Police, Trade Protesters Clash in Miami (Typical Punks getting 'proper' Police treatment)

It is too bad you guys must resort to personal demeaning of my perspective. You both belittle in personal attacks rather than address my position. I'm am truly saddened you do not argue with a positive approach here for seeking understanding but with a confrontational defensiveness and aim to WIN. How can anyone discuss anything in such a manner? Is this a forum for expression of one-upmanship or one for discourse. Getting past what you perceive is someone's (mine) attempt to consider myself intellectually your superior I will reiterate that my concern is not that YOU particularly are ignorant of other perspectives and all the implications of them all including your own, but that as in Animal Farm the mass think/ group speak of the media drowns out dissenting voices/perspectives from the interests of vested pro-business concerns. You may very well chose to align with the pro-business interests and seek to dominate the masses in your own confrontational activities very aware of all the implications and harshness it invokes. That could be your choice even an informed one, but that does not address my point that so many others who barely have the time to fix dinner, watch a sitcom and go to bed before arising the next day to put in their hard working hours each day are not being acquainted with the coverage of a wide spectrum of newsmakers and opinions. They continually get the homogenuous verbatim official perspective of the admininstration's unvarnished spin of dubious accuracy. Please do not seek to belittle me personally if you have any sincerity and honesty in your considerations here for discourse rather than simple partisan dominance. I do not attack you. Please do not respond to this at all if you cannot address my points and seek to put words in my mouth that I do not claim to assert. Do you have a solution or do you think the world is just fine the way it is for your own interests? Are you concerned with the quality of life for all? merry xmas to us all.

-- YIt is too bad you guys must resort to personal demeaning of my perspective. You both belittle in personal attacks rather than address my position.

"personal demeaning of (your) perspective"? ROFLMAO. In case you missed it, this thread was about wannabe revolutionaries destroying property and attacking police. If you had wanted a nice, friendly discussion of media theory, perhaps you should have started a new thread.

And guess what: I did address your "position" in my first post. Instead of answering, you are now wasting my time with 200+ words of "woe is me" sniveling. Let me repeat some of it for you:

Please explain to me why privately owned media corporations have an obligation to give equal time to every "voice of dissent"? Should we give the same coverage to the voices of the Planet X cultists as we do to NASA scientists? Or do we only have an obligation to listen to those voices of dissent that you agree with? Please tell me your idea for establishing which voices must be heard, and a mechanism for enforcing these rules of coverage upon media organizations.

-- You may very well chose to align with the pro-business interests and seek to dominate the masses in your own confrontational activities very aware of all the implications and harshness it invokes.

Getting back to the topic at hand, I tend to think that slinging ball bearings at police officers and destroying property might "invoke" some "harshness".

-- that does not address my point that so many others who barely have the time to fix dinner, watch a sitcom and go to bed before arising the next day to put in their hard working hours each day are not being acquainted with the coverage of a wide spectrum of newsmakers and opinions.

My friend is a HVAC repairman, you know, one of the poor, unfortunate blue-collar proles you're implying above. After putting in his hard day of work, he finds the time to take college classes in environmental science, participate in a collective for sustainable city planning, be a father to his step-daughter, and read everything from Popper to Wittgenstein. He is probably the most well-read person I know and can talk my ear off on pretty much any subject, especially philosophical or political.

How much time do you spend each week actually interacting with these unfortunate "hard workers" whose supposed ignorance you spend so much time lamenting? I'm sorry if I sound snide, but your rhetoric sounds exactly like every other grad school "revolutionary" that I know. You are whining about the poor, disenfranchised and dumbed down masses, but I have yet to hear how you plan to save them from the big bad buisiness men. How are you going to get your "voices of dissent" heard by folks who need to hear them? Here's a strategy hint: smashing windows and attacking policemen is not going to work. I assume that you already know this? So what's your solution to bring about a society that focuses on "quality of life for all"? I am asking you this with sincerity.

how about taking corp money out of our political arena so our 'elected' reps will work for people instead of business interests which dumb down the issues and consolidate the voice of the media into the mess we had about a year ago with no questioning the administration? Do you think we could get a little more diversity and respect for voice of dissent to have a free speech zone anywhere in the country and not just 2 miles away from the media view and the leadership's view if our civil rights weren't abused..........seems like their would be less frustration on the part of the protestors and much better balanced coverage of the abuses of BOTH sides in a skirmish such as was not reported in this incident given such one-sided treatment here. Thanks for asking.
I since you are earnest in your attempts for solutions but sometimes they just don't fit with your belief of the way things 'really' are. So it is with most.

"Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions."
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) "Ideas and Opinions" (1954)

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