"One node that stands out along Kautsky’s timeline is the Dulcinians of Italy, a Christian sect from the fourteenth century. The group believed in gender equality, mutual aid, property in common, and the destruction of a hierarchical church system. Their efforts lasted between 1300 and 1307; Dulcinian leaders were ultimately burned at the stake or otherwise captured and executed after Pope Clement V launched a crusade against the group. The Dulcinians represented to Kautsky the first armed communist uprising in human history. But while armed, revolutionary, and opposed to the Catholic Church, the movement survived as a separatist and egalitarian Christian communist community nestled upon the fortified Monte Rubello in the Piedmont. Both their internecine and communal tendencies were justified by citing scripture. “Clearly, the two sides Kautsky has identified—communal life and revolution—come together with the Dulcinians,” Boer writes in Red Theology"
thebaffler.com/latest/for-heavens-sake-willems
thebaffler.com/latest/for-heavens-sake-willems
The Baffler
For Heaven’s Sake | Adam Willems
A new history of Christian communism glosses over the tradition’s complications in the interest of a statist conclusion.
"The decline in trust of the news media has coincided with a deep concentration of the news media. Without trustworthy news sources, conspiracy theories are spreading like wildfire, particularly on social platforms like Facebook and Reddit. Corruption, particularly at the neglected state and local levels, is on the rise. Reversing media consolidation—and rebuilding local news and a vibrant, diverse internet—is crucial to rebuilding American democracy. It’s clear that this effort cannot happen on its own—the government must step in."
https://newrepublic.com/article/160562/media-consolidation-bad-journalism-democracy
https://newrepublic.com/article/160562/media-consolidation-bad-journalism-democracy
The New Republic
Make Media Small Again
Why consolidation is bad for journalism—and how the government can fix it
"Distrust of establishment media has led Trump’s supporters and other conservatives to immerse themselves in an echo chamber of overtly partisan right-wing media. [...]
The conservative pivot to hyper-partisan news sources is actually ironic, because many of these outlets were founded and are run by billionaire oligarchs who maximize their profits by fanning the flames of discontent while covertly lobbying for policies that maintain the status quo."
"In her pioneering 1978 study of the social factors that shape the production of news stories, “Making News,” Tuchman observed that news is oriented to discrete, novel events rather than ongoing systemic issues. Thus, “news” is typically about what went wrong today, rather than what goes wrong every day. This perspective has real consequences for coverage of topics such as institutionalized racism or social movements that aim to expose and oppose power relationships that might otherwise be taken for granted as “natural.”"
"In his 1979 book, Deciding What’s News, Gans picked up and developed Tuchman’s critique, noting, for example, how news professionals often engage in “built-in anticipatory avoidance” to reduce the impact of pressures from advertisers, government agencies and officials, interest groups and peers. Gans observed how forms of anticipatory avoidance reinforced journalists’ preference for featuring the viewpoints of already powerful public figures while avoiding sources that evoke dissent or lack such authority. As others have since summarized, “news” as understood by the establishment press tends to be about what those in power say and do."
"The corporate media’s ideological commitments and structural biases are more clearly illuminated by an analysis of topics they systemically ignore or report only in passing, than by critiques that blame the political predispositions of individual reporters and specific media organizations or promote conspiratorial explanations. As Tuchman wrote, “The power to keep an occurrence out of the news is power over the news.”"
truthout.org/articles/its-true-that-corporate-media-is-biased-but-not-in-the-ways-right-wingers-say/
The conservative pivot to hyper-partisan news sources is actually ironic, because many of these outlets were founded and are run by billionaire oligarchs who maximize their profits by fanning the flames of discontent while covertly lobbying for policies that maintain the status quo."
"In her pioneering 1978 study of the social factors that shape the production of news stories, “Making News,” Tuchman observed that news is oriented to discrete, novel events rather than ongoing systemic issues. Thus, “news” is typically about what went wrong today, rather than what goes wrong every day. This perspective has real consequences for coverage of topics such as institutionalized racism or social movements that aim to expose and oppose power relationships that might otherwise be taken for granted as “natural.”"
"In his 1979 book, Deciding What’s News, Gans picked up and developed Tuchman’s critique, noting, for example, how news professionals often engage in “built-in anticipatory avoidance” to reduce the impact of pressures from advertisers, government agencies and officials, interest groups and peers. Gans observed how forms of anticipatory avoidance reinforced journalists’ preference for featuring the viewpoints of already powerful public figures while avoiding sources that evoke dissent or lack such authority. As others have since summarized, “news” as understood by the establishment press tends to be about what those in power say and do."
"The corporate media’s ideological commitments and structural biases are more clearly illuminated by an analysis of topics they systemically ignore or report only in passing, than by critiques that blame the political predispositions of individual reporters and specific media organizations or promote conspiratorial explanations. As Tuchman wrote, “The power to keep an occurrence out of the news is power over the news.”"
truthout.org/articles/its-true-that-corporate-media-is-biased-but-not-in-the-ways-right-wingers-say/
Truthout
It’s True That Corporate Media Is Biased — But Not in the Ways Right-Wingers Say
To confront corporate media’s profit-driven logic, we must encourage close criticism but not all-out dismissal.
It is to be noted that the World Bank considers a person in a condition of poverty only when they earn less than 2$ per day, which is absolutely crazy, but this allows them to distort the data to make it appear as if only 9% of the population is in a condition of poverty
#extract
#extract
Forwarded from Dead Lasagna (Kozy Raccoon)
The eco-city is an ecological city: a city built from the principles of living within environment means, with the high level principles:
- Ecology: Cities should have a deep and integrated relationship with nature.
- Economics: Cities should be based on an economy organized around social needs.
- Politics: Cities should have an enhanced emphasis on engaged and negotiated civic involvement.
- Culture: Cities should actively develop ongoing processes for dealing with the uncomfortable intersections of identity and difference, including the current tension between culture and nature.
[Article]
- Ecology: Cities should have a deep and integrated relationship with nature.
- Economics: Cities should be based on an economy organized around social needs.
- Politics: Cities should have an enhanced emphasis on engaged and negotiated civic involvement.
- Culture: Cities should actively develop ongoing processes for dealing with the uncomfortable intersections of identity and difference, including the current tension between culture and nature.
[Article]
Forwarded from IWW
Jacobinmag
How Australian Workers Prepared to Socialize Industry During the Great Depression
In the 1930s, working-class radicals in the New South Wales branch of the Australian Labor Party established Socialization Units, mass organizations parallel to the party. Their goal was to prepare for the democratic takeover of industry, and to build “socialism…