INDYMEDIA REDUX:

SLANDERS ON ANARCHISM:

Regular readers of this blog will be fully aware on my opinion about the disgraceful state of Winnipeg Indymedia and the Indymedia network in general (see our archives for Dec. 20, 2007, Dec 14, 2007, Feb 24, 2007, Jan 15, 2007 and Dec. 22, 2006). In a time when anarchism has basically become the radical left, at least in North America and most of Europe, various flotsam from the shipwrecks of history inevitably try their hand at dipping into this pool in hopes of recruiting. This includes not just the old laundry list of Marxist-Leninist parties, desperate to get a recruit, any recruit, for their failed dreams of becoming a new ruling class. Even more repulsively it includes various neo-Nazi outfits and individuals who have exploited the vague leftism that too many anarchists hold to to try and turn opposition to Israeli state policies into outright anti-semitism. One of the major playpens of these reptiles is the Indymedia network, and they have been instrumental in not just corrupting the original ideal of Indymedia- an alternative news source for thoise who make news locally but are not reported by the mainstream media- but have also been the cause of the shutdown of many Indymedia sites. Unfortunately the "moderators" of most Indymedia sites, while they may claim "sympathy" for anarchism, simply don't have the ideological (and personal moral) "backbone" to reject this infiltration outright. Not surprising given the fact that far too much of what they see as "anarchism" is barely-thought-out leftist fashion (Israel Bad-Palestinian organizations Good).

Molly has been fighting this since before she started this blog in 2006, and she intends to keep on going in her own uniquely nasty way. For a statement about "leftist anti-semitism" and just how repulsive it is see 'Making Resistance to Anti-Semitism Part of All Our Movements' in the TEXTS section of our links. What is "new" in this is that some have come to take the example of what happens with Indymedia to slander anarchism, as if it was responsible for this mess rather than vague leftism. My comrade Larry Gambone of the Porkupine Blog has sent a circular about one instance of this on the Socialist Unity site. Larry has responded as has Molly. If you are an anarchist reader of this blog think about popping over and adding your own two cents worth. The basis of the accusation is that "anarchism doesn't believe in organization", that the Indymedia types are "anarchists of a sort" (yeah, "a sort" but not part of the historical tradition of anarchism), and that , therefore, anarchism is implicated in anti-semitism. As Molly has said above, the anti-semitism that such sites allow (and the very allowing of it) comes much more from mindless leftist crowd following than from anything that could be described as "anarchism". Anyways, have a look.

LOCAL MATTERS:

WINNIPEG INDYMEDIA ONCE MORE:

Molly has blogged on the state of the Winnipeg Indymedia site before. To make a long story short the "open publishing" policy of many indymedias across the world has made them an easy prey to the neo-Nazis who have little else to do than sit in their parents' basements and jerk off to pictures of the Nuremberg rallies. "Zionist-this" and "Zionist-that" come to dominate the boards and drive away those who might want such sites to serve a useful, rather than psycho therapeutic, function. Many have been shut down. The site here in Winnipeg was for awhile, but then it was reopened with NO reform whatsoever. There are literally no local stories on the site, and posts from the commies and the insane come as a blessed relief from the daily drivel of the evils of the Zionists and their conspiracies and those who want to argue with these nuts. Like the Bourbons Winnipeg Indymedia has forgotten nothing and learned nothing. Their latest incarnation is just as disgusting as it has been for years.

Speaking of "forgetting nothing and learning nothing", Molly was astonished to see that a recent post of hers about 'This Site' was deleted, presumably by the editors. The "editor" won't forget that I have criticized the site before.But they still won't learn from the fact that nobody feels iot is worthwhile to post local news to this playpen anymore.She found that it was indeed deleted by doing a Google search which showed that it had be killed while some of the comments on it remained. It was unfindable by searching the Winnipeg Indymedia site itself. She has reposted another comment tonight titled "I Cannot Believe It', and we'll see how long THIS post lasts there. THIS, of course, on a site that allows a post from a "pro-Zionist" to show up a total of sixty-four times, one after the other. Not that the Zionist defenders are the only offenders. The neo-Nazis have employed the same tactic on said site before.

Yeah, I challenged the "editors" (or is it one person only) to show a little courage and get rid of this nonsense. I guess that this was "offensive". Well, my later post is much more offensive, and I hope that the posting on this blog will be even more so. If the so-called 'editor" of Winnipeg Indymedia is so mindless as to let his efforts be a platform for Nazism then such a site doesn't deserve to exist. If he is also mindless enough to cheer on attempts by misguided leftists to physically attempt to shut down not just Nazis but ordinary rightwing nutbars to speak in public- using nothing but their own efforts and money- then all that I can say is that he should be a poster boy for the fact that many leftists have the minds of a chicken (in the neurological rather than courage sense). If the so-called "editor" of Winnipeg Indymedia cannot see what is wrong in presenting a platform solely devoted to Nazis and those who want to argue with them then I suggest he take a class in tying shoelaces and putting his gotch on right side out.

Yeah, I'm pissed. One of my favourite memories is one of my mother backing an old fart member of the SS across a farmyard, feeding him bullshit about how she was Jewish,and chilling his foul rotten soul about how she was going to report him to immigration. For the record my mother's family (she was born in Russia) had no Jewish connections, but we hate Nazis as much as any Jew can(yeah,really!!). I really cannot stand those who mindlessly give a platform for the juvenile imitators of that particular band of murderers.

So, check out the Winnipeg Indymedia site referenced above and see what you think.

WINNIPEG INDYMEDIA RE-OPENS:

As of Feb 22, two days ago, Winnipeg Indymedia ( http://winnipeg.indymedia.org ) is up and running again. The new incarnation is considerably improved over the old one. There is an events section that actually lists upcoming events and a considerable devotion to local news. One waits to see if the lessons learned from what happened to the old Windymedia have been learned ie if the usual anti-Semitic posts will be automatically deleted and if the Middle East and its arguments will once more overwhelm everything else. But for now things look good. Go on over to the site to have a look.

One particular item in the events section catches my eye. On the upcoming Wednesday (Feb 28th) Raul Gatica will be speaking at the Mondragon Bookstore and Coffee House (91 Albert St.) on the struggle of the people of Oaxaca against neo-liberalism in Mexico. Gatica was born in Mexico and participated in many of the human rights, indigenous rights, ecology and union struggles in that country. He is presently living in exile in Vancouver, and he comes to Winnipeg to speak about the struggle in his homeland. Molly will try to attend if work lets her, and she urges you to do likewise. The meeting begins at 7:00 pm.

Molly

WINNIPEG INDYMEDIA SHUTS DOWN:
Plagued by a chronic lack of volunteers, old feuds and a never ending volume of spam from anti-semites, conspiracy nuts and campaigners for the Canadian military Winnipeg Indymedia has closed its portals for now. Visitors to the site will be greeted by an appeal for volunteers to hopefully resurrect the site at some unspecified time in the future. The problems of the Winnipeg site are reflexions of what may be a wide spread malaise amongst Indymedia sites across the world. Many question whether Indymedia sites have any more function in a world filled with blogs. Mollymew feels that they do. A blog such as this one is very much a personal statement. As such it can hardly cover the range of subjects that a truly cooperative effort such as what an Indymedia site should !!! do. At the same time blogs will almost inevitably cover subject matter that is hardly "news" in the narrow sense of the term. Websites such as Indymedias can provide a more impersonal and wider view than any blog can do. Items should obviously be reprinted from blogs on such sites as these blogs are often the news sources of our day, but the individualistic slant of blogs should have no place in what, after all, aims to be a community media/meeting place.
Molly did a little survey of the 12 Canadian Indymedia sites still listed on the internet. Five have been closed (Winnipeg makes six). Two (Montreal/Quebec and Vancouver/Victoria) are "consolidated sites". The Vancouver site has seperated off into local, national and international sections. BOTH the national and international areas are infested with the sort of neo-Nazis that were such a plague in the case of Winnipeg. The Montreal/Quebec site (CMAQ) along with the sites in Ottawa and Thunder Bay appear to have taken a hard line on the nuts. All three have a good selection of local news, especially so in the case of Thunder Bay. The CMAQ, however, gives every indication of being an almost totally anarchist oriented site. It may seem strange coming from a self-confessed anarchist that I find this inadvisable, but I certainly do. To Molly's tiny little feline mind this at once is a disservice to the larger community that should be served by something such as an Indymedia and a disservice to the anarchist movement itself. It allows an overestimation of one's own importance and encourages the isolation that breeds "triumphalism" and ill considered actions.
Two other Canadian Indymedia sites, the Maritimes and London, Ontario are still arguing about the nuts, and neither site features much local news anymore. They seem to be going down the same road that Winnipeg went.
The problems of the Canadian Indymedias are reflected worldwide. There is even a blog, Indymedia Watch dedicated, with a certain amount of malice, to exposing the problems of Indymedias across the world. What that blogger has to say, however, is not what the more rhetorical would imagine. There is more than enough wrong with what has been appearing on Indymedia sites worldwide, wrongs that deserve legitimate criticism. The blogger puts most of this down to a "lack of accountability" in that the informal leaders of Indymedias have abdicated all responsibility in terms of fact checking and of removing the hate mongers and the conspiracy mongers from the sites. Failure to do so means that the latter two categories rapidly take up the majority of space on the sites. This is a lack of responsibility not just to abstract concepts such as truth and sanity. It also reeks of a direct betrayal of the communities that Indymedia sites are supposed to serve. It's "going rat" just because of some abstract principle or simply laziness.
The Wikipedia Empire (evil or not- a burning question) has launched its own alternative to the Indymedia sites, called the Wikinews . It hardly seems to be likely to offer anything like the coverage that other mainstream online news services do today, even though its efforts at "journalistic neutrality" seem a mirror image of what such services aspire to. Looking over its recent efforts one finds them quite sparse, and hardly evidence of the sort of different viewpoints that one can already get simply by looking at the news services of different countries.
In the discussions on Winnipeg Indymedia shortly before it was shut down Molly put forward the proposition that not just certain opinions like anti-semitism should be banned but that a whole area of discussion,- the Middle East, its religions and any conspiracy theories connected to same- should be declared off limits, at least for a time. Also that priority should be given to local news. Perhaps only local and national news should be allowed. The Indymedias in Canada that are most likely to last are basically those who have come closest to such strictures, those who have taken a hard line not just with the nuts but also with well meaning leftists who think they can solve the problems of the other side of the world by taking one or another side. This well meaning cheerleading is precisely !! the door through which the neo-Nazis enter.
So...that's it for now. This whole matter has actually made me reconsider my own policy here at Molly's Blog. To date I have deleted only commercial spam from the comments. I still have no problem whatsoever with fanatic conservatives, commies who don't realize their religion is dead, other religious proselytizers, "anarchists" who disgrace the name or those who simply want to insult me. It stays in. I can be twice as abusive as any one of these. But, from this point forward, any anti-semitic trash or conspiracy theories in general will be deleted forthwith. Nobody has ever posted such a thing yet, and I hope they never do. But I will hit the delete button just as fast as I advocate others should do.
End of the Molly hissssss.

A LITTLE APOLOGY:
International readers of this Blog(From Argentina to India to Rumania) may lose interest as I go on and on about local matters recently. I'm sorry about this, but I've become involved in a campaign to reform the local Indymedia site. The sad fact is that our local Indymedia site here in Winnipeg has become nothing more than a sounding board for anti-semitic propaganda, praise for both Canada's and the USA's imperial adventures and silly fatwaas from a presumed mullah . I'm doing my best to correct this, though I will probably fail. But i will at least try..
I ALWAYS intend to feature a certain amount of "local content" here, but I find it disgusting that the small amount that I have featured is about 10 times what has been featured on our local Indymedia site. If you are interested in what is happening on the local Winnipeg Indymedia site visit it and see for yourself. Hold your nose.
For my other readers, I will continue to post matters biological, anarchistic and astronomical. I beg your indulgence for the moment.

THE SAD STATE OF WINNIPEG INDYMEDIA:
Properly conscious nitpickers will notice that I haven't listed Winnipeg IMC amongst the links on this blog. I have, however, listed Info-Usurpa Winnipeg. Some months ago there was a "great dispute" in the teapot of Winnipeg's IMC about whether Info-Usurpa, modelled on the Spanish anarchist Info-Usurpas, should be "allowed" to post their notices of events as "news" on the IMC board. The decision was that they should not be allowed this obviously redundant privilege because the IMC already had an events board. What is happening with this "events calender" today ? For some time now the only events that have been listed on the IMC board are events that are in the past. Right now they have "caught up to reality" and listed events 5 days in the past.
But this is hardly the greatest problem with Winnipeg IMC. Despite the efforts of local activist Nick Ternette it has been weeks and perhaps even months since any item posted on the Winnipeg IMC board has had any relevance to local affairs whatsoever. Until today that is. Today we were treated to a blast from one of the usual anti-semitic crew that have infested said board for a very long time about the Asper Human Rights Centre. Now Molly is hardly ever in favour of government grants to anything, and so I am opposed to government grants to said Centre. But still, there are a quazillion examples of free government money to bitch about. Why the Asper Centre. Only because Winnipeg IMC has become the plaything of anti-semitic nuts and those who wish to argue with them.
The situation has become so bad that the posts from the insane and the commie simps who worship the Cuban dictatorship can be seen as a "blessed relief" from the usual drivel. The drivel would best be played out on the Gaza-Israel border with the most extreme players on both sides lobbing their verbal grenades back and forth. It is so bad that I no longer have a clue whether the continued barrage of "fatwa pronouncements" are actually Islamist proclamations or attempts to mock same.
Molly's blog does not pretend to be anything like a "local events" blog, and so it is a sad state of affairs when I notice that items relevant to WINNIPEG, MANITOBA are more common on this blog they they are on the pretense of a local Indymedia Centre.
Assuming that the IMC still has anyone watching and editing it- a very long shot- it might be time to "call question". Does this enterprise serve any function anymore ? Is the patient so long gone that it would be best to end his suffering ?
No, I am not going to volunteer to go to endless meetings to argue endlessly about reforming this atrocity- the usual call from those who have produced a monster instead of a baby. I have enough to do in my own life thank you very much. That sort of thing is for others who have more time than I do. But serious consideration should be given to whether Winnipeg IMC should continue to exist at all anymore. If you can't reform it- kill it. It is of no benefit to anyone in its present form.

More local stuff:
Just got through the pile of newspapers. Found that one Graeme Voyer had written a review of Mark Leier's 'Bakunin:The Creative Passion' in the Oct. 1st 'Books' section of the Winnipeg Free Press. It's actually quite a fair review.
Also, there's a new post on the Winnipeg Indymedia site that says more about our beloved and bold supreme leader, Mayor Sam Katz. The title is 'Katz Cons City'.