Civil liberties are never in question unless they are exercised in a way that the majority of the population disagrees with -- and that's when they need to be defended. That became evident Friday, when anti-Olympics protesters in Victoria succeeded in blocking a small portion of the Olympic torch run.
[. . .]
Predictably, the media focused not on why 200 protesters occupied an intersection to voice their opposition but on thetorchbearers who were unfairly deprived of their opportunity to run the flame.
More predictably, media featured a young man with cerebral palsy who could not take his turn. Fortunately he later got his chance in Nanaimo.
[. . .]
Last Wednesday a group called Moms on the Move held protests in 20 communities to protest B.C. Liberal cuts to funding for special needs kids, including to autism, fetal alcohol syndrome and mental illness treatment programs.
Despite the obvious importance of their plight, the protests received next to no media coverage, with less than a dozen news stories online and none in major media.
But disrupt the Olympic torch run and watch the media fly -- there were hundreds of stories about the protesters' disruption and it dominated television coverage. (Bill Tieleman, “Dissent and BC’s Media,” the Tyee, 3 Nov. 2009)
Don't you just hate it when someone crashes the corporate party?
Whenever people are being set up as fundamentally hatred-worthy, protections by civil liberties are soon to go. Civil liberty talk becomes all about setting the speakers up as, in essence, restrained and principled, so at that point when they decide protestors simply have gone "too far," and civil liberties are dispensed with in favor of beat first, piss on later, they have demonstrated to themselves that what in truth is their sadistic indulgence, is really, is incontrovertibly, absolute last measure necessity to keep anarchy at bay. It's all about setting things up so that when they later turn all militant brutal, they feel no guilt. With the way Bill sets this up, with self-involved protestors taking away chance of a lifetime thrills, you know what path he's on. Count him amongst those who will effort to crush those who dare think and behave independently.
I wonder if someone was once awakened out of a fugue-like, sick happy trance, by someone's independent action? Is this story about dreams spoiled, and lifetime trauma incurred, or awakening to the fact that there is life outside of McHappy town, and it's to be preferred?
Ignored moms + spoiled children = trouble for non-deferent youth
Further: Any story about ignored moms and attention-stealing kids, is written by an author who learned as a child that his own attention-seeking efforts, his attendance to his own needs, was wrong, was bad, because his role was to attend to his mother and all her concerns. As an adult, he will feel compelled to punish self-substitutes for his own (always suspect) life accomplishments. They are punished, while he stands up for moms everwhere -- and thereby feels exempt from angry punishment.
As to Immigrant's other comments, try reading my columns and blog - I've stood up for people with disabilites, vulnerable children and others in need for years and will continue to do so.
And I've written about them before and after the Olympic protestors showed up - but I haven't seen most of those folks at other events to support those facing cuts. (Bill Tieleman, Response to post, “Dissent and BC’s Media”)
The Bill of the people. Whither immigrants?
Immigrant, please do check out his blogs.
Like this one, where he "is honoured to share the stage with" right-wing Bill Vander Zalm (http://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2009/09/15/ZalmHatesHST/), whatever his past and over-all intentions, and this one, where he blasts Margaret Atwood for supporting the BQ's "social democratic tendencies," in ignorance of its past, its primary purpose (http://thetyee.ca/Views/2008/12/02/NoCoalition/).
In the latter article you'll find him declaring how he's no friend of Stephen Harper but has firm respect for his having "just won the most number of seats in Parliament in a free and fair democratic vote." The people want the Olympics -- he clearly wants to believe -- and deserve respect. The people want Harper, and their wishes need to be respected. Those who get in the way are wrong and worthy of (and receive) his ridicule. Since the opposition he now loathes seems more and more to be, if not of the weak and fragile, then of the sensitive (don't miss his revolting dismissal of Suzuki for his unmanly hypersensitivity), and his friends seem to be of the marching militant, he is clearly much more drawn to muscle and inclined to disparage the vulnerable, than otherwise.
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If anti-olympicers have to
If anti-olympicers have to demonstrate there's not a marble-thrower amongst them, the public clearly WANTS to see them as urban delinquents, and their efforts will count against them. How can there not be marble throwers, how can there not be some, or even many, involved, that are drawn to mayhem and humiliation, when they've all suffered through 30 years of corporate rule, public disintegration, family discord? Corporations can't lose: they've helped create society so ruthless and unnuturing, that those who protest against them can be shown up as "unbalanced" cause they've ensured that at least some involved surely are that, and thus set-up for further discrimination / abuse, if the public is in the mood to cooperate.
Save the Rivers has managed to avoid being set up as lumber-jack injuring anarchists, owing its success to being understood as backed by concerned, good-hearted wilderness appreciaters. Why the difference? My guess it has something to do with how the public PREFERS to imagine the two. The public wants them to seem pure -- and therefore skims over the anarchists amongst them, and estimates them mostly composed of small town, clean-air breathing and humble, middle-aged lovers of God's green earth -- and wants the anti-olympicers to seem viral --and thus focuses on "irresponsible," self-dramatizing youth and terrorist-like tactics, and resists acknowledging that most anti-olympicers are save-the-river types as well. (But are most save-the-river types also anti-olympicers? Not sure, myself.)
Anti-urban sentiment? Fascist favoring of mountain hikes and clean lakes -- the simple and grandscale --over complex city dynamics and strange philosophies? What do you think?
Link: "Dissent and BC's Media"
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