[Imc-web] Re: Hiding comments, etc.

[Mike Lehman]

Phil Stinard wrote:
> Hi Mike,
>
> I think we have fundamentally different ideas on what it means to 
> provide an area for free speech and exchange of ideas.  You tend to 
> want to protect people from particular ideas.  I don't have any 
> particular problems with that, but you really need to be more honest 
> and up front about the policies.  I'm not referring to Jack Ryan so 
> much right now as your comments on homosexuality, so I'll limit my 
> reply to those:
>
Phil,
You should refer to the last paragraph in my original reply, quoted down 
below. While Indymedia has significant aspects that prioritize free 
speech, you can go all the way back to the beginning of Indymedia and 
find that it has never claimed to be solely "an area for free speech and 
exchange of ideas." It has always indicated that it has a bias like 
other media always do, just that it was going to be open about it. We 
don't intend to abandon what sets us apart in hope of pretending to the 
false "objectivity" that most dominant media projects.
>
>> From: Mike Lehman <rebelmike at earthlink.net>
>> To: Phil Stinard <pstinard at hotmail.com>
>> CC: imc-web at lists.ucimc.org
>> Subject: Re: [Imc-web] RE: IMC-Web Digest, Vol 33, Issue 13
>> Date: Thu, 19 Oct 2006 22:49:38 -0500
>
> [Jack Ryan related stuff deleted]
>
>> I don't want to make this too personal, but I think you may now be 
>> able to see just how uncomfortable and disconcerting your quoting the 
>> Bible on homosexuality is to this community. While it may be true 
>> that your views make you marginalized within the IMC community, it is 
>> hardly the case that there aren't already plenty of outlets for such 
>> points of view within the dominant media. You may say it's all about 
>> love, but for the vast majority of IMC members, you're just quoting 
>> the same thing Rev. Phelps is -- and you've done very little to 
>> distinguish just how your views may differ from his.
>
> You're kidding, right?  (1) First, hardly anybody ever critically 
> examines what the Bible states on homosexuality, especially in the 
> "main stream media."  In particular, I was challenging the UCC's 
> position, which was never clearly stated in the parent article, nor 
> was it ever defended in the feeding frenzy that was nothing but 
> personal attacks on me and my church.  There are a lot of issues that 
> can be respectfully debated--do they feel that the Bible (at least 
> some of it) is the word of God?  Is Jesus divine, or just a good 
> teacher?  Should Biblical codes be written into law, or should they be 
> written on our hearts?  (I take the latter view, but no one gave me a 
> chance to explain.)  What does it mean to be a Christian? (2) Second, 
> if you or any other IMC can't tell the difference between me and Fred 
> Phelps, you have serious psychological problems, and I can't help you 
> with that.
>
No, I'm not kidding. Religious programming of one flavor or another is 
absolutely dominant among second tier media in the country. For every 
station that would allow an anarchist time to explain their philosophy, 
I can show you 100 stations that wouldn't allow an anarchist through the 
door, but have hours of weekly religious programming, if not 24/7.

As for starting out your discussion of these issues with words that 
could have come out of Fred Phelps' own mouth -- no matter how much you 
may want to distance yourself from them in retrospect -- demonstrates at 
best a colossal insensitivity and ignorance toward the other members of 
the UC IMC community. You can call it love, but you need to be much 
better at setting down exactly what you're talking about if you want to 
tread on this extraordinarily sensitive ground for most of our members, 
because for the most part they will conclude your motivations are less 
noble than you claim. Pure and simple -- if you choose what the other 
party considers to be fighting words, then be prepared to start a fight.

I want to note right here that your signed material was never hidden and 
I didn't receive a note from anyone asking the web editors to do so, but 
there was plenty of discomfort raised.

As for anyone mistaking you for Rev. Phelps, no one is doing that. I'm 
just pointing out how your rhetoric on this began as a painful reminder 
to many of the problematic side of Christianity claiming to be a 
religion of love.

>> At just about any other IMC, you simply taking such a position would 
>> likely result in an immediate proposal to expunge you from the 
>> organization. There is still that possibility here at UC IMC, but in 
>> general we are a far more tolerant bunch than that. Are you or your 
>> minister spreading hate? That is a matter of opinion, but I can tell 
>> you that there are many, if not most IMC members who would likely 
>> agree that quoting the same thing as Rev. Phelps is too uncomfortably 
>> close to hate for their tastes.
>
> With regard to expunging me from the organization, that shouldn't be 
> necessary, because I haven't paid this year's dues and so I'm 
> techinically not a member.  I still have a No. 4 key that I use only 
> in conjunction with Books to Prisoners (I was substitute jail 
> librarian last Friday), but if you want it back, I'll turn it in for 
> the $20 deposit.  If I were still a member, I'd invite you to 
> "expunge" me for my religious beliefs.  It would be an honor.
>
You need to reread what I wrote previously and what I've just written in 
reply above. No one has yet called for any action here on this. It would 
be out of character for us to actually achieve consensus on something 
like that, IMO, but I can easily see spending a lot of time debating 
about it. Whether you feel your continued membership means anything to 
you is up to you.
> Am I or is my minister spreading hate?  Actually, neither.  You're 
> begging the question--neither of us hate homosexuals.  Many, if not 
> most, of my close friends are gay, and they don't have the same 
> misconceptions that you have.  If you're wondering whether my Pastor 
> ever preached a sermon saying that homosexual behavior is a sin, as a 
> matter of fact, he did last Sunday.  But, that's not hate.
>
I didn't say that. I said that is the opinion of a significant number of 
IMC members and that it seems to be a political reality that you've been 
almost totally insensitive to up to this point. If you think this is 
witness and you're called to do it, so be it. I can only suggest that 
it's a waste of your time and far more likely to stir up more animosity 
on this subject rather than reduce it, if you continue in this vein. If 
you want to effectively witness, then you really ought to consider the 
implications of your discourse for any effectiveness in your witness. 
Telling people it's because you love them is just not going to cut it as 
logical validation for what they empirically perceive about the 
motivations of those that they've encountered using such discourse.

>> Would your church tolerate some clown who stumbled drunkenly through 
>> the door every Sunday, interrupting the sermon, and soiling the 
>> carpet in the midst of his foolish behavior? Oh, maybe for a week or 
>> two, you'd be trying to get him to Prairie Center or whatever. But if 
>> he kept coming back, doing it again and again, I'm sure there would 
>> be a point when you figured the Lord wasn't going to help right here, 
>> right now, and you'd be dialing 911 to lock him up, issue a no 
>> trespass notice, and obtain an order of protection for the minister 
>> and his family.
>
> And... you think I'm doing that (being physically disruptive and 
> threatening)?  I challenge to to name one instance.  You can't.
>
I was not accusing you of being physically threatening. But if you are 
referring to material you may have posted anonymously and which now is 
apparently hidden, I've already stated that it falls under our consensus 
of what constitutes disruptive behavior on the website. That's what 
we're talking about here.

As for material that you've posted under your own name, that is a 
separate issue from hypotheticals about hidden posts; the jury is still 
out. Did you anticipate the reaction you quoting that particular part of 
the Bible would likely bring? I hope not, I hope it was just ignorance 
of the audience and not intentional trolling. If you kept returning to 
the same subject in such an insensitive matter, after you've both 
experienced the reaction of others and our discussions about how 
counter-productive it is, whatever your real motivations may be, then I 
will probably join the crowd in considering that it likely is. Then it 
would be up to someone to make a proposal under our process to address 
this. As I've already noted, this takes things into an entirely 
different direction than if you or anyone else posts material that falls 
into that category anonymously -- and out of the hands of the web editors.
>> If you want to come to the IMC to witness or preach, then you should 
>> be explicit about it. You'll have to take the slings and arrows. But 
>> at least we'd know it was one of us, in a way, because otherwise such 
>> material posted here repeatedly and anonymously is going to fall 
>> under the rubric of what we consider to be abusive posting practices. 
>> We have very good reasons why we don't tolerate this material and it 
>> reaches far beyond the Jack thing. We're here to serve under-served 
>> communities and we can't do that when we have a persistent pattern of 
>> comments on the topic of "Why organize? You're just wasting your 
>> time. You shouldn't raise hell. You should repent."
>
> You're not clear in the above paragraph whether you consider my posts 
> abusive, or whether you consider Jack Ryan's posts abusive.  I wasn't 
> anonymous, by the way.  And, whose material don't you tolerate?  Mine, 
> or Jack's?  Or both?  Are you intolerant of my religious beliefs?  Try 
> to be more clear.  The end of your paragraph is clearly a reference to 
> Jack, because I haven't said anything remotely similar.
>
anonymous? Which anonymous? All I know is that I deal with anonymous all 
the time and you've only claimed to have made some anonymous posts. It 
isn't worth my time or supported by either our capabilities or our 
policy to sort our various anonymouses. I think I've already just 
explained the situation. This has nothing to do with my personal 
feelings about religion and everything to do with UC IMC's consensus on 
editorial policy.
>> I don't mean to hurt you or to attack your views. In fact, that is 
>> why I offered several times to speak with you and explain further 
>> when you raised concerns previously, but you never followed up.
>
> I'm not hurt, by the way, just annoyed and disappointed.  At least 
> when I complained about specific comments being hidden, they always 
> reappeared, so I give you credit for that.
>
>> I've done my best to summarize here the main issues that I would have 
>> discussed with you, but there is plenty m,ore that could be said, 
>> except I have other obligations I must tend to. I can respect you no 
>> matter who you are amid the fact that we probably see the world in 
>> fundamentally different ways. I can only hope that you return the 
>> favor. I won't expect you to accept what I find disconcerting about 
>> religion and you shouldn't try to convince me that Indymedia is 
>> somehow wrong to have these policies, based on our principles, 
>> history and objectives.
>
> It's not really independent media, then, but I understand where you're 
> coming from.
>
> --Phil
>
>> Mike Lehman
I guess it's maybe not what your expectations of independent media were, 
but I've been looking for a opportunity to clarify this to you, as it 
has been clear to me for some time based on some of your comments on 
editing that you may have a view of Indymedia that falls outside its 
historical consensus. You're entitled to your views, but you should be 
aware of the significant political challenges in changing the 
established consensus on these issues are only compounded by your stand 
on issues apart from editorial policy.
Mike Lehman