Still choking on propaganda

How ironic that Indymedia seems to be plagued by the very problems of those organizations it claims to resent the most. Just as the proponents of globalism, including the likes of the WTO and NATO, Indymedia has encountered a similar fate. Obviously begun with worthwhile intentions, each of these organizations has however become so overcome with differing directions and internal confusions that it is increasingly difficult to determine what those intentions may have ever been. While the faults of the former organizations are much more brazen than those of Indymedia, I still hold that, while its potential surely exists, Indymedia (in its current state) must undergo much change to its infrastructure in order to provide what I believe is its basic mission, a means of access to those news stories we typically do not encounter. While Indymedia does make these articles readily available, they seem to be either hastily written with little attention given to the global importance of the event in question or so completely biased I began helplessly choking on the propaganda shoved down my throat. While it is obviously much easier to provide only one side of a story, in order to be taken seriously, I believe Indymedia may find it beneficial to request article submissions to attempt a discussion of the opposition.

In addition, when I tried a simple search regarding the topic of my final project, harm reduction, I was bombarded with a multitude of articles with absolutely no relevance. After refining my search, I was provided with a mere one thousand irrelevant articles. While I did find one interesting article concerning the Thai government’s recent decision to continue their fruitless war on drugs (sound familiar anyone?), the article was surprisingly brief and did not touch on any of the country’s policies surrounding AIDS prevention that are actually quite in touch with its large sex worker and IDU population. Even more troubling, those reading this article with no previous background on the topic may experience feelings of resentment directed toward the wrong government. Thailand has made many advances in harm reduction and AIDS prevention while our government is still working to hide the fact that such epidemics even exist. Needless to say, after reading this article as well as many of the other haphazardly organized topics, I stopped reading. Just as I turn off the television when U.S. army propaganda infiltrates my senses, I quickly exited Indymedia with the ominous fear of another organization looking to taint the innocently ignorant on their never ending quest for pure knowledge.

While I am disgusted with our country’s media “coverage,” I found the articles of Indymedia to be no better. It seems Indymedia has forgotten the fundamental fallacy that two wrongs do not make a right. Just because the U.S. media is severely biased and often silent on key global issues, that does not grant Indymedia the provision to do the same. I had hoped that such an organization would provide a media source that demonstrated how global news should be relayed, yet, sadly, it seems Indymedia has fallen into the same trap that America’s detested corporate conglomerates have, choosing only those stories that serve only to fill another agenda.