Merrick
|
Prague TV film
Oct 04, 2000, 14:32
|
Yeah, more Prague stuff.
I'm told that tomorrow (Thursday 5th October) at 9.50pm on BBC2 there's an ‘alternative view’ film by Nick Hillel & Marc Silver about the 'Global Anti-Capitalist Movement' and the Prague stuff.
|
Merrick
|
Re: Prague TV film
Oct 05, 2000, 23:45
|
Anyone see the programme? I only half-recognised what happened (which is still better than most reporting), and the numerous factual errors were a tad irritating, but what I found truly disturbing was the slant of it.
There was a huge focus on the 'violence'. They made no distinction between violence against selected property and violence against people. In the latter category they talked only of the stuff thrown at police and made no mention of the *hundreds* of people beaten (and some worse) in police cells.
Curious that this smashing of shops, stoning of police and gasing and water cannoning of crowds was 'violence'. Two minutes later the Newsnight report on Belgrade showed cars looted and smashed and burned, police gassing people, offices torched, the sodding *parliament* smashed and burned, and this was described as 'peaceful protest'.
It seems that these things when done by a minority of a crowd are 'violence' if the reporters don't like their objectives and 'peaceful protest' if they do.
|
RiotGibbon
|
Stupid old Merrick
Oct 06, 2000, 12:11
|
tch! you beat me to it, Merrick ... I was going to write in saying that if you had carried on to Belgrade, you would be hero now ... stupid old Merrick ...
... similiar scenes took place in 1989 ... anybody else remember Thatcher applauding the Romanian miners as they took large bits of wood to authority. If a *British* miner did that ,.,. well
it's mad ...
* I haven't seen any reporting of violence towards to police
* no condemnation of burning a large public building
* only a brief aside mentioning a girl being run over, crushed and killed by the bulldozer they drove into the Parliament
Imagine the headlines if Merrick had run over an "innocent bystander" with a bulldozer ...
I mean, who actually votes for the IMF? Nobody ...
How much control over our lives ... *huge* ...
drives you mad, doesn't it ...
|
Moon Cat
|
Re: Prague TV film
Oct 06, 2000, 13:59
|
Yes indeed. To the West the ousting of Slobo is the righteous anger of the peasantry deposing a ruthless tyrant after a decade of being ground under his iron heel. The IMF protest was a bunch of crusties kicking off about stuff.
How strange that these "views" appeared within minutes of each other. At least the Prague programme was the most fair representation of the Anti-Capitalist protests I've seen on telly so far, which isn't saying much I know.
I find it really annoying that the TV always focuses on the people that are going to come across as the "protesting archetypes" for the majority of the interviews etc. You know; hippy dudes, earth-mother types, lets talk to him he's got a faceful of metal etc. Not that these are not cool folks (you should see that state of me) but to the Daily Mail massive, they are just the sort of "unwashed rioters" that fuel their twisted POV.
Where are the (and I use this only in regard to media representation) the normal joes? You know, like when the road and woodland protests were headline stuff here the media focused on the likes of Swampy 'cos he fit the protesting mould. And yet the fact that matrons of middle England were ALSO protesting gets swept under the carpet. Why? Because yer blue rinse brigade simply don't do that sort of thing. The image of the traditionally cosy and apathetic middle age Sunday Roasters side by side with Swampy et al. is guaranteed to put the shits up The MAN. So don't show it. Unity scares people sometimes.
Cack ain't it?
Be cool.
MC
|
