(no subject)
I'm going to be brave here, and leave this public. Who knows what kind of spam will appear! I spent some time today looking at videos of the Occupy Wall Street protests. It's interesting to contrast the kinds of people who appear in videos from various media sources.
The protesters all have videos of mean police arresting people. I find these a bit hard. I wasn't there, so I don't know that I can always say who was right and who was wrong. I have the benefit of being related to a few police, and having known many more from my days in the army/navy store. So, you know, lots of police are fine and really just want to get through the day with a minimum amount of paperwork, which is what we all want, really.
I see people being arrested and/or maced when they do not seem to be doing anything, but I'm not there. I don't know what happened ten minutes before, I can't hear the exchanges between the police and the protesters, and I don't know what's going on around the corner. I can't make heads or tails of it. I know some police are jerks, and I know some protesters are jerks. Maybe it's just always bad news when the jerks manage to find each other.
In one video, the crowd started chanting, "let her go," as young lady was cuffed against a car. I reached a personal best in the shallowness category because all I could think of was, "Donna Martin Graduates!"
Then there are the videos from mainstream media outlets. How do they always manage to find the biggest weirdos to interview? "Hey, that kid hasn't showered in four days, let's get him!" It's so consistent that it has to be intentional. I do not think that they are trying to discredit the protests necessarily, but I think they know that interviewing a kid with blue hair and tattoos will keep eyes on the screen longer than interviewing the nice mom from Brooklyn. I can remember so many anti-war demos in DC that were peopled by regular middle class folk but turned up on the news as a montage of smelly black block kids.
So the best video I saw was from RT News. Not to say that they do not have an agenda, but I feel like they at least get more comments from different kinds of people who are participating. You can still disagree wildly, but you can no longer disagree because it's just some "hippie weirdo." They do not interview police (probably can't), but they took the trouble to provide more background and information.
By and large, it's hard to know what to think about everything. It's a big terrible mess, but I can't say that I have a solution for it. And I'm happily middle class now, so I have a bigger stake in the status quo. I like our nice TV and staying in fancy hotels. I don't want the revolutionaries to take it from me, and I don't want the bankers to squeeze me out of it.
But I'm probably kidding myself. In the long run, it's just not sustainable. Best to just enjoy it as long as I can.
The protesters all have videos of mean police arresting people. I find these a bit hard. I wasn't there, so I don't know that I can always say who was right and who was wrong. I have the benefit of being related to a few police, and having known many more from my days in the army/navy store. So, you know, lots of police are fine and really just want to get through the day with a minimum amount of paperwork, which is what we all want, really.
I see people being arrested and/or maced when they do not seem to be doing anything, but I'm not there. I don't know what happened ten minutes before, I can't hear the exchanges between the police and the protesters, and I don't know what's going on around the corner. I can't make heads or tails of it. I know some police are jerks, and I know some protesters are jerks. Maybe it's just always bad news when the jerks manage to find each other.
In one video, the crowd started chanting, "let her go," as young lady was cuffed against a car. I reached a personal best in the shallowness category because all I could think of was, "Donna Martin Graduates!"
Then there are the videos from mainstream media outlets. How do they always manage to find the biggest weirdos to interview? "Hey, that kid hasn't showered in four days, let's get him!" It's so consistent that it has to be intentional. I do not think that they are trying to discredit the protests necessarily, but I think they know that interviewing a kid with blue hair and tattoos will keep eyes on the screen longer than interviewing the nice mom from Brooklyn. I can remember so many anti-war demos in DC that were peopled by regular middle class folk but turned up on the news as a montage of smelly black block kids.
So the best video I saw was from RT News. Not to say that they do not have an agenda, but I feel like they at least get more comments from different kinds of people who are participating. You can still disagree wildly, but you can no longer disagree because it's just some "hippie weirdo." They do not interview police (probably can't), but they took the trouble to provide more background and information.
By and large, it's hard to know what to think about everything. It's a big terrible mess, but I can't say that I have a solution for it. And I'm happily middle class now, so I have a bigger stake in the status quo. I like our nice TV and staying in fancy hotels. I don't want the revolutionaries to take it from me, and I don't want the bankers to squeeze me out of it.
But I'm probably kidding myself. In the long run, it's just not sustainable. Best to just enjoy it as long as I can.