[Nettime-bold] Re: <nettime> NYC Newspapers Smear Activists Ahead of WEF Protests

["wade tillett" <wade@thefrictioninstitute.org>]

yeah, the spin is already built up into this:

the activists are terrorist anti-patriots who dare desecrate the
sacred post-911 new york cityscape and the image of a new unified
america.


(never mind that it was the wef that picked nyc for the party.)

this will be a major media event in the united states. all the
elements are there for a massive confrontation. anyways, what my gut
tells me is that it is going to be very ugly. it seems that the press
and government are much more prepared than previously, and have been
laying the propaganda groundwork to villify the protestors for quite
some time.

personally, i feel like the upcoming protests represent a critical
moment in the direction of the united states. especially since we are
apparently on the eve of more war-mongering. this event will define
(and expose) how dissent is handled in post-911 america. how the media
spins it. how the police handle it. and how the law affects the
protestors after the patriot act (especially non-citizens).

and yet there is another dread within me that this event represents no
possibility of direction change at all, but only an illustration of a
direction already decided upon... of the convergence of
media/state/military/police/economic force post-911 under the unifying
rhetoric of morality and the unitary concept of extending power.


see you there.




....
Near the end of that movie classic "The Wizard of Oz," the wizard
stands in the gondola of a hot-air balloon and bids farewell to the
people of the Emerald City. He is embarking on a journey, he explains,
"to confer, converse, and otherwise hobnob with my brother wizards."

That's nice, you say. But who cares?

Well, the City of New York, for one. This week, some 2,700 "wizards"
from around the world - government leaders and corporate executives,
ministers of state and of God, politicians and pundits - will gather
at the Waldorf-Astoria for the annual World Economic Forum, at which
leaders "think deep thoughts," as the Wizard of Oz might say. This
year, for example, they plan to focus on ways to restore worldwide
economic growth, reduce poverty, improve governance and thwart
terrorism....


From:
What's in an Economic Forum? Visitors, Police and Protests
By DAN BARRY
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/27/nyregion/27PROT.html
January 27, 2002



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