Society doesn't exist

There is no
such thing
as society.

There are individual men
and women, and there are
families.

Bruno Latour:

To retrieve the invaluable effectiveness of
political talk, we need to start with the idea
that, as Margaret Thatcher so forcefully put it,
„society doesn‟t exist‟

If it does not exist, we have to make it
exist, but in order to do so we need the
means to do so.
BL
“What if we Talked Politics a Little?” (2003)

Laclau and Mouffe, Hegemony and Social Strategy (1985):

…we must begin by renouncing the conception of „society‟ as
founding totality of its partial processes. We must, therefore,
consider the openness of the social as the constitutive ground
or „negative essence‟ of the existing, and the diverse „social
orders‟ as precarious and ultimately failed attempts to
domesticate the field of differences. Accordingly, the
multiformity of the social cannot be apprehended through a
system of mediations, or the social order be understood as an
underlying principle.

OpenOffice is a free office productivity suite. It
includes a word processor, spreadsheet
program, presentation manager and drawing
program. OpenOffice lets files be saved in
standard formats so OpenOffice is not needed
to view files created or edited by the program.
NeoOffice is a fully-featured set of office
applications (including word processing,
spreadsheet, presentation and drawing
programs) for Mac OS X. Based on OpenOffice,
NeoOffice has integrated dozens of native Mac
fneweatures and can import, edit and
exchange files with other popular office
programs such as Microsoft Office.
Ajax13 is a web-based Office Suite that allows
you to create and share documents,
spreadsheets and presentations. Ajax13 also
has a sketch tool to do basic diagrams and a
media player. The tool supports files in a
variety of formats, including those of Microsoft
Office and open formats such as .odt.
Audio and Video
Audacity is a free audio recorder and editor. It
can also be used to convert files from one
audio format to another.

It has capabilities similar to Illustrator,
Freehand or CorelDraw. It supports rendering
of shapes, paths, text, markers, clones,
transparency, transformations, gradients,
patterns and grouping. InkScape uses vector
graphics, which means images are scalable
with no decrease in image quality.
PDFCreator is a free tool to create PDF files
from nearly any Windows application that can
print. While many popular programs such as
Microsoft Word have built in pdf support,
PDFCreator allows movements using less
common programs to distribute content in a
common format.
Scribus can be used to create layouts for
newsletters, stationery, posters, training
manuals, technical documentation, business
cards and other documents that need flexible
layout or sophisticated image handling. It has
precise typography controls and image sizing
not available in current word processors.
Available for Windows, Linux and Mac.
GIMP stands for GNU Image Manipulation
Program. Typical uses include creating graphics
and logos, resizing and cropping photos,

Privacy and Security
Ninja Cloak is a proxy that masks the IP
address of the user when browsing online. The
user is routed through the Ninja cloak server,
making it difficult to trace the original
computer. Ninja cloak does not require any
software to be downloaded on the user’s
computer. However, it only works for accessing
websites anonymously.
Tor masks an IP address by sending the client
through a series of routers (called the Tor
network). One benefit of Tor is that it is a stand
alone program rather than a browser based
service. This means Tor can mask all sending
of data from computer to computer, not just
data transmitted to and from websites. This
means that even data transfer that does not
take place on websites, such as irc transfers, is
masked. Tor is often combined with other
proxy software such as Polipo.
Martus is database construction software that
helps organizations create an encrypted and
secure database. It has typically been used to
catalogue and report human rights violations.
Data is encrypted and saved in multiple

5 REASONS ANDROID IS BECOMING THE
GO-TO MOBILE DEVICE FOR ACTIVISTS
• Android, the open-source mobile operating system developed by Google, is quickly
becoming the smartphone of choice for activists. It’s growing in popularity around
the world, recently becoming thenumber two smartphone in the world behind
Nokia’s Symbian operating system and outranksthe iPhone in the U.S. Here are 5
reasons why Android should be on any activist's radar.
• 1. More Possibilities with Open Source
• Android is an open-source platform, meaning that the source code is accessible to
anyone, allowing for developers to create apps that extend the functionality of
devices. With closed platforms like Apple’s iPhone, on the other hand, the
manufacturer and/or network have much morecontrol over what users can do
with their devices.
• As Melissa Loudon of MobileActive points out: “Perhaps the biggest problem with
closed platforms, at least for mobile activism work, is the threat of surveillance.
Without access to the code, there is no way of knowing that surveillance features
aren't present. For anyone dealing with sensitive data or communications, this
should be a red flag.” With open source, experts in the security industry, for
example, can pour over the code and look for bugs and holes in the software.
• 2. Better Security
• Compared to other types of mobile devices on the market, Android seems to offer
the most security. The open-source platform makes it possible for developers to
develop apps that make texting, calling, and mobile browsing safer. Two programs
of note:

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