People of the Highest
Honour

This was initiated by a posting from Three_Sixty (Propaganda War). The subject was the establishment of cable networks by progressive regimes in Latin America. The purpose of these networks would be to counter the propaganda been put out by the anti-progressive forces in the usa.

Three_Sixty then quoted Marcus Garvey on the subject of propaganda - 'We of the Negro race are suffering more than any other race in the world from propaganda—Propaganda to destroy our hopes, our ambitions and our confidence in self.'

This then prompted an exchange which led to the formulation of the following proposals. I will summarise the proposals first, then I will include relevant quotes from the thread. Anyone who wants to see the full thread can go to the original post - 'Propaganda War'.

SUMMARY OF PROPOSAL :
1... That we, the members of this forum should establish a publication for the purposes of countering the propaganda presently being insinuated into our community.

2... That this publication will be printed by forum members and distributed free to community members wherever in the world we are.

3... That the content of this publication will consist of original work by forum members and (providing permission is granted), some of the posts from this forum.

4... That in the interest of security, only those appointed as senior editors will have the means to edit material (i.e. determine the contents of the publication) and that only board members will have passwords that will enable the downloading and printing of the finished material.

QUOTES FROM THREAD:
KARIBKWEEN - 'The Asians and Hispanics have recognized the need for a unifying realistic portrayal of their citizens and their culture. Isn't it time Africans do the same. Where is the will? '

'the political will has to arise out of the collective consciousness of those in the know, or else we'll be subjected to another BET or Bollywood. Or worse, another public access channel funded by western philanthropists to promote African truth from a European perspective.'

EJA - 'Truth. The 'collective consciousness', you and I, she and him. Infinite potential if realised becomes infinite power. Infinite potential, not realised stays as infinite potential, beautiful to contemplate but producing noTHING.'

'Let us (you and I, she and he) contribute work and publish something (articles, fiction, poetry, etc.). Might be in magazine format or might be a book. We can self-publish from wherever we are. We only need to agree on a standard design, agree on the theme(s) we wish to represent and then do it.

We can then take copies of this, wherever we are and distribute 'by any means neccesary'. It may not immediately be the most lucrative thing we set our hands to but the most important is, we will have done something concrete. Move beyond talking. Also, we will start to accumulate experience in how to work together.

Today, it will be a book/magazine, from there who knows what else we can succeed at?'

KARIBKWEEN - 'You could poll the members of the forum for an appropriate design/logo, something
all-encompassing, without ego or stealth.

I’m sure you would find a worthy editorial staff among the site monitors, while other forum members could be asked to submit content. An appropriate format would be either a newsletter or magazine which would include a subscription form. These would be distributed to forum members for free circulation as you said “by any means necessary.”

The subscription form would help us determine the extent of our audience which in turn will enable us to make better decisions on procedures and development. '

SABBAH - 'it is amazing how the collective concious/unconcious works. a sister and i only a week ago were discussing the making of a "zine", pamphlet, low budget magazine, etc.... for circulation amongst grass roots individuals within the community. they are fairly inexpensive to produce and are extremely valuable in educating
and spreading dialogue and concious movemant for change. just as the mainstream and "white" world cause movement and oppression within their collective concious thru media, pop culture, et al.... so can we counteract and inform people of realities and opposing points of view from the brainwashing forced down the throats of the people. when i was a youth in north carolina, i and other idren recieved just such booklets all the way from trinidad. much wisdom can be spread for such a small cost. time and effort are really all that is neccessary. and if the administrators of this website would allow the use of some of the posts here (with author's approval) then there is a great deal of material and insight to be spread just as the water covers the earth. give the people right information and they will react. as chaos theory states that a butterfly which flaps it's wings in china can be felt all the way in the america's, all things no matter how small have a large and great effect on the whole.

start a revolution one pamphlet at a time. each one teach one. through persistance, livication, and time; word sound will spread on pages which pass from one hand to another, to another, to another, to another.......... '

THREE_SIXTY - '"if the administrators of this website would allow the use of some of the posts here (with author's approval) then there is a great deal of material and insight to be spread just as the water covers the earth."

* yes that is a very good point and one i have thought of before. there are many amazing minds here who have a lot to contribute and this board is a repository of many thoughts and ideas. '

EJA - ' I agree with what Karibkween said regarding the logo, we also have to decide what the title will be, the format (i.e. size, where and when we will use of colour, paper type, fonts, etc.), what will be the minimum or maximum acceptable volume of individual contributions and, is the publication going to be free or will there be a cover price?

Regarding the last question, my suggestion would be that the first issue should be free. We may decide that we will give out all subsequent issues for free but, if we don't, while we are deciding on the cover price, we must keep economic/social realities in mind. The paramount fact is that we live in different currency zones and that the economic situations in these places are not the same. Sometimes, priorities will overide the heart's desire.

That been said, I would still think that there should be a price set as this will at least help cover the costs of printing. The only other alternatives would be if we were to seek sponsorship (through adverts or donations) or,
if we were to leave it to the discretion of the distributors if they wanted to charge a price or give it out for free.

I have also thought about issues like how will we ensure that only authorised members get access to the editable material? How do we prevent mischeivous inserts? I would suggest that the same technology that is used to ensure that only registered members can post on this forum can also be used for this purpose. Passwords will be
issued to those who are authorised to contribute/distribute and PINs will also be put on the subscription forms so that we know from which member the issue went out from.

We will set a date by which all content must be in, a date by which what will go in an issue must be decided upon and, we will set a date by which members, from thier various locations can start printing and distributing. '

KARIBKWEEN - 'Regarding content and format I suggest those issues be placed in the hands of the senior editors, some of whom I am hoping will be selected from the architects and monitors of this site, and those among us who are bi or multi-lingual.

Senior editors should have passwords that permit editing and board members (foot soldiers) should have passwords that will allow them to print or download the finished product. Any suggestions or changes will be voted on by the editorial staff.

Regarding pricing, I am in favor of free circulation, until we have established a market for our product. This can be determined by including a subscription form among the pages of literature. The return address on the subscription form I recognize as something that might provoke some discussion so I'll reserve my opinion.

I say this because I am assuming that the regular members of this forum have access to a PC and printer and the cost to produce hard copies for distribution would be one way to prove our committment to this project. I'm also mindful of the fact that the certain members of our target audience may already be over-committed financially.'

END OF CURRENT THREAD.

Comments are invited from other forum members. This is something we can do. It might seem trivial but even the Great Pyramid had to be started with a single block. I will not rush the administrators of this site about making thier thoughts known as I am sure this will be forthcoming as soon as they have consulted each other. It is not by accident that we are gathered here together.

Wisdom and Strength.