From ‘Industrial Worker‘, October 1, 1910, Spokane, Washington
The latest stunt of the boss is to use the moving picture shows as an instrument to mould the minds and ideas of the workers. Inasmuch as it is mostly the workers who patronize the nickel and dime shows and as that is about the limit of their enjoyments, it is particularly significant that the owners of the films have hired cheap actors to pose for moving pictures which represent working men meeting in secret conclave for the purpose of “conspiring to do foul deeds such as murdering men and women, wantonly destroying property and bringing misery and unhappiness to the homes of ‘poor but honest’ workingmen.”
The wild eyed agitator of the capitalist press, the blood-maddened mob, the “weeping wife and children who are loyal to the dear employer” and who beg papa to desert the union and earn his “honest” bread; all these are featured prominently in the films.
It seems that the boss, not satisfied with using the press, the public (and private) schools, the sky-pilots [preachers], the politicians, etc., to mould the psychology of the workers, is now using even the last form of amusement which is left to the slaves as an instrument to further degrade them. Some Washington, D. C., unions suggest that such pictures be hissed off the canvas when shown. It is up to the workers to organize, get busy and put the boss out of business, or he will have them so hypnotized that their slavery will be made perpetual.
The Process of Exclusion
An excerpt from ‘From Riot to Insurrection’, by Alfredo M. Bonanno, 1988
By greatly reducing the utility of the written word, and gradually replacing books and newspapers with images, colours and music, for example, the power structure of tomorrow could construct a language aimed at the excluded alone.
[…]
To construct a reduced language that is modest and has an absolutely elementary code to supply to the excluded so that they can use the computer terminals.
Also:
Collected words for Alfredo M. Bonanno
CBC says killing of Palestinians doesn’t merit terms ‘murderous,’ ‘brutal’, by Emma Paling (2024)
How Canadian media distorts the truth about Palestine, by The Breach (2023)
Pandemics, Schools and Squats in a Civil Society built on Stolen Land, by M.Gouldhawke (2020)
A Eulogy to Opinion, by Alfredo M. Bonanno (1995)