[CIMC-work] a good read, from us process

[Garth Liebhaber]

hey gang, 
haven't been following the hundred bijillion emails flowing 
forth on the SF dispute, but i happened to open this one 
which turned out to be a good, even funny read.  g.


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From: "Jeff" <jeff at whisperedmedia.org>
Sent: Tue, 23 Mar 2004 15:21:30 -0800 (PST)
To: gekked at blackflag.net
CC: imc-us-process at lists.indymedia.org
Subject: [imc-us-process] "space acquired by me ... "


Quote from Ryan, "To correct Sunny again, the space was 
acquired by me,
Lisa and Ian,
long before Sunny ever began working with IMC. The 
network there was
built up by many of us, staffed by many of us, etc."

Just to get the space thing straight ... The space was being 
run by and
paid for by and was donated by Whispered Media ... It is 
not (as some
DSL-squatting do-nothing types constantly propigate) an 
I.W.W. space ...
The real I.W.W. members left a long time ago and they 
handed over the
administration task of the suite to Whispered Media ... 
some new
non-working form of  I.W.W.'s hang on to an office in hear 
(although they
opted to call it "Automous Collective" for some time) and 
Dan still comes
around occasionally and does some network stuff and 
Salim is maybe doing
something vaguely labor oriented - but really there has 
been no I.W.W.
organizing, membership drives, meetings ... nada, in this 
space for years
and they have long ago handed over all the 
responsibilities regarding the
continued renting of this space, over to Whispered Media 
... So, this all
happened before there ever was anything called SF.IMC ... 
just to clarify
on that ... It is a commercial office space in a building 
owned by
investment bankers who don't really give a rat's ass about 
us or our
politics - just so the rent gets paid - which we do do ... 
tenants here
are month-to-month renters in a commercial space and 
they have no lease.
OK, so getting to how I.M.C. people got into the space ... 
That was only
because myself and Mark Liiv wanted them to come ... we 
are multi-media
people who had a hand in forming the first IMC in Seattle 
... so, of
course we wanted more independent media producers in 
here and talked of
how to make this happen, long before ever seeing anyone 
like Ryan, Ian or
Lisa. We did meet Lisa later, through Jeff Perlstein (also of 
the original
IMC) and through our contacts at Media Alliance. We met 
Ian and Ryan and
Noah through her. At that time Whispered Media was 
primarily composed of
Adams, Francine and Mark (I was taking a temporary 
leave.) But, still our
vision for getting more IMC activity going on here was 
coming to fruition
... and it is true that new IMC volunteers (like Ryan, Noah, 
Ian and Lisa)
were beginning to really put in some quality time in here .. 
and to build
up things like "linefeed" and so on. Whispered Media, all 
the while
maintained the DSL connection that we had before any of 
these IMC youths
came into play, and that DSL connectivity was shared with 
the SF.IMC'ers
as they needed it and so on. In the end, after sharing 
some success
together and then after much interpersonal conflict and so 
on, the
late-comer IMC youths could not get along and the 
network server they
shared together was unilaterally seized by Ryan, Noah and 
Ian. Lisa and
Mark B. and Sunny found themselves locked out of access 
to the site they
had formerly shared with the others and they couldn't get 
their emails
 from linefeed. This was a unilateral jack move that 
resembles the worst
that any corporate boss or friendly fascist has ever done 
... still, all
with an attitude of being somehow way less priveledged 
than the elites who
were now locked out of access to the website and emails 
that made up the
collective SF.IMC ... And, for Ryan to say that he "acquired 
the space"
reflects his inability to remeber facts correctly and his 
delusions of
grandeur regarding his rights of ownership over SF.IMC ... 
check the tone
of his delusional language, "To correct Sunny again, the 
space was
acquired by me, Lisa and Ian ... " The space was never 
"aquired" by any of
those mentioned. It was graciously shared with media 
activist youths who
did in fact do a lot of work together and seemed to be 
doing good work. It
should also be pointed out, that even though Mark B. 
came along a little
after the Ian, Lisa and Ryan wave of relatively new media 
activist youths
- when he did come, he did things like solicit much new 
computer equipment
 from dot.commers and from craig's list. He did benefit 
fundraisers and
helped to get t-shirts and stickers printed with the SF.IMC 
logo (all of
which became obsolete to him when the self-proclaimed 
oppressed,
anarchist, more working-class sect of the group seized 
the server and
locked him out of access to the website that he had done 
so much to
promote - and the jerks still won't follow what the agreed 
to in mediation
and put up a simple link to the indybay site. And, perhaps 
most
unfortunately for them, they have fallen into the habit of 
parreting the
paranoid rantings of an older man who brags about 
sleeping with dogs - one
that long ago had some column with the SF Bay Guardian 
and now belongs to
a "sinister cabal" of irrelevant and paranoid print 
journalists who are
possessed by their own delusions of themselves as being 
important enough
for the goverenment to really care about their work and to 
monitor their
every move. And, of course, when they don't their way in 
whatever group
they are trying to work with, they cry out - "cointelpro!" In 
order to
really build solidarity in the movement, the elder man 
prefers pointing
out to people that he owns guns and sleeps with dogs - 
so you better not
step up and smell the irrellevance - all feds better beware 
... this is
his way of, what, keeping cointelpro off of his back - by 
writing about
his dogs and his guns on the IMC network. Yeah, boy he 
better write the
next manual on security culture for the movement - what 
a credible source
he is ...

So, anyway, Ryan and co. can say whatever they want 
about a lot of things
.. but the space that they are talking about in the 
Redstone building (a
former labor temple, still has lots of active tenants 
although it is
currently owned by a "records and profit-sharing" 
company) - is really a
former suite of dentists offices that was later administered 
and rented
out by the SF. branch of the I.W.W.  and then, even later, 
was handed over
to be run by one of the I.W.W.'s old tenants - Whispered 
Media. So, none
in the list that Ryan mentions ever "aquired" the space he 
refers to.

So, I'm a part-time janitor, in debt to the catholic charities 
for helping
to put off my eviction, - and barely able to eat 
consistently. I also
currently have no camera and still try to edit video on an 
old 400mghz
machine - I guess I represent one of those types that Ryan 
characterizes
as a "privileged group of video / audio techs." The sense 
of who is more
priviledged or not at this point is also mostly the 
malformed banter of a
misguided mind. And, in this suite, that type of rhetoric 
comes mostly
spewing forth from delusional, recently arrived radicals 
and/or from
non-working DSL squatters who have way more time to 
work on their
self-reflective art than do the working tenants whose 
space they leach off
of and contribute nothing to ..  and all in the name of 
being more down
... more radical ... more working class. Are they pathetic 
whiners? maybe
.. Are they working class organizers with a valid disdain 
for the real
priveledged members of this society? ... that is laughable. 
One thing is
clear, they can't even properly assess the class status of 
those they used
to work with and they are willing to mis-represent the 
facts. I have seen
this on several occasions.

Thank you and good day. Jeff

gekked at blackflag.net" <gekked at blackflag.net>
>To: "A process discussion list for U.S.-based IMCs"
><imc-us-process at lists.indymedia.org>
>Subject: Re: [imc-us-process] us-process is a positive 
tool for
coordination.
>
>  > Since Hep was never actually a member of SF-IMC 
prior to the mediation,
>>  nor present at the mediation, I'd like to clarify the 
misinformation
>
>Nor was Jino. The difference is Jino never tried to get 
involved. Hep
>tried and was intentionally kept out with malicious 
intent.
>
>
>>  above.  First of all, the space is something that none 
of them were very
>>  much into maintaining when we were all one group 
anyway.  Ian was the
only
>  > member who actually staffed the space.  I could go 
on about the lack of
>
>To correct Sunny again, the space was acquired by me, 
Lisa and Ian,
>long before Sunny ever began working with IMC. The 
network there was
>built up by many of us, staffed by many of us, etc.


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