Let's talk about the Media Blackout

[Telarus]

When was the last time you saw a major news org mention OWS, SOPA, or NDAA?

http://www.realitysandwich.com/censoring_the_revolution

Six people at Global Revolution TV were arrested last week as the team was evicted from their headquarters in Brooklyn. The Global Revolution team has covered Occupy Wall Street through live streaming since Day 1. Global Revolution is directly responsible for bringing local as well as national and international attention, and participation, to the Occupy movement. At its outset, they operated under a tarp in the centerof Zuccotti Park, but as gears shifted through the fall and winter, Global Revolution's base has been forced to relocate several times. On January 2nd, an eviction notice was posted on the door of the latest headquarters at 13 Thames Street in Bushwick, stating that the space is "imminently perilous to life" and that "violators of the commissioner's Vacate Order are subject to arrest". Interestingly, no one else in the building was evicted despite these dubious and vague claims about imminent health hazards at this address. 



Among the six arrested that night was Vlad Teichberg, a former Wall Street trader who gave up his pursuit of profit for the pursuit of social justice.  The charges were:  Trespass, Obstructing Governmental Administration and Resisting Arrest. All six were released on the night of January 4th. 



[Telarus]

http://www.thewheatandchaff.com/arrest-reflections/

I explained to the officer – his name was Lamarche, and his partner's was Ducie – that there must have been some misunderstanding. Could I speak to someone from the campaign to clear this up? No. I'd have to leave immediately.

I asked about his authority to remove me. "We're working for the Romney campaign," he said. I asked if he was on-duty; he said he was. My confusion deepened. So was he working for the town of Hudson today, or for the campaign? "Both." (Later, I think I got it straight: the campaign hired the police for the day, sort of like a private security detail.)

I thought about Romney's campaign staff inside. They had mistaken me for someone else, and that was enough – I was out. They had imagined trouble and whisked it away, out of sight. And the police – my police – were being paid to do their bidding.

[navkat]

And when they pass SOPA and add the "Information National Guardsman" bill to the PATRIOT act, we'll never know the difference anymore.

This stuff has made me angry for a long time and for years, I was accused of wearing tinfoil on my head. It makes the probbility of a second Holucaust seem all the more real to me.

[East Coast Hustle]

OK waittaminute....

how did you get from "odious and intrusive law that restricts the free flow of information" to "they're gonna round us up and put us in concentration camps to do vile experiments on us before we're all murdered"?

[The Good Reverend Roger]

OK waittaminute....

how did you get from "odious and intrusive law that restricts the free flow of information" to "they're gonna round us up and put us in concentration camps to do vile experiments on us before we're all murdered"?

Yeah, that's a little optimistic.

[Cain]

Unless that concentration camp is called "America" and the experiment is called "American Idol".

But yeah.  A modern police state, especially one that prides itself on rational tools of governance, isn't going to rely on mass extermination except in extreme situations, ie; an uprising or revolt (see: Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Kazakhstan etc).

Instead, it'll just use mass incaceration and slave labour to keep the groups most likely to cause an uprising or revolt in line.  That way, it's not only repression, it's economically viable represession that pays in the long-term for itself.  Along with that, a mostly compliant media can keep too much information from upsetting the rest of the populace, or framing it in terms that make such movements appear less sympathetic (this is not so much a "conspiracy" as a mix of laziness, stupidity, forgetfulness and class interests trumping the natural flow of information.  Deadlines have gotta be reached, yo, journalists don't have the luxury of time to analyze a situation, so it will immediately be framed in the most mainstream of conventional political terms, regardless of how useful or true that is.  Also, false equivalences and PR are distasteful, but easy to put in, and so make up the word count faster).

[navkat]

OK waittaminute....

how did you get from "odious and intrusive law that restricts the free flow of information" to "they're gonna round us up and put us in concentration camps to do vile experiments on us before we're all murdered"?

I don't know. It just feeeeeeels like what's gonna happen. Probably.

[East Coast Hustle]

Oh, well, don't let little things like rationality get in the way of your emotion-based hunch.

[East Coast Hustle]

Sorry, Navkat, it just chaps my ass when people equate something bad foisted on us by the government to OMG ANOTHER HOLOCAUST.

It's like a more hysterical version of Godwin's Law.

[Elder Iptuous]

perhaps, Navkat, it feeeels like that because in order for their depopulation plans to be executed properly, they must maintain a strict control on information flow during the process.
makes sense to me.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

More to the point, WHY?   They're already IN power, so they have nobody to appease and no promises to make, and we're acting like good little workdrone/consumerist sheep.

It wouldn't be profitable...And we're run by cynical pragmatists, for the most part, not wild-eyed ideologues.  Profit is what matters.

[East Coast Hustle]

yeah, in a society where economic advantage relies upon perpetual growth, why would the powers that be want to wipe out any substantial segment of the population?

They'd much rather just find a way to sell you a false revolution.

[Elder Iptuous]

perpetual growth is not sustainable, and they know it.  unchecked, we will have a population bust and who comes out on top will be a roll of the dice.
if they are able to proactively eliminate a large part of the population, and maintain their positions of power, though....
then the growth based system that they benefit from can continue.

(i'm just speaking as devil's advocate here. if there is any global conspiracy, i would say that it is unconscious, uncoordinated, and inevitable)

[Triple Zero]

Sorry, Navkat, it just chaps my ass when people equate something bad foisted on us by the government to OMG ANOTHER HOLOCAUST.

Dude I'm sorry to hear about the holocaust on your ass, but just because Navkat doesn't sound quite like Nazi doesn't mean she can't wildly speculate about your Fuhrers farting Zyklon all over the United Reichs of America.

Now if you'll excuse me I have to bring some Holocaust to my toilet.

[East Coast Hustle]

I'm not even sure I know what that all means and it's STILL funny as hell.