Learning to Roar

I have been made scared, filled with moments of fear by the classic propoganda tools of the police and mainstream media:

NY Times on “Anarchists”
NY Times on the Police Preparations (p.r. to instill fear)
ABC News details the plan for 56.

A friend pointed out that “protesters” are blatantly being treated as domestic terrorists. The story of the FBI interviewing protesters was huge earlier in the week. Ashcroft has since responded…

It makes me quite sad to see how the corporate media so easily takes-up the myth of violent protest and helps to create a climate of fear. This continued succesful PR stunt on the part of the police always succeeds in legitimazing their use of violence in the streets. I still don’t understand how as a society we have opted to declare some forms of violence better and more acceptable than others. For whatever reason we make it ok for some people to hurt other people. Who benefits from this arrangement?

We take to the steets with dv cameras these days so we can call their bluff and still the media lies, refers to seattle as a riot all the while downplaying and skewing our message.

I gave one of my best interviews to a woman from Voice of America and she took a single sound bite speaking about my experience getting shot in Miami. In doing so she edited out everything that matters, distilling my presence–my resistance–to an anecdote about violence. And there is little context that makes clear the reality that the cops and city will eventually have to settle out of court for what they did in Miami. Anyone that was there knows. Too often we learn to carry these truths in silence, unable to stop the lies of corporate media and folks continue to get hurt as a result.