[IMC-US] RE: bht's privatization proposal

[john duda]

On Wed, Jan 12, 2005 at 12:24:54AM -0500, Andy Pyle wrote:
> 
> It will place ALL decisions in the hands of a small group of people "who actually are
> doing to work", including the all-important "what direction the site moves in".  As I
> understand it, this covers everything, totally. As I also understand it, since it is the
> newest part of the decision-making principles, it will amend everything else, including
> the right of IMCs to block something and any oversight by the network.

i think it misrepresents the proposal to suggest this.  of course,
since it is an official imc, indymedia.us is and would continue to be
subject to subscribing to the Indymedia principles of unity, and
dependent on maintaining its committment to those principles to
maintain its status.  just like every other imc.  and just like every
other imc i've worked with in the past(and every other activist
project for that matter!), working on the project would give you the
ability to help make decsions about the project.  since it would be
part of a larger network, there would still be the normal oversight,
which has worked well enough(if slowly and unsurely, understandable
since it's all done electronically through a global, multilingual
network of collectives and their designated representatives) in
catastrophic situations(russia).

as it stands *now*, the only functioning network structure with any
sort of capability to discuss and act on oversight issues is the
imc-process list.  there was an attempt to set up some sort of
us-process discussion area during the sf/indybay thing, but looking at
the archives, I'd say it's a dead list, and AFAIK it never was
empowered to make any decisions anyway.  with other regions it's
somewhat different, oceania for example actually has a list that was
able to address the brisbane problems, but ultimately the decision
made was made over imc-process.  but oceania as a region also spent a
couple of years colloborating on a syndication site and other projects
before they got to that point...

> 
> The new controlling group could change its political thrust, to ANYTHING ( things the rest
> of the IMC might find abhorrent), could block the addition of new members to the group,
> could accept advertising, could even sell it.

again see http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Global/PrinciplesOfUnity

> 
> I'm just shaking my head at BHT's reiterated  comment that the Elections are the only
> national issue we have,  I come back to it again and again, in wonderment.   There is no
> Iraq war, environmental problems, Social Security crisis, CAPITALISM, poverty crisis, etc
> ad nauseum??  The elections are the only national issue we have ?   And the proposal is to
> turn the "future direction of the site"  over to a small group a significant member of who
> thinks like this??  That is a good reason to keep the decision making base as broad as
> possible, including "lurkers" who may not have time or skills to administer the site and
> step in only if they see a problem developing.
> 
> I take strong exception to THIS LIST being the venue for where this is to be decided.
> Most IMCs and IMCistas will not even be aware of what is going on.  Proponents themselves
> are complaining about how this list is small and unresponsive.  This is a working group
> list, not an oversight or policy venue.
> 
> Thanks to you all for correcting me on the distinction between the people who proposed the
> site and those who are now running it.  I could go on about the reason the site is not
> catching on and such but it looks like that will be covered in the IRC meeting, which I'm
> looking forward to.
> 
> Several people including myself have asked for more a extended discussion period, so it
> looks like that is what we can go into now.
> 
> 
> 
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