As the recipient of the 'acid' remark about presuming WTO to be the
council of all evil, as mentioned in John's post, I thought I'd take the
opportunity to reply...

If I recall, my comment was a suggestion that OM consider meeting, or at
least having a 'submeeting,' alongside the next WTO ministerial meeting,
which will take place in Hong Kong from 13-18 December, 2005.

The reason I suggested this was not because I believe the WTO to be the
root of all evil, but rather because every WTO ministerial, except the
one that took place in Doha, has witnessed a significant parallel
alternative media convergence. From the now well-rehearsed birth of the
Independent Media Center network in Seattle in 1999, to the very
succesful Hurakan Cancún Alternative Media-Tech Convergence (which
concept was conceived and developed, by the way, at OURmedia around a
fire on the beach near Barranquilla) that took place the week prior to
the WTO ministerial in Cancún last year.

No matter what our views of the 'free trade' regime, summit-hopping as
reactive piqueturismo, etc., it's a fact that some of the most
interesting and important social movements, the mediamakers associated
with them, and a wide range of alternative (and mainstream) mediamakers
of all stripes converge where the trade ministers meet. This makes such
meetings nodes in the bottom-up globalization of autonomous
communication, where skills, tools, practices, methods of organizing,
tactical media etc. are circulated.

So for OM members, whether practitioners, researchers, or both, these
meetings are interesting spaces. What's more, I think that many OM
members have valuable analysis and historical knowledge to share with
the new generation of autonomous media makers, and that such knowledge
sharing (organized to happen, say, a week before the ministerial) can
provide a grounding that, best case, lifts people's participation in
such convergences to some degree OUT of the 'crisis-reaction' mode.

To tie it to the discussion on indigenous media, one of the best
elements of Hurakan Cancún was the significant participation of
indigenous mediamakers and the broadened focus on skillshares to
include, for example, not only the 'latest cutting edge software' but
also the periodical mural as community media technology.

that's all for now. sc