Thomas, you´re right on. Talking about this here is good as it allows lots of people to participate. However, if we want to change the editorial policy of the news wire, we must use the email list of  imc-uk-process@indymedia.org. Thats where the people who have admin passwords disscus these issues. Anyone can join that group.

ciao, j

No. That's wrong. Let the people speak. The openness is the best part of it.

Let's develop our critical faculties. Let's exercise our own judgement as to what is a good and bad posting. Let's not have officials exercising that judgement for us.
Steve

As one of the 'conspiracy loons' contributing to this line, I would say that most of us try to provide some evidence to back up our perceptions. So please don't just join others trying to just dismiss us as nuts.
Many of us do have activist backgrounds, and reckon we have just joined the dots and have seen what's really going on. If that mean's we share some views of the world with some backwoods militiamen in the US, big boys with toys, so be it.Maybe they saw the wood for the trees long ago.
The only reason I post here, is that I love to join a community which is aware and active and out on the streets with gnerally the right feelings and attitudes.
I just think there is some background which is more or less correct, but so easily dismissed as wierd stuff, though as I see it -right in your face, which needs to be given some consideration, most definitely including chemtrails.
Love and solidarity
dh

Thomas, you've decided chemtrails are a “conspiracy theory” so, according to you, hundreds of thousands of people across the world, who are demanding answers to the recurring respiratory disorders, headaches, itching skin, sore eyes and throats, bronchial coughs, “flu-like” symptoms and other “mystery viruses” ruining their lives, are all deluded, mistaken, paranoid fools... yes?

The flagrant spraying of the skies, recognised by congress, admitted by parliament and studied by many, is visibly causing drought, flash floods, crop destruction, water shortages and as a result, starvation. Now the old, the young and infirm who are suffering most, must be ignored or censored because it is not deemed newsworthy - but “kook stuff” by an arrogant, patronizing, narrow-minded and dangerous, ‘know-it-all.’

 http://www.carnicom.com/conright.htm

If you remove the alternative viewpoints then all you are left with is the accepted “official version” of events, government propaganda, which you can read in any mainstream news.

Here is a different opinion from a very concerned citizen in England who you would dismiss as a loon...

The UK has been blitzed with Chemtrail spraying
since May 16th - May 16th is the day the Bush Regime
tried to subliminally state they had limited foreknowledge
of the attacks of last September 11th. The trouble for the
Bush regime is that people were not satisfied with this
small news blip, they demanded MORE information on
WTC/911. Consequently (I believe) the USA and UK have
been bombed with even more severe Chemtrail spray
ever since May 10th to 20th, right to this time now.>

Since the end of May there are a lot of allergy and flu-like
symptoms with many people. There are chemical smells
in the air - similar to pesticide - and a lot of itchiness to
eyes and face. How many people have died from this
chemical onslaught, one can only guess.

From July 24th, parts of central and northern UK
have suffered a very low, dark cloud cover. With lack
of either oxygen or healthy negative ions in the air.
or both. Headaches and migraines have increased.
This felt very suspicious, as if something was being
intensively sprayed over at least the north of England,
which resulted in almost zero precipitation and very
un-vital air.

After a week of this strange 'weather', the dam burst,
and the north of England was flooded out with huge
downpours.

AT THE SAME TIME - August 1st/2nd - severe outbreaks
of illness made the news from northern England and
Scotland. Both connected with infection in either
air or water. Remember, August 1st brings us to two
and a half months of intensive Chemtrail spraying,
and one week of very thick spraying which caused
'airless' conditions.


AUGUST 2nd: Alarming outbreak of pneumonia
across NW England. Some people diagnosed with
Legionnaires disease. One man has died so far.
Authorities very alarmed. First state it's from the
WATER in AIR conditioning system. Pneumonia
is very common effect from Chemtrail spraying.

AUGUST 3rd: Outbreak of illness from bug in
WATER SUPPLY in Glasgow. Bug causes severe
diarrhoea. Authorities tell over 100,000 people to
boil all WATER for personal use.

AUGUST 3rd: Bug found in WATER SUPPLY at
campsite in Inverness, Scotland.
Authorities say bug is E. Coli.

 http://www.world-action.co.uk/evidence.html
 http://www.world-action.co.uk/overview.html
 http://www.world-action.co.uk/hopi.html

j: Will certainly give e-mailing them a thought.

Steve Booth: In an ideal world, yes, I once though the same as you do, but having seen mostly drivel in the past few months, with more 'bad' articles than good, I realise that the crap needs to be cut out somehow, because if it isn't it will become very hard to find the decent articles on there, and the newswire will cease to be informative, and the IMC will not be doing the job it was intended to do.

dh/Luna: I've seen pictures of so-called 'chemtrails' they are no different to what I sometimes see in the sky and think "what conspiriacy"? Besides, others have debunked this myth, and you just can't believe everything you read, be it corporate media, or Indymedia. If people really want to know about the latest conspiricy theory, there are millions of sites out there, so why clutter up Indymedia with them, since many people just don't give a monkeys for these wacko ideas.

I know people will accuse me of hypocracy, and say who the hell am I to say what people think or whats newsworth, but these "conspiricay theory" articles are getting in the way of the real information on how world goverments and multinational are screwing the people of the world (again), and any protests against that.

It isn't just the conspiricy theories that are pissing me off. The never ending argument between "anarchists" and SWP supporters is also getting quite tiring, if both camps actually put their differences beside them and did something it would help, but most are two narrow minded to see that. The so-called anarchists accuse the SWP of being narrow minded, but by slagging of the views of people other than their own, they are just as bad as they allege the SWP to be.

I know I will also be accused of selling out because of my previous anti-censorship stance, but I suppose you can't be friends with everyone.
Oh and Ben, if you are reading this, sorry it ain't what u define as "news", but my defination of news is a lot wider than yours (although dh and Luna may disagree).

You look at a crazy demented Bush oriented Nazi state beginning to build in the 'democratic' US, and can still piss off conspiracy theory. Just look back to how this conspiracy came to power and at whom it directs its spite

 http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,770783,00.html

How to disenfranchise a whole population to achieve your aims.
And how to continue?
Why a Reichstag fire of course...

good story, Thomas.
Have you read the story "DESPERATE GOEBBELS- PROPAGANDIST ON INDYMEDIA " (p.4)?

question to Steve Booth. Should you published in your GA a letter with something "fuck you negroes...down with negroes supremacy...All the negroes are rapist, criminals and robbers...kill all the negroes..." or something? So tell me WHY do you accepted this disgusting generalisating posting on this site against other ethnic minority? Why this different standard for different people? This is astounding that fake-leftists have the same argumentation as the right extremists.
Shame on you bloody fake-"antifascist".

for raising this issue but i have to agree with dh.

i to post many `loony ideas`, but mostly i find i must post articles that have been published on `respected` sites like guardian or cnn, so as not to scare people like you into thinking these `loony` ideas are rubbish.

i was aware of the 2001 american election scam weeks b4 newspapers where taliking about it. thanks to loony conspiracy sites.
i found offical versions of sep 11th hard to get my head round, and found others on conspiracy sights felt the same, only recently have the `respected` mainstream media begun to question it. ie, that the gov. ATLEAST knew it was to happen, but actively did nothing to prevent it.

and atleast these stories of chemtrails have got me noticing the sky again. which can be quite troublesome, living in london.

theres no smoke without fire.

except for the dick who keeps posting photos of indymedia dressed as east european army generals????

and its raining all the time.

The prevalence of non-news content is merely a reflection of the lack of theoretical and activist work in the British socialist movement; anarchists arent even sure if theyre socialists at all, and the SWP havent got a clue what the word means!
Therefore, by default, in the absence of an overwhelmingly confident socialist movement(and of course in the aftermath of the fall of the USSR and chums), indidviduals struggle vainly, and valiantly, like Don Quixote, to use whatever comes to hand. Its not their fault !

This article was accidently hidden, I e-mailed the IMC-UK collective and andi has put it back on.

dh, I now confess that some conspiricies (including chemtrails!) may be debatable and thus newsworthy and it was wrong for me to condemm them as just "utter nonsense", although that still doesn't stop me from being highly skeptical.

Space-Trotskyist, as far as I understand "anarchism" and "socialism" are two different things, so I don't get your point about "anarchists not sure if they are socialists". Please explain.

There are still some stuff on the IMC-UK newswire that just shouldn't be there, such as Jean's 'Heinzreport' spammings, which have come under fire last night. You click what looks like an intresing article just to find loads of irrelevent links, which if clicked on put loads of cookies on you PC, (unless, like me, you have disabled cookies). Now that DEFINATELY does not have a place on Indymedia!
Another person who has some explaining to do is "scalanews", who posts about how "today in the Global Observer you can find x1, x2, and x3...", and gives a link to the website. Why doesn't this person just post the infomation into the article, rather than expecting us to go look for it, or at least link directly to the articles in question, rather than just to the website.

As I say, this stuff is watering down the useful content on the newswire and the whole IMC is suffering as a result.

Replying to your kind invitiation, I have always been fascinated by the practical sincerity of most anarchists, yet their own lack of a single definition. Alex Berkman definitely considered himself to be a socialist, but had to acknowledge there were other anarchists who did NOT. I always thought that most anarchists were non-authoritarian revolutionary socialists, which is an interesting, if paradoxical position to be in.

Actually most [all] anarchists considered themself socialists.Its only now lately that it seems like any loony can call him/herself an anarchists without considering to be what is basic of anarchism,wich is socialism.And its not paradoxial at all. Not if you hold true the basic beliefs of socialism.

The last two posts have cleared that up, unfortunately there are a lot of people who claim to be socialists (or anarchists!) but actually are not. Such people should spend less time bickering on about how superior their beliefs are to everybody elses and more time actually practising what they preach.

If people want to debate about the SWP, there are hundreds if not thousands of message board sites to do that on, so leave the Indymedia for stuff that more newsworthy. I'm not sure what should be done about the conspiracy theorists, because some have become all too real (like UN's piece about the American presidential election), however things like David Icke's huge lizards are not what I would consider fact, despite his cult following. Thing is, people can make a conspiricy theory on anything, without a grain of evidence.

If it weren't for the evidence of Credo Mutwa, S African shaman who has been given some credence by Scotland Yard consultation on the supposedly mutta killing of the boy whose torso was found in the Thames. Don't dismiss anything as too crazy Thomas without examining the evidence