Link Loving 25.04.12

• Academics found free university. BBC News.
• Deny the British empire’s crimes? No, we ignore them. George Monbiot.
• Progressive protectionism – is this possible? Coline Hines. h/t Joe Cox.
• Who said it: Rupert Murdoch or Montgomery Burns? The Quiz.
• Great framing example – ‘job-killing regulations’. Michael Livermore.

Quote From 1685

Richard Rumbold, a Republican executed in June 1685 at the Gallows Market Cross in Edinburgh – hanged, drawn and quartered after the Monmouth Rebellion, said this on the scaffold:

“I am sure there was no man born marked of God above another; for none comes into the world with a saddle on his back, neither any booted and spurred to ride him.’

h/t Pete Yeo and Tony Benn

From Charity To Justice

Check out this awesome campaign video from Action Against Hunger.

Notice how it reframes a couple of vital ideas:

• Helping people who live in poverty out is not about ‘charity’, it is about justice.
• It isn’t that you are giving money that is yours, it is about sharing money that is ours.
• Doing the above is morally right, is simply the fair thing to do. And our inner selves (represented by the kids) know that this is what we want to do.

If Wealth Was The Inevitable Result

Link Loving 24.04.12

• Global oil flow – mapped. Rich Hawkins.
• Two years after the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, BP’s business is booming. Allison Good.
• How French election results were leaked on twitter – in code. Scott Sayare.
• A plague on both your populisms. Catherine Fieschi.

Selma James

If you’re interested in the history of social movements or just want to hear an extraordinary woman share some stories – watch this wonderful interview of Selma James by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now! Her work in London with the women’s movement, particularly the story of working with a group of sex-workers to occupy a church in London in the 80′s is an absolute highlight, as is the story of her and her husband C.L.R. James’ work in the federalist movement in the Caribbean.

Link Loving 23.04.12

• Coolest corporate website? Boomtags.com.
• Let’s ban outdoor advertising. Neal Lawson.
• Ashley Judd nails it. h/t Kirsty Schneeberger.

“Patriarchy is not men. Patriarchy is a system in which both women and men participate. It privileges, inter alia, the interests of boys and men over the bodily integrity, autonomy, and dignity of girls and women. It is subtle, insidious, and never more dangerous than when women passionately deny that they themselves are engaging in it. This abnormal obsession with women’s faces and bodies has become so normal that we (I include myself at times—I absolutely fall for it still) have internalized patriarchy almost seamlessly. We are unable at times to identify ourselves as our own denigrating abusers, or as abusing other girls and women.” Ashley Judd.

Leap Before You Look

Leap Before You Look, by WH Auden

 

The sense of danger must not disappear:
The way is certainly both short and steep,
However gradual it looks from here;
Look if you like, but you will have to leap.

Tough-minded men get mushy in their sleep
And break the by-laws any fool can keep;
It is not the convention but the fear
That has a tendency to disappear.

The worried efforts of the busy heap,
The dirt, the imprecision, and the beer
Produce a few samrt wisecracke every year;
Laugh if you can, but you will have to leap.

The clothes that are considered right to wear
Will not be either sensible or cheap,
So long as we consent to live like sheep
And never mention those who disappear.

Much can be said for social savior-faire,
Bu to rejoice when no one else is there
Is even harder than it is to weep;
No one is watching, but you have to leap.

A solitude ten thousand fathoms deep
Sustains the bed on which we lie, my dear:
Although I love you, you will have to leap;
Our dream of safety has to disappear.

Link Loving 20.04.12

• The essentials of framing – great introduction. h/t Guppi Bola.
• Former Gordon Brown top-brass Kirsty McNeil has some valuable advice for campaigners.
• Tesco ends era of expansion. Andrea Felsted and Adam Jones.
• How Ayn Rand became the new right’s version of Marx. George Monbiot.

How To Focus In The Age Of Distraction

Incredible Mindmap by Learning Fundamentals. Spot on.