Wednesday, June 22, 2016

"Assemblies of the Commons" in France

https://www.popularresistance.org/assemblies-of-the-commons-emerge-in-france/?utm_content=bufferfd0df&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer

"After this festival, several Assemblies of Commons begun to emerge explicitly in Lille, Toulouse, Brest and several other big cities in France. It must be understood that these assemblies are all at the 'incubation' stage, and each of them is inventing its own operation as informal structures. For most, they met only once or twice.
They have a French wiki to document and exchange practices, and a website to communicate to the outside.
The main purpose of these assemblies is to be a forum to exchange experiences and bring together commoners. They also aim to promote the creation of an ethical economy that can create livelihoods around the commons. They try to identify and develop commons through mapping and meetings."

This sounds somewhat similar to Occupy Wall Street.  An embryonic idea to fix society when politics isn't working.

social media catches a vandal

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/21/graffiti-artist-casey-nocket-reddit-investigation

"One post to the Yosemite subreddit caught the attention of Steve Yu, an investigator for the National Parks Service. Yu reached out to Schreiner, who shared his screenshots of Nocket’s artwork with the investigators. He also posted to the Reddit threads, where users began sending him evidence of Nocket’s graffiti.
Charles Cuvelier, the chief of the National Parks Service’s law enforcement arm, said that social media played a key role. 'When there are acts of destruction and you make them known at large through social media, that is a powerful tool of investigation,' he said."

BUT!

"Some users started posting her home address, though others quickly chastised them. In an update to his Reddit post, Yu wrote: 'Please remember, EVERYONE in our society has the right to Due Process.'

For Schriener, stopping people from posting unverified personal information or abuse in the comments on his blog became a full-time job."

This is great, but the side issue of over-reaction is typical as well.  I don't know what can be done about the outliers who over-react, except what was done in this case, where the cooler heads try to reign them in.