An introduction and some background …

Activists striving for fundamental change have achieved marked success in recent years, combining massive street demonstrations against war, poverty, and unaccountable global institutions with long-term community organizing and innovative internet tools to create public discussion around the many problems facing our world. Independent media sources like Indymedia, and to some extent the mainstream media, have covered this rising tide of discontent, providing substantial analysis of most everything that’s “wrong” with the current governmental, social, and economic systems.

At the same time, though with much less fanfare, many people and organizations are working to develop systems that are “right.” These are focused on working solutions, such as participatory decision-making processes, equitable economies, technologies of cooperation, and many more. They nurture social structures and a more ecologically sustainable way of life. If encouraged , valued and supported, these tangible and concrete experiments could represent a positive shift toward “a new way of being”; the next bold step in the movement to create a better world. But the word needs to get out about them. Right now we have an imbalance in coverage of the problems and the critique and not enough dissemination of empowering information about what is working in the world and how people can get involved with these kinds of “experiments.”

The “Alternatives” working group of Indymedia (an international network of over 150 autonomous, non-profit, collectively-organized, volunteer-run local independent media centers) invites you to join us in the formation of a global “Alternatives Independent Media Center!” The “Alternatives IMC” will both gather content about all the great things people are doing to create a better world (pioneering alternative social structures, economics, education, energy, etc.) and to provide a place for people organizing and working on these projects to connect with each other to do practical, world-changing work.
How to get involved?

We invite you to add more information here (Note: the old site was docs.indymedia.org) and to share your ideas and become part of the project. Please join our working group lists.indymedia.org and participate on the imc-alternatives e-mail list. View the imc-alternatives archives here lists.indymedia.org. We are starting to have regular weekly IRC meetings on the #alternatives channel. They are currently on Sunday at 22:00 GMT (6pm EST) . There has also been an IRC meeting, view the September 2005 meeting summary and log here lists.indymedia.org. We plan to have monthly conference calls.

mailing list: lists.indymedia.org/mailman/listinfo/im...