Caitlin Waddick @CaitlinWaddick@social.coop

**Who Burned the Bronx? PBS Film "Decade of Fire" Investigates 1970s Fires That Displaced Thousands**

"The new documentary "Decade of Fire" looks back at the history of a crisis that unfolded in New York City in the 1970s, when the South Bronx faced a near-constant barrage of fires that displaced almost a quarter million people and devastated an entire community. Co-directors and prod…"

http://www.democracynow.org/2019/10/30/decade_of_fire_film_1970s_bronx

#news #bot

"In an era of little faith in government, a reimagined postal service could demonstrate how public solutions can solve many of our collective problems, from climate change to a predatory financial industry. That’s exactly what the post office did in the country’s early days."

"a truly modern postal service would be more than the sum of its parts. It would help restore confidence in the public sector’s role in serving the common good, at a time when faith in government seems so hard to come by."

http://inthesetimes.com/article/22140/postal-service-usps-privatization-climate-change-banking/

"Republican-controlled Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, limiting its ability to innovate beyond the delivery of mail and packages, just as the internet began to boom."

"Post office locations could provide free Wi-Fi access, computers with access to government services, printers, and public meeting rooms. Clerks could provide drivers’ license renewal, multilingual translation, help with immigration processing and other services."

"USPS could also return to providing affordable banking services, as it did from 1911 to 1967. "

via #RMFU co-op developer #DanHobbs:

"Many in the co-op community are unaware of just how dire the situation [in the USDA cooperative department] is. As of this writing, a
program that numbered about 75 cooperative specialists in the mid-1990s is now down to three
professionals. For many, the agency lost visibility when USDA abruptly killed Rural Cooperatives magazine about a year ago, ending its 84 years in production without a word of explanation to the public."

Solidarity economy in action at my grocery coop, the Dill Pickle @Chicago

Calling all PhD-students doing research on platform coops -- check-out this workshop in Utrecht, the Netherlands, 9 December 2019. Contact @Collectiveactio@twitter.com for details.
http://www.collective-action.info/2019-YSW-Platformcoops

This is soooooo good!!

From Cynthia Stohl and @GeorgeCheney 's paper "Participatory Processes/ Paradoxical Practices"

The seven paradoxes of participation:

Unpacking economics:

"When the world is facing large systemic crises, why is the economics profession celebrating small technical fixes?"

Thought provoking piece re: recent nobel prize in economics.

https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/impoverished-economics-unpacking-economics-nobel-prize/

How about a break from all of the climate-related fire and storm disaster news for a nice prose-infusion on a #SolarPunk based community infrastructure?

Distributed and decentralized #energy is the path to infrastructure #resilience amid escalating climate uncertainty.
Obviously.

A locally-administered Mastodon instance is to the Fediverse what a neighborhood microgrid is to the backup potential of the grid as a whole.

A #Microgrid is an independent electric grid that can operate as a node independent of the central power grid. It allows for a steady power supply even when an outage on the main grid happens. Several types of energy can be used to "collaborate" on a microgrid's design (See "The Neighbors Theory" on QE) for energy and informational storage capacity ideas.

Some big IFs to keep in mind:

(1) Photovoltaic panels make use of (and therefore contribute to the mining of) rare earth materials; mined materials are not sustainable. Continents with a hefty or spreading desert / #desertification problem are evidence of this.

(2) Electricity generation from renewable sources can be intermittent and variable depending on many factors including time of day and weather. What kind of energy your grid should be powered on depends on how well you can predict climate change.

(3) Distribution protection: when power generation happens within the distribution system, energy flows both ways, making voltage regulation especially difficult.

(4) While "rare earth" metal recycling can be done, recycling on the whole ought to be preceded by "Reduce, Reuse". What do you care enough to reuse? What does your town care enough to recycle?

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2019/10/28/20926446/california-grid-distributed-energy

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/vbngmd/decentralized-microgridding-can-provide-90-of-a-neighborhoods-energy-needs-study-finds

Trying to find a user friendly alternative to gmail for our social justice collective.

Has anyone used tutanota?

Or anyone have any other recommendations?

Live Web Discussion Tonight, October 24, with Striking Chicago Teachers And Support Staff!

Conversations with Troublemakers:
https://mailchi.mp/labornotes/troublemakers-dispatch-161895

#LaborNotes
#CTU
#Strike

Just finished first a very rough draft translation of Chapter 11 The Road of the Spirit.

"Certainly, not everyone is swept away by the tide of materialism and consumerism. There are people, communities, churches, institutions that keep alive the spiritual dimensions of humans and society, that promote communitarian spirit and solidarity and develop experiences that transcend individualism and the sole pursuit of material well being."

@luisrazeto
#SolidarityEconomyRoads
#GEO

@FreeScholar

Does anyone have a connection/contact at CERO? I'd love to get connected with them about a worker's co-op project, specifically pertaining to climate change and environmental stewardship...

Attn: facilitation/group process geeks.

Amazing read, connecting the micro gestures that create psychological safety to large scale participatory policy development.

By @Rosalegria@twitter.com

Working thru the footnotes will be like a Masters in facilitation.

https://link.medium.com/xc3glrAz70

Can we have general agreement that war is fundamentally evil?