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IMCs going downhill
I never find anything worth reading here.
All the indymedia sites are going downhill. Can't you do something about it?
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.....
Are you still reading this? Good. That feeling you're getting now is a result of a curse. I'm sending out a curse that will infect you, your friends, and family. You who stand in the way of progress are doomed with a curse that will infect you til your dying days. I will conjure this majick that will destroy you and anything you touch. My powers are strong and derived from the slaugtered victims of your predecessors. Such energy of retribution cannot be contained for long. Your praying to a god that isn't there won't help you. Be prepared for an everlasting spiral into misery and destruction, you fucks.
UM ASaong shUfalg!
**@**...^^
What results is the lowest common denominator in terms of media; in other words absolute shalowness. Little intellegent reporting can result when the true messages of either side are contradictory.
The Argentina situation is a perfect example: the liberals would love to blame the problem solely on the neo-liberalism and the IMF, where the anti-capitalists would rather blame capitalism for the problem. What was the outcome when neither side would tolerate the other's message? "Argentina in crisis." An absolutely undescript headline, which would make anyone at a serious media organization cringe. They understand that every group has a political orientation, and Indymedia gets lost in a sea of impotence because of this fluid nature.
The only course of action to correct these mistakes is the splitting of the IMC. Those who are liberals, NGO sympathizers, union beaurocrats: reformers of capital essentially need to either leave, or seize control of Indymedia. Anarchists, communists, radicals, and all others opposed to the system of capital must do the same, either purge capitalists or form an truely anti-capitalist media organization.
Those who oppose this idea will most likely attack it from an ahistorical perspective, perhaps with liberal rhetoric that Indymedia is capable of providing a voice for all. The defenders of the status quo see through tainted glasses, unable to comprehend the uselessness and depths that Indymedia (in the first world) has fallen to. Salutations to the above poster who attempts to bring the incoherence of the IMC to the forefront.
For its short life the IMC has accomplished amazing things, but it is heading towards oblivion; we can no longer live in the past. Let the anti-capitalists start the division of Indymedia!
I think part of the value of Indymedia has been its leftist leanings WITHOUT getting too focused and sectarian. I have definitely appreciated reading about and from anarchist, leninist, liberal, etc. viewpoints here, and guess which I'm leaning now? Towards anarchism. Would Indymedia have been as valuable to me as I was being politicized and radicalized if it was splintered? I don't think so. Would Indymedia be valuable as a radicalizing tool if splintered? I don't think so.
I think radicals and liberals need to learn to work together; especially now in the US when fascism is staring us in the face. In the 1930's, a radical-liberal alliance was able to forge meaningful progress. Yes, it may not have been a revolution, but it was definitely better than unreformed capitalism or fascism.
To answer the original question, well, there's some definite trolling and right-wing blah-blah, but I find that SF Indymedia is working fairly well, especially with the "View Latest Comments" facility that lets you track threads. I think perhaps the best policy is to continue letting individual IMCs experiment and try to duplicate successful ideas.
[BUM! BUM BUUUUM!]
WRITE SOMETHING!!!
Sure, you could troll the web for good articles to repost, but we all have an obligation to become the media we consume. What? You don't have time to write articles?
You know, back in the days before the 'net when BBS' ruled cyberspace there was a term for people like you...
Leeches.
we can not isolate ourselves by only grouping together and working with people that are exactly like ourselves with exactly the same points of view and exactly the same labels.
indymedia as it exists now (at least locally in sf) -- still has the potential to be really subversive and powerful. mostly because it is forcing different types of persons to work together and the more radical imcistas are not marginalizing themselves in a way that would turn off the majority of people doing real work out there -- and who depend on the site to get out info.
the more "radical" of sf-imcers have a unique opportunity to push the boundaries of other "less radical" imcistas, and to appeal to a wider audience than they would have if they split and founded a "more radical" indymedia. atleast this is what i suspect would happen.
i like it when sf-indymedia takes a clear anti-capitalist stand on issues... and i think our structure allows this to happen, as well as, allowing people who are not as radical to have their turn in spinning headlines etc etc.
> not currently think it is.
Who really knows? But in approaching the problem of Indymedia, one must propose solutions. You seem to want to continue Indymedia in its current shape and form--hasn't that proven (as the original article points out) to be a failure?
> we can not isolate ourselves by only grouping together and
> working with people that are exactly like ourselves with
> exactly the same points of view and exactly the same
> labels.
I'm proposing nothing of the sort. Apologists for a mis conception of Indymedia being anti-capitalist quite deliberately ignore the fact that most radical factions here and elsewhere in North America are not involved in Indymedia because it is a largely liberal organization (complete with the idea of "giving everyone an equal voice"). TAO, NEFAC, OCAP, AK Press, ARA, most communist parties and their front groups; you name it and they're not represented in Indymedia (and occasionally posting does not constitute involvement).
Isolating ourselves as anti-capitalists is different than fraternizing with liberals. Do you sincerely believe that the average person, the target of our political agitation, believes the same as a liberal? Of course not, and mixing our ideas with liberal/capitalist ones presents a confusing and ultimately useless message.
> the more "radical" of sf-imcers have a unique opportunity to
> push the boundaries of other "less radical" imcistas, and > to appeal to a wider audience than they would have if they
> split and founded a "more radical" indymedia. atleast this > is what i suspect would happen.
Again, the tainted glasses of Indymedia liberalism have isolated you from reality. The only boundary pushing I've ever seen from IMCs like SF has been the liberals against the anti-capitalists. The headlines on SF (and elsewhere) clearly reflect how anti-capitalist currents have been beaten into submission.
> i like it when sf-indymedia takes a clear anti-capitalist
> stand on issues... and i think our structure allows this to
> happen, as well as, allowing people who are not as radical
> to have their turn in spinning headlines etc etc.
Just like occasionally the New York Times will run a story I can agree with (the recent sympathetic coverage of the Turkish prison struggle for instance)... but praying that a liberal at Indymedia will be benevolent enough to talk about capitalism or authority is in the same boat as praying to the NYT. We cannot be afraid to struggle for change, both in Indymedia and in society in general.
As for being called an "authoritarian lefty", clearly an ahistorical (liberal) perspective. Was the split (expulsions of anarchists) in the First International a bad thing? Maybe the anarchists should have just kept quiet and bowed before the authoritarians, roughly akin to your argument for keeping Indymedia together. Political splits and factionization are not "authoritarian", these are healthy phenomena; otherwise why don't we just join the US government? We certainly don't want to split/be purged from it.
Finally "In the 1930's, a radical-liberal alliance was able to forge meaningful progress." Showing your true colors of class colaboration; this has nothing to do with being opposed to capitalism.
> to forge meaningful progress." Showing your true colors of class
> colaboration; this has nothing to do with being opposed
> to capitalism.
Let's play a round of "lefter-than-thou"! Geez.
How about ... in the 1930's, a radical-liberal alliance was able to forge meaningful progress, and further radical gains might have been made had the country not been interrupted by WWII and the Cold War, permanent militarization, and Red scares.
Would you mind terribly if we were able to stop people from starving on the streets, before the revolution? Even if this involved "collaboration"?
As to the "taint" of "Indymedia liberalism", sorry, I just don't see it. I think it seems to be working well enough for now; if anything, I think in order to be truly radically democratic, there needs to be some community control of Indymedia by the users of the site rather than just by the self-appointed imc-ers.
By all means, please split into a zillion different factions, so we can divide and conquer. That's what our undercover agents are trying to facilitate, and I'm glade to see our master plan is working.
On the other hand, it's hard to track subversives when they form underground cells, even if all the members are our agents! We tried that in the Sixties with the Weather Underground (which, as you all know, was run out of the basement in the FBI building) and, sheesh, what a mess we made.
So maybe you should all stick together in a common front so we can mow you all down at once. That requires a new master plan, though. Decisions, decisions.....
Oops, here comes Rummy on skis disguised as the Abomible (sp?) Snowmonster. Omigod, look at those teeth! Hey, he's coming right at me. No fair! I weigh three hundred pounds in this blasted suit. I can't move! Help! Help!
This is a little inaccurate -- the split was certainly a bad thing, and it wasn't that the anarchists were expelled -- the Marxists moved the headquarters of the International to New York rather than have it fall into the hands of the anarchists. The result, of course, was that the entire organization was destroyed. Radical organizing on the Continent suffered a severe setback. Guess who won?
Political splits often ARE authoritarian, especially if some revolutionary vanguard decides that it is the way the truth and the life. My friend, you are confusing leadership with authority -- there are 300 million people in North America, how do you expect to win anything at all if you split off into a group which includes you, your 6 closest friends, and your pet ferret? We need to show leadership, that is, the contagion of a good example while in contact with other people on real projects that matter to the broad mass of humanity.
Now, I would certainly not characterize Indymedia as a working class organization, but we should be working toward that goal. And as for the liberals, I think that many of them are not beyond redemption and may someday see the light...getting badly gassed in Quebec City, for example, was an eye opener for many liberals that went there. People need time to develop, I think that anarchism provides a good working basis for a political model and I think that we should all be working out the details of creating actual organizations that people can use.
At the same time, we as anarchists must retain our own organizations so that our radical ideas are not diluted. We do have to engage in projects which are specific to our movement; we need a better economic critique that includes detailed alternatives to capitalism, we need to start explicitly radical community organizing projects that accomplish things which could garner mass support (use your imagination!) and we need to talk to people about issues that affect them and figure out ways to make ourselves useful.
Here in Canada, we are experimenting with covering strikes using video, and then distributing the resulting mini-documentaries on throwaway CD-ROMs that can be replicated by anybody with a burner. This will hopefully make us useful within the community, even if we are supporting the demands of the strikers, despite the fact that they are essentially liberal. And maybe the next time someone says something terrible and inaccurate about an anarchist on the news, one of those strikers will remember who it was that helped them out when they were walking the line in sub-zero temperatures, and maybe they'll start thinking that not everything on the news is entirely accurate, and maybe they'll get involved in helping out someone else.
But these sorts of changes in people's lives don't usually come as a result of reading some anarchist position paper -- they come from examples of community, solidarity, friendship and mutual aid. Any radical group that gets too far from this conception of things has no idea what a revolution is. A revolution is a mass movement of millions, and there is usually no political coordination until some Marxist or liberal group tricks those essentially leaderless people into solving the problems of the revolution, which do indeed exist -- we simply need to solve them another way. And if we are seen in the community now, helping people, making changes, building organizations (like Indymedia) that people actually participate in on a fairly broad scale, then we will be far better off in a crisis -- be it a left-wing or a fascist attempt at revolution -- than if we retreat to darkened rooms and talk to each other about how radical we are.
For fuck's sake, get out there and do some work in your community rather than engaging in shrill yapping about splits being great! The classic case of this was Lenin, and look where it got the Russians...
Indymedia is not just some nice little website which gives wingnuts a platform to spew their garbage (okay, it is that too). The importance of Indymedia is that it is a decentralized communications infrastructure for the movement. The immediate advantages of this:
- the pathetic sectarianism (especially seen in the bay area) is challenged. Unions are forced to share an infrastructure with anarchists with trotskyists with whomever. And ultimately these groups must recognize that IMC is a project organized around anarchist principles.
- international contacts are made and international relationships are developed.
If you want to see an "anarchist only" news source, you can check out A-Infos. If you want to participate in an "anarchist only" news source, you can volunteer with A-Infos, but you cannot be a primitivist and you cannot be an ambiguous anti-capitalist, they have "purged" these individuals from their ranks. As you know, tons of critical information is missing from A-Infos archives because of these restrictions, and in generally it serves a narrow purpose for a narrow audience. Don't get me wrong, I check ainfos every day. However, Indymedia is not Ainfos, even though it sounds like you want it to be. The world does not really need 2 Ainfos (although i'm sure someday there will be another ainfos split, and so perhaps there will be 2 ainfos). If you want an ainfos with comments, you can go to infoshop.
I couldnt agree more that Indymedia needs to consciously be aware of the influence of liberals and those who would co-opt revolutionary projects and revolutionary rhetoric to sustain capitalist exploitation. Unions are a perfect example, I think. The very function of most U.S. unions are to manage worker dissent. Now, you can write up a whole essay about this and post it to Ainfos and guess what --- not one fucking person who doesnt already think that way will see it.
Furthermore, I would even say that Indymedia should adopt anti-capitalist principles of unity. I dont think Indymedia should exclude stories or individuals who do not identify as anti-capitalist, though. However, liberals must understand that there *is* a power imbalance between reformers and those who seek radical societal change. It is easier for reformers to assert their opinions. Usually, reformist mentality goes with class and race privilege as well, so this contributes to that dynamic.
To me, the solution is not another boring and self-aggrandizing split by egomaniacs who cannot work with others. The solution is to assert the anarchist foundations of Indymedia, and codify them as principles of unity. Until this happens, what "anarchist" is talking about is a real danger and really, almost inevitable (the liberal takeover of IMC). And in many cities in the USA at least, this has already happened. Indymedia always talks about how "anarchist" it is, it is up to the anarchists to make sure that is still happening. In other words, let's assert what we think and let the reformists leave if they so choose. I don't think compromising is the answer, but I also don't think forming an anti-capitalist club is the answer.
But if we take "anarchist"'s suggestion and begin the purges/splits, we will be wasting the next year of our life arguing about bullshit at a time when we need to figure out how to shut this motherfucker down. And after we purge the reformists, how long will it be before we purge the trotskyists? ... before we purge the blah, blah, blah and it goes on forever and then 20 years later you realize you are a balding revolutionary wannabe who spent more time purging and splitting than getting anything real done.
Talk about an ahistorical perspective ... if you want to know why the political scene in San Francisco is so fucking pathetic, you need look no further than your own attitude. Take a cue from "Life of Brian" ... as you know, the Judean People's Liberation Front can *never* work with the People's Liberation Front of Judea. They hate them worse than they hate the Romans.
Last year at the Anarchist Conference, there was a panel called "Should anarchists work in coalitions with non-anarchists?" and it was an interesting discussion. I mentioned Indymedia, in fact, as an example of a Seattle-style coalition that sustains itself between major events. At the time, I said I would see how it worked out.
A year later, what I think is that the threat of liberalism in Indymedia *is* serious, especially after Sept 11th. But my solution is above. Ainfos cannot open a media center in Bethlehem. Ainfos cannot open a media center in Chiapas. Ainfos cannot open a media center in half the places that IMC has. And why is that? Because Ainfos have split themselves to death, and they barely have enough volunteers to ideologically moderate the incoming submissions.
All of my opinion is founded on meme theory, on decentralization and self-organization ideas which also form the basis for my anarchist beliefs. For a full articulation of this, see the recent RAND Corporation report on decentralized movements. Anarchists do not need to assert control over a smaller organization, anarchists need to work on making their memes competitive with liberal memes. And asserting them through the open indymedia infrastructure which allows them to do so. Anything else is just whining, really.
It is really a shame that the RAND Corporation lackeys who wrote that report understand what is going on more than anarchists in the movement do. If you want to sacrifice a global information technology network because you cannot articulate anarchist ideas within open meetings, well ... see you in 5 years, we'll be having a protest with 7-8 people wondering what happened to the good old days of Genoa and Quebec City.
Global movements happen only once every 30 years or so. If we ruin this one, I will be 50 or 60 years old when the next one comes around. So let's prioritize, put the petty bullshit on a shelf where it belongs, and DO rather than WHINE.
"For fuck's sake, get out there and do some work in your community rather than engaging in shrill yapping about splits being great! The classic case of this was Lenin, and look where it got the Russians..."
praise allah, north america has french canadians who can talk some sense to people from the USA.
I appreciate the discussion about liberalism, we are dealing with that here as well...a university occupation just ended, and the liberals here are all thrilled because they are going to get the president of the university to write a letter and say nice things about them; considering that he was in a very weak political position and should have been / could have been fired had there been a more radical attitude among the occupaton crew, this is rather an unfortunate result, especially since the prez in question is the chief hatchet man within the school for the Conservative government that the protestors are pissed off about in the first place.
We have put together a video documenting where they blew it (in our opinion), it will be up in the next few days...we had a great time making it! Forward, friends, forward!
> able to forge meaningful progress, and further radical
> gains might have been made had the country not been
> interrupted by WWII and the Cold War, permanent
> militarization, and Red scares.
The liberal's activities in the 1930's are paved the way for the positions of power that today's union bureaucrats hold.
> Today's activists are so self-marginalized that they have
> lost touch with the rest of the working class, and vice
> versa. They have NO IDEA what goes on in the minds of
> ordinary people. That's not radical. That's reactionary.
> It's also self defeating.
Nessie's analysis precisely highlights the problem. Since its inception Indymedia has not evolved in any way; it is a two year old monolith spiralling into oblivion.
It is logical that a functional organization (especially with the talent pool and resources of Indymedia) can adapt and change to different situations. Unfortunately Indymedia is not functional, due to what I see as captalist vs. anti-capitalist contradictions (outlined more indepth above). These fundamental contradictions are the reasons for the complete failure of any efforts toward a global process, and they are also the reasons for the useless nature of Indymedia.
> This is a little inaccurate -- the split was certainly a
> bad thing, and it wasn't that the anarchists were expelled
> -- the Marxists moved the headquarters of the
> International to New York rather than have it fall into
> the hands of the anarchists. The result, of course, was
> that the entire organization was destroyed. Radical
> organizing on the Continent suffered a severe setback.
> Guess who won?
For the international workers movement surely the split was bad; but it was inevitable. The fact that authoritarians had strong influence in the organization meant that it was either us or them. Would you rather that the anarchists kept quiet about the authoritarianism of Marx?
That said I don't think debating the 1870's will solve the problems of Indymedia.
> Political splits often ARE authoritarian, especially if
> some revolutionary vanguard decides that it is the way the
> truth and the life. My friend, you are confusing
> leadership with authority -- there are 300 million people
> in North America, how do you expect to win anything at all
> if you split off into a group which includes you, your 6
> closest friends, and your pet ferret? We need to show
> leadership, that is, the contagion of a good example while
> in contact with other people on real projects that matter
> to the broad mass of humanity.
I am in 100% agreement with you. However, you do not seem to want to acknowledge the history of Indymedia. It has always been a fundamentally liberal organization, with liberal aims and liberal leadership, funded by liberal organizations, with a liberal editorial bent, and a largely liberal following. This is not to say that anarchists and other anti-capitalists have not had a significant influence on it (personally I have spent much time on various aspects of the network); but in the end the anti-capitalists end up in stalemates with liberals when it comes time to move forward.
The problem is that if anti-capitalists want to ever exert real leadership in the network, drastic changes (what I envision as splits or purges) will have to happen. I am curious of what other anti-capitalists who agree that there is a problem propose to do.
> Indymedia is not just some nice little website which gives
> wingnuts a platform to spew their garbage (okay, it is
> that too). The importance of Indymedia is that it is a
> decentralized communications infrastructure for the
> movement.
The idea of Indymedia as a "decentralized communications infrastructure for the movement" is laughable. I absolutely agree in the desire for an entity like Indymedia to play the role you describe. But you need to investigate the historical role of Indymedia before painting your wild picture of Indymedia, which it has *rarely* come close to.
How does the liberal IMC video about Seattle fit into your conception of Indymedia? Or the (intentionally) horrible coverage of anarchists in Philadelphia? Or the NGO front group CMAQ in Quebec City? Or Boston IMCs support of Ralph Nader during the O3 demonstrations? Or the reprehensibly close relationship to the liberal Media Alliance during the National Association of Broadcasters?
Face it, the only thing we're a communications infrastructure for is the most liberal-wing of the now dead anti-globalization movement. The only good things to come from Indymedia have been the results of anti-capitalists... but now even these glimpses of radicalism are now fading under the pressure of well funded liberals; as exemplfied by the increasingly tense relationships between demonstrations and "IMCistas" in Ottawa and Washington DC.
> The world does not really need 2 Ainfos
I seem to have struck a nerve, as these odd assertions have nothing to do with what I said. A political movement operates on many levels, needing both internal and external communications organs. Ainfos and Infoshop obviously function internally, so comparing them to Indymedia is unacceptable. However, Indymedia is trying to operate as an external organ for two contradictory movements, the liberal movement (capitalists) and the radical movement (anti-capitalists), which is where the failure begins. Indymedia has always been an experiment to see if a communications organ could function for multiple ideological viewpoints, but it seems its twilight has come and now is the time for change.
I am largely in agreement with you on the idea of pushing for principles of unity based on anti-capitalism. Ultimately however, principles of unity mean nothing if no-one abides by them in their practice (i.e. the continued center column non-sense, more video nights showing NGO content, etc), which is what I envision happening. Regardless of the path, I think the end goal should be a media group that interacts with various local communities, with open publishing and participation, but clear political (i.e. no liberalist/capitalist) expectations for works of members (i.e. center column, videos produced, stories written by Indymedia, etc.)
The question really is: what have the NGOs, unions, green parties, and others ever contributed to Indymedia? Most of the hard work has been done by anti-capitalists, but the fruits have been reaped by the globe trotting elites, and their NGOs and reform campaigns. Are we really to believe that we can't run a communications network without their liberalism?
Nessie's analysis highlights the problem and, in doing so, shows that your conclusion isn't founded (as does this entire conversation really). Indymedia is evolving. The filtering system you want is now implemented in the form of newswire clerks; Chuck0 is currently arguing for a more efficient system. Originally, there was no system. As Indymedia site traffic grows and grows, the need for moderation is being recognized and instituted. And, an open anarchist is largely responsible for spurring on that change.
"Unfortunately Indymedia is not functional"
For the record, Indymedia has had some form of in-person, on-location representation at nearly every major protest in the western hemisphere, europe, australia, israel, south africa, nigeria etc for the past 2 years. In the worst case, it is an eyewitness report. The best case, it is dozens of eyewitness reports, photographs, audio, video all updated within minutes or hours of when stuff happens. Indymedia Breaking News (ahem) is the #1 way to find out what is happening at these events from afar, although live cellfone updates broadcast over internet audio is pretty fucking cool too. Indymedia continues to grow and expand culturally, with new IMCs coming in Palestine, New Zealand, southeast Asia, Egypt, etc etc etc.
Indymedia also goes when more liberal folks will not, for instance DC in September and NYC in January. Concretely, this means a convergence of techies, writers, a/v people who provide computers & bandwidth for hundreds, if not thousands, of local and "traveling hooligans". During non-protest time, many Indymedias serve as a community resource, offering the same thing.
Indymedia operates an, albeit insecure, IRC server which allows for networking & relationship building amongst people from all over the world.
Indymedia serves as a distribution network for media of all kinds. Certainly, this means that even liberal videos can come through the pipeline. But the only other "pure anarchist" network I can think of is the DIY anarchopunk network, 1980 - circa 1995 RIP.
Locally, Indymedia's have broken stories and hyped stories which otherwise would have been lost forever, from Hunter's Point toxic waste and police brutality to just community interaction like this discussion and others.
To me, that's functional. Considering that Indymedia largely holds anarchist principles as a value (whether or not they are consistently implemented, a challenge that any anarchist or coalition group faces), I'm glad to be a part of it as an anarchist. Without an information tech infrastructure like this, what possible hope do you give to a movement?
"These fundamental contradictions are the reasons for the complete failure of any efforts toward a global process"
Again, I think you are ignoring or distorting history towards your conclusions. There has not been a complete failure towards a global process. By far, the biggest complaint is the lack of a global financial process, which is due 100% to people with anarchist or anti-capitalist tendencies. Other issues like new IMC process and tech centralization are being resolved by a transparent system and increasing decentralization of tech resources. For what global IMC needs to do, it does it. Most importantly, it has it together enough to have been everywhere, and achieved all the goals mentioned above. Effectiveness of local IMCs varies, but many of them offer an essential community resource.
"How does the liberal IMC video about Seattle fit into your conception of Indymedia? Or the (intentionally) horrible coverage of anarchists in Philadelphia? Or the NGO front group CMAQ in Quebec City? Or Boston IMCs support of Ralph Nader during the O3 demonstrations? Or the reprehensibly close relationship to the liberal Media Alliance during the National Association of Broadcasters?"
Who gives a shit? Liberal IMC video, sheesh! Who cares? I don't even really remember the name of that video, let alone what is in it. I do know that the anarchist videos about Seattle have also been terrible, especially in hindsight. Or Media Alliance offering their computer space and going into massive and almost crippling debt to do it ... where was the anarchist open computer lab? Perhaps we could have BART'ed over to Long Haul's closet and squeezed in there?
In all of the cases you cite above, the problem of "liberalism" would be solved by less anarchist whining and more anarchist participation. But this is the problem altogether, isnt it, that U.S. anarchists in practice are historically much better at ruining things and whining than they are at actually doing something?
"now dead anti-globalization movement"
You said it, not me. Western press calls it anti-globalization. European and other press call it "anti-capitalist."
"the only thing we're a communications infrastructure for is the most liberal-wing"
I think the browser cache on anarchists' computers would show this to be false. In some cases, Indymedia I think has been the only thing breaking through the miserable Bay Area sectarianism. I do know that it is what brought out SFPD police brutality victims to a Carlo Giuliani solidarity demo this past summer, for example.
"Indymedia is trying to operate as an external organ"
Indymedia serves both internal and external functions. Yes, you have to share your tech toys with liberals. I can give examples of internal functions it has served, but for security reasons maybe that isn't best.
"what have the NGOs, unions, green parties, and others ever contributed to Indymedia?"
Do you mean these groups as an abstract concept, or the actual individuals who find themselves within these groups? Either way, let me start:
1) Reliable human resources who do not have typical anarchist slacker personality traits.
2) NGOs have provided expensive space without requiring much editorial control in return, most notably in Durban, Quebec City, Bethlehem. (In QC, especially, the anarchist whining about CMAQ wasn't so bad when anarchists were rushing to the IMC for shelter, or to use the medical triage space, or to check their email, or to just get out of the tear gas and enjoy the beautiful sight of pitched street battles from a 3rd story window. Another good example is that after suffering months of protracted anarchowhining about CMAQ's intention to "moderate" the newswire, all it took was 1 anarchist to suggest the idea and implement the code change and the CMAQ people were happy as hell about it.)
3) A relatively amorphous political arena through which anti-capitalists have had a chance to meet and work with groups who they would otherwise never had had contact. In other words, a pool of "normal people" who are traditionally excluded from anarchist-only organizations, through any number of race/class/gender/culture/etc barriers.
"Are we really to believe that we can't run a communications network without their liberalism?"
That isn't the question. The question is, can we run a communications network based on dogma, based on a narrow view of who is and isnt acceptable to work with, through a process of judgemental and utterly ineffective interpersonal dynamics?
But I won't be baited into defending liberals. The danger is even greater than I think you realize: the danger that I fear is the attitude that you are showing. You said we shouldn't be afraid to be anarchists, and yet you are essentially advocating a withdrawal from real life into an ideological ghetto. Instead of standing up and defending revolutionary ideas, you say that we are supposed to keep retreating until we are left with the 3-4 people who will consistently agree with our semantics and jargon and worldviews.
To be honest, I think the verdict is still out on coalitions with liberals. By far, and this cannot be stressed enough, if anarchists do nothing and don't participate, the natural tendency will be to drift towards a watered-down, mainstream, reformist viewpoint. Liberals have all kinds of tangible advantages, including race/class privileges, networking connections, travel expenses, time, etc. Many work at non-profits or unions who pay them to work at a job destroying or absorbing revolutionary potential.
This is not true for Indymedia alone, it is true for everything. The Social Ecology Institute issued a paper recently which said that anarchism has become the "center" of the recent worldwide movement against neoliberalism and capitalism. This is absolutely a correct assessment. Because anarchism has always served as a "conscience of the left," it has always had the potential to "catch on" and begin competing with leftist privilege. In other words, the anarchy meme is pretty fucking contagious. It is the one tendency which has the ability to send a chill down the spine of both corpo-statist tyrant as well as union bureaucrat. But it is nonetheless a battle against liberalism, one which should be met head on, rather than complained about in isolation.
I agree with you that Indymedia could spiral into oblivion, but I don't intend to just let it happen. There is too much invested and too much at stake. It is disappointing that another anarchist would prefer to quit rather than fight.
I've spent alot of time ranting about problems within the IMC, but I do that because I love the IMC project, which I consider to be one of the most important anarchist projects in my lifetime. One of the problems that dogs Indymedia is that there was never an effort to sit down and spell out the politics of the project. I would say that the politics are anarchistic, but that the IMC is an ecumenical project that promotes a leftist analysis of news and provides a method for working people to "be your own reporter." In my mind, if Indymedia were turned into a project with a strong political flavor, say anarchism, then the project would rapidly go downhill. This isn't because anarchism is bad news, but because the project as it currently exists fulfills many of the goals of anarchist politics. Indymedia is a decentralized network of local IMCs that is run on anarchist principles like consensus, no leaders, egalitarianism, and non-hierarchy. It's also an exampe of building the revolution as we go along, instead of simply waiting until the revolution to seize the TV stations.
There are already a variety of anarchist news services--I run a few of them. There should be more, because we create a more dynamic resistance movement when we are supported by a diverse network of media resources. We become weak when all of our eggs are put in the same basket.
As for the politics of what goes on the newswires, that depends on who is posting stuff there. If liberals post stuff all the time, it's going to have a liberal flavor. I know the RCP posts articles occasionally, but the vanguardist parties avoid Indymedia for two reasons: 1) Indymedia encourages debate and critical thinking, stuff that is antithetical to organizations that promote a "line" handed down from above; and 2) they don't want to encourage their followers to be exposed to other opinions.
Why don't we see more posts from A-Infos on Indymedia? The answer is quite simple. Nobody has taken it upon themselves to do this task on a regular basis. A-Infos doesn't have many people involved, because it had a split several years in which many of us left to work on other projects. As somebody pointed out in this thread, there is alot of anarchist stuff that A-Infos won't distribute, because its primary moderator is very dogmatic about what gets approved. This is why I started up infoshop-news, to make it possible for anarchists to get their news out despite this filter at A-Infos.
Lastly, but not least, Nessie's comments are very important. I've been arguing similar stuff within Indymedia for years. We have to do a better job of getting working people to participate in this project. Nessie is right, if local residents aren't turning to their IMC as their news source of choice for local politics and events, then we've really failed in our mission. Indymedia has to be more than rants, ideological essays, and protest reporting.
Yes, where is the sports coverage? This is important. I picked up a zine last night which I'm reviewing for the next Alternative Press Review. It's called 'Left Field' and it covers baseball from a leftist perspective.
How about some movie reviews?
"Or the reprehensibly close relationship to the liberal Media Alliance during the National Association of Broadcasters?"
i've seen "liberal" media alliance do a ton of radical stuff in the past few years, giving people that are often left out of society a place to learn additional skills, and communicate their experiences, tell their own stories -- for free. if only our local anarchist community could be as an effective and important resource to people outside of the anarchist community. makes me question your definition of "liberal" and "radical" -- some orgs and people don't neatly fall into one category. i could think of a lot worse orgs that the sf-imc could have been closely related to in its beginnings.
> in-person, on-location representation at nearly every
> major protest in the western hemisphere, europe,
> australia, israel, south africa, nigeria etc for the past 2
> years.
Look, you don't have to sell me on the idea of Indymedia. It is obviously a great idea which has expanded by leaps and bounds in the past two years. This however, is where you must remove the tainted self-congratulatory glasses of Indymedia.
For most of these events covered, the message is heavily biased and distorted by liberals. In Seattle, in NYC, DC, Quebec, Brussels, Ontario, and right here in SF: the message has consistantly been for peaceful, orderly protest, for reformist ends (NAB be more fair with coverage, Gore out of UWA land, No WTO, etc), and when forced to talk about anarchists they insist (contrary to all facts) that they were acting peaceful when violently attacked by police. In Genoa the liberal IMC went as far as to lie about the Black Bloc being an entirely police-orchestrated grouping. This is the historical tradition of Indymedia, reflected not only in center columns; but even more clearly in radio streams (Cincinnati, recently in NYC, etc), publications, and videos.
> Again, I think you are ignoring or distorting history
> towards your conclusions. There has not been a
> complete failure towards a global process.
Untrue. There have been numerous efforts to develop a global structure that would include a mission statement, principles of unity, better intra-IMC communications infrastructure, more network wide collaboration, etc. The financial aspect is really only the tip of the iceberg. The SF conference was indicitive of the distrust and unworkable environment that has been sewn by the capitalist/anti-capitalist contradictions.
> Who gives a shit? Liberal IMC video, sheesh! Who
> cares? [snip] I do know that the anarchist videos
> about Seattle have also been terrible, especially in
> hindsight.
To repeat myself, I am not calling for more internal communications, as I viewed the anarchist videos about Seattle as being. Instead I see the IMC as capable of producing media more akin to TVAC's videos about OCAP--not an anarchist propaganda piece, but media having a clear radical bias.
> In all of the cases you cite above, the problem of
> "liberalism" would be solved by less anarchist
> whining and more anarchist participation.
Again ignoring my point that the liberalism has alienated many anti-capitalist organizations from working with Indymedia. There are plenty of anarchists involved, but we need to organize to make our presence felt in Indymedia.
> The question is, can we run a communications
> network based on dogma, based on a narrow view of
> who is and isnt acceptable to work with, through a
> process of judgemental and utterly ineffective
> interpersonal dynamics?
It seems you are the dogmatic one: your analysis of Indymedia seems more like that of a preacher blindly speaking the word of god (Indymedia), than rationally examining the current functionality and problems of Indymedia. Bragging about how many IMCs there are does not constitute a strategic or tactical analysis of its role in furthering the fight against capitalism.
> One of the problems that dogs Indymedia is that there
> was never an effort to sit down and spell out the
> politics of the project.
While I agree with much of what Chuck0 says, this is simply historically incorrect. There have been at least three general Indymedia conferences (one on an island off Seattle's coast, one in San Francisco, the place of the third eludes me) with this as the primary goal. Many many more on the regional level. As far as I can tell the capitalist/anti-capitalist contradictions have resulted in the absolute breakdown in developing Indymedia's politics.
> i could think of a lot worse orgs that the sf-imc
I did not intend to tear down Media Alliance as an organization, but its somewhat authoritarian leadership over the IMC and the protest in general was clearly felt on the streets of San Francisco. How many times did we have to hear about how unfair the FCC is?
As to my question about the contributions of liberals to Indymedia, I meant it as a literal question of what have these organizations contributed, and what have they got out of Indymedia. Quebec City and Durban are perfect examples of NGO participation, do you know what organization Alternatives (Canadian government funded NGO) has added to its portfolio for future fundraising? The prestige Indymedia has earned is now contributing to giving these scumbags hundreds of thousands of dollars. The rent they paid for the CMAQ is a fraction of what they will be getting back in funding money--a pretty good return on their investment. The Durban situation is the same, glofiying NGO involvement in South Africa will invariably gain them a more important role there. As to Bethlehem it does not publically exist yet, so we shall see.
It is important to remember that this thread was originally started as a comment on "IMCs going downhill", a widespread sentiment. We must analyse why exactly this is happening, and choose a course of action. Anarchist2 has snidely commented that I "prefer to quit rather than fight," which is clearly false due to my original title. The course of action I am promoting is precisely that, a fight by anti-capitalists against the tendency (liberalism) responsible for "IMCs going downhill."
Ridge here, on assignment in Salt Lake City. Rummy has me dressed as a female Russian figure skater to fake out the terrorists and, holy cow, this dress is pinching my waist.
But I'd like to take a moment to assure you (via my hand-held browser, now disguised as a skate) that the Black Bloc has NO relationship with the police. Oh, no, none whatsover. Not even a little bit. Why, we would NEVER do that. We love democracy. We encourage dissent.
So don't let those mushy Genoa liberals mis-lead you.
Blasted liberals. You can't trust them. And I mean YOU can't trust them. We love them. They're practically beating down the doors to turn in every American to the left of Al Gore and to volunteer for the VeriChip. So when I say we've never infiltrated the Black Bloc, I'm not kidding. The liberals have done it for us! What a bunch of saps! Like they won't end up at Camp X-Ray too!
"For the international workers movement surely the split was bad; but it was inevitable. The fact that authoritarians had strong influence in the organization meant that it was either us or them. Would you rather that the anarchists kept quiet about the authoritarianism of Marx?
That said I don't think debating the 1870's will solve the problems of Indymedia. "
I understand what you're saying here (in both paragraphs). We are just getting our IMC going here, and I can already see that the problems you are outlining are going to be, shall we say, interesting to get around. Luckily, since we are starting from scratch, the (relatively large and active) anarchist contingent here in town should be able to work to keep things appropriately on target from a radicalism standpoint.
To continue with the analogy between the First International and the IMC network, though, I think you might consider something: it was the Marxists that destroyed the International, not the anarchists. Now, maybe someday the liberal element within the IMC will be in a position to play a similar role, but that doesn't mean we should do it ourselves because they might sabotage the whole thing at some unspecified point in the future.
Our task is clear -- we have put enough work into the IMC network that we have a legitimate claim to control of it, and no one can deny us that. I agree that anyone who tries to purge US (i.e. anarchists) should be trounced out of the organization, but beyond that I think that the advantages of continuing to work within the IMC structure as it now stands far outweigh the risks that would be entailed by adopting some sort of witch-hunt mentality.
My basic question: in your opinion, what exactly would happen if you provoked ideologically-based 'splits' rather than simply working harder, writing better, providing better coverage (if a liberal video sucks, why don't we get together and make a better one?), and generally providing a good example?
The Situationists may or may not meet your standards of ideological purity, but Raoul Vaneigem made a good point in _The Totality For Kids_: "We have no monopoly on intelligence, only on the use of it." That is, the liberals cannot offer workable solutions (if we are right in our analysis, which is too often warmed-over 19th century rhetoric), while we can do so because we are not constrained by loyalty to the system. And people should be able to see that if we are consistent, hard-working, and intelligent. I admire your suspiciousness, but I think we should be looking at more of a CNT-FAI relationship than a Bolshevik mentality.
I'm interested to hear your thoughts, this is a very interesting discussion.
The antics of Alternatives are beside the point, they will never change the world. They did provide us with a large, functioning media center, though, close to the action and available for use by the medical teams once they were attacked by the police.
And to whoever stole my gas mask on Saturday night (it was in a multicolored cloth bag on the floor of the foyer), if you got good use out of it, I'm glad!
Vegan Potatoes:
1. Wash potatoes
2. throw in microwave or other cooking apparati until soft to touch
3. apply natural sea salt and pepper dumpster dived from local organic shop
then eat.
okay, i have no real opinion, i sometimes think i am an anarchist but i really wish i was a liberal republican but since the republican party won't tolerate liberal republicans i was forced into anarchism. i have no idea what any of this has to do with the discussion, but like most comments i am just rambling and only in an anarchist organization could one ramble so frequently. so there, i guess i like rambling and anarchy. in terms of media producers in the local sf community, it is unbelievable how much work Juntos has done and been ignored by all us white folks. check it out. Media Alliance? hmm... i only get hate mail from their administrators when i ramble so i guess i ain't o keen to them.
ramble on...
The RCP does great work on police brutality and managed to get a lot of people out for many of the early antiwar and proPalestine protests (at a few protests there were more RCP people than anarchists which considering the size of the RCP in the Bay Area says alot)
We all LOVE to attack each other but it takes time away from what we should really be doing.
OUR REAL ENEMY IS NOT EACH OTHER, IT IS CAPITALISM AND THE US GOVERNMENT.
While it would be irritating to get 100 Maoist posts a day, it is sad that we get less diversity of opinion due to the perception that we are an anarchist only space. Being an anarchist only space also limits the debate since anarchists are one of the less ethnically diverse communities on the US Left.
Basically we should be trying to encourage every group to post news to our site. Now that we have the local/global categories it really wont hurt if we get a lot of ideological posts. If the Sparts post 50 opinion pieces and one update from a protest, I think that could now be a GOOD thing since we can only classify the local news post as “local news”.
We also need to make clear to people who post that just because they are attacked in comments doesn’t mean they should stop posting. We all expect attacks from the right, and we should also expect anarchists (who are still a good portion of the people using this site) to attack any openly Communist post.
We really really need more groups posting to this site. We need more up to date reports of police brutality. We need more posts about the airline workers and other local labor struggles. The only way to get this type of coverage is to make Communists (COC, RCP, Sparts, ISO, RWL, SWP, Left Turn, MIM, Balagtasan, WWP, Radical Women, Socialist Alternative, CPUSA, Solidarity, etc…) feel more welcome on this site.
Right wingers feel more comfortable posting to Indymedia sites than radicals so we end up with a debate between anarchists and lonely conservative loners. We don’t get real debate between Communists and anarchists since Communists respect the site and feel that the comments attacking them are a reason not to post.
The chance of a Communist takeover of the US is so extremely small that I don’t think it should be a reason to be afraid of these groups. There is a risk that Communist groups may co-opt movements and may be undemocratic. But anarchists do that too and from events I’ve been to in the Bay Area, most Anarchists are less democratic (and far less diverse) than the Communist groups.
Many people following Communist groups are open to Anarchist ideas so attending their events and making it known that Anarchists are actually doing work is the best way to get out an Anarchist message. Unfortunately, anticommunist rhetoric makes outreach impossible. For most members of Communist groups (who may even be sympathetic to Anarchist ideas) the strong denunciations of their groups by Anarchists sounds a lot like the Spartacists; people ignore the message since it seems so obviously divisive. Most people who join Communist groups are usually relatively mainstream liberals who can’t find any other groups addressing issues they care about. The Communist rhetoric is nothing more than a team uniform or organizational brand image. Most members of Anarchist and Communist groups end up becoming mainstream liberals when they get older since the ideology was nothing more than an aspect of youth culture (like punks, hippies goths etc..). Conflicts between members of groups reminds me more of Raiders fans vs 49ers fans than anything real. Assuming that most MEMBERS (as opposed to leaders) of Anarchist and Communist groups don’t care one bit about ideology, why do we let it divide us? Its almost like we have all developed group nationalism and getting people on our team is more important than addressing real issues. After all we ALL agree on thing like Palestine, police brutality, US militarism, Mumia, attacking corporate power structures, defending immigrants, stopping pollution, ending the death penalty etc..
The really sad part is that Anarchists try to work with community organizations in poor communities and constantly wonder why the groups in those communities wont work with them. Anarchists offer training on “Challenging White Supremacy” since that MUST be the reason the community groups wont work with Anarchists. But Anarchists never stop to think that strong denunciations of Maoists might make it hard to work with some Filipino groups or groups that spun off of the Black Panthers. And strong denunciations of Communists might make it hard to work with many of the groups Van Jones helps organize. By attacking Communists we tend to limit ourselves to a small white ghetto that can only do anything of substance when we reach out to NGOs.
Ok, I'm game. Anyone wanna sum up the anarchist message for me in a simple, easy to understand sentence like the above. I suppose it must be...
"Don't follow some leader."
is that it or is there a better one?
But most communities are ALREADY organized. If we step into a community and ignore the already existing groups (that may be slightly Commie), we end up looking like the US trying to impose its values on another country.
I had an argument about the PFLP with a Spart at a recent protest and they pretty much took the line anarchists are taking here. They went off about how you cant support the PFLP because its nationalist and its just as bad as the Israeli government. The end result of that argument is an excuse to do nothing or be completely ineffective (there is no Trotskyist or Anarchist alternative to the PFLP and DFLP). The end result of denouncing Communists in the US can easily be the same. The Communists really pose no threat in comparison to the US government. Any strong talk denouncing Communist groups only helps to divide the radical left and makes coalitions harder to develop.
I have never had a commie group tell me who to sleep with or act like my boss. Some of them always denounce you when you talk to them but at some boring protests being denounced by the Sparts at least breaks up the monotony.
As for the cult like nature of some of these groups, the best way to destroy a cult is to end its isolation. Working with any cult and bringing in fresh outside ideas helps to bring sanitity to the cult's members. Denouncing a cult reinforces the idea among its members that all nonmembers are enemies of the cult.
why do many get so caught up in what they call themselves?
Maoist? Communist? Anarchist? Anarcho-Communist? Militant Humanist? .73 of this? .27 of that? why do these labels become so important? is it the giant bureacracy in our minds that make distinctions that aren't important? or the scientist who tries to collect and label every single specimen?Because in the end, isn't it the beliefs, and the beliefs in action, that are important?
Did you read the book because it was written by an Anarchist? or did you read it because it had really good things to say?
Are you an Anarchist first, and a human second? Are you a Muslim first, and a human second? Are you a Catholic first, and a human second? And here's one right off the headlines, Are you an American first, and a human second?
Identity defining is getting out of hand in america... no wonder all the shrinks. The more precisely you define yourself, the more crazy you're going to get fitting into your own definition!
it's strange, those who jump so quickly into a category, and use that category to define their identity so completely, that they lose sight of what they believe and are trying to do, and the fact that they're just a person. or they get so caught up in their own "club" that they can't see that other "clubs" are really saying the same thing.
it's the beliefs. not the identity or the category or the flag or the logo that are going to make a difference.
The original post was a criticism of the IMC for a lack of solid articles. By the end, with plenty of help from resident gatekeepers Nessie and Chuck0, it has become a discussion about how communists are the embodiment of evil.
Why would people think the IMC is an anarchist only venue? Because many anarchists treat it as a front group. Read Chuck's post above. It is no different than how the RCP views the October 22nd Coalition or Refuse & Resist.
Luckily, that's not the case. In my experience at several IMCs, the diversity of opinion and the genuine quest to develop are bigger than the ideologues.
Nessie never misses a chance to engage in the same brand of hackery that he accuses the communists of. That he calls Mao an imperialist is so absurd it defies debate. But he heaps slag upon slag until you can't even talk. Exactly what he accuses his opponents, who never seem to act like that, of doing.
Note the RCP post. Go to their website and read their reports. They regularly report favorably on anarchist activities. But this must be opportunism. Why? Because Nessie is an anti-communist jackass who doesn't want debate. He wants to attack and marginalize. He wants to put words in the mouth of his opponents and then argue with the strawman.
The RCP actually requests at their webpage devoted to public debates on their new program that people respect the integrity of the IMC and to refrain from spamming the sites. They urge people to call up and make sure they don't double post or dominate the space. Wow, how fucking "authoritarian." What a dirty trick, trying to act like decent people. The murderers!
Unfortunately, the anti-communism we've all been indotrinated with from school and the media allow narrow anarchists to post the most outrageous slanders and attacks as if they were common sense. I am happy to see decent anarchists finally standing up to the crap that's spread by the sectarians in their own midst. More!
Unity and struggle is how we all move forward. Calling people moonies who are honestly struggling to build a revolutionary movement is destructive, dishonest and sectarian. Urging people to "stay away" shows who really is afraid of debate.
Excerpt From: "The Phaedrus"
If you even briefly glance at the history of the Tibetan region, you wuill realize that it has always been a art of the Chinese territory and that its was ruled by an oppressive fundamentalist-landlord group centered around the post of the Dali Lama.
Look at the history of the struggle to free Tibet from this rule and you will see that the major force behind the ousting of the Tibetan rulers was by Tibetans in the People Army and the Chinese Communist Party. BECAUSE PEASANTS FROM THIS AREA HAD BEEN A PART OF THE CHINESE REVOLUTION SINCE THE LONG MARCH!
I agree that Tibet needs to be free. It has been under the rule of capitalists since the capitalist coup in China in 1976. But I disagree that the Dali Lama and what he represents is freedom. I say forward to a Red China (including Tibet)!