Judging by the mentality of 'truth seekers' and what has been said on here, nothing will be achieved by forming a group. There is more negativity than positivity.

Slacktivism (sometimes slactivism or slackervism) is a portmanteau of the words slacker and activism. The word is usually considered a pejorative term that describes "feel-good" measures, in support of an issue or social cause, that have little or no practical effect other than to make the person doing it feel some amount of satisfaction. The acts tend to require minimal personal effort from the slacktivist. The underlying assumption being promoted by the term is that these low cost efforts substitute for more substantive actions rather than supplementing them, although this assumption has not been borne out by research.[1]

Slacktivist activities include signing Internet petitions,[2] joining a community organization without contributing to the organization's efforts, copying and pasting of Social Network statuses or messages or altering one's personal data or avatar on social network services. Research is beginning to explore the connection between the concept and modern activism/advocacy, as groups are increasingly using social media to facilitate civic engagement and collective action.[3]

The Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS describes the term "slacktivist", saying it "posits that people who support a cause by performing simple measures are not truly engaged or devoted to making a change".[4]

Defense and criticism

Despite the connotations of the term, a recent correlational study conducted by Georgetown University entitled “The Dynamics of Cause Engagement” determined that so-called slacktivists are indeed “more likely to take meaningful actions.”[7] Notably, “slacktivists participate in more than twice as many activities as people who don’t engage in slacktivism, and their actions “have a higher potential to influence others.”[7] Cited benefits of slacktivism in achieving clear objectives include creating a secure, low cost, effective means of organizing that are environmentally friendly.[8] These "social champions" have the ability to directly link social media engagement with responsiveness, leveraging their transparent dialogue into economic, social or political action.[1]

Yet skepticism of slacktivism’s value certainly exists. Particularly, some argue that it entails an underlying assumption that all problems can be seamlessly fixed using social media, and while this may be true for local issues, slacktivism could prove ineffective for solving global predicaments.[9] In turn, organizationally speaking, slacktivism may result in a “waste of resources, lack of productivity and a risk of liability for the employer.”[10] An NPR piece from 2009 also astutely asks whether "the publicity gains gained through this greater reliance on new media [are] worth the organizational losses that traditional activists entities are likely to suffer, as ordinary people would begin to turn away from conventional (and proven) forms of activism." [11]

Criticism of slacktivism often involves the idea that internet activities are ineffective, and/or that they prevent or lessen political participation in real life. However, as many studies on slacktivism relate only to a specific case or campaign, it is difficult to find an exact percentage of slacktivist actions that reach a stated goal. In addition, studies suggest that "fears of Internet activities supplanting real life activity are unsubstantiated," in that they do not cause a negative or positive effect on political participation.[12]

Malcolm Gladwell, in his October 2010 New Yorker Article, lambasted those who compare social media "revolutions" with actual activism that challenges the status quo ante. He argues that today's social media campaigns can't compare with activism that takes place on the ground, using the Greensboro sit-ins as an example of what real, high-risk activism looks like. "As the historian Robert Darnton has written, “The marvels of communication technology in the present have produced a false consciousness about the past—even a sense that communication has no history, or had nothing of importance to consider before the days of television and the Internet.” But there is something else at work here, in the outsized enthusiasm for social media. Fifty years after one of the most extraordinary episodes of social upheaval in American history, we seem to have forgotten what activism is.[13] In response to his criticism, Mirani argues that he might be right if activism is defined only as sit-ins, taking direct actions, and confrontations on the streets. However, if activism is about arousing awareness of people, changing people's minds, and influencing opinions across the world,then 'the revolution will be indeed be tweeted'.[14]

In a March 2012 Financial Times article, referring to efforts to address the on-going violence related to the Lord's Resistance Army, Matthew Green wrote that the slactivists behind the Kony 2012 video had "achieved more with their 30-minute video than battalions of diplomats, NGO workers and journalists have since the conflict began 26 years ago" [15]

No. I'm wise enough to know the best direct actions I've been involved in were formulated in the flesh.

oioioi wrote:
Good for you, and I aren't being condescending when I say that. However some aren't in a position to do that. so you aren't wise enough because you have just generalized the position of everyone on your own perceptions.