[Imc] Re: [Prairiegreens] Tax relief to good use

[John Wason]

At 10:15 AM 07/22/2001 -0500, Clinton Popetz wrote:

>So although I have a half dozen personal expenses to which I could
>apply my "Tax Relief" check, I'd feel a lot better giving it to an
>organization that would put it to good use, as a sort of personal
>protest against this particular Dubbya-ism.  (He wants me to blow it
>like a good little consumer to help the economy, while I want the
>economy to flounder in the hopes it forces people to reconsider
>"economic progress at all costs" as a global ethic.)  I was
>considering just giving this money to one of my favorite charities,
>but then I thought that it might be possible to turn this into a group
>effort. 
>
>I'm sure this idea is not unique, but I wondered if there would be
>local interest in contributing these refunds as a group to a
>green-friendly cause, and publicizing it a little.  
>
>Any suggestions, or pointers to existing groups doing a similar thing?
>(I'd prefer to do it locally though.)
>		
>			-Clint

Fascinating to me that you should mention this, Clint, and most generous of
you, I might add.

I'm going to cross-post this to the Independent Media Center listserv, for
reasons that will become obvious as I write.

As a fairly active member of the Prairie Greens, I have no doubt that the
Greens could use the money.  We have ongoing expenses, and could
unquestionably come up with a creative use for additional funds, depending
on the amount of funds that actually came in.  We're pretty much dependent
on small membership dues, and mostly on fundraisers and voluntary
contributions.  I couldn't, however, off the top of my head assure you just
exactly what your generous donation would be used for.  Perhaps another
Green could and can and will.

The Independent Media Center, on the other hand, with which I am also
involved, has an immediate use for funds for a very specific purpose.  We've
just put together the first issue of a new newspaper called the public i
(this title is italicized in the paper, but I can't do italics in Eudora
2.2), which we hope to continue publishing on a fairly regular (monthly?)
basis.  Its purpose, as we explain fully in the first issue, is to ferret
out the news that the corporately-owned media don't tell us, and to give
what we call "citizen-journalists" the opportunity to report the news
themselves from their own perspective.

The Independent Media movement more or less got its start in Seattle during
the WTO protests in Seattle, and has proliferated rapidly since then not
only nationwide but worldwide.  Some of our local IMCistas, as they're
called, were in Seattle in 1999, and also journeyed to Quebec City earlier
this year.  You may also be aware that the Independent Center in Genoa,
Italy, was recently (yesterday?) broken into and raided by the Italian cops,
in conjunction with what I understand to be some kinda WTO talks there.

Here in C-U, the IMC is located in downtown Urbana.  People there maintain a
web site (http://urbana.indymedia.org), do a couple of weekly radio shows on
WEFT, and have just this past month or two been working on a new newspaper.

Yes, we're putting out this little free newspaper here in C-U; the first
issue will come out at the end of next week.  It's free to readers, but it's
not really free because, while all the writers and editors are volunteers,
we have to pay printing costs, and at this point in time we're selling no
advertising because (a) that's additional work, and (b) selling ads creates
fertile ground for the probability of compromising truth for ad dollars.

So we're dependent on fundraising, and in fact we're having a fundraiser on
Sunday evening July 29 at the High Dive.  A band, Aimee Rickman and the
Violents, will be there, and then there'll be a couple of DJ's - DJ Romeo
from WEFT, and his partner Smooth V.  They're donating their time and
talents.  I wasn't planning to go because frankly, I don't like music that
jangles my nerves, which is just about everyting but smooth jazz and
old-style R&B (*smile*).  But I may have to go and give a little talk about
the public i.

What is so propitious about your suggestion, Clint, is that my
co-Editor-at-Large, Omar Ricks, came up with a very similar idea for
promoting the fundraiser.  We're having a sliding scale from $5.00 to
$300.00, the reason being that the amount of the tax refund for the
"average" American is supposed to be $300.  I've forgotten exactly how
Omar's slogan goes, but it's something like "Donate your Three to the IMC."
Catchy, I think.  :)

Anyway, I feel kind of torn here, because I'm both a Green and an IMCista,
and you made your offer to the Greens but the IMC has a more immediate need
for the money.  I rationalize my dilemma by saying that in my own mind, the
Greens and the IMC are highly symbiotic, or should perceive themselves as
such.  I see our ideals and goals being quite similar.  The Independent
Media Center is representive of a number of the Greens' Ten Key Values -
"social justice and equal opportunity", "grassroots democracy",
"community-based economics", "gender equity and cooperative values",
"respect for diversity", "personal and global responsibility" - hell, just
about all ten when I get to looking at them.  And the reverse is also true;
the Greens stand for pretty much the same things the IMC was created for.
The IMC provides not only a meeting space for the Prairie Greens (at a
price, to be sure, but not an exorbitant one) but also an outlet, a voice
for assisting the Greens to say many of the things they want to say.

So I leave it to you, Clint, and in fact to everyone reading this.  Perhaps
the IMC print group and the Greens could somehow split whatever money is
donated; I'm certainly open to suggestions.  In any event I urge everyone
reading this to get the word out about the public i fundraiser on July 29
(just as the IMC got the word out about the Greens/Nader fundraiser back in
April - see the symbiosis?), and I thank you, Clint, for the generosity and
creativity of your offer.  I've seen you post on the cmi newsgroups; it
would be a privilege to meet you in person one of these days.

John Wason