Pervez has a perception problem.

posted by The Vidiot @ 7:57 AM Permalink

There's a big protest planned there tomorrow.

Excerpt: The Pakistan People Party of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto says police have arrested hundreds more of its supporters. Party officials say the arrests are aimed at sabotaging a Friday rally called to protest President Pervez Musharraf's declaration of emergency rule, as VOA's Barry Newhouse reports from Islamabad.

So, he’s making a big display and arresting people and squelching free speech and whatnot, which is giving him a HUGE image problem.

What he SHOULD be doing is taking a page out of the US government’s play book. Let them protest. Let them put on a show. Let them feel like they have free speech. Then they’ll tire themselves out and go home to their comfy beds, secure in the knowledge that they’ve exercised their right to free speech. Meanwhile, the government looks good because they allowed the protest to occur, while at the same time, totally ignoring what the protest was about and going ahead with whatever was planned anyway.

The US government has this ignoring protesters thing down to an art form.

See, the trick to free speech is not to speak. It’s to speak AND be heard. So, like the Zen koan “if a tree falls in the forest...,” you must ask yourself, if you practice free speech and nobody listens, is it still free speech?

Labels: free speech, Freedom of speech, protest