[IMC-US] some thoughts on a US-IMC
max
max at michiganimc.org
Sun Sep 7 21:12:16 CDT 2003
hello-
I've been following the discussion regarding the US-IMC since the AMC
meeting in June, though I've been mostly quiet on these lists. I'm
writing this email to my express 1) my support of this project, 2) my
desire to see it move forward, and 3) my willingness to work hard to
make sure that it happens right. there are also three other points I
would like to make regarding the recent debate over the US-IMC:
1. generally, the effects of a US-IMC on Indymedia activists and
Centers both within the US and without will be positive. additionally,
the US-IMC will, by functioning as a nationwide progressive media
network, have an added positive effect on all those working for
positive social change in this country.
2. A US-IMC will not adopt a nationalistic, defensive, state-friendly
position towards US policies (foreign and domestic), as suggested by
some, but will rather (based on the principles and theories behind
Indymedia, as well as the content of existing IMCs) be a critical voice.
3. Activists, including media activists, residing within the (however
illegitimate) borders of the nation-state known as the United States,
need to recognize the political reality of the United States and the
reality of the effects of US policies on the rest of the world, as well
as the need for public critical debate over the US and its policies.
While I am supportive of making a conscious effort at cross-border
media efforts and information flow (as suggested by boud and ana), I
think it's important to not take this idea too far: while it's
important to work towards subverting border-based identities, we can't
deny the existence of the US. it is our responsibility as media
activists living within these very real borders to reveal them and the
effects of both them and the powers that created them, and confront
both of these when appropriate. This will be an important and primary
purpose of the US-IMC.
in solidarity,
max
michiganIMC.org
On Saturday, September 6, 2003, at 05:44 AM, boud wrote:
> hi sascha, susanna, everyone,
>
> #####
> SUMMARY - this is a SUGGESTION, it is NOT a block
> Is it practical for those people and local IMCs strongly motivated
> to syndicate info from USA IMCs into a bunch of 5-10 regional IMCs
> of which several deliberately cross the violence-based borders of the
> USA,
> fully including Canadian and Mexican IMCs right from the start?
> #####
>
> i guess one reason for preferring cross-border regions than national
> boundaries is that a national boundary encourages negative, defensive
> reports - defending against the crimes of State - while cross-border
> regions are more likely to come up with positive, constructive
> reports about alternative structures to those of violence-based States
> (where USA is a State).
>
> susanna: i guess part of the question is how much work you are willing
> to do to discuss your profound discomfort with others in Philly IMC
> and to do the communication and organisation work to really construct
> a regional NENA (north-east north america) IMC syndication site.
>
> IMC Philly has (apparently) known about the IMC US proposal for at
> least two months, and if you as an IMC really feel you should block
> the proposal, then the most constructive way to do it would be to
> make a clearly consensed on decision within IMC Philly, and then
> bring it up on imc-process. However, it would be good to show that
> you're also willing to work on a reasonable counter-proposal - such
> as to create regional, cross-US-boundary, syndication sites.
>
> Both of these require time to communicate, consense - but these
> are required, by definition, for creating any sort of collective.
>
> IMHO, the arguments in favour of syndication sites are very strong,
> whether or not they have an additional component of a people
> collective, but the arguments in favour of cross-border regions are
> also very strong. And the two are compatible, IMHO (even in in CE
> Europe
> we're still a long way from this).
>
> The NENA mailing list exists:
> http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/imc-nena/
>
> hmm. It seems that lee at eds.org has already set up a test
> syndication site
> for NENA!!! :)))
> http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/imc-nena/2003-July/
> 000152.html
>
> So maybe in this sense alternatives to US IMC are *already* being
> tried...
>
> On Thu, 4 Sep 2003, Sascha Meinrath wrote:
>
>>> To create a "U.S. IMC" ignores the bonds of affinity that already
>>> exist
>>> between IMC activists in Seattle and British Colombia, say, or
>>> between
>>> mediactivists in California and in Mexico. "America" is much bigger
>>> than
>>> the U.S., and I wouldn't like to see us confine ourselves to a
>>> self-definition based on borders.
>
>> On Wed, 3 Sep 2003 suzq at riseup.net wrote:
>
>> The goal is not to create boundaries, but to build capacity and
>> resources
>> for people accessing Indymedia news. I don't believe that an IMC-US
>> would
>> detrimentally effect the relationship between Seattle and British
>> Colombia
>> or California and Mexican media activists.
>
>
> So why not:
>
> NENA - north east north america
> NWNA - north west north america Seattle, British Columbia, ...
> SWNA - south west north america California, ..., northern Mexico
>
> plus other regions?
>
>
> There's no need for sharp boundaries, especially in syndication, it
> can't
> hurt if some stories are syndicated "up" to a couple of different
> neighbouring
> regional sites.
>
> Why not use the US IMC mailing list to help people group into a small
> number of regions which deliberately violate State boundaries?
>
> IMHO this should not be that difficult. If local US IMCs as
> collectives are to really be involved, rather than just people acting
> as individuals, it seems to me that having NENA etc rather than US IMC
> would be more likely to be bottom-up grassroots and involve more
> people.
>
> IMHO, the people asking to create US IMC should at least *attempt* to
> organise and participate in regional, cross-border IMCs such as NENA
> before trying to create US IMC. If the cross-border IMCs fail, then US
> IMC could be a fallback position as a "better-than-nothing" regional
> IMC. In fact, i think the main argument for a US IMC - for more
> efficient info access - is a "better-than-nothing" argument - NENA IMC
> and so on are not yet developed, so US IMC is better than no regional
> IMCs at all (in that part of the world).
>
> Someone gave the argument that accessing 30-40 IMCs each morning to
> select the most interesting USA articles is simply impractical. But
> accessing 5-10 regional IMCs, especially those closest to where you
> live, should surely be much easier. This would also encourage stronger
> cross-border info flow.
>
> Anyway, i just want to make it clear that *this* message is *not* a
> block of any sort, it's just an analysis by an individual who lives in
> a region which has been organising norther summer anti-border camps
> since summer 2001.
>
> My earlier "block" was in the sense that US IMC is applying as "an IMC"
> to the new-imc working group, and simply has not provided most of the
> info requested in:
> http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Global/NewImcHowTo
>
> For example, there is no decision-making method. The argument that
> people have many indymedia skills is not the same as actually
> consensing on a general decision-making method and answering the
> principles of unity and membership criteria. And the fact that US IMC
> people didn't seem to autonomously know how to solve a simple
> technical problem (http://newimc.indymedia.org not working) suggests
> that they are not yet well organised as a collective...
>
> As i said above, IMHO a real block could only validly come from a
> decision by a functioning local IMC (not just an individual) in the N
> America region that has worked or is presently actively working on an
> alternative regional syndication site in the region - eg. NENA - and
> which presents this as a constructive counter-proposal.
>
> solidarity
> boud (new-imc and IMC PL volunteer)
>
>
> On Thu, 4 Sep 2003, Sascha Meinrath wrote:
>
>> Hi Susanna,
>>
>> On Wed, 3 Sep 2003 suzq at riseup.net wrote:
>>
>>> It looks like my response to this didn't go through the first time,
>>> so I'm
>>> re-sending it.
>>>
>>> I am _profoundly_ _disturbed_ by the idea of setting up an IMC-US.
>>> The
>>> monstrous organizational tasks involved might be countered by making
>>> it a
>>> largely software driven "syndication site," but do we really want the
>>> voice of America on Indymedia to be developed by a computer program,
>>> rather than by human collectives?
>>
>> The proposal clearly states that a collective of people would be
>> involved
>> at every aspect of the editorial process. The only computer program
>> part
>> of the proposal is to automate the syndication of the newswire to draw
>> stories from participating IMCs.
>>
>>> I understand the need to lower U.S. domination of Indymedia, but the
>>> only
>>> way I see an Indy-US as doing this would be to have Indy-US features
>>> replace features from local IMCs within the U.S. on the Indymedia.org
>>> features-syndication newswire, thereby reducing U.S. stories on the
>>> global
>>> newswire to about 1/46 of their original frequency. This sounds
>>> like a
>>> good idea, but the question is, which national features would go to
>>> the
>>> newswire, and how would they be selected? And would we have national
>>> liaisons with the global lists, rather than the current system of
>>> local
>>> U.S. IMCs having individual liaisons?
>>
>> Features would be produced and selected by the Editorial Working
>> Group of
>> the IMC-US. The IMC-US wouldn't usurp or replace any existing IMCs
>> -- it
>> would simply be a place for drawing connections between the stories
>> published by the many US-based IMCs, a place to get information from
>> across the United States, and a place where stories and issues that
>> have
>> national impact can be found. The current system of local IMCs having
>> liaisons to the global lists would in no way be impacted by the
>> IMC-US.
>>
>>> I'm not sure how many local IMCs within the U.S. want to be
>>> identified as
>>> part of a "national IMC." As a member of the Philly IMC, I certainly
>>> would not want to be identified this way. I've always thought of
>>> indymedia as being internationalist in tone, transcending national
>>> borders, deliberately focusing on the regional and local, grouping
>>> itself
>>> based on affinity and on geographic boundaries, rather than state
>>> lines.
>>> I fear that an Indy-US would lose its regional autonomy and local
>>> focus,
>>> and that efforts to cover "National News" would wind up being
>>> dominated by
>>> news from Washington, DC, as news of changing governmental policies
>>> are
>>> defined as "national" news.
>>
>> As mentioned in the proposal, each IMC can choose to opt out of the
>> IMC-US
>> syndication system. No one in the project is interested in changing
>> the
>> current dynamics of local autonomy and focus of individual IMCs. The
>> goal
>> of the IMC-US is simply to be a venue for highlighting stories from
>> across
>> the US and draw connections between the events and stories that
>> appear on
>> multiple US IMC's websites.
>>
>>> To create a "U.S. IMC" ignores the bonds of affinity that already
>>> exist
>>> between IMC activists in Seattle and British Colombia, say, or
>>> between
>>> mediactivists in California and in Mexico. "America" is much bigger
>>> than
>>> the U.S., and I wouldn't like to see us confine ourselves to a
>>> self-definition based on borders.
>>
>> The goal is not to create boundaries, but to build capacity and
>> resources
>> for people accessing Indymedia news. I don't believe that an IMC-US
>> would
>> detrimentally effect the relationship between Seattle and British
>> Colombia
>> or California and Mexican media activists.
>>
>>> I would be much more comfortable attempting closer integration on a
>>> U.S. -
>>> regional level, via conferences and IRC chat, as is already being
>>> done
>>> among Northeast US IMCs, before attempting integration on a national
>>> scale.
>>
>> This is already being done on an ad-hoc basis throughout the US.
>> Over the
>> past several years there have been multiple conferences, IRC chats,
>> gatherings, visits, and e-mail lists that are building communication
>> and
>> information-dissemination among Indymedia participants. An IMC-US has
>> been talked about all during this time and there is currently a
>> critical
>> mass of interested people from across the US who think it's a good
>> idea,
>> are full of energy to create the site, and have the experience and
>> skills
>> to make it a sustainable endeavor. In many ways, the process of
>> setting
>> up an IMC-US has been going on for years, the IMC-US affinity group
>> feels
>> that it's time to move forward on its implementation.
>>
>> In solidarity,
>>
>> --Sascha Meinrath
>> Urbana-Champaign IMC
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> New-imc mailing list. Lista de correo New-imc
>> New-imc at lists.indymedia.org
>> http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/new-imc
>>
>
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