Americans are fortunate to have obtained, through force or arms, the inalienable right to peaceably assemble and petition their government for redress of grievances.
News is, by definition, what departs from the norm.
These two forces of American life produce the modern phenomenon known as manufactured news: Stage a protest. Cause a scene. Having attracted
the television cameras, seize the moment to make your political point. Force hard-working law-enforcement officers with better things to do to haul you away
to the hoosegow on camera.
Congratulate yourself for having been willing to be arrested for your cause. Declare yourself a prisoner of conscience. Serve some sentence as showily
as possible.
Then, reluctantly, retire from the stage and await another opportunity.
One well-known player of this game is the ubiquitous Rev. Jim Lewis, who led a protest at the Charleston office of Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., while she was in Washington casting a vote in support of American troops overseas.
The campout at Capito's Charleston office went on for six hours, at which point Capito's staff reported that Capito had voted against a resolution Democrats passed.
Other protesters left. But Lewis insisted on waiting for an explanation from a member of Congress who wasn't even there. After he had made a spectacle
of himself for about 10 hours at Capito's office, three of Charleston's finest were sent to remove him.
Charged with trespassing, Lewis pleaded innocent. Learning that he would not be able to make a statement until the bench trial, he changed his plea to guilty, which left him free to address the media.
Faced with a choice between a $50 fine or one day of community service, Lewis again sought the limelight, choosing the showy collection of garbage for the city, making it a two-fer photo opportunity.
On Friday, 13 protesters occupied Gov. Joe Manchin's reception area to draw attention to Massey Energy's plan to build a coal silo near an elementary school in Raleigh County. Ordered to clear one space for security reasons, the protesters refused.
Several forced police to carry them out -- on camera, of course.
There is nothing especially brave about staging these confrontations. They are simply tiresome, and therefore unpersuasive.
_________________ Scared to say what is your passion, So slag it all, Bitter's in fashion, Fear of failure's all you've started, The jury is in, verdict: Retarded
Joined: Tue Apr 19, 2005 12:41 am Posts: 14208 Location: Lexington, KY Gender: Male
I no longer read the local papers because A) I don't get them in the first place and B) they usually love printing some of the dumbest "opinion" pieces I've ever read. Still, be thankful you don't have to read the Beckley Register-Herald. It's amazingly worse than the Charleston papers or the Herald-Dispatch.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 3:02 pm Posts: 10690 Location: Lost in Twilight's Blue
lefty wrote:
I no longer read the local papers because A) I don't get them in the first place and B) they usually love printing some of the dumbest "opinion" pieces I've ever read. Still, be thankful you don't have to read the Beckley Register-Herald. It's amazingly worse than the Charleston papers or the Herald-Dispatch.
It's difficult to imagine something worse than the crap they print in the Daily Mail, but I'm sure you're right. I haven't read any of the Beckely papers but I did grow up reading the Welch and Bluefield dailies. Awful.
I read them online at work, and even that just gets me thinking WTF on a daily basis. Sorry, this thread is pretty much worthless but I just wanted to share the misery I guess.
_________________ Scared to say what is your passion, So slag it all, Bitter's in fashion, Fear of failure's all you've started, The jury is in, verdict: Retarded
Americans are fortunate to have obtained, through force or arms, the inalienable right to peaceably assemble and petition their government for redress of grievances. News is, by definition, what departs from the norm.
These two forces of American life produce the modern phenomenon known as manufactured news: Stage a protest. Cause a scene. Having attracted
the television cameras, seize the moment to make your political point. Force hard-working law-enforcement officers with better things to do to haul you away
to the hoosegow on camera.
Congratulate yourself for having been willing to be arrested for your cause. Declare yourself a prisoner of conscience. Serve some sentence as showily
as possible.
Then, reluctantly, retire from the stage and await another opportunity.
One well-known player of this game is the ubiquitous Rev. Jim Lewis, who led a protest at the Charleston office of Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., while she was in Washington casting a vote in support of American troops overseas.
The campout at Capito's Charleston office went on for six hours, at which point Capito's staff reported that Capito had voted against a resolution Democrats passed.
Other protesters left. But Lewis insisted on waiting for an explanation from a member of Congress who wasn't even there. After he had made a spectacle
of himself for about 10 hours at Capito's office, three of Charleston's finest were sent to remove him.
Charged with trespassing, Lewis pleaded innocent. Learning that he would not be able to make a statement until the bench trial, he changed his plea to guilty, which left him free to address the media.
Faced with a choice between a $50 fine or one day of community service, Lewis again sought the limelight, choosing the showy collection of garbage for the city, making it a two-fer photo opportunity.
On Friday, 13 protesters occupied Gov. Joe Manchin's reception area to draw attention to Massey Energy's plan to build a coal silo near an elementary school in Raleigh County. Ordered to clear one space for security reasons, the protesters refused.
Several forced police to carry them out -- on camera, of course.
There is nothing especially brave about staging these confrontations. They are simply tiresome, and therefore unpersuasive.
The Irony is that the writer of this article pretty much discredits his own arguement simply through the act of writing the article. One of the main goals of protest is to draw attention to oneself and by proxy, one's cause.
Quote:
On Friday, 13 protesters occupied Gov. Joe Manchin's reception area to draw attention to Massey Energy's plan to build a coal silo near an elementary school in Raleigh County. Ordered to clear one space for security reasons, the protesters refused.
These protesters have succeeded on both counts; they have drawn attention to themselves and had that attention further drawn to them by the writer's article and by proxy have drawn attention to their cause, their opposition to the coal silo being built near the elementary school. I'm not saying that this one protest will achieve all the goals of the protesters, but again, if we assume that one of the points of protest is to draw attention to an issue, then the author of the article disproves the thesis of his arguement simply through the authorship of the article.
Americans are fortunate to have obtained, through force or arms, the inalienable right to peaceably assemble and petition their government for redress of grievances. News is, by definition, what departs from the norm.
These two forces of American life produce the modern phenomenon known as manufactured news: Stage a protest. Cause a scene. Having attracted
the television cameras, seize the moment to make your political point. Force hard-working law-enforcement officers with better things to do to haul you away
to the hoosegow on camera.
Congratulate yourself for having been willing to be arrested for your cause. Declare yourself a prisoner of conscience. Serve some sentence as showily
as possible.
Then, reluctantly, retire from the stage and await another opportunity.
One well-known player of this game is the ubiquitous Rev. Jim Lewis, who led a protest at the Charleston office of Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., while she was in Washington casting a vote in support of American troops overseas.
The campout at Capito's Charleston office went on for six hours, at which point Capito's staff reported that Capito had voted against a resolution Democrats passed.
Other protesters left. But Lewis insisted on waiting for an explanation from a member of Congress who wasn't even there. After he had made a spectacle
of himself for about 10 hours at Capito's office, three of Charleston's finest were sent to remove him.
Charged with trespassing, Lewis pleaded innocent. Learning that he would not be able to make a statement until the bench trial, he changed his plea to guilty, which left him free to address the media.
Faced with a choice between a $50 fine or one day of community service, Lewis again sought the limelight, choosing the showy collection of garbage for the city, making it a two-fer photo opportunity.
On Friday, 13 protesters occupied Gov. Joe Manchin's reception area to draw attention to Massey Energy's plan to build a coal silo near an elementary school in Raleigh County. Ordered to clear one space for security reasons, the protesters refused.
Several forced police to carry them out -- on camera, of course.
There is nothing especially brave about staging these confrontations. They are simply tiresome, and therefore unpersuasive.
The Irony is that the writer of this article pretty much discredits his own arguement simply through the act of writing the article. One of the main goals of protest is to draw attention to oneself and by proxy, one's cause.
Quote:
On Friday, 13 protesters occupied Gov. Joe Manchin's reception area to draw attention to Massey Energy's plan to build a coal silo near an elementary school in Raleigh County. Ordered to clear one space for security reasons, the protesters refused.
These protesters have succeeded on both counts; they have drawn attention to themselves and had that attention further drawn to them by the writer's article and by proxy have drawn attention to their cause, their opposition to the coal silo being built near the elementary school. I'm not saying that this one protest will achieve all the goals of the protesters, but again, if we assume that one of the points of protest is to draw attention to an issue, then the author of the article disproves the thesis of his arguement simply through the authorship of the article.
I'm sure the irony is lost on him.
_________________ Unfortunately, at the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius, the Flower Children jerked off and went back to sleep.
Joined: Tue Apr 19, 2005 12:41 am Posts: 14208 Location: Lexington, KY Gender: Male
Btw, just for the record the CEO of Massey Energy, Don Blankenship, might be the worst person on the face of this planet slightly edging out Dick Cheney.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 3:02 pm Posts: 10690 Location: Lost in Twilight's Blue
lefty wrote:
Btw, just for the record the CEO of Massey Energy, Don Blankenship, might be the worst person on the face of this planet slightly edging out Dick Cheney.
It's tough to say since Cheney obviously controls more, but yeah, Don Blankenship will definitely get a hot poker up his ass in hell some day.
Back to the article, this is the kind of shit that is rammed down our throats here daily, and a big part of the public buys into it. Your rights are awesome, just don't use them! I live and work in Charleston so I've seen most of these so called protests first hand, and you really couldn't find a more textbook example of "peaceful assembly" if you tried. It's mostly older people, not dirty hippies or whatever stereotype most would be thinking of. And the preacher they're talking about obviously did all of it to draw attention to himself. Isn't that the point?
_________________ Scared to say what is your passion, So slag it all, Bitter's in fashion, Fear of failure's all you've started, The jury is in, verdict: Retarded
Americans are fortunate to have obtained, through force or arms, the inalienable right to peaceably assemble and petition their government for redress of grievances. News is, by definition, what departs from the norm.
These two forces of American life produce the modern phenomenon known as manufactured news: Stage a protest. Cause a scene. Having attracted
the television cameras, seize the moment to make your political point. Force hard-working law-enforcement officers with better things to do to haul you away
to the hoosegow on camera.
Congratulate yourself for having been willing to be arrested for your cause. Declare yourself a prisoner of conscience. Serve some sentence as showily
as possible.
Then, reluctantly, retire from the stage and await another opportunity.
One well-known player of this game is the ubiquitous Rev. Jim Lewis, who led a protest at the Charleston office of Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., while she was in Washington casting a vote in support of American troops overseas.
The campout at Capito's Charleston office went on for six hours, at which point Capito's staff reported that Capito had voted against a resolution Democrats passed.
Other protesters left. But Lewis insisted on waiting for an explanation from a member of Congress who wasn't even there. After he had made a spectacle
of himself for about 10 hours at Capito's office, three of Charleston's finest were sent to remove him.
Charged with trespassing, Lewis pleaded innocent. Learning that he would not be able to make a statement until the bench trial, he changed his plea to guilty, which left him free to address the media.
Faced with a choice between a $50 fine or one day of community service, Lewis again sought the limelight, choosing the showy collection of garbage for the city, making it a two-fer photo opportunity.
On Friday, 13 protesters occupied Gov. Joe Manchin's reception area to draw attention to Massey Energy's plan to build a coal silo near an elementary school in Raleigh County. Ordered to clear one space for security reasons, the protesters refused.
Several forced police to carry them out -- on camera, of course.
There is nothing especially brave about staging these confrontations. They are simply tiresome, and therefore unpersuasive.
The Irony is that the writer of this article pretty much discredits his own arguement simply through the act of writing the article. One of the main goals of protest is to draw attention to oneself and by proxy, one's cause.
Quote:
On Friday, 13 protesters occupied Gov. Joe Manchin's reception area to draw attention to Massey Energy's plan to build a coal silo near an elementary school in Raleigh County. Ordered to clear one space for security reasons, the protesters refused.
These protesters have succeeded on both counts; they have drawn attention to themselves and had that attention further drawn to them by the writer's article and by proxy have drawn attention to their cause, their opposition to the coal silo being built near the elementary school. I'm not saying that this one protest will achieve all the goals of the protesters, but again, if we assume that one of the points of protest is to draw attention to an issue, then the author of the article disproves the thesis of his arguement simply through the authorship of the article.
I'm sure the irony is lost on him.
Probably. I was having flashbacks to my college logic class while typing that out.
Joined: Tue Apr 19, 2005 12:41 am Posts: 14208 Location: Lexington, KY Gender: Male
Well, Dubya set a good example by talking up freedom of speech in front of the capital steps during the Fourth of July while having people arrested at the same event for wearing anti-Bush t-shirts.
This picture helps show the effectiveness of anti war protests. See by burning an American soldier in effigy, they were able to convince all the on-fence-folks to help them bring the troops home now. So they can burn them as witches and reduce the amount of money needed at Walter Reed
At least they brought a ninja with them for protection.
This picture helps show the effectiveness of anti war protests. See by burning an American soldier in effigy, they were able to convince all the on-fence-folks to help them bring the troops home now. So they can burn them as witches and reduce the amount of money needed at Walter Reed
At least they brought a ninja with them for protection.
Right..... because the morons in this picture are charachteristic of everyone anywhere who has ever engaged in protest in any form. The people in the photo should all be kicked in the dick. It doesn't change the fact that the right to peaceful assembly and protest is an effective way to bring about change in an open and democratic society.
Right..... because the morons in this picture are charachteristic of everyone anywhere who has ever engaged in protest in any form. The people in the photo should all be kicked in the dick. It doesn't change the fact that the right to peaceful assembly and protest is an effective way to bring about change in an open and democratic society.
Certainly not. But people like this do create a stereotype, that dimishes the effectiveness of protests.
Joined: Sun Oct 17, 2004 3:02 pm Posts: 10690 Location: Lost in Twilight's Blue
I'm trying to dig up the article about the old man they're actually talking about in that editorial. It makes everything that's said in it even more laughable. Unfortunately their web site isn't the greatest and it's damn near impossible to search.
_________________ Scared to say what is your passion, So slag it all, Bitter's in fashion, Fear of failure's all you've started, The jury is in, verdict: Retarded
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