Welcome to Dispatch #34! We are living in rapidly changing times as digital technology tries to take over more and more of our lives, not only in the online realm but increasingly in the real world with the rise of AI and massive data centers around the globe, often at the whims of a few rich people and countries. So this week, let’s talk about the efforts to fight back. We’ll discuss successful movements in Chile against data centers, the historical roots of anti-technology movements, the true aims of the US-Israeli war on Iran, and more! Let’s get into it!
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Easy Actions to Take
The BDS Movement has endorsed the growing consumer boycott of Spotify for their exploitation of musicians, promotion of racist forces in Israel and the US, normalizing apartheid and genocide, and rampant creation of AI-generated music.
Why: The Constitution is clear: only Congress has the power to authorize war. That's why lawmakers have introduced the Kaine-Paul Iran War Powers Resolution (S.J.Res.104) in the Senate and the Khanna-Massie Iran War Powers Resolution (H.Con.Res.38) in the House — and both will be called for a vote next week. If passed, these resolutions would prohibit the president from launching military strikes on Iran without explicit Congressional authorization, reasserting Congress's authority and preventing an unauthorized war. Organized by NIAC Action
Why: Booking.com and Airbnb profit off Israel’s apartheid and ethnic cleansing of Indigenous Palestinian communities by listing illegal settlement properties built on stolen Palestinian land as Israeli rentals. Until they end their complicity in Israel’s apartheid and war crimes, pledge to not make my travel reservations through these aggregators as much as possible, and instead use alternatives or reserve directly with the properties. Organized by BDS Movement
Why: As people across the country condemn yet another illegal, immoral, and unauthorized military action by the White House and Israel, corporate leaders who have been silent and the AI and tech companies whose platforms make wars possible have to take a stand. Organized by May Day Coalition
The QuitGPT campaign is ramping up with over 700,000 more people pledging to delete ChatGPT after Sam Altman made a deal with the Department of War to license the app to them. Join today!
Little (Movement) Wins
How Chilean Workers Beat Google
Activist History
The birth of AI technology has launched a new digital gold rush. Billions of dollars are being invested around the world to build massive data centers to power the ambitions of Google, Meta, Amazon, and other tech giants. These are not just being built inside the United States - a huge amount are being built in Global Majority countries, imposing the vision of the future by private companies onto poorer countries with local residents paying the price with their land, natural resources, and labor.
Santiago, Chile is one major example. Loose regulations, cheap water, and existing infrastructure has made Chile attractive to tech giants. To date, the Chilean government has approved the construction of 22 data centers in the country with 16 of them being in the Santiago area, turning the country’s capital into one of the biggest data center hubs in Latin America. These data centers provide a minimal amount of jobs, but carry a massive environmental impact. In one instance, Google built a data center in the rural commune of Quilicura that consumes 50 liters of water per second from underground wells. This is while Chile is also in the middle of a historic drought since 2010.
In 2019, Google announced they were building another data center across town in Cerrillos which would consume a staggering 169 liters of water per second. In response, activists from the environmental group Mosacat jumped into action. Most of the negotiations for data centers are done behind closed doors with very little public involvement. Mosacat educated their neighbors about the environmental impacts by going to street markets, hosting workshops with the local community, and putting up posters in bus stops. Strategically they focused their messaging around water consumption, knowing that this is an issue that affects the daily life of working-class Chileans directly and would carry the most emotional impact. In 2024, they achieved victory. A Chilean court forced Google to halt the project and comply with more strict environmental rules around water usage. The fight is still far from over, but Mosacat’s work has inspired similar organizing in neighboring Latin American countries like Uruguay and Brazil where more data centers are planned.
The fight against data centers is happening globally and across the United States too. $200 billion of data center projects have been proposed in the United States, often negotiated in secret away from public scrutiny. But thanks to local opposition, $64 billion have been blocked or delayed so far. Explore the links below to learn more and join the fight.
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Balkanization
The Conscious Citizens Dictionary
Balkanization is the process of fragmenting an area, country, or region into multiple smaller, and often hostile, independent states. It is usually caused by differences in ethnicity, culture, and religion that are then exploited to serve the geopolitical interests of larger, more powerful nations.
The term originates in the 20th century during the two Balkan Wars from 1912-1913 where four young nation-states (Greece, Serbia, Montenegro, and Bulgaria) fought for territory in the Balkan region. In the First Balkan War, the four countries formed the Balkan League to fight against the Ottoman Empire. However, a year later in 1913, their own rivalries for territory led to the Second Balkan War with the former allies fighting amongst themselves. The ensuing chaos destabilized the entire region, redrew borders, and ended Ottoman rule in the Balkans, with larger nations like Russia, Britain, France, Austria-Hungary, and Germany all influencing the final results for their personal gain.
Today, Balkanization is still a common tactic for large nations to maintain their interests in certain parts of the world, like the Middle East. For example, some have interpreted the USA's motives behind starting a war with Iran to not be regime-change, but rather to break up Iran into several warring factions and send the country into prolonged infighting and chaos with the hope that Iran ceases to be a threat to Western interests in the region.
The Return of the Luddites in 2026
Connecting the Dots
Would you consider yourself a “Luddite?” For years, the term “luddite” has been used as an insult, meaning someone who was against technology, backward, and resistant to change. In reality, the real Luddites from history were not just people who couldn’t stand new gadgets. They were workers organizing militantly against businesses and corporations who were actively taking their livelihoods away. Named after Ned Ludd, Luddites were textile workers who saw how the invention of automation in spinning, knitting, and cloth finishing were causing thousands of men and women to be unemployed. Families that enjoyed stable jobs and good pay were now forced to work for much less in large factories, with child labor replacing skilled craftsmen. In the book Blood in the Machine: The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech, Brian Merchant writes:
The Luddites did not randomly pick up hammers in a rage one day and decide to smash any technology they saw. Their campaign was, if anything, a logical response. It was the product of years of accumulated grievances: years spent watching entrepreneurs disrupt their livelihoods through methods that were in many cases illegal…and seeing their political leaders do nothing.
Today, we are in a similar time as AI threatens the livelihoods of millions around the globe, destroys entire industries, sucks up valuable natural resources, and fills the internet with psychologically harmful AI slop. Naturally, there has been huge pushback. Local organizers are working to block the creation of data centers, young people are creating groups to live offline, more and more are trying to divest from Big Tech who have turned our lives into commodities.
Thomas Hutt from The Egg, a publication about technology’s impact on humans and the planet, writes more about the growing movement of new Luddites around the globe. This isn’t backward - it’s the natural reaction to disenfranchisement. While new technologies have many benefits, the interests of private companies will always prioritize profits over global well-being. Unless we resist in our local communities, that will never change. Wherever you are, there are things you can do to fight back:
- See if there are planned data centers in your local area and organize to demand transparency and more regulation
- Divest from Big Tech with open-source alternatives to popular applications
- Educate loved ones (especially children) about the personal harms of excessive screen and AI use
- Use your devices more intentionally, logging off whenever possible
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"The life you are dreaming of can be achieved not by miracles, but by revolution."
- Abdullah Ocalan
Conscious Creatives: Shannon Downey
Shannon Downey is an artist, craftivist, and community builder using embroidery as a community organizing tool to build social relations between different groups of people and inspire them to develop their voice and take action combating systems of oppression.
By leveraging her love for craft-based art forms and combining it with community workshops and embroidery tutorials, she creates opportunities for others to think, discuss, and bridge divides all while finding a digital/analog balance. In this process she’s also able to inspire and mobilize people to use their crafting skills to raise awareness and funds for causes important to them, demonstrating that when we collaborate together we can make a difference and move the needle for what’s possible.
Speaking of which–she also published a book called “Move the Needle: An Activist Handbook for Artists, Crafters, Creatives, and Makers” where she shares the tools she’s used throughout her career to help any crafty creative level up their work as a change-maker.
📱 Follow Shannon on Instagram | 🖥 Visit Shannon's Website
Resources & Tools
Here are some recent adds to the directory. Please share these links with anyone that might find them helpful:
- 📱 Qobuz | An alternative music streaming platform to Spotify that's on a mission to build more fair and sustainable payment models for independent artists. It is currently one of the highest paying platforms for artists, paying 5x more than other streaming platforms.
- 🖼 Creative Reuse Center Map | An international map of creative reuse centers created by Stephanie Woodson.
- 🖥 FastAlert | A free Emergency Alert System for public safety & rapid response that allows you to notify friends, neighbors, and family of danger anonymously - no apps or sign-ups required.
- 🖥 Brave | A free and open-source privacy-focused web browser that prioritizes users' experiences over tech company profit. A great and safer alternative to Google!
- 🖥 Easy Opt Outs | Protect your personal information online. This is the most affordable removal service on the market for $20/year and removes your data from 160 of the most major data broker sites.
- 📓 How to Use Your Federal Taxes to Resist War | A 5-step guide written by the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee to help Americans decide if tax resistance is right for them and how to proceed if so.
- 📓 The Offline Community Organizing Manual | A practical guide by Shadowbanned Magazine to help you stay connected to your community, share resources, and sustain our movements without relying on corporate platforms and vulnerable technology that can fail us at any time. It covers offline communication, mutual aid mapping, skill directories, safe meeting strategies, and maintaining resilient community infrastructure.
➡️ Explore More on our Directory!
Know any resources that you think would be a great add to our directory? Share it with us! (We only see so much from our corner of the world)
If you're new here, don't forget to sign up to get full access to our directory and free newsletters sent to your inbox every other Sunday. Till next time, do your best and take it one day at a time. Care for yourself and the people around you. Believe that the world can be better than it is now. Never give up. And remember, you're not alone. We always have each other.
Onward to the World We Deserve,
Elisa & Ray
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