High priced hepatitis C treatments spark massive public outcry and political debate in Spain – le blog davidhammerstein
At what point do we call a protest by the consumer class, by those who are (or want to be) happily bourgeois (to use a forgotten them) a political act? It used to be easy to characterise these sorts of things, but the ease of such characterisation dulled perception, analysis, and left a lot of powerful community movements unrecognised and forgotten.
Occupy gained a footnote and maybe even more. But it was also critiqued, as a movement, for ultimately being shallow and unprepared for its own success: for not having an political frame of action, let alone an ideological framework. The recent (and until Charlie Hebdo) ongoing demonstrations in the US against Black deaths at the hands of the police reached into what the old-school ideologues liked. There seemed to be a point, a claim, a thing to be achieved that would actually lead to a meaningful and lasting change. Is that still true?
But perhaps the change itself lies more with the logic of communication and thus community identity. Happened with television, and first radio; and was grossly exploited by demagogues.
newspeak 