[IMC-US] m19 coverage

[max]

what sort of participation did you envision? what did you hope to see? maybe
folks aren't interested in putting in lots of energy covering mass
mobilizations these days and would rather focus on covering more local and
sustained efforts towards social justice etc. (I would probably fall into this
category).  this is an amorphous project with vague (if any) policies and for
that reason difficult for some people to just 'jump in' and get involved. were
there IRC meetings during the day? were those announced on this list? does
everyone know how to use IRC? was there a team putting together that breaking
news? how did that happen? how do you compile breaking news from around the
country/world? etc etc.

max

Quoting bht <bht at indymedia.org>:

> hey all.  again i was disappointed in the amount of participation in the
> m19 stuff with us imc.
>
> as before the austin conference, it was me and bradley and john doing a
> brunt of the work.  i saw bradley helping asad int he chatroom last
> night before i went to bed.  that was nice.
>
> mostly i am disappointed that no one (aside from betsy) asked to help or
> expressed any interest.  this begs the question, are people interested?
> and if people are, what is the hold up?
>
> we are starting a collective bookstore here in portland.  In addition to
> our house, we also own a commercial space just next to our house.  There
> are nine of us in the house.  We havent been moving forward on the
> bookstore because some folks in the house dont see it as urgently as
> others, yet continue to express interest in being a part of it.  But
> time constraints and an inability or fear to speak up has led the projet
> to stagnation.
>
> So it has been three people doing alot of work in the space and then
> bringing the ideas we have from working on it to everyone else because
> we operate on consensus.  When people that dont do anything just balk at
> some of the ideas, it kills progress and just makes you not want to do
> anything.  THis happened a few months ago with this project, us imc.
>
> My housemate neil, led us through an examble from one of the collectives
> he had been involved in in the past where during the summer many of the
> folks that expressed interest as being part of it wanted to go to other
> things and he basically covered all shifts and kept the store open.
> This led to people being angry and feeling that he was taking over the
> bookstore, because he was the only person doing the work.
>
> I am not getting at it quickly enough, but when three people are left to
> deal with a project the project will begin to reflect those people.  The
> longer it is left that way, the less accessible a project becomes.
> Eventually it will lead to some people feeling so left out that the only
> course of action is to decry an injustice and point out folks for taking
> over a collective project.  I am not at all interested in that as a
> possibility.
>
> I am not interested in putting so much effort into a project while so
> many others just watch.
>
> as always, an unorganized, yet completely serious thought from bht.
>
> here to the possibility of woking WITH some of you one day.
> bht
>
>
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