In theory, Indymedia is the perfect place to offer an alternative to mainstream media coverage. Especially when the mainstream media present a 100% consensus view, excluding all criticism. Yet in the case of the flooding in Central Europe, Indymedia seems to have failed, internationally and in the countries affected.

A typical example of how the mainstream media can get away with almost anything: a BBC World voice-over describes how 'baroque cities' are threatened - but the picture shows what is clearly new suburban detached housing. No-one sees the error. Nobody seems to asks what is going on, everyone accepts the 'natural-disaster' story which is presented.

A few points about the flooding.

1. All river flooding of inhabited areas is avoidable.

2. The *only* reason that inhabited areas are flooded by rivers, is that housing is built in the flood plains. By definition, the flood plains will be flooded sometime - not every year, but some year. If no housing was built in flood plains, and the flood plains were left undisturbed, there would be no flooded houses, at least not from river flooding.

3. Historically people have always lived on the flood plains, and historic riverside cities are usually vulnerable to flooding. However, the vast majority of affected buildings were built in the last 150 years - in the full knowledge that they were in risk areas. This problem has got worse in the last 50 years.

4. All types of local government, from Communist to Christian-Democrat, have authorised building in flood plains. Even if there are restrictions some housing is built illegally. However, the problem is generally worse under free-market conditions with few planning restrictions. This is exactly the kind of planing regime which exists in for instance the Czech Republic, as a direct reaction against the planned economy of the Soviet-bloc period.

5. There is certainly a political culture which rejects all planning controls as 'totalitarian Communism'. Ironically, many of the new detached houses in the flood plains will belong to people who share this political culture - the nouveau riche businessmen who built the houses they wanted, where they wanted. This political culture (at its most extreme in libertarian rejection of all spatial planning), hinders rational policies, and costs lives.

6. The general anti-environmentalism of the right-wing parties in Europe also makes it difficult to implement necessary polices, related to the environment. This issue has been discussed in Germany, where the coverage of the flooding is the most politicised - it is election time. However, even in Germany, the media ignore the avoidability of the floods.

7. Even if there was conclusive evidence that global warming was responsible for such 'natural' disasters, the necessary preventative mesures can not be implemented in the present political system. There is no way to get a tenfold rise in petrol prices through a democratically elected parliament, for instance. Drastic environmental policies require drastic changes in lifestyle, unacceptable for most people.

Most if not all of these issues are being excluded from the mainstream media, partly through simple laziness, and partly from a politcal refusal to make unpleasnt criticisms of accepted ideology.