The Pepper Spray Incident

The protester response:

(from)

The woman being given the Silent Treatment being the university chancellor who ordered the police clearing of the protest.

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There has (inevitably) been talk about violence, and the 2nd amendment and when to shoot back and so on. The key thing here though is how this will play out if we win: We win if we attract sufficient biomass for political leaders (new or existing) to take up our cause. Then the “the government” changes by election… with or without the incumbent’s resignation.

A step along the way to achieving this is winning over the legacy-media – the mass media, which also happens by biomass… when simply too many people know that Emperors New Clothes don’t exist for them to carry on pretending.

That is how we win – anything involving violent confrontation with OUR police and OUR armed forces is very very problematic.

So… it’s an exercise in getting people on-board. It is a war of ideas, and of truth against lies… and we have truth on our side. To this end, violence is very, very problematic… violence is simply too easy for THEIR media to turn into The Story, and for it to backfire. THEIR media cannot do this with peaceful protest. They try, and they try, and they try… a march with a million people… if one single person kicks over a trash-can, that’s The Story. We’ve seen this a thousand times. The key is to make a theatrical event that is not twistable, but which is still riveting television.

Everything needs to be seen within the context of a media event. We have to understand the theatre in which we’re operating… that it is theatre.

And it works – I went on a silent protest back in the 80s – big march at night, no talking at all, just a single solemnly banging drum. This was against apartheid in South Africa. We won.

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I’m not against violence for it’s own sake – I’m not a pacifist… I’d like to kill these fuckers. I’m Scottish – I’d like to kill them with a fucking claymore… I think there comes a point where violence is a morally justifiable, and in many ways, we have already passed that point… but violence is not how we’re going to win, and we could lose it that way.

So be smart people. Carry on being smart.