So what gets media attention?
Anything that does not affect the ability of the rich to get richer. The primary role of media is to distract you. Your wealth is being taken from you and its better if you do not notice. To that end you are allowed to think about and protest things that do not affect the plutocrats ability to consolidate markets, grow profits and accumulate capital. The open list includes
-Racism / Privilege
-Gender / Sexuality
-Immigration / Ethnic diversity
-Feminism / Employment Equity
-Crime / the war on drugs
-Blacks / Muslims / White nationalism
-Reproductive rights / Abortion
-Religious intolerance / Hate speech
To the super rich these distract you from what is important.
What is the important?
-centralizing the means of production
-creating and or encouraging divisions and mistrust
-prevent alliances that could challenge business interests
-promoting ideas that privatize profit and socialize risk
-foster distrust between racial and ethnic groups
-encouraging military expenditures that support business interests
To understand what is important you need to study the drivers in our society, those people are business people. They may not focus on the best things in life that are free, but a few of them own almost everything that costs anything to buy!
While North American wages stagnated for 50 years, those in the finance industry who orchestrated our decline can afford 150 foot yachts that burn 60,000 litres of fuel per tankful. So many have less so a few can have super yachts.
The Business eco system
Business people are constantly trying to change the ecosystem they live in and create a comfortable environment. Like a beaver building a dam to create a pond; when they plan these activities they do it with Business plans. Forget about conspiracy theories about if Hillary eats babies or was 911 an inside job. Not of any consequence, but to understand a business plan is a powerful thing.
The Big Three that matter
Business people are simple minded and persistent. They really only concern themselves with three issues, but to these issues they are dedicated;
1: Growing Revenue
-Through larger markets,
-free trade deals that allow consolidating of markets.
-Eliminating the competition thru predatory pricing and regulations,
-Increasing populations, encouraging immigration
2: Controlling Costs:
-Cheaper labour through Union Busting,
-Cheaper labour through mass immigration,
-Cheaper labour through trade with Communist labour camps,
-Creating monopolies for key commodities
3: Keeping Profit:
-Lower taxes and create an increasingly complex tax systems,
-Reducing regulations on large corporations,
-Creating regulations that can be barriers to market entry,
-Controlling access to Capital (a public asset by the way)
Rust never sleeps
There is no end to the process of increasing markets, controlling labour and keeping profits, to challenge these ideals historically leads to an armed response from the ruling class. If you argue seriously, if you affect their calculus of cost and threaten their pile of gold, they will kill you.
Not just allowed but encouraged
Not only are you allowed to protest, write, speak openly about issues of no concern but it is encouraged, encouraged because it is a distraction from what is important. (See yacht above) If you are fighting because black lives matter, its perfect because inevitably some bright light will say all lives matter and you have a race war, success.
The encouragement is highly structured through social media where you are categorized and then your opinions are shifted in the direction that best suits the advertiser who purchases you in a block of tens of thousands like minded individuals, along with you comes a deep understanding of your fears, hopes and desires. Read more on Manipulative Media here
Sadly many progressives, the distracted activists are actually just useful idiots to the ruling class. That is not to doubt the sincerity of the people struggling, nor to doubt the struggles faced by so many, its just your slashing at branches rather than cutting the root.
What would change
If you think I am wrong, please explain to me what would change for the billionaires on this planet if we solved the problems of race and gender. The answer of course is nothing would change.
-Your military would still be fighting to protect commodities for major corporations in the third worlds
-Banks would still charge you interest for money they fabricate out of thin air
-Overpopulation would continue to be the single greatest threat you face, as overpopulation leads to resource consumption, resource wars, higher housing prices, lower labour costs, racial and ethnic conflict and massive C02 emmisions that are destabilizing our life support system.
Any time an analysis is based on race, gender, sexuality, hate, anger, fear or a Pollyanna style hope, it is bullocks.
Its a class war
It might be tempting to start cutting off the heads of people in the finance sector, tax lawyers, tax accountants, hedge fund managers and offshore bankers. Even if you follow due process and use the criminal justice system inevitably over enthusiasm would lead to peoples heads coming off over issues of race, gender, sexuality, hate, anger or fear.
The guillotine will accomplish nothing. Thou shalt not kill is a pretty easy directive to understand. The problem of course is that rich do not necessarily understand the concept. If you go after the super rich, they are waiting for you! And they have the police and military on thier side, so until that changes do not challenge them, but do not support them either.
Strike against war, for without you no battles can be fought. Strike against manufacturing shrapnel and gas bombs and all other tools of murder. Strike against preparedness that means death and misery to millions of human beings. Be not dumb, obedient slaves in an army of destruction. Be heroes in an army of construction.
Helen Keller, in "Strike Against War", speech in Carnegie Hall (5 January 1916).
Use your economic power to control them, organize, boycott, strike, do not waste your time protesting. Work on changing the rules of the game. Be the rule maker not the noise making bitch of a neighbour who complains about the party, Start your own party.
Here’s to the Greeks. They know what to do when corporations pillage and loot their country. They know what to do when Goldman Sachs and international bankers collude with their power elite to falsify economic data and then make billions betting that the Greek economy will collapse. They know what to do when they are told their pensions, benefits and jobs have to be cut to pay corporate banks, which screwed them in the first place. Call a general strike. Riot. Shut down the city centers. Toss the bastards out. Do not be afraid of the language of class warfare—the rich versus the poor, the oligarchs versus the citizens, the capitalists versus the proletariat. The Greeks, unlike most of us, get it.
Chris Hedges, “The Greeks Get It,” truthdig.com, May 21, 2010