Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Protest messengers

Many people are angry at the protesters who appeared on day one of the Olympic games up in Vancouver, and rightly so. A few protesters who could not organize enough to put out a cohesive effort and make a point, (whatever it was) was subject to an attention grabbing cadre of violent thugs. The police and public pushed back and the protesters were diminished and the point was lost. However the impression of violence remained.
As we all know deep down, walking the streets with signs, writing letters, shouting and screaming just doesn't work. The powers that be, meaning most corporations and banks, find that laughable and it has NO influence on their plans. The fact is that corporations are now basically running the world, including many governments. Scruffy characters walking the streets with signs just doesn't cut it. However, lobbyists in expensive suits with secret agendas is working.
So how does the messenger get the word out without being shot?

Perhaps it is all in who shoots first?
Years ago when the Front de Libération du Québec (FLQ) needed to assert itself they realized they needed drastic action. They kidnapped Pierre Laporte and murdered him, causing the October Crisis and attention on their cause. A clear and attention demanding message as to what it was.
The Squamish Five, basically environmental activists, began by engaging in vandalism, spurred by special environmental exemptions given to mining companies by government. This quickly became bombing attacks, to get the cognizance of the people. Concentration of the mind through ultra violence worked again.
There are many more instances since of taking extreme measures to make the point which some activists need to expose. They are labeled terrorists today. And that's what they are.
The roving tear-gas filled protests in Seattle at the WTO conference did eventually center the public's attention through the smoke on the ramifications of trade agreements that don't consider humans in the corporate mix. People did begin to ask, 'What are they protesting?' and the message seeped out.

So the protesters at the Vancouver Olympics breaking store windows was more of an act of disjointed hoodlumism than a real protest, but it did occupy the media for a few days. Any serious communication by the original paraders was missed, stolen by those few visuals of violence.
And it seems that as the weeks and months pass on, the corporations, governments, New World Order, and criminal organizations will take a little more power. And the populace will lose a few more freedoms.
In today's world, the event of note needs to be desperate and violent to capture attention. But is the action negated without a clear and simple understandable message which appeals to the people? Preaching anarchy for it's own sake doesn't work. And anyone who brings that message will be shot down before the purpose can be expressed. Shot down literally as in Kent State 1970.

It seems the message has to read like a movie script to work. What is wrong? Why is it wrong? And who is responsible for making it wrong. And most important, proof of what they have done to cause the problem. Michael Moore has the formula but then he is rich enough to produce it. And a solution must be offered.
It's not quite a plutocracy, not quite an oligarchy, and not quite anarchy, even though they the small group within a group display that graphic a on their black banner. It seems what they are really protesting is the corporate enslavement of the people.

And we know from decades long campaigns against cigarette companies, for instance, by governments and organized activists, that deflecting the terrifying consequence of corporate greed with huge money works, and protest through peaceful, legal means does not.
What we remember in the theater of the Olympic Games is that shocking image of black-clad masked thugs smashing chairs through windows. If there HAD been a true message there, we would now know it. Right or wrong. However uneasy the thought, we know that violence works, from the Mafia to the Hell's Angels to the suicide bombers in Iraq, we know.

So what is left for the messenger? Shoot first and answer questions later?

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