new-imc process

• new-imc internal deadline 23 Sep 2003
  • [en] NewImc030921a
  • [es] NewImc030920a
• (imc-process 7 day deadline - see http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/imc-process/2003-September )

basic documents, info

mission statement:

membership criteria:

editorial policy:

decision-making method:

mailing lists:

main

• http://lists.cu.groogroo.com/cgi-bin/listinfo/imc-us

other

• http://lists.cu.groogroo.com/cgi-bin/listinfo/imc-us-tech
• http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-us-process

website rough mock-up

wikipages

• http://brainstorm.ucimc.org/ucimcWiki/imc-us or http://brainstorm.ucimc.org/ucimcWiki/imc_2dus (seem to be aliases for same page)

concerns

• against any national IMC
  • any form of border control against people based on their "nationality" is simply racism
  • Most of the concerns are concerns about racism and nationalism. While people in the network trust individuals participating in the project, the problem is one of structure - if well-meaning individuals form a structure based on racism, it's difficult for them, as a group, to avoid unintended racist assumptions.
  • borders of "States" (in the sense of international law, the United Nations), are usually based on past and present violence, and especially among the rich countries, function to keep out people from poor countries.
  • the names of States function as symbols which are used by dependent media as powerful propaganda tools to distract people from thinking about social reality
• Can national IMCs be temporarily compatible with rejection of racism?
  • many IMCs have started out as "national" sites, this is usually meant to be a temporary starting point until enough people are active for local collectives to become sustainable and autonomous.
    • this does not apply to the US, which chooses to group together already functioning IMCs according to a racist reality
• obvious alternatives to national IMCs
  • city and regional IMCs on smaller and bigger scales than States, and deliberately crossing people-filtering national borders
    • in the US case:
      • 5-10 cross-border regional IMCs (like NENA http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-nena)
      • an America-wide (North+Latin America) IMC.

• other arguments specifically against the IMC US
  • the US, as it presently functions, is the biggest terrorist threat to world security, and any legitimation of its present way of functioning is collaboration with a criminal system
    • In particular, the controlled media in the USA (also in other States) constantly present information as if "Americans" (US nationals) have much higher moral value than other people. By syndicating reports from the US, the racist idea that people in Maine and California should care more for each other than for people 100km away in Eastern Canada or Mexico (respectively) is reinforced.
  • linguistic diversity and autonomy
    • the imc-us mailing list http://lists.cu.groogroo.com/cgi-bin/listinfo/imc-us shows no sign of reflecting the linguistic reality of the current USA, where Spanish is a major language
      • counterargument - hypothetically, this is easy to change

• in favour of the US IMC
  • Most of the arguments in the mission statement http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/new-imc/2003-August/004275.html are excellent arguments in favour of regionalisation of some sort.
    • counterargument However, none of these seem really to require regionalisation according to the boundaries of the preexisting racist, violent structure known as the USA.
  • in order to oppose the present USA structures headon, a structure following the same geographic boundaries is most appropriate
    • counterargument - if you adopt the habits of an adversary, you're just going to end up the same, you're not providing an alternative
  • passive consensus - it's easy to follow old habits, while to make regional IMCs like NENA and a continental (North + Latin America) IMC would require a lot of communication work
    • Question - would the IMC US distract from cross-border regional IMCs or an America-wide continental IMC? Probably, "distract", yes, but "prevent", no.

some debates

• http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/new-imc/2003-August/004275.html
• http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/new-imc/2003-August/004291.html
• http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/new-imc/2003-August/004298.html
• http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/new-imc/2003-September/004336.html
• http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/new-imc/2003-September/004357.html