Hamish Campbell an #openweb organic intellectual and technologist
This is an old and familiar problem: people who say they want change but consistently choose the path that neutralises it. Welcome to the “common sense” #NGO worldview, currently being repackaged in the #Fediverse as things like the Fedi Foundation. It’s not new. It’s not empowering. It’s a tired institutional gravity that drags every radical … Continue reading What Do We Do With Our #Mainstreaming Alt-People?
Everyone knows we are in a mess, but most people are too distracted to do anything to change this. Most of us keep on the dysfunctional path – scrolling, clicking, consuming – because the current mess we live in is incredibly skilled at hiding most consequences. Every crisis becomes your problem, not the system’s. This … Continue reading The current mainstreaming’s greatest sin is thoughtlessness
It took four decades of sleepwalking through #neoliberalism, cultural decay, ecological collapse, and social atomisation, but at last, the #mainstreaming is starting to talk about the #deathcult we’ve been worshipping. Case in point: Steve Coogan – yes, Alan Partridge – is now publicly accusing Keir Starmer and Labour of “paving the way for Reform UK,” … Continue reading The #mainstreaming is talking about the #deathcult – So why are you still waiting?
All activist history is soaked in struggle, not just against the oppressive systems we set out to confront, but also internally, against the deep currents of sectarianism that fracture our own movements. The history of Greenham Common Women’s Peace Camp offers a vivid example. The colour-coded gates, yellow, red, blue, were more than navigation markers. … Continue reading Telling Our Stories: Activist History and the Parasites of #Mainstreaming
There’s a nice post by Elena Rossini’s, “This is what resistance to the digital coup looks like.” she is commitment to the #Fediverse, #FOSS tools, and open publishing solutions, and her critique of #VC-funded platforms like #Substack and #Bluesky is needed. At the same time, it’s worth pausing to reflect on how we talk about … Continue reading Bridging alt and mainstreaming: A note on the shape of resistance
We do have a good history, with our involvement in #EU digital outreach and policy meetings, but this has made one thing starkly clear, our #openweb is deeply entangled in the process of #mainstreaming, a messy, often co-optative dynamic where grassroots voices are softened, diluted, and redirected into bureaucracy, then in the end they are … Continue reading Mainstreaming: Building Grassroots Balance
It should be painfully obvious by now that all the current #mainstreaming paths have failed. Whether we look at politics, technology, media, or activism, the same patterns emerge, co-option, stagnation, and eventual collapse under their own mess and self-destructive contradictions. The valid question isn’t whether mainstreaming has failed, it has. The real question is – … Continue reading The Failure of #Mainstreaming – What Comes Next?
The #mainstreaming project is visibly failing. Worse, it is set to catastrophically fail over the next 30 years as #climatechaos escalates. The signs are everywhere: environmental collapse, political instability, and the hollow nature of mainstream culture. Yet, large parts of liberal society continue to bow to the #deathcult, a path of power, greed, and control … Continue reading The #mainstreaming mess
One of the tensions in the fight to build an alternative, sustainable future is the relationship between mainstream resources and seeding grassroots projects. The reality is STARK that grassroots movements need resources to survive and thrive, yet the act of receiving funding, if they can access it at all, drags them into the suffocating grip … Continue reading How #mainstreaming funds grassroots movements, they get their value from
A key point that often gets misunderstood – #Mainstreaming isn’t inherently good or bad – it depends on who is influencing whom. In the current context, mainstreaming is mostly bad because it pushes dilution of radical alternatives into market-friendly compromises. The #deathcult (neoliberalism) doesn’t absorb things in good faith, it co-opts and neutralizes them. That’s … Continue reading Why the Fediverse Needs a Bridge Between Mainstreaming and Grassroots
We’ve had 40 years of head-down worship of the #deathcult, and now very few people dare to lift their heads to look around at the mess we live and die in. It is really hard to communicate to #mainstreaming people inside the #dotcons that today, way too much mainstreaming is simply parasitic. That the balance … Continue reading Feeding on the Roots: How Mainstreaming Devours Radical Movements
The current political and economic systems don’t just sustain the mess, we are drowning in them. Every major institution, from governments to corporations, actively pushes crisis after crisis, while refusing to deal with the root causes of the disasters they create. For decades, politicians across the spectrum have fuelled endless wars and military interventions, while … Continue reading Escaping the #Mainstreaming Mess: A Call to Real Change