[IMC-US] personal reprtback for indy folks about the National
COnference on
Tribal Scribal
valeoftheoaks at hotmail.com
Sun May 15 19:30:42 CDT 2005
thanks bht. i wish i'd been there to experience all that, but your
report-back is the next best thing.
d.o.
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"I hold it that a little rebellion now and then is a good thing, and as
necessary in the political world as storms in the physical world."
- Thomas Jefferson
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more rebellion here:
http://concertobi.blogspot.com/
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>From: bht <bht at indymedia.org>
>Reply-To: "Working Group for IMC-US." <imc-us at lists.ucimc.org>
>To: "Working Group for IMC-US." <imc-us at lists.ucimc.org>
>Subject: [IMC-US] personal reprtback for indy folks about the National
>COnference on Media Reform.
>Date: Sun, 15 May 2005 15:30:00 -0700
>
>So, I arrived in St. Louis about four days prior to the beginning of the
>conference. I caught up with frinds that I hadnt seen for months and
>started to get more involved/interested with what was happening in the Lou.
> I think this started right when I pulled up to CAMP (Community Arts and
>Media Project, stlcamp.org) and a bunch of little kids from the
>neighbourhood ran up to me, hugged me, and called me daddy. (Then they dug
>a big hole in the backyard.)
>
>By Thursday, I had a decent grasp of what was going on in the Lou and had
>met folks from here. Josh Breitbart came into town and we started working
>on Wednesday. We stuffed bags for the Allied Media Conference.
>
>By Thursday night many of the Indymedia folks had arrived, and many of the
>reformers arrived and we converged at City Museum (citymuseum.org) in the
>Lou for the conference pre-party. And I think we partied. I made some
>real good connections there and had a very fun time, leaving with only a
>few scrapes and a lot of sweat. We danced two out of three floors, and we
>danced hard.
>
>The next day the reforming began and it mostly included sitting at a table,
>poking my head into a few places having conversations with many different
>people about indymedia and about St Louis, and basically just working the
>idea into peoples heads that by coming to this conference you are affecting
>the local community and you have to have respect for where you are and
>awareness for the issues at hand. THings went over well, many folks
>thought I was from the Lou, although my name badge clearly repped pdx imc.
>
>That was the first day of the conference and it was mostly low energy
>networking catching up with folks feeling things out. It was a good day
>and we went back to CAMP that night and made friends.
>
>The next day, day two of the conference, was the big day in my book. We
>had seen that media reform was ignoring or missing the independant media
>network and the idea that people can be the media nd do away with the
>industry that they are trying to reform. The disgust was thick. Indy
>activists were moving about the conference and promoting the indymedia
>movement. I was working the table most of the day where we had a much
>better setup with three laptops and a few people engaging people walking by
>and pointing them to their nearest local imc.
>
>One person asked how much it cost to post to the site. I got to explain to
>this person that indymedia is not about the money it is not about haveing a
>hold on the media, it is about media justice and putting the tools of media
>production back in the hands of the people. I think it was tough to grasp
>because the conference was very academic.
>
>I got to talk to quite a few people and then the 4 o clock caucus' came.
>Inclusing the one that was going to have two indy folks as moderators and
>called independant media producers and the one for folks from the
>northwest. I went to indymedia one first and there was another white guy
>standing in front of everyone telling them how it was and that media is a
>big issue and that reform is working. And i got disgusted, partly because
>it wasnt a caucus but mostly because the two indymedia folks that were also
>supposed to moderate were women...and this was just another guy.
>
>So I went to the northwest one and it was much smaller I got to inject some
>of the more radical aims of media justice to people like the director of
>cable access in oregon, and someone similar from washington. I talked to
>media proiducers working for reform through legislation and when i asked
>them if they had a contingency plan like what would they do to attain media
>justice if legislation fell through, they had nothing.
>
>I stuck that out to the end, because I felt it was important to let
>northwest folks know that someone from cascadia was there. Then I went
>back to the INdependant Media Producers one, where apparently all hell
>broke loose once the indy folks realized that they were being taken for a
>ride.
>
>SOmeone else can explain what i mean because I wasnt there.
>
>So the indymedia folks planned an indymedia caucus to start in a half hour,
>and there we would discuss how to make amends for this washing over by free
>press. 40-50 people gathered in that room, from all across the country,
>philly, la, portland, seattle, arizona, michigan, san diego, nyc,
>tallahassee, idaho, chicago, bay area, houston, austin, tennessee, urbana,
>carbondale, and others. One person from Canada in the room. Alot of
>passion. Alot of resentment.
>
>WE had a bitch session for awhile and then talked about what we could do.
>WE decided that we could take action and create a media center in the most
>travelled place of the conference, right in front of the doors to the
>keynote speech that was happening in a half an hour. Just a bit away from
>where pacifica was streaming. And right where Left Bank Books was selling.
>
>One person volunteered a free printing connection. Two people made the
>flier. A few people donated laptops. Others started gathered power strips
>and making signs. We were reclaiming the media. In about a halg hour we
>had a bank of about ten laptops all opened to stlimc.org where articles
>about the conference had been posted and people were encourage to post
>their feelings and their ideas about the conference, how it was going,
>good, bad or otherwise. We put the tools in peoples hands and let them
>know that some people werent necessarily happy with what was happening.
>
>Then the people slowed as the conference room filled. The flyer returned
>after about 45 minutes, Left Bank Books asked us to leave their space, so
>we moved across the hall. We re set up the laptops and started flyering
>people and continued to encourage people to make media. Quite a few did.
>The conference staff were trying to stop us and move our things, they didnt
>know what to do. THis conference was about reform and we were just taking
>action. Something reformists may or may not do, I have never been one.
>
>Then, a funny things happened. The internet network went away. The
>wireless didnt work, the stream of the keynote died, people making media
>were franctically trying to get it back up. Dru from IMC Maritimes whipped
>up a word document and opened it on each computer. people were still
>writing comments and they would be posted later. The media production on
>the indymedia side didnt stop. Becuase we are agile and think on our feet,
>because we move with the happenings and work with our environment.
>
>Pacifica asked to interview someone from the imc becuase they had heard
>about the discontent and the action and the breakout caucus. People were
>talking about media. People were making media, nd apparently David
>Martinez was rocking out to Patti Smith behind the doors we were in front
>of. Eventually though we had to leave. We had also planned a networking
>party at CAMP for that night and indy folks were tired.
>
>We packed up, statement made, and went to CAMP. At CAMP various
>independant media folks from around the world, but mostly int he US were
>shortly milling about. Maybe 60 or more folks showed up to relax and talk
>network and have fun. Some very serious conversations happened, but mostly
>people were letting their hair down and Josh Breitbart couldnt stop talking
>about how great indymedia is.
>
>Anyway, I think that is it in a nutshell. Sadly, I didnt make it to
>anything the next day. Other folks, please fill in more or different, make
>your own, whatever. This is just from my eyes. And, oh yeah, there is
>documentation in video audio and photo of the indy action and hopefully
>more reports of it from people that were there.
>
>--
>"Having a feeling is not illegitemate, unprofessional etc. Being
>emotionally unbiased is living a life with no passion." --Laila Imc-Sweden
>
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