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Two and a half ideas for the Movement

Anonymous | 26.07.2001 18:42

Two and a half suggestions I thought of to help out the Movement. Constructive criticisms and suggestions welcome.
Tell me what you think.

Two and a half ideas for the Movement
-------------------------------------


1. Protesting on the streets may be the single most important
thing people can do to raise public consciousness and change
the global economic/political order.

However, let's not forget that we are still living under
Capitalism for the moment. There are organisations out
there which are immensely important for the movement, and
to support and uphold free-speech and the rights of
protesters.

So, I propose that we each pick an organisation right now
and donate whatever we can afford to the one(s) we agree
with the most or supports a cause we feel the mostly
strongly about.

Here are a few organisations I strongly support:

Independent Media Company (IMC)-
-> Don't forget about the legal defense fund for Genoa! <-

Freenet Project-
 http://www.freenetproject.org/

Electronic Frontier Foundation-
 http://www.eff.org/

Amnesty International-
 http://www.amnesty.org/

Support whatever group you think is doing good work!

It is at crises times like Genoa that we realise the
importance of Civil Liberties and Human Rights groups
as well as Indymedia.

Support them now - you may need them in the future.


2. A common criticism raised about the anti-Globalisation
protesters and anti-Capitalist protesters is that they don't
have any positive agenda. The media claims that 'the public'
know what we're against, but they don't know what we're for.
We lack any coherent plan or set of ideas for positive change.

Of course this criticism is invalid, and says more about the
media than it does about the movement. However, it would be
nice if someone would put up web-site that would contain all
the communiques, public statements, or manifesto's of each
organisation that is protesting and even statements from single
people with a coherent set of positive ideas for change.

What do we want? What needs to change? How can it be changed?

Diverse groups could email their agendas to the site owner who
would create an index which listed the agendas or manifesto's
of each one.

This would be constructive for the movement, as it would help
exchange ideas to use, discuss, and debate. It would also be
constructive as a public relations exercise, since the media
would find it increasingly difficult to dismiss the protesters
as being entirely negative, protesting within an ideological
vacuum, with no ideas of their own.


3. A beautiful quote which I read on Indymedia recently - it is
not mine, and I take no credit for it... but I thought I would
repeat it here to be used for banners, etc.

"Do you wish to live in a society or an economy?"



Solidarity.

Anonymous

Comments

Hide the following 4 comments

Read this book

27.07.2001 13:37

Localisation: A Global Manifesto,

by Colin Hines.



It's a bit technical but it proposes out an alternative to the current corporate global economy.

Whoever


test

27.07.2001 13:39

test

test


NewzXplosion about Raid

27.07.2001 17:10

No signs about the raid of the IMC in the (dutch) media at all.
Till now. Today The first hidden images are shown on television. The blood,the damages, & the stories of the survivors
The Truth is hard, and it's coming...right now...

FizEye


play it again

27.07.2001 19:35

Mr Anon.,
Your idea No. 2 seems to me invaluable. In fact, I would suggest you re-post it to get it back on the front page. I'm a bit of a luddite when it comes to setting up web-sites and so forth, but I'm sure it's not too difficult. There must be loads of people out there who could do it. But maybe prior to set up a debate - here would seem as good a place as any - as to exactly how it would be run would be useful. I'm sure it would be pretty time-consuming to keep it up to date and user-friendly given the diversity of movements and groups throughout the world, but a site explicitly designed for the promotion of progressive ideas is a damn good plan. Of course, indymedia is absolutely fantastic - and its lack of focus or editing is one of its best aspects. But a more focussed (but still open and representative) sister-site would arguably be a highly useful addition. I'm tempted by the idea myself but don't know enough techie stuff - & don't have site-running experience. Maybe some indymedia bods could propose some ideas? Anyway, get this back on the front page - it's surely worth pursuing!

sam