4/4 Die Lösung? Einen Wandel von Quantität zu Qualität einfordern. Nicht mehr, schneller, weiter, sondern: relevanter, verlässlicher, wirkungsvoller.

Was denkt ihr? Überzieht Rose mit seiner Kritik oder trifft er den Nagel auf den Kopf?

🔗 https://threeworlds.campaignstrategy.org/?p=3492

#AI #KI #Campaigning #ProgressiveTech #Ethik #OpenSource

#USpolitics #OneYear #Campaigning

"One Year, One Movement” [4:15 min]
by Zohran Mamdani for NYC

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWubIXe_1Fw

Quote by ZMfNYC:
“Oct 14, 2025
We launched this campaign one year ago. And together we have shocked the world and built a movement. All thanks to you. "

#TimeToResist #FightOligarchy #FearIsTheirTactic
#VoteUpAndDownTheBallot
#WorkersUnite #UnionStrong
#AbusiveHealthcare #CapitalismIsFailingYou

I know some of us are really angered by #Meta's decision to stop running political, electoral and social issue ads in the EU.

I understand this will force many civil society orgs to painfully disentangle their own #campaigning from #Meta platforms.

But in my books it's a win-win: CSOs win because they finally break free from an abusive relationship, and society wins because less of our political debates and election campaigns are run on toxic #BigTech platforms.

#TrackingFreeAds #PoliticalAds

Morgan McSweeney has served as Downing Street Chief of Staff under Prime Minister Keir Starmer since October 2024.
McSweeney was the campaign manager for the Labour Party and director of the think tank "Labour Together".
Morgan McSweeney has a murky history of targeting the Left of the Labour Party: https://www.thecanary.co/uk/news/2025/09/22/campaign-to-sabotage-corbyn-coming-back-to-bite-morgan-mcsweeney/

#plot #corruption #campaigning #influence #LabourParty #Wales #England #Britain #UK #UKPol #UKPolitics #proZionism #StandWithIsrael #collusion #support #coOpting #imperialism #government #cabinet #Starmer #KeirStarmer #McSweeney #Labour

The Green Party's leadership is advocating for a more assertive approach, urging a shift away from a strategy of constant compromise. Felix Banaszak, the party'... https://news.osna.fm/?p=16985 | #news #aggressive #calls #campaigning #greens

The thread about Middle Meadow Walk; resisting a century of attempts to “open” it up

Modal filters – closing a road to one form of traffic by a manner such as bollards – are often in the news regards “Low Traffic Neighbourhood” concepts, but are nothing new. By my reckoning, one of the oldest still in force in Edinburgh lies at the top of Middle Meadow Walk where it meets Forrest Road and Teviot Place, and it is one that has resisted attempts to get rid of it for more than a century and a half.

The Middle Meadow Walk story begins in 1722 when Thomas Hope of Rankeillor took a 57 year lease on the remains of the old Burgh Loch with the purpose of reclaiming the land as an ornamental park. He was bound to provide a tree-lined walkway all around the new park, flanked by a drainage ditch, and a similar walkway across the middle of the park – at this time known simply as the Meadow Walk. In 1737, the Town Council feud a strip across the lands of Heriot’s Hospital to provide a walkway extending the otherwise isolated Meadow Walk up to the roadway outside the town walls near the Charity Workhouse (present day Forrest Road). This was opened to the public in 1743 when the city wall was breached at its head. Maps from the middle of the 18th century reflect these paths and on Edgar’s town plan of 1765 (below) we can see the tree lined avenue. The name Middle Meadow Walk didn’t really come into use until the end of the 19th century to differentiate it from an ever increasing number of formally name pathways across and around the park.

From its very inception Middle Meadow Walk was always just that – a walkway. It was formally re-laid in the early 1850s after a competition was held by the Town Council, won by architect George Smith, for plans to improve and landscape the park as a whole in concert with a final drainage of the eastern portion of the park which had remained persistently boggy despite centuries of attempts to dry it. At this time the head of Middle Meadow Walk at Teviot Place was improved, in connection with the opening up of the new street of Forrest Road. The narrow entrance and lodge cottages on either side of the path were cleared away and four ornamental pillars planned. In the event, only two pillars were paid for by public subscription and these stood unfinished until 1850 when the Town Council paid for the sculptor Alexander Handyside Ritchie to provide a pair of ornamental unicorns to crown them. The wooden posts that formerly prevented (in theory) access to the park by carriage traffic were replaced at this time by more substantial and permanent stone bollards.

In 1864, the proprietors of the feus of the Grange, lead by the feudal superior landowner, Sir John Dick Lauder, 8th Baronet, loudly agitated to have it opened to horses and carriages. A public backlash saw this attempt fail, opinion was very much that this was a move at the expense of the majority to the benefit of a small number of residents who were wealthy enough to have a carriage. Opposition was lead by radical academic John Stuart Blackie. In opposition, Dick Lauder went so far as to write to The Scotsman that the late Lord Cockburn, for whom the Cockburn Association is named, had “express[ed] himself strongly in favour of the Middle Walk being opened as a drive“.

Public meetings were held in support of keeping Middle Meadow Walk traffic free, supported by a number of Town Councillors. Dr Begg lent his support – no, not Dr David Begg (now professor), one time city councillor transport convenor – but the Rev. Dr James Begg, Free Chuch minister and social reformer. It was the informed opinion of those against the proposal that “the Provost, Magistrates and Town Council of Edinburgh [were] ex officio the custodiers [sic] and guardians of the Meadows on behalf of their fellow citizens but no more” and therefore had no right to open Middle Meadow Walk to traffic.

The inhabitants of Edinburgh would be all greater geese than any that ever fed upon the common if they allowed the Middle Meadow Walk to be taken from them. If they allowed the proposed schemed to be proceeded with, they would, in his estimation, be greener than any grass that ever grew in the Meadows.

Rev. Dr James Begg, public meeting reported in the Scotsman, 8th March 1864

When it came to the vote, the Town Council came down strongly against the proposal and it remained a footpath. However that didn’t mean drivers didn’t try it on and in 1871 Alexander Moncur, “a young lad”, was knocked down by a horse cab cutting through the Meadows one night.

Another attempt was made in 1873-4 to drum up support for opening Middle Meadow Walk to traffic, led by the lawyer D. Scott Moncrieff WS. Again the issue divided opinion, again there was a public backlash against it. On Saturday 1st August, a mass public meeting, presided over by Dr John Bowie (a medical doctor of Lauriston Place, who was also a prominent temperance reformer, spiritualist and anti-vivisectionist), was held in the East Meadows in opposition, attended by 1,800 people.

Seeing that the Meadows are the exclusive property of the inhabitants of Edinburgh, as also the Middle Meadow Walk, which has from time immemorial been used as a promenade and quiet retreat for foot passengers, this meeting pledges itself to use every legitimate endeavour to retain intact their rights to the same.

Motion by Mr John Nisbet agreed to by the open air meeting

At a meeting to nominate a town councillor for the George Square ward, prospective candidate Mr Alexander Buncle declared “opening the Middle Meadow Walk was the grossest piece of vandalism that had been proposed during the last 50 years“, receiving loud applause. Once again, to much relief, the proposal failed.

The subject was discussed by the Town Council again in 1876. And 1879. And 1885. And 1892. Unsurprisingly those dates all coincide with someone in favour of the proposal trying to get themselves elected to the Town Council… In 1895 it was proposed to run an extension of the city’s cable tramway down Middle Meadow Walk to Marchmont but once again public opinion came out strongly against the proposal. Instead, the route ended up taking the long way around, down Lauriston Place, via Tollcross and back around Melville Drive. As a result, what could have been a 1 minute journey took closer to 10 minutes (or more when there was congestion at Tollcross). Writing to the Scotsman in 1909, a correspondent calling themselves “One Who Live Beyond the Meadows” said the “walk is a great boon to many living at the South Side, for there are still some who like to walk instead of going in tramcars. Let us… keep this walk free from the noise and rattle of the streets.” To this day, the district of Marchmont remains tantalisingly close to the city centre and yet awkwardly cut off from it by public transport as a result.

Things remained quiet until 1915 and again in 1919 whence once more there was some local agitation in the papers and within the Town Council in favour of the opening of Middle Meadow Walk to traffic – by now motorised. Again there was strong public condemnation.

“For folk that flee in motor cars, And little ken or care”

W. Forbes Gray writing to the Scotsman on the subject in 1919

And yet, despite the incessant attempts to change the status quo, every time public opinion and a majority in the Town Council came down against the “opening” of the route to traffic. Yet still people tried: it was an issue in the 1921-22 local election campaign. An Evening News editorial said in 1921 that it was the “one certain method of setting the heather on fire in George Square ward” and that the suggestion was trouble-making on the part of Leith councillors. And that of 1928. In that year, the Town Council’s Chief Traffic Officer, Mr Roy, had “two pawl posts with red lights” (what we would now call bollards) mounted on the tramway islands on Lauriston Place at the top of Middle Meadow Walk “to prevent motorists assuming that [it] was a traffic thoroughfare”.

In 1931, 1935 and 1936 the issue came up once more. When it looked in 1936 like the Town Council might finally be swayed in favour of the decision, so an effective local “Hands Off!” campaign was mounted by candidates in the George Square ward.

Traffic and road safety were big issues at the time. Cllr. Rutherford Fortune said, “there is a clamant (sic) necessity at this time for more play streets for children and it is an extraordinary proposal to suggest the opening to traffic of a place where security is almost absolute.” Citing the example of Melville Drive, which runs through the Meadows East-West, Fortune said “motor cars, noisy motor cycles, bicyclists, motor lorries laden with milk cans, all the roar of a busy street would be let loose beside Scotland’s greatest hospital“. This vigorous defence of the sanctity of Middle Meadow Walk delayed the “Meadows Traffic Plan” until 1939 by which time the war intervened. But change was back on the books in 1946 as part of the University’s Comprehensive Redevelopment Area proposals (which would go on to trash much of the neighbourhood over the following 20 years). As late as 1962, when Forrest Road, Bristo Place and Teviot Place were turned into a one-way gyratory to help “smooth the traffic flow”, the prospect of a straight vehicular route south through the Grange from George IV Bridge was too much for some to resist and noises were made in the papers about it being the time to change.

Indeed the *only* change in traffic status for Middle Meadow Walk over the last 170 years came in 1983, after 5 years of campaigning led by Spokes, the Lothian Cycling Campaign, when a painted cycle lane was added to the path. This remains one of the city’s most important cycling routes to this day and has garnered something of a special status in those respects amongst cycling campaigners.

The prospect of cycling on MMW provoked Edinburgh’s finest ever green-ink backlash to the Scotsman from Conservative Councillor Ralph Brereton:

“Spokes can get lost and take its commie friends with it. Who wants a proletarian dictatorship anyway?”

Breteton received something of a public slapping down in response and eventually warmed to the idea.

If you have found this useful, informative or amusing, perhaps you would like to help contribute towards the running costs of this site – including keeping it ad-free and my book-buying budget to find further stories to bring you – by supporting me on ko-fi. Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends.

These threads © 2017-2025, Andy Arthur.

NO AI TRAINING: Any use of the contents of this website to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.

#Campaigning #Cycling #Marchmont #Meadows #Spokes #Traffic #transport #Transportation

Interesting fully remote gig for a campaigner who's also great at managing risks. Meliore Foundation is hiring a Senior Associate to help their team safely tackle climate change and misinformation. #Campaigning #JobAlert #SocialImpact

Senior Associate - Campaign Ri...

"Then when I got involved in the National Union of Students I realised that I wasn’t the only one who felt this way. That’s a really magical moment, when you discover that you’re not alone in your politics."

"If we’re contesting state power, we’re going to face a major backlash, and we need to have the institutional resilience to withstand it. […] The overall party structure has to be unitary."

An interview with Zarah Sultana: https://newleftreview.org/sidecar/posts/the-alternative

#materialPolitics #campaigning #antiRacism #communityOrganizing #materialism #YourParty #UKPol #UKPolitics #Britain #GreatBritain #uk #England #Scotland #Wales #antiZionism #proZionism #militant #ZarahSultana #militants #Sultana #elections #TheLeft #socialists #socialism #politicalEducation #classStruggle #joy

“A well-known principle of human behavior says that when we ask someone to do us a favor we will be more successful if we provide a reason. People simply like to have reasons for what they do.”
― Robert B. Cialdini, Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, 1984

#manipulation #persuasion #validation #influence #conversation #memory #neuroscience #campaigning #narratives #storyTelling #Psychology #socialPsych #socialPsychology #facilitation #Cialdini #book

Local elections 2025: Rotorua rural ward councillor Karen Barker reelected unopposed

“I’m very grateful I get the chance to serve again, because it’s been a particularly enjoyable experience,” said…
#NewsBeep #News #Headlines #2025 #barker #campaigning #candidates #council #councillor #Elections #feet #gear #karen #Local #months #NewZealand #NZ #reelected #rotorua #rural #unopposed #ward #whirlwind
https://www.newsbeep.com/44528/

Warum ist die Losdemokratiepartei selber nicht losdemokratisch organisiert?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3L32XwHIos

#Parteien #Parteiorganisation #LosdemokratieParteiFürEineStarkeBürgerschaft #Parteikampf #Wahlkampf #Kampagne #Campaigning

A quotation from Will Rogers

   With the election coming on, you are going to be fed a lot of hooey about a lot of things. Naturally both sides are going to put their best side forward.
   They are now trying to figure out which side is their best.

Will Rogers (1879-1935) American humorist
Column (1932-05-29), “Weekly Article”

Sourcing, notes: wist.info/rogers-will/78004/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #republicans #democrats #campaigning #facade #election #politicalparties #politicians #politics #publicrelations

In Episode 58, Rep Heather Bauer empasizes the need for a Democratic candidate to actively seek out Republican voters when campaigning.

Subscribe, download and listen today! https://linktr.ee/bwabits

#SouthCarolina #SCPol #SCPolitics #SCDems #SCDemocrats #Democrats #Campaigning

https://youtube.com/shorts/d8tt2bkD_QE

I've been helping to run the climate action group stall at the local school fete this afternoon. Always surprising how ordinary people do actually care about climate emergency and are genuinely interested in what they can do. It might not be in the news but it seems like it's in people's minds.
#climateChange #campaigning #community #feniverse

"Subjective validation, sometimes called personal validation effect, is a cognitive bias by which people will consider a statement or another piece of information to be correct if it has any personal meaning or significance to them. People whose opinion is affected by subjective validation will perceive two unrelated events (i.e., a coincidence) to be related because their personal beliefs demand that they be related."

CC-BY-SA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjective_validation 🧶

#manipulation #persuasion #validation #influence #conversation #memory #neuroscience #campaigning #narratives #storyTelling #Psychology #socialPsych #socialPsychology #facilitation #Cialdini

“There is a natural human tendency to dislike a person who brings us unpleasant information, even when that person did not cause the bad news. The simple association with it is enough to stimulate our dislike.”
― Robert B. Cialdini, in his book "Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion", 1984

#manipulation #persuasion #influence #conversation #memory #neuroscience #campaigning #narratives #storyTelling #Psychology #socialPsych #socialPsychology #facilitation #Cialdini

"casual participants couldn’t help but always bringing it back to “burning down the local McDonalds”"

Some great comments in this long read from @reece

Learning the Right Path by Trying the Wrong Path.
https://cinqpersonnes.substack.com/p/learning-the-right-path-by-trying

#transit #transport #careers #CareerSwitch #campaigning #activism #trains