Surviving Capitalism (Not) : Media Blackout As France Witnesses Biggest Revolution In 200 Years

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

Sunday, June 12, 2016

Media Blackout As France Witnesses Biggest Revolution In 200 Years

Click here to access article by Sean Adl-Tabatabai from New Politics.

As France prepare to host millions of visitors at the Euro 2016 Football Championships, a state of emergency has been extended in the country as it faces its largest protests in recent history.

Hundreds of thousands of citizens have taken to the streets in France, amounting to what some are calling the new French Revolution amid a total media blackout in Western news outlets.

I have seen nothing of these strikes and protests against a proposed anti-labor law by millions in France since the beginning of April in US corporate media, and I don't know to what extent corporate media is censoring news of these events in other Western countries. It's clear to me that the recent travel advisory to Europe issued by the US State Department citing warnings about "terrorism" was really only aimed at travelers to France in order to circumvent any references to the turmoil.

You may also be interested in this more recent article entitled "French government threatens to crush strikes as Euro 2016 football cup starts" which argues that union bureaucratic leaders are colluding with government authorities in France to stifle the ongoing strikes which threaten to interfere with their hosting of the European Soccer Championship that is occurring right now in Paris and other cities in France.