The Message Sent and Received I...

While I think the writer here deals with the issue of the presumed "anarchists" more than a little simplistically, there are moments of some brilliant insights in this article nonetheless. (One should read the commentary from all sides in other threads, I think, to get a better understanding of "The Black Bloc".)

But to my main "agreement" with this fellows analysis.

"The governments will do what they damn well want to. Citizens who dissent will be clubbed and jailed, not reasoned with. Other citizens will be either silenced, or taught to fear and hate their fellow-citizens as crazy radicals who've got it coming. Our political parties will do the least they can possibly do, ensuring growing distrust about democracy itself.

So when the cuts come here as they've come to Greece, the teachers and firefighters and public servants won't be quick to march in the streets in protest. They did so in Vancouver in 1983, and got nowhere. In 2010, they've been warned, they'll get their heads cracked."

No doubt, I think, we have pretty well all got the message that was intended to be sent here, both by the State and its Police. And fundamentally it is a warning about their preparedness to crush dissent, period. The State, acting for the ruling class "business" interest, is El Supremo, and They will not tolerate any challengers.

(Actually, I think Naomi Klein gets it the most correct, when she says that the G20 and the G8 are there as part of the effort of the major (capitalist) powers to find a way around the, in their perceptions, unwieldiness of the UN. There are just too many countries and obstacles there, in the United Nations, that get in the way of their, the major capitalist powers, especially the US, running the world more exactly as they want. It's global capitalism asserting its power and authority over all other, "relativelY' more democratic international forums, and ways of trying to manage the competing national interests.

And if necessary, the G8 and G20 "managers" are saying, we will use any pretext, any means, be they provocateurs or bait cars, to crush other street, or populations dissent as well. And they delivered that warning to us all, through the Toronto Police Chief and their "Schutzstaffel".

continued next post...

The Message Sent and Received II...

continued from previous post...

Now, unless we are all prepared to heed their warning and be silenced in this way, and rendered compliant, this police state action should be saying to us all, "Get organized and prepare the coming battleground more to your own advantage." Whatever is your choice of tactics.

But what else is clear is, the Sunday night vigils and the acceptance of consignment to "allowed", cattle penned off areas of protest to listen to speeches that will be ignored in any case, is passé. I mean do that form of struggle if it makes you feel good, for everything helps some, but that is not going to be the main battleground theatre that will win this coming austerity and repression period, let alone stop the drift toward fascism. This is going to take social protest developments of whole quite different orders of magnitude.

And I'd be looking more to 1983 in British Columbia, though Labour leadership treachery scuttled that Solidarity ship to the bottom. Though it should be repeated only when and if the lessons of that time are appropriately learned, it has sufficient mass participation, and it is democratically staged and controlled, top to bottom (to prevent another "betrayal event".

Otherwise, we would be better to eat cake (humble pie) until until such time as the pain is more widespread even than now, and unbearable. In the interim, a kind of guerrilla war that educates the masses. :-)

in a nutshell

"the great national leaders meet face to face when they don't really need to."

manufacturing dissent

The author is bang on. When it comes to creating a better world for developing and developed nations alike, the G20 leaders have failed miserably and painted themselves into a well-lit corner.

In order to refocus the global angst that surrounds failing economies, resource collapse and the perils of climate change, they need to create a diversion. In this case it’s an enemy the MSM will suggest everyone should hate: the Black Bloc.

Unprecedented police presence in Toronto was, by design, a message to all who disagree with their (our leaders) criminal behaviour.

ridiculous nonsense - the

ridiculous nonsense - the only thing that died at the G20 was responsibility from the the so-called left for hiding =, aidfing and abetting the violent vandals.

Days leading up to the rioters festival not a single protester would denounce the violence in advance nor where they repelled by so-called protesters once they donned their masks and started to act violently.

I ask you how are police supposed to react when the black bloc scumbags were dressed like "normal" people then put on their disguises?

Why did none of the supposed legitimate demonstrators stopped them before they could cause mayhem?

YOu know who is responsbile for the actions of that day? The author and everyone else refusing to see the police as human beings.

So easy to dehumanize them, yet how many of you would fear if a male was simply following a female on the same route going home let alone chanting, ranting and raving to smash the state and then don disguises?

You need to wake up and see the situation as it was for everyone.

infiltrators and provocateurs

students of contemporary conspiracy theory aka false flag operations will suspect that beefy combat booted black clad anarcists were in fact under cover kops instigating riots and justifying attacks against legitimate peaceful protestors. and just why did they stand back and just watch the vandalism??

Piercing Analysis

An excellent piece by Mr. Killian. G20 members commit war crimes, then deliberately stage a photo-op gathering, spending millions of dollars along the way, to ensure public protests turn violent. We are rapidly losing the last semblances of a functioning democracy. Sad.

Great coverage.

The military/industrial/security complex

It is verrrry interesting that few, if any, of the Black Bloc were arrested....it was mainly the peaceful protesters that were surrounded and "blocked" by police and then arrested.

If you read articles reporting on the London G20, it was almost the same story - of police intimidation towards "peaceful" protesters.

I think Naomi Klein has it bang on about the G20, as well, coyoteman - the corporate world's own "preferential" Frankensteinian creation to intentionally undermine the democracy/human rights basis of the UN...for the sole benefit of strategic US/Western interests/power. It's not at all surprising to read of Paul Martin's role in this.

At any rate, it should be clear by now, who they plan to keep safe in this world... and whose security will be protected at any cost..

Whatever the original beginnings of the Black bloc tactics - it is highly likely, that they, too have been co-opted or "their brand" has been stolen and now being effectively used against radical protest itself.

It is what the corporate and advertising world do best - steal ideas and information and use them "to sell" that which will benefit them most right back to a gullible and easily entranced public.

We will have to beat them at their own game - less predictability, more of the unexpected. This is where real shoulder to shoulder originality and imagination and concerted action on our part will have to come into play.

In many ways, the protest movement is using worn-out tools.

We need to invent some new ones.

I just don't think a Lennon song is a match for what is about to be fired back at us......

SO MUCH SPENT ON NOTHING

How could so much money be spent on security for the G-20 while "Canada's Finest" can't even find members of the Black Block let alone their leaders. Methinks the Black Block are well hidden under their badges so of course they could not be found, let alone arrested. Canada's leaders accomplished what they wanted, with the help of their friends, "The Black Block".

MichaelT

Hook,Line and Sinker! We need some people to wake up alright and it's certainly not the author. A billion dollars of security couldn't possibly hope to prevent a handful of vandals funneled past plate glass heaven? I think we have two choices, either these vandals are quite genius and sly or we witnessed a purposeful and willful act of neglect security. The powerful and elite spinning line has been cast and we're getting lots of bites...yawn.

A Faint Heart...

It's all kind of shades of the US Empire's inability to find Osama, isn't it? No show trials of Black Bloc leaders even. (Though that may yet come.)

But, manifesting my greatest fear re the Black Bloc, however they MAY have started out, and "some" may yet be I suspect, Lynn best describes it:

"Whatever the original beginnings of the Black bloc tactics - it is highly likely, that they, too have been co-opted or "their brand" has been stolen and now being effectively used against radical protest itself."

...by the Police Forces of The State.

We are in a complex period, with many complex dangers, and this is but an example of one.

Creativity, daring, and courage... they are all needed here. The social, economic and political tectonics at work are complex, and potentially dangerous.

Be reminded however, that, "Faint heart never won fair maid."

tell me, if you want someone

tell me, if you want someone to do something do you scream and yell at them and start breaking their stuff? Does that give you clients? Change the world?

Of course not.

Spoiled brats is all they were.

MichaelT

"You know who is responsible for the actions of that day? The author and everyone else refusing to see the police as human beings."

Everyone should be seen as a human being. Unfortunately, however, we need to also see conflicts in terms of what is being done. Yeah, Dick Cheney is a human being too, but people like that simply need to be stopped, not identified with. Not that some officers are honest, noble, etc, but when you defend an anti-democratic economic vision, you should simply be judged by what you do, not who you are.

Human beings

Human beings the Police may be but so was Stalin. Any organized group such as the RCMP which [COMMENT REMOVED FOR LEGAL CONCERNS. -MODERATOR] as they did in the case of Ian Bush and still allow those members a place in their ranks [...AND HERE... ] deserve no respect. If the RCMP's individual members had any dignity they would refuse to serve until the [... AND HERE ...] were purged from their ranks and as that has not occurred they are all no better than the [... AND HERE ...] in their midst. Ignore all Police as they have lost all their morality and do not deserve our respect or obedience.

Definitions

Breaking windows = violence.
Beating and kidnapping peaceful protesters is not violence however.

Black blockers have a violent ideology. Liberals, conservatives and social democrats who start/support wars and military coups where thousands are killed do not have a violent ideology.

People should check this out. See http://mostlywater.org/vancouver_statement_support_toronto_g8g20_arrestees

Don't blame anarchists for this!

The B Blockers are only a small fringe of our movement. Most of us do not agree with those kind of tactics, we want mass movements of working people, not a handful of ultras.

Not that the cops attacked peaceful activists. I emphasize the word activists. They did not attack the trade unionists. They are afraid to do so and when workers demonstrate they are very meek, cause if they piss the workers off they will do some real damage, not a few windows like the middle class blockers.

Error

That should read "NOTE that the cops...

Black Blockers...

How odd that none of these was arrested! Could it be because the powers that be needed them (perhaps even hired them) to create sufficiently shocking incidents to "justify" beating and imprisoning peaceful protesters? Certainly these people got the message: your interests and concerns about civil liberties, social justice, and other peripheral issues DO NOT MATTER, and you would be better off not to bring them up, or you will be jailed and beaten (pick your order).

It's all too pat. Why would riot police, armed to the teeth, bullet-proof vested, helmeted, co-ordinated with (supposedly) a billion dollars worth of security systems, fail to notice, confront and arrest the only seriously violent protesters in the area, and instead focus on seated, unarmed, peace-signing ordinary citizens? Unless our police forces are constituted of battalions of cowards, this has all the signs of a set-up.

G-20 Toronto

Uhmm, did Orwell fight in Spain? Were some of these protesters "anarchists?". Did you say 'misguided' protesters?
W.T.F. I can not even finish reading your diatribe.
Please tell me your article is just one big funny! This has shill written all-over. Remember Montebello 2007.
'Jack in the boots' same in Toronto.
Ya got it wrong my friend! Window breaking, cop car burnin provocateurs were not arrested!Peacefull protestors were!
Im beginning to feel Money, politics and power within the tyee! To bad so sad. Loved reading you guys back when I first woke up from my 'sheepe'.

Democracy Died...

Democracy huh? I know you jest. :)

There has not been a people's representative democracy, since, well, ever in Canada. But we come by it honestly being the offspring of an Empire with a horrific record of human abuse and authoritarian rule around the globe.

The fix is in and the MichaelTs of Canada (i.e., the vast majority of Canadians) don't even know they are being gamed. One cannot usually reason with these folks because they have been, quite literally, programmed to shut your message out. They get uneasy when an idea is not in lockstep with the manufactured mainstream views they've adopted as gospel. This is how we are 'taught' to behave in this society, especially if we want to be successful.

But it is not entirely their fault, just like it isn't my fault I cannot run like Ben Johnson or think like Stephen Hawking. But if I got a little fitter or read a few more good books, then I could no doubt close the gap.

History is flooded with thinkers-of-the-times who explained cogently the relationship and struggles between the rulers and the ruled. Things have not changed so much but instead of bludgeoning us with a club they assault us with propaganda. The desired effect is no less the same.

Most of us are highly compliant and obedient to whatever is propagandized as the serving of the day, and the majority come to claim they enjoy it. When one says 'propaganda', they think of the Russians; It's like saying 'empire' and them thinking "Star Wars".

I'll make it easy for anyone interested: Just click and watch a movie:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dA89CBBOC0

We all need to understand the framework of societal behaviour before we can hope to address its shortcomings. If interest to see the movie in its entirety is not piqued in the first 100 seconds, then I seriously wonder what it is you can possibly be interested in?

Hey, I've got an idea...

If Canadians want to have democracy in Canada, and I certainly do, what we have to do, provincially and federally, is elect the government we want. Not the government we are handed by the major political parties. We have to elect representatives at every level of government that are accountable to the voters, not the big, powerful political parties. Political parties are not much, if any, different from the corporations. You know what the bottom line is, right? So the answer, in my opinion, is for everyone to vote, and everyone must NOT vote for any candidate that belongs to any major political party. So find an Independent candidate, organise in your Riding or Constituency, develop a close relationship between the candidate and the communities' citizens. Or find someone in a small, grass-roots party where the people in the community directly choose the candidates. Get to know the candidate as well as you can. The Canadian Action Party is working with an Electoral System in which costly, staged election campaigns would be eliminated, and voters would place and change their votes locally, in their own communities and neighbourhoods whenever they chose to. Now THAT'S accountability that makes sense. You don't even have to change your vote, most likely, unless the candidate elected resigns. Just having them know you can change your vote will keep them in a very listening, cooperative mode, very interested in how they can make decisions that work for their constituents. Protesting should be done with your vote! Use it or lose it, eh?

The media bias couldn't have been more obvious

.
I have wondered why so little has been reported on the peaceful Toronto marches which did have important public messages ... and why 99.9% relentless coverage was given (over and over) to scenes of street violence.

Peaceful marches got perhaps .01% coverage: I saw only one sign: WATER (something the world does need to be thinking about). I saw a brief glimpse of Naomi Klein with microphone, speaking passionately to the street crowd ... but heard not a word of what she was saying.

Also, I saw two brief glimpses of a disheveled Judy Rebbick with microphone, speaking passionately to the street crowd ... but heard not a word of what she was saying. Both Klein and Rebbick appeared to be very, very worried ... and yet that was never explained.

And this was on CBC Newsworld.

CTV went almost ballistic reporting on street violence. But virtually ignored the peaceful demonstrations.

Right then and there, we must ask: who is the Canadian media serving?

Now -- only a week later -- there's the bombing of the Canadian armed forces recruitment centre in Trois-Riviere, Quebec, in which the perpetrators are identified almost instantly as a world-wide anti-corporate organization. Is it the same as the "Black Bloc"?

It's like a George Orwell plot-line (or a BC Rail Political Corruption Trial) ... let it appear to be "complex" and the media caves in.

I'm not sure where the "Russian Spy" news fits in -- or even if it does fit in -- but I'm convinced that these Toronto & Trois-Riviere things shouldn't be left, like road-kill, without a better understanding of just w.t.f. was (is) going on there -- right before our eyes.

Many thanks to Crawford Killian and The Tyee for the best analysis I've seen, on the Toronto weekend.
.

a couple of serious errors in this article

please don't confine "anarchists" to the violence box. anarchy is fundamentally about rejecting the idea that we need a ruling class to govern us. it doesn't necessarily translate into violence. you do us all a disservice by suggesting so.

secondly, it's not just violent protesters (inspired by undercover provocateurs) who were jailed.

http://www.facebook.com/note.php?note_id=397205503638&id=511491565&ref=mf

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/06/27/g-20-protests-police-arrests_n_627051.html

http://vimeo.com/12925239

for more comprehensive g20 coverage, i recommend:

http://bchanneltv.news
http://pacificfreepress.com
http://democracynow.org
http://www.mediacoop.ca/

samuidave

Thanks for posting the YouTube link.

There’s no doubt that public relations … the sanitized version of propaganda … works to sway the way folks think and behave. But neither Freud, nor Bernays, were able to explain how that happens.

Although Freudian pshchoanalysis is still employed, it contains a major gap in understanding individual and group behaviour. Freud and his followers failed to see how pain-linked (and pleasure-linked) memories provided the body feedback that caused people to respond in a predictable fashion. Freud, and many of today’s psychotherapists, overcame that shortcomming by pathologizing behaviour. As a result we see the big pharma making a killing on medicating contrived pathologies.

Another spin-off from this failure was that many folks … like Pat Jackson … began to believe that people had irrational emotions. Although there might be an argument to support irrational behaviour, there’s no such thing as irrational emotions.

The evidence that many don’t understand this very important connection can be found in our day to day conversation. Pay attention to how often folks substitute the word “feel” for the word “think”.

Ninety nine times out of one hundred the typical response to “How are you feeling?” will be a long narrative that completely avoids words that express emotion like sad, angry, mad, happy …

The problem runs way deeper than not understanding the language used.

Anarcho comes closest...

"The B Blockers are only a small fringe of our movement. Most of us do not agree with those kind of tactics, we want mass movements of working people, not a handful of ultras.' wrote Anarcho.

The essential, critical difference between what is happening on the streets in this country, around the G20 or whatever, and say Greece, Italy, Spain, France, even Germany, and yes, even Iran and often South Korea is, the working class presence in the struggle against capitalism and State repression. In this country, and in Amerika, other than for the formal presence of the Labour leadership, is the near total absence as yet of the mass of organized or even unorganized working class.

In these other advanced countries, the presence of the working class is what brings about a whole different level of police performance and respect. (Cops are afterall, objectively, regardless of how they are trained to think of themselves as above the class fray, still part of the working class. And then, of course, even they know the sheer potential power of the working class if you seriously piss it off, and they all decide to show up on the streets together. It is the greatest living fear the ruling class, its State and its forces of violence have.

Regardless of this or that groups tactical preferences, whenever the working class on this continent finally decides to step onto the resistance scales, things are going to start getting a whole lot different very quickly... and a whole lot less nicey nicey as the class war heats up.

In Europe, in a number of important ways, where there is a longer history of working class organization and militancy anyway, the understanding and engagement of the working class in class struggle is considerably more advanced. The important historical/cultural/political differences here, have tended to make the North American working class "relatively" more compliant.

Meanwhile, until this event begins to occur, of its own or with help from political and working class activists, I fear, the cops and The State are going to continue to feel that they can deal with the current opposition with impunity. Toronto demonstrated this reality.

A change in the current dynamics of "the movement" will not occur until such time as the mass of the working class begins to change its loyalties, and then begins to move in a new direction. Therein is the "critical mass" that is required, to make the earth tremble beneath the ruling class and its State..

KWD ...

I'm curious as to how you rationalize that (pun intentional). Emotions by their very nature are irrational. Something as completely illogical as a "mood," a generally undefineable sense of sad, happy, angry, frightened, etc., is caused by chemical actions within our brains that are wholly out of our control and come in reponse to external stimuli. How can that be anything but irrational?

How we respond to our emotions, meaning how we intellectualize them, react to them and act on them, is the only place where rationality plays a role in the experience of emotion.

Back on topic ... I think the various above comments describing the whole Toronto thing as Orwellian and dystopic are absolutely dead on target.

We, the citizens of Canada, a supposedly free and democratic nation are in for some very, very difficult and challenging times in the near future.

We are inarguably being overwhelmed by the Big Corporations of the world and the drive for ever-more wealth of the greed-infested rats at the top of our society, that 10% who own 90% of the world's wealth, property, and resources want to make that 2% owning 99% just for the thrill of it.

And our ship is indeed sinking.

John Greg

As we think, so we tend to feel.

Our thot's are out of our control?

They might very well be

You ask if our thoughts are out of our control, and in fact they might very well be.

A lot of contemporary research into the question of free will and the chemical factory that is our brain shows that we really do not have any such thing as free will.

The most interesting example is that research shows quite clearly that our body moves to take action before we think to do so.

What I mean by that is that let's say you decide you are thirsty and want a glass of water. Research has shown quite clearly that your body will start to move to get that glass of water before you even think that you are thirsty.

so, in that sense, yes, our thoughts are out of our control. Our concious control at any rate.

anarcho

When killing and enslavement is done vicariously, it is not violence. Heck, if we had to commit our own personal murders and enslavement, we would never have empires..............

"... our thoughts are out of our control.

Our concious control at any rate."

“… our body moves to take action before we think to do so.”

Yes, in the classical separation of the mind into conscious and uncounscious activity, that may be true. However, if we think of the “brain” as an unconscious-brain-body-context system, that explanation fails to answer many questions. And what’s worse it opens the door for all kinds of legal horse play when it comes to distinguishing between behaviour that is deliberate or intended and that which is involuntary and uncontrolable.

As Guy Claxton, in “The Wayward Mind” claims, “The problem is much worse than we thought, because it begins to look as if the unconscious-brain-body-context system (the ‘brain’ for short) is in charge not just sometimes but all the time.When all the oddities are mounted up, and we take them seriously, we come up with an image of our own minds that places uncouscious intelligence at the very centre, rather than on the margins.”

That deep dark well that is the unconscious is a vast repository for all that we experience. When it comes to determining thoughts and actions it’s always in play, which is why we are so easily triggered (to respond emotionally) by cues that present themselves as conscious thoughts.

RickW and Anarcho

"...if we had to commit our own personal murders and enslavement, we would never have empires..." wrote RickW

Hmmm, methinks you are onto something.

Another argument against, at the very least, over dependency of "parties" and "leaders". We each need to become our own leaders and constitute a great collective leadership. Which means we have to be prepared to quickly and decisively respond to those assholes and sociopaths who step out of line, and attempt to start to build their own "personal" empires.

I really, really hope this is the way the period evolves. I am not optimistic however.

Leaders are the most dangerous alliances/dependancies we create in our laziness. Okay, maybe it's a little more complicated than this.

Does the complexity, and do the friggin' nuances never end??? :-)

Peace and good health, brother. And to you comrade Anarcho.

By the by, what's all this with soleprobe? Ehhh brother, I didn't always agree with you, but I always read and enjoyed your stuff. 99% right on. There's always that 1% with all of us... even my friend Fait. :-D lol Whom I think is an outstanding dude.

Only if you're stuck on your TV

TV is a visual time-restrained medium and tv will always look for a visual to accompany any story and sometimes that's all it takes for a story to air. There was plenty of coverage in the print media. The Globe and Mail even created a sub web site specifically for the the G8/G20, I read two articles there on two events MC'd by Naomi Klein, they also discussed the 'other' protesters, a whole opinions section, the economy, etc., etc.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/g8-g20/

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/g8-g20/news/the-g8g20-saturday-evening-roundup/article1619828/

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/g8-g20/g20-headlines-from-around-the-world/article1619464/

Type in G8/G20 into The National Post's web site and there are 237 pieces to read.

Reading it all would take more than a one-hour tv news-show could even begin to even summarize.

KWD and emotions

I am glad someone thought the link was useful. It was not meant to be a comprehensive analysis of what is going on but an easily digested starting point.

Of course the PR industry has evolved considerably since then, but the objective of controlling the target audience has not. There are innumerable good books out there on the subject, and BC has its own local expert in Donald Gutstein who writes many articles on the media, some posted here on Tyee.

http://thetyee.ca/Bios/Donald_Gutstein/

A quick afternoon read which isn't heavy but still curiously informative, especially if one is just getting interested in this topic, is Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point.

http://www.bookbrowse.com/excerpts/index.cfm?book_number=513

What I found interesting about this book was how fickle change really is -- how the little things will make the difference in something going viral.

For many posters in here, the idea that the political and economic systems are systemically broken is hardly news. Unfortunately, we have no Paul Revere and no identifiable slogan to quickly change the tide against the insanely financed PR industry.

For this reason alone, I doubt positive change can be effected until the majority suffer severely enough from the current system of oppression to decide they need to fight back.

Rational thought, and the preponderance of evidence shown by others around the globe in pain, seems to fall on deaf ears. We are taught, and perhaps it is innate to some degree, to not care about things we can easily avoid seeing.

What a mess.

Yes, a mess that's likely to get messier ...

I agree, Gladwell’s stuff is well worth the read.

There was a time when I tho’t pain levels needed to rise before the majority would rise against the oppressors, but when I look around and see what folks are willing to tolerate, I’m not so sure adding more pain will make a difference unless it’s the leaders of our economic and political systems that feel the pain.

No disrespect intended, but ...

Gladwell is a fool who makes it up as he goes along. He is very much a charlatan like the charlatans of all so-called new-age faith-based doolally woowoo artistes.

Gladwell's book has been comprehensively, authoritatively, and quite specifically debunked and ripped to shreds of factual and logical fallacy in several places by several people of ranging expertise.

John Greg , interesting comment...

...but I wonder what it is you think a reader is to be taking from Gladwell's book?

It is not a psychological PR manifesto; it is simply commentary on what can prompt group behaviour and trends.

As I said, it's "a quick afternoon read which isn't heavy but still curiously informative". In the end, I wonder if the veracity of the information Gladwell proposes (other than for those in the PR business) in this psuedo-science book even really matters?

It's just brain-candy to give the reader something to think about and, I believe, it does that quite well.

Adulthood

The world is a place rapidly filling with terrified adults.
Adults are people who've resolved the compromises between what could have been (what they learned as a child) and what is (how they act as adults).
The most painful, ugly thing any adult faces is the day their children see them as the hypocrites they must necessarily be to "make due", to function in our society, to be a "productive" member of it.
Any person with a junior high education is filled with enough intelligence or insight to see this - that the behaviour their parents demand from their children has no practical benefit, save for the crucial “do as I say - not as I do” aspect.
So a 12 year old will know that mom driving a gigantic SUV from Ladner to downtown all alone probably isn’t good for the planet. But the “adult” will convey to their children that special sense of helplessness and powerlessness that the child in turn *must* inherit to be able to acclimatize themselves to the realities of the world they’re being bequeathed. THere is nothing mommy and daddy can do honey - we’re just doing the best we can.
By that age too, the child will likely have been so well parented by the glowing idiot box that all the cheap signalling of fashionable accoutrements will be plainly clear. By middle grades, all the kids know whether your family has money; they simply look at how you’re dressed. They don’t know (or perhaps they might) that the uniforms of the well-to-do kids at that private school are the higher end brand names - names they’d never be able to afford.
And should they fail to internalize the horrific dichotomy, by keeping their head down, their mouths shut and playing along, the evidence of the bottom; all the "failed" and useless lie around them as they travel to school every day, pushing shopping carts down a back alley, sprawled sleeping in the doorway of a yet-to-be opened store, or standing in line at a Food Bank.
Children see parents spending their lives compromising all the things they preach to them about moral or ethical behaviour and externalizing that compromise in a dedication to consumption. The gist runs to “I can’t do anything to change the world and I try to be a good person, but I’m just doing my job and if I don’t do it somebody else will and hey, are you kidding - I wouldn’t use anything but an iPhone, Blackberry, etc etc etc... Consumption is where all the compromises of adulthood goes to die.
And somewhere in this morass of tragic, irrational thinking, the diametrically opposed moral standards and ethical compromises, the kid picks up the real and true psychological content of what it means to be an adult. Make peace with what is and what should be. Be afraid.
Mommy and daddy’s pension funds, RRSP’s and life savings were being protected that day at the G20. A few cracks upside the head makes them free to travel around the world to put other people to work in conditions they’d never wish upon their kids.

Glen Murtz....

A good one for sure Glen, and pretty much true. But there is another side too. And that's those kids of "progressive", even "activist" parents who decided the price is too high, and took the safe "compromise", "career" and "consumer" route for themselves. They know better, but wouldn't touch a demonstration with a mile long pole. They saw mommy and daddy get out on too many limbs themselves, and get it cut off behind them, crashing to earth.

Significant numbers of these are out there too. ("Some" of them "revert" back in later life, when its "safer", I know. ) My old man, a fundamentalist Christian, always used to have a sciptural quote that said in effect, "As the young sapling is bent, so grows the tree." True enough for trees, but not always humans. It worked for three of his off-spring, but one decided it was bullshit and wound up a materialist/atheist.

Which could just be that there are always exceptions of course, which prove the rule.

But life for sure, is often more complicated than all our theories as well. :-)

Still, a good post, and again, I think you are pretty much right. :-)

terrified adults, or bored adults?

Prior to the finacial meltdown, the big idea floating around was the search of the boomers for 'meaning'. While most of my friends aren't boomers, I can honestly say that most of them are bored to death by the life they are living, as self-expressed. They want more, though are unsure what that means and exactly how it looks. But as one friend (with a master's degree in fine arts) articulated, his night job at Walmart, and the compunction of the 'Walmart cheer' every morning is fairly definitively his definition of hell. (Or hel, as Metropolis would have it.)

"...the evidence of the bottom; all the "failed" and useless lie around them as they travel to school every day, pushing shopping carts down a back alley, sprawled sleeping in the doorway of a yet-to-be opened store, or standing in line at a Food Bank." Yes, our culture continues to see these 'failed' adults as personally responsible for their reality, be it Walmart or the food bank...never mind the percentage of unemployed and underemployed, the higher percentage of mentally ill living on the streets, the impact of the financial meltdown...and on and on. In these pages, I continually hear that 'the people' are responsible for the mess we are in - except for us posting here, of course - by their apathy and ignorance...and on and on.

We are all in this together, trite as that sounds, and the anarchists have at least one thing right: that we must become our own leaders.If that sounds too complicated for you, let's just contemplate that the majority of people actually 'manage' their own lives and households and families...primarily by recognizing that leadership is shared. In any event, the way forward can only be found through a shared discussion...in the very broadest of senses.We share the problems of the country...of the planet...of each individual person not in some metaphorical sense, but viscerally.To say we are 'alienated' misses the point...there is no 'other', for few of us can make it on our own.

"We are all in this

"We are all in this together, trite as that sounds, and the anarchists have at least one thing right: that we must become our own leaders." wrote Vivian Leah Doubt.

Amen to that. :-)

Good post, good woman. I hear ya. :-)

thanks, coyoteman

To be heard is something very profound, indeed. Perhaps simply making the space for 'hearing', with no pre-judgement, is the largest step on the road to a less dysfunctional society. Perhaps.
Best :)

Vivian Leah Doubt

"I continually hear that 'the people' are responsible for the mess we are in - except for us posting here, of course - by their apathy and ignorance...and on and on."

Apathy and ignorance certainly exist, but the question is 'why'?

The propaganda machinery has most seeking a life that is a misplaced recipe for happiness because it offers the proprietors of such information the best reward.

Our time is endlessly consumed, our attention distracted, and our interests in matters outside of 'making it work' as directed are not challenged largely due to our own sense of futility.

The fact remains it is one's own responsibility to get informed as nobody can truly inform another if that person does not have the interest. At best one can offer some information that may plant the seed of interest.

I see it as little different than a physician telling a patient he or she has to lose weight or quit smoking. Both have had serious ad campaigns launched to change the general behaviour, and most everyone is fully aware of their inherent problems. But still these behaviours persist.

Here is a great, very short read by Bertrand Russell: "In Praise of Idleness"

http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CDsQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fivzhao.com%2Fplato%2FRussell%2C%2520Bertrand%2520-%2520In%2520Praise%2520of%2520Idleness.pdf&ei=1xYxTLGXAofBccPr3eYD&usg=AFQjCNEHZFWD4qpK5vzYp7BnblnMV3WO7w&sig2=puvi7Q-pwVXZLwcNWY_HRg

It gives some perspective, and leaves one asking some questions, about how we spend our time.

A response to Michael T

Your comment about the failure of the protesters to apprehend the black block is absurd. Why do you think we have police, to look on while citizens make arrests?? But in a really roundabout way perhaps you are right -the police system in this country has failed and it is time to start making citizen arrests.-

whose time is consumed and attention distracted?

I enjoyed your posts, samuidave. Yes, I think I was trying to get to the point of why the apathy and ignorance exist...
and my belief is, that they exist largely because each and every one of us believes it is true of everyone else.

No matter how apathetic, how ignorant, or whether homeless, poverty-stricken, gainfully employed ...or goddess forbid, driving an SUV...we share the country and the planet. Beating each other over the head - metaphorically or otherwise - is not working. To a certain extent, we are all alienated from one another...that is, those we do not know are 'other', and that, in a nutshell, may be the biggest part of the problem.

I have read Bertrand Russell, as well as Malcolm Gladwell, and enjoyed both. I have no sense of futility, and I do not allow my attention to be distracted by propaganda...I attempt to read, think, and question critically.I am not sure why I would believe my fellow humans to be less capable. I simply wanted to make the point that reaching out to 'other'...the stranger, the unknown...by 'listening'...with ears, and eyes, and heart...may be the first step in our journey to true community.
Sigh. I hope I am not berated for my lazy ellipses.

well, VivianLea Doubt...

...and I must first apologize for writing your name incorrectly the first time -- I am certainly looking for solutions as well.

When younger, I always thought it was like the Bret hair commercial -- you tell two friends, and they tell two friends, and so on, and so on....:)

I have been berated, perhaps rightfully so, for saying Canadians are fools. I do point fingers. I do ask we all try to fulfill our personal responsibility to inform ourselves as contributing members of society.

Perhaps I do not listen enough anymore. (It is hard when most of what I hear is the din of Big Brother or Parsons gurgling inanely.) See, I am doing it again....lol

Cheers

VivianLeaDoubt

We are taught from the get go to "get stuff" (aka to "succeed"). But we are taught nothing else (in any practical sense). Call it all the body language of the society we find ourselves immersed in. There are no other signals "out there" that say anything to the contrary, or even complementary. There is only "ya snooze, ya lose".

So when we "get stuff", we don't know what else to do. And the thought of (say) giving it away as a sign of our success (the potlatch comes to mind), and beginning over again, is strictly verboeten.