On Sat, Oct 22, 2011 at 12:05 AM, Florin Iucha <florin at iucha.net> wrote: > On Fri, Oct 21, 2011 at 11:34:43PM -0500, Yaron wrote: > > On Fri, 21 Oct 2011, Florin Iucha wrote: > > > >> Tom's response was curt but well-intended. Surely you can ask what > >> their cause is and even try to influence it. > > > > He was asked. That's when he called us all corporate media outlets. > > Yaron, > > Please read the thread again. You made the accurate observation that > "There is absolutely no coherent message here." Tom also made the > correct comment that "Coherent message is corporate media talk." > > Corporations need coherent messages because they want to sell you > stuff and trying to sell you too many things at once will confuse you > (see 'The Paradox of Choice' [1]). Obviously different corporations > will try to sell you different products, so you cannot say that 'the > market has a coherent message for you'. > > Hi Yaron, I think you misunderstood what Tom was saying. I'm pretty sure he was not implying you're a corporate media outlet. But before I speculate on what he was trying to say, I'll ask you a question... When did you first realize there was a lack of a coherent message with the Occupy* movement? When did you first think to yourself "they have a problem with coherency of message"? I'd guess that thought crossed your mind shortly after reading a critique of the Occupy movement, or seeing a critique on-air. The mass media and most news outlets - which are owned by for-profit corporate entities who make money selling advertisements for the 1% - have been trying very hard to discredit the Occupy movement without legitimizing it. When it finally became something that couldn't be ignored the message was "look here at this large collection of folks who are extremely frustrated about A LOT of things in our society but who can't actually bring an on-topic message to the table." I think that "lack of focus" is actually the message. People are upset about a lot of things. The corruption and disempowerment of "the 99%" (I hesitate to use that name - but it captures the essence of what these people have in common) is so pervasive and happens across so many social and cultural issues that I fail to see how the message could be focused to something more than "we want sweeping reforms and an end to the current system". To the point someone made earlier in this thread about the diverse number of signs they saw at a protest, I thought they all had a theme - they were all facets of the same gem - systemic corruption in our political and public-policy making processes. Anyway, I don't think Tom was calling you a corporate media outlet. Rather, he was saying the idea that the lack of a coherent message is a discrediting problem with the Occupy* movement is a critique manufactured by corporate media outlets. -Rob -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://mailman.mn-linux.org/pipermail/tclug-list/attachments/20111022/8b3d16bc/attachment.html>