Hey cool, that didn't take long to get censored off their site. Excepting, they left a very critical response that was just chock full of straw men up there, unmolested.

Now if that's not an example of censorship being used to quell dissent, I don't know what is.

So... here's my response, which will (I'm sure) quickly disappear as well. I might email the next one over to the domain contacts for indymedia.org because I am really having a hard time swallowing how this is going down.

"What's interesting about this response is that it unquestioningly accepts the media's portrayal of last week's events."

No, it actually does not. How you can claim this when the post doesn't even have anything to do with any coverage but Indymedia's is beyond me--unless you're basically looking for a straw man to beat.

"You do realize (I hope) that reporters from AP, Fox and the New York Post were also gassed and arrested. Apparently, big media can be targeted just as much as anyone else."

Of course. There's no doubt that the cops were being as much a bunch of jerks (okay, so I'm being really polite about that) as anyone if not more. The problem being, it can take an overwhelming amount of evidence to convince people who weren't there and have had mostly useful and constructive relations with the police that the police actually were acting like jackbooted thugs, which means there can be no excuses for the behaviour exhibited. None. Nada. Zero. You must maintain clean hands! This is hard to manage when there's an audio stream basically chuckling about things being broken and people commenting in text about being hopeful for the construction of barricades. Oh, and lets not forget calling the disruption of the event a win. Cripes that looks bad.

"Additionally, which ones were the independent press who 'engaged' in the action, thus 'deserving' what happened? They were filming and photographing, as press are supposed to."

You really aren't good at this sort of spin-doctoring. I didn't say anyone "engaged" in this was "deserving" of anything. I did however say (among other things) that posting live updates right at the top of the website about where serious problems were happening and telling people to go there was irresponsible. Of course, I'm not so sure anything even happened to the guys responsible for putting that sort of stuff up. I'm not certain but I think they were far, far away in another city. (Bonus points for people smart enough to see the parallel here)

"For one thing, I'm not sure why you think that destruction was 'the goal'. Not only that, but mass arrests DID occur at marches where there was NO property damage occurring, so the 'you brought it on yourself' argument is null and void."

Again, this isn't something I said. In fact, I said the exact oppposite and was very explicit about this in the last paragraph. I also didn't make any 'you brought it on yourself' argument. If I wanted to blame it on someone, I'd blame it on the spoiled brats who brought "it" on everyone else, with a side order of accusing glare for the people who stood around and just let the people who smashed stuff scamper away.

"Also, this is basically saying 'you would have looked better if you had NOT fought back', which is not only pathetic, but fails to acknowledge the extreme likelihood that the media would have reported some kind of widespread destruction anyway, regardless what actually happened."

Nope. You're reading some other post by some other person--perhaps someone with some haystalks sticking out of their sleeves. You on the other hand, seem to be implying that people "fought back" when things were being smashed. Who they were fighting, I have no idea, and I don't think you do either, which is part of your problem. Smashing a bunch of stuff doesn't actually accomplish anything unless you're really into broken glass and debris as an art form. I know for sure those windows and police cars didn't hit first, because inanimate objects are cool like that. You can trust 'em to hang in there and tough it out and not get all panicky.

"If you actually believe that 800 people (more? what was the final arrest count?) were responsible for three broken windows, or that, had those windows not been broken, the media would have been honest and portrayed the arrests as unjustified, your blind faith in spin is pretty astounding."

Okay, I've been pretty subtle (and perhaps a little snarky) about it until now, but basically, you've assembled enough straw men to take on the Terracotta legions, and that one's wearing headphones and standing in front of turntables. The only blind faith I've got in spin is that I can count on the spin being there, especially when it comes to matters of civil unrest.

What's interesting about your post is that it makes it appear you're quite an expert on spin, since I notice that as I write this my original response that you're attempting to twist into a completely unrecognizable state has been censored from the site, while your little diatribe against it and one other similar one remains standing. Gosh, the hypocracy of the indymedia site just never ends, does it! Isn't there a mission statement or something to that effect that goes entirely against pulling something like that?

GOOD THING FOR ME I MADE A BACKUP, BECAUSE I'M COOL LIKE THAT (in addition to having the cojones to post with an identity other than Anonymous).

http://www.memestreams.net/users/dagmar/blogid10330660

Sincerely,
Me.

Still an actual anarchist and not some kid who thinks it means throwing crap on people when it's convenient. (only when it's funny.)

RE: Statement to "Indymedia"