Today thousands of students took to the streets in many cities of Italy for the right to study and against the cuts made by the government and euphemistically called a reform of public schools and universities. On saturday 14, the CGIL union brought 50,000 people in Rome to call for effective measures against the crisis. In the last month there have been many other demonstrations, the protest against racism, the one of soccer fans, the protest of the police left without funds.
Hundreds of thousands of people on the streets, but in the regime television almost nothing has been shown. The dissatisfaction of the populace against his Majesty must be hidden, must disappear from reality. The idea, in a democracy stifled by the media power of one man, is that what is not broadcasted in the houses does not exist and therefore cannot do damage. And indeed, at least in part, it works.
Millions of people, the voters of the government or simply the disinterested, don't even know that all these protests, and many others, have occurred. If they see only the first two RAI national channels and Mediaset they can easily believe that Berlusconi is governing well, that Italians are happy, and that, as he says, 68% support him. Is not exactly real, but television has nothing to do with reality and can replace it with some effectiveness. The reality is that in the other countries of the world when tens of thousands take to the streets means that they have requests that should be heard and governments in general listen, or at least pretend to.
In fact, during the Prodi government, any protest received huge coverage by Italian television networks, except the ones nobody liked in italian politics, as the demonstrators against High speed rail, those against incinerators and those against the expansion of US base in Vicenza. So, that government was forced to at least respond to demonstrations. But this government, however, with its televisions power, doesn't need to. It can ignore quietly Italian citizens on the streets. It's a dangerous attitude that no government in the world would dare to take. Because ignored protesters ignored can become voters who will vote another party, or can convince others to do so. Because ignored protesters may decide to use more drastic means to make themselves heard.
But who has a huge and overwhelming media power is not afraid of people in the street nor of people to the polls. Isn't answerable to citizens because control them without any problems. Indeed he's afraid only of judges, who can convict him on the basis of facts and will hardly be misled by the propaganda on television. That's Berlusconi's conflict of interest that the opposition has never thwarted despite being 7 years in government.It means a state that can ignore its citizens. Means democracy destroyed, extinguished, thwarted by a prime minister who says he is elected by the people but in reality he was elected only because of his incessant and overwhelming propaganda on television. A premier against whom protest almost all social and civil groups in the country, but he doesn't care because he's not in the government to care about Italy or citizens, but to escape from his many trials.
On 5 December, for this reason too, in Rome there will be another important event, the No Berlusconi Day, an initiative started from a Facebook page that has already collected nearly 300,000 fans. Although the television regime is doing everything to hide the real opposition, while most of the political one is uneffective, maybe sooner or later, by dint of demonstrations and protests, Italy will manage to wake up from this (almost) collective television hypnosis.
Francesco Defferrari
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Comments
1. Take some event in which you feel the local media is only reporting the views of the ruling class (maybe when a strike happens, maybe when there's a protest, maybe there's some event the media totally omits). Organize a largish group of activists to simply walk into your local news room, bring a list of the points you want to make, then stand in front of the camera while they are trying to film and make your points - keep doing it until the points you are making are getting fair play in the local media.
2. Repeat step 1 until it's fairly common. Then move on to a schedule in which activists are regularly assuming democratic control of your local media outlet for maybe 1 day a week, 1 week a month, etc.
3. As step 2 becomes fairly common, move on to advocate full employee democracy and community democracy for the policies and governance of your local media.
http://www.revleft.com/vb/weapons-mass-deception-t120176/index.html