[New-imc] Re: [Imc-north-texas-discuss] NORTH TEXAS (take a look)

[Martin Wallace]

Hello Jay and new-imc list. Instead of me re-writing my intro and 
answering the question "why does north Texas need an IMC," I wanted to 
give the North Texas collective a chance to have some input in this 
process. I am including some results here. One of our members went as 
far as to re-answer the application questions because he was confused 
about what it was that we needed. I will provide that here to, because 
many of his answers are much more in depth than my original application 
answers were.
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An answer to your question...

We need an indymedia because all of the other papers
in the area are super-right-wing and totally supress
or ignore any and all information about what's going
on that they don't agree with or want to deal with.
So, we need to make our own way of keeping up with
real life.

--Johanna-- (binankha at yahoo.com)
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? Why does North texas need an IMC?

For people for don't know North Texas is a gargencious (sp?) area
with two large cities and countless smaller ones in betwixt and
inbetwen.  At first glance at the residents of this area it appears
to be all trucks and new money.  But in the cracks there are
progressive people planting seeds all over.  Indymedia is a people
oriented valuable media that would be a wonderful addition to
everyone of north texas.  It would be a bridge across a flat area
bridging radical thinkers, critical thinkers and questioning souls.
IMC would be an outlet for ALL the people of the north texas region.
On Thursday, September 26, 2002, at 11:05 AM, Jay wrote:

Bernadette (bernstar at wildmail.com)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My name is Martin and I've been a media activists for roughly one year. 
I have no formal journalism training, nor did I ever expect to be doing 
anything even slightly related to journalism. The fact is that I am 
completely driven by the necessity to shed light on corruption, scandal 
and corporate greed in order to foster in a new world of coexistence and 
sustainability. Why does north Texas need an IMC? North Texas needs a 
radical, progressive news source for covering radical, progressive 
events in the North Texas area. This is an area with big money and deep 
corporate ties and this is the side that most everyone sees. But 
underneath that is a highly charged current of activists that are 
struggling for change on a daily basis. We need to bring some light to 
these people and their struggles. Also, there are two Radical Encuentro 
Camps per year in the Dallas area; there are large shareholders meetings 
going on all the time in the metroplex; the Bush regime make frequent 
visits to the area; there are two giant universities as well as a cadre 
of smaller to larger ones. All of these things bring in activists from 
all over the world for various reasons.

Martin (amorph13 at worldunrest.org)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The reason I didn't answer your first question is because I didn't 
understand
it. You mentioned a questionnaire, and the need to answer it, but I 
didn't see
the questionnaire in your original post. And I figured that whatever you 
were
talking about was something you guys discussed at a meeting I didn't go 
to.

As for "Martin's IMC," I send stuff all the time. And I've been 
promoting the NT
IMC to people every chance I get. I've been trying to get people to 
invite the
NT IMC to cover their events -- like the upcoming Robert Jensen lecture 
this
Saturday, for example, and the Boy Scouts of America protest next week.

Additionally, I've been exploring free Internet radio station 
broadcasting sites
as a possibility for an eventual NT IMC radio show. So I'd say I've been 
working
on this idea.

It would really help a lot if the NT IMC could get some T-shirts with 
IMC logos
on them (I already have two) and wear them at major progressive events, 
and
carry digital cameras, tape recorders and notebooks and COVER the events 
as
journalists. Then the progressive community in Dallas would take us much 
more
seriously.

Cliff (cliffpearson at netzero.net)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BELOW IS THE COMPLETE APPLICATION QUESTIONNAIRE COMPLETED BY NTIMC 
MEMBER CLIFF PEARSON. CLIFF IS ONE OF OUR MOST ACTIVE MEMBERS AND IS 
ALSO A GREEN PARTY CANDIDATE IN DALLAS. THIS APPLICATION SHOULD NOT 
REPLACE OUR ORIGINALLY SUBMITTED APPLICATION, BUT THERE ARE SOME DETAILS 
THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST TO YOU. CLIFF FILLED IN THE ENTIRE QUESTIONNAIRE 
DUE TO MISCOMMUNICATION BETWEEN HE AND I.

Do you agree in spirit to the global IMC Mission Statement and 
Principles of Unity?

We do, as it says in our published Mission Statement.

Do you have a committed membership substantial enough to sustain a 
functional IMC?

Yes. The Green Party of Dallas County fully supports and unofficially 
endorses the North Texas IMC. The Dallas Greens have a membership of 
over 500, 11 candidates for political office (making them the most 
electorally active county Green party in Texas), and an average monthly 
meeting attendance of 40. In addition to the Dallas Greens, the North 
Texas IMC has the full support and unofficial endorsement of the Collin 
County, Denton County and Tarrant County Greens -- whose membership 
sizes I'm not aware of. Also, the North Texas IMC has the support and 
unofficial endorsement of the D/FW Socialist Party in Dallas, and of 
several anarchist groups in North Texas.

We also have the local support of the ACLU and National Lawyers Guild, 
several environmentalist groups, Amnesty International's four local 
chapters, the Student-Labor Coalition at UT-Dallas and the Leftist 
Student Union at Texas Christian University.

Individually, I am a complete backer of the North Texas IMC and I am a 
known IMC contributor to several IMCs. Type my name, "Cliff Pearson," 
into http://www.google.com and see how many times I've written for the 
Quebec IMC alone. I'm also a former mainstream journalist and am a 
published freelance writer, and a guest commentator on the world-wide 
broadcaster Radio Left.

Lastly, on the "need" for a North Texas IMC, I would like to point out 
that the Dallas suburb of Irving is the headquarters of Exxon-Mobil, the 
largest multinational corporation in the world and one of the dirtiest 
in the world. We also have Haliburton headquartered in Dallas, and J.C. 
Penney -- a major sweatshop user -- headquartered in the Dallas suburb 
of Plano. Additionally, Dallas is headquarters for major defense 
contractor Texas Instruments (TI) and Dallas suburb Richardson is the 
headquarters of Raytheon, the company that makes electronic targeting 
devices for nuclear bombs. Fort Worth is headquarters for Bell Textron, 
the company that makes the Apache and Blackhawk military attack 
helicopters.

In other words, there is plenty to work on in North Texas, and annual 
protests and direct action at the yearly shareholders' meeting of 
Exxon-Mobil alone is getting increasingly larger each year, with more 
and more activists from around the country coming down to picket, making 
the need for independent media more and more important.

Do you have open and public meetings? (No one group can have 
exclusionary "ownership" of an IMC.)

All of our meetings are open and public.

Are you working toward developing a local Mission Statement or Statement 
of Purpose?

We did this. We have these documents online.

Have you established and published an editorial policy which is 
developed and functions through democratic process, and with full 
transparency?

We did this.

Do you agree to the use of Open Publishing as described in the IMC 
Communication Network's Editorial Policy?

Yes. We did this too.

Have you adopted a decision-making policy that is in alignment with 
consensus principles which include open, transparent and egalitarian 
processes?

We did this also.

Do you have a spokesperson(s) willing and capable of participating in 
the global decision-making process and meetings as a  rotating 
liason/representative, with a clear understanding of the 
responsibilities that come with this role?

Martin Wallace is already doing this.

Will you participate in the key IMC Communication Network methods that 
pertain to the health and vitality of the Network and that contribute to 
the work of the IMC? Will you assure that at least one person from your 
local IMC participates at any given time on the IMC-Communications 
listserv?

Martin Wallace is doing this too.

Do you agree to have no official affiliation with any political party, 
state or candidate for office? (But individual producers have freedom to 
do whatever they like, and local IMCs can "feature" stories about 
various political parties and initiatives.)

The Green and Socialist support for the North Texas IMC is unofficial. I 
only mean that their members know about, like, and help promote the 
North Texas IMC.

IMCs shall in no way engage in commercial for-profit enterprises. Do you 
agree to this condition?

We agree completely.

Will you display a local version of the IMC logo on your Web site and 
literature?

We have a North Texas IMC logo on our home page.

Will you include the IMC Communications Network's current "Cities List" 
on your front page?

Yes. But will all the other IMCs do the same for us? Will we get a link 
on all the other IMC pages? And will we get to have
http://northtexas.indymedia.org and/or http://nt.indymedia.org, at least 
as referrers to our page?

One question has to do with outreach. I know you've been organizing for 
a while. What kind of outreach has been done to  various parts of the 
community in order to bring people into the IMC?

As I said above, the Greens, socialists, anarchists, the National 
Lawyers Guild, the ACLU, environmentalists, Amnesty International, labor 
groups, and other radicals and progressives have already been spreading 
the word about the new North Texas IMC. These represent the most radical 
and progressive segments of North Texas. We couldn't ask for better 
support and promotion.

Are most of the core members from one particular part of town, or ethnic 
group, etc.?

I can't answer that and I'm not sure anyone else can either. I don't 
think that anyone has really looked to see where most of our supporters 
live. But I know from my personal connections that Dallas area radicals 
and progressives love the North Texas IMC, and most of our people are 
from the city of Dallas itself.

I can also say that the North Texas IMC, through my efforts, is being 
promoted through the atheist/humanist and GLBT communities, and through 
the African-American community via Roy Williams, veteran civil rights 
activist, author, and Green Party Texas senatorial candidate. The Dallas 
progressive and radical community is very diverse -- including pagans, 
Unitarians, atheists, agnostics, Jews, Muslims, and other religious 
minorities; people of color; the working poor; labor; environmentalists; 
women; students; GLBT people; immigrants and others.

Since you've chosen to call yourselves "North Texas," what kind of 
outreach has gone on outside of urban areas?

This question represents an unintentional regional ignorance. The 
Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex is a huge area that encompasses a territory 
the size of Rhode Island and is home to 3 million people. While Dallas 
and Fort Worth are large cosmopolitan areas -- with all the diversity 
large urban centers bring -- and while Denton is a college town with a 
large progressive base of students, Plano is literally split down the 
middle by Central Expressway, and divided between wealthy White 
conservatives on the west and progressive, working poor, immigrants and 
people of color on the east.

The Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex has the nation's seventh worst urban 
sprawl problem, meaning that the North Texas IMC's territories are very 
separated by distance. In between all these areas I mentioned above are 
much smaller "urban rural" communities, towns, and suburbs. 
Demographically, these smaller towns are very conservative. Therefore, 
the most efficient means for the North Texas IMC to grow itself is to 
continue working in the larger urban areas where our demographics are 
best.

The other question has to do with your thoughts about the group's 
association with the Greens. Not that there can't be members of a 
particular party or group involved in an IMC, but every IMC has the 
responsibility to not become affiliated closely with a specific 
organization. I'm sure you've talked about this, I just want to make 
sure there has been good discussion about the site being a venue for 
many shades of opinion, and won't operate as a de facto organizing 
outlet for the local Greens. Just taking the cue from the top feature on 
your test site, about "Meet the Greens."

The Green Party is simply the most politically active grassroots 
progressive group in all of North Texas right now, and that mostly has 
to do with the fact that it's an election year. This is why the North 
Texas IMC may seem to have so much on it
about the Green Party right now. I'm sure this will cease to be the case 
in a couple of months. But the North Texas IMC's core people are not all 
Greens, and this needs to be understood. There is no official 
relationship with the Green Party by the North Texas IMC.

The support I mention from the Greens -- I want to emphasize -- is in 
spreading the word about the North Texas IMC as an alternative, 
truthful, noncorporate news outlet -- finally -- for North Texas. All 
the Greens I know are frequent readers and contributors to all the IMCs, 
and several of us even have the global IMC as our browser's home page.

When several Dallas activists went to Washington, D.C. last weekend for 
the IMF/World Bank protest, the Greens promoted the DC IMC as a source 
for accurate, up-to-the-minute news on the protest.

The Greens do not financially support the North Texas IMC and the North 
Texas IMC has not co-sponsored any events with the Greens. I am a local 
Green Party candidate and I have been a very frequent contributor to the 
North Texas IMC, but I have not once posted anything self-promotional of 
my candidacy.

Perhaps the "Meet the Greens" post was ill-advised for the North Texas 
IMC. Instead of advertising the event on the North Texas IMC Web site, a 
local independent journalist should have reported on it.

One more thing -- I'm sure people in the network would get a kick out of 
"meeting" the other members of the group too.

I'm very well known within the IMC community around the country. As I 
mentioned above, put my name in any search engine and see how much I've 
published and how popular my independent journalism has been. If anyone 
wants to know more about
my background in radical politics, I suggest they check out my 
"qualifications" link on my candidacy Web site, 
http://www.cliffpearson.com.


> Hi everyone,
>
> Haven't heard any response to the comments sent by Martin addressing 
> some questions I asked about the North Texas IMC application, so I'm 
> hoping people approve.  I'm sending their membership criteria to this 
> list for us to look at for the next three days.  If there's no dissent, 
> we can pass it along to imc-process.
>
> One final piece of the puzzle is a brief introduction from the North 
> Texas IMC, telling us a bit about the need for independent media in 
> Northern Texas and introducing the rest of the network to the NT-IMC.  
> Martin, I know you sent something like that along already, perhaps with 
> your new-imc application form, or more recently.  I can't seem to dig 
> it up.  Could you locate that and resend it to the list?  That would be 
> really helpful.
>
> Thanks, everyone.
>
> Jay
>
> _______________________________________________
> Imc-north-texas-discuss mailing list
> Imc-north-texas-discuss at lists.indymedia.org
> http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/imc-north-texas-discuss
>
>
>
Martin

Contibuting to:
www.ntimc.org
www.worldunrest.org
www.dentonactivists.org


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