my letter to free press about the conference:

Hi there. I was an attendee of the recent conference on media reform. As the emial address implies I am also a volunteer with the Independent Media Center Network. I am sure you have heard some of the grievances that indymedia volunteers had with this most recent conference.
One thing that I am only connecting today is that in am not finding any refernece to solutions of the media problem on the freepress.net website.
The problem with media as I see you make on the conference website is that it is corporate controlled governement propaganda. And the media reform campaigns are petitioning this corporate controlled governement to allow less of that propaganda and more of the truth. I hope you note the behemoth task you undertake, and that the possibility of failure is high and likely.

More than reform this machine, wouldnbt it be better to actively work away from and outside of it? Wouldnt it be more useful to spend money of community based media instead of lobbying? I guess the answers are dependant and vary greatly.

It just seems to me that anything related to this machine of media is feeding the fire. It is feeding our downfall. I was in the NW media makers caucus with the director of public access in Washington and Oregon, and quite a few others who kept talking on and on about legislation they are levying and campaigns they are a part of to reform the media, or to get a small bit of space on the radio and tv waves. When I asked what their contigency plan was should legislation fail they had nothing.
I would assume other folks have nothing as well. It seems that is a problem.
Currently it seems to me that this reform movement that has a good amount of money is hoping to buy from capitalism a little bit of freedom and movement and if capitalism says no, well then thats okay becuase they can exist within capitalism.

Some folks who attended this conference simply cannot live within this capitalist system. Some folks who were mostly not represented or misrepresented at this conference have no choice but to fight this governement and this capitalist society because it is the death of them, the consolidation across the board and the vast failures of the left has literally left the populace that fights without a hope.

There are farmers that are literally dying because of agribusiness and monsanto(). There are people of color being murdered by the police forces. Then there are reformists throwing money at the governement.

I hope I dont paint too broad a picture for it to connect, to really click with some of you. By supporting media reform, you are supporting the media industry, the media industry is corrupt up to the top. It is owned ny the governement and the corporations and it is fighting against you. If you continue to play its game or to reform its practices, it will dry our wells and eat our foods, rob our bodies of life and destroy the free people.
The vast struggles for liberation must be connected. If so many are oppressed there has to be some connection between them and the oppressors. We can fight individually until we no longer exist, or we can fight together til we win.

I hope I havent gone too far out of line or contect in this letter and it is read with openness.
bht
portland indymedia volunteer

ps. I have also found this page: www.freepress.net/issues/indymedia from freepress.net, if you would like information about indymedia or would like to represent independant media in any way shape or form, there are folks here that will help you. If your interest is to continue to marginalize solutions, please think of a betterl url.