Here’s the start of another irregular feature on this site, which will probably sputter off and fade away like so many other shticks here.
It’s about how “radical politics” devolved into a lifestyle niche long ago, and how it’s become virtually useless as a vehicle for actual change in North American society.
Today’s course material is a blog post at Huffington Post, by Occupy Seattle advocate Mark Taylor-Canfield.
It was about the local protest against the Supreme Court’s “Citizens United” ruling, which one year ago loosened most restrictions against big-money campaign spending by corporate lobbyist outfits.
This protest had been scheduled for last Friday, but was postponed to the following day, due to the continuing extreme weather conditons.
But Taylor-Canfield’s headline is not about the protest itself, or the cause it espoused. It’s “News Blackout Greets Citizens United Protest in Seattle.”
That is NOT the most important aspect of the events being discussed here.
The headline and lead of this piece should not be about what corporate media did or did not mention. It should be about the event ITSELF.
And if you’re the first person to spread the word about it, you can hype that fact up with “Exclusive Scoop Big News You Heard It Here First!” language.
But if your intent is to proclaim alternatives to corporate society, your first priority should not be what corporate society thinks of you.
Besides, if you know anything at all about the dreaded “mainstream media” these days, you know they’re mightily understaffed these days. Especially on the local level, and especially on weekends. If they don’t get around to you, it’s not necessarily an act of overt conspiracy to silence you.
This particular weekend, there were still weather-aftermath stories to cover, which used most of what few people the Seattle Times and the radio/TV stations had in the field that day.
(Many of these sources had mentioned the original protest date’s postponement, even though they didn’t send anybody to the protest when it did occur.)
Besides, anti-corporate movements should neither rely on corporate publicity nor find it “newsworthy” when corporate publicity does not appear.
Especially in the Net era, ya gotta be making your own cultural infrastructure.
