Go to Propublica or other news organizations not owned by corporations.
This video doesnât really âexplain why dragnet surveillance is terrible,â at least not to anyone who doesnât already accept that surveillance hurts our democracy. We need accessible messaging like this, but I think it also needs to do more than play ominous music over pictures of Nixon.
If you get a fax over the internet these days, ten to one itâs just a phishing/trojan attempt.
Now if only we could get the NSA to go after those guysâŚ
Purty much. Or writing opinion pieces telling us not to get so bent out shape. If only the ghost of Hunter S Thompson would appear to lend his voice to protest the lying, conniving scumbags of the administration.
Iâd also love to see a cross-section of how many of these actors & entertainers were shilling their asses off for the Obama election machine. They do realize itâs the same administration, right?
Activism has two separate functions in my way of seeing it. The diagnostic function tries to articulate whatâs wrong. Thereâs nothing particularly sensitive about this side of things, it can be out in the open with spooks listening, and thereâs not much they can do other than try to disrupt the thread.
Prescriptive activism is what to do about it after youâve decided a change is necessary. And I donât think any of that can or should happen anyplace where COINTELPRO can touch it.
We have to start thinking about the future. We need to ask: âWhat about the Children?â
It may be that almost a million people have supported the NSA train wreck. When their children ask: âWhat did you do for a living?â What will they say? We canât teach millions of children:
- I created the greatest engine of repression the world has ever known.
- I spied on millions of innocent people.
- I was above the law. I destroyed a nations respect for law and authority.
- Please donât tell the neighbors. We donât want to have to move again.
As we bring this nightmare under control, we need to avoid creating a greater disaster in the future. Every affected NSA adult needs to learn to answer clearly and positively when their children asks about their past. They should say:
- I was involved in organized crime.
- I am ashamed of it. I will not do it again.
- I thought I was doing it for you. But I was wrong.
- Please donât tell the neighbors. We donât want to have to move again.
The children are not ready for the ugly details.
For it to get as big as #OWS? âŚBecause itâd seem thatâs not enough; apparently business as usual subsumes all.
Except it hasnât been business as usual since the OWS started and OWS is far from over, itâs diversified and expanded with real-world effects and progress.
Where is the media?
The corporate media? Doing their job of protecting their masters like usual.
OWS was a trainwreck of ideas, and mostly served to showcase a bunch of people who could get together long enough to say âwall street bad, rah rah rah,â but not come even close to a consensus on exactly what was wrong, let alone how to fix it.
It appears you didnât understand the purpose of OWS in its beginning stages which was to raise awareness, penetrate the corporate media firewall on income disparity (and other issues), help change the narrative and spark further actions. Itâs accomplished that and then some in spades.
OWS did more harm to progressive change politics than it did good.
Yeah, for some reason, Iâm not just going to take your word on that. Have you ever considered that itâs dismissiveness and divisiveness from people like you that do more harm than good?
mostly served to showcase a bunch of people who could get together long enough to say "wall street bad, rah rah rah ⌠Add to that the occupy sites - I visited several, and it wasnât a great experience.
So some OWS websites were bad, rah rah rah?
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My point is, despite that, it accomplished fuck-all besides marginally raising awareness of wealth disparity and systemic corruption.
Considering the mountains of entrenched walls that were in place to keep awareness of disparity and corruption out of many Americansâ collective consciousness, Iâd like to see you come up with a plan that would have worked better in such a trivial amount of time.
Speaking of trivial, where are you getting this âmarginalâ raising of awareness from? If you are to go by facts and reality (instead of libertarian âthink tanksâ or the like), thereâs been a sea change of awareness among Americans that wasnât there before.
Evidence:
http://thehill.com/polls/190623-the-hill-poll-fears-about-income-inequality-grow
That was the best all those folks could manage.
What have you managed?
So Iâm not real interested in taking to the streets with banners and bongos
If thatâs what you think OWS was all about, then your are grossly misinformed. Where do you get your information from? The overwhelming majority of people that either participated in OWS or were inspired by it and branched off into other endeavors have never played a bongo in their fucking lives.
Have you ever considered that itâs dismissiveness and divisiveness from people like you that do more harm than good?
So Iâm not real interested in taking to the streets with banners and bongos. Fuck that noise
Taking to the streets is one of the only ways to get the corporate media to cover certain anti-corporatist issues at all. It sound like youâre full of bluster, but you know little or nothing about what weâre up against and proper strategy. Taking to the streets is, of course, not the only thing we do, but to dismiss it entirely is to be ignorant of the impact it has had in the past and continues to have to this day.
Are you not aware of all the advantages of the corporatist right when it comes to reaching Americans with anything thatâs not a pro-corporatist agenda?
ADVANTAGES OF THE CORPORATIST RIGHT:
⢠Far more retired elderly at home exposed to corporate TV media and radio that influences them to vote conservatively. (This affects other points below as well)
⢠People who commute further distances than those who live in (or near) cities are heavily exposed to and influenced by right-wing radio in their automobiles. Furthermore, the electoral system leans in the favor of these more rural dwellers who are heavily inundated with corporatist propaganda.
⢠Corporations are vastly more likely to fund anti-regulation, conservative agendas. The most you can hope for is something like MSNBC that leans socially left, but is (overall) conservatively pro-corporatist. The rich support conservative media (even when they run at a loss) because they understand the long-term profits of influence.
⢠More people still get their ânewsâ from the corporate TV media than online alternative media sources (source). Also, many get their online ânewsâ from corporate media thatâs simply moved online. This influences these people towards a pro-corporatist agenda.
⢠Many moderates and left-leaning people work more than many people do on the right (for various reasons). This gives them less time than those on the right to dedicate themselves towards getting involved in national and local politics, voting, etc. in general. On the flip-side, this also exposes more on the right who work less to more corporate TV media and radio.
⢠The rich are far more likely to support Republicans, even though theyâre not more likely to be socially conservative. That confuses people who donât understand the difference. Most of the rich hold their noses and vote Republican (and give them money) because it supports their corporatist conservatism. In other words, they prioritize the profit they gain by not paying for externalities (pollution they create, public health care, public education, etc.) over socially liberal agendas they may agree with (gay rights, womenâs rights, anti-censorship of sex/violence, etc.).
⢠Itâs much easier to organize and get media attention when you have money and influence over sheep people who have too much time on their hands, too little education and too little critical thinking skills. On the other hand, trying to organize moderates and people on the left is like herding cats.
⢠They can and do use their control of mainstream media to use fear to suck money and massive power away from average Americans to support their monstrously corrupt and extremely profitable military-industrial complex. There has never been anything with this much vast power in human history. They can spy on many average Americansâ communications to thwart everything from business to activism. This kind of power is vast and undeniable.
⢠They have the money, power to lobby (bribe) and influence candidates to basically only fear being voted out of office and little more than that. Your little third party candidate doesnât have the bribe money to stand up to this and many politicians and top advisors, etc. simply go into profitable business with the same corporatists they âlegislatedâ after leaving office (and vice versa).
⢠They have vast money, power, connections and media resources to spread their chosen campaign over the airwaves. How many third party TV commercials did you or any other Americans see in the last 20 elections compared to Democrats and Republicans? Exactly.
⌠And this list just scratches the surface of the power they have over third parties.
So⌠in this currently reality, what does an underfunded, true left (or true moderate), third party dream candidate have against that? Little or nothing because most Americans arenât going to get exposed to their ideas or will only get a distorted, filtered view of them via mainstream, corporate media.
Thatâs our current reality. This is what we cope with and overcome. This is why there are only long-term strategies that will actually work against this vast, entrenched power.
If we donât face the reality of our current, entrenched power structure⌠weâll be doomed to keep spinning our angry wheels with lots of squealing and smoke, but no traction. - And thatâs the difference between the teabaggers and OWS. The teabaggers created nothing more than a lot of squealing and smoke by propping up tea party candidates that only hurt America in the end. OWS is fomenting long-term revolution. This isnât a video game. Itâs not going to be quick, itâs going to take decades.
Letâs face it, it actually takes guts to push the establishment to the left and it very often requires civil disobedience for the mainstream media just to even bother covering it. You can gather five teabaggers in a park and itâll garner far more mainstream media coverage than 5,000 left-wing protestors of wars, income disparity, etc. Why? Because the teabaggers arenât a threat to the status quo. They arenât a threat to the corporations that run the mainstream media.
Thatâs reality. And, itâs time to cope with it, deal with it and overcome it. While itâs certainly more difficult and takes GUTS to push the establishment to the left, thereâs plenty of us still willing to do it and weâre never going to stop.
Can we get our fucking shit together enough to sidestep3 all this bullshit within my lifetime, please? Iâm soo. fuucking. fed up with waiting. I mean, look13 at these cunts. Can you stand to live another second under them?
Sorry, thereâs no quick-fix. Itâs trying to build a representative democracy in a vast nation. Nothing âsuddenlyâ is going to happen no matter what we do, but what weâve been doing by embracing false equivalency is spinning our wheels. The teabaggers and those who support OWS and its vision have very little in common when it comes to tactics and lasting progress.
Suggested reading: Sun Tzu - The Art of War
With lots of commentary:
Pretty much just the translated book:
http://www.stanford.edu/class/polisci211z/1.1/Sun%20Tzu.pdf
Can we get our fucking shit together enough to sidestep3 all this bullshit within my lifetime, please?
Youâll catch more flies with sugar. Disparaging the entire OWS movement isnât exactly a good strategy to pull any of us over to your grandiose ideas. If anything, itâs a great way to get people to dismiss you outright since it appears youâre more a stranger to solid strategy and more comfortable with your own platitudes instead.
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Thatâs not how it looks from where Iâm standing.
My contention is that attempting to do something about endemic corruption via the usual avenues of activism is increasingly futile, given the ever more blatant heights of that corruption. Your points about the dominance of entrenched power support this completely. So what, exactly has turned around since OWS?
Are banksters being brought to justice? Or maybe perhaps a finger lifted to prevent anything like it in future? Oh wait, now theyâre making off with all the public workersâ pensions.
The system is irretrievably broken, IMO - destined for an ugly collapse.
I say we need a new system, and these days we have the tools to design a far better one. Github, for instance.
Given the ridiculous legal power of corporations, itâs just about possible now to secede inside one. So like I say, letâs get fucking clever about this. Instead of, as you say, spinning our wheels and getting nowhere.
Thatâs not how it looks from where Iâm standing.
Of course not. Good luck with your endeavors.
That is some beautiful axe-grinding there, Cowicide. Thanks for all you do.
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