NYC indymedia drama

Chris Flash 9 hrs · A first hand experience by a woman I know that speaks volumes: I was involved w Indymedia since WTO protest in 1999 in Seattle. I saw how it quickly became a law enforcement target. When I joined the NYC indymedia in 2000, things were good at first but it was quickly infiltrated and taken over in a "coup" like power grab by authoritarians such as Arun Gupta and his goon henchmen bully John Tarleton who runs it til this day. They purged the NYC Indymedia of all radicals, anarchists and anyone who challenged their absolute control. If you brought up consensus or Indymedia's founding "principles of unity" you were labelled "disruptive" or a trouble maker. Only those who kissed Arun & John's ass were allowed to stay. They rest of us, including now murdered anarchist journalist Brad Will were utterly disgusted and appalled and left. We were very disillusioned as we had been very idealistic and had really believed in a revolutionary people's media. Ironically the parasite scumbags who stole, co-opted and then "corporatized" the NYC Indymedia, particularly their newspaper, the Indypendent, adopted the slogan, "Don't hate the media, be the media." What's totally wretched about the slogan is that hating the corporate fascist media is the reason we formed indymedia in the first place! Secondly the NYC Indypendent has become controlled, hierarchical and as standardized as any corporate controlled media. I much prefer the Athens, Greece indymedia slogan which is "Smash the mass media! Athens Indymedia" - Sweet and simple! The coup at the NYC Indymedia was absolutely sickening. It was a strange combination of infiltrators, (Particuarly post 911 after NYPD received a huge counter terrorism budget) and authoritarian self serving careerists like Jed Brandt, Ana Noguera, Arun Gupta and John Tarleton whose main goal was seizing control of what should have remained a democratic community based grassroots project. Most people who don't know this history only see the logo - Indymedia - are fooled into thinking the NYC Indypendent is a real indymedia project. But those of us who were there to witness this ugly chapter in history know that the NYC indymedia is about as genuine as a cheap fake Gucci knockoff that you get for $20 in Chinatown. The NYC Indypendent and Indymedia is a fraud. It has been effectively neutralized. Those of us who were young and idealistic did not know how to protect the integrity of the structure we created. We lost. That was shattering for those of us who truly lived our ideals and sacrificed personal gain for the greater good.

Chris Flash is the editor of The Shadow newspaper in NYC....>>>

sent from @MultCo_Copwatch who says "you should put that info in your Blog...."