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| Photo credit: Egyptian blogger Mohammed Maree, journalist with Egytimes.org |
Once you have cast off fear, the authorities send their thugs to try and put it back into your heart. But it doesn't always work.
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| Source: Occupy San Diego Facebook post following arrests: "Stand off over the police wanting to wash the blood away." |
I've been traveling to receive training
for my job, and thus spending lots more time than normal in the belly
of the corporate beast. Corporate hotels still love to leave a copy
of USA Today to greet and orient you toward an approved version of
what's going on as you step from your room each morning. Above the
fold headlines on the day after Oakland's militarized police force
cracked the skull of a young veteran of the Marine Corps and Iraq? Municipalities are growing weary of the messy occupations (never mind the 99% growing weary of kleptocracy) and, “At last, honors for the
first Black Marines.”
The information control
industries are counting on the fact that even if you avail yourself
of the free internet connection, you're unlikely to stumble on
authentic news unless
a. You read the Guardian, which is
published in Great Britain; OR
b. You find your own news using RSS
feeds, Twitter hash tags, Facebook shares, and emails from friends of
the friends of your friends; OR
c. You get lucky.
The dissonance caused by the yawning gap between the approved version vs. what's really going on is too
much for most of my fellow citizens. That chasm can be downright bewildering. For example, the livestream
from San Diego Friday at 3:30am Pacific time showed riot police advancing on unarmed occupiers. The
voiceover of the young camera operator was frantic with adrenaline
and the injustice of it all, alternately pleading with police not to
attack him, with his mom to call everyone she knows, and with the rest of us to
witness (“1000 people are watching this right now!”) as police
pulled down tents, smiling broadly as they fingered their enormous
weapons.
Meanwhile, the Google feed of top
headlines showed not a blip about San Diego, having only just caught
up with the news about Scott Olsen that had galvanized the globe
during the previous 24 hours. (Every once in a while the list of ten
headlines from this particular spun news source is so deliciously
ironic that I save it for posterity.)
Today, as I ate lunch at the Norfolk airport, the television above my head was frantically reporting on: the trial of Michael Jackson's doctor.GOOGLE HEADLINES from 10/27/10Obama's Messaging Diluted Off the Campaign TrailFox News - all 2105 related »Verdicts reached in Anna Nicole Smith drug trialCNN - all 707 related »Firms Knew of Cement Flaws Before Spill, Panel SaysNew York Times - all 606 related »Moderate Governance by the Next Congress? Fat ChanceCBS News - all 5373 related »Ky. Senate scuffle replayed in Democratic adWashington Post - all 409 related »Voters decide if California marijuana legalization 'worth risk'NECN - all 1395 related »Microsoft Q1 results boosted by Windows, Xbox, OfficeComputerworld - all 1489 related »Another treasurer leaves O'Donnell campaignAtlanta Journal Constitution - all 474 related »Baby killed for interrupting mom's Facebook timemsnbc.com - all 370 related »
So I lurch around on the internet a lot, following threads down dark tunnels, hopping briefly onto social networking sites whose workings I only dimly understand. Guided only by my purpose – to gather information – and their purpose – to make that possible – I listen in on conversations I probably won't ever have, with people I probably wouldn't meet. For example, here was some interesting chatter on Reddit as Olsen lay still in his medically induced coma in Oakland's Highland Hospital:
[–]Ebolaking As a fellow (Active Duty) vet as well,
though never a Marine. I can't stand this hypocritical stance that
the elected officials are taking this horrible event. Though I was
never a Marine, he is a brother in arms. As a family, we must stand
together. I do recall that when I took my oath of enlistment that no
where did it say that I will protect corporate greed. I know for one,
if shit gets out of hand, I stand with the people and not the
corporate lackeys.
We want to thank the police, fire, public works and other employees who worked over the last week to peacefully close the encampment. We also thank the majority of the protestors who peacefully complied with city officials.
I commend Chief Jordan for a generally peaceful resolution to a situation that deteriorated and concerned our community. His leadership was critical in the successful execution of this operation. City Administrator Deanna Santana developed the plan and secured mutual aid from other departments and the State of California. She will direct departmental teams, including safety, public works, communications, to restore conditions at the Plaza so that it is available for public use.Forget the petition, this woman needs to be physically removed from office.
[–]calebh70118 "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win." - Gandhi
The British are providing the best coverage of Occupy, for some reason, so we've got the ignore part down. Fox News is providing the laugh track. And now Oakland PD has started the fight.
So let's fucking win.
And then I come across a
news item like Egyptians marching from Tahrir Sqaure to the US Embassy, or the Bangor Public Library offering the occupiers space on their lawn after the city threatened to evict them at 10pm on Day 1.
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