With Forums, Chat, and Social Media, Shire Society Shields Users from Big Tech
More than a decade ago, Facebook was still growing into the social media behemoth they are today. If you were around back then, you remember when it was actually useful for reaching friends across the world and keeping-in-touch.
There was a time, for instance, when you could create an event on Facebook and click an “invite all” box to invite all your friends to the event. Super handy! Every friend received an invite in their inbox and could make the choice to attend or not. The previous activist method of organizing – forums – did not have this calendar event feature, and understandably the activists migrated to Facebook as it seemed more useful for making things happen.
That was the first clue that things were not going in a good direction. At the time, you could still download a third-party browser plugin that brought the invite-all option back, but eventually Facebook changed their code so the plugin no longer worked. That was the end of easily being able to organize events on Facebook.
You’re leaving now, right?
Later, Facebook made it so you had to pay them if you wanted all your followers to see your posts. In more recent years we’ve seen anti-state events being taken down entirely and in recent days blanket bans applied to people with certain political views.
With record numbers of people leaving megacorporate state-worshiping sites like Facebook and Twitter for less-big-but-still-centralized communications platforms like Signal and Telegram, it’s finally cool to get off “Big Tech”.
Naturally, your friendly freedom-loving activists here at Free Keene have been encouraging this for more than a decade. It started when we launched the Shire Forum over a decade back. Originally the Free Keene Forum, it transitioned to become the Shire Society Forums after the Shire Society was formed in 2010. As one of the forum’s founders, I never cared for Facebook’s groups and wanted to keep forums alive as they were independents, self-hosted and open source.
Eventually the Shire Society Forums expanded to include other things like cryptocurrency discussion and non-Shire NH activism and media threads, so it was renamed simply “Shire Forum“. For the last few years it’s been running some super-modern forum software called Discourse. If you are a liberty-minded person considering a move to New Hampshire or already living here and you haven’t been on forums in many years – or ever – give the Shire Forum a try.
Join at Matrix.LRN.FM
Keene-area liberty activists have also been on the Telegram platform for chatting for most of the last decade. It’s long been the top-of-class of all centralized chat platforms on the planet. Slick, easy-to-use and great for group chats. However, while the source code for their clients is open-source, it’s not decentralized and so several years back we evaluated the Matrix – a decentralized, federated chat server system – and put its main client, then called “Riot” through the paces. It was good, but not great, and not easy-to-use like Telegram was. After about a year of trying it out, most of us gave up.
However, in 2020 we launched our own Matrix server after the centrally-hosted Discord corporation unceremoniously booted the LRN.FM chat server from its centrally managed platform. We knew it was coming and I’d heard that Matrix had a new client out called “Element” and that it was way better than its original “Riot”, so we launched our own Matrix server at Matrix.LRN.FM. It has been great, and the increase in freedom is palpable. No corporate masters are holding an axe over our heads.
Matrix is open source, self-hosted, and federated, which means that all of the Matrix servers on the planet are by default connected together, so users from one Matrix server can reach the rest of the planet’s Matrix users on other servers. Unless, a server admin disfederates, or blocks another server for whatever reason. Matrix is way more decentralized than Big Tech monsters like Discord. Technically, Matrix is polycentric – with many centers. If you don’t like one Matrix server, you can join another, or start your own. Element is indeed way better than Riot. If you want to try freer chat, join the LRN.FM Matrix server where you can join existing rooms or create and moderate your own, private or public. All freedom lovers are welcome, not just NH people.
Join the “FTL Social” Mastodon
The decentralizing liberty activist communications story doesn’t end there, however. Just this week we also launched our own federated, self-hosted social media platform called “FTL Social“. It’s running the open source Mastodon software which is also federated and polycentric, like Matrix. It’s open to voluntarists, liberty-loving anarchists, and libertarians from around the world who are looking for a place where their posts won’t be subject to the whims of statist Big Tech admins and their snitch users. Please join at social.freetalklive.com and check it out. It’s a killer replacement for Twitter and works great.
Don’t forget one of the most important decentralized change we’ve seen in our lifetimes – cryptocurrency! If you want to contribute to these projects I’ve listed here, please use the cryptocurrency addresses you can see in the right column here at Free Keene. Longtime readers here already know that crypto is the killer decentralized solution for money and can’t be shut down by greedy, evil politicians.
Last, but not least is LBRY. It’s the decentralized blockchain-based media protocol that has been hosting Free Keene’s videos since 2018. They recently launched a cool new video site called Odysee that has seen a big jump in activity in the last week. LBRY is based in Manchester and run by liberty activists.
I hope this article gave you some ideas about better options to protect your communications from the tech giants who hate freedom. See you in the decentralized, open source, polycentric fediverse!
Tonight, New Year’s Eve, while government goons are threatening people and telling them to stay home, over one hundred revelers are together in a secret venue in the Keene area for “QUARANKEENE Space Disco”! Organizers of the party say it will feature now-prohibited activities like karaoke and dancing. Featuring multiple live DJs, delicious food, good times, and all donations at the door will be given to the NH Liberty Defense Fund. The Liberty Defense Fund is of course accepting cryptocurrency as well as Goldbacks. Here’s the official event flyer:
QUARANKEENE Space Disco 2020
Event co-organizer “Soundwave” said, “2020 has been a soul-crushing year for people across the planet. With lame-ass stay-at-home ‘dance parties’, drive-in concerts with zero crowd energy, and inhumane mask mandates, people have been unable to sing, dance, and connect with other humans. We’re not afraid of a virus that doesn’t show symptoms in the supermajority of the people it infects and kills a small fraction of the elderly, obese people who do actually show symptoms. This whole COVID thing has been a massive excuse to expand government control over people’s lives and transfer more wealth to the elite, while destroying small businesses. We decided the best thing we could do to fight this insanity is to throw a killer party.”
Indeed, tonight’s venue is a previously successful Keene-area restaurant that was closed permanently early on in 2020. The courageous venue owner, Malaise Lindenfeld, is also one of the plaintiffs in the federal lawsuit against the statewide mask mandate as well as the City of Keene’s mandate. Lindenfeld said, “Our most basic freedoms have been coopted by politicians who forget that they serve at our pleasure and not the other way around. If each of us were to take a stand and say “I will not comply”, it will go a long way towards the fight against tyranny.”
QUARANKEENE is the latest in a series of Space Disco parties that began in August 2019, co-founded by DJ Capital Interest. The goal is to eventually throw an epic party in space, but until then build excitement by throwing space-themed parties here on Earth. DJ Capital Interest explained, “The Space Disco is literally going to outer space. Our life mission is to open the solar system’s first discotheque outside of Earth’s atmosphere by joining forces with the world’s leading space and party companies.” Regarding tonight’s party, DJ Capital Interest said, “Space Disco Summer 2020 was by far the best dance club in the country and Space Disco NYE 2020/21 is shaping up to be the best Winter dance club, thanks to so many independent thinkers concentrated in New Hampshire.”
UPDATE: The party raised over $1100 in cash plus a bunch of Goldbacks, a few ounces of silver, and multiple different cryptocurrencies for the Liberty Defense Fund! It was a smashing success.
Captain Kickass’ “COVID Carols” – Click for Printable PDF.
Back in 2011, during Derrick J’s Victimless Crime Spree, a talented parody writer living in Keene at the time, Richard Onley, created some amazing “Chronic Carols“. They were funny and poignant parodies of classic Christmas carols, like “Drug War Cops are Raiding the School” – set to the tune of “Santa Claus is Coming to Town. We had lots of fun forming the Shire Choir and held a series of performances both inside and outside state liquor stores.
The point of the Chronic Carols was to protest the insane war on drugs and do it in a creative and fun way, as singing is much more likely to bring people together or get people to listen to new ideas than say, chanting. Chanting can come across as mindless and angry whereas singing is harmonious. Singing is a virtually unassailable activity as a protest and the American civil rights movement had a lot of success with song, as did the “Singing Revolution” in Estonia.
Fast forward to the present situation where the war on drugs has lightened up a little – at least on cannabis – but now the war is coming against people who just want to breath free, associate with others, hug, or smile at another person. The madness of prohibition has changed into an insane medical authoritarian state. If there was ever a time for the Shire Choir to come back, it’s now.
Actually, the Shire Choir has already come back this year. It was when we visited the NH Attorney General’s house on Thanksgiving and performed the original Chronic Carols, since the war on drugs the AG is behind is still harming innocent, peaceful drug users and dealers. It was fun, but it was clear we needed some current material that could be sung in more places.
Thankfully, Captain Kickass – a longtime professional parody writer who happens to live in Keene – stepped up and cranked out four “COVID Carols” in just a matter of days. The tunes parodied include “Do you hear what I hear?”, which has become “Do you fear what I fear?”, “Merry Little Christmas” is now “Sterile Little Christmas”, “Joy to the World” as “Close down the World”, and “Little Drummer Boy” replaced by “Little Lockdown Boy”. Johnson Rice provided some talented graphic design to put the Captain’s creative lyrics to classic Christmas carols onto a dual-sided color songsheet that you can easily print out and share. Though we have the Shire Choir here in New Hampshire, these songs are intended for the entire world. You can form your own choir and sing anywhere this COVID madness and tyranny has struck.
Don’t let yourself be silenced by the state or social pressure. Sing loud, proud, and hopefully in unison with others. Download and print your own “COVID Carols” songsheet PDF now! Please do share it anywhere you like. It’s our gift to you that hopefully will brighten your spirits on what is an otherwise depressing year and holiday season. It’s darkest before the light – don’t lose hope and please make it your New Year’s resolution to join the liberty migration to New Hampshire in 2021!
Crowd of Revolutionaries Gathered Monday to Read and Sign the new Declaration of Independence for 2020.
Hey New Hampshire government gang: Merry Christmas… YOU’RE FIRED!
In Concord on Monday December 21st of 2020 at ten a.m., a group of over one hundred people from across New Hampshire gathered at the now-closed state house steps to invoke their Right of Revolution as specified in Article Ten of the Bill of Rights of the NH Constitution. It states:
Government being instituted for the common benefit, protection, and security, of the whole community, and not for the private interest or emolument of any one man, family, or class of men; therefore, whenever the ends of government are perverted, and public liberty manifestly endangered, and all other means of redress are ineffectual, the people may, and of right ought to reform the old, or establish a new government. The doctrine of nonresistance against arbitrary power, and oppression, is absurd, slavish, and destructive of the good and happiness of mankind.
Dan Richard of the NH Committee of Safety at COSNH.com
The new Declaration cites various tyrannies, including the unconstitutional “emergency powers” statute that led to the over seventy-five emergency orders issued this year by King Sununu that has trashed the New Hampshire economy and freedoms here generally. Plus, the now-hidden nature of the state gang’s activities makes them completely unaccountable, violating Article Eight of the NH Constitution’s Bill of Rights which requires its government to be open and accountable. Further, the new Declaration claims the voting system was illegally and unconstitutionally manipulated out-of-view from the people and calls the entire election fraudulent as a result.
It calls out the state bureaucracy’s endless harassment of the people as well as the “standing armies of enforcement agents” enacting the tyranny, and the now-secret courts. The new Declaration states that effective means for redress of grievances have been abolished and that, “Our form of government, has become a complete system of tyranny. The Same party is the legislator, the accuser, the judge, and the executioner by declaring themselves invested with power to legislate in secret in all cases whatsoever.”
Citing NH’s Article Ten, the new Declaration dissolves all political connections between the state and the citizenry, absolving us of any allegiance to “the state”.
Afterwards, a copy was delivered to the Secretary of State’s office and the Attorney General’s office. It was subsequently served on “governor” Chris Sununu hiding in his home on Christmas Eve. Here’s video of Monday’s visit to the state house and AG’s office including nearly all of the reading of the new Declaration of Independence. I missed the first few paragraphs due to a dead camera battery:
Kudos to the heroic folks who came out to end the failed experiment of the New Hampshire government.
Liberty-loving protestors descended on the home of NH Attorney General Gordon MacDonald – 128 Dickey Hill Rd in Deering, NH – on Thanksgiving Day to express their outrage that the state gang is threatening peaceful business owners. Local businesses across New Hampshire are being issued fines as high as $2,000 for violating the “emergency orders” of “HIS EXCELLENCY” governor Chris Sununu.
A hundred protestors went to Sununu’s house last weekend, but the protest at MacDonald’s house was organized in secret. As a result, police were not waiting on-site as they were at Sununu’s. However, it didn’t take long for the cops to be called by MacDonald’s attorney wife, Jennifer A Eber.
To the credit of Hillsboro police, they were respectful and on their best behavior. One of them even laughed at a joke that Nobody cracked and was generally quite friendly. Though he did try to get us to move our cars from the side of the road, he backed down when we pointed out we knew what an easement was.
Eber was not happy, demanding we be removed from “her property”. The attorney couple owns three large wooded lots across the street from their home, so Eber mistakenly believed that would protect them from such a protest. However, she didn’t realize the very same state gang that puts food on her table also has rules for “public ways” that allow us to engage in protests just like this. Apparently she doesn’t like it when people bring the destructive consequences of her husband’s actions home for her to experience.
As long as her husband keeps ruining peaceful people’s lives, and invading their businesses and homes with his bureaucracy, threats, and fines, she can expect we’ll continue to remind her about it. Here’s the video from yesterday’s protest:
It was cold and raining lightly in the beginning. We stayed for over an hour before the rain got quite heavy. Since the CDC has now told people they shouldn’t do caroling, we decided to bring back the Shire Choir and sang a few “Chronic Carols” before packing up and heading to a nearby activist Thanksgiving.
Protestors in front of NH governor’s home for the first time ever.
As originally announced here at Free Keene, approximately one hundred people gathered Sunday afternoon at New Hampshire’s “governor” Chris Sununu’s house at 71 Hemlock Ct. in Newfields, NH. Many had been pushed over their limit by his recent statewide mask mandate, but it wasn’t just about him trying to tell people what to wear, it was also about ruining businesses and destroying jobs and lives with his “emergency orders”.
Sununu’s edicts have invaded our homes and businesses, so now we’re invading his. It’s been a long time coming and today was a lot of fun as we joined together from across NH. Sununu’s gubernatorial primary challenger, Nobody, was in attendance and purchased hundreds of dollars worth of pizza for the crowd on the cold, late-fall afternoon. Ten-year-old Lucas, who earlier had been calling out Sununu on a megaphone, grabbed a pizza and attempted to walk it up the driveway to offer it to the multiple state police officers that had been assigned to protect “HIS EXCELLENCY”. They told him to leave the property, as is shown in this highlights video by Vincent Moore from Shire Free Media:
Also, when the Domino’s driver pulled up, he had on a mask but removed it and smiled as he received plenty of cash tips from the excited attendees. It was a great day for us, but probably not for Sununu as he hid inside his home like the cowardly, sniveling politician he is.
