We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Friday, March 8, 2013

Continuum: Right-Wing Propaganda Despite Claims Of Moral Complexity

Click here to access article by  Gar Lipow from Z Blogs
The 2012 Canadian science fiction series "Continuum", now airing on the SyFy channel is a warning sign. It represents, possibly without intent, an escalation in the way media drums up support for increased police power, and repression of civil liberties and dissent.
Major media in the Canadian section of the Empire appear to be performing their function well to manage the minds of their citizens. Although dramatized in a future setting, the propaganda in this TV series turns all the decent values of the Occupy movement on their head in order to deal with contemporary issues that worry the directors of the Empire: the Occupy movement and other such social justice activists.
What is new in this series is that the year 2077, from which the cop comes is a dystopian one, ruled by a corporate dictatorship. The criminals are terrorists who seek to restore democracy and human rights. That is right. The talented, charismatic and glowingly beautiful Rachel Nichols is a cop from the future trying to save a corporate dictatorship from the horrors of democracy.