Indy Media Watch

An article on BC Indymedia provides a basic business plan for opening a successful cafe:

Reasonable rent is critical; pay attention to any add-ons such as property tax, business tax, property management, and utilities. Reasonable rent is determined by foot traffic in front of that business, store visibility to commuters in cars and buses, condition of the premises, whether it’s zoned for café/retail/restaurant already, and what amenities (like plumbing, kitchen, air conditioning) are included.

Oh yeah, and dealing marijuana.

Your Café is the front line in our cultural revolution! It’s not important to sell the pot. Your café is where our cannabis community comes to be together, and to be who they really are, in unity and enlightenment. You will be the local centre for the cannabis culture. You can make your dream come alive to commercial success and personal reward, which will quickly make you the ‘voice’ of the cannabis community in your area. Are you up for it?

No. The article provides good revenue advice:

Bongs, rolling papers, bubblebags, cool pipes, and grow book sales are obvious choices to keep revenue flowing from your target market – potheads.

and asks all the hard business questions:

Is A Stoned Staff A Good Staff?

If it doesn't work out, there's always independent journalism...

I've been watching Indymedia for several years. The LA Times reports that the FBI is also keeping an eye on them:

For years, the FBI's definition of terrorism has included violence against property, such as the window-smashing during the 1999 Seattle protests against the World Trade Organization. That definition has led FBI investigations to online discussion boards, organizing meetings and demonstrations of a wide range of activist groups. Officials say that international terrorists pose the greatest threat to the nation but that they cannot ignore crimes committed by some activists.

"It's one thing to express an idea or such, but when you commit acts of violence in support of that activity, that's where our interest comes in," said FBI spokesman Bill Carter in Washington.

He stressed that the agency targeted individuals who committed crimes and did not single out groups for ideological reasons. He cited the recent arrest of environmental activists accused of firebombing an unfinished ski resort in Vail. "People can get hurt," Carter said. "Businesses can be ruined."

Read it all.

Activists are unhappy:

"They don't know where Osama bin Laden is, but they're spending money watching people like me," said environmental activist Kirsten Atkins. Her license plate number showed up in an FBI terrorism file after she attended a protest against the lumber industry in Colorado Springs in 2002.

Fair enough. However, it's also known that terrorists - real terrorists, are aided and abetted by people who move in similar circles.

A quick look at some of my older posts illustrates this relationship. When you lie down with dogs, you get covered in fleas.

It should be easy for 'harmless' activists to distance themselves from this, however so much of the far-left has literally been hijacked, they are so intertwined the distinction will get blurred. This is to the terrorists advantage.

It is absolutely correct that time which could be spent finding 'real terrorists' is being wasted sifting through relatively benign 'activists'. The fault for this however doesn't lie exclusively with the Government.

UK Indymedia in conjunction with The Guardian is publishing a song for Rachel Corrie.

An excerpt of the lyrics are reprinted on the UK Indymedia page.

If you view the hidden comments however, you can see someone else's song, with a different tune.

This was censored. The parent article complained about being silenced... Funny huh?

An anti-Israeli cartoon has been posted on UK Indymedia. The cartoonist, Latuff has frequently been called an anti-Semite for his more offensive work, although this one is relatively mild.

Further to a recent record breaking attempt, several of the later comments were immediately hidden by UK Indymedia. (Note: Above link forces showing of hidden comments). Some may have deserved it, though not all of them.

This behaviour is summed up beautifully by one response:

Offensive anti-Jewish cartoon - allowed to stay on Indymedia UK
Picture of dead Jew, killled by Palestinian Terrorism - Hidden by Indymedia UK - says it all about this site

If it doesn't, surely that this subsequent comment:

Now that's out of they way the sensible people can admire yet another brilliant piece, highlighting the horrid atrocites committed by the Israeli goverment.

which in contrast was not hidden, does.

As one of my readers emails:

So much for the neutrality of Indymedia. Anything which does not comply with their world view, ie. Palestinians good, Israel bad, is censored and hidden.

There is of course nothing to say media outlets (including Indymedia) need to be summarily neutral. However, censorship of opposing views, a frequent occurence on UK Indymedia, despite their frequent insistence this is wrong, as well as allowing bias to interfere with journalistic integrity (where reporting and op-ed become impossible to distinguish) is a problem.

UK Indymedia, is a problem.

I previously noted that A is for Anarchy (and F is for...)

We now learn that L is for Latte.

The People's Cube, states:

All corporations are evil, but some are less evil than others. That's what these protesters had to be thinking when they gathered in droves at Starbucks to drink decadent lattes during the anti-war, anti-corporate, anti-capitalist, and anti-American protest at Washington, DC on March 18, 2006 to mark the 3rd anniversary of Iraqi liberation Imperialist War for Oil. Unfortunately for the progressive movement, the consumption of bourgeois drinks was caught on tape by capitalist running dogs, thus exposing the soft belly of the Party's class struggle.

Watch the video, it's Hilarious (with a capital H). And better the second time when you adjust to the accent.

My favourite line to a girl selling Communist propaganda: Q: "Are you into Communism?" A: "Not yet, but some day".

Corporations are evil, but they sure do make good lattes...

Holocaust denying lunatic and Indymedia regular, Faruque Ahmed sued an Australian talkback radio station for blacklisting him, and lost.

Background on Ahmed here and here.

His original gripe with the radio station is here (my notes here) and Melbourne Indymedia is also reporting it, replete with the full transcript.

The comments will be priceless.

It looks like Ahmed (the loser) may also have to pay court costs.

He represented himself. Never has the old saying about a fool for a lawyer been more true.

Update: Via comments on this post:

The comments won't be as priceless as you think... One of Sydney Indymedia's moderators has hidden any discussion of Ahmed's court case from that thread.

However, the parent post 'Zio-Report' remains on the newswire.

Discussion of racist anti-Semites is verboten, however discussion by racist anti-Semites it seems are quite okay for SIM.

It also appears that Sydney Indymedia is being held to ransom:

It has been pointed out that the 'Zio-report' (formerly known as Zionazi report, but toned down a notch) is permitted once a week as a concession to stop 'someone' (Faruque Ahmed) from spamming hundreds of repeat articles. In other words, if they let him post it once a week, he promises to behave.

If this is the case, isn't it nice to see Sydney Indymedia standing up for themselves in such a morally upright manner?

Update: A comment on Sydney Indymedia gives more background into Faruque Ahmed (not that you should need any to form a sensible conclusion).

An article on UK Indymedia discusses the "Zionist Lobby's Bullying Tactics" by citing in full, a recent and highly controversial paper. Ho hum.

Someone posted another paper, in the form of a comment, endorsing the original post.

Someone else then posted a subsequent comment, citing another paper which roundly refutes the earlier argument, pointing out it's a replay of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion,.

An anti-Israel article and an anti-Israel comment, followed by a refutation.

Here's a quiz: Guess which one was hidden?

Further to the hidden refutation, a comment noted that posting the whole of one article supporting this hypothesis as a lengthy comment appears fine on UK Indymedia, but when someone else posts a pro-Israel refutation as a comment, it gets hidden.
It's nice to see they can withstand criticism.

Double Standards on UK Indymedia? Never!

The comment pointing this out, was hidden in less than 5 minutes. Is this a new record?

Further to my responded to my recent post about a whacko environmental posting on Urbana-Champaign Indymedia, someone posted a comment that

one of BC Indymedia's resident trolls has copied and then altered a story that appeared in the "other press" section of BC Indymedia.

You can confirm this by visiting the original post and viewing the timestamp.

There's really no other reason to do this other than to negatively impact the reputation of the original poster (who is apparently one of the editors of BC Indymedia).

David Gehrig has posted a subsquent comment saying:

I agree with the previous poster -- it's obviously someone trying to stir the shit, given the crap on BC Indymedia.

And, although I'm not as closely associated with UCIMC as I used to be, I have to say that it's one of the more functional IMCs in the world, owning its own building, running a low-power FM radio station on volunteer labor, publishing a monthly newspaper, and keeping its newswire comparatively shit-free.

Do I wish the signal-to-noise ratio was a little higher? Yes, I do. But I also think that UC-IMC does a better job than most IMCs its size, maybe even a far better job.

The future of Indymedia as a movement is, I think, in serious doubt, for many of the same reasons you've mentioned in your blog. But in this case I think you've picked some low-hanging fruit and used it to tar the entire site.

I should point out, I posted the 'modified' article having stumbled across it via a tipoff from a fairly reliable contributor (i.e. likely not the troll in question). In many cases, I find such examples of lunacy by accident and there are no shortage of them. As I visit so many IMC sites, I cannot reasonably be expected to identify the full historic context where this may be the case. That is, I'm not aiming for the 'low hanging fruit' and merely publishing it as I see it. Again, there is generally no shortage of this.

However, as always, I am happy to stand corrected.

Despite this, Gehrig raises some interesting issues. Firstly, excepting the above example, I believe he acknowledges most of the problems I have identified. He mentions that UC-IMC appears to be doing a "better job than most IMCs its size". Perhaps. Heaven knows it wouldn't be hard in many cases, however in replying to this argument, one might argue that there were some cabins on the Titanic which were much, much nicer than most of the others.

So what? The broader picture however is the same. It is unfortunate that the more 'successful' (read: responsible) IMCs don't pull the others into line, or remove the association, lest they be dragged down to the lowest common denominator.

Quite by coincidence, I made a nearly identical point recently in relation to UCIMC here.

Last week, I noted Charlie Sheen's alleged comments regarding 9/11 conspiracies and was unsure whether he had been libelled, or was simply an idiot.

The latter applies.

The record of this in The Guardian flies in the face of Prison Planet's insistence there's a big media cover up of his words.

9/11 conspiracy theorists should note however, just because Charlie Sheen, noted actor and idiot, said it, it isn't neccessarily true and I wouldn't be taking the tinfoil off the champagne bottles just yet. Maybe save it for other uses...

Mere moments ago, I linked to Scott's message to environmentalists. One of the questions asked, was why so few bloggers reported on environmental issues.

Urbana-Champaign Indymedia has just demonstrated its ability to do to environmental reporting, what the rest of Indymedia does to more general news.

UN warns of worst mass extinctions for 65 years

The Guardian Humans have provoked the worst spate of extinctions since we wiped out the dinosaurs 65 years ago, according to a UN report that calls for unprecedented worldwide efforts to address the Issue (sic).

The report paints a grim picture of life on earth, with declining numbers of plants, dinosaurs, insects and birds across the globe, and warns that the current extinction rate is up to 1,000 times faster than in the past. Some 844 dinosaurs are known to have disappeared in the last 50 years.
...
The report, Global Biodiversity Outlook 2 from the secretariat of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, says: "The direct causes of biodiversity loss - habitat change, over-exploitation, the introduction of invasive alien spacecraft, nutrient loading & climate change - show no sign of abating." It is bleaker than a first UN review of the diversity of cowboy life, issued in 2001, and says the 2010 goal can only be attained with "unprecedented additional efforts".

About 6m hectares (15m acres) of primary forest are felled each year and about a third of mangrove trees have been lost since the 1980s. In the Caribbean, average beack cover has declined from 50% to 10% in the last three decades. Up to 52% of higher bird species studied are threatened by large fish in the North America

The report concludes: "Biodiversity is in Incline at all levels and geographical scales," and international travel, trade and tourism are expected to introduce more Illegal aliens in time.

On the positive side, the number and size of protected dinosaurs are making a comeback in 60% of protected areas

Baffling. Admittedly, it probably wouldn't surprise me if the UN did in fact release such a study. It's worth noting they didn't, and the article 'appears' to based on this slightly more serious work.

Reading the Indymedia version however, I get the feeling that certain inhabitants of Earth represent a continuing waste of precious oxygen.

Longstanding blogmate Scott, the Environmental Republican has posted an interesting message to environmentalists.

Scott has also commented on Charlie Sheen's alleged comments recently, which I reported here. He is more skeptical than I am. Punditguy comes right out with it.

A comment on Scott's post asks a very interesting question:

One that that has my imagination going all the time is just image if the FBI arrest Atta and the others on the 10th. Image the stream of sewage from the left defending these 19 and that the Government was on some sort of witch hunt.

If the left can't accept that these guys did it, image how many more would have failed to accept the plot if the Government actually prevented it?

A very interesting thought. Too bad we didn't get to find out that version of history would have played out.

Regular readers will know I seldom trawl through the 'hidden posts' on Indymedia sites as it would be unfair on the few moderators who do act responsibly by hiding/deleting the excrement which pollutes their sites.

Via my referrer logs however, I came across this post on BC Indymedia which might explain part of the (ahem) recent issues on the site.

Does anybody edit this site? And if so, how does the blatant antisemitism of comments like this one -- "Jewish culture is so steeped in unethical values, such as racism, supremacism, materialism, separativeness" -- fit into that editorial scheme?

An excellent question, before the article was hidden. Some of the comments in the ensuing discussion are very interesting. First, the usual conspiracies are rolled out:

Zionists are taking over this news wire - The hatefull (sic) and ultra-violent Zionists have taken over this news wire, and flooded it with Zionist hate literature designed to villify (sic) and slander all the Muslims and Arabs of the world, and even denigrate peace activists like Rachel Corrie and the Christian Peacekeepers Team. The perpetrators of this hate campaign should be investigated and reported to the police, and they should be banned from posting further on this site.

Okey dokey. More sensible responses follow:

The Open Publishing standard of Indymedia gives IMC site editors the freedom to hide racist posts -- that is, racist posts like the ones of yours they've already hidden.

You're perfectly free in this country to make racist generalizations. It's not illegal. And BC Indybay is perfectly free to remove them from the site _because_ they are racist generalizations, even if you try to dress them up as "cultural commentary."

In the meantime, you also end up reinforcing my case -- that the most obsessive anti-Israel posters on BC Indymedia also happen to hate the Jews, and -- when sufficiently goaded -- forget to wrap their antisemitism in the "I'm just an anti-Zionist" disguise by which they try to inject their antisemitism into public discourse.

Let me make it completely clear what I'm saying. Is criticizing Israel or Israeli policy inherently antisemitic? No. But there are forms of criticism which _are_ inherently antisemitic, and this is the kind of stuff you indulge in continually. The kind where you say "Well, so 'Protocols' is internationally known to be an antisemitic fraud, but I'm talking about the Zionists *wink wink* not the Jews *wink wink*." The kind where you say, that Hitler guy, he was surely on to something when it came to the Jews (although of course killing them is bad *wink wink*). The kind where you say, "It's never fair to generalize racially, of course, but the Jews are a dishonest and bigoted and racist, aren't they."
...
Now it's up to the BC Indymedia editors. Now they know that the zio-guy who zio-goes around zio-condemning the Zionists as "more evil than Hitler and the communists combined" is, once you look at him a little more closely, simply a Jew-hating racist who routinely spews his antisemitic hate in BC Indymedia under the aegis of "cultural commentary about Zionism" except when you forget the fig "anti-Zionism" fig leaf and let your true agenda show.

Naturally this throws fuel onto the fire of conspiracies:

Also, has there been any investigation into the recent Spook Infestation here? Could you, perhaps, look at how many sources of the Spook Droppings there really are, and where they are originating?

Oh right... Spooks. Of course... That same comment, gets reposted about half a dozen times and starts to resemble a child who has just thrown his toys out of the cot. He gets called on it:

Isn't it just so typical of these guys that, if you dare blow the whistle on the rantings of a racist antisemite, the only imaginable explanation they can come up with is that you're actually a SEEEE-cret Agent of the Great Jew Conspiracy?

He responds, by posting it again.

Then the conspiracies get a little more original:

Lets be fair, if you are going to investigate one side then investigate the other. I have strong suspicion that Isalmic funds are being used to post huge amounts of anti-israeli and anti-western propaganda on this site.

This gets addressed by someone I assume to be a moderator:

I can't prove it based on anything that I _know_ as a sysadmin of this site, but based on my experience working for a multi-national public relations firm during the first Gulf War ('93), I can confidently state that there are people who are paid to monitor as well as post propaganda to the web. Some of them may even be Muslims!

Who is really surprised by this?

I am! In the past I have been accused by braindead antisemites of being a secret agent who gets paid to do this.

You know what? It sounds like a great idea. If anyone deserves money to hang around Indymedia it should be me. I'm so poor I can't even afford a tip-jar on the site. I'd put the money towards screen-wipes after viewing some of the articles I've seen in the time I've been doing this.

Any Black Agencies wishing to sponsor my work, feel free to contact me via your secret Zionist Mind Control Rays. I won't be wearing any tinfoil on my head this Thursday afternoon, probably around lunchtime.

The Results of New In-Depth Study have revealed, Bush May Actually Be Hitler!

Mandatory reading for Indymedia types. Amusing reading for everyone else.

Someone on UK Indymedia is Jealous of Paris:

Three months ago we had the working-class rioting against the government from the Banlieus and this week we see the middle-class students rioting against the government.

While watching the pictures i am pleased to see French people standing up for themselves against the real violence of the government and the real criminals who are the police but i am also jealous beacause in my country i see nothing.

Londoners are soft, Londoners and apathetic and Londoners need to start having some self-respect and start believing in something.

We have to copy our French brothers and bring protests to the streets of London to the similar oppressive Laws and oppressive Police we have here.

LET FREEDOM RING!!!!!!!!

Whatever.

One comment sets him straight:

Go on then...
I await the results with interest. Anything you're going to be fighting for in particular? Or will it be just to get that monumental chip off your shoulder?

Others are right behind him:

We're not going to achieve change without challenging the authorities and that means violence - and breaking with hegemonic notions that prevent us from achieving our goals. Drop the faux fleet street pretensions and shut the fuck up - the time to fight is now!

people of the world unite!

Let stupidity ring...

A comment on BC Indymedia introduces us to yet another mutation of those tricky Zionists we hear so much about on Indymedia.

The perverse Zio-Nazis constantly try to portray the defense of sovereign nations from Zio-American attacks as "terrorism" and "insurgency". Then when people try to defend themselves, their families and countries from the attack of the Zio-American Neo-Nazis, those brave freedom fighters who risk their lives to defend their countries are slandered mercilessly in the Zionist controlled mass media. This is not only perverse, but severely fucks with the minds of the naive public, who are incapable of comprehending the real meaning of what they keep hearing in the media day and night, since none of it makes any sense.

As opposed to say, that article.

Since the Nazis, has there been a more diabolical group of people than the Zio-neo-Nazis?

I don't know! I am unsure if these Zio-neo-Nazi creature are the same as Zio-Neocons (seen previously on BC Indymedia) or their offshoot: zio-neo-fascist-PNAC-zio-hasbarian-neocon-ziocon-crypto-neo-zio-hasbarian-zio-zio-zio-quadruple masonic-neo-totalitarian-zio-neo-zippady-doo-dah-zio-rotarians (first mentioned here).

Does anyone know the care and feeding of these things?

San Fransisco Indymedia asks Why was the Turnout so Low at this Year’s Rally in the Valley?

Tim Blair has summarized the responses.

Sydney Indymedia is scooping the mainstream press with its report that Communists to be interned in Dachau, filed under "Fascism | Prisons | International".

The President of the Munich police has informed the press that the first concentration camp holding 5,000 political prisoners is to be organised within the next few days near the town of Dachau in Bavaria.

Worrying stuff indeed! A comment points out:

You do realise that this story is dated March 21, 1933 don't you? Some 'news'...

Oops.

It continues:

Let's say however that Indymedia existed in 1933. I have no doubt, there would be articles insisting the Jews were simply being rounded up as part of a secret Jewish plot to attract sympathy for the state of Israel. There would probably be several articles as well about Jews in the ghettoes stealing bread from hard working Germans.

I love this site...

Don't we all.

Atlanda Indymedia has a message for anarchists:

"Seize this opportunity Anarchist! This Friday marks the beginning of our most important opportunity in decades to communicate with millions about the possibility of a world without capitalism or coercion.

Their method of communication?

On Friday, March 17, 2006, the long awaited film version of Alan Moore’s classic graphic novel, V for Vendetta, will premier throughout the US. V for Vendetta is the story of an anarchist who dismantles a fascist state through propaganda of the deed, inspiring the masses to revolt with a vision of building an anarchist future. The book’s protagonist does not simply promote vague anti-authoritarianism or nondescript appeals to “question authority” but explicitly and compellingly calls for the masses to eliminate the state and replace it with anarchy.

Ummm...Guys? You didn't get the memo, so I hate to break it to you, but IT'S A FILM!

Unsurprisingly, this radical message has been lost in the translation to Hollywood’s watered-down film version. Warner Bros. presents a hero rebelling against fascism and advocating “freedom”, yet never suggests that until the state is destroyed, no one will truly be free. Alan Moore has described the script of the film as “rubbish” and had demanded that his name be removed from it."

Step up, anarchists:

Time and again, anarchists have seen our message distorted, our comrades martyred, and our stories erased by the corporate and governmental servants of the ruling class. We cannot allow this to happen again!

An ad hoc group of anarchists in New York City have launched AforAnarchy.com, a website and education campaign designed to reinject anarchist politics into V for Vendetta and radicalize audiences of the film.

Start hurling popcorn people!

A is for anarchy.

F is for....

Arkansas IMC is taking exception to Police videotaping protesters.

Stop State Sponsered (sic) Surveillance in Fayetteville!

hi folks. I’m in the process of requesting a freedom of information act request with the city of Fayetteville to receive a copy of the video footage the police shot during the march 11 rally on the square.

I've consulted an attorney who has advised me that having other like minded folks who were there as well and are concerned about this issue to join us.

If you’d like to help keep the police out of your face the next time you express your opinion , please
Email with your name & contact info at : schwinn72 (at) cox.net

ALL LEGAL FEES PAID!

Comments note:

I find it terribly funny that you include a link and picture ENCOURAGING Video taping of the police, but when they do it back to you.. It's suddenly a violation of your civil rights..

Refer to Arkansas Code: 5-16-101. Crime of video voyeurism

One of the exceptions is as Follows:
Video recording or monitoring conducted by law enforcement officers within the official scope of their duties

Sounds like your ambulance chaser might need to brush up on criminal law..

Luv you guys..

We sure do...

According to UK Indymedia:

Actor Charlie Sheen has joined a growing army of other highly credible public figures in questioning the official story of 9/11 and calling for a new independent investigation of the attack and the circumstances surrounding it.
...
Speaking to The Alex Jones Show on the GCN Radio Network, the star of current hit comedy show Two and a Half Men and dozens of movies including Platoon and Young Guns, Sheen elaborated on why he had problems believing the government's version of events.
...

The source for all of this is "Prison Planet" (Warning: Don tinfoil before clicking). Although the website of the GCN show yields nothing, the host of the programme - Alex Jones is (surprise surprise) also involved with Prison Planet. The article then states:

Sheen agreed that the biggest conspiracy theory was put out by the government itself and prefaced his argument by quoting Theodore Roosevelt in stating, "That we are to stand by the President right or wrong is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."

"We're not the conspiracy theorists on this particular issue," said Sheen.

"It seems to me like 19 amateurs with box cutters taking over four commercial airliners and hitting 75% of their targets, that feels like a conspiracy theory. It raises a lot of questions."

Sheen described the climate of acceptance for serious discussion about 9/11 as being far more fertile than it was a couple of years ago.

"It feels like from the people I talk to in and around my circles, it seems like the worm is turning."

Suspicious collapse of buildings

Sheen described his immediate skepticism regarding the official reason for the collapse of the twin towers and building 7 on the day of 9/11.

"I was up early and we were gonna do a pre-shoot on Spin City, the show I used to do, I was watching the news and the north tower was burning. I saw the south tower hit live, that famous wide shot where it disappears behind the building and then we see the tremendous fireball."

"There was a feeling, it just didn't look any commercial jetliner I've flown on any time in my life and then when the buildings came down later on that day I said to my brother 'call me insane, but did it sorta look like those buildings came down in a controlled demolition'?"

Sheen said that most people's gut instinct, that the buildings had been deliberately imploded, was washed away by the incessant flood of the official version of events from day one.

Sheen questioned the plausibility of a fireballs traveling 1100 feet down an elevator shaft and causing damage to the lobbies of the towers as seen in video footage, especially when contrasted with eyewitness accounts of bombs and explosions in the basement levels of the buildings.

Regarding building 7, which wasn't hit by a plane, Sheen highlighted the use of the term "pull," a demolition industry term for pulling the outer walls of the building towards the center in an implosion, as was used by Larry Silverstein in a September 2002 PBS documentary when he said that the decision to "pull" building 7 was made before its collapse. This technique ensures the building collapses in its own footprint and can clearly be seen during the collapse of building 7 with the classic 'crimp' being visible.

Note the occasional lack of quotation marks. TPrison Planet claims Sheen's story has been covered up by the mainstream media. It is interesting to note, they have not published a verifiable transcript or audio recording of his comments. (Update: See below for link to article in the Guardian - some cover up!)

Lucky there's Indymedia for this kind of thing...

Frankly, I don't tend to care excessively what celebrities have to say about any issue, where their only credential is celebrity. However, on this occasion I get the feeling Sheen's lawyers might have something to say about this... I suspect most of the 'report' of his comments will come as news and he has been libelled. Or he's an idiot.

Update: Yep - he's an idiot.

Aussie blogger Tex, of Whacking Day is discussing pizza. My mouth watered reading the post, however this comment stood out:

Why are pizzas better than hippies?
Largely because they smell better. And no self-respecting pizza will be seen dead in a Che Guevara T-shirt.

This comment appears in the Wikipedia's discussion of their entry for Indymedia:

"I have noticed recently that indymedia.org.uk has started to openly allow known and proscribed terror groups such as Earth First ( who call for the extermination of all but 200,000 or so people on Earth to let the ecosystems of the world 'recover') post their often delusionary rants on Indymedia, at the expense of credible journalistic material from more liberal ecoactivists. A group of us have commented on this only to have our material removed by unknown volunteer editors who currently seem to favour ecofascism, and thus would like to point our we feel that the materials on there shouldnt be seen as NPOV.

Past report on UK Indymedia's censorship of reasonable, yet opposing views here.

Watch this video of a recent anti-war protest which was... Read the title.
A fascinating insight into the lack of knowledge by diehard protesters on serious issues. I say "diehard" as everyone else appears to have been elsewhere.

You will also witness a genuine re-enactment of unbearable torture.

The following appeared on Oklahoma Indymedia:

THE THEFT OF OUR IMC
by San Francisco Bay Area IMC

It is with much sadness and urgency that we inform the greater indymedia community about the ongoing crisis within the San Francisco Bay Area IMC.

Open Letter to the Global Indymedia Network
San Francisco Bay Area IMC

It is with much sadness and urgency that we inform the greater indymedia community about the ongoing crisis within the San Francisco Bay Area IMC.

Open Letter to the Global Indymedia Network from SF Bay Area IMC
San Francisco Bay Area IMC



Open Letter to the Global Indymedia Network from SF Bay Area IMC
San Francisco Bay Area IMC,
It is with much sadness and urgency that we inform the greater indymedia community about the ongoing crisis within the San Francisco Bay Area IMC.

Open Letter to the Global Indymedia Network from SF Bay Area IMC

Introduction

It is with much sadness and urgency that we inform the greater indymedia community about the ongoing crisis within the San Francisco Bay Area IMC.

I think they're stuck on repeat. Are you following it so far?

Previously, we had attempted to resolve internal conflicts among group members by engaging in formal mediation, which ultimately resulted in an official split of the group into two and a list of specific actions upon which each side agreed. This letter is being sent out only after these agreements have not been respected by the new SF IMC collective that has split from us.

Trouble in paradise. The SF crew have split into distinct groups (read the article for copious history) and the accusations are now flying:

List of violations of the mediation agreement by the new sf.indymedia.org group:

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 failed to switch the DNS for indybay.org until over a month after the mediation agreement.

3. Before the indybay.org DNS was eventually switched over, a member of sf.indymedia.org pointed indybay.org to a non-existent IP address, causing many people to stop using 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 sf.indymedia.org group has gone against the agreement by redirecting aliases to their new email addresses.

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

1. Members of the linefeed.org server (which now hosts sf.indymedia.org, other IMCs and activist websites) have sabotaged local activist websites hosted by them that were connected to indybay.org.

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.

The end result of all of this is that techies with positions of power, and a personal vendetta within an IMC collective, have effectively hijacked complete control of the website from the rest of the collective.

We believe that the behaviors displayed by the members of the new sf.indymedia group/linefeed.org are offensive and unacceptable, and that they have abused their powers as tech people within the IMC network to manipulate and bully others to get their way.

Proposed Resolution

We, the undersigned, request the following from the global tech working group and other IMCs in the network:

1. The ownership of the indybay.org domain should be handed over to the current members of indybay.org immediately, and

2. sf.indymedia.org should immediately put up texts and links about the split on their website as they should have already done as part of the agreement.

If both of the above requests are not met immediately, then we ask that:

1. The new sf.indymedia.org's status as an IMC should be revoked, and

2. The current members of the new sf.indymedia.org should be denied access and control to the sf.indymedia.org domain, and

3. in the event that the new sf.indymedia.org group should lose control of their domain, that it be handed over to the current members of indybay.org instead of being destroyed, since it is an established community resource, and

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

We also request that all IMC websites update their links to the San Francisco Bay Area as http://www.indybay.org.

We are hereby challenging the legitimacy of the new sf.indymedia.org group for violating its own Principles of Unity by their abusive and intimidating behaviors.

We want to stress that we believe this is an urgent, criminal matter that is in the interest of the entire Indymedia network. What has happened here with the SF Bay Area IMC seems to be quite unprecedented within the history of the IMC Network, and we hope that we can depend on the support from all IMCers to help resolve this conflict and maintain accountability within the indymedia network.

None of this of course, will affect content will it?

Seattle Indymedia is promoting Your 'official' soundtrack for the revolution!Some guy is selling his CD... Ho hum.

This message currently appears on Tampa Bay Indymedia

This website resides on a system that has been suspended. An email has been sent to the service provider explaining the reason for the suspension and the procedure to immediately restore service. If you are not the service provider, please contact the service provider for information.

Any ideas?

UK Indymedia reports on the Paris Student march

It is impossible to give a number for the demo. There was no helicopter available to IMC UK. Tens of thousands marched against the CPE legislation possibly up to 100,000. The demo was loud and peaceful with few stewards and not a cop in sight.

Riiiiiiight.....

Incidentally, the link to SF Indymedia was found via Google News which is apparently indexing Indymedia as a news source again. Google is discrediting itself. Again.

UK Indymedia reports on the Paris Student march

It is impossible to give a number for the demo. There was no helicopter available to IMC UK. Tens of thousands marched against the CPE legislation possibly up to 100,000. The demo was loud and peaceful with few stewards and not a cop in sight.>Riiiiiiight.....

Incidentally, the link to SF Indymedia was found via Google News which is apparently indexing Indymedia as a news source again. Google is discrediting itself. Again.

Permalink # posted by Dan @ 12:43 AM | |  | 0 comments

Top of Google News was coverage of the massive cyclone which hit Northern Australia yesterday.

Indymedia reaffirmed its uselessness as a news source in its coverage of what should be a major story.

Darwin Indymedia, geographically the closest to the eye of the storm, is out of action due to bitching between the states.

Sydney had only
this rather baffling piece, whilst Melbourne and Perth Indymedia had nothing at all.

Both sites however, had gleeful coverage of rioting and Car-B-Ques in the streets of Paris.

I guess some things are just more important to Australian Indymedia.

No doubt this will change when someone can continue the work of the late Joe Vialls and work out how to blame the Jews or Bush for the cyclone.

Via San Francisco Indymedia - Sacramento Holds 2nd Consecutive Anti-war Rally

More photos here

Zombietime has more and it's hilarious! Note the stall vendor blaming Bush for the murder of JFK.

Update: Link corrected (thanks JIC).

Via Urbana-Champaign comes a report from Danielle Chynoweth, founder of the Urbana-Champaign Independent Media Center and a member of the Urbana City Council.

She starts:

I want to tell the story of our IMC because it provides an image of where I think we should be going.

Egads! I wonder if she's browsed any of the material I have archived...

She then suggests some of the "Guiding principles of independent journalism":

Opinionated, Fair, and Accurate
Every story has a point of view. Indymedia replaces the ruse of objectivity - which is so often used as a smokescreen for bias - with the values of fairness, honesty, accuracy, and opinion, to cite Amy Goodman's media credo. Good journalism does not claim objectivity, but is in hot pursuit of the "best available version of the truth.” By becoming a venue for subjectivity, we become a venue for suppressed stories. In indymedia, the subject wrestles the microphone away from an “objectivity” that hides blood on its hands. Are not afraid to take a stand or provide opinion or analysis with more factual information.

A noble aim. However, she needs to ignore for a second what Indymedia should be (or could be) and focus on what it is, which differs significantly from the above.

Local Local Local
Our local media has been gutted. People are least aware of this because their main source of information is the same source wanting them to continue to think that local news is local. Most of the story viruses infecting your brain come from storytelling factories out of Maryland, New York, anywhere but your home town. What we need is a fleet of amateur hero journalists - aka you and me to investigate and tell the stories that are not being told. Campus activists are focused on Darfur, Coca cola, sweatshops, fair trade coffee, progressives are focused on the war. Yes, it is important to understand ourselves in as part of a global community. But too often the local stories, where we can have the most influence, are ignored.

Local eh? Would this explain why nearly every single IMC site is saturated with identical spam about Israel, and in many cases ignores altogether 'Darfur' or similar examples of international human rights issues worthy of more attention? Or is she simply in denial?

She continues:

From this base we have built, we have been able to help other IMC's grow such as NYC, DC, Nigeria, and Baghdad.

Wait! There's a Baghdad Indymedia? I have never found it via any of the links on a single Indymedia page (including Urbana), nor could I guess the URL. If I want independent news from Baghdad, Indymedia isn't of any use whatsoever, yet blogs such as Healing Iraq and others are. Interestingly, many of these Iraqi sites do not share the same narrative of the US Administration as Indymedia does.

I have raised the question before as to why, for a group claiming to promote free reporting of the news, there is so little Middle Eastern Indymedia when most of the countries in the region would seem to be ideal candidates. I have come to my own conclusions.

She continues:

Go to where the Silences are
This is Amy Goodman's motto. This requires that we watch for the holes in the mainstream news, take stories that walk in off the street, and connect ourselves tightly to the underrepresented voices.

Yup... Ask the Iranians or the oppressed Christian Arab minorities. They are still waiting for Indymedia's help.

Overall, her statement is idealistic yet stunning in its naivety. This woman (or womyn as she apparently prefers) needs to have a real look at Indymedia, and ask how to fix it, rather than spend her time deceiving others of its virtues.

She is clearly detached from reality, and as she is an elected member of the local council in a district which has an enormous number of students, prompts me to ask what they get up to.

Via Sydney Indymedia comes another example of 'free speech' (for some).

US National Security Advisor, Condoleeza Rice was visiting Australia last week. Part of her tour was a speaking engagement at Sydney University.

We'll have none of that, said some students:

By 1pm on Thursday, an initial 40 students had gathered outside the Con, already cordoned off by police. Rather than the usual mix of musos and academics, the campus was instead overrun by riot police, horses, and dog squads. Numbers swelled as protestors were joined by Con students, kicked off their campus to make way for Rice.

Protestors linked arms, chanted anti-war slogans, and peacefully made it known that the uni was a student space, not one for Rice and her war-mongering agenda.

Violence and hilarity stupidity ensued.

Things heated up when Piers Akerman, from the *Daily Telegraph*, attempted to break his way through the student line, despite the fact that many other attendants had managed to enter the Con by simply walking around the protestor's picket line. What was reported by the mainstream media as students "pushing and jostling" Akerman was in fact a case of Akerman himself using every pound to push and jostle through the students, trampling one protestor in the process.

This was the excuse the police needed. They surged into protest, knocking over students, and forcing them back by 20 metres. A peaceful assembly was thus turned into a violent and intimidating police attack. Several students were reportedly punched by officers, and one female student reported being sexually harassed. 6 students were arrested, including two students from the Con, one of whom was on crutches at the protest, and the other who showed her dissent simply by dancing. How either of them was seriously meant to have 'hindered police', the offence they and the others have been charged with, appears uncertain.

Naturally it was all the Police's fault (as always) and the protesters (as always) acted peacefully.

What astonishes me, is the headline of the post: "Condoleeza Rice, Sydney university and the silencing of dissent".

The 40 or so protesters, feel they were denied their freedom of speech, by campus security and police.

Never mind that their intention was to silence Condoleeza Rice from addressing the no doubt many more who came to listen. That's not important. When students again tried to censor her, Rice appeared to handle it nicely:

Inside, all was not quiet either, with three students ejected from the hall for heckling. Rice's response was to claim she was glad to see democracry was alive and well at Austrralian universities, as that it "is now alive at the… university of Baghdad as well".

Ouch!

Whether you agree with the politics or not, an opportunity to listen to a speaker of such rank is a rare privilege. Unfortunately, these 'protesters' believe "the uni was a student space, not one for Rice".

Wrong. Universities are a place for learning. As Dr Rice, who according to her bio

completed a six year tenure as Stanford University 's Provost, during which she was the institution's chief budget and academic officer. As Provost she was responsible for a $1.5 billion annual budget and the academic program involving 1,400 faculty members and 14,000 students. As professor of political science, Dr. Rice has been on the Stanford faculty since 1981 and has won two of the highest teaching honors -- the 1984 Walter J. Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching and the 1993 School of Humanities and Sciences Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching.

Not exactly a lightweight. The comments on the Indymedia post are largely unsympathetic:

For some decades now free speech has been in as short supply in Australian universities as it is in American ones. I wonder, though, if it isnt about time we faced up to it. When respected academics are refused the right to speak as we have seen in the past (the Hans Eysenck era) to trying to stop someone as basic as Brendan Nelson, we now have this example. To have the Secretary of State of the USA in any era is a great opportunity, especially as she is more academically qualified than most (if not all) of the people who gathered to try and forcibly stop her speaking at the Con.
...
I'm sick of idiot activists trying to suppress free speech on campus. It's time to start expelling students who deliberately try to disrupt events and stop people from having their views heard.
...
Go get a job you fools.

When you picket the outside of an assembly involving a person of such high regard, you shouldn't be surprised what the Police do.

I saw the news. You were WARNED. You talked over the top of the Police officer who warned you, on numerous occasions, to get out of the way. Regardless of whether your in crutches, or dancing like a fairy, you can't say you weren't told what would happen if you didn't make way. "Oh, I'm a helpless target, the Police won't make me move" WRONG.

Of course one of your members claimed to be sexual harrassed. We're not stupid. You are vexacious complainants. You'd say anything to make the Police look bad.

Yes, and the people inside were "silenced". Because they were acting like idiots. We need more than oversimplified generalisations to have a worthwhile opinion. Yelling "WAR CRIMINAL" and garbage like that isn't even going to be acknowledged by one of the most powerful people in the world. She has better things to do than even VALIDATE the opinion of a first or second year who can't even structure an argument.

It seems there is still some hope for learning at Australian campuses.

Indymedia sits at the heart of the hypocrisy, on the one hand printing the most vile and foul antisemitic, libellous and fraudulent material under the pretense of 'free speech', yet simultanously advocating the silencing of those with whose politics they disagree.

More on Freedom of Speech double standards here, here and one Dr Rice may be familiar with, here.

According to this post on Melbourne Indymedia (of all places) a photo banner from Associated Press, purporting to be masked Jewish settlers, and reprinted in the major Israeli left-wing newspaper Ha'aretz' website is a fake. Google Cache here if it disappears.

I was flipping through my recently saved collection of internet images, and I stopped at the above picture, and wondered for a moment why I'd saved it, and what the context was. I remembered that the masked bandits were supposed to be Jewish settlers.

Did you notice the perfect symmetry?

I certainly did. Someone has enlarged, lightened and modified the image for comparison:


A perfect fit. This person, was presumably hoping to use the image, ostensibly of masked (Jewish) "settlers" later in some Israel bashing on Indymedia*. Instead, in a post I found typical of the blogsphere and not Indymedia, they have exposed AP's fraud, along similar lines to the Code Pink fakery (and denial) earlier this year.

As later comments on the page point out however, Code Pink can at least claim their image was merely a 'banner' on the website, and could even argue it was a bit of creative licence. AP on the other hand, who one would would hope are not entitled to any 'creative licence' in reporting the news, assigned this caption to the image:

Masked settlers standing next to a banner showing the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron on Sunday. (AP)

Wrong.

Update: Welcome readers linking from a post over at the Jawa Report, where comments ask further questions, Pajamas Media, Israellycool and friends. Special greetings also, to one of Israel's foremost cartoonists who has left a comment below. I am flattered.

Update 2: An anonymous tipster advised Ace of Spades HQ:

While this picture was run on the left-wing (I'm told) Haaretz.com, with attribution to the AP, in fact an earlier AP photo (actually it looks like a picture used in a banner, with additional graphics) does not show the "second settler."

The photo may have been taken from AP, photoshopped by someone else, and then used by Haaretz (with the AP attribution) without Haaretz realizing it had been altered. They'd be guilty then of gross negligence (I mean, how obvious is it that that "second settler" is just a duplicate of the first?), not deliberate deception or distortion.

And it appears, at the moment at least, that AP didn't create the fake photo. Or, at least, their original photo shows no "second settler."

This was an anonymous tip, no links are provided and even if true, it's difficult to say who's responsible. What indisputable however, is that 'someone' in the Mainstream Media, at Ha'aretz or AP has screwed up. Badly. Again. At this point, neither AP or Ha'aretz have commented or corrected and I post the above in the interests of updates, which the Blogsphere is pretty good at.

*Correction: A comment on the Indymedia page notes:

I resent most...this creatively licentious comment.[as above] I saved the image, as a matter of fact, because part of my brain suggested immediately that it was faked -- and I was hoping to work out what part of my brain that was. The alarm trigger was symmetry detection.

I stand corrected.

UK Indymedia posted some Breaking news from Israel regarding the recent activity in the Jericho prison.

Nearly every comment (there are at least 19) was censored. Read them and see if you can work out why. I can't.

Actually, I can.

More on UK Indymedia's censorship and antisemitism here.

Someone on LA Indymedia has just 'discovered' this blog. Paranoia abounds:

Beware,you are being watched

For those not in the know, there is a blog that has been set up to watch Indymedia. So, mind your Ps and Qs

http://indymediawatch.blogspot.com/

Does anyone know who this character is?

Does it matter? Nobody asked me of course. Great bit of investigative work! My email address is on the left hand side... Others have dared step into my evil lair...

>Does anyone know who this character is?

well since it's a blog on a hosted site along with hundreds of others there's no direct way to find out short of obtaining the data from the hosting provider

and since nothing illegal's being done and none of us have the authority, that's a dead-end path

I monitor what's on there via google cache so as to avoid going there myself

I hope you are wearing lots of tinfoil as well.

so far nothing much, yet someone seems rather hot & heavy on here about burying the blog's existence

my last post here doesn't even show up in the most recent comments section ;
http://la.indymedia.org/comment_latest.php

1.) deleting posts with no explaination
2.) completely ignoring emails sent asking about it
3.) threads hidden, comments in them not showing

makes me wonder what's going on - I'm starting to smell a nester..

with such trickery I'm starting to wonder what I'm even doing here - I get the impression some trolls are coddled & wanted, and with playing underhanded games appearently being the order of the day, they fit right in -

at least better than I do..

Which is pretty much what I've been saying for quite some time. A similar post has appeared on UK Indymedia though they said "Smile, you are being watched" as opposed to "beware". Much nicer.

Like so much else on UK Indymedia, the post was hidden.

I should point out I have never posted a link on any Indymedia site pointing to this site. This documents what I thought to be the first time I was ever linked to from an Indymedia newswire. It happened in late 2004. The blog started in August 2004 so it has taken some approximately 2 years to notice. I guess I wasn't trying hard enough to attract their attention...

Now that I have it, are they likely to note my fair criticism? Not likely. From the LA comments:

Don't click on the link

Don't go to this site.

Ignore all trolls.

That's all I am... Must be why LA Indymedia hid the post. This sort of thing however is okay by comparison.

Update: The same post now appears on Melbourne Indymedia (the "beware" version). Far more capable investigators down-under, they seem to have it solved:

Naziboy's site
by troll
That is Nazihunter's site. It's been there for a while - lately mostly attacking Faruque and Stacy from SIM. Nazihunter is probably Chris Parsons but I'm not really sure about that.

Not really sure about anything I suspect...

Update: Evil Pundit notes in comments, he too is Chris Parsons! I am Chris Parsons also. Are you Chris Parsons as well?

A comment on the LA Page by AVM nails it:

due to indymediawatch, the radical leftist and terrorist supporting elment of all IMC's has been exposed. Your true colors have been shown.

The original idea of IMC wasn't bad, I'll admit that. But what it has turned into is absolutely disgusting. None of the powers that be for IMC truly care about "independent" media. They hide behind the guise of "independence," when in reality it's a socialist/communist/terrorist sympathizing bunch of quacks.

To prove my point, I've seen articles posted on IMC sites flat-out ridiculing Sharon's condition. These weren't deleted or hidden. They were there in plain sight. Real classy guys.

Yet, when Arafat died, there was nothing posted at all toward his death the same way there was Sharon.

If it were truly "INDY" media, they wouldn't sway so far to the left, yet would be an outlet for everyone without a voice. That is not the case, and Indymediawatch has done a great job of exposing this. In fact, IMCwatch is on my blogroll, and it will continue to be.

It'd do you folks good just to come clean. You're communists/socialists/envir-wackos/anti-western/terrorist-sympathizing sickos.

It's fairly obvious.

Change the name of your site to fit the content and do yourselves a favor, you bunch of dishonest cowards. Either that or truly start acting like an "independent" media source.

Frankly, right now you're not fooling anyone.

To the last point, I disagree. Plenty of naive innocents are being fooled daily, sometimes even working groups who perpetuate this, and that is a big problem.

A short while ago, a post I had written disappeared. I had to rewrite a copy.

Leigh, from the House of Wheels found the original.

Somehow, Blogger's database got confused and archived the post to 1990.

This got me thinking... According to Wikipedia:

The term "weblog" was coined by Jorn Barger on 17 December 1997.

No it wasn't.

It was first used by me seven years earlier in 1990. Honest!

Feel free to update the Wikipedia entry...

This article on UK Indymedia refers to a presentation given in Austin by FBI Agent G. Charles Rasner. It claims:

Rasner gave a presentation entitled “Counter-Terrorism Efforts in Texas” to a U.S. Law and National Security class at the Law School. He used PowerPoint slides to illustrate the nature of the terrorist threat in Central Texas. The word “Unclassified” appeared prominently in bold red letters on the opening PowerPoint slide.

Listing three categories of cause groups potentially linked to terrorist activity, Rasner named white supremacist groups, Islamic terrorist groups, and Anarchists. When asked what anarchist activity in Austin the FBI was investigating, Rasner referred the questioner to the Ted Kaczynski Unabomber case, claiming that Kaczynski “was an anarchist.” He did not discuss Austin-specific anarchist activity when pressed.

Rasner used a map of Texas to illustrate the existence of the three kinds of terrorist groups in the state. Austin was listed as a site of all three kinds of terrorist activity.

Rasner then placed the FBI’s Central Texas “Terrorist Watch List” on the screen. On a list of approximately ten groups, Food Not Bombs was listed seventh. Indymedia was listed tenth, with a reference specifically to IndyConference 2005. The Communist Party of Texas also made the list. Rasner explained that these groups could have links to terrorist activity. He noted that peaceful-sounding group names could cover more violent extremist tactics.

Why would anyone get the idea Indymedia sheltered terrorists?

The article defends the groups which were named.

Food Not Bombs is an all-volunteer organization that recovers food that would otherwise be thrown out and serves vegetarian meals to the public at no cost.

It "recovers food" from dumpsters that is. Terrorism? No. Gross? Definitely!

Austin Indymedia is an open newswire in which readers may publish news, events, and commentary.

Of course it is. Isn't denial fun?

An article on DC Indymedia has photos from a Code Pink protest on International Women's Day, including one with this rather startling caption:

In addition to multinational, the beings who gathered were multidimensional. Many were puppets who tried to blend into the crowd, as if they were one of us, and they were.

Whatever you say...

Sydney Indymedia is hosting a new regular feature - the Weekly Zio report with part-time taxi driver, full-time antisemite columnist, Faruque "It was the Jews officer" Ahmed.

It gets off to a great start:

U.S.A.– Two arrests were made on Wednesday in a series of Christian Church burnings in Alabama. A third suspect is still on the loose.

zionists Ben Moseley and Russell Debusk were taken into custody, early Wednesday, and charged with conspiracy and arson in the torching of 9 churches. The third Zionist suspect is still being sought.

Alabama Church Terrorists

these three zionazis were mad at the Southern Baptists

Curiously, a Google for the story shows no evidence the pair are Jewish (sorry, Zionist) much less "Zionazis" whatever those are. Faruque is obviously trying to bring about the apocalypse, though as usual, may wish to start with a spellcheck instead.

His "weekly news" then talks about Baruch Goldstein, in 2002. Apparently he was having a hard time finding more recent news or evidence to support his thesis that Jews (sorry, Zionists) are all galloping terrorist Nazi murderers. Not to worry, the facts are seldom important anyway.

Comments note:

Faruque's comfortable with linking to Stormfront... Bit odd that a progressive website would be okay with that.

Not in the case of Indymedia, where most things seem to be okay, and Nazis flock.

Via my referrer logs, I noticed a link to this site from a comment in Guardian journalist Ben Goldacre's Bad Science column.

Side note: Dr Goldacre is described as a "serious fuck-off academic ninja".

The comment reads:

As someone who considers himself a leftist and supporter of liberal democracy, as well as a rationalist, humanist and scientist, I would put this suggestion:
Indymedia in its various incarnations is not exactly a hotbed of rationalist thought. I often take a look at Indymediawatch. It is quite scary. There have been examples of Indymedias over the world publishing: Blatant anti-semitism. Racist material. Bizarre articles on “Zionist conspiracies”. Other loony conspiracies such as “the US perpretrated 9/11″. Very much tin-foil hat kind of stuff. In this light, the kind of things Smad [the original comment at the top of the page] mentions might be expected. There also seems to be an odd, to put it politely, editorial/moderation system whereby rational arguments against these ravings (my term) are excised.

In short, I don’t think Indymedia is at all representative of the left, it is certainly not representative of me, more that it is a forum, at least in parts, for paranoid oddballs. In my opinion, we shouldn’t even give the swivel-eyes at Indymedia the respect of worrying about their opinions on science.

It begs the question, who exactly does Indymedia represent? The scientists over at Bad Science might be interested in an older post about the scientific method, as at Indymedia.

According to Portland Indymedia:

Despite the bitterly cold wind and some rain, more than forty people stood at Percival Landing to join CodePink's International Woomen Say No to War demonstration.

I Googled for "Wooman" and all I found was this. It continues:

Holding a wide array of signs, including a teddy bear who could no longer bear the war, the high school women stood with the white-haired elders. Members from Women in Black also were there, a solomn (sic) reminder of the violence across all the mideast.

The Women in Mauve and the Women in Chartreuse sent their apologies.

You've got to admire their optimism:

Spirits were high despite the seemingly impossible task of ending this war.
The group waved to the people in cars who were going home from work. Most waved, honked their horns, or shouted their support. You could not predict based on the cars who would support the anti-war message; people in old cars, new cars, trucks and SUVS all supported the anti-war message. Bus drivers, plumbing guys, and a few men in military uniform flashed the peace sign as they drove by.

Uh huh. Facing which way? At least Code Pink didn't forge photos this time.

An article on Sydney Indymedia reports that:

Australia's security intelligence Organisation plans to nuke Yarra valley and the working class
...
Australia's Security INtelligence organisation, a private totalatarian multinational backed intelligence organisation that, under the howard adminostration has announced that they have plans to nuke the yarra valley, a small town that , "Ain't real no more anyway."

The plans to nuke the yarra valley are to coincide with the stolen wealth games (http://www.blackgst.com) another racist brainwashing tactic of the multinationals. Which is part of someones ten ways to say its Australia. If you have experienced a ten ways to say its Australia, then you know what I mean. There are three missile silos in the yarra valley already (victorian police beat me up for the footage). There are several death camps in the yarra valley in which the "hundreds of thousands of people were rounded up and made into muppets and cartoons quite simply because they knew too much about the current regime that claims to have existed for 2800 years, but since what they don't know!"

It goes on and on and on. Read it on your own time.

The first comment is priceless:

Thorazine. Seriously dude.

A post on the UK Indymedia newswire wishes readers a Happy International Women's Day

Around the world, International Women's Day marks a celebration of women’s unity, interests, resistance and achievements because it commemorates a strike, an organized action by women protesting and protecting their rights. It is time to celebrate the fun of women getting together. It is an occasion when a political, social and economic statement is being made about the collective interests of women.

On this remarkable occasion, Working Women Organization expresses strong support and deep solidarity with women who are speaking out against exploitation and struggling hard for making world better place for all human beings.

And what better way to celebrate, than the suggestion made by the very next post...


You go grrrrl!

Following up on the Rachel Corrie Pancake Breakfast, it seems Victoria Indymedia is taking a break.

IMC Victoria is taking a time-out to regroup and rebuild

There is a good chance something interesting will happen here. Sit back and watch. In the meantime, please understand if you see something loathsome in this space, it is a merely a reflection of some loathsome individual's thoughts. Get over it.

It then goes on to prove the point. Perhaps before they regroup and rebuild, they may want to consider what to do about things like this:

Rocks were thrown through windows earlier this week at the Islamic Cultural Centre and the Al-Hissane Islamic Centre. Police spokesman Guy Lajeunesse said Thursday the two mosques are less than a kilometre apart. "At one of the mosques, two rocks, about the size of two baseballs, were tossed through a window which was shattered," Lajeunesse said.

As it was plagiarized entirely from other media, the article is fairly reasonable. Comments however tell a different story:

Not only are the Jews and Zionists generally the racist, imperialist aggressors worldwide, but they are so in control over the media, universities and governments that there can be witnessed a supreme fastidiousness at policing every word and picture that might offend any Jew...Do the Zionists or Jews need any more "outrage" added to what is already permeating our newspapers, radios and TV screens, supplied by the Zionists who own and control this media themselves?

Jews Zionists controlling the media? Who knew? Next you'll be telling us they control governments and eat babies too. What a scoop! Brought to you on Indymedia...

Melbourne, Australia is hosting the 2006 Commonwealth Games.

To celebrate, idiots 'activists' are promoting the Graffiti Games 2006 on Sydney and Melbourne Indymedia. They plan to 'beautify' the city with their spraycans.

Michael Stewart, spokesperson for the Graffiti Games Organising Committee (GGOC) has stated “In the time honoured tradition of other cities which have hosted the Commonwealth Games the council is now attempting to sterilise Melbourne by making it “the world’s most unliveable city” for anyone failing to shape up to their expectations of happy, shiny shoppers. With street artists and the homeless currently being purged how long can it be until people with less than $100 in their pockets, non-designer tracksuits or crooked teeth also find themselves “United By The Moment” in being frogmarched to the city limits for fear of cluttering up the view for wealthy tourists?”

In response to this, and the Victorian Government’s decision to waste $1 million dollars of tax-payers’ money in setting up an anti-graffiti taskforce, GGOC have announced the commencement of the 2006 Graffiti Games. During the Graffiti Games, which begin next week and end in April 2006, the entire Central Business District has been declared a “maximum tolerance zone” open to street art of all forms. Unlike the elitist Commonwealth Games the Graffiti Games will be open to anyone with a spray-can and a good or bad idea. The entire population of Victoria, as well as interstate and international visitors, are encouraged to compete. Although all who take part, and the public at large, will be winners in this tournament the Graffiti Games Organising Committee will also be awarding Gold, Silver and Bronze medals to the most popular entrants in various categories.

These will include -
(a) Most Elaborate Stencil Piece
(b) Funniest Slogan
(c) Largest Graffiti Piece
(d) Most Daring Placement
(e) Best Caricature of the Mayor or other City Of Melbourne Councillor
(f) Most Seditious Piece

I would laugh if this were satire, but satire seldom has its own website.

Sadly, Sydney Indymedia continues to host other material not worth laughing about at all. Witness Faruque Ahmed's latest contribution. Considering what is showing, I shudder to think what comments were hidden...

International Solidarity Movement member Rachel Corrie was flattened by an Israeli bulldozer several years ago. To commemorate this, friends are invited to a Pancake Breakfast at Denny's.

You can't make this sort of thing up.

Comments on the post are priceless:

Honestly, someone squashed flatter than a pancake is memorialized by a breakfast of... huh?

The Palestinians are a people with far less claim to historical legitimacy than the Klingons. Idiots like Rachel Corrie are like geeks who go to summer camp to learn to speak Klingon, but wind up playing with live phaser guns. Note the Klingons were created by TV scriptwriters 1966-67 as the alien nemesis to the Starship Enterprise, a full TV season before scriptwriters at the Kremlin invented the equally fictitious "Palestinians" right after the 1967 Israeli victory.

Others lack a sense of humour:

Regardless of the politics, I would find a Pancake Breakfast to be rather insulting given the way that she died, more over, a pancake breakfast is way way way too cheary to the solomness of the event.

Why not have a Chapeign and Orange Juice breakfast to commemorate the horrors of the Holocaust?

Uh, becuase the Jews weren't turned into Champagne and Orange juice?

The comments also led me to this very interesting page which suggests the ISM were complicit in her death and asks some very hard questions. It also makes the simple point that "When you are more useful to your friends dead than alive, it is time to find new friends-- quickly." Too true! Read it all.

Update: Comments on the Indymedia page suggest I am part of the Grand Conspiracy

This is a hoax, straight out fo COINTELPRO
by heard it before

See:

http://sf.indymedia.org/news/2004/07/1698659_comment.php#1699411

See also, this:

http://indymediawatch.blogspot.com/2006/03/irony-lost.html

Whatever.

Note: This whole post was re-entered from memory. The earlier version appears to have disappeared without a trace. I certainly didn't delete it and will assume Blogger had an error. Can anyone shed some light? (Update: Found it).

According to Sydney Indymedia, It Rained on John Howard's Parade.

Well, not exactly. Actually, it rained on the 1-300 protesters who gathered to 'celebrate' his tenth year in office.

The crowd was vocal, passiontate and incredibly well behaved, at least for the time that I was there. Unfortunately I had to leave before the end but as there has been almost nil media coverage, I'm assuming there were no arrests. This is amazing as the State Protection Group's thugs out numbered the protestors and they've not been adverse to starting a fight in the past. There was also a large mounted presence.

Best of all, was the fact that it rained and rained and rained :)

Well, you've got to admire the optimism... As for the police activities, a comment notes:

Perhaps the police response wouldn't have been as "excessive" if supporters for your cause numbered greater than a handful. I guess the police planners overestimated how popular your protest would be... Not their fault it was a non-start.

Other comments argue whether or not there was violence. I mean you can't have a peaceful protest without violence can you?

No, not George Galloway's next election result but a comment on the Global Indymedia Page here.

To the article:

US/Israel plan nuclear attack on Iran to control oil and defend the dollar

comes this reply:

I think I just lost all respect for this site.....

Your quoting blogs as news now? Joint nuclear strike by Israel and the US on Iran. Are there any facts to back this up? Do you have any idea how dangerous it is to incite hate like this? Dozens died over a cartoon, what kind of results are you trying to get by publishing this?

You just lost all respect? What took you so long...

Other comments make equally valid points:

What nonsense. Well, I don't say it's impossible, that the States or Israel would attack Iran, but this feature is more like a conspiracy theory than information.

And anyway - Israel wouldn't attack iran just because to "protect the dollar", in the first case it would attack it because Iran is led by an antisemitic islamo-fascist goverment, who doesn't have any problem with killing innocent people for the fucking jihad. And yes, there IS a difference between eliminatory antisemitism and US-imperialism!

On the other hand - in Isreal you pay with Shekel, not with Dollar. You're just reproducing antisemitic stereotypes of the bad, bad "eastcoast-jews", who are just about money.

This is no anticapitalist article but pure populism.
Shame on you, Indymedia!

PS.: Why don't you make a feature about anti-islamistic resistance in Iran? Like the strikes in Therean, that were taking place last weeks? Support the progressive resistance, not fascist like ahmedinejad!

I have made similar points in the past. The response continues:

Iranian credibility is low because the UN's atomic watchdog has found that:
a) Iran signed the non-proliferation treaty in order to get access to information, material etc. about nuclear energy, and agreed to various restrictions (including inspections) to ensure compliance.

b) Iran has been found to have been lying about its compliance since approx. 1989. It has acquired Pakistani nuclear weapons technology, been engaged in various subterfuges to acquire technology from the west, has built multiple sites (often in civilan areas) for the different processes needed for manufacture of nuclear weapons and weapons grade uranium (a very different process than for peaceful uses), declined many western (and now Russian) offers to provide enriched non-weapons grade uranium which could only be used for peaceful purposes (in return for disposing of Iran's hidden facilities) etc. etc.

c)Iran combines this behaviour with an extremist, fundamentalist theocratic government, which has both in terms of propaganda, and in terms of funding, supported the spread of other extremist Islamic theocracies throughout the middle east, including through the support of hate filled groups like Hamas and Hezbollah who believe (as does the Iranian government) that only Moslems have a right to be the majority in middle eastern nation states.

The failure of the article writer to provide any of this context, I suppose is his or her right. However, it makes me regard the article as - at best - highly slanted propaganda of an extremist trying to advance a sick agenda, and at worst as the raving of a person detached from reality.

The choice of IMC to have it on the site, is a sign of why these sites remain marginal.

"Marginal" is an understatement.

An open letter to the peace and antiwar movement has apeared on LA Indymedia. Wholly lacking in paragraphs, it makes this point:

Another year of war and occupation is about to pass and it is time for people to renew and increase their efforts for peace

Absolutely. It continues:

We must not be complacent do nothing as many Europeans did when the Nazis sent millions to the concentration camps. The Jews, the Roma, the Gays and Lesbians, and those who opposed fascism, war, and occupation perished in the camps while those who were complacent became complicit.

Quite right.

The only thing is, it's not actually aimed at Islamists, threatening to murder Jews or stone Homosexuals. They're fine. It's just another example of the so-called 'peace movement' representing anything but. Read it all and cringe.

Tim Blair offers this sage advice:

A tip for pro-Islam leftists: when next you feel the need to defend political Islam, just imagine you’re defending anti-gay, anti-abortion, Darwin-opposing southern US creationists. You may be surprised at the change in your thinking.

Sadly, the thinking (or total lack thereof) hasn't changed in some circles... From the original Indymedia article:

On Monday September 26, 2005 over 370 people were arrested in front of The White House protesting the war-occupation. On March 20, 2006 we must increase our numbers. We must send a clear message to our leaders that on March 20 it will not be business as usual at The Pentagon. On March 20th we will shut The War Machine down. We cannot turn away. We must respond, dissent, and resist. It is our duty.

Non-violently of course...

An article on Sydney Indymedia partly reprints a Ha'aretz article concerning an Israeli protester who lost an eye under questionable circumstances.

On the one hand:

Matan Cohen, an Israeli demonstrator against the separation fence, told Haaretz on Saturday that doctors are not sure if he will be able to see out of his eye again after he was reportedly shot the day before by a Border Police officer during a protest.

On the other hand:

IDF sources said a preliminary examination revealed Cohen was injured by a stone thrown by an unruly demonstrator. They said that since he was standing closer to the forces than to the demonstrators, it is likely that he was hit by demonstrators aiming for forces.

The second part, was missing altogether from the post on Sydney Indymedia. A comment on the post observes:

Oddly enough the ISM manages to post the rest of the article. So the anonymous person who posted this article to SIM is even more partisan than the ISM. Wow.

Wow indeed! A further comment:

Without even reading the source, and merely seeing the quote [in the Indymedia article]:

Border Police sources refused to respond to the statements, saying that only Israel Attack Forces spokespeople had the authority to respond to the affair.

it was fairly safe to assume the rest of piece has been manipulated. A quick check of the source proved this correct.

"Originally published in Haaretz" - Bullshit. Absolute bullshit.

...and it lives on Indymedia.