AN IMC FOR LANCASTER ?
This is an account of a well attended meeting held at the Gregson Centre, Moor Lane, Lancaster, 18th October 2002. Included in this was a 'Kinematograph' society film show, and discussion about setting up an IMC in Lancaster.

GLOBALISATION AND THE MEDIA
The first film was about 'Globalisation and the Media'. Commentators in this included a worthless CNN executive, and Danny Shechter of media channel.com. Surreal pictures were shown of BBC workers with tapes over their mouths protesting censorship and bias, seemingly unaware of the total history of lies, bias and propaganda of that organization from the General Strike of 1926 onwards. 'Democracy Now In Exile' was another group shown, Amy Goodman spoke, and then we saw George Monbiot talking about Burson Marstellar producing propaganda in the same building as ITN. A Shell greenwash campaign was exposed as a fraud, with footage of an oil spill in Nigeria, made by video activists. The occupation of the London Shell office was shown, where activists barricaded themselves inside, and used video cameras, laptops, and mobile phones to broadcast out what was happening live to the internet.

BIOTIC BAKING BRIGADE
Film was shown of a WTO boss being pied, and a corporate greenwasher hit during a book signing. A mock funeral was held for freedom of speech and investigative journalism, and examples of suppression of stories, but the reality is corporate media = the police.

INDYMEDIA
Eric Galatas of the Indymedia spoke about November 1999 in Seattle, and how IMC were able to broadcast live system robots firing tear gas even as the corporate media were lying about this. Footage was shown of the borg collective attacking the IMC in Genoa, and the blood on the floor, trashed computers.

SECOND FILM
This was a collage of short items. In North America, 'Free Speech TV' reaches 4M people. There is a European version, 'European News Reel' which circulates output via video cassettes. In the second film, the first section showed 'Banksy', a brilliant street artist, who painted a picture of the Mona Lisa with a rocket launcher, using stencils. He had another of a teddy throwing a molotov at riot cops, the emphasis was on humour and fast working. He also paints on the side of railway lines. A GMO trashing demo at Banbury was shown next. Then we saw a frightening, rather angry obese pro-nuclear Big Mac eating woman from Devonport arguing with a campaigner. She pushed grotesque and suicidal views. This would have been humourous, however these sorts of views are disturbingly common. After Mrs Angry of Devonport, a sequence showed multi national logos, set to music. This was too fast to keep up with, but made the important point that all this is dominant in our lives, and goes faster and faster, saturating our senses in its pointless and destructive excess. More was shown of police harassment against freelance journalists, like Roddy Mansfield, and a photographer called David Hoffmann. The last sequence was a silly black and white piece about soldiers being given incapacitating drugs in a 1950s test.

INDYMEDIA DISCUSSIONS
Could it be possible to set up an IMC in Lancaster? One man described how he tried to sue the police for assault using CCTV footage, but the case was dismissed and he has to pay £50,000 costs. The Folly gallery, and 'Shifting Ground' have offered support, as well as 'Virtual Lancaster' and the anti-Chelverton campaign.

TECHNICAL
Print outs of the procedures to set up Indymedia were passed round, the Principles of Unity and IMC membership criteria must be met. A question was asked about supporting it by selling stories to the mainstream media [watch the videos] and a comparison was made with the Canadian 'Adbusters' group, and there had been a pirate radio attempt in Lancaster, which was suppressed by the DTI.

CENSORSHIP ?
A question was asked about censorship / no platform. Most of the site maintenance time on existing indymedia is spent deleting the fascist stuff. It was said that the truth can also be used by the state against people; as with Genoa where the IMC convergence centre was raided by the Forces of Mordor. There are various technical ways round this which were not properly explored. Simple measures like fliers handed out during campaigns are also good. A card was passed round for people to sign, leave email addresses and comments on. It was suggested that we hold another meeting in a week or fortnight in the Basement at the Single Step, Penny Street, Lancaster. It is necessary to write a mission statement. Technical support was also appealed for.

Stephen Booth
Green Anarchist