Occupy Nova Scotia Update: Is ONS Becoming Centralized? (Video)

Activist Post

Contributor Amir Alwani was back at Occupy Nova Scotia to document some of the speakers and protesters.  He made some interesting discoveries.  In the first segment, a protester voices his concern over the structure of the General Assembly within the overall movement.  He illustrates the irony that people have taken to the streets as the 99% fed up with the rule by the 1%, yet many congregate in choir fashion around one speaker, often chanting the message of the “leader.”  He is quick to point out that this does not invalidate the entire movement, but it is something we certainly should be mindful of as activists.

Please read and view the second segment below

In the second segment a man comments about a tent labeled “media centre” that, according to him, was behaving in a secretive way.  Amir heads over to the tent and listens to two representatives, James Green and Miles Howe, speak about their mission.  James has arrived from the Occupy Wall Street media team, and Miles has experience in “revolutionary squares,” including Tahrir Square in Egypt.  This combination should cause some healthy skepticism of their views, as both locations have been focal points for political operatives.

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In fact, they are creating a “media co-op” at Occupy Nova Scotia where citizen journalists are encouraged to submit their videos and printed material.  However, there is a strange choice of language as they discuss how important it is that their group be the only one to disseminate the information to the world, stressing the need to “shape the message.”  This is the exact top-down approach that corporate media uses.  It seems oddly out of place to those who are protesting against the power that the few have over the many.  Again, we urge activists to be mindful of giving away our power to any centralized source.

Amir has included the following excerpt from an interview with Webster Griffin Tarpley on PressTV (Oct. 12) as background information and food for thought.

Press TV: This thing about silencing John Lewis, if we have a member of the Congress there being silenced, then what does show in terms of what is going to happen to the protesters out on the streets? How would the one percent want to use any tactics to silence? What kind of tactics would they use to silence the Americans and the protesters out on the streets?

Tarpley: With what they are using. They are using a bunch of anarchists and this Adbusters comes from the Situationist International. Situationist International was cooked up by NATO and the CIA back in the 1950s and ’60s to overthrow General [Charles] de Gaulle of France who was the target at that time.

This whole apparatus of the General Assembly, the facilitators, the consensus, the voting, the human microphone; the leaderless group is a brainwashing technique; the human microphone is a brainwashing technique.

Listen for yourself to their choice of words, as well as Amir’s questions, and please give us your impressions about this Occupy Nova Scotia media operation and the Occupy Movement in general.