Officially the IMC states – rather unctuously - that it is “a network of collectively run media outlets for the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate tellings of the truth. We work out of a love and inspiration for people who continue to work for a better world, despite corporate media's distortions and unwillingness to cover the efforts to free humanity. “

However, as one source who attended an IMC meeting in Seattle told me by email, “Indymedia is funneling money from foundations like Soros and Ford to be used in their campaigns against democracy, capitalism, and the US government. They are receiving donations from organizations like Mercy Corps. … .money …initially donated by Nike and Microsoft for charity in Africa, ( which IMC Brazil) will use for (its own) purposes, without their consent.’… One IMC activist said, ‘These companies are either too stupid, or we are not yet considered a big threat to world capitalism!”

If one has any question about the purpose of IMC all one needs to do is read this quote from the Austin Indymedia Center - published November 11,2003. The article - about the FTAA protests - proclaims, “Miami is the setting for one of the most important mobilizations of the global justice movement since 9/11. In the defiant spirit of Seattle's 1999 World Trade Organization (WTO) protests, a broad coalition of grassroots activists, trade unions and non-governmental organizations are planning large-scale demonstrations to derail the trade meetings and map out alternatives to corporate globalization. From anarchists to family farmers, Miami will be overflowing with people who know that another world is possible.” (italics mine)

An article published by the Pittsburgh Indymedia declares the same objective. It states, “The government expects 20,000 to 100,000 people to attempt to derail the summit and we see no reason to disappoint them…. The diverse range of events already planned include: forums… trainings, a massive outdoor concert by the AFL-CIO, a steelworkers rally, a mass march and rally, a padded contingent to shut down the meetings… There will be a wide variety of tactics employed by groups opposed to the FTAA meetings. Some of these will likely involve the possibility of arrest. ” (italics mine)

Yet, for all its invective about corporatism – the Great Satan of the anarcho-socialists - it is corporatism that created IMC. Independent Media Centers were conceived during the 1996 Democratic convention in Chicago. However, it was not until 1999 that Indymedia was actually founded in Seattle during the WTO protests.

The founders were Dan Merkle, a Seattle lawyer and Sheri Herndon a professional protester. Merkle was the ideal person to lead this effort. His law partner, Bob Siegel, is the current president of the Seattle National Lawyers Guild - a communist front organization dating to the 1930’s. Merkle founded other nonprofits in the Seattle area. Merkle and Herndon possessed the finances, organization, expertise, and ideology to create the Seattle IMC.

Donations to Indymedia became tax deductible by using a fiscal sponsor. A fiscal sponsor is an organization - the contributions to which are deductible for federal tax purposes by the donor – which then funnels the donation to another organization that does not have tax-exempt status. The fiscal sponsor for Indymedia was Jam for Justice – a Seattle nonprofit established by Merkle. Currently the fiscal sponsor is the IMC of the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, which is now a tax-exempt organization.

Ironically, one of IMC’s first donors was the Glaser Foundation. Rob Glaser is the founder of RealNetworks and RealPlayer - a very profitable Internet corporation. So although Indymedia claims to eschew corporations and financiers it is these very institutions to which they owe their existence. He is enamored with Indymedia.

The IMC is, paradoxically, the nexus of capitalist technology wealth and anti-capitalism. Yet, then again maybe it is not so paradoxical. The fact that Indymedia was created and financed by wealthy individuals such as Soros, Glaser, and Merkle is emblematic of the Vanguardism of Lenin. Lenin’s philosophy was that a vanguard of educated, talented people was needed to lead the workers into paradise. Indymedia is part of that vanguard.

The true paradox of the Independent Media Centers is their name. They are not independent although they delude themselves believing they are. Quite the contrary, the IMC’s are indeed very dependent on the leadership of the communists, anti-capitalists, and anti-Americans. People whom Thomas Sowell termed the “anointed.” People who believe that they are in possession of some special wisdom that will make the world a better place – if only the rest of us have the good sense to listen to them.

The people who operate IMC are the modern version of those who created, over a century ago, the International Workingmen’s Association (IWA). The IWA, or First Internationale, was created in London in the late 1800’s. The purpose of this organization was to create a classless and stateless society that would bring happiness and peace to the world.

The results of the efforts of this communist international were the deaths of 100 million people and the poverty of billions. It was a bad idea then, and is a bad idea now.

Money from Soros, Ford, Mercy Corps, Nike and Microsoft??

Money that was supposed to for charity in Africa, used for IMC's own purposes, without their consent???

Every fucking IMC internet server should be smashed to bits with a sledge hammer!

I've always suspected Indymedia was a scam, but I never knew for certain.

But looks like the truth is finally coming out...

"Ironically, one of IMC’s first donors was the Glaser Foundation. Rob Glaser is the founder of RealNetworks and RealPlayer - a very profitable Internet corporation. So although Indymedia claims to eschew corporations and financiers it is these very institutions to which they owe their existence. He is enamored with Indymedia."

I remember way back when ... JoJo Gunn and SmashTheLeft were having a conversation about RealPlayer (it's inherent security risks and such) on the best of berkely forum. Anybody else remember this? It was a very cryptic conversation and I didn't get it at the time, but now it makes complete sense!

These guys knew the whole IMC shabang! They knew the setup, where the money was coming from, and the full meal deal!!

No wonder nessie and his band of merry lemmings hated these guys so much!!!!!!!!!!!

michael miserable failure moore hillary evil bitch clinton al sore loser gore bill lying rapist clinton

As long as researched articles can be posted who cares because there is a double edge to the sword. 87)

Notice that despite the hysterical title, there is no evidence in the body of the article that IMC is financed by "Communists." Perhaps a more fertile field of investigation would be the financing by the CIA of radio and television stations, newspapers, capitalist and social democratic parties, and pro-capitalist and pro-zionist "human rights" dissendents around the world.

...by Communists, but it certainly is frequented by Communists.

Oh, hey, Meyer, didn't see you there!

...Republican LIE!?!?!?!?



....whoever heard of such a thing....in the last 20 seconds?

In case you missed it the first time:

Jesus was a Communist.

...but Communism as practiced in the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries has absolutely nothing to do with Communism as practiced and preached by Jesus.

Now take your laughably lame attempt to justify your murderous ideaology and go away.

Chicken Boy:

Thanks for proving, yet again, that you have no sense of humor.

...it's remarkably ironic that you use the Son of God to justify an atheistic ideaology.

Just shows how desperate and morally bankrupt your beliefs are.

"Republican LIE!?!?!?!? "

..that KPC has come to the table with a remarkably childlike grasp on the complexities of party politics.

I'm starting to seriously doubt that this fruit actually likes VU. She seems much to young and dumb.

One thing is of absolute certainty.

Communism is simply a ridiculously flawed and inherently inane concept.

It has never, and can never work as theorized. It absolutely must, by definition, lead to corruption and oppression. It can't help but not to.

Capitalism with all it's faults is the only economic system to incorporate any understanding of basic human nature.

Seriously, to defend communism is simply stupid and embarrassing. The history of the world is mocking you.

What an idiot.

They use the passage in Acts where it says "And they had all things in common." Acts 2:44

But it says "And all that believed were together, and had all things in common." Those who had "all things in common" were those who held the common belief that Jesus was the Christ. There's no mention that the people had "all things in common" with unbelievers. In fact, the Bible warns believers to not have fellowship with unbelievers.

So, if my Christian brother needs something, I will provide what I can for it is my obligation to him as a fellow believer and is according to the commandments of God. I have no obligation to have the same type of relationship with those who are unbelievers, although I will help if I can.

"Notice that despite the hysterical title, there is no evidence in the body of the article that IMC is financed by "Communists." "

Read the freakin' article MEYER.

"the founders were Dan Merkle, a Seattle lawyer and Sheri Herndon a professional protester. Merkle was the ideal person to lead this effort. His law partner, Bob Siegel, is the current president of the Seattle National Lawyers Guild - a communist front organization dating to the 1930’s. Merkle founded other nonprofits in the Seattle area. Merkle and Herndon possessed the finances, organization, expertise, and ideology to create the Seattle IMC."

idiot.

And this (unsubstantiated) allegation, even if true, is neither proof nor evidence that IMC is funded by Communists.

Evidence is knowledge upon which one uses to base a belief.

From the provided knowledge, it is intuitively obvious that IMC is funded by communists.

But in your world, the sky is bright red, and the wind whispers illegal death threats in your ears. So we don't expect anything other than denial from the likes of you...

And to think that I used to joke about Castro being late with the monthly check when la-imc had an outage.

Turns out I wasn't that far off base, huh?

The thing about Communism is it turns everything it touches into utter crap. Look at the Worker's Paradise of North Korea. People are eating grass and shoes. Yum! Makes me want to overthrow the Constitution!

Face it, Meyer...one day you'll grow up and realize what a total idiot you were for being a Marxist, and you'll never talk about it without hanging your head.

And deservedly so.

Meyer London has already indicated in a previous thread that he's tapping up on 60, so don't hold your breath on him growin' up any time soon.

Smart money is on Peter Pan beatin' him to it...

I am not "up on sixty" and never indicated that I was. Nor would that be relevant, even if it were true.

I'm not at all ashamed of perceiving that a system (capitalism) that cannot exist without built-in unemployment and bloody imperialist wars like the one that is going on in Iraq needs to be abolished. You should be ashamed of (1) defending a system that forces seniors to choose between medicine and food and (2) constantly making a public fool of yourself on Indy Media.

Liar.

You said your mother used to call you in from your afernoon frolics in the petunia patches to listen to the afternoon Little Orphan Annie radio broadcast when you were a an adolescent teen...

You are incorrect; it was your mom who used to call me over to play cowboys and Indians with you when I was five. But I refused, knowing even then that it was not appropriate for a five year old to be palling around with a man of 28.

Close, but you got it backwards. I've never had a Red Ryder bee-bee gun, a Radio Flyer, nor have I ever had to listen to Ovaltine commercials on the radio for entertainment.

In fact, color TV had been the norm for quite sometime when the world was first graced by my presence...

What a load of hyperbole.

If you do the numbers - and some are available, the budget of this specific IMC has been around 0 or so a month. Our funding has come from a variety of sources, but the basic breakdown is that the past two years have been funded by a big benefit we did a couple years ago, and a lot of small donations. Recently, we got a big ,000 donation from someone who sued the LAPD for police brutality and got a settlement. So, we're pretty set for the next couple years, but we do need more community participation.

I don't think the global has gotten very much money. There were a couple big donations early on (tens of thousands of dollars total), but, most of the money received has gone toward paying for the servers, and to help start up IMCs in other countries, particularly hotspots in the global south.

So, IMC is not a tiny project, but neither is it a well funded one. The annual budget would probably rival that of a pair of reporters for AP, if that. It's a huge volunteer project, paid for, largely, from benefit events, donations, and passing the hat at meetings.

Also, I was involved in some fundraising for the LA IMC, and we were in debt until a month or so before the event. We were looking at many fundraisers in the future, or some folks getting sunk under debt. So we went begging to all the foundations in LA, and the OSI was one - that's the "Soros" money. They got us out of debt to the tune of 10k. We had a tiny surplus, and that was basically burned up within a couple weeks. Mainly, we had to fund things like a DSL line, the rent on the space, security, electricity, etc.

The original participants poured tens to hundreds of dollars of their own money into the project because they believed in its value to the D2K protests.

As for Glaser, Merkle, etc. That was Seattle. I wrote a letter to Glaser asking for help, but got nothing. We contacted all kinds of entertainment media figures, liberals, and others, and got almost no support, except from a few folks. In 2000, the Democrats were still high on Clinton, and didn't really want to mess with us. KPFK was still going to the right, and was kissing up to the Huffington Shadow Convention (whose daily budget probably exceeded our entire annual budget). We were the poor stepchild. The radicals and the activists.

But look where we're at now. The situation has changed so much in the past three years.

Azackly??

Apart from being a source of entertainment the few of us ordinary citizens who have heard of it....

Hmmmm. Indeed.

Hey, johnk, I was wondering...how about some traffic stats? Site visits, unique visitors per day, that sort of thing?

We don't have log files with that info, and when we did, I wasn't looking at them.

I gauge our effectiveness by the function of the organization, and the comments by the local activists about it.

We could be doing better as a cohesive group, but, at the individual level, a lot of volunteers are doing well. In terms of local reputation, we're doing fine.

Could you and the rest of the trolls please stop using the site? Thanks.

The main difference between then and now is that many thousands more people have returned to the "liberal" wing of the Democratic party, and are getting involved.

The radicals are always doing things, but because there are now more outlets for expression and participation, there's less pressure to keep IMC in the center of the excitement. KPFK's returned to the grass roots, so that's where a lot of energy goes. That's good, because they have a far greater reach than any website.

Increasingly, the suburbs are getting active, and progressive activities are spreading and emerging in places where, traditionally, politics were never discussed. These are the conservative strongholds still dominated by Reagan-era money worshippers, and Clinton-era libertarians.

The LA IMC has helped to make LA a lot smaller. People are forming self-sufficient activist communities all over the city. This is still version 0.1. Over time, these networks will break up, re-form, over and over. In this regenerative exercise, a new politics will arise from their experiences.

Republican Governor and how's that Dean campaign coming?

I didn't know that Real actually turned a profit. If anything, Glaser probably supported IMC at some point because he is (or was) in the peace movement. (The original goal of Real Video was to allow people to teleconference. Get it? "Real Networks" as opposed to electronic networks.)

As far as any of this donation stuff goes WRT online video circa 1999 -- Microsoft was going to dotcom companies and offering tens of thousands of dollars to get them to adopt the (lame) windows media platform, to the exclusion of Real.

Of the three dominant video formats, Real was the one that was put out there by a new company with the best technology. The other two players were Microsoft and Apple. Real was the logical choice.

(Quicktime was supported, but most of the uploaders were Mac users, and some browsers would encode them as MacBinary, and we weren't able to deal with that headache in a timely manner, so it wasn't supported for some time.)

At least you're asking nicely johnk.

But I'd have to answer that I probably won't.

You guys are just too damned entertaining. You should be greatful for all the contributions we make around here; we're providing you with an excellent foil.

All you have to do is to keep making us look like idiots, you know, they way Meyer London does all the time. Keep doing that and my guess is that Kucinich is a shoe-in for the Presidency next year.

I'll make you a deal though, johnk. If Kucinich wins the election, I promise to never post another comment on IMC ever again.

Besides, I doubt they have internet connections here:

http://www.tropical-islands.com/Lime1.htm

I think that some communists have donated money to IMC. We do pass the hat now and then, and I suspect that there may be some Communists (or self-described ones) dropping a dollar in the hat.

Likewise, if there are cops doing their undercover work inside IMC, they're probably dropping money into the hat as well.

I know for a fact that this IMC is supported by teachers, democrats, radicals, programmers, artists, office workers, photographers, students, musicians, dancers, small business owners, lawyers, managers, and seniors.

"The true paradox of the Independent Media Centers is their name. They are not independent although they delude themselves believing they are. Quite the contrary, the IMC’s are indeed very dependent on the leadership of the communists, anti-capitalists, and anti-Americans. People whom Thomas Sowell termed the “anointed.” People who believe that they are in possession of some special wisdom that will make the world a better place – if only the rest of us have the good sense to listen to them."

I'm laughing out loud. That is far from the truth. (And Sowell should talk - he is one of the Anointed Black Conservatives who works at conservative think-tanks, translating economics into corrosive social policy.) We welcome all political stripes, but the organization is consensus-based. It consistently repels people who are into strong, hierarchical/corporate/vanguard organizations.

I wish a few more leaders would show up to take care of the LA IMC. This is a call for volunteers who can work in a non-hierarchical media collective. We do best with self-starters who can work independently.

If you're laughing at this thread, and not repelled by what you've read, you should be in IMC.

If you, like me, have sensibly added a few of these cranks above to your ignore list, I applaud your good sense. (The new ignore feature takes care of those pesky numbers at the end of the names.)

"The true paradox of the Independent Media Centers is their name. They are not independent although they delude themselves believing they are. "

I always figured that 'Independent' stood for independence from facts, logic, and scrutiny.

how can one involve oneself in the process if, like myself, they are not in the immediate area to attend meetings etc.?

Caducada: "I'm starting to seriously doubt that this fruit actually likes VU. She seems much to young and dumb."

I first saw Lou in '76 in Philly during the Coney Island Baby Tour...when you were probably still a undeveloped load in some sailor's nutsack....

Hey Barney - thanks for your interest and support.

At this time, there really isn't any way for people who aren't local to participate. However, if you are somewhat isolated, you might want to consider forming a local IMC, or even an online group of people to do progressive media work or support.

For example, next time there's a peace vigil locally, or something is happening in your neighborhood, write about it. Post it on a website, and mail it to your friends.

Is the nigger included in the price?

I first saw Lou in '76 in Philly during the Coney Island Baby Tour...when you were probably still a undeveloped load in some sailor's nutsack....



I'm definetely not THAT old to be lyin' about something like that.

However, I have my doubts as to you actually being there.

Well bigfoot, no he's not.

But you can hire a reliable Niggeraguan manservant to tend to your estate for about ten dollars per day.

I think they're even having a special: buy two and get the third one for half price.

Max

Caducada: "However, I have my doubts as to you actually being there. "

Well, as Lou himself might say...."Fuck you and your doubts."