Defragmenting our selves
This is the second part of a discussion I had with Marc Hudson, co-editor of Manchester Climate Monthly and person who has been involved in political activism – mostly of the environmental persuasion – for a few years. Here we talk about whether political organisations are really looking for a broad membership, and the lack…
This is the first part of a discussion I had with one Marc Hudson, co-editor of Manchester Climate Monthly and person who has been involved in political activism – mostly of the environmental persuasion – for a few years. I asked him about the ups and downs of political activity and why he thought they…
As part of my series of posts about the sustainability of political movements in the UK I recently interviewed an activist who took part in the 90s/00s anti-globalisation protests and who is still involved in politics. This person is still politically active so I wanted to discuss the upswings and downswings of political momentum in…
I think a good way to look at the nature of boundaries between organisations is to look at communication across the boundaries. We can ask, for example, who people at the top of those organisations talk to. Who do they consider their peers? These sites are a really good resources for mapping the individuals involved…
Some years ago Jack Welch, the chairman of General Electric, came up with the idea of ‘boundaryless organisation’. He wanted to eliminate both internal and external boundaries, turning the corporation into a network with no defined edge. On the face of it this sounds like an idea a radical political group might come up with….
Someone put me in touch with the person behind this excellent Ending Activism blog. I am working my way through it at the moment – it has some interviews with people about why they got involved in activism and why they left. I think what is rarely stated in the interview answers, but that is…
So this is me starting on a series of posts I’ve been planning for a while on the sustainability of political organising, something I’m interested in after seeing a couple of periods of political activity die away leaving not very much behind. I met Judith Ryser recently at some thing. She has been involved in…
Most people will have noticed in the news recently that conflicts between miners and management at the Lonmin-owned Marikana mine in South Africa led to the police shooting dead 34 people. If you really want to you can watch some footage of it. Some observers say that the miners were herded into a barbed wire…
Post by Nachopolis, a Spanish exile in London: The financial crisis seems to be moving towards new territories. Please read Unrest drags Spain towards buried unpleasant truths. Its a good introduction on how the crisis may eventually lead to serious security problems in Spain – and open up a new landscape in the development of…
Developing a comment from a couple of weeks ago, there’s been a lot of talk among some people recently of the world being ruled by psychopaths. There’s even a facebook group called ‘Psychopaths Rule The World‘ which has an unfortunate tendency to get into conspiracy theories. On the face of it is a plausible explanation…