This is a reposting of something I saw first elsewhere on 15th Jan. It is clearly an attempt to exacerbate an already difficult and tense situation - because it is signed in the name of the main objector to the point of view it expresses.

If you are really bored, or really fascinated by puny childish activist infighting, have a look at
 http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2004/01/1672479_comment.php#1672901

I warn you - it is long and involved.

Basically, san francisco IMC-ers fell out with each other, and split into two warring camps. Each now has its own site. One site links to and welcomes the other, though that in turn pretends the other doesn't exist.

Much hatred, and bitter accusations flying about.

Portland IMC took sides and is now being castigated.

On top of all this, some person or persons (presumably the poster of the above) is/are trying to stir things up as much as possible by posting in their enemies name.

Maybe this is all better hidden - but on the other hand, perhaps we should all be aware how wrong things can go once the rot sets in !

My name was forged to this. Such things happen fairly often. Usually, it's the work a couple of particular individual Zionists who spend a couple hours a day harassing SF-IMC, and me in particular. I am not the only victim of forgeries, far from it. We also get similar stuff from grass roots, right wing activists like Free Republic, ProtestWarrior, KOBE HQ, and especially SmashTheLeft, as well as such open fascists as National Alliance and Voz de Aztlan. In addition to forgeries, we also get spam, trolls, right wing propaganda, occasionally a DOS attack, and every once in a while, a serious, competent hack attempt. As one of the editors, I hide the forgeries, spam, trolls and right wing propaganda. Our highly skilled, experienced and dedicated sysops fight off the hackers.

Here’s a sample of what we haveto put up with. It’s what we hid in the first twenty three hours of January 26, 2004:

 http://makeashorterlink.com/?E28C31337

It was a slow day.

Sometimes, they focus on me, personally:

 http://makeashorterlink.com/?W1AC54337

They also have it in for Israeli born, London based, jazz musician Gilad Atzmon, whose anti-Zionist politics always sets of a storm whenever we publish something he wrote:

 http://makeashorterlink.com/?H2DC25337

This is the sort of stuff SF-IMC has to put up with every day, in addition to having been recently stabbed in the back by people we had foolishly mistaken for comrades and made welcome. Oh well, c’est la guerre.

This is not the first forgery of my personal name to surface in connection with the recent split here. Recently, someone spammed a graphic around the network that contained a piece of poison JavaScript that made any thread in which it appeared be unusable to all but the most tech savvy reader. Some of them had my name signed to them.

See:

 http://sfbay.indymedia.org/news/2004/01/1667723.php

A number of people, for a variety of reasons, have a strong vested interest in trying to discredit, harass and, in some cases terrorize, me. My work at Indymedia, both as a writer and as an editor, and before that as a columnist at  http://www.sfbg.com/nessie/ has made me a lot of personal enemies, primarily among fascists, racists, sexists, homophobes and warmongers. So have nearly four decades of grass roots, street level, anarchist activism. In addition to the forgeries, I also get a steady stream of death threats. I take them in stride. If anything, they are a compliment. If the bad guys didn’t hate me, I wouldn’t be doing my job.

As for the recent split here, please keep an open mind. There is a *great* deal of disinformation circulating about SF-IMC. There are two basic theories as to why this is happening:

 http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2003/12/1669311_comment.php#1669510

Either way, take what you read with a grain of salt.

For more on the split, see:

 http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2004/01/1671143

 http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2004/01/1672265

 http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/01/278491.shtml

We apologize for any inconvenience this forgery and the trolls behind it have caused you. Good luck in all your endeavors. Down with capitalism. Up with Indymedia.

My real homepage is:

 http://www.transbay.net/~nessie/

check this out:

 http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2004/01/1674134.php

yeah looks like you been messin with the big one . No one that criticises israel gets away with it . Look at what happened to Jenny Tonge, she witnessed the level of misery which for the long suffering Palestinians is routine daily life style.She reckoned if she lived with that kinda shit she'd become a suicide bomber.fair commment? she was sacked within 24hrs
in the midst of a massive tantrum from sponsors of Israel. Including a bunch of fanatix called labour mp's 4 israel .
if I lived in the same conditions as the Palastinians I am not sure if I'd have the courage to blow myself to bits but I would sure have a go at blowing up a as many of the people who were responsible for the misery of my people.

Left and right divides us right down the middle when are we going to drop these two.
Plenty of dodgy groups ready to exploit this , Zionists are top of the pile .
I certainly don't want to be associated with the left. Isn't that phoney bliars spot ?

i

Just to say that disagreements within networks and collectives and co-operatives etc can be much more difficult to deal with than disagreements within traditional power structures - since such traditional structures always tend to have an authority to defer to.

It is also more difficult because in more autonomous and collaborative projects people tend to have more invested on a personal and emotional level.

This is one of the greatest challenges facing everyone who works in alternative ways.

When 'things go wrong' they are often more damaging because arguements and conflict often become more personal. It can also be more distressing because such conflicts can be seen as a sign of failure, however the important thing is how they are dealt with and how the episode effects those involved during and after.

Here with the SF conflict there is the added problem of much of it being played out on email - certainly not the best medium for conducting disagreements, and one of the worst for resolving them.

The story of SF is a long and conplex one. SF was one of the pioneering imc's which over the years has had huge success from helping many many other imcs set up around the world, to producing one of the US imc's most respected weekly radio shows, as well as some stunning films.

The conflict there has become personal too. It's clear both sides have acted in ways people not within the conflict would condemn, however looking from the outside it's almost impossible to take sides.

The global imc community was asked to look at the SF problems. Many people recommended an externally facilitated conflict resolution process and this took place. Some movement towards an outcome was achieved - it was agreed that control over the domain name which became part of the conflict should be placed with a neutral imc third party for the time being etc

Many people inside and outside of the SF conflict are unhappy about imc portland's position and the timing of it, coming just after the conflict resolution process.

Anyway, it's not surprising that such conflicts occur, that's part of being a human being. It's also part of the struggle to understand how we can better deal with such conflicts in the future - especially for networks that may face state repression.

With SF, if the outcome, as it seems to be, is for two imc's to work in the same geographic area, then so be it.

For everyone's information, this guy "Nessie" habitually posts into the same thread under several different monikers, not just to maintain anonymity, but creating multiple characters and engaging in dialogue with himself.

we at s/f Indy media have long been unable to speak out for fear of retaliation from
a few individuals who have come to power. we feel that the s/f indymedia has been diverted from its founding principals.
we have tried time and time again to address our grievances in a civilized manner but the ruling faction sees no need play by any rules but their own. we have participated in many,many meetings but to no avail, we even had out side mediation but could not resolve our issues. in fact it has made matters worse

List of actions by the sf.indymedia.org group that violates the
indymedia Principles of Unity

1. The sf.indymedia.org group has refused to put up a blurb and links
about the split as agreed to during mediation.

2. The sf.indymedia.org group has been repeatedly hiding and deleting
legitimate posts to their newswire by local activists whom they see as
being connected to indybay.org.


3. Immediately after the mediation was over, a member of
sf.indymedia.org withdrew half of the money from the imc checking
account, and then refused to negotiate the price for stickers and
t-shirts advertising the sf.indymedia.org web site address. According
to the agreement, the groups would split the money in the bank account
after sfbay was reimbursed for the mutually agreed upon price for the
stickers and t-shirts, and sf.indymedia was reimbursed for pieces of
equipment that sfbay wanted to purchase.

4. The sf.indymedia.org group has deleted the SF-IMC email list and the
Enemy Combatant Radio (ECR) email list without warning, before anyone
had the chance to back up three and a half years of work and contacts
contained in the lists' archives.

5. the money that paid for the mediation should be refunded to the
current members of indybay.org.


The end result of all of this is that a select few with positions of power,
and a personal vendetta within an IMC collective, and towards long time alternative media activists who did not submit to this control. Even on this web sight we cannot post our views with out subversive attacks from the indy nazi's

We want to stress that we believe this is an urgent, critical matter
that is in the interest of the entire Indymedia network.

we ask for help from the rest of the collective in restoring freedom of speech to the san francisco bay area



The San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center collective can be
contacted at sfbay at indymedia.org.

that was posted in my name, please contact me offline, so we can discuss it without disruptng Indymedia.

I can be reached at:

 nessie@sfbg.com

If you want to see what SF-IMC has actually hidden, click here:

 http://sf.indymedia.org/news/?display=f

If you want to see what SFBay has hidden, click here:

 http://sfbay.indymedia.org/news/?display=f

In both cases, be sure to set the search engine to check out the hidden comments as well. It will prove most educational.