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Counter Strategies

peptide | 31.03.2006 12:15 | Analysis | Repression | Social Struggles | London | World

Mainstream media has largely ignored two recent events that would have attracted sustained media attention in the past. Half a million Hispanics and other protesters flooded the streets of LA while in France a staggering three million protesters confronted the authorities. These protests occurred in quick succession but barely rated a mention in the popular press. Activists and analysts have been aware for some time that the independence and impartiality of the mass media has been compromised. Regardless of the magnitude and impact of a specific event, if it is considered to be incompatible with certain interests, it is disregarded.

Failing to address the valid concerns of a large number of people and disregarding social discontent tends to produce predictable outcomes. The ‘movement’ and protests will escalate and increase in both strength and size until they become impossible to ignore or control. The prospect of violence is also increased when the valid concerns of the public are ignored. Everyone is aware that engagement as opposed to denial (notwithstanding the fact that denial is a psychiatric condition) is the appropriate method of dealing with any issue or problem.

When millions protest for reasons that are deemed incompatible with the interests of the ruling few, the mass media is struck dumb! If there was any doubt that information is vetted and manipulated prior to reaching the public then doubt no more. The days of accurate, fair, impartial and balanced reporting are over. The mass media has become a medium of propaganda serving the interests of a tiny minority.

In an effort to homogenise ‘news’, various government agencies and other ‘authorities’ have targeted independent information networks (especially the internet). Views that oppose the prescribed ‘message of the day’, will be filtered, edited or otherwise eliminated from public view. The Chinese communist government has become the first to control the flow of information accessed from the internet. The Chinese simply appealed to the greed of various large communications corporations to achieve their goal. Western governments will no doubt learn from the Chinese example.

Legislation was recently passed in Australia that further erodes privacy rights of citizens. Government agencies are now able to access all stored digital (or otherwise) information – private communication has been relegated to history! In these circumstances the people’s response should be clear and uncompromising, full disclosure and accountability of government and the interests that require free access to everyone’s personal communications and information. To state that this law will be abused would be stating the obvious.

The Australian public is yet to learn that the Law is an ass and is actually subject to the people. Corrupt governments seeking to legitimise their actions often resort to legislation, however, abusing the legal code does not grant license from the people and the people should exercise their prerogative to refer to previous legislation as the principal determinant in cases involving corrupt government.


Consider the following fiction in which workers in a CBD are confronted one morning with a logo emblazoned on every available panel, sidewalk, wall, etc. The simple red and black logo transmits a powerful message without need for further elaboration. The CBD of this fictional city is utilised as a medium of mass communication due to the mass media having become an ideological State apparatus. An ‘event’ soon follows that shocks the inhabitants of the city into re-cognition. Does this story portray a future society in which an underground group resists corrupt overlords that have transformed the population into drones? One would hope not, but what stares you in the face is sometimes difficult to dismiss. Failure to counter totalitarian forces today facilitates ‘big brother’ regimes tomorrow.

During the course of research for various stories this writer has encountered (on various forums) the defeatist remarks of middle-class kiddie ‘protesters’ bemoaning the fact that the media didn’t cover an event in which they participated. The poor little darlings were bitterly disappointed when their painted faces, costumes and circus antics didn’t make the seven o’clock news. The sooner the movement is rid of these types the better. The commitment demonstrated by the French and Hispanic protestors is reminiscent of decades past; while violence is never pursued for its own sake, real protest is not a pantomime, circus event or token gesture; all struggles by nature are violent, latent or realised!

Gandhi understood that the removal of British colonial power from India would be a violent act. However, Gandhi shrewdly utilised non-violent means to commit that violent act, all struggles for freedom involve violence, however, that violence does not necessarily involve the shedding of blood. Understand that non-violent resistance is an extremely aggressive act if it is to be successful. In contrast to real demonstrators are the painted kiddies who take flight whenever a dangerous or compromising situation arises – they are loath to fight or blemish their faces or reputations, after all, a criminal record would compromise a future in the corporate sector.

The social dynamic of protest is a fundamental expression of power relations. Newtonian physics applies to the social/political sphere as it does to the scientific. Every action creates its own opposite reaction – the protest movement is the result of governments pursuing extreme (radical) solutions, protestors are actually forces of equilibrium and balance. The social power dynamic constantly seeks to equalise extreme tendencies in any direction, those who ignore social power dynamics are fated to be severely affected by them.

To ignore or deny an event involving three million people is symptomatic of extreme mental psychosis. One does not require membership to the Royal College of Psychiatrists to understand pathological behaviour as obvious as that displayed by today’s ruling minorities. The powers are bereft and have no positive solution to offer in today’s world. That is obvious!

The ruling elites are creating exactly the circumstances and forces that will culminate in their demise. So be it!

The onus has once again fallen on the people to act and heal the world.

We are ONE.

peptide
- Homepage: http://cleaves.zapto.org