THE REVOLUTION WILL NOT BE TELEVISED

The mainstream media can ignore the Wall Street occupation, just as they ignored the anti-war demonstrations that filled the streets on the eve of the George W. Bush invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, but fortunately the blackout is easily bypassed by the social media and the internet. Let the mainstream ignore the uprising, let them downplay the numbers, or question the sincerity and unity of the protesters. What would you expect? Totalitarian states simply pull the plug on the internet in such times of crisis (witness the recent uprisings in the middle east) but in a "democracy" there is too much paperwork. Besides, we have the ACLU.

For a political overview of the Wall Street occupation, check out "The Adventures of Robin Hood" (1938). In this class warfare classic, Errol Flynn stars as the rebel leader who robs from the rich and gives to the poor. It's all there, in lurid Technicolor--the insensitive aristocracy, the exploited poor, a rigged system that favors the greedy rich and ravages the rest. This is political science, pure and simple, and a veritable how-to book for the would-be occupier. We can learn a lot from Robin!



If the modern mainstream media had been there, Robin and his Merry Men would have been roundly ignored until it became impossible to do so--then their numbers would be minimized, their motives questioned, their eagerness to abandon the system in favor of civil disobedience would be criticized, and the gist of lazy journos throughout Nottingham would be faux sympathy on the surface while the subtext would lament a lack of unity among the naive rebels. "They don't seem to know why they're out there," might be the lead in the Loxley Times, bolstered with a few random pull quotes. "Unruly Mobs," might read the Sherwood Forest Evening Star, "Domestic Lawbreaking Continues." The newspapers and public criers, which survive on advertising from the feudal corporations and guilds, would continually manage to mangle the rebel message criticizing the greed and rapacity of feudal corporations and guilds.