re: #302 realwest

Hey zombie - I agree with you. Regrettably when the people assemble freely, you are inevitably gonna get some real whackos in the crowd. And THAT is what the MSM will cover and make a big deal out of - not what the majority of folks come to say and hear.
Unless, of course, it’s a LEFTIST assembly of people (which, for anarchists is obviously necessary; they aren’t going to organize anything!) where you will hear at least 10 times as many horrible things. But the MSM will not cover it or will only cover it to show the “police brutality” that was used to control them or a confrontation between whatever Leftist groups are protesting and counter-protesters.
Hearing this “burn the books” crap makes me nauseous and brings my admittedly always on a low boil anger level to a high boil.
But then what do the “right” people do zom? Do we give up our rights to peacefully assemble and have a public discourse (and yes, sometimes a public discourse is shouting back and forth)? How do we keep the weirdos (our version, if you will, of the anarchists) out of the demonstration?…

The key, as I mentioned to Iron Fist, is how the assemblies are portrayed in the media, not necessarily what goes on in any particular assembly.

For example, I know an old hippie dude who went to the Altamont concert in 1969. Now, when the average person hears the word “Altamont,” they think, “Oh, that was that disastrous rock festival where people were stabbed to death and the Hell’s Angels beat people up and it was a big mess and the hideous end to the ’60s — the anti-Woodstock.” And why does the average American think that? Because that’s how it was protrayed by the MSM (including in this case a movie). But this old hippie dude was there, and all he remembers was a groovy concert. He was way too far back in the crowd to see or even hear about any stabbing, and he didn’t even know the Hell’s Angels were there at all.

So what happened is that 300,000 people came together to have a music festival with the world’s greatest bands — and a single act of violent by a single person completely ruined and discredited the entire event.

What is necessary is to wrest control of the mike back from the extremists who have taken over the MSM.