February 26, 2003
Proactive Steps Towards A Better World
I spend a bit too
much time pointing out the terrible and wrong things that Ashcroft, Cheney, Bush
and Rumsfeld (the CRAB Regime?) do and today I want to take a look at some
proactive positive activity going on now.
First, there is a
group of dedicated, smart and determined folks building a bio-regional
independent media center (IMC) here. The IMC movement began in 1999 with a group
of people who were posting up to the minute news about the Battle of Seattle
Protests to websites and chat channels. When CNN reported that rubber bullets
were not being used, the media activists were able to put home grown video
online, propagating the truth. CNN later changed their reporting. This
empowerment led to a global collective movement dedicated to creating regional
tools for reporting and information dissemination. The central website is http://www.indymedia.org/ and over 100
websites around the world now exist. The philosophy centers around the
democratic necessity for free access to information. The Open Publishing system
allows anyone to post their stories, editorials, news or investigations to the
Newswire. Anyone can comment on a story, creating lively discussions. Urban
regions have particularly active discussions. The cream of the Newswire gets
selected by the Editorial Collective and appears as front page Features. The
websites are operated by an open membership collective with egalitarian and
consensual processes. Locally, the Rogue IMC (currently at http://indymedia.truffula.net/) has
public meetings every Sunday at 3pm at Evo's. The group is still forming, yet we
have great and growing community support, functional technology, and an
expanding group of writers. I invite you to attend the meetings and utilize the
website.
Second, Michael
Albert, editor of Z Magazine and co-founder
of South End Press, has written a
book on participatory economics. The book is called "Parecon: Life After
Capitalism". I'm incredibly excited about this book first because of the
vision, and second because of the author. It hits the stands in April but you
can read excerpts at the above link and read more about parecon at Parecon.org. It's all to easy to fall into
reactionary dead ends, endlessly arguing against the system of greed and
corruption prevalent today. This is a modern alternative vision presented
by a leading activist and author giving the activist fuel for the creative
fire within us all. You can pre-order the book here.
With a potent
democratic means of information and a powerful economic vision we, the
progressive activists, can build a significantly different future than the
one offered by Bush et al.
Posted by John at February 26, 2003 08:25 PM
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