Gallery: Student Protests in Chile
September 29th, 2011Resistance…
U.S. style: Lots and lots of iCrap-TwitFace connectivity, diabetes, obesity, people eating McDonalds food, limousine liberals, very expensive cameras, not many participants (sometimes more cops than protestors in other galleries and video)…
vs.
Chile: General strike, streets clogged with thousands of people from all walks of life, protestors attack cops, not just the of the other way around, Communist student leader (Camila Vallejo) looks like a model/movie star, riot dog-type dogs doing back flips as the water cannons unload…
*sigh*
It’s just incredible—the nonsense that I have received over this Occupy Wall Street thing, when it looks like shuffle board at an old folks’ home/fat camp.
What the Hell happened to Americans? No, really, WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO AMERICANS?! At what point did Occupy Wall Street (and the like) start to count as resistance in some people’s minds? Who or what is responsible for this?
The guy with the McDonalds slop at the anti-corporate “occupation”… I wish I hadn’t seen that. That one is going to haunt me for a long time…
Via: Boston Herald:
The ongoing student demonstrations in Chile began as a protest over the costs, profits, and fairness of higher education there. They have since attracted other segments of Chilean society venting frustration over wages, health care, and other issues. Uniting the protesters is common dissatisfaction with hugely unpopular President Sebastian Pinera and social inequality. Workers joined a 48-hour general strike in August which, like many demonstrations during the course of the protests, was met with police using tear gas and water cannons on the participants. With changes in the education system still unsettled, the student protests are likely to continue.
@ Kevin wrote: What the Hell happened to Americans? No, really, WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED TO AMERICANS?! At what point did Occupy Wall Street (and the like) start to count for resistance in some people’s minds?
I have 5 reasons:
1) crackberrries *net, i-crack, tee wee
2) panem
3) circenses
4) madison avenue
5) NaF
I think these factors are synergistic, and that working together, they have effectively neutered resistance. As for the stragglers, or those who didn’t quite meet their daily required intake of soma, well, that’s why they have MAIN CORE, right ?
cybele
Just five points, but they sure sum it up.
You know what I noticed? The subconscious aesthetic revulsion behind this post is Maoist is nature. It’s a waste of time to read too much of Marxism beyond the cliff notes, particularly understanding the different splinter groups. They are such a small part of the U.S. radical scene, although more important in europe.
But maoists basically have a position of dismissing the U.S./Australian/’1st world’ working class for having almost no organizing potential because they are an effective petit bourgeoisie who have been bought off with material goods and energy provided by third world labor. They consider the US working class to be hopelessly reactionary or have no solidarity with the group one step below (hence susceptibility for military propaganda). So they focus on organizing the real proletariat in the imperialized 3rd world. This sort of matches the feeling towards chunky working class people with bags of Pringles. I think MIM notes (maoist international) went out of business a couple of years ago, but they had good movie reviews supporting this perspective.
Here is a maoist from RAIM Denver arguing with Alex Jones, a populist, at the DNC 2008
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OrpRoukZCRc
I’m pretty sure that I’m not a closet Maoist, but that subconscious is a slippery bastard! Ah well, for others who may not be familiar with Maoism, the Great Chinese Famine is a good place to start.
Steinbeck made an interesting summary about Americans in his attempt to explain why Socialism never took hold here. He observed that in America:
“…the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”
I often find myself thinking of how perceptive that comment really was. Contemporary America doesn’t have the same degree of poverty (at least not amongst Whites) as back in Steinbeck’s day, but the vast majority still seems to have a singular degree of blindness to their situation, and a feeling that somehow, someday we all will miraculously rise above the drudgery and exploitation of our present proletariat class conditions…