I definitely agree with Chuck0 (and Flava Flav) on this. That thought process was very much the impetus for us to create the Inedpendent Media Center of Israel (and I am sure the IMC collective in general). In order to make real change, we need to forget about relying on the present institutions (media in this case), and forge a comprehensive alternative (print, internet, radio, television), and also (just as importantly) to move this information out of merely the circle of the already convinced (hence the importance of the other mediums besides internet, which tends to be very insular). The issues and information which we on the Left(s) want dealt with will otherwise, invarably be either: distorted, left completely by the wayside, or on page 42B of the opinion column among a multitude of other contrary information. Now however, we are beginning to create the tools from our own hands, and hopefully we will be able to keep control of them (and this isn't to say that there isn't already a burgoning independent media: the LBO, Democracy Now, Zmagazine, Multinational Monitor etc.), but I think that the IMC collective increases multiple times the potential base (on a world scale). Sadly however, while we have the tools in our hands, I fear many don't have the theoretical background to always know what to do with them. Many of us come from the Debordian, liberal multicultualist, culture critique school of protest, without much economic theoretics except that we know how to go after the big monsters like the WB/IMF and WTO (protests which I am not knocking in the least...I was with the IMC in Prague and what was accomplished was beautiful and inspiring...I just hope we can keep the inspiration going for the smaller (and perhaps more important) issues (like the terrible abuses happening here in Israel/Palestine), and that we can grow the audience (and participants) exponentially).
Anyway,
Bryan Atinsky IMC-Israel Editorial Group http://www.indymedia.org.il