The political class is in lockstep to defeat the water charges protest movement, and that is very apparent since Jobstown. Most people probably think that the political class refers to people who are directly involved in politics or who are associated with politics (as in higher civil servants, for example). Noam Chomsky, drawing on Walter Lippmann before him, describes the political class as the educated elites - 20% of the population (high earners) who generally have university degrees, who belong to the professions or hold senior management positions or significant wealth or who exercise authority or power in some significant way, for example in this Jobstown case, the media operatives - owners, editors and journalists - who set the agenda and attempt to influence opinion, generally as we very often see in the mutual interests of their own (political) class. The media, in western societies, constitute the propaganda arm of the political class. The rest of us, the 80%, are expected to suck it up. If any section of the 80% refuses to do so, there then come into play the coercive forces of the State. In the case of water charges protesters these are primarily the police and the courts. Post-Jobstown we can see the political class using both propaganda and the coercive force of the police to achieve acquiescence on the part of the rebellious citizens to the endgame of successfully introducing water charges. We should expect nothing else from the political class. But we need to beat them at their game. We have social media, highly successful in organising mass protests, very useful as our propaganda arm. We need to return to a situation where the scope for political class propaganda aimed at defeating the movement by splitting broad public support is as limited as we can make it, and we need to put our own positive propaganda out there to draw more people to the campaign. That means communities marshaling their own resources to ensure that protests are peaceful. That means the principal external organising groups marshaling their resources - without splitting. Give the corrupt press, operating in the interest of their own (political) class, no easy stories with negative propaganda value. I am fully on the side of the Jobstown residents, lest anyone thinks otherwise. If they dont have the right to rage against the system or its representatives, no-one has. The way their protest has been described by reactionary politicians and other members of the political class including journalists is a travesty of the truth. If there were a half-dozen hotheads, there were hundreds of cool-heads, protesting peacefully. But lets win this by being smarter than the political class. Lets maintain unity, and discipline, and determination. Back on track. And defeat the rotten political class.
Posted on: Tue, 18 Nov 2014 00:42:34 +0000
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