Originally posted to sCNN – the smallChangeNewsNetwork
I’ve been swirling a bit in recent days, wondering if a GivingMarket is needed or possible. Well, not really doubting the need as much as rolling around in the myriad forms this could take. The whole idea continues to dissolve itself in front of me. So far, it always reforms itself as well, but we’ll see. The other night Penny Scott reminded me of the practical power and popular resonance she’s been finding in the notion of “Connecting what we have and what we need.” That conversation pulled me away from “Giving,” and pushed me over in the direction of “Market” or “Exchange” as primary focus… and back in the direction of “Small Change.”
This comes on top of earlier conversations that moved me to focus on inviting a flow of Giving and /SmallChange News, rather than on capturing project data or processing transactions. Has me questioning everything, including the name “GivingMarket.” Maybe this will turn out to be SCNN… small change news network! A steady stream of news that would surface and cultivate the askings and offerings, connectings and postings that are the growing edge of the common good.
Meanwhile, an Anarchogeek item has been percolating in my inbox, a gift from TedErnst on the Evolution of Indymedia.
…Indymedia is a media system built upon the premise that only by radical participation in a communal discursive space can a new conception of politics be created. It is this open publishing, participatory media making network which invites a broad spectrum of social movements to participate that makes indymedia special…
…we’ve got websites, servers, videos, andstreaming web video radio stations with sms gateways, and automated breaking news phone lines, but what we really have is a new model for ‘what is to be done.’ Indymedia is the 21st century version of the leninist party newspaper. It’s something who’s time has come, the mix has grown and been shaped by the movements around it. It’s a way of constructing a broad popular front without coercion or hierarchy. Where the proletarian, or student / proletarian, or counter culture blocks of radical actors have been replaced by a contradictory multitude…
We’ve made some interesting decisions as we’ve evolved. We decided to embody a radical form of participatory democracy and consensus. We decided to not have a central office or staff. We decided not to have presidents, directors, staff, or elections. We never talk in the name of indymedia, and never make endorsements alongside other leftist groups, except in some cases directly related to media activism. We’ve discovered that we have a lot to learn from the free software movement, and copied many of their tools and techniques. We’ve appropriated technology as an essential tool for radical social change. We decided that each imc should be allowed tremendous autonomy. We’ve decided we do have values and kicked out groups which weren’t open, weren’t leftist, or were controlled by a leftist political party (mostly greens, maoists, and trots.) We’ve decided that we don’t care too much what other people think of us.
I don’t take, and I wouldn’t expect a GivingMarket or SmallChangeExchange to take, any position at all along a political, left-right, spectrum. We and it ought to be about the business of transcending and including the whole of that. That said, I do find some of the structural characteristics here interesting. In my recent confusions, this view of indymedia reminds me that we are awash in moving multitudes experimenting with dissolving media.
Sometimes the thing that stops me is that I come up to the point where the idea is so very small and simple, and the potential of these new media is too great to ignore, that I crumble a bit at what feels like an arrogance in doing something so small and expecting it to have any effect at all… especially a potentially large one. This hesitation at the edge of simple power, I suppose, is precisely what seems so necessary for more and more of us to poke through now. Ah, the challenges of doing less and doing it easy!
Elsewhere, TheObvious has gone back to two columns. Looks so good I might have to try it here, too!
technorati: sCNN | SmallChangeNews