Indymedia: A little rational, a lot of radical

You can learn some interesting things rooting around the Internet doing research.

For example, you’re liable to run into the North Carolina Independent Media Center. According to its own description of itself, the NC-IMC is a “non-corporate, anti-authoritarian collective of North Carolina independent media makers and media outlets, and serves as the local organizing unit of the global Indymedia network ...”

It must be comforting to someone that the NC-IMC is “non-corporate.” Corporations are, after all, almost the most evil of evils. That is because if they are regular corporations, they seek the very most evil of evils — profit.

Along the way, they provide jobs and livings for families, they keep our community charities humming, and they pay lots and lots of taxes, but never mind that.

They also put out newspapers. Most of us don’t hold that against them, but NC-IMC does. This “non-corporate” medium, NC-IMC, boasts the lofty goal of making everyone the media, giving people a place to report whatever it is that they consider to be news and to offer editorial comment.

Its contributors have posted a few rational items, but mostly it is a big collection of left-wing trash. Perhaps it gives us an idea of how a corporate newspaper would look if it wasn’t edited. It wouldn’t look very good.

Here, for example, is an excerpt of an item from the NC-IMC Web site, called Indymedia:

“So it is written, so it shall be done.

“Traitor evil lawless bushite enemy, die for us instead of our good families of innocent men women and children.

“True American blood brother, why don't you, get your guns loaded and kill un-arrested bush and rumsfeld for 9/11 proudly ...” That’s enough of that blather. You get the idea.

Now, free expression is a good thing, but there are limits, and those limits are somewhere short of advocating murder. Advocating murder is a bad thing for Indymedia to do, but at least it’s not a corporation.

Published in Editorials on August 27, 2004 11:52 AM