Time to change tactics
FOr Christy from FDLblog:
ccobb says:
May 11th, 2006 at 9:55 pm
For a long time I thought that protests were ineffective and kinda hippy-drippy. But I have begun to think that they could be a very useful tool today, so long as they are targeted at the media filter itself.
BushCo has waged first and foremost a war of information. But the only other entity fighting that war is Osama bin Laden. Both do so through competing campaigns of misinformation. Yet we on the left are fighting the last war, with the same old weapons.
To fight on the terms of an information war, we have to target the tools of misinformation that BushCo has used to decieve and obfuscate. We are where we are because of the witting and un witting help of the media. So we have to go after the media filter itself.
Case in point: I live in Los Angeles. A major media market, and yet I didn’t see one second of footage from the NY protests. Not one. But if the 500,000 or so protesters had had a different strategy and a different target, I might have.
What if, say 50,000 or 10,000 or even just 1,000 protesters blocked all access to the NBC offices in Manhattan for one day. Don’t want to get arrested? Ok, what if 1,000 protesters lined the streets to the entrance of Rockfeller Center for a day.
Then the next day another 50,000/10,000/1,000 protesters did it again, and so on. For ten days those protesters either 1) make it impossible for NBC anchors and producers and accountants to get into their offices or 2) in the non-arrest version, just make them wade through a wall of signs pointing to their complicity in the Bush Administrations campaign of misinformation. Do you think that would get reported? I find it hard to believe it would not.
The idea is to create an approach with a viral component, one that could easily spread. CNN in Atlanta could soon have the same protest tactics applied, as could CBS. FOX, ABC, and (at the grassroots level) your local station. As implied above, 50,000 or 10,000 or 1,000 or even just a couple hundred protesters could get the job done in a highly targeted way, even in the biggest cities. In fact, a couple of hundred protesters out on the street outside my old place of work, Paramount Pictures, might even be overkill. But unlike the mass protest in NY, it sure would get covered in my hometown.
The goal would be to hold the corporate media accountable for their role in the lies that got us to where we are. And if the media doesn’t change, then we target their advertisers with the same tactics. Again, a relatively small number or protesters could have a much larger impact, because the target is much more susceptible to disruption than BushCo.
These NSA revelations are proof positive that it’s time to fight the war we are in folks, using the tactics of those we are fighting. We’ve been lied to, manipulated, ignored and dismissed. And the other side has been very effective. Time to change tactics and attack them where they are weak, by going after the very filter through which they lie, manipulate, ignore and dismiss.
Posted by: mkh at May 12, 2006 06:34 AM
ccobb says:
May 11th, 2006 at 9:55 pm
For a long time I thought that protests were ineffective and kinda hippy-drippy. But I have begun to think that they could be a very useful tool today, so long as they are targeted at the media filter itself.
BushCo has waged first and foremost a war of information. But the only other entity fighting that war is Osama bin Laden. Both do so through competing campaigns of misinformation. Yet we on the left are fighting the last war, with the same old weapons.
To fight on the terms of an information war, we have to target the tools of misinformation that BushCo has used to decieve and obfuscate. We are where we are because of the witting and un witting help of the media. So we have to go after the media filter itself.
Case in point: I live in Los Angeles. A major media market, and yet I didn’t see one second of footage from the NY protests. Not one. But if the 500,000 or so protesters had had a different strategy and a different target, I might have.
What if, say 50,000 or 10,000 or even just 1,000 protesters blocked all access to the NBC offices in Manhattan for one day. Don’t want to get arrested? Ok, what if 1,000 protesters lined the streets to the entrance of Rockfeller Center for a day.
Then the next day another 50,000/10,000/1,000 protesters did it again, and so on. For ten days those protesters either 1) make it impossible for NBC anchors and producers and accountants to get into their offices or 2) in the non-arrest version, just make them wade through a wall of signs pointing to their complicity in the Bush Administrations campaign of misinformation. Do you think that would get reported? I find it hard to believe it would not.
The idea is to create an approach with a viral component, one that could easily spread. CNN in Atlanta could soon have the same protest tactics applied, as could CBS. FOX, ABC, and (at the grassroots level) your local station. As implied above, 50,000 or 10,000 or 1,000 or even just a couple hundred protesters could get the job done in a highly targeted way, even in the biggest cities. In fact, a couple of hundred protesters out on the street outside my old place of work, Paramount Pictures, might even be overkill. But unlike the mass protest in NY, it sure would get covered in my hometown.
The goal would be to hold the corporate media accountable for their role in the lies that got us to where we are. And if the media doesn’t change, then we target their advertisers with the same tactics. Again, a relatively small number or protesters could have a much larger impact, because the target is much more susceptible to disruption than BushCo.
These NSA revelations are proof positive that it’s time to fight the war we are in folks, using the tactics of those we are fighting. We’ve been lied to, manipulated, ignored and dismissed. And the other side has been very effective. Time to change tactics and attack them where they are weak, by going after the very filter through which they lie, manipulate, ignore and dismiss.
Posted by: mkh at May 12, 2006 06:34 AM
posted by Kangaroo Brisbane Australia at 3:06 PM
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