Collective

People Power Battery Collective

June 27, 2023 Shareable, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Batteries, California, Collective, Energy, Mutual Aid

Smoke from wildfires raging up north in Canada blew down to engulf many major U.S. cities in an apocalyptic glow that left New York City with the worst air quality in the world. For those of us in California, seeing the apocalyptic images from the east coast going viral brought us back to the many times over the last decade that we experienced the same thing — wildfires raging from northern parts of the state like the Camp Fire in Butte County that completely incinerated the town of Paradise, or the fires in southern California, or Sonoma County, or the Santa Cruz Mountains — there’s too many to really keep track of. Here in California, one of the many impacts of wildfires that we know all too well has been the loss of power — of electricity.

Global South Artists Are Upending 72 Years Of CIA Influence On Art

December 25, 2022 Panthea Lee, In These Times. Educate! Art, C.I.A., Collective, Global South

His mouth is frozen in anguish, an infinite scream. His eyes bulge upward, overcome by horror, hands clutching his head. I cannot look away. His face is too forlorn, his backdrop too wretched. I inch toward the banner, dated 2005, which spans the full gallery wall. With my phone’s translation app, I make out some Indonesian text: “Iapa yang peduli dengan kejadian damai dan perang” — “who cares about the events of peace and war.” Surrounding these words are a contented crowd of children swinging from trees, farmers working fields, and musicians serenading their community. As I make my way across the drawing, people’s eyes deaden and hands rise to shield their faces. Behind them hangs a poster of George W. Bush with the words “remember weapons of mass destruction” and a string of skulls. Military tanks roll alongside UN vehicles. Bodies litter the ground.

A Factory Without Bosses: Voices from Indorca, Part I

June 4, 2022 Cira Pascual Marquina and Chris Gilbert, Venezuela Analysis. Create! Collective, Democracy, Venezuela, Worker Rights and Jobs

Industrias del Orinoco, C.A. (Indorca) is a factory without bosses in the industrial city of Puerto Ordaz in Bolívar state, the home of Venezuela’s basic industries. Indorca’s workers carried out a heroic three-year struggle to gain control of the factory after the former owner brought it to a halt. Since 2015, when Venezuela’s Ministry of Labor extended a mandate giving the workers control over Indorca, the enterprise has been democratically managed by the women and men who produce here day in and day out. In Part I of this two-part interview, the workers of Indorca tell us about their fight to keep the former bosses from dismantling the factory and regaining control of the plant. In Part II we will learn about the struggle to maintain the factory afloat in a sanctioned country and also about Indorca’s educational initiatives.

The Radical Open Access Collective: Building Better Knowledge Commons

April 12, 2022 David Bollier. Create! Books, Collective, Freedom of Information

The general public may not give much thought to how scientists and scholars publish their work, but please know that it matters. Like so much else in the world, corporate markets have colonized this space, which means that turning business profits is the primary goal, not the easy, affordable sharing of knowledge. Commercial academic publishers have long privatized and monetized academic research, which over time has resulted in an oligopoly of a few publishers able to charge exorbitant prices for their books and journal subscriptions. The impact has been greatest on researchers in the Global South and at smaller, less affluent colleges and universities, where it is harder to access and share the latest scientific and scholarly research.

How Venezuelans Turn To Collective Action To Defy US Blockade

June 5, 2019 Staff, Telesurenglish.net Create! Blockades, Collective, Latin America, Regime Change, Sanctions, US Imperialism, Venezuela

A response in the form of collective action is part of how the Venezuelans resist to sanctions, with song, smiles, and confidence they seem to be undeterred to fight for the Bolivarian ideals, despite U.S. imperialism. As the United States government intensifies its unilateral coercive measures against Venezuela, its people have turned to one another to push ahead and deal with economic sanctions. Local Colectivos (Collectives) and demonstrations of popular support have come to represent the unbreakable will of the Bolivarian Republic.

The Benefit Of The Commons: Strategies For A Brighter Future

March 14, 2019 Staff, Islesoftheleft.org Create! Collective, Europe, Latin America, New Economy

Commons is about sharing resources, collaborating and making decisions together without a top-down dictate. There is a variety of definitions which delve into what and how should be shared. Elinor Ostrom, the Nobel Prize laureate awarded the prize precisely for her extensive work on the commons, defined it as common-pool finite resources such as grazing grounds, forests, coastal areas, rivers and so on. She argued that the best way to manage these natural ecosystems would be through a collective action of the people who use these resources, and not through state or market mechanisms.

Five Elements Of Collective Leadership

February 8, 2018 Cassanda O'Neill and Monica Brinkerhoff, Nonprofitquarterly.org Organize! Collective, Leadership

We have defined collective leadership as a group of people working together toward a shared goal.1 When collective leadership is happening, people are internally and externally motivated—working together toward a shared vision within a group and using their unique talents and skills to contribute to the success. In fact, collective leadership recognizes that lasting success is not possible without diverse perspectives and contributions. Collective leadership is a process. It is dependent on the relationships among the parts in the system, whether that system is two people working together; a classroom, team, board, or organization; or a system initiative. In collective leadership, the way the group works together makes it different from a more traditional model of leadership.

Global Justice Movements Converge On Revolutionary Ground

April 7, 2015 Salena Tramel, www.commondreams.org Resist! Collective, Food and Agriculture

Collective adrenaline ran high as the World Social Forum opened on March 24 in Tunis. It had not yet been five years since a peaceful revolution brought a dictatorship long backed by Western political superpowers to its knees and ignited the fire of the Arab Spring that burns to this day. And it had not yet been a week since shooters stormed the Bardo Museum, killing 22, and retesting the resolve of a delicately budding democracy. Tens of thousands of delegates from across the globe converged in Tunis not only to show support for Tunisian sovereignty, but also to share their own local struggles and solutions while advocating change in the face of interlinked systemic injustices.

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