The Voice of the People

Posted at the end of the last thread...

Posted by: karen at February 28, 2006 07:45 AM

How do we set up a press office and deliver press releases, video, photos to the media? How do we start inviting the media to accompany us as we engage in our events or shepherd them through our side of the story? How do we take it beyond the LTE and blog stage? Businesses, even large non-profits, have their own press offices...how do we join them?

Posted by: Veritas at February 28, 2006 09:26 AM

Everyone:

Anyone who wants to think about this outloud, I'll be in the irc tonight. Will bring Dick too...

Dear Polly -

One of the original stated objectives of this blog was "media reform."

How do you suggest we educate the media?

I know how it can be done on a local level. I got quoted on WCCO because I wrote to the fellow who does "Reality Check" segments every Wed. night. (Well, okay; I wrote a total of three letters to him, and only the third one debunked one of the ads.) I don't pretend my letter of outrage debunking one of two stupid warmongering ads did any good - perhaps many letters of outrage helped. (Most likely the people who paid for the ad only decided to air them for a certain length of time, so that's probably why the ads stopped.) One in-state TV station refused to run the stupid ads, which was encouraging; it means someone with enough seniority in that TV station's administration saw the lies and opted for conscience and good citizenship over propaganda and lies. I only wrote to one TV station, one other station did not run the ads, but that still leaves other TV stations who did run the ads, and perhaps they didn't hear from viewers.

Do you think it's possible to "educate" local media with letters debunking lies in TV ads can actually help? This is not the first time I've written to a TV station about news or ad content, but it's the first time I've known others wrote about the same issue.

What about national media? Will bombarding local media with letters debunking lies "filter up" to national media? Dare we hope such a thing could happen and that national media would eventually "hear" what their listeners/viewers are saying out here in the dingtoolies?

I confess, I about went mad having to replay those ads I downloaded so I could get the precise quotes to sufficiently debunk the lies in the ads, and it gave me a headache to listen to the lies over and over. I deleted them and ran my antiviral program (again) immediately upon finishing the quotes... it felt like having dirty porn on my system to know those ads were sitting on my desktop for a couple of days.

I plan to keep on writing local in-state media when I hear lies (and maybe national media if I can bear to listen to them), but I'm only one person....

From Superpower to Tinhorn Dictatorship
By Paul Craig Roberts
America is headed for a soft dictatorship by the end of Bush’s second term. Whether any American has civil rights will be decided by the discretionary power of federal officials. The public in general will tolerate the soft dictatorship as its discretionary powers will mainly be felt by those few who challenge it.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12096.htm
Excerpt:
When Bush attacks Iran, the US army will be caught between the Iraqi Shia and the Iranian Shia and will be decimated in fourth generation conflict, so aptly described by William S. Lind. If a few thousand Sunni insurgents can tie down 10 US divisions, imagine the fate of US forces trapped in a Shia crescent.

The collapsing power of the US hegemon is everywhere evident. It is evident in the inability to successfully occupy Iraq or even Baghdad. It is evident in the growing military cooperation between North and South Korea, and it is evident it the revolt in the Indian government against Prime Minister Singh’s nuclear agreement with the US. Indians say this agreement subjects India to US hegemony and represents America’s attempt to block India’s pioneering research on thorium as a nuclear fuel. Opposition parties have told Singh that if he signs the agreement, they will bring down his government.

The entire world now recognizes that America has lost its economic power and is dependent on the rest of the world to finance its budget and trade deficits. The US no longer holds the cards. American real incomes are falling, except for the rich. Jobs for university graduates are scarce, and advanced technology products must be imported from China. The US is a rapidly declining power and may soon end up as nothing but a tinhorn dictatorship.

{{{Interesting that the author says "WHEN Bush attacks Iran"..... I do wish Lamestream Media and the rest of the world would stop saying "when" as though the invasion of Iran is a done deal... it just imposes The Cretin's will to illegally invade another country on the citizens of this country to force us into resigned acceptance of his dictatorship and his wars.... Like we used to talk about on the old Kerry blog, it makes our mentality that of abused spouses or children to constantly be forced to accept everything our abuser (The Cretin) dishes out, and there is no one to rescue us, and no legislators, Dem or Repub, strong enough to stand up to him and tell us the truth about our mental and emotional state under the wannabe dictator. If there is no strong legislator to lead us out of chaos, we will end up in a civil war in this country to rescue ourselves from our oppressor.}}}

The Smoking Gun
By Mike Whitney
By now, we should realize that the Bush administration has no plan to govern Iraq nor do they care a whit about the suffering of the Iraqi people. The only thing the matters is the extraction of petroleum from Iraqi oil-fields and its unobstructed transfer to the market. The rest is rubbish. “We don’t do body counts”, boasted General Tommy Franks.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12095.htm

Total Information Awareness Lives On Inside the National Security Agency
Democracy Now!
"Every purchase you make with a credit card, every magazine subscription you buy and medical prescription you fill, every Web site you visit and e-mail you send or receive, every academic grade you receive, every bank deposit you make, every trip you book and every event you attend -- all these transactions and communications will go into what the Defense Department describes as 'a virtual, centralized grand database.' Watch or listen here.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12090.htm
Thom Hartmann | When Americans No Longer Own America
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0227-20.htm

The World That Dick Built
By Sheila Samples
This is the guy who pulled the trigger of the gun that fired the round that hit his friend that ruined the hunt and shed some light on the world that Dick built...
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12092.htm

Halliburton to Get Paid Most of Disputed Funds
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022706R.shtml
The Army has decided to reimburse a Halliburton subsidiary for nearly all of its disputed costs on a $2.41 billion no-bid contract to deliver fuel and repair oil equipment in Iraq, even though the Pentagon's own auditors had identified more than $250 million in charges as potentially excessive or unjustified.

Jason Leopold | Enron Trial Avoids the Real Ripoff
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022706A.shtml
Jason Leopold examines the documents released by the federal energy regulators in the Enron case. The material provides the most vivid portrait to date of the company's questionable trading practices that ignited California's power crisis, and led to a financial meltdown at the company which Lay and Skilling hid from securities regulators and investors, and which both men are now being prosecuted for.
{{{Interesting... Chinkster had his grubby little fingers in this scandal, too....}}}

Marjorie Cohn | Human Rights Hypocrisy
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022706J.shtml
Marjorie Cohn writes: Bolton stated last month, "Membership on the Commission by some of the world's most notorious human rights abusers mocks the legitimacy of the Commission and the United Nations itself." But Bolton was not referring to the United States, which invaded Iraq in violation of the UN Charter, killed thousands of innocent Iraqis, and tortured and abused prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay.
{{{When does Bolton's appointment expire? Jan. 2007? That vile creature needs to be barred from the UN.}}}

Mark Danner | You Can Do Anything with a Bayonet Except Sit on It
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022706O.shtml
Mark Danner states that torture is a very direct route from human rights, which is to say, restricted power, to unleashed power. We see a movement here backwards from ideals that were at the root of this country's founding during the enlightenment: the restriction of government power and the conviction that human beings had certain inherent rights, one of which was the freedom from cruel and inhuman treatment.

German Intelligence Gave US Iraqi Defense Plan
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022706D.shtml
Two German intelligence agents in Baghdad obtained a copy of Saddam Hussein's plan to defend the Iraqi capital, which a German official passed on to American commanders a month before the invasion, according to a classified study by the United States military. In providing the Iraqi document, German intelligence officials offered more significant assistance to the United States than their government has publicly acknowledged.

The Case for Impeachment:
That President George W. Bush comes to power with the intention of invading Iraq is a fact not open to dispute.
http://harpers.org/TheCaseForImpeachment.html

Arundhati Roy : Bush in India: Just Not Welcome :
On his triumphalist tour of India and Pakistan, where he hopes to wave imperiously at people he considers potential subjects, President Bush has an itinerary that's getting curiouser and curiouser.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12098.htm

Bush Should Not Visit Gandhi Memorial, Say Peaceniks
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0227-05.htm

A FOOL'S ECONOMIC PARADISE
Stephen Pizzo, News for Real
Bushonomics has been the most destructive set of economic policies to hit Americans since Herbert Hoover. No, wait. That understates the problem.
http://www.alternet.org/story/32754/

Plan B Battles Embroil States
http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/022706WA.shtml
Filling a void left by the Food and Drug Administration's inability to decide whether to make the "morning-after" pill available without a prescription, nearly every state is or soon will be wrestling with legislation that would expand or restrict access to the drug.

PLANNED PARENTHOOD'S PRICEY PILLS
Kara Jesella, Nerve.com
For young women, access to low-cost birth control is more important than ever. So why's it so hard -- and expensive -- to get it from Planned Parenthood?
http://www.alternet.org/story/32759/
{{{Comments section is good....}}}

Bill Robinson | Republicans Unfit to Adopt
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0227-34.htm

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060227/ap_on_go_ot/ports_security
Paper: Coast Guard Has Port Co. Intel Gaps
WASHINGTON - Citing broad gaps in U.S. intelligence, the Coast Guard cautioned the Bush administration that it was unable to determine whether a United Arab Emirates-owned company might support terrorist operations, a Senate panel said Monday.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060227/ap_on_el_pr/clinton2008
Sen. Clinton Says Rove Obsesses About Her
{{{ I'm inclined to agree with Hillary. Also, I think Rove, et al., are trying to coerce the Dems into making Hillary the Dem candidate in 2008. This nation is not yet ready to accept a female president (of either party, quite frankly), and if Hillary gets the nomination, it's almost a guaranteed loss for the Dems, and another win for someone in the neoCon camp... someone Rove plans to put in place to further PNAC objectives, if he can convince Georgie-Boy to not be a dictator for life. If Hillary wins the nomination, questions like what I saw in a bad "joke" about her making the email rounds are sure to be asked, and it would mean a shoe-in for whoever Rove and the PNAC neoCons choose - which will guarantee more war in the Mideast with the USA as the aggressor....}}}

Poll: 72 percent of troops want out of Iraq in a year

http://rawstory.com/news/2006/Poll_72_percent_of_troops_want_0228.html

SUPPORT THE TROOPS... APATHY KILLS!

Nonny, IMHO the way to "get through" to the media is to spoon-feed them our (=progressives) point of view through our own press office. Put out press releases, photography, video, etc, especially when there are stories of compelling local interest. For example, someone has organized a tutoring group at the local inner-city middle school. We put out a press release (with pictures) highlighting the activity and then invite the media to come with us as we show them an "insider's view" of what's going on. We allow them to interview a tutorer or a few children. Throughout the process, we subtly hint/point out that under No Child Left Behind, these students were supposed to receive free tutoring, but when we found out they weren't receiving any tutoring at all, we stepped into the gap. Add a little contained outrage at the fact that our tax money is supposed to pay for NCLB but instead we are paying taxes and not getting tutoring. This administration really takes a double view of needy children. Look at how well these kids are learning when they're given a chance....

Etc. I envision many press offices scattered through the country. We need to make sure the quality of what we're releasing through the press offices is standard and that the ideas we're pushing all resonate around similar tonal centers.

LTEs (and for that matter, a "left" version of Fox News, which reinforces the base only) are too easily written off as "those crazy liberals". In fact I often choke when reading many of the LTEs in our paper because they are just a bunch of right-wing (or left-wing) talking points strung together. What the media looks for is something of compelling local interest. They don't really care if something is "true" or not (and anyway, truth is rather fungible).

I am curious as to how we can actually start setting up these "press offices".

Some may question the appropriateness of having a raucous party in a city still devastated and in mourning six months after the deluge of Hurricane Katrina. But for Monk Boudreaux, tradition is thicker than flood water. "This is more than tossing beads and having a party. This is something that runs deep inside us," said Boudreaux, the Big Chief of the Golden Eagles tribe. "It's in our blood."

Happy Mardi Gras

Bush says bin Laden tape aided re-election: report

26 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush said his 2004 re-election victory over Sen. John Kerry was inadvertently aided by Osama bin Laden, who issued a taped diatribe against him the Friday before Americans went to the polls, The Examiner newspaper reported on Tuesday.

Bush said there were "enormous amounts of discussion" inside his campaign about the 15-minute tape, which he called "an interesting entry by our enemy" into the presidential race.

Bush's comments in the Washington newspaper were excerpts from the new book "Strategery" by Bill Sammon, a long-time White House correspondent.

"What does it mean? Is it going to help? Is it going to hurt?" Bush told Sammon of the bin Laden tapes. "Anything that drops in at the end of a campaign that is not already decided creates all kinds of anxieties, because you're not sure of the effect.

"I thought it was going to help," Bush said. "I thought it would help remind people that if bin Laden doesn't want Bush to be the president, something must be right with Bush."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060228/pl_nm/bush_binladen_election_dc

William Rivers Pitt: The Boomerang
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/022806Z.shtml
William Rivers Pitt writes that the flap over the United Arab Emirates taking control of several American ports, the subject of much hot talk over the last several days, is born of several factors. It is only partially about global economics. America's trade relationship with the UAE is the third largest in the Middle East after Saudi Arabia and Israel, so the gospel of "free trade" is definitely in play.

Anyone read Harper's March 2006 issue. It's a good one to go out and buy the hard copy!

When you're done reading the Case for Impeachment, remember to read the article about torture and liberalism (in the John Stuart Mill, and not the Rush Limbaugh, sense).

Bush Job Approval Hits All-Time Low:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060228/pl_nm/bush_poll_dc

34% approval.

Somewhere a duck limps.

'As far as George W Bush being a great military strategist, he is neither a strategist, nor is he schooled in the operational arts, nor is he a tactician, nor is he a general, nor is he a soldier. Other than that, he's a great military man. I want you to know that.'

- Norman Schwarzkopf

(ok, so he said it about Saddam back in the early 90's... but I think it's fairly accurate either way)

Just to confirm the decay of the "Great Middle East" theory, turned onto the "Great Middle East" mess :

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=265434&area=/insight/insight__international/

There was an excellent article as well in the Guardian, on Jan. 18, but I have it only in French from a Canadian website; explaining how this stupid war might just end up at turning Iran into the super power of the region.

http://qc.novopress.info/?p=2064

ANOTHER $72 BILLION GOING TO IRAQ WAR - CALL IN PROTEST TODAY:

fROM DEMOCRATS.COM:

Not One Penny More for War! National Call-In Day Tuesday Feb. 28
Call the Capitol Hill Switchboard on Tuesday Feb. 28th at 202-224-3121 and ask to speak to your Representative (or one of your Senators). Give them this basic message in your own words: "I strongly oppose the war in Iraq. I want all our troops brought home safely, without delay. I urge Representative X to vote against the President's $72.4 billion 'emergency' supplemental request for the war." More Info:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/8237

The Republicans who run Congress will include small amounts of money for all sorts of good things in the supplemental or group of supplementals to be voted on. This will provide your Representative all sorts of noble excuses for voting for a lot more money for war. Tell them this position will only be credible if they cosponsor Rep. Jim McGovern's bill, which simply ends funding for the war:
http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/end
To see how your Representative has voted on the war, download the UFPJ Congressional Scorecard (in Excel spreadsheet format) by clicking here:
http://tinyurl.com/ex2bs

monkey that was the exact same sick feeling I felt the day I watched that tape in the JK campaign office, thanks for helping elect the cretin.

And Linda I don't understand how you turned out so great. I wouldn't waste a minute of your time trying to persuade them that cretin is not god. Its somehow baked into their dna. thankfully those genes skipped you and your immediate family.

Bush and Nixon, two peas in a pod. His numbers now are approaching Richard Nixon's at his time of impeachment.

"(CBS) The latest CBS News poll finds President Bush's approval rating has fallen to an all-time low of 34 percent, while pessimism about the Iraq war has risen to a new high.

Americans are also overwhelmingly opposed to the Bush-backed deal giving a Dubai-owned company operational control over six major U.S. ports. Seven in 10 Americans, including 58 percent of Republicans, say they're opposed to the agreement."

"The West has picked a fight with Iran that it cannot win"
by the Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,,1688777,00.html

snip

Washington's kneejerk belligerence ignores Tehran's influence and the need for subtle engagement

Never pick a fight you know you cannot win. Or so I was told. Pick an argument if you must, but not a fight. Nothing I have read or heard in recent weeks suggests that fighting Iran over its nuclear enrichment programme makes any sense at all. The very talk of it - macho phrases about "all options open" - suggests an international community so crazed with video game enforcement as to have lost the power of coherent thought.

snip

By all accounts Ahmadinejad is not secure. He is subject to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. His foe, Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, retains some power. Tehran is not a Saddamist dictatorship or a Taliban autocracy. It is a shambolic oligarchy with bureaucrats and technocrats jostling for power with clerics. Despite a quarter century of effort, the latter have not created a truly fundamentalist islamic state. Iran is a classic candidate for the politics of subtle engagement.

snip

Iran is the regional superstate. If ever there were a realpolitik demanding to be "hugged close" it is this one, however distasteful its leader and his centrifuges. If you cannot stop a man buying a gun, the next best bet is to make him your friend, not your enemy.

Andree,
Good article. I did just translate the one from les echos.fr. Bush and the Binaries - that his binary way of thinking (good vs evil) is not going to cut it in this world.

It's just amazing to me how he spent 4 years convincing Americans about nameless shadowy generic terrorists, to be fought "over there" rather than here - evildoers, etc. Then he expects same brainwashed Fox watchers to be able to discern between mideast governments - who are allies, etc.

Posted by: monkey at February 28, 2006 10:15 AM

Gag.

Polly,

We know what our individual and collective political insults are.

We know where they are leading us and this great nation - straight off the cliff into the abyss.

America is at her biggest hour of crisis, for the enemy is from within. Our last and only hope for saving our constitution and with it true freedom for man is within 3 years of being snuffed out forever.

My question is this: How can we organize the way the neocons have? Can we set up "party" government, with a president of the party, v.p., secretary, and other party "cabinet" positions wherein each position takes responsibility and reports problems and progress to a committee?

In my way of thinking, if we ran this government within the party, we could outthink, outfox, outtalk, outwalk, outrun, and outsell what the party in power is doing, because the time is right for it.

We desperately need to get organized.

This is how effective church governments do it. You have a head. Then 6 vice-heads. Then area leaders (appoint capable people in every area of the country, teach 'em what to do, then they do it in their area.) I have seen it work, and seen churches and businesses grow quickly and beyond comprehension using this technique. We could also really use people brave enough to go to churches and present pamphlets with the TRUTH on them, or at the very least send each and every pastor, rabbi, priest, the truth about voting for corrupt officials. I know it would work! How could we get it started?

P.S.

We have been doing a great job on our grassroots effort. We have all seen results.

I think, however, it is time to start from the top down, even if we have to do it ourselves, we the people.

If we united with Kos, DU, and several others, and held meetings, people WOULD pay to go and get organized. People wouldn't have to fight over who gets to lead because everyone would still be able to lead their group under a larger umbrella.

So step up. Step out. And that goes for the leaders that want to run in '06 and '08 and turn this country around!!!!

Bush says he remains supportive of ports deal
Lawmakers upset by revelation Coast Guard had concerns about Dubai firm

WASHINGTON - President Bush said Tuesday he remains supportive of a United Arab Emirates-based company’s takeover of some U.S. port operations, even though a new, more intensive investigation of the deal’s potential security risks has yet to begin.

Bush is the final arbiter of that second review. Yet, he said after an Oval Office meeting with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi that “my position hasn’t changed” on support for transferring control of management of some major U.S. port facilities from a British company to Dubai-based DP World.

more... http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11604179/from/RS.2/

p.s. My position hasn't changed either...

APATHY KILLS

Dear Polly,

Before this thread ends, I did want to send you my missive, plaintive as it is.

What would heal me? Aside from a frozen peach margarita on the deck of a Windjammer cruise to anywhere warmer by 30 degrees than my office is right now, what would heal me is to see 5 million people in the streets of Washington DC, demanding that we exit Iraq, take care of our veterans properly, rebuild the infrastructure we destroyed in Iraq, export our most passionate and soulful art forms, recall our corporate food dispensaries, import curious young people from all over the world to engage in inquiry on the widest array of topics, invent our way into new and sustainable energy sources, and take care of the poor and dispossessed in this country. Oh--and inoculate the world, provide affordable health care to all, especially seniors and children.

I think 5 million will do it, don't you?

Love,
karendc

Happy Mardi Gras!

Some very interesting letters, DCPers... I will reflect on them and select one to answer in my next column.

Cheers.

In the Feb. 28 issue of the New Yorker, I found this gem of an article about revamping the way the Electoral College works to essentially tie each state's electoral votes to the nationwide winner of the popular vote. It appears to be getting some attention lately: Air America/Al Franken had a bit on it this week & PLAN is talking about it in their weekly newsletter. It seems like a reasonable approach. Comments?

Here's are some snips from the New Yorker Magazine...

COUNT ’EM
Last Thursday morning, in one of the smaller function rooms at the National Press Club, in Washington, an ad-hoc bunch of amateurs, once-weres, might-bes, and goo-goos floated an initiative that, with a little luck, could enable our ramshackle republic to take a long, and long overdue, step toward a more perfect union. The idea behind their initiative is this: that the President of the United States should be elected by the people of the United States.
--snip--
The promoters of the Campaign for a National Popular Vote, as they’re calling themselves, have come up with an elegant finesse. Instead of trying to change the Constitution, they propose to apply it, one bit in particular: Article II, Section 1, which instructs each state to “appoint” its Presidential electors “in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct.” Here’s how the plan would work. One by one, legislature by legislature, state law by state law, individual states would pledge themselves to an interstate compact under which they would agree to award their electoral votes to the nationwide winner of the popular vote. The compact would take effect only when enough states had joined it to elect a President—that is, enough to cast a majority of the five hundred and thirty-eight electoral votes. (Theoretically, as few as eleven states could do the trick.) And then, presto! All of a sudden, the people of all fifty states plus the District of Columbia are empowered to elect their President the same way they elect their governors, mayors, senators, and congressmen. We still have the Electoral College, with its colorful eighteenth-century rituals, but it can no longer do any damage. It becomes a tourist attraction, like the British monarchy.

There is very little doubt about the constitutional and legal feasibility of this plan. The power of state legislatures to direct the choice of their states’ electors, the Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled, is essentially unlimited. As the Court pointed out in one well-known case,

the State legislature’s power to select the manner for appointing electors is plenary; it may, if it so chooses, select the electors itself, which indeed was the manner used by State legislatures in several States for many years after the Framing of our Constitution. (Bush v. Gore, 2000)

The political feasibility of the plan is another matter...
Read the rest of the article here:
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/content/articles/060306ta_talk_hertzberg

Link to the National Popular Election of the President site: http://www.nationalpopularvote.com/npv/index.php

Link to PLAN: http://www.progressivestates.org/blog/93/bypassing-dc-national-popular-vote

To see how your Representative has voted on the war, download the UFPJ Congressional Scorecard (in Excel spreadsheet format) by clicking here:
http://tinyurl.com/ex2bs

new thread

How do we set up a press office and deliver press releases, video, photos to the media? How do we start inviting the media to accompany us as we engage in our events or shepherd them through our side of the story? How do we take it beyond the LTE and blog stage? Businesses, even large non-profits, have their own press offices...how do we join them?

Posted by: Veritas at February 28, 2006 09:26 AM

Posted by: Veritas at February 28, 2006 09:27 AM

Everyone:

Anyone who wants to think about this outloud, I'll be in the irc tonight. Will bring Dick too...

Posted by: karen at February 28, 2006 09:28 AM

Check out this site for lots of good information & conferences...

http://www.freepress.net/index.php

Speaking of a network of press offices, check out this wiki entry on IndyMedia Centers (IMCs)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indymedia

IMCs produce print, audio, photo, and video journalism, but are most well known for their open publishing newswires: internet weblog sites where anyone with internet access can publish information. The content of an IMC is determined by its participants, in collaboration with various layers of individuals designated as administrators.

A graphical way to find the location of Indymedia Centers has been created in a world-wide Indymedia map
http://manifestor.org/john/worldkit/