I think I agree with what you are basically saying, but it really depends on what you mean by 'Smash'. The corporate media wins over all the other voices because it is so all pervasive. It invades all the cultural space there is and squeezes out alternative voices.

It isn't going to be defeated by crude stuff like 'Smash' or 'muscle', if you mean this in a purely physical sense. Once I thought we could win by (say) knocking down the TV transmitter towers, but I don't think that any longer. It is much stronger and broader than this, because it is inside the peoples' heads, and cannot be got out of there so easily.

It will take years.

We have to create a stronger feeling inside the bulk of the poulation that the corporate media is no good, but more than this, (because on an intellectual level they already know this), rather people need to stop wanting the East Enders and the Brookside, the Sun etc.

This is not an easy political project. OK so there are various suggestions - like developing things like Indymedia and other internet alternatives. We also need to get out into the streets and our communities and really talk to people. If we get involved in community stuff, then people might become more receptive to what we have to say. In putting our ideas into practice, we will gain the right to be heard.

We have to simplify the message and keep on repeating it over and over. It isn't the one example of something - like the occasional John Pilger article or Noam Chomsky - the media can ride this out because the message is completely swamped by the corporate stuff. We need to realise that politics functions at an emotional level, rather than intellectually.

We need to look at all these questions, and then we need to get out there and expose the crapness of the corporates, and give people clear alternatives, suggest better choices to them. All this has to be put in place.

It is extremely difficult.

I was replying/commenting your stuff when suddenly
everything was gone.
One mistakable click and off it goes.

So I try again...

Sure, beautiful words what you say.
But it isn`t enough.

We need massive build up on the media front.
And that is not happening.
We need our own radiostations and TV-stations.
This fucking newswire gets read only by
1 out of 20000 maybe less.
That doesn`t get you far.

We are stuck at the moment.
We need air under our wings.

There are too many obstacles in our way
which can`t be reasoned with.
Permissions and licences by governments.
And they halt us very quickly by not admitting
any of those.

They suffocate the free speech and whats even
more damaging they dictate the rules of the game.
When you start playing according to your opponents
rules you have lost the game before it has started.

Hi there
I think we both want similar things, but neither of us are really sure of how to get there with it.

Pirate TV and radio is a good idea, but leaving aside really difficult tactical and technical stuff like hiding our transmitters, (maybe it could be put into a small remote control model aircraft to fly high above London?) we have two basic problems with this; one - getting good quality programmes which can effectively compete with the mainstream; two - persuading the audience to tune in.

One possible way round this is the 'Undercurrents' type video cassette. We could put our subversive TV stuff on a VHS cassette. If we could mass produce these we could just give them to people, or distribute via subscription.
How do we fund this?

The basic Situationist type objection to this is that the mainstream media essentially renders people passive consumers of entertainment / the Spectacle. Insofar as we go down that road, we do the same. A truly radical type of media answers this criticism by turning people into activists. I think I've already covered some of this in the stuff about getting involved in the community in my earlier posting.

Computer CDs - either radical music, words or both, are also a good idea, they can put across a lot in a relatively small disc. They can be made cheaply, easily.

More and more I think I go over to simple home made leaflets and flyers, photocopied. A slightly up-market version of this are the glossy flyers you get for events like Mayday, which must be printed in 1000s, and those stickers. I couldn't believe it when I went to London, went down the escalator into Euston underground station and there were these 'Hurry Up and Die Queen Mum' stickers. Bloody hell they were everywhere!

You are quite right though, the amount of effort we have to put in to this, in proportion to the degree we reach to people is not good enough.
Let's have some more ideas on this.
best wishes
Steve Booth