San Diego Activism
The activist community in San Diego has become noticeably more vocal over the past couple months. And they have started to embrace blogging. RadioActiveSD reports they will have full media coverage of today’s inauguration protest downtown from 4:30 to 6:30 p.m.
Another form of protest which has gotten a lot of attention amongst local activist list serves is Not One Damn Dime which Indepundit suggests has so far failed.
Activist San Diego has announced that tomorrow will be the Activist San Diego CounterInaugural Ball in Balboa Park.
Joe emails to write that:
San Diego City Attorney Mike Aguirre is hosting a public meeting on the City’s Pension Fund crisis. It is scheduled for tonight Thursday, January 20 at 5:30 pm in the City Council Chambers located on the 12th Floor of 202 C Street in downtown San Diego.
Finally, San Diego Indymedia tries to make amends with the activist community and announces they are seeking translators for their website. They also finalized a new code of conduct. In an email to other activists organizations, San Diego Indymedia writes:
Members of the San Diego Indymedia collective, while realizing that a collective is composed of individuals but that a collective shares some responsibility for the actions of its members, would like to extend a sincere apology to members of the Peace Resource Center, San Diego Coalition for Peace and Justice, the San Diego chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, Ocean Beach Grassroots Organization and GI Fightback. This apology is in reference to inappropriate behavior by former and current members of San Diego Indymedia. This behavior occurred when these members were dealing with conflicts between our groups.
The San Diego Independent Media Center (SDIMC) is a grassroots organization committed to using media production and distribution as a tool for promoting social and economic justice in San Diego County. It is our goal to give voice to those people under-represented in the mainstream media. We intend to illuminate and analyze local and global issues that are affected by the increasing corporate domination of American society and the subsequent erosion of democracy. We seek to generate alternatives to the current biases in the corporate media and to contribute to the development of an equitable and sustainable society.
We fully recognize that to achieve these goals, it is essential to work closely with the San Diego activist community. Because the corporate media operates under a veneer of objectivity, subjects and persons, if covered at all, are actually presented in an “as told by the media” manner. We will work with and within movements for social justice in San Diego to support them in the telling of their own stories, which will further the goals of those movements.
Further, we fully recognize that the goal of representing people who are under-represented can only be accomplished in a just way by having members of under-represented communities in our organization, creating media and participating in our decision making process.
In the past, our organization has been criticized by members of the San Diego activist community for not being transparent enough, for not being inclusive of women and people of color and for not having processes in place for people to safely bring their grievances to us and see change happen.
We are working very hard within San Diego Indymedia to address all of these issues in order to create an institution that is welcoming to the entire San Diego activist community. We have recently instituted a code of conduct for working with each other and the public, which can be found on our website[1]. We are currently working on a grievance policy rooted in a constant process of criticism and self-criticism which aims to constantly make our organization better at achieving its goals.
Finally, we are writing this letter, to the San Diego activist community, to re-invite you to participate in San Diego Indymedia. Anyone can post news and events on our website, http://sandiego.indymedia.org. We have open, public meetings on Wednesdays at 7pm. Email info@sdimc.org for the next meeting info, as we are currently without a location and our meetings move frequently.
We want your help. Together, we can create a more powerful, representative Independent Media Center with more radical, accurate, passionate tellings of the truth. Hopefully, San Diego Indymedia can be a place where the diverse parts of the San Diego community can come together and begin to overcome the many forms of difference which separate us, by listening to each other’s stories.
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al uh looyah said on Friday, January 21, 2005, 12:23
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Michael Cardenas, 619-318-9730, San Diego Independent Media
Center
What: Press Conference
Where:
Hall of Justice
330 W. Broadway
San Diego, CA 92101
When: 12:00PM
While George W. Bush was making proclamations about freedom, in San
Diego, journalists were being arrested for simply documenting the
protests happening here. The United States is rated 24th in press
freedom by the international human rights group Reporters Without
Borders, ranking lower than Bosnia and Lithuania. Reporters without
borders reports that “the arrest of several journalists during anti
Bush demonstrations” is one of the main causes for the low ranking. [1]
The Bush administration is clearly tied to the complete suppression of
speech and dissent with policies like the Patriot act.
A reporter with the San Diego Independent Media Center and radioActive
sanDiego was arrested last night at a demonstration and is being
accused of hitting a police officer. Not only was she reporting on the
event and would in no way hit an officer, she is well known and
respected in the San Diego community.
As the motorcade drove down Pennsylvania Avenue yesterday with the
illusion of a unified country, demonstrators in DC were being subject
to tear gas, rubber bullets and pepper spray. Is this the kind of
Freedom we want to export to Iraq? There were so many demonstrators
that the motorcade was temporarily brought to a halt. [2] While some
television stations like CBS aired images of peaceful demonstrators
being tear gassed, other stations like CNN chose to censor the images.
In addition, her bail, and the bail of the other demonstrators arrested
last night, was set at the excessive amount of $5,000. San Diego is a
city that is openly hostile to free speech. Not only did the police
beat demonstrators, they “hog-tied” one arrestee and they repeatedly
threatened a completely peaceful demonstration with the use of chemical
weapons.
These actions taken by the San Diego Police department are
unacceptable, and the officers responsible must be held accountable.
While the police claim that their goal is to protect the free speech of
the demonstrators, they beat demonstrators, block them into small areas
of the street and violently arrest them without any kind of
provocation, which leaves them with no choice but to make up completely
false and unsupported charges.
The freedom of the press is guaranteed under the first amendment, as
the right to express ourselves through publication and dissemination is
critical [3]. The arrest of journalists is part of a larger campaign by
the Bush administration to attack and erode the bill of rights. Without
a press which is safe to operate without fear of arrest, we cannot have
democracy.
We demand the immediate release of the reported who was arrested last
night, who will remain unnamed for her protection.
We also call on the people of San Diego to call the City Attorney, City
Council and the Mayor to demand that the absolute hostility to free
speech in San Diego be stopped immediately.
[1] http://www.rsf.org/IMG/pdf/Am_index_Eng_2004.pdf
[2] http://dc.indymedia.org/feature/display/115229/index.php
[3] http://www.law.cornell.edu/topics/first_amendment.html
——