[New-imc] Breaking Down the Blocks

[Andy Rice]

Re:  Jays message, below:

Date: Fri, 25 Apr 2003 19:12:40 -0400
To: new-imc at indymedia.org
From: Jay <idiot at jaysand.com>
Cc: imc at truffula.net
Re: [New-imc] Breaking Down the Blocks: Andy

Hi, 

(snipped)

Andy, if you could provide a clearer assertion about the potential outreach
the Rogue group could do, but is not doing, that could be helpful, both to
the new-imc group, and to the current organizers of the Rogue IMC who would then be able to get a better handle on how much outreach is "enough" at this point.

Jay

Andy here.

They could start by doing some outreach to me, to apologize for their stubborn and misrepresentative obstructionism over every point of theory and practice

This should be less about me proving that we do not comply with new-imc criteria yet, than about new-imc demanding a more rigorous new-imc process. You all have access to the local discussion lists, and what I have been talking about should be obvious to anyone.

I have not complained lately about outreach, so much as about recruitment.

Below is a good list of potential participants, just from the SOU campus, compiled by Daniel early on. But there has been no report on who, if anyone, pitched them, or what the results were. This list is reflective of similar resources available in the larger community.

http://truffula.net/pipermail/imc/2003-February/000081.html

Please note the language, in terms of seeking “endorsements” and “support”, rather than actual participation… Here’s another example of that

http://truffula.net/pipermail/imc/2003-February/000078.html

This mindset has been a consistent misunderstanding, somewhat encouraged by some new-imc correspondence, incorrectly, I think, along with the notion that mere outreach, in itself, is sufficient.

The fact is there has been a lot of outreach, including interviews with local commercial newspapers, resulting in at least three favorable major articles about the new imc.  Lots of flyers and posters have gone up around the area, and considerable direct outreach to various organizational meetings and individuals has also occurred, as well as announcements in Media Collective’s newspaper Soapbox, and on our TV and radio shows.  

I have not expressed any major problem of a lack of sufficient outreach, per se, except at the beginning, when people wanted to proceed with the new-imc application without having done any outreach at all.

The attitude at the beginning was that all we had to do was to submit the application, and approval would be virtually automatic.  I took the position that this is not how it is supposed to work, and that outreach must be done first, and a collective assembled, before the application is submitted.  I never proposed that a perfect, all-inclusive collective was required up front, but I did insist that it had to be genuinely diverse, and committed.

Nevertheless, Forrest still submitted the new-imc application immediately, before the outreach had really gotten going or borne any fruit. This was done informally, without explicit review or formal approval by the whole group, despite my clear objections.  That point is not meant as a personal attack (I don’t really know anything about Forrest).  But it was a serious error.

Meanwhile, virtually no reports have been made, as to the details or results of what outreach has occurred, either locally, or to the global lists that I know of, to date. Mainly, I think, because the material results have been so sparse. Some people have come to meetings, but many have not come back, let alone committed to anything material.

No detailed introductions have been required for participants on the discussion list or at meetings, to allow for any real modicum of transparency or full disclosure, as to who they are or where they are coming from, politically or culturally.  

There also has been no such list included in the minutes, of who has attended the meetings from one meeting to the next, how many new people have shown up, or how many of those have stuck with it or made a material commitment, let alone who they are, or what constituencies they might represent, and no comprehensive reports to this effect have appeared on the discussion lists. 

I think if such an accounting were included in the minutes of each meeting, that would serve to increase interest and participation.  It would also give new-imc something material to consider.  

But it has been all I can do to get agreement to even have a designated Secretary, or to keep proper minutes at all, and so far they refuse to report on attendance, let alone to document the Secretary role, responsibilities and protocols for conducting meetings, keeping minutes, etc.  

Perhaps workshops now being organized with local mediators, on how to operate by consensus, will address some of these kinds of issues.

Some call me “obstructionist” for insisting on such things.  But those detractors are the ones obstructing any possible evaluation of new-imc compliance, in their stubborn argumentative refusal to accept even the most obvious and necessary elements of fundamental organizational structure. 

If they are so desperate to prove me a liar, why not just stop calling me names, and compile the damn list, of who is actually coming to the meetings, and what their commitments and demographics are? 

Since there has been no reporting, I don’t see how new-imc, or anyone else is supposed to make any kind of material, rational evaluation.

Again, I ask, what good, really, is new-imc, if it does not even try to materially enforce membership criteria?  Why have any “new-imc process” at all, if there is no effort to enumerate, evaluate and confirm the results of whatever outreach has been done? 

The core group has been mostly, if not solely, very young white techie males, since inception, many of whom are not from around here, have no media practice whatsoever that I can discern, and seem to have no clue as to what an organization, let alone a collective, entails. They did not even consult local media activists, before mounting the website and posting a flyer for the first public meeting.

A few women have come around, but it remains to be seen if any of them will stick.  I am not aware of any people of color, or of any direct representation from several major key organizations, like Headwaters, ANSWER, the Gay community, feminist organizations, or local Hispanic or Native American groups.  

A couple of people from the local Peace House have begun to get involved.  Forrest is active with the Greens.  A few university students from Media Collective have come to a couple of meetings.  So some potential diversity is developing, somewhat, but that includes a lot of overlap, and remains tenuous and insubstantial.

Then there are the dedicated hard-core proponents of chaos that I know of who are also in and around the group.  

While the entire group may not all be full-blown self-conscious GA cadre, many obviously tend to be susceptible or sympathetic to the tendency, at the very least.  Some do not necessarily like the violent imagery of GA, but they are still primitivists, and/or proponents of chaos, more or less.  The group, as it now stands, is heavily imbalanced in this regard, if not absolutely monolithic.

Several that I know of are, in fact, explicitly hard-core self-declared “Green Anarchist” organizers who enjoy considerable charismatic influence on the others.  Brush, in particular, is one of my most long-winded, virulent and unprincipled detractors.  He is not from here, but from NY, possibly a colleague of warcry (“sponsor” of the bogus Eugene GA “imc”, now defunct). 

Brush fronts himself off as a big authority on IMC, but he has a specific anti-process, anti-structure, anti-democratic line.  His main role seems to be to dismiss the existence of any IMC process or structure whatsoever, and to personally slag me, in revenge for criticizing his tendency in Eugene and Portland.

Paddy, the only women who has been involved from the start, hosting the meetings at Evos where she works, is also hard-core, regularly distributing GA literature at the coffee house.  I have talked privately, at some length with both of these two, and they are both absolutist GA believers, in every regard.  I am not making this up.  They readily cop to it.

Wes, the labor/ASJE media activist has often stated unqualified support for GA, their line, and their practice, and extreme hostility toward me for criticizing them.

Another of the most virulent attackers against my “obstructionism”, being egged on by the chaos freaks, has been the uptight “Libertarian” Republican, Damon, who is pissed off about my objections to his proposal that we should try to recruit Republicans and Libertarians.  Therefore he misses no opportunity to inject hostile remarks, regardless of the topic.

There are several  “radical” forest defense people (including Joe, from Media Collective, with his own personal rivalry issues), who all hang out together, several techies, Wes, and a few other recent curious visitors, and that is about it. 

The site is online, and functions fairly well.  The wire is somewhat active, but not very.  The features are very slow in development, often going a week, or several days without new posts.  

Nobody new has joined the tech or editorial committee since my last comments about that, weeks ago, that I’m aware of.   Virtually the only actual poster on both the tech and edcom discussion lists is still Forrest.

And participation on the general discussion list is pretty slim, with way too much of it being all about me, personally, rather than about the work at hand.  

Of course, that is, no doubt, a big turnoff to the most viable potential participants, especially considering what I am being excorciated for, like calling for compliance with global membership criteria, the need for a Secretary and proper minutes, etc.  

What serious activist from any principled millieu is going to want to have to fight tooth and nail, get flamed to death, and purged, over such elementary issues? 

As far as actually mobilizing actual really broad participation in organizing and operating a region-wide IMC, I don’t see it. 

An excellent proposal has been advanced, to do a tech training in Medford, a nearby town, mainly for the benefit of Hispanic, and other workers’ groups there, to try to get some involvement in posting to the site, at least.  If that actually happens, and gets results, in terms of material involvement ongoing, that will be a big step forward.

There is also a more local tech training planned, in conjunction with a big publicity event, which may also produce some commitments.

But the potentials from these and other outreach activities have yet to materialize.

The reason there are problems cropping up all over the network is because of oxymoronic “loose collective” bullshit.  Either you have a collective, or you don’t.  There is nothing “loose” about a collective.  

An IMC is not supposed to be a closed collective.  But it does have to be tight enough to require real, documented standards for membership.  And we have those in the Principles of Unity and new-imc criteria, foremost of which standards is specifically stated to be a genuinely broad diversity of substantially committed direct participation, for the explicit purpose of preventing any sectarian faction from asserting hegemony.

It is not so much for me to prove that we are not yet in compliance, than it is for new-imc to require proof that we are in compliance, not only locally, but as process, in general, which does not seem to have been happening, anywhere. 

Just taking locals at their word about “lots” of outreach, and “some” people coming to the meetings, is absolutely absurd!  Why bother to even ask?!  Why not have them just fill out a little coupon, and send it in, if you are going to issue automatic membership?

Failure of new-imc to take their role more seriously will only further encourage hegemony-seeking weasels to continue to infiltrate, subvert and sabotage the network for their own sectarian purposes. Tighten up, people!  Revolution demands no less, anywhere.

Andy Rice (aka android9)