[IMC-Editorial] fwd: G8 Blurb Needs SF-IMC Links

[gekked at blackflag.net]

The proposed blurb regarding the G8 protests in San Francisco is
indicative of a trend amongst a small group of people in IMC that
needs to stop here. For those who don't know, people like Bht and
others affiliated with "Indybay" have some sort of problem with SF-IMC
and thus go out of their way to give credit to themselves rather than
the people who actually did the work.

Indybay, in fact, gave absolutely no coverage to the G8 protests
leading up to the last week of protests in SF -- based on
conversations with Indybay folks, its exactly because of scene
factionalization and politics that drove them to downplay or ignore a
G8 protest happening in their own city. 

This scene in-fighting even started to creep into the newswires:
http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2004/06/1695525_comment.php

As it turns out, the two G8 protests this week outnumbered the
extraordinarily small biotech 'mobilization' here. And thus, we now
have the proposed feature from "Bht" -- someone who jumped into the
Indymedia/Indybay conflict without really knowing anything about what
was going on.

It is absurd to link the words "San Francisco" to indybay. It is
absurd to throw all linkage to them. And it is hilariously ironic to
anyone local, considering how much Indybay tried to make the G8
protests here into a non-event. 

I invite anyone from this list to contact the West Coast G8 organizing
group (http://www.westcoastg8.net/) and ask for confirmation on any of
these items I have mentioned here.

To that extent, I believe that for the integrity of Indymedia and to
prevent small groups of busybodies with grudges from overwhelming
consensus process, the G8 blurb needs massively re-written with equal
distribution of links between SF Indymedia and the Indybay site. 

It really will be a sad day when global Indymedia succumbs to the
curiously divisive actions of Indybay. Who benefits from division and
petty scene schisms in the activist community and global Indymedia?
What possible motivation could there be for attempting to sow these
divisions? I'm continuing to be optimistic that it is only petty
spite.
-gek, sf-imc


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