The shifting of balance from ignoring and obstructing to attentiveness and support is also true for participants and potential participants as well. Due to the perceived personal risks involved in making a stand against present powers and the status quo that allows them to reign, it will take courage to join an outspoken movement for political and social change to that effect. But, when enough people have dared to speak out and many many more are less vocal but not less devoted supporters, the benefits of following one's heart and being amongst like-minded people becomes out weigh the risks.
Can this be used to an advantage? Yes, most certainly.
It can be made more costly to obstruct and more attractive to support a movement if the participants use their achieved level of cooperation and hit directly the financial and political actors supporting that which they themselves fight. In this case - by naming the Puppet Masters and identifying their channels of income and power, political activist movements can - according to their supporters' and participants' varying degrees of ability - declare a boycott or some other action of depriving the Puppet Masters of their power.
Especially financial actors are influenced by the power of the purse and the need for good-will among their consumer base to maintain competitiveness. The movement for more local and regional production of goods and less monopolization of markets by such trans-national and insensitive corporations as Wal Mart, Starbucks etc. can here be an important ally in the struggle for making financial power more in line with the values and moral commitments espoused by a movement.
Political actors can be pressured by making it absolutely clear that they are well known to their constituencies, and even if they escape accountability on the national and international level there will still be people in their region of residence who knows their phone numbers and office address as well as the promises they made and broke. Many political actors are not in any way less ethical or different in their values when it comes to human rights and democracy, but find themselves trapped in structures not allowing them to stray too far from the party line or the corporate contributors agenda. Others need to be reminded that in the end they are only humans with a revocable contract to represent a collective of other humans with a voice, will and ways to make both known.
The power of information and the ability both to put issues on the agenda as well as highlight them, can be claimed by working towards and with the media. The use of well-spoken and publicly known individuals who can present a coherent and honest view of the struggle, making contacts with independent media outlets and supporting their existence are only three important tasks to manage the media to counteract the various overt and covert methods of information management and manipulation that political and financial opponents have at their disposal.
These measures have potency both as a strategic reminders as well as realized operations.
Can it be stopped? The greatest risk is loss of belief in ones ability and power, and loss of focus on what is the objective and what is and is not allowed in order to obtain it.
The first can result in fragmentation as people fall out and loose courage - themselves starting and becoming part of a snow ball effect of the reversed kind. There will be those in power who won't or can't shift sides and support the force for change, and they might become ever more forceful in their attempts to stop that which is eroding their power-base and changing the rules of the game of which they were the masters. They will use whatever means they deemed worth the risk to try to create disbelievers and sell-outs dividing up and then conquer the movement.
The latter can make even the most forceful journey downhill, miss its target and instead cause havoc that will discourage future attempts.
One example is the communist revolution in Russia. No matter what one might think of the original goals of Marx, the majority of the mobilized impoverished masses of the working class Russians was certainly not fighting for that which they got. Their human resources - their lives and their values, hopes and dreams - as well as their livelihood were hi-jacked as the struggle was taken over by well-spoken and industrious forces mostly from within the movement itself.
The loss of focus and the loss of moral standards can turn any struggle - no matter how righteous in intent - to a replica of what it attempts to fight.
Footnotes: (1) Puppet Masters - people who intentionally uses power of some sort to control international and national politics and markets by to various degrees steering and limiting the politics, information, and finance of nations through means eroding democratic fundamentals. For better description as to who and what they are, see http://www.global-elite.org/index.php/Main_Pagehttp://www.newswithviews.com/Wood/patrick6.htmhttp://www.augustreview.com/ (2) We are the tax payers, the consumers, the workers and the voters
I am a Political and Behavioral Scientist with Psychology as my main subject and people as my main interest. As thoughts are the source of all human accomplishment I hope to be part of the exchange of them
Also see:
http://wildwickedwonderfulupfront.blogspot.com/
We need a united front to fight back seemingly omnipotent forces against efforts to protect the environment, provide social justice, and develop peaceful solutions to global conflicts. A focused boycott of the greediest, socially irresponsible, big oil corporation corrupting our government would send a strong signal that the citizenry is not having it anymore. In the Gandhian traditon, the people united, will not be defeated. BOYCOTT EXXON/MOBILE - CAN YOU HEAR US NOW!
by
Ramon Puga (5 articles, 0 quicklinks, 0 diaries, 30 comments)
on Monday, February 5, 2007 at 9:08:10 PM
1 comments
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