[Imc-finance] ford, indymedia & questions

[Sheri Herndon]

hello everyone,

i'm too tired and exhausted from the reclaim the media conference 
(check it out at www.reclaimthemedia.org - very successful and 
inspiring!), so i will just share a few personal reflections wtih you 
all until i have more time for thoughtful reflection....i've been 
unable to jump in because of the conference....but now i am finding 
space to do so....

so here are some quick comments.

i have appreciated all the people who have engaged in a thoughtful 
and passionate way into this discussion.  it's clear we have many 
many issues to deal with to move forward and past the ford issue. 
hopefully, many of those threads will be untangled from the ford 
conversation and can be pursued with commitment, dedication to 
network solidarity and the desire for respect for each other.  thanks 
ana and jay for the recent emails.  it's so much easier for us to 
make headway through challenging conflicts and so much more likely 
that we'll move from a crisis to an opportunity (chinese ideogram for 
danger is the two images for crisis and opportunity), if we believe 
first in the general good of people working together on these 
projects.  and when i say this i do not mean we should not challenge, 
constructively confront, share our differences, share sadnesses and 
concerns and hopes and anything; i'm saying let's do it in an 
atmosphere of respect.

i believe we can do this better.

james petras's recent article:

sebastian forwarded a link to this list last week to an article by 
james petras.  here it is for your reference: 
http://www.rebelion.org/petras/english/ford10102.htm.   because of 
crazy coincidences, he happened to be in town this weekend and i met 
with him saturday night while he was in town.  his daughter is a 
friend.  i have a partial recording of the conversation.  he had alot 
of information and details.  i could barely keep up.  he was very 
persuasive in his arguments for why we cannot take money from the 
ford foundation because it involves giving money to latin american 
imcs and because of ford's role for many decades in latin america, 
plus more recent situations (some of which he mentions in our 
conversation, and on tape).  he did say that if the funds were for 
us-based imcs that he would not advise against taking the funds (i 
think he's open to people talking to him about this).

this was just more evidence for me to consider that we cannot take 
these funds in this way.

i was also pretty much convinced that we had to reject the grant last 
thursday after my conversation with micah who shared critical 
information that i hadn't read in any emails up to that point. what 
was at stake was network solidarity and for both of us one of our top 
priorities.

in fact, in ALL of my conversations with everyone, people have 
stressed this.  so i do not think people are missing this point.  it 
just may be that people have different ways of how that might work or 
how achieving that might look.

those of us working to help fund regional gatherings have network 
solidarity as our goal so if it was being negatively impacted by this 
grant then we are going against a driving force for having these 
gatherings.  that was quite clear.  admittedly, i was honestly 
disappointed because i really want to see us have regional gatherings 
to talk face to face, to build greater trust and understanding, to 
figure out things that we can't seem to do online in the virtual 
environment.  but that disappointment really was second.  also, it 
was the additional pieces of information which helped convince me of 
the problems on several levels of taking money from ford.

however, what wasn't clear are all the other pieces that fit together 
in a puzzle of how we work together and through our differences.....

- funding and sustainability

- decentralized in relationship to local autonomy

- what constitutes a "network project" and how does it get "approval"

- when are things really more "centralized" than "decentralized"

- how to increase trust; assuming the best before you know all the 
facts of a situation (at least don't assume the worst case scenario)

- working through differences of thinking about funding and sources 
of funding - not touching any money vs. no strings attached funding

- how to truly treat each other with respect as we discuss our 
differences passionately, all the while believing in the good 
intentions of people until proven guilty

- learning from the honest mistakes that have been made and accepting 
that people/groups will make mistakes and we will learn from them if 
done in a supportive environment that is based on network solidarity

- how far removed can "tainted money" be to be acceptable?

- how does indymedia deal with economics, gift economy, cooperative 
economics as we deal with long term sustainability

- etc. etc.

these are the ones that come to mind.

i would like us to figure out alot of things together and that means 
we all participate.  if the only way some people participate is by 
complaining when things aren't good, but disappear when the crisis is 
over and a process needs to be figured out, how can we move forward 
collectively.

i send much love & solidarity to you all....

sheri