Indymedia Brunch Fundraiser: 9/11

Support Independent Media in Rochester!

Rochester Indymedia is hosting another Sunday morning brunch fundraiser!
Your sliding scale donation of $5 - $10 goes toward:

• Providing activist groups with web space and email lists!
• Covering the news that corporate media won't!
• Providing free video editing training and equipment!
• All this and so much more!
• Details: Rochester Indymedia Late Summer Pancake Brunch!
Sept 11th, 2011 11AM-1PM
$5 - $10 Sliding Scale Donation
Mostly vegan, all you can eat brunch
Flying Squirrel Community Space, 285 Clarissa St.
For more information, email: RochesterIndymedia (at) rocus.org

Today, our fellow citizens, our way of life, our very freedom came under attack in a series of deliberate and deadly corporate media lies.

The victims were in their homes or at their jobs -- people and workers of all kinds. Parents and guardians. Friends and neighbors.

Thousands of lives were suddenly corrupted by lies, despicable acts of chicanery.

The pictures, text, video, audio, and broadcasts of lies put out by corporate media, have filled us with disbelief, terrible sadness and a quiet, unyielding anger.

These acts of mass media were intended to frighten our Independent Media Centers into chaos and retreat. But they have failed. Our IMCs are strong. Great journalists have been moved to find and reveal the truth.

Corporate mass media lies can shake the pictures in our video cameras, but they cannot touch the foundation of the pursuit of the truth. These acts temporarily blur reality, but they cannot deter the passion of American muckraking resolve.

People were targeted for mass media lies because they have untold power that could be unleashed to unseat and bring to justice the individuals responsible for making and disseminating these lies. Corporate media have a vested interest in keeping the great mob docile and divided. But Independent Media Centers have the potential to become beacons for liberty and justice in the world. And not one mass media corporate lie will keep that potential from growing ever stronger.

Today, our world saw evil, the very worst of human nature, and we responded with the best of independent media, with the daring of our Independent Media Center journalists, with their caring for truth, accuracy, and integrity in reporting.

Immediately following the first wave of lies, Independent Media Center collectives were created to respond to the widespread jingoism expressed by our "leaders." Our cameras are charged and don't blink. Our collectives operate in a decentralized, democratic, consensual, and voluntary manner and are located around the world to help with local efforts to tell the truth.

Our priority is to the creation of radical, accurate, and passionate tellings of the truth. We work out of a love and inspiration for people who continue to work for a better world, despite corporate media's distortions and unwillingness to cover the efforts to free humanity. We do this to inoculate people at home and around the world from further mass media lies.

Even after the attack of lies, our collectives functioned without interruption. We're looking for more people to tell their stories, in their own words, tonight, tomorrow and into the future.

Supporting Rochester Indymedia at this pancake breakfast will help make sure that our financial situation remains strong, so that we can continue to provide activist groups with web space and email lists, cover the news that corporate media won't, rebuke the lies that corporate media spreads, as well as provide free video editing training and equipment for those interested in joining us.

We all know companies that put profit before people, the earth, and the animals and Indymedia seeks to expose those who are behind these acts of greed and barbarity. Every day we direct unremunerated resources towards uncovering the agendas and exposing the lies of those responsible. We will make no distinction between the corporate media outlets that disseminated the lies and the corporations that profit off of them.

We appreciate so very much the people who have read our stories, watched our videos, listened to our interviews, and stepped up to help. We appreciate all the independent media work that has been done to expose and stop these corporate media lies. Thank you.

Independent Media Centers and our friends and allies join with all those who want peace and justice in the world and we stand together to expose, drive out, and hold accountable those who profit from abuse, destruction, and death.

Tonight we ask that you consider attending our pancake breakfast, on September 11, 2011, 11AM--1PM, $5-10 sliding scale donation, at the Flying Squirrel Community Space (285 Clarissa St.) for all those whose worlds have been shattered by the devastation wrought by corporate media lies. As we say at Rochester Indymedia, "Don't hate the media, become the media!"

This is a day when all independent journalists from every walk of life unite for media justice and peace. We've exposed the lies and pushed those accountable out of power, and we will do so again.

None of us will ever forget this day, yet we go forward to find truth and media justice in our world.

Thank you.