Why Free? And why this manifesto may be of interest

We will refrain from an endless analysis and discussion of why this book, among zillions, may be of interest to us, but we have highlighted some key phrases that drew our attention.  It may be easy to bash the book or to praise it and we may do both in the future, but it may have to be done together with all of you who may have read it.  What's the value of us providing with a reason not to read it but remain confident that its criticism is as good as reading it yourselves?

Both myself and my courageous publishers, Permanent Publications, have decided to publish a free online version of this book, and the normal paperback version under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported license, for three reasons:

First, the ideas and practical tools contained within it should be free to whoever may find them useful, and not made falsely scarce by the mechanisms of the monetary economy.

Second, just as actions display our beliefs more honestly than our words, the ways in which ideas and practical tools are shared are at least as important as the words themselves. I wanted the medium to be fully aligned with the message.

Third, I wanted to release it under a Creative Commons licence because it felt fraudulent to have my name on the front of this book. As I said in the acknowledgements page of my last book, what are my words but “an accumulation of all that has come

Another Kind of Revolution

November 06, 2013

Another Kind of Revolution

The Mapuche’s Struggle for the Land

by JOHN SEVERINO

In the aftermath of the inspiring popular uprising in Argentina at the end of 2001 and the battles that blocked neoliberalism in Bolivia from 2003-2005, the Left came to power in governments across South America—most notably in Argentina, Venezuela, Brazil, and Bolivia—in a series of electoral upsets that were quickly hailed as revolutions. In hindsight, these victories prove to be less than convincing. The new revolutionary governments institutionalized social movements, turning them into mere appendages, they continued cutting down the rainforests and displacing indigenous peoples in the name of progress, they supported free trade agreements, used paramilitary or police forces against student demonstrators, expanded the exploitation of gas, oil, and coal, and imprisoned dissidents. Business as usual.
The cynicism of these new governments should not have come as a surprise. True revolutions do not happen overnight, and they are not delivered by politicians. The kind of transformation that ends exploitation, misery, and the destruction of the environment, and that allows people to organize their own lives and fulfill their needs in freedom and dignity comes about in an altogether different kind of way.