From the not so reliable Wikipedia but perhaps accurate in this instance.
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First, lets look at the backstory through socratisation. The movie and music industries for a very long time have been part and parcel of corrupt capitalism. Fat pigs have been raking it in at the expense of fair play. Here are a few examples, starting off with some old-movie fetish.
George Harrison- Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)
Many have wondered how I became such a groovy, free-spirited peacenik. Until recently, I was incapable of providing an answer. On November 17th, 2011 a friend channeling the High Goddess revealed all. I am an idealist dreamer.
But isn't 'independence' from us and subservience to 'them' our primary problem these days? Financial systems, economies, are being run for bankers and their clients, big investors (sometimes called 'the market' by the mainstream press). And look what a helluva job they've done!
In contrast, I read in the history books that during the West's economic golden age, from roughly 1945 to the early 1970s, the following was considered 'normal':
... U.S. Representative Keith Ellison, who is Muslim, said in a statement that Lowe's had 'chosen to uphold the beliefs of a fringe hate group' and given in to intolerance.
'Corporate America needs to take a stand against these anti-Muslim fringe groups and stand up for what is right because this is what it means to be an American,' he said.
Violent/murderous (so-called), vicious, impolite, frequently banned, and often abused by majoritarian groupthinkers, internet trolls across the world wide web are cheering and vigourously flipping off the epidemic herd mentality today after a federal judge dismissed a criminal cyberstalking complaint against a California man on free speech grounds.
In a nutshell, the Judge opined that posting on a blog is not the same as communicating a threat directly to another person through email, snail mail, telephone calls or face to face, and therefore blogging is a protected form of speech.
A "Blog" is a shorthand term for a "web log," i.e. a log or web page maintained on the World Wide Web. A Blog is like a bulletin board and contains whatever material its sponsor decides to post. It does not send messages, and there is no limitation on the length of statements that may be contained on a Blog. Like a bulletin board, it does not communicate except to those who voluntarily choose to read what is posted on it.
You can ban us, loosers, but you can't shut us the fuck up by attempting to manipulate the US justice system to further your own nefariously unconstitutional aims.
Or, to put it another way, in the conservative sports schticker Dan Patrick's semi-famous formulation:
You cant stop us, you can only hope to contain us.
One of the American empire's enemies and rivals is Russia. So, these days, lies and innuendos about Russia can become mainstream 'news' and, potentially, this kind of b.s. can be turned into war and other terrible things. The latest very good example of this dangerous phenomenon is the 'news' that this week's Russian election was a swindle and that groovy young progressives are now demonstrating in the streets for their right to free and fair elections, supported in their heroic cause by accusations from the U.S. Secretary of State and her EU/NATO allies.
And yet, the election results were obviously a reasonably accurate reflection of voter preferences, because they match the mostly independent opinion polls preceding the election and the independent exit polls at the time of the election. Gee, you'd think no controversy with data that conclusive, but, go figure again, those of you unaware of the effect of imperial rivalry on 'news'.
The following remarkably prescient piece by Anatoly Karlin (AK) from a couple days before the elections helps clarify how these things go:
(Sorry this is a couple days late, but still worthy of thoughts/comments . . . finally had time to make a special trip to the kids clubhouse here to post it.)
From his complete silence on the issue, even after the Scott Olsen incident (afterwards he reminded the demonstrators to play nice but said nothing about the video-taped police brutality), I think we have the answer to that, or does President Obama think silence means he escapes presidential responsibility to defend the Constitution and Bill of Rights against police violence? Anyway, further confirmation Tuesday from AP:
Let me paraphrase and expand on what I wrote on Lenin's blog: there is an algebraic relationship between the numbers participating in the movement and the power of the movement's demands.
The larger tha number of people in the movement the larger the exponential growth in the power of the demands. The demands themselves are secondary. Meaningless until you have the power that the PTB cannot ignore, or conversely, the movemnt's power overwhelms the PTB and renders them irrlevent.
The larger the number on the left side of the equation, the more power accrues to the demand. Byron is the mathematician, maybe he can formulate it, but it goes something like this:
Mass multiplied by (numbers) = Demands to the exponential power of the (numbers) or wtf.
So, as you increase the variable numbers on the left side of the equation, you increase exponentially the power of your demands on the right side of the equation. (sorry too lazy to insert the algebraic symbols).
But yeah, the movement is the thing. Size matters. Once it grows large enough, any single demand the movement comes up with will have the force of a nukulur detonation.
"The people want to change the regime," in Tunisia and Egypt are great examples of the power of added numbers. You may also wish to add a component called "moral force" to the equation, such as in Syria, where the growing number of martyrs to the cause is having an impact. However, I believe that moral force cannot be quantified and thus is still best represented by the extent to which its persuasiveness adds numbers to the mass.
Today, in the Occupy movement, the power is growing exponentially but so far just to the level of an M80 detonation. Long, long way to go for optimal impact. If everybody folds their tents (note: this was written Sunday as a comment before the coordinated dismantling of Occupy camps across the country by the police) and goes home and stops, then momentum is lost.
But I think going home with these connections established and retaining the ability to re-convene strategically in meatspace, to take it back into the streets in a coordinated fashion, to do whatever activism next develops in increasingly large numbers will be the critical element for long term sustenance and impact of the Occupy Movement (or whatever it becomes labelled in the future).
The critics who promote premature buzzkill by demanding demands or this or that or wtf they believe should be the purpose blah blah blah but who refuse to existentially add to the numbers in the streets as represented on the left of my equation are doing nothing other than playing into the hands of the reactionary PTB.
There is no other way to put it. No middle ground and no sideline on which to stand in my equation.
Add numbers or subtract numbers. Everything else will flow or ebb from there.
I suppose it was inevitable that all the over-the-top expressions of "boiling anger" from the 40-50-60 somethings regarding the events of late November 2 in Oakland, which were accompanied by calls for good citizen firedogs to finger black bloc "vandals," would devolve into the postmodern language of therapeutic intervention. I just didn't think it would happen so quickly.
I, too, have watched the A&E show a few times. And from watching I learned that you cannot force an intervention on somebody who doesn't want one. Oh, and also, there are some legal risks here for any group of good citizens attempting to restrict the free movement of an individual on the street who doesn't wish to be restrained, that is, unless you can clearly demonstrate an immediate probable cause that the person you have detained has committed a crime that necessitates your holding him against his will.
The act of so doing, assuming that you have the courage to undertake such action in the first place, would be something of a superhuman feat in reality, given the spontaneous and chaotic nature of a street protest of hundreds. And it is highly doubtful under the circumstances that the police would much appreciate your assistance, in any event.
In fact, the riot squads happening upon the scene might just as easily decide to start busting up the entire group involved, including the good citizens, rather than taking the time in the middle of the melee to start an impromptu questioning of witnesses.
[SEE ALSO, "Unintended Consequences, The Law of", for further explication]
And this would seem to be especially true if, as so many believe, the perp in question is an agent of the police.
Since we are now onto the topic of therapeutic intervention, allow me to suggest that the proponents of such questionable methods let go of your anger and perhaps seek therapy for what appear to be serious "controlling" issues.
In closing, for instructional purposes, I have uploaded a video from the 1960s where another good citizen utilised similar tactics, ironically in opposition to the police instead of in their support.
Surely, all old hippies will remember what resulted during this historic episode.
As we go about our business this morning, our spirits are lifted by the overnight news that the people of Occupy Oakland have succeeded in their goal of shutting down the Port of Oakland, gathering support and praise from union truck drivers on the scene, and even eliciting a generally sympathetic response from Port of Oakland authorities.
Power to the People!
Occupy Oakland has fast become the epicenter of leftist political activism, a true rainbow coalition of the young, sprinkled with the seasoning of the seasoned, all actively standing up to the PTB on our behalf for our rights and our economic security.
I'm critical of the Occupy movement not having explicit demands, but am happy it has implicit ones. One of the most significant of the latter is that the homeless are universally (*) welcome in the Occupy encampments, as applepie perceptively points out:
Tell you the truth though, my favorite devlpmnt is a controversial one...the seemingly unanimous national consensus that homeless people were to be welcomed in our camps. It seemed to happen simultaneously and over a vast geographic area without any real national coordination! Power to the people.
Yes, it is creating problems. And at times it can be scary given the huge amount of untreated psychological problems in our nation (esp. the homeless), and the cops/media are using it to bully us and try and shut us down, and the fascists point to it in an attempt to marginalize us, but it seems to be holding together!?! Where will it lead? The stones are being set for a path to a better place...
This welcoming is meaningful, and a significant and obviously closely related sub-theme of the main implicit 'demand', creating a society that serves the 99% and not the 1%.
It becomes obvious that few if any of the "Firedogs" featured in a recent number of diaries/comments critical of OWS (also, here are some farther-left concern trolling on display in comments at Lenin's Tomb), have ever before involved themselves in the political activism of building sustained mass protest movements.
Most of the critics are currently on the fence, if not downright hostile towards OWS, whatever their motivation. This is not meant to cast individual fault, although I suspect that the recent trend towards "online activism" since the W. Bush Administration has become a reflexive deterrent to building a movement rather than a motivating factor.
It was disheartening - what lack of awareness! - that the subtext of many or most of the comments wasn't disagreement but offense, that my proposal, Primary Obama, was somehow 'challenging' or 'contaminating' the Great God OWS. This despite my explicit fulsome praise and appreciation for OWS enlightenment raising, that it has brought a chunk of the population to where politically they need to be. And, for the record and of course, 'Primary Obama' and OWS are perfectly compatible and complementary, as my diaries strove to point out.
Anyway, the power of in-group purity/insularity was overwhelming, despite the fact that separation and insularity would be a real left's number one strategic no-no's. But, as we already knew, America is identity politics land and doesn't have a left. Most of the mostly under 35-ish white people who make up the bulk of Occupy forces naturally (in America) see OWS as a special opportunity to find 'their' special identity, and have temporarily found a very cool one as OWSers. Good for them, and I apologize for introducing 'politics' into their zeitgeist!
