Hey Everyone!! :-)
I thought I'd share another peek at Alyce's analysis of our situation here in the US for you to start your weekend off with. Enjoy!
Excerpt from Answers From Alyce:
I shrugged. "I don't know. I hope not. But this," I pointed at where the robots dressed like police wielded their batons and shields and faced off against the robots dressed like protestors, "just makes the people who are disenfranchised more desperate. If the government won't give people room to express their discontent peacefully, then it's pretty much guaranteed they'll do so less than peacefully. That's what people who are angry, frustrated, and scared do. And that's how revolutionary wars get started."
"Might that be for the best?" asked Yax. "Wouldn't it allow your people to restructure your political system into something that works for more people?"
I shook my head. "No. I don't think it would be for the best; I think it would be a disaster. Violent, undirected change? Who knows what we might end up with? Who knows if the disenfranchised would even win that war? Yes, there're more of us. But the people in power are the ones with the fancy weapons and the trained military. The underdog rebels always win in the movies, but things don't always work out that way in real life. In reality, the government calls those who take up arms against it 'terrorists' and it wages a propaganda war against them and villainizes them in public opinion before exterminating them while the rest of the world sighs in relief. And then it passes laws to 'protect the public' that makes it even harder to express dissent. We might end up with something far worse than what we have now. And, no matter who won or whether or not the government we ended up with was better or worse, a lot of innocent people would be dead. I hope with all my being that we can be smarter than that."
Yax nodded. "That makes sense. Though, I'm not sure what means that leaves you with for effecting change."
I gestured at the exhibit again. "This. Eventually."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, this will work, eventually, if the protestors are persistent in both their protest and their non-violence. When videos of police beating up unarmed, non-violent citizens go viral on the internet, it makes for a far better narrative with regard to public opinion than if the government is able to post videos of protestors destroying property or hurting people."
"Ah," said Squid-boy. "I see. The protestors will publicize examples of abuse by your law enforcement in an attempt to sway the opinions of enough people that eventually your government will not be able to ignore the matter or refuse to fix it."
I nodded. "Yes. Though, the government will still use misdirection and disingenuousness to attempt to obfuscate the matter."
"That is when they'll pretend that the problem is something other than what it actually is, like you said before," said Yax.
"Yes. Or they'll try to blame the victims or create a lot of hoopla about some other issue to try to distract everyone. They have a lot of methods for deceiving people, and the public tends to have a short attention span. That's why it's such a battle to get any meaningful change. But it has happened before, so with hard work and persistence we can make it happen again."
Want to see what else Alyce has to say on this and so many other issues this country is facing? Grab your copy at the link below. Happy reading! :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment