This Friday’s Potluck

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This Friday, 7 PM, social event / potluck – Tom’s house.  Some will be given on Electronic Frontier Foundation association from Spencer, and upcoming August event from Bill.

 

Reminder meeting is not Saturday this month

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Reminder: The next FCM Meeting is next Wednesday, 3/14/18 at 6:15 at the KKFI annex room (39th & Main – rear door). We need to discuss when our meeting days and times would be the best for everyone. This meeting does not mean that it is every second Wednesday, necessarily or at this time every meeting.

Book Discussion Saturday

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Thank to those who came to hear David Barsamian last Friday. As announced we are having a book discussion about his newest book and his presentation.
 
GLOBAL DISCONTENTS
Conversations on the Rising Threats to Democracy
 
Please join us this Saturday at 10 A.M – 39th & Main – rear door next to parking lot, KKFI Annex Room, second floor down the hall.. It does not matter whether you have finished the book or purchased the book, yet.
 
Also reminder of this – Saturday FCM general / board meeting KKFI annex Noon.

KEEP Net Neutrality on 12/12

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FIGHT FOR THE FUTURE WROTE:

We’re rolling out our plan to stop the FCC’s vote to repeal net neutrality and we need your help.

Today, we announced a *massive online day of action* for December 12th that we’re calling “Break the Internet,” and we need every website, app, and user to help us make it huge.

For December 12th, we’re asking you to get creative and do everything possible to interrupt everyday experience by symbolically “breaking” your site, app, or social media channel. We don’t actually want to break anything. We want to get people’s attention by showing what an Internet broken by censorship, throttling, and new fees would look like&madsh;then ask them to call Congress and demand lawmakers stop the FCC’s repeal.

If enough of the Internet takes action on December 12th, we can make Congress do the right thing and stop the FCC’s vote. Let’s go all out. Join us, and help save net neutrality.

With the day of action coming just 48 hours before the FCC’s December 14th vote,[1] it’s crucial that users from across the country call Congress and demand that they do everything in their power to stop the FCC.

There is huge momentum to save the open web. The BattleForTheNet.com campaign has driven 750,000 calls to Congress.[2] Tomorrow, over 600 protests are set to take place at Verizon stores across the country.[3] And huge music stars are speaking out in magazines like Rolling Stone.[4] But need to focus this energy to win.

If you run a website or have a large social media community, then your participation is extra important on December 12th.

Here are the most important things you can do right now:

  1. Sign up to ‘Break the Internet’ and hit REPLY to let us know if your site can do more.
  2. Share the protest on Facebook and Twitter. We need to reach as many people as possible.
  3. If you run a website, add a BattleForTheNet widget using this code. You just need to embed a bit of javascript, and your site will empower users to call Congress.
  4. Add a banner to your site or social media profile and link to BattleForTheNet.com.
  5. Blog about the December 12th Day of Action. Tell your followers why net neutrality matters to you, and then send us a link so we can share it!

Please do what you can to protest the FCC’s extreme net neutrality repeal by “breaking” your site, app, or social media profiles on December 12th. We need to get creative and help draw attention to the importance of net neutrality and the open Internet.

And if you have a great idea, share it with us! We want to see what you come up with.

We’re counting on you,

Josh, Evan, Tiff & Holmes and the team at Fight for the Future.

Footnotes:

[1] Techcrunch: https://techcrunch.com/2017/11/21/fcc-officially-moves-to-unwind-net-neutrality-rules/

[2] Fight for the Future: https://www.fightforthefuture.org/news/2017-12-05-former-verizon-lawyer-turned-fcc-chairman-ajit-pai/

[3] Ars Technica: https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2017/12/net-neutrality-protests-start-thursday-how-to-find-one-near-you/

[4] Rolling Stone: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/michael-stipe-tom-morello-support-net-neutrality-in-letter-w513448

 

Fight for the Future works to protect your rights in the digital age.

PO Box 55071 #95005 Boston, MA 02205

Barsamian Column for the Kansas City Star

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This was a column that David Barsamian wrote for the Kansas City Star which they said they would publish, but didn’t

-= Tom Crane =-

GUEST COLUMN FROM DAVID BARSAMIAN

 

Mr. Barsamian will be visiting at a public event in Kansas City on Friday, December 1 at the St. Garabed Armenian Church at 4400 Wyoming.

 

Journalism is a bedrock of democracy and it is very disturbing to see what’s happening to journalists here and around the world.  From Istanbul to Cairo and Washington to India attacks on journalism and their profession are occurring more frequently than ever from the highest levels of government.  The President has called the media “the enemy of the American people.”  This reminds of slanders of Hitler and Stalin.  In the just released book I authored with Noam Chomsky Global Discontents: Conversations on the Rising Threats to Democracy, he discusses terrorism of a different kind, the efforts of repressive states to silence the media.    The only way to expose political corruption is through strong media, and signs of this corruption can be seen when there are increased efforts by those in power to deligitimize and muffle the press, radio, TV, and the Internet.  Control and manipulation of the media both directly and indirectly, is a tactic used by authoritarian regimes everywhere.  When legitimate reporting is subverted by propaganda, when a population becomes distracted by the media which should be providing accurate information, when people become an audience – then a nation finds itself at risk.  For example, when a nation is led by what I call “magical thinking”, as what is happening with the Trump Administration’s position on climate-change, we have to find the tools to protect and insulate ourselves from the dangers we are facing.  A good defense is to remember history and remember the past as a way of maintaining our balance against false information – what has been called “alternative facts”.  While there many pseudo-news outlets on the Internet, people become too focused on witty or scathing postings on sites like Facebook.  . . . but outrage and ridicule are not enough.  Simple slogans, memes, and catch-phrases are not the solution.  People should contest political policy issues directly through confronting elected officials, peaceful demonstrations, voter registration, and becoming well-informed.  It is through books and newspapers such as the Star, that people need to become educated to understand the very complex world we live in.