Tag: indymediaback

Messy language feeds back into messy culture

Most people now understand that culturally, and socially, we are in a growing nasty mess. The #blocking of action, the constant stalls, confusion, and fragmentation, has a lot to do with our use of language. And the deeper issue is how this messy language feeds back into culture, which then loops back to make the language even murkier. It’s a feedback loop that clouds meaning, erodes trust, and paralyses collective action.

The last 40 years of postmodernism and neoliberalism made this worse. #Postmodernism chipped away at the idea of shared reality, leaving us with endless interpretation and “personal truths.” #Neoliberalism, on the other hand, commodified everything, including language itself, into marketing, spin, and #PR. Together, we have hollowed out words like “community,” “freedom,” and even “change,” to the point that we barely recognize practical use value.

Take “mutual aid” for example, a term grounded in solidarity and reciprocal responsibility. Now, on both #dotcons and #openweb platforms, it gets reduced to casual crowdfunding and anonymous asks, with little relational context. Not bad, but far from what it could and needs to be.

If we want affinity-based action to work, if we want people to work together and trust and act together, then we have to compost this mess. And the way to do that might be surprisingly simple #KISS – Keep It Simple, Stupid, not stupid as in naive, but stupid as in clear.

We need to reclaim simple language that carries shared meaning. This is exactly what we’re trying to seed with the positive side of the #hashtag story. Hashtags act as anchors in this storm of noisy abstraction. They cut through, to the root meaning, and allow collective orientation without needing corporate gatekeepers or #blinded institutional filters.

Think:

  • #4opens — a shorthand for open code, open data, open governance, open standards.
  • #deathcult — pointing to the suicidal path of #neoliberalism.
  • #techshit — composting the mess, not throwing it away.
  • #nothingnew — slowing tech churn, reclaiming meaningful pace and paths.

Each of these tags points to deeper, shared narratives that are simple, but not simplistic. They invite action, not common sense confusion. By composting the abstraction we regrow clarity, reclaim trust paths, in both tech and social spaces. Speak simply, act clearly, hashtag wisely with intention is a working path, please use this.

On this path, It is important for the progressives and radicals to come together and focus on real issues and the challenges facing society, rather than fighting among ourselves. To find this balance between being “nice” and being “nasty” is key to being effective about lasting social change.

The #hashtags embody a story and worldview rooted in a progressive and critical perspective on technology and society. By highlighting the destructive impact of neoliberalism (#deathcult) and consumer capitalism (#fashernista) on our shared lives, while promoting the original ideals of the World Wide Web and early internet culture (#openweb).

The #closedweb critiques the for-profit internet and its harmful social consequences, while #4opens advocates for transparency, collaboration, and open-source principles in tech development.

The #geekproblem tag draws attention to a dysfunctional cultural tendency in tech: where geeks, absorbed in their tools and logic, overlook the broader social effects of their creations. This feeds into #techshit, where layers of unnecessary complexity pile up, further distancing people from tech’s social roots. Meanwhile, #encryptionists critiques the knee-jerk reaction that “more encryption” is always the answer, reinforcing control and scarcity, rather than liberating people and community.

Together, hashtags tell a loose, coherent and powerful story. They call for a more humane, collaborative, and transparent approach to both technology and society.

#nothingnew asks whether constant innovation is the right path — or if we need to slow down and improve what already works.

#techchurn names the cycle of flashy, redundant tech that fails to solve core issues.

#OMN and #indymediaback point toward an Open Media Network — and a revival of the radical, decentralized media that once rivalled corporate media on the early web.

#OGB stands for Open Governance Body, an invitation to practice grassroots, transparent, community-led decision-making.

It’s an ambitious, needed path, to build and grow social tech that “fails well”, meaning they fail in a way that can be fixed by the people, through trust and collective action, not closed-source patches and corporate updates, that are control not community. The #OMN’s focus is human-first. Tech comes second, as a mediator, a tool, not the destination.

Yes, the #geekproblem is real. Technical expertise becomes a gatekeeping mechanism. But tech can also empower, if we design for simplicity, accessibility, and community-first paths and values. The only working path is simple, trust-based, and human. That’s why we keep coming back to #KISS.

Why haven’t we been doing this for the last 10 Years? Over the past decade, we’ve lived in a state of quiet paralysis. Climate change, ecological collapse, technological overreach, all of it loomed. And instead of digging in to work on solutions, we froze. Well-meaning people chose fear over action. Understandably. But fear is a poor foundation for building anything sustainable.

We’re not on this site to only blame – we’re here to compost. The problem? We stopped critiquing, we stopped examining the tools in our hands. Not only that, we bought into the illusion that #NGO paths and tech would save us. That shiny apps and startup culture could greenwash a better future. And when the results disappointed, we turned inward, stopped questioning, and left things to rot.

So now, can that rot be composted? By using the #4opens – open data, open code, open standards for open governance, we have a practical framework to call out and compost the layers of #techshit that have built up. Tech that divides us, tech that distracts us, tech that damages the planet and calls it progress. Yep, like gardening, composting takes time, it smells at first, it’s messy. But give it care, and you get soil – to plant better ideas in, soil for hope.

One of the reasons we haven’t made progress is the #geekproblem, a narrow slice of technically-minded culture made up of (stupid)individuals, which so far have dominated the design and direction of our tools. They, sometimes, mean well, but in their obsession with technical elegance and “solutions,” they’ve sidelined the social and the ecological. What’s left is a brittle, sterile infrastructure, constantly churning out newness without any substance.

Meanwhile, #stupidindividualism has flourished, encouraged by #dotcons social media systems built for engagement, not connection. These silos encourage performance over solidarity, branding over community, and endless scrolling over doing. We’ve all felt it.

And most activist groups, instead of resisting this tide, drank the #NGO poison, chased funding, watering down their goals, professionalizing their resistance until it became another logo in a funding application. We’ve lost a decade to fear, distraction, and capture.

But it’s maybe not too late, we have the tools, in the #ActivityPub based #Fediverse. We have the frameworks, the #4opens can guide us to rebuild with transparency, collaboration, and care. The hashtags like #geekproblem, #techshit, #nothingnew, and #OMN give us a shared vocabulary for critique and regeneration. They point to a web where people, not platforms, hold power, and where technology serves life, not control. Let’s stop being afraid to critique, stop outsourcing responsibility and get on with composting.

Because that’s where the soil of a better path will come from.

It’s worth remembering that, in the current political mess, the right-wing and the so-called centre are extremists.

They are insisting that endless growth on a finite planet is “realistic,” that widening inequality is “natural,” that ecological collapse can be managed by markets, and that social breakdown is an acceptable cost of doing business. It’s constant crisis management, coercion, and denial of material reality.

What’s labelled “left-wing” is generally moderate: the belief that people should be able to meet their basic needs, that cooperation works better than competition for shared survival, and that systems should serve society rather than extract from it.

The Overton window has been dragged to exploitation and collapse that proposing care, restraint, and collective responsibility is framed as radical, when it’s the minimum required for any stable future.

Seen this way, extremism isn’t in change and challenge. It’s insisting that a failing system must continue at all costs.

A letter from the margins of the #openweb

All the #OMN projects I’ve worked on over the years, from #OGB to #indymediaback, are not directly about social change. They are about creating the possibility of social change. A subtle, but critical difference.

We don’t claim to have the answers. What we do offer are tools, networks, and processes that make it easier for people to imagine that the world can be different, and then help them to take the first step.

Yet still, here’s the mess that keeps being pushed over us. We are told this work is “too high up the stack,” “too fuzzy,” or “too political.” But in reality, the same topics and themes do receive #NGO funding, just safely sanitized within the logic of the #deathcult. In this, the “shadow” keeps getting funded, but the light source is ignored.

When we say “the world can be different,” we’re not talking about abstract theory. We mean literally:

  • Media that people control from the grassroots up
  • Governance that isn’t locked behind elitist gates
  • A web that grows through trust not platforms
  • Protocols that reflect values, not just efficiency

But the funding, even in the so-called ‘alternative’ spaces, is trapped in a conservative loop. People working in these orgs are either too captured by their own #geekproblem funding logic, or too afraid to support anything that might really challenge their place in the status quo, by threatening to end the funding flows they live in.

Some of the real replies to the over 20 funding applications I have put in for the last ten years: “This kind of effort is very hard to seek grants for…” “I don’t have an obvious candidate for you to go to, either.” What these polite deferrals mask is a structural failure of imagination. The fear of change is so strong that even funders tasked with enabling alternatives end up only supporting work that conforms to existing institutional logics and barely deviates in meaningful ways from the normal #mainstreaming paths.

So, where does that leave those of us pushing for a real #openweb reboot? We get silence or slow-walked rejections. We burn out or pivot to “safer” projects. Or worst of all, we get absorbed by the very forces we wanted to challenge. And look, maybe that’s the plan. Maybe co-option is the endgame for the #openweb: a slick, tamed version of rebellion, friendly enough for NGOs and palatable to #EU bureaucrats.

But that’s not our plan. Not the plan we’ve been composting all these years. The challenge:

  • Funders: If you want the future to be different, stop only funding imitation’s, fund the real thing, step outside the safety of compliance. Trust radical imaginations.
  • Builders: If you’re still holding the compost shovel, don’t drop it. The real garden will grow, but only if we stop watering the plastic plants.
  • Everyone else, demand more. Not just better bling, but better foundations.

We don’t need more advice, we do need courage. The #openweb is not dead, but it is at risk of becoming another façade unless we build the possibility of real change into its #rebooting core.

I am still digging #makinghistory #OMN #indymediaback #OGB

#RIPENCC #NGI #NLnet

News, the signal-to-noise mess

Almost all our posting in the #openweb and in the #dotcons in response to #mainstreaming news is noise. It’s reactive, fragmented, performative. We scroll, we rage, we boost, we block, but we don’t build. Sometimes, someone posts something thoughtful, something deep, meaningful. But it vanishes in the churn. The system is designed this way.

Even on our #openweb, where we have more autonomy, we are mirroring this spectacle path, feeding it attention, reposting its narratives, amplifying its blinded framing. In the mess of this world, our timelines become echo chambers of secondhand despair and outrage. In short, we’re still speaking their language, on their terms, even with our tools.

Why? Because we haven’t (re)built a place for real signal yet. The #OMN (Open Media Network), is a push to shift this dynamic. It’s not about broadcasting noise slightly more ethically. It’s about creating different spaces entirely, where the roots of stories matter more than the spin, where the focus is on shared compost rather than hot takes, where people and community are producers, and where signal isn’t just a flash, but an ongoing process.

The current state of the web, especially on the path of the #dotcons, is colonized communication. It rewards (stupid)individualism, immediacy, virality. It buries context, nuance, history. This structure #blocks liberation because it’s built to sell alienation back to us, one like or scroll, one click at a time.

Even the current #openweb reboot, for all its potential, reproduces these patterns, because we carry them within us. We don’t just need alternatives in name, we need alternative cultures, processes, and values. We need to compost the mess, the #techshit, and grow new paths from the decay. That’s what the #OMN is seeded to do.

But let’s be honest, we’re not there yet. And we won’t get there unless we start collectively focusing on building signal, not just yelling about the noise. The tools need to be #KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid), the governance needs to be transparent, trust-based, and the tech has to get out of the way, not be the centre. This requires stepping away from the #geekproblem, the cult of control, complexity, and abstraction, and towards living, messy, grassroots cultures that grow access, action, and accountability.

Take media coverage of protests as an example. It’s always framed through the lens of disruption and spectacle, “violent clashes,” “unrest,” “inconvenience to commuters” rather than the systemic injustices that birthed the protest in the first place. The message from the #mainstreaming is clear: “Why can’t you express your anger in a way that’s easier for us to ignore?” This is not journalism, it’s narrative policing. It flattens struggle into caricature and erases the causes: the exploitation, the dispossession, the broken promises. This is normal when we have no media infrastructure of our own. Without projects like #indymediaback to hold space for grounded, first-voice storytelling, all we get is the echo of power describing its own reflection.

The #mainstreaming is collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions. But that collapse is not the revolution. What grows next is.

#OMN #OGB #4opens #openweb #geekproblem #deathcult #nothingnew #buildalternatives #grassroots #trustbasedgovernance

Rebooting the #openweb in a good way

The #Fediverse exists, and more than that, it’s alive and kicking. Sure, it might be a messy, chaotic, a bit fragmented, and yes, still niche. But let’s not underplay it, this is the healthiest corners of the internet we’ve got. Tens of million accounts, hundreds of thousands active people, and some are sometimes talking about how we build our digital spaces from the bottom up.

Yep, there are the cat videos, the #fluffys and the #spikys. But also an in-group debate is bubbling away about who speaks for the Fediverse? What defines it? Is it the standard #ActivityPub that binds us only technically? Or is the value in the community that’s formed it, the living web of relationships, servers, instances, and admins making this work day-in-day-out? Truth is, it’s both. #activitypub without community is just code. Community without #activitypub is just another silo waiting to collapse. They are not the same, but they are inseparable. To build something real, we need to nurture both the tech and the people.

What works in the #Fediverse is decentralisation with purpose, it works because it resists centralisation. It gives people choices, want a cat picture, instance? A political instance? A hyper-local or themed space? You install and build it, and people might come. This is #DIY grassroots digital culture in motion. Standards support this growth, #ActivityPub, like #RSS before, may not be perfect, but it’s open, extensible, and functional. It allows platforms and networks to talk to one another. This is a real #4opens foundation for collaboration, not control. That’s the kind of architecture we need in the #openweb reboot.

What doesn’t currently work is the over-reliance on hard blocking as a solution, with the common approach to problems is too often to block, users, instances, entire classes of servers like the #dotcons. While this kinda makes sense in the short term, it’s not a long-term strategy. It’s the digital equivalent of putting your head in the sand. You’re not solving the problem, you’re just not looking at it any more. This has the strong tendency to feed the “Cave Mentality” where some corners of the Fediverse are in defensive mode, retreating into smaller and smaller bubbles, avoiding engagement, trying to build perfection behind walls. But hiding from the mess doesn’t clean it up. If the #openweb becomes too closed, it dies from within. Openness is a value, not just a setting.

This is in part due to a lack of collective strategy, yes we’ve got the passion. We’ve got the tools. What we’re missing is a shared direction. The is currently too much reinventing the wheel, too many forks without purpose, not enough joining the dots. A thousand flowers bloom, but the garden needs tending.

#nothingnew is a basic tool about this, then there is the use of the #4opens, we need to make the #Fediverse and every layer of the #openweb, measurably open. That means: Open Data: accessible and remixable content. Open Source: transparent and forkable codebases. Open Standards: like #ActivityPub, that let different platforms interconnect. Open Process: decision-making in public, with participation and accountability.

The #4opens framework is a guide, not to perfection, but to direction. It’s a map toward trust, decentralisation, and sustainability. On this path, we need to build culture, not only code. Healthy communities don’t just appear, they’re built. Instead of building tech features, let’s also build social norms. Encourage, informative, welcome messages, transparent moderation, shared spaces for discussion. Moderation and admin is labour, support it, reward it and most importantly decentralise it.

To build community, don’t shy away from engagement. It’s tempting to block and move on. But sometimes, the hard work is worth it, call things out, talk things through, escalate when needed, but don’t disengage by default. We need active participation, not digital ghost towns. If we want the #Fediverse to grow, we need to build bridges, not walls. Let’s weave human trust networks to grow spaces that are porous, where new people can enter, learn, contribute, and stay. This is the work of social federation, which is just as important as technical federation.

There is a bigger picture if you are interested and are motivated to look, the #OMN, Open Media Network project is a vision and collective path for this kind of social architecture. It’s a federated network of media hubs, rooted in community, powered by open standards, and guided by human trust. It doesn’t seek control, it offers #KISS tools to build trust, add value, and create meaningful networks from the ground up. On this “native” path, rather than rejecting “bad actors” by exclusion, we build systems that surface good actors through collective tagging, trusted feeds, and editorial flows. Moderation becomes a feature, not a bug.

Final thought, let’s not repeat the mistakes of the past. The last 20 years of alt-tech is a graveyard of well-meaning platforms that failed because they forgot one thing, the humans. The #geekproblem has been building “perfect” systems with no one in them. That’s not the #openweb we want. We need less abstraction, more interaction. Less control, more cooperation. And above all, we need to recognise that openness requires work, but it also delivers freedom. So yes, the Fediverse exists. It’s healthy. But it can and needs to be more. Let’s stop hiding. Let’s start building. Together.

#Fediverse #OMN #4opens #OpenWeb #IndymediaBack #SocialTechnology #AltTech #Decentralisation #FOSS #MakeHistory #ActivityPub #OGB #SocialCoding

What software do social justice activists need?

First we need to look at the core problem for the last 20 years has been that most activists were locked into #dotcons (corporate social media silos) because open alternatives were either too difficult to use, lack network effects, or fail to meet their practical needs. With the current reboot of the #openweb with the #fedivers based on #ActivityPub we have already taken a step away from this mess.

From my experience, here’s what’s needed from a software development perspective to break out of this mess. Open & accessible publishing networks. Activists need easy ways to publish and share information outside corporate-controlled platforms. Right now, #Fediverse is a first step, tools like #Mastodon and #PeerTube exist, but they are still largely copies of centralized platforms rather than native alternatives that work for any working grassroots media.

To take the second step in alt tech we need a native decentralized, trust-based publishing network (#OMN is the example I am working on) Bridging tools to syndicate content between #dotcons and open platforms. Better “unbranded” discovery tools for surfacing trusted grassroots content (think of a federated search engine that’s not controlled by Google)

The third step of secure yet open communication, is already mostly in place. Activists do need to secure yet transparent communication tools that balance privacy with accessibility. Right now, many are stuck using encrypted corporate platforms like #WhatsApp and #Telegram, which create spy silos and exclude people who purposely don’t have the apps. Projects like #Signal and XMPP chat kinda work in this space, so this is not a strong social tech focus, but is a social issue to work on getting people to use the tools.

Finally, the type of project we do need #indymediaback, #makeinghistory, #OGB and the base #OMN coding. There is a continuing need for resilient infrastructure, hosting and sysadmin alongside sustainable funding tools for activists’ websites, blogs, and tools. Currently, these tools often get taken down due to coordinated attacks and lack of resources. On the more dev side of this path, hybrid peer-to-peer hosting solutions (so sites can stay online even under attack) could be useful to bridge current client server tools.

There’s a roadmap, but the problem is developer focus and funding. If you’re serious about helping, check out the stalled dev work on https://unite.openworlds.info and see how it can be set in motion, please. If you’re a dev who wants to make a real impact, this is a good place to look.

The issue, we need to work more on, with #FOSS tech development, the failure of many #FOSS projects, is a failure to move from theory to practice. The issue is that developers work in isolation, disconnected from grassroots needs, and get lost in perfectionism rather than delivering functional prototypes.

The #geekproblem dominates, with coders prioritize control, abstract debates, and self-contained experiments over practical, usable tools for real-world communities. This is why projects stall: they are not built with activists in mind. Meanwhile, centralized platforms continue to consolidate power, because they offer simple, accessible, and functional solutions, despite their deep and nasty flaws.

To break this cycle, we need:

  • Practical iteration, build rough, working solutions rather than endless theorizing.
  • #4opens culture, embrace open process, standards, and real collaboration.
  • Bridging solutions, tech that activists can actually use, not just developer-driven experiments.
  • Funding models beyond #NGO traps, so projects remain independent and sustainable.

The fight for the #openweb is not only about resisting #dotcons but creating alternatives people can and will use. Can we move beyond abstraction and actually make history?

Please.

Rebuilding Radical, Grassroots Media

For way too long, our digital spaces have been hijacked by corporate interests, turning the internet into a surveillance-driven wasteland where control, profit, and censorship push aside community, useful creativity, and communities autonomy. As a first step to reclaim our media and communication networks, we need to step away from the #mainstreaming mess and build self-organized, decentralized alternatives that resist capture.

We can take a step towards this by creating and supporting decentralized codebase like the #OMN, in this path we have already taken the important steps on this with the #Fediverse in building a community which already exist outside the old walled gardens of the #dotcons, #Facebook and #Twitter. This is the path of encouraging #4opens protocols that allow interconnectivity without corporate gatekeepers. It’s challenging opaque decision-making by insisting on community-driven governance. Our current problem is that our tools aren’t built with openness and transparency, thus they will always be vulnerable to co-option and corporate capture.

We don’t need permission from corporations, #NGOs, or governments to organize, publish, and communicate, we need tools, tactics, and commitment. To reclaim radical politics, we need to build and experiment with our own independent media infrastructure, like the #indymediaback project. Engage in direct action rather than waiting for institutions to change from within, to encourage self-sufficiency in media production, hosting, and distribution.

Refocusing on #DIY activism, with practice over theory, on this path the grassroots movements of the past succeeded because they prioritized action over academic theorizing. Today, many “activists”, if they have not completely sold out, are trapped in performative online discourse instead of real-world engagement.

On this path, the is built in challenge to change the dominant narratives of corporate capture & liberal pacification. The #mainstreaming narrative is designed to disempower us, keeping us passive while corporate and state power consolidates control. It tells us, “You need the platforms to reach people.” (No, we build our own.) “You can change the system from within.” (No, it co-opts and neuters movements.) “Decentralization is too hard, just use what exists.” (No, that keeps us trapped.)

The #NGO-driven “activism” of today is mostly liberal pacification, where radical demands are diluted into polite requests for reform. Instead, we must amplify disruptive, independent, and autonomous voices. The paths exist, but will we walk them? We know what needs to be done, decentralize – Build networks outside corporate control. Organize – Move beyond performative social media activism. Disrupt – Challenge power instead of negotiating with it.

The tools, knowledge, and communities exist, the only question is, are we finally ready to actually act?

Open Media Network (OMN): An Overview

VisionOnTV: A Lost Future of Grassroots Video

Nearly 20 years ago, we built something radical. #VisionOnTV wasn’t just another platform, it was a #4opens movement. A bold attempt to break free from corporate-controlled media and give people the tools to create and share activist-driven, alternative television. We weren’t waiting for permission; we were building the future we wanted to see.

Before #YouTube became the advertising surveillance monolith it is today, we had a different vision. One where video wasn’t just disposable clickbait, but a tool for social change. The project was to curated hard-hitting documentaries, radical comedy, underground music, and voices that #mainstreaming #TV wouldn’t touch. Unlike the corporate “content farms”, our focus was on nurturing quality grassroots storytelling, ensuring activist media was just as compelling as anything on TV.

Technically, we were ahead of the curve. Using #Bittorrent for distribution, #Miro for viewing, and Creative Commons licensing, VisionOnTV se out to build a decentralized media network, a vision that today’s #PeerTube is still catching up to. We worked for a world where people weren’t just passive consumers, but active participants in the media they watched.

Of course, the internet went in a different direction. The rise of #dotcons pulled people into walled gardens where visibility was dictated by algorithms, engagement was hijacked by ads, and “independent creators” had to play the platform game or disappear. VisionOnTV stood against that tide, but history didn’t side with us.

Yet, the need for a project like VisionOnTV has never gone away. The corporate grip on media is suffocating, activist voices are still being marginalized, and the fight for an open, people-powered internet continues. Maybe it’s time to dig through the compost of the past and see what new seeds we can plant.

What do you remember about VisionOnTV? And what lessons should we carry forward into today’s decentralized media struggles?

#IndymediaBack #OMN #4opens #NothingNew

Trump and the tools of the old world order

An example of this is The United States Agency for International Development (#USAID) which was presented as a humanitarian force for economic and social development worldwide. However, its origins and operations paint a different much darker path, of geopolitical manoeuvring and #neoliberal hegemony over the last 40 years. Now, with the hard shift to the right, USAID is being gutted, alongside other long-standing institutions of the U.S. “liberal” global order.

Origins and the Cold War Agenda, founded in 1961 under President John F. Kennedy, USAID was pushed into view as a means to promote global development. In truth, it was the normal Cold War weapon of this era, countering Soviet influence under the guise of humanitarian assistance. The Foreign Assistance Act centralized foreign aid and explicitly tied it to U.S. geopolitical strategy. This was done in the open, Lyndon B. Johnson admitted that food aid was leveraged to redirect recipient countries’ spending toward military and security cooperation with the U.S.

A very easy to see example of this was the Food for Peace program, which used grain shipments to coerce nations into rejecting Soviet assistance. With famine relief being politicized as a tool for control, India, for instance, had to tone down its criticism of the U.S. war in Vietnam before receiving necessary aid.

Covert operations, as a soft power arm of the #CIA, despite meany of these institutions being branded as independent agencies. In 1973, Senator Ted Kennedy directly questioned whether USAID was involved in Southeast Asian covert operations. The answer was a resounding yes.

  • In Guatemala, during the genocide of the Mayan people in the 1970s, USAID funded and trained police forces to conduct counterinsurgency operations against leftist movements.
  • In Uruguay, USAID’s Dan Mitrione personally trained security forces in torture techniques, including electroshock and psychological warfare.
  • In the 1980s, USAID facilitated “non-lethal aid” to Contra forces in Nicaragua, effectively ensuring they remained combat-ready despite congressional restrictions on military support.
  • In Peru, USAID financially supported dictator Alberto Fujimori’s forced sterilization program, targeting 300,000 Indigenous women under the guise of population control.

Perhaps the most infamous case was Afghanistan, where #USAID provided millions to the University of Nebraska to develop textbooks filled with anti-Soviet propaganda, using religious rhetoric to radicalize young Mujahideen fighters. The blowback in globe mess from these operations is still felt today, a compleat shit storm of mess making.

With the fall of the USSR, these old #coldwar institutions pivoted towards more #neoliberal capitalist economic restructuring, pushing deregulation, privatization, and free-market reforms in post-Soviet states. Democracy promotion was a pretext, but only for “democracies” that aligned with U.S. corporate interests. Any “independence” risked financial punishment or outright regime change operations. This was a disaster for much of the region, which we are seeing play out in the Russia Ukraine war.

Post-9/11: The security state expansion saw budgets balloon, increasing by 70% between 2001 and 2003. The agency became more directly aligned with military operations, particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq. In these war zones, USAID’s stated mission of “nation-building” was a flimsy cover for consolidating U.S. control over shattered economies. The real work of development, tackling poverty and fostering stability, was an afterthought compared to the securing American military dominance in the era.

The left, right mess is on repeat

Trump’s “Draining the Swamp” what is this about and what will be likely outcomes: Oligarchy pushing #neoliberal chaos vs managed hegemony, These institutions were a tool of imperial control, but their removal creates a vacuum. The likely outcome is that private corporations and unaccountable privatised military contractors will increasingly step in to replace state-controlled influence operations.

We might see the growth of right-wing Isolationism with Trump’s America First rhetoric leading to a defacto disengaging from directly shaping international development, but not from coercion. Economic sanctions and direct intervention (as seen in Venezuela) remain the preferred tactics for managing the mess these polices create, there is a very dangerous feedback loop here.

There is a shift to cruder authoritarian paths, instead of “soft power” the replacement actors and institutions are based on direct strongman alliances, reinforcing a world order based on brute force rather than, shadowed economic manipulation.

What should the progressive left do? Rather than mourning the loss of USAID and other Cold War institutions, the left should take this as an opportunity to redefine internationalism. Instead of #neoliberal “aid” programs that uphold global inequality, we should be pushing for:

  • #KISS grassroots solidarity: Development led by those directly affected, not dictated by the #nastyfew imperial wonabe powers. A seed of this is the #OGB project.
  • Decentralized cooperative structures to replace hierarchical and state-controlled #NGOs with open, transparent, and accountable networks. A seed of this is the #OMN projects.
  • Reclaiming media from the #nastyfew Influence and control: With US funded media outlets shutting down, now is the time to push for independent, radical journalism free from state agenda. A seed of this is the #indymediaback project.

What we need to focus on is opposing the #deathcult in all forms, whether #neoliberal soft power or #Trumpist strongman tactics, which obviously both serve the interests of the #nastyfew class. A real #KISS alternative means dismantling or mediating global #capitalism itself. #Trump’s destruction of the old world institutions is another step in shifting power from one faction of the #nastyfew to another. The question that matters isn’t whether these institutions should exist, it’s what we build in their place, and how we gain the power to become the change and challenge to do this #KISS

The left, right mess is on repeat

We have a lost generation, this is at the heart of the contradictions and confusion in the political landscape today. The liberal and left muddle, where elements of economic populism are shared across ideological divides, is something we’ve seen before, especially in the 1930s, when fascist movements co-opted working-class grievances to push reactionary nationalism.

Let’s look at some of this history, #Bannon, like the Nazi Röhm long before him, played a dangerous game by mobilizing working-class anger against liberal “elitists” but steering it toward nationalism rather than genuine class struggle. The difference is that Bannon, unlike the decedent Röhm, seems aware of how these power games play out, he’s studied history and applies these lessons to manipulate movements in favour of the #nastyfew pushed into power. The shared economic critique overlaps with parts of the left, but his solutions (corporate nationalism, authoritarianism) are the real danger. The question is: how do we make these distinctions clear to people trapped in the populist right-wing narratives? We need a strategy to cut through the confusion:

  • Recentre on Class Struggle (#KISS #classwar) by striping away the nationalist framing and refocus on economic realities: who actually benefits from policies? Who holds power? Expose how right-wing populists co-opt class anger but always serve capital in the end.
  • Expose the fake anti-establishment, Bannon claims to fight “globalists,” but his solution is just another form of “elitist” rule, corporate fascism, not worker control. The “anti-tech bro” stance is surface-level; fascists historically seek state-corporate fusion, not any real accountability.
  • Build a networked radical alternative, left populism needs to be clearer, bolder, and independent of liberal #NGO-driven paths and politics. We need historical grassroots movements like the #OMN to build this out.
  • Break through the media fog, #Mainstreaming and #dotcons push right-wing populism by treating it as an acceptable part of discourse rather than a threat. Use independent media (like #indymediaback) to reframe the conversation on more clear class terms.

The 21st Century Struggle is about climate, class, and collapse. This isn’t just about fighting fascism, it’s about surviving #climatechaos and social collapse. The solutions that emerge now will shape the next century. If we allow the hard right to set the terms, we end up in corporate #feudalism. If we organize and push a real alternative, there’s still a chance to shift to something better.

How do we sharpen this message so it cuts through the noise? What channels do you see as effective? We need working change and challenge #KISS

Trump is more Italian #fascism than German fascism
Trump and the tools of the old world order

This is how we compost failure into growth, instead of repeating mistakes

We do need strong metaphors, gardens, compost, pollination, is all about creating ecosystems of hope, rather than rigid, industrialized movements that always collapse under their own weight. Instead of chasing the big factory model of change, we need 100s of small, interconnected projects, cross-pollinating, sharing what works and what doesn’t.

The straitjacket of fear is real, and the left has been caught in it too, chasing purity, reacting rather than acting, and often forgetting to build. Memory holes swallow past successes, leaving us to reinvent the wheel over and over.

We need librarians, historians, and grassroots media makers, not just to archive, but to crystallize past wins into living, usable knowledge. This is how we compost failure into growth, instead of repeating mistakes.

  • Right-wing ideologies are based on fear.
  • Left-wing ideologies hope.

This is why grassroots media matters. The #OMN, #indymediaback, and radical digital commons aren’t just about publishing, they’re about seeding, nurturing, and spreading a counter-narrative of hope and action.

Let’s get the bees buzzing, and not just in isolated hives, but across a network of thriving gardens.

For the ones who can’t follow metaphors – let’s try lots of small left projects and document what dose and does not work.

These aren’t pointless projects

#mainstreaming #liberalism has lost its way. For the past 20 years, many self-described liberals have spewed out bilge water disguised as “common sense.” But when pressure mounts, they reveal themselves as dogmatic and intolerant, almost as if they aren’t truly liberal at all.

How did we end up in this mess? The #deathcult, #stupidindividualism, and the rise of #dotcons shaped the dominant version of “common sense,” warping it away from collective care and into something narrow and self-destructive. It’s worth reflecting on this if we want to reclaim a liberal liberalism, rooted in genuine openness and social good.

In practice, we can compost this mess by focusing on #nothingnew paths. Two longstanding cultural projects already embody this, working in non-federated ways for over a century. Now, we can add technical federation to the mix, building on 5+ years of #ActivityPub rollout.

This gives us two powerful, #openweb-native paths forward:

  • Grassroots #DIY culture — Local, self-organized, and messy, but thriving outside corporate control.
  • Technical federation — Interconnected systems designed to distribute power and ownership.

Both of these paths lead somewhere meaningful:

These aren’t pointless projects, they’re a chance to break free from the suffocating grip of the #deathcult and build something resilient, human, and actually free.

Shall we pick up the shovels and start composting? 🌱

How #mainstreaming can meaningfully fund grassroots movements, they get the value from

One of the biggest tensions in the fight to build an alternative, sustainable future is the relationship between mainstream resources and grassroots projects. The reality is STARK: grassroots movements need resources to survive and thrive, yet the very act of receiving funding, if they can access it at all, drags them into the suffocating grip of #mainstreaming culture, where the radical edges that make them valuable are dulled and destroyed. So, how can conscious mainstream actors support grassroots movements without killing the radical energy that creates the value in the first place.

The answer lies in sharing resources in non-mainstreaming ways, a difficult leap for many, but an essential one. The only people who can truly be useful in sustaining #openweb paths are those willing to break free from the entrenched habits of top-down control, endless bureaucracy, and the need to polish everything into marketable, bite-sized pieces.

What does non-mainstreaming support look like?

  • Unconditional Funding: Grassroots projects need funding without strings attached. Too often, funding comes with requirements that reshape the project itself, turning radical experimentation into pointless palatable, measurable outputs. True support means trusting grassroots communities to know what they need and allowing them to allocate resources nimbly. #TRUST #opencollective
  • Trust-Based Relationships: A “native” healthier approach is to build long-term relationships with grassroots groups, listening to their needs and responding in an organic, flexible way. #TRUST #OMN
  • Decentralized Decision-Making: Bottom-up governance models. Funding should flow to collectives, not charismatic individuals or figureheads building careers #KISS #OGB
  • Infrastructure, Not Ownership: A path that might work, rather than buying influence, mainstream actors can provide infrastructure, hosting, bandwidth, servers, physical spaces, without attempting to control the projects using them. Think of it as building bridges, not fences. #Fediverse instances
  • Amplify, Don’t Absorb: Mainstream platforms and institutions need to amplify grassroots voices without assimilating them. This means using their reach to highlight native radical projects but stepping back to let those projects speak for themselves. No need to repackage the message, people can handle raw, messy reality. #indymediaback

Why this bridge building matters, the current mainstream is crumbling under the weight of its contradictions. As #climatechaos accelerates, as #neoliberalism fails to deliver anything but more suffering, people will look for alternatives. But if those alternatives are already swallowed and sanitized by the current mainstream, hope dims. Grassroots movements are the seedbeds of real change, they hold the living knowledge of how to build differently.

Keeping the bridge in place isn’t an act of charity; it’s a #KISS survival strategy. The future will grow from the compost of the old world, and those willing to step off the conveyor belt of #mainstreaming and into the rich, chaotic soil of grassroots experimentation will be the ones who help plant the seeds.

#fediversehouse