 action & events Summer 2010 Appeal Dear friends, I am writing to you on the eve of the U.S. Social Forum, from a warehouse loft in Detroit's Eastern Market district. For someone whose activism has often had a strong international focus, this city is a stark reminder of the scale of social problems in the United States, with entire streets and city blocks of abandoned homes. I am in Michigan volunteering with "Tech House", a collective of people with computer and communications skills, that was formed to support what is the largest national gathering of people with progressive politics in the United States. One of the most amazing and challenging aspects of Tech House's work for the expected up to 15,000 (!) attendees is our setup of the People's Media Center, a 20,000 square foot Internet cafe and media resource center. We will also be helping to categorize the thousands of hours of footage from workshops and making that available online to those who cannot be here this week. Our work this week will therefore educate and empower literally hundreds of thousands of people, not only at the conference but back in the communities where attendees and their allies work 365 days a year for social and environmental justice, and to confront war, poverty, racism, while building community and progressive projects to address the endemic problems faced in the U.S. The last month leading up to my time at the U.S. Social Forum and the Allied Media Conference which preceded it has been extremely busy, with much direct support work for the team that released the 1 hour of raw footage smuggled off the Mavi Marmara aid ship, which Israel boarded in international waters, taking the lives of 9 souls. Israel confiscated the cameras and footage from hundreds of passengers. This was extremely significant evidence, which supported the passengers' story of what happened in the middle of the ocean. The Gaza flotilla crisis heralded the long overdue launch of a new project—delegitimize.com—which aims to address the lack of meaningful archiving of online information and resources relating to the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. The site was launched the day of Israel's attack. The two weeks following the flotilla hijacking were then spent laying the framework around the clock for a desperately-needed and far wider-reaching project. delegitimize.com will combine key elements of two projects I was involved in founding—the Electronic Intifada news website and the RNC '08 Report archive—in an attempt to finally begin to meet the need for a reference archive of materials relating to key issues and events in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The main goal of the project is to provide a vital community service by highlighting and encouraging the use of the many amazing activist and educational resources that exist scattered in different locations around the Internet. Similarly, ongoing additions to the RNC '08 Report archive took a significant chunk of time in June, as the RNC 8 returned to court for evidentiary hearings. The project is relied upon as a reference resource by defense legal teams, journalists and activists. The RNC 8 go back to trial in October, during which time the amount of material requiring archive attention will again substantially increase. The RNC '08 Report is a unique online archive of many key aspects of an symptomatic event and the basis of a coming citizen's report—once court cases are concluded—that I strongly believe will help to assert First Amendment rights, curb a national trend of increasingly out-of-control spending on 'security', and to challenge priorities in a time where many people are facing a bleak financial situation as never before in their lives. On my return home in the wake of the U.S. Social Forum, I will be building a pro-bono website for the Alliance for Police Accountability in Pittsburgh, a campaign set up in the wake of the severe and impossible-to-justify beating of an African-American high school honors student, Jordan Miles. It is hoped that this campaign, which has brought black and white communities together in an unprecedented way, will provide an opportunity for us to effect real change and successfully confront the endemic problem of police brutality. Most of what I do for progressive communities is self-funded, by maintaining a sometimes uneasy balance of work and pro-bono voluntary projects. For the most part, this is a functioning situation. During periods involving lots of hands-on work away from my home base and my regular work—which involves offering communications solutions to nonprofits and small local businesses—this can be more problematic. This is one of these times. Whatever financial support you can give at would be gratefully received and will help me to continue to do the things I know I must, with the skills I have, to help communities under threat. Thank you so much for your past financial help, your friendship and for your solidarity. In hope for a brighter, more positive future. Sincerely, Nigel Parry HOW TO DONATE Via Paypal: Send a donation to payments@nigelparry.net or click here. Via Mail: Please contact Nigel Parry for mailing address. MORE INFORMATION delegitimize.com: The Gaza Flotilla Archive: http://gazaflotilla.delegitimize.com The RNC '08 Report http://rnc08report.org 
more from this section  • Support Independent Reporting: #OccupyWallStreet (Thursday, October 13th, 2011)  • Coleen Rowley: We're conflating proper dissent and terrorism (Sunday, January 16th, 2011) • FBI raids of pro-Palestine activist homes in four US states (Friday, September 24th, 2010) • Summer 2010 Appeal (Monday, June 21st, 2010) • NOW AVAILABLE: Full 60-minute footage smuggled from Mavi Marmara (Friday, June 11th, 2010) • Gaza Freedom March calls for governments, civil society action against Israel in wake of massacre of unarmed activists (Monday, May 31st, 2010) |
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