FLOK

FLOK Society is a highly ambitious project in Ecuador, to create a peer-2-peer society.

FLOK, Free Libre Open Knowledge, an Open Commons based society, the opposite of privatised knowledge, protected by patents and copyright.

Intellectual property rights, patents, copyright, stiffles innovation. If knowledge is shared, we accelerate innovation.

It is the users who create the value of facebook, with no users, we have an empty walled garden, with no value. But even though users happily create the content, and do so freely, it is facebook that capitalises on that value.

It is not only facebook, TripAdvisor would have no value, were it not for the reviewers, who freely contribute their reviews.

A corporate platform captures the value of the contributors.

Crowd working, the users bid down the value of their labour, it is a race to the bottom. In US now down to $2 per hour (way below the minimum wage).

Uber operates outside the regulated sector, wages of taxi drivers driven down, Uber creams off the profits.

Bandcamp, the site facilitates sharing, users can download content and pay contributors if they wish.

Facebook, there is interaction between users, the information content created by their interaction is creamed off and sold by facebook.

With bandcamp there is interaction, the site facilitates interaction, but it also facilitates a mechanism for creators of content to be paid, with bandcamp taking a small cut for the service it provides.

Value is created in the commons.

Open Source Software, people freely create and contribute, no one is forced to, all benefit from Open Source Software which is freely shared, ie it is placed in the digital commons.

To stop global corporations from draining the commons, we would have to have a licence, whereby contributors to the common can freely share and benefit, but those doing so for profit, would have to pay. Global corporations can also innovate and contribute there is though the danger, they innovate for their own narrow benefit, for example to maximise market share, rather than for societal need.

• Co-ops – sharing – commons

ChevronToxico

Chevron crude

Chevron will fight until hell freezes over, then skate it out on the ice. — Charles James, former Chevron Vice President and General Council

We can’t let little countries screw around with big companies like this … — Chevron lobbyist

For decades, Texaco (now owned by Chevron), dumped toxic waste in pristine Amazonian rainforest in Ecuador.

Chevron were sued in Ecuador, Chevron lost, but has refused to pay damages. Chevron has vowed to lock in litigation until hell freezes over, then to litigate on the ice.

This is how Big Business operates.

In a landmark judgement against Chevron in an Ecuadorian court in 2011, the company was ordered to pay more than $18 billion towards the clean up of widespread contamination, as well as compensatory and punitive damages. The case, holding Chevron accountable for toxic dumping by its predecessor company, Texaco, has been upheld by appellate courts in Ecuador.

The case now goes to the International Criminal Court.

Please sign the petition calling on Chevron to pay for their crimes.

• ChevronToxico
• Chevron’s Sham Remediation in Ecuador: Toxic Oil Pits Continue to Contaminate
• Chevron Trying to Suppress Expert Report that Undermines Company’s Star Witness in Ecuador Pollution Trial
• Rainforest Communities Seek Criminal Investigation of Chevron CEO Watson Before International Court
• Indigenous communities take Chevron to global court for crimes against humanity

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Sharing the spoils

protest against Nicaragua trans-ocean canal

protest outside BHPBilton AGM at coal mining in Colombia

Bolivia: Gap between rich and poor narrowed, unemployment halved, reduction in those living in extreme poverty.

Brazil: Reduction of those living in extreme poverty by 65% in a decade.

Venezuela: Reduction by half those living in extreme poverty, college enrolment has doubled.

Ecuador: Extreme poverty reduced by a third.

Argentina: Urban poverty halved.

But is has been achieved by sharing the spoils.

Peasants Revolt, French Revolution, Russian Revolution. a fight as to who shares the spoils.

Cutting down the rain forests and giving the man wielding the chainsaw a greater share of the spoils.

Better than Africa where a tiny elite divvy out the spoils, and most drains out of the country.

But all is based on growth, dirty extractive industries, cutting down the rain forests.

Ecuador has a growing dependency on oil exports, including from the Amazon

Bolivia a huge dependency on natural gas.

Argentina open cast mining and green deserts of genetically modified crops.

Brazil mega-dam projects and off-shore drilling.

Those who suffer worst from these projects are the rural poor and indigenous people. They lose the land, their forests, see their watercourses polluted.

And we all lose when global temperatures rise above 2C and we face thermal runaway over which we will have no control.

In Brazil, there has been many legal challenges against the mega-dam projects.

It is no different to what went before, growth, trashing the planet.

Dirty extraction is not of course limited to Latin America.

Statoil, is investing in tar sand and Arctic drilling.

In Greece gold mining.

There has to be genuine change and a move away from a model of growth and unsustainable dirty extraction. Otherwise all we are doing is re-arranging the deckchairs on the Titanic to give everyone an equal view of the iceberg.

• This Changes Everything
• Bolivia’s Economy Under Evo in 10 Graphs
• LMN, BHP and UCL

Julian Assange holed up in Ecuador Embassy in London

We absolutely must fulfil our obligations under the Extradition Act… we remain determined to do so. – William Hague, British Foreign Secretary

No one is going to terrorize us! — President Rafael Correa

Amazing crass stupidity of British government, makes one ashamed to be British. Overnight William Hague has thrown away all the goodwill the London 2012 Olympics has generated worldwide.

If the police storm the Embassy, even to hint they will, means no Embassy worldwide is safe, it is open season on embassies and diplomats in pariah states.

Julian Assange has committed no crime in UK. Sweden could have questioned him at any time in London, but chose not to. They questioned an alleged murderer in Serbia.

Sweden is a poodle of US. Sweden has refused to give guarantees he will not be extradited to US. If I was Swedish I would be ashamed of what was being done in my name.

Anyone would think a mass murderer wanted for War Crimes was holed up in Ecuador Embassy. But even if one was, the British could not storm the Embassy.

Julian Assange could be questioned at any time by the Swedish authorities in London. There are no charges laid against him, he is simply wanted for questioning for what what are not even offences in English law. Not only has Sweden refused to question Julian Assange in London, they have refused to give any reason for this refusal.

Former Stockholm chief district prosecutor Sven-Erik Alhem also made it clear that the Swedish government had no legitimate reason to seek Assange’s extradition when he testified that the decision of the Swedish government to extradite Assange is “unreasonable and unprofessional, as well as unfair and disproportionate”, because he could be easily questioned in the UK.

This is not about fulfilling obligations under the Extradition Act, and it is hypocritical to claim it is.

The Extradition Act should be scrapped. It allows people to be extradited with no evidence against them being submitted to an English Court. People have been extradited for parking tickets, unpaid (or challenged) restaurant bills.

Julian Assange is an Australian citizen. Australia is another poodle of the US. They should be protesting loud and clear at the mistreatment of one of their citizens. They have remained silent.

William Hague accuses Ecuador of harbouring an alleged criminal. Maybe Hague should get his facts right. Julian Assange is wanted for questioning, no charges have been laid against him. How therefore is he an alleged criminal?

An attack on Ecuador is an attack on Latin America, a growing market for British goods and services. Unbelievable crass stupidity by British Government.

British government in threatening Ecuador is seen as acting as a colonial power bullying a small Latin American country.

• Sex, Lies and Julian Assange
• Ecuador shock at threats from British Government
• Julian Assange: UK ‘threat’ to arrest Wikileaks founder
• Julian Assange will not be given safe passage out of UK, warns Hague as WikiLeaks founder is granted asylum by Ecuador
• Julian Assange asylum: Why Ecuador is right to stand up to the US
• Julian Assange: Ecuador grants Wikileaks founder asylum
• Ecuador Grants Asylum to Assange, Defying Britain
• Doorstop press conference – Julian Assange granted asylum in Ecuador
• The rights groups that lost the plot on Ecuador and Julian Assange
• Julian Assange of WikiLeaks Seeks Asylum in Ecuador in Attempt to Avoid Extradition to U.S.