Manufacturing Dissent - How a US Billionaire can fan the flames of discontent.
I will bet the photograph below caught your eye and drew you to this story? Good, it has fulfilled it’s purpose well. It is from a series of articles in an on-line “activist” magazine called “The Intercept”. It is an upscale, polished and professional magazine for the more discerning Social Justice Warrior. This comes as no surprise as it was founded and owned by US businessman Pierre Omidyar. He also happens to have founded and also owns eBay. He is worth a staggering $13 Billion dollars! Some quick facts with regards The Intercept:
The Intercept has published in English since its founding, and in Portuguese since the 2016 launch of the Brazilian edition staffed by a local team of Brazilian journalists.”
You can view articles about the issue in this link to The Intercept below:
Simply put, it is a shit disturbing, “rock the boat” magazine to further awaken the already “woke”.A clarion call newsletter as it were? And boy o boy are they professional. Look again at that photo of the red dresses in the snowy winds. It has the cinematic eye of Spielberg about it. It evokes the small red dress of a child wandering lost in the brutal ghettos of WWII Poland. The forest pines, the ceremonial blanket and the snow underfoot brings back images of another tragedy. I see Cheyenne women and children scattering through the snow at Sand Creek in 1864… while blue troopers on snorting steeds shoot and slash. I see snow soaked in red. Red with innocent blood. I myself grow red with rage. Red with injustice. I cry for the loss of the good, red road. I cry for the lost sisters and mothers and daughters. I still do.
I understand the power of both photography and theatre. I was an actor once myself. There is always the use of the power of myth and symbols upon us to evoke both memory and to provoke emotions. Like Bruce Springsteen describes it in his memoir ” Born to Run”, it is a “trick”…a kind of magic that many artists rely on to earn their bread and butter. These kind of tricks are not lost on the journalist of The Intercept nor the folks installed at the Unist’ot’en Camp outside Houston B.C.. They (among others) want the world to view the present confrontation like a remake of the film “Avatar”. You know…brutal para-military industrial forces riding roughshod over magical forest and fauna while an underwhelming and technologically disadvantaged indigena valiantly fights back? The power of myth is strong and has often been used to manipulate people. It is so ingrained in our human psyche.
The issues involved with the present gas pipeline project vexing our region right now are many and complex. It will take some time to sort it all out. But it ain’t a Hollywood movie! It is real people in real struggles. It does little to assist in finding resolution to these problems when US billionaires with suspect motives are on one side of the fracas stirring up the hornet’s nest of emotion with their slick propaganda platforms. Besides, I have already seen the movie. My ticket was punched a long time ago…far away…in another galaxy.
Little red dresses and Freda
Thanks for having taken the time to visit and read our articles. I had my say, feel free to post your thoughts as well, be part of making a difference.
I apologize for the faulty caption on the photograph of the burning Tipi in the article. That is a photo from the movie “Little Big Man” from 1970. The Spa photo that should be with this caption is a glossy pic provided in an article from The Intercept showing the “Hooligan Hotel” in the evening with relaxed dissidents outside by a warm fire beating on their drums. There is no way I intended to suggest we should burn down their “spa” as the caption seems now to suggest? Sorry for the slip.
Isn’t it more than a bit ironic that the Americans have twisted themselves in knots trying to impeach a President because “foreigners” had the audacity to interfere in American politics and yet their billionaires seem to be ok wreaking havoc on others.
I found the JLS report a while ago because I wasn’t able to find any reasonable information about what was going on in our country these last months. Thank-you so much for presenting a moderate and alternative viewpoint to the rants and rages of people who seem to have no compassion or understanding of the issues.