Skip to main content

Police gun down miners in South Africa (warning: graphic video)

Just mind boggling that this kind of thing is going on in the world in the year 2012.

A group of striking (platinum) miners were confronted by police in Johannesburg, South Africa. When the miners approached the police (apparently armed with sticks and machetes), the police gunned them down, leaving 18 dead. Reuters has the video below. The National Post has the full story as well.

Warning: I normally wouldn't post a video of people getting shot, even if its from Reuters, but people need to wake up to increased use of police forces to protect corporate interests.  I'm not saying illegal behaviour shouldn't be addressed, but gunning people down is not the solution to addressing workforce grievances.




This is why I believe in PR so much. A PR person whether at the mining company or the local police force could have argued strongly that confrontation serves no purpose. It's better to lose money than to destroy your brand by slaughtering workers in an attempt to break their strike.

Any corporation that seeks to use a police force to physically combat protest is putting its brand at serious danger.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Featured Post: Where Can You Buy My Books?

Interested in purchasing one of my books? Below are the links that will take you to the right place on Amazon. A Manufactured Mind On Amazon On Kobo On Barnes and Noble On iTunes Obey On Amazon On Kobo  On B&N  On iTunes  The Fall of Man Trilogy Days of Judgment (Book One) On Amazon On Kobo On B&N On iTunes System Crash (Book Two) On Amazon On Kobo On B&N On iTunes A Fool's Requiem (Book Three) On Amazon On Kobo On B&N On iTunes
Post a Comment
Read more

A Look Back on 2017 / A Look Forward to 2018

Hard to believe it's been two years (and six books) since I started publishing. Thought I'd take a moment to look back on the journey, some of the highlights and what's in store for the future. Eyes Wide Open I had no idea what this publishing path would be like - I went in blind with nothing more than an interest in telling a story. It turned out to be way harder than I could have imagined. You'd think writing a book wouldn't be that difficult, but it is. It's not so much the book that readers see that's hard to produce, it's the ideas and writing that get left on the cutting room floor. But beyond the actual stories, learning Photoshop to do my own covers, understanding how to market my books, learning how to create print versions, and a dozen other things really opened my eyes to how much effort is required to get a book to market. Along the way I’ve had my moments where I questioned my sanity to put myself through the process. But...
2 comments
Read more

Pew Research says Press Credibility In Decline

According to Pew Research negative opinions about the press are at an all time high. Definitely check out the source article because they have a ton of infographics that are worth looking at. The main graph related to the research is the one below: As you can see, the public no longer views the media as unbiased or fully accurate. There are dozens of variables that play in to this phenomena, but I think the biggest one is that the public has traditionally viewed the media as doing the people's work. Which is to say, they are kind of like the FBI, but they work for the people not the government. They are suppose to root out what is going on and inform the people so that society can hold politicians and corporations accountable (note the reoccuring theme of accountability that I talk about often in this blog, because it's a causal variable behind much of the issues in the world today). Over the past 15 or so years, the press has lost it's credibility with the p...
Post a Comment
Read more