class war
more hype than substance
Native Youth Movement Tooled by AIM,Inc and ideologically-challenged naivete? (tags)
For many years there's been a storm of building hype in indigenous country (especially around the militant aspect of indigenous resistance), but of late, it's become more and more hyped-up in a most curious way, including character assasination attempts against long-time figures without contexts and empathy. All this appears to be having an effect of someone trying to drive a wedge between the vital experience (or praxis) of the elders, and the too often easily-exploited anger of youth just entering the movement. This time around it's centered on different conceptions about how to run a resistance, one swamped in ideology (and a short history of merits in direct action), the other having a long record of uncompromising defense of indigenous peoples who insist on their autonomy. This article goes thru, albeit roughly, some of the history of the building hype and ways in which movements are divided and conquered, and gives lessons about the remaining apparently easily-exploitable weaknesses of the radical movement today.
Thoughtful Analysis, Calm Reflection (tags)
"As the situation lurches toward more devastation, violence and deaths of innocents around the world, alternatives to the hype machine must be effective in offering a forum for calm reflection, for thoughtful analysis, for understanding and truth, and for building a sense of community outside the narrow definitions portrayed in the corporate media."
hype blocks democracy and freedom and may be worst danger today (tags)
Those seriously interested in catching onto the games of unaccountable power need to understand what propaganda is. It is not "all communications" nor "all persuasion". Once you wade past the hype that grips thought control societies, you may finally see that there is good reason to why there is a negative connotation to the word, and how policy makers need to keep you, the stupid masses, on a "proper course" of topical non-understanding. Jaques Ellul, amongst others spoken of here, are MUST READS for anyone seeking to seriously understand the games played by those they've been taught to trust.