On Sat, 22 Oct 2011, Yaron wrote: > Ok guys, this is devolving into a name-calling flame-war, and nobody > wants that. Who was flaming and name-calling? I didn't see that. This is definitely not flaming or name-calling (below). It's just an explanation of a position... > 3) My FIRST-HAND OBSERVATION. I'm sorry, people, but I've been... > accused of learning about all this from The Media. Yes, I heard about > the Occupy* from media outlets (NPR, if you really want to know). I have > not ever read an editorial about them. I don't watch TV news, I don't > read newspapers, and if I do google up some news I red the FACTS. > > Yes, I did hear that there was no clear voice in the Occupy* movement, > and I had some assumptions as to the main message, so you know what I > did? I WENT DOWN THERE. I thought it was put to you in the form of a question, but let's say that you really were "accused" -- you now say that you were guilty as charged. That isn't much of a crime, but the point is really that your opinions are being manipulated, even by NPR. NPR gets support from a lot of rich benefactors and from the government. When they fired Juan Williams for his supposedly-political statements, they took on a major attack from conservative politicians that included threats to their funding. Now they have cut a show just because the host has been involved in political protests, but it isn't a political show, it's an opera show: http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-201_162-20124068/npr-dumps-opera-show-over-dc-protest/ NPR managed to avoid doing a single story on Occupy Wall Street for the first nine days of the protest. They are under pressure to prove to very biased people that they are "unbiased." That said, I think NPR and PBS are two of the best sources of news you can find. Every source is being influenced in many ways, so it is best so seek multiple sources, but that takes too much time. It's a hard problem. > Yup. I had a week off work, so I got up, drove downtown, located the > unilateraly-renamed People's Plaza and LOOKED FOR MYSELF. In fact, I > joined in. I marched around U.S. Bank Plaza, I TALKED to the other > protestors, I gathered stickers and pamphlets (and READ them) and I took > looooots and lots of pictures. > > Basically, I did the research. I think it is great that you went down to see for yourself. I should do that, too, but I haven't (just had a baby born 4 weeks ago today). In research we have a systematic plan for collecting data so that we don't let our prior attitudes influence our observations. I don't think you meant that you were doing research at that level. > Now I'm not a very good Marketing Target. I don't ever watch commercials > on TV (yay DVR), I don't really listen to commercial radio, and I have > Adblock Plus. So I don't really know what media's 'coherent messages' is > but it's kinda skipping over me. I used that term because it makes sense > to ME, not because anyone has FED it to me. But the idea that they were not coherent ("had no clear voice") had been fed to you by NPR, or so you said. You are less affected by corporate media than maybe 90% of people, or more, but they still get their messages to you. > I've mentioned before, I do think we can use some social and economic > change in this country. But if you're going to have a movement to > achieve thic change, it really should have some goals. As I said, they are working on that, but they were trying to gain interest and larger numbers of people before narrowing their interests to a list of demands, some of which might turn off some people. So, I'm saying you might be wrong. I would have thought the same as you, but the "incoherent" thing they've been doing is working. > And I'll just point out ne thing. On Thursday, OccupyMN was (according > to their twitter feed/facebook page (two sites I do not frequent but > were a good source to find out the group's activity)) were gathering at > U.S. Bank Plasa to protest forclosures. > > Yet a large percentage of the placards and signs people carried > contained anti-war messages. > > I just think that if you're outside a bank, protesting forclosures, the > vast majority of your signs should be on-topic. Is that still true if imposing some restrictions on acceptability of signs causes some people to go home? > I would like to hope that this could be taken as constructive critisism. > Again, I am actually very happy that people are finally getting up and > making some noise. This country greatly needs to kick itself in the > butt. People here are fairly apathetic and I am very happy to see them > finally paying attention. We kinda dug ourself into this situation, so > we need to work hard to dig outselves out. But that's a LOT harder to do > when instead of bringing shovels, people bring everything from rakes to > magazines to kitchen sinks. The question is, do you want people to show up with kitchen sinks, or do you want them to stay home? Or at least that is they way they were thinking about it. > I would recommend that we drop this subject from the list at this point. > I am more than happy to talk/discuss/debate the topic with anyone who is > interested in doing this in a non-flame manner, and please feel free to > email me directly if you like, but I think the list can do without it. OK. (At this point.) Mike