Kenn Orphan and Phil Rockstroh:
Street demonstrations, even large ones, are apropos of nothing as long as they are manifested as de facto state sanctioned protests. A march proceeds, chants are cast into indifferent air, speechifying comes to pass by the usual gasbags then the assembled head home and carry on as usual. Conversely, a strike means job walk-offs — until the strikers demands are met — not walking out and walking back in the next day.
These are not revolutionary activities or even a political movement. Capitalist colonisation has been internalised to such a saturating degree that demonstrations are, in the neoliberal era, designed to be toothless and non-threatening in regard to the structures of capitalist power. Conversely, a strike translates to stopping the flow of capital — otherwise it amounts to enabling business as usual.
KO: It seems that the colonization of consciousness in Western society has become completely seamless that here, in 2019, most of us have been conditioned to accept a modified and sanitized version of dissent. For several years there have been faux forms of dissent, manufactured and peddled by the corporate and political and military/intelligent/surveillance establishments that serve as valves for the public’s general feelings of unease or sense of injustice.