The Horizon

There is an amazing article written by Mark Pilgrim about the problems with DRM and books.  It revolves around issues with the current Amazon Kindle and specifically some of the marketing that the Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos was doing.  This is a really good juxtaposition of some thoughts that have been running through everyone’s minds in regards to all of this.  I am glad to see that at least the music industry is starting to realize what a failure DRM has been. Let’s hope that as a people we remind Amazon that we don’t just hate Music DRMed, we hate the idea of DRM.

The school year is coming to a close and I have a headache. That headache means quite a bit. I am getting tired of school. I am getting tired of schoolwork and I am getting tired of my head hurting because I haven’t worn my glasses all day. The meanings behind it are quite immense.
But more importantly I am sick of the school system and the ideas behind school and everything attached to what it means. I don’t want to be a functioning capitalist citizen. But it’s getting harder and harder to hold control.
Lately I have been reading blogs about finance and financial control and it’s kind of fun to keep track almost as a sort of game. But I find myself falling victem to a fiscal machine.
Recently I read about creating and organizing co-ops and I would really appreciate and love doing that. We will see.
This brings me to the next point I want to discuss: I am sick of the lack of activism in Eau Claire. I want to see it grow and be a powerful thing that everyone knows and understands and sees as necessary. But those are some intense goals. This means that I will have to truly focus. I intend to use this summer without school work to get involved and start organizing such things. Eventually, I would like to see the next lease I sign be one for a cooperative with people that are willing to combine and work together. We will see if this happens, but it is certainly I goal that I have.
On another note, I have been working on the hopefully new flipside website. I am not even the webmaster but I really want to see this happen. It will make editing and even publishing our issues easier and more involved with the internet.
Otherwise, I am off. I think that I can get my glasses and get cleaned up after a day of volleyball, soccer and a lot of heat.

I found a social networking site that is open-source and free to use. You might be thinking “all social networking sites I have seen have been free to use.” But I would argue that there is still a certain amount of corporate connection to the site you use as these sites are created, backed and served by financially-oriented corporations.

Anyways, this site, called The People Aggregator, is open for anyone to create a network that can connect many people.

I have created a network that is called the New Left Network which I hope will connect people around a New Left movement. Whether they be anarchists, anti-globalizationists, pareconists, or any of the other movements spreading in this new century, I hope that the New Left Network becomes a communication hub for ideas and for supporting and promoting activism.

So I invite anyone who reads this to come join in the discussion about what a New Left Movement would be in this century and how we can all work together to make it possible.