The last few days of national media coverage has made it pretty clear we’ve entered the next phase of posturing for the influence currency of the Nations attention. Oakland being the obvious one where a 24 year old Iraq veteran, who served two tours, was shot in the head with a flash projectile.
The media decided to go with, “no one knows who launched the projectile that hit him”, while several witnesses said the police were firing tears gas and flash bombs at the crowd around eye level. It reminds me of the type of backlash that came from authorities during the civil rights movement.
The latest spin from the mainstream media has been from mayors who say that laws must be respected, as hundreds of people across the country have been arrested for “suspicion of illegal lodging”, as well as reporting that the protesters have been testing the patience of residence in the area, with noise, unsanitary conditions and drunken fighting. They have also complain that the camps are becoming a refuge for the homeless.. It’s a pretty pathetic response to a constitutionally bound exercise of the people rights to free speech, free assembly, and the right to petition the government for a redress grievances.
Ironically the parks authorities are claiming belong to the people are the ones they are trying to control. The fact is that “parks” are listed as one of several places considered to be public forums for legal protests, according to the supreme court. Also it should be noted that the first amendment is consider above all other laws in this country. If the homeless want to gather and protest it’s their right and doesn’t fall under social moray judgements of who can and can’t participate in protests. Obviously if there was more jobs and more affordable housing there would be less homeless. The real issue they help to point out by being their is the massive imbalance in the economic conditions the banks created with unregulated and horribly risky lending practices, not to mention betting against their own investors. It’s a shame really, that this even needs to be mentioned and that our whole culture still resists the idea of community.
I would like to praise Keith Olbermann for his diligence in reporting the truth, as well as The Last Word on MSNBC. Otherwise the news is still only available through the social media sites, which has remained highly effective at getting word out.
Now we are about to see how far the system is willing to separate themselves from the people they serve with a recent introduction of a bill in the house that is the first cannon fired in the war. This bill wants to hold sights like YouTube and Facebook legally responsible for the content of their sites. That way they can just make up charges like inciting mayhem and shut the site down. It doesn’t matter if the law is unconstitutional as long as they have a way to tie them up in court while the cops do whatever they want. The key is they silence the social media influence behind people seeing reports in their daily status. Out of sight out if mind.
Ironically this won’t work at all. The fact is that if legal measures shut down the big sites like Facebook there will be ten other to take it’s place. The problem is this law attacks the very thing they seem to be trying to protect and that’s the successful businesses and corporations out there. Facebook if estimated to be worth $80+ billion dollars. Its one of the job providers in the US and you want to destroy that in order to protect the banks? I think it’s time to check the signatures on your paychecks kids. You’re supposed to be working for the people who sign them, not the ones who print them!
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Socialmedia Influence – Currency of the Future is now available on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, and Amazon.de
25% of royalties go to support the Occupywallstreet Movement.
Michael Light started Endoflex in 2006 to report the beginnings of the Subprime Mortgage Industry Fallout and has continued with the recent Occupy – United for Global Change.
Occupy Wall Street has changed the way we see the media, and it’s relationship to the powerful influencers of the World, and may even be the spark that ignites the shift from monetary policy influence to Socialmedia Influence. Michael Light reveals this shift in his book with a succinctly humorous history of influence and the shifts that have preceded what may be the next Global paradigm shift.
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