[CIMC-work] Letter draft re: US-IMC

[Ian Bicking]

On Nov 23, 2003, at 12:56 PM, Chris Kaihatsu wrote:
>> Personally I think it's far more constructive to move things forward,
>> and fix them if there's problems.
>
>
> Ian, CIMC,
>
> With all due respect, I would characterize the draft letter as being an
> initiative to fix something that seems problematic.
>
> I think I understand your meaning to be that we need to trust the 
> general
> direction in which the Indymedia project is moving, but that still 
> wouldn't
> mean that we (at CIMC) should be 'hands-off.' I would think that 
> reasonable
> people (throughout Indymedia) would not be "de-motivated" by a little,
> well-founded questioning.

I think it's entirely okay -- good, even -- to be hands-on.  We as a 
collective can't be hands-on (at least not at this point), only an 
individual can do this, by participating in the US-IMC discussions, and 
more importantly doing the followup work that comes out of discussions 
(discussion itself doesn't make things happen, after all).

And if an individual does this, I'm quite happy to lend the CIMC name 
and collective support.  But in that letter I didn't sense a sentiment 
of constructive participation.  Maybe Mitchell, yourself, or others 
have been participating in ways I don't know about -- if so then I'll 
concede (though I would then suggest that the letter should make this 
participation and desire for forward-movement clear).

> Collective consensus-making does take more time (than top-down 
> ordering),
> but it is a qualitatively better way of moving forward, if only 
> because --
> when done well -- it includes more people's true 'buy-in,' or consent.

I believe consensus can only work when it is consensus among active 
participants.  It's a pessimistic process, which needs to be balanced 
by a strong sense of responsibility -- to the organization as well as 
each other -- and frankly by a degree of social pressure to conform to 
the greater will.

   Ian