
Why Did The Media Keep The Recent Peaceful Icelandic Revolution Quiet? - dsr12
http://www.collective-evolution.com/2013/01/11/why-did-media-keep-the-recent-peaceful-icelandic-revolution-quiet/
======
brown9-2
Which is an easier explanation to believe?

1\. The "media" got together and said to each other, "We better not cover this
story at all, because it will give too many people dangerous ideas"

or

2\. Media outlets individually (particularly in the US) decided not to cover
the actions of the Icelandic government because they think most of their
viewers don't care much about Iceland and/or because "check out what has
slowly been happening in Iceland over the past 5 years" isn't much of a
breaking news story.

This story _has_ been covered, but just because it isn't to the extent that
you wish it was covered does not mean a conspiracy must exist.

NPR did a story on Iceland just two days ago:
[http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/02/01/170867071/episode-...](http://www.npr.org/blogs/money/2013/02/01/170867071/episode-435-a-new-
mom-and-the-president-of-iceland)

~~~
yuvadam
Those are not the only two options, you know.

There is a systematic method to deciding which stories are covered by MSM
outlets and which aren't. It is not a coincidence that most outlets chose not
to cover the Iceland story, regardless of it being a very small country.

Not everything is a "conspiracy", and failure to acknowledge that there are
certain forces at play is a blatant misunderstanding of the role MSM plays in
public brainwashing.

~~~
cynicalkane
There isn't a single piece of substance in what you just said, just a bunch of
vague proclamation and accusations about "public brainwashing" by the "MSM".
Your post reads exactly like a hand-wavey paranoid conspiracy theorist except
you're saying you're not a conspiracy theorist. Maybe you should be a bit more
specific instead of this rambling nonsense about how you are enlightened and
all the regular people are brainwashed.

~~~
readme
Because it's possible, it must be true! Who cares if there's no hard evidence.

~~~
illuminate
Besides, the simplest answer is that "the media" is selfish, desperate, and
cheap. Original coverage, coverage that requires remote HQs, deep coverage is
not a priority and those departments were probably axed ten years ago.

~~~
alexqgb
"Selfish, desperate, and cheap."

Yes, exactly. As someone who knows the media world better than he'd like to, I
cannot think of a more succinct or generally applicable characterization. You,
sir, have nailed it.

~~~
illuminate
Thanks for the opinion, I'm well outside of that but would love to find good
sources with more signal than noise.

~~~
alexqgb
I'd like to stress that this is by no means a fair characterization of all the
people who work in media. There are a awful lot who push against this current
every day. Some of them (on occasion) win. But it tends to be a fight, and the
victories invariably seem like minor miracles.

When they're not winning (which is frequent), and thinking "what the fuck am I
doing here?" (also frequent) chances are good that whoever or whatever they're
getting snowed by can be fairly described just the way you did.

------
uvdiv
Previous discussion (less ideologic hyperbole):

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4683804>

Draft text:

[http://stjornlagarad.is/other_files/stjornlagarad/Frumvarp-e...](http://stjornlagarad.is/other_files/stjornlagarad/Frumvarp-
enska.pdf)

Interesting excerpts:

(14) _"All are free to have their opinions and convictions and shall have the
right to express their thoughts. Censorship and other comparable impediments
to the freedom of opinion must never be enacted into law. Limits on the
expression of opinion may, however, be stipulated by law to protect children,
security, health, the rights or reputation of others, as necessary in a
democratic society."_

(18) _"All shall be free to pursue their religion, individually or in
association with others, publicly or privately. The freedom to pursue religion
or personal convictions shall only be limited by law as necessary in a
democratic society."_

(20) _"No one may be obligated to be a member of an association. Such
obligation may be imposed by law if it proves necessary for an association to
perform its lawful role due to the public interest or the rights of others."_

~~~
walshemj
so you have these rights but the govenment can over rule it for "public
interest" or "as necessary in a democratic society"

I am sure that the Chinese leaders would say that the labour camps are "as
necessary in a democratic society"

Oh and that old chestnut its for the children

~~~
Drakim
There isn't a nation on earth that doesn't have some workaround, be it martial
law or these special clauses. Adding that it is only for things that are
necessary in a democratic society is a good touch, because it makes it harder
to make arbitrary restrictions because it's for the "general public good".

~~~
walshemj
oh I agree but who defines what is "necessary" and looking at the nordic
states (iclelands constitution is based on the danish constitution) they can
be very communitarian and the down side of those systems sis they can be very
unforgiving of outsiders and those that do not fit in.

~~~
saraid216
I didn't do more than read the first page or two, but there appears to be a
Supreme Court. Presumably, it's their job. That's generally how these things
work.

------
stitchy
Actually, I do recall stories about revolution in Iceland. Which is why I was
so surprised to see this article use the word "peaceful" revolution. I recall
riots in Iceland making a big stir back in 2009. Indeed, after a quick Google
search I found this article
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Icelandic_financial_crisis...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_Icelandic_financial_crisis_protests).

Snippet from the Wikipedia article:

"On 20 January 2009, the protests intensified into riots. Between 1,000 and
2,000 people clashed with riot police, who used pepper spray and batons,
around the building of the parliament (Althing), with at least 20 people being
arrested and 20 more needing medical attention for exposure to pepper
spray.[3][11] Demonstrators banged pots and honked horns to disrupt the year's
first meeting of Prime Minister Geir Haarde and the Althing. Some broke
windows of the parliament house, threw skyr and snowballs at the building, and
threw smoke bombs into its backyard.[2][3][12] The use of pots and pans saw
the local press refer to the event as the 'Kitchenware Revolution'.[13]"

[2] ^ a b Gunnarsson, Valur (21 January 2009). "Icelandic lawmakers return to
work amid protests". Associated Press. Archived from the original on 31
January 2009. Retrieved 22 January 2009.

[3] ^ a b c "Iceland protesters demand government step down". Reuters. 20
January 2009. Archived from the original on 3 February 2009. Retrieved 22
January 2009.

[12] ^ "Icelanders held over angry demo". BBC. 21 January 2009. Archived from
the original on 24 January 2009. Retrieved 22 January 2009

[13] ^ Ian Parker, Letter from Reykjavík, "Lost," The New Yorker, 9 March
2009, p. 39.

~~~
valdiorn
As far as "revolutions" go, I'd call tossing a few eggs and yogurt and maybe
burning a tree or two rather peaceful. There was one night where everything
went crazy (when we burned down the Norwegian Christmas tree... sorry about
that, Norway) and threw rocks at Alþingi, but other than that, it was mostly
just family people banging pots and pans.

In Iceland, it's known as the "Búsáhaldabylting" which basically means
"kitchen appliance revolution", if that gives you any idea of what it was
like. (edit: you already stated that in your post)

Edit:

To elaborate some more... most of the people who were arrested, or those who
were pepper sprayed were nothing more than opportunistic (often young) people
taking advantage of the situation. Some of them were self declared
"anarchists" or had some kind of "fuck-the-system" attitude. Most of them
probably had little stake in what was happening. this was in contrast to most
of the peaceful protesters, they were family people protesting how the govt.
handled the bank collapse.

These people had just lost their life savings, their house, their car and were
left with insane debt. I went, and protested for my parent, whose debt have
now doubled because of the inflation. I showed my anger, I threw rocks, I
screamed, we were all pretty angry.

But only a very small group of people were actually violent, and you could
literally point out who was there for a valid protest and who was just looking
for an excuse to fight the police.

\--

Addendum: What you may not understand is that loans in Iceland are "insured".
That's good... if you're a bank, but if you're a n individual, it's bad...
very bad.

It basically means that, in addition to interest, your loan principal
increases by the amount of inflation. So if the inflation is 5%, voila, your
loan is now 5% higher. Now realize that inflation went as high as 18.6%, which
means your 4% interest loan just went up 18.6 + 4 = 22.6% in one year.

There are associations currently suing the banks and the govt. to try and make
this form of loan illegal.

~~~
arethuza
I wonder if that "insurance" was the same cunning plan as the UK banks selling
interest rate swaps alongside loans to small businesses?

<http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21275527>

~~~
aegirth
Not quite the same thing but a bad idea for the consumer nonetheless. Our
loans are price-index fixed. There is a consumer index calculated by our
benevolent government organization that calculates the index based on the sale
value of common household goods and essential costs like the price of
gasoline. This mean that if the government raises gas taxes (like they did
here - twice) that in turn causes your loan interest to rise. Ingenious,
right?

------
raverbashing
The main issue is

There's no more "the media". The internet is the media.

We are the media (yes, even HN), and remember, with power comes
responsibility.

Still, some media outlets have more penetration than others, however, the
story still gets told.

But it's the 'big media' that's losing relevance and paying the price.

------
dkhenry
I don't know , but that sounds a lot like the decmocratic process and not
revolution. In america we have done all of those thiogs over the years, with
the one aside that we have always managed to pay our debts, and we haven't
mothballed the _entire_ constitution all in one go.

~~~
adaml_623
You've always managed to pay your debts?

You didn't even try to check that with Google that did you?

<http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article29270.html>

~~~
dkhenry
But take a look at each of those cases. In every one it was _citizens_ who
didn't get paid back. Each time they did it so that they could pay back the
foreign investors.

------
geertj
Iceland is a special case. It is tiny, with only 320,000 inhabitants. That is
1/1000th of the population of the US. And the population is also highly
homogeneous. The fact that they can pull off a peaceful "revolution" like this
doesn't mean anything for the majority of countries in the world.

~~~
stygianguest
True, Iceland is tiny. Barely a country one might say. But the argument of
size needs more motivation, why does size matter?

Although I tend to agree with the sentiment. We always hear the same
arguments: yes [solution for a big problem] works great in [scandinavian
country] but it is so small and homogeneous, the same could never work in
[larger european country or USA]. Surely measures that have been applied
successfully elsewhere, even in a small country, are more likely to succeed
here too?

~~~
nhaehnle
The Icelandic political system is certainly helped by the fact that Iceland is
small, because it means that politician are closer to their constituents and
therefore more likely to act in their interest.

Furthermore, organizing effective social movements does not scale very well.
Organizing 1000 truly active participants - by which I mean people who are
willing to do more than just tweet and write blog posts - is as difficult in
Iceland as it is in the US, but in Iceland that already gets you close to 1%
of the population, whereas in the US it is basically nothing.

The same arguments don't really apply to topics like health care, because the
limits of social organization are not as important there.

------
onemorepassword
I think there has been a decent amount of reporting in the Netherlands and the
UK. Mostly because all of this is about _their_ money.

Let's not pretend this "revolution" is about anything other than the Icelandic
people not willing to pay for the failures of the government they elected.

~~~
nhaehnle
_Let's not pretend this "revolution" is about anything other than the
Icelandic people not willing to pay for the failures of the government they
elected._

From my understanding, this is not quite true. Icelandic banks defaulted on
debts towards foreigners, the Icelandic government was being pressured into
taking over those debts - even though there was no legal obligation to do so -
and the Icelandic people revolted against this.

So: Private entities screwed up - both the banks and non-Icelandic bank
customers who misplaced their trust in those banks - and so private entities
were morally responsible for taking the losses. The Icelandic people simply
did their part to ensure that capitalism works properly, even though it
required going against their government.

------
eksith
"Why Did The Media Keep The Recent Peaceful Icelandic Revolution Quiet?"

Why ask such a question when they already know the answer?

Try finding any resoures that the rest of the world (I.E. Super powers) would
like to exploit : [http://www.iceland.is/the-big-picture/nature-
environment/nat...](http://www.iceland.is/the-big-picture/nature-
environment/natural-resources/)

Nothing interesting? Well there you go.

I was born in Sri Lanka, where there were open conflicts in a civil war going
back to 1984 (I was 2 years old) and riots back to the 70's. Did the West
care? Nope... Again, nothing much the rest of the world is intersted in. And
unlike the "peaceful revolution", a lot of people died :

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Sri_Lankan_Ci...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Sri_Lankan_Civil_War)

In all the years I've spent in the U.S. I could find 1 or 2 mentions on CNN
maybe, but that's about it.

I hate to put it in these terms, but unless there's actual interest to the
rest of the world and resources at stake, no one really cares. It's the cold
hard truth.

Same with the war in Darfur... Which incidentally has been going on as open
conflict since 2003, but tensions and clashes go back to 1991. Did you hear
about it back then?

~~~
theorique
Is the war in Darfur still even going on?

------
prr
Why is HN driving traffic to a vaccine scare site? <http://www.collective-
evolution.com/category/health/>

------
donohoe
I'm not unaware of the events mentioned as well as other stories such as the
election if their current PM.

I feel this has been covered a lot across the BBC and NYTimes

~~~
ax_
As the UK is a part in this, do you feel BBC gives an opinionated view, or do
they manage to be objective and neutral?

It would be interesting to know from someone who has been following them.

~~~
peteretep
The biggest journalistic failing of the BBC - who are like the rest of the UK
TV media _legally required_ to not editorialise the news - is that they go
overboard, and will present two sides to every damn issue. This means they
regularly air the views of absolute nut-jobs whose input on stories is
batshit-insane, but are included just to try and be fair and balanced.

~~~
slurgfest
When one of the sides is British, the BBC presents one side, or presents the
other side in a completely jaundiced way that omits relevant but inconvenient
facts.

~~~
peteretep
Could you give an example?

------
wereHamster
The smaller the country, the easier it is to find common grounds, or to reach
a compromise that satisfies all parties.

> An assembly is elected to write a new constitution [...]. The only
> qualifications for candidacy are adulthood and the support of 30 people.

This wouldn't work in a large country such as the USA. There are simply too
many people with extreme views that would make such an election impossible.

~~~
_pmf_
Successful democracies are not characterized by allowing every fancy extremist
undercurrent arbitrary veto power. In the USA, most controversial decisions
are not blocked by extremists, but by representatives who confuse the
dominating media presence of extremists with actual representation in the
population.

If the republicans would not go to such extreme lengths to accommodate the
feelings of every conceivable nut case, they would probably be better off in
the long run, and even non-schizophrenics would be able to see some direction
in their politics.

~~~
davidw
Above comment is Exhibit A for "how to tell if an article is basically
political in nature".

------
SeanLuke
> Why Did The Media Keep The Recent Peaceful Icelandic Revolution Quiet?

Because Iceland has a population smaller than Provo-Orem, Utah?

------
nicholassmith
I've heard about it, but mostly it's just not as interesting story. Modern
mainstream media loves a bit of chaos, some struggle and bloodshed, it sells
well for them however people very calmly going about things the right way and
being decent human beings. Well, not so much a seller.

However, it probably wouldn't work anywhere with a significantly larger
population size. Too many people with their own ideas causes things to
fracture along ideological lines, rather than aiming for a common cause.

------
vermontdevil
If the media did report on what happened in Iceland, how many people in the US
would lift an eyebrow?

I don't know about Europeans or Asians but sadly not many in the US will as I
hope.

I know this is purely anecdotal due to the influences of my friends and family
in reacting to news like this. Not many of my friends/family are voracious
readers on what's happening around the world and want to see how things are
done. Even after I would explain to them what happened in Iceland or what we
have failed to do with our banking executives, many would simply shrug and say
"not much I can do".

I am confident if there was a research done on the attitudes of Americans, we
would be dismayed to learn that many don't really care.

So does it really matter if the 'media suppresses' these info when in actually
a reader can actually find all sorts of news if he or she bothers to look?

~~~
adventured
I would argue that it's a feeling of 'what can be done?' more than literally
not caring.

From what I've read, 1/3 or less of the colonists were in favor of the
American revolution. The only reason it happened is because the
representatives did not take a vote. Would anybody be surprised if a lot less
than that percentage _proactively_ care about their liberty today?

Of the people I know that do really care about what's happening in the US
today, most seem to feel helpless to stop it.

~~~
mpyne
By the same coin, only about ~1/3 of the colonists were "Loyalists". The
remainder didn't necessarily want the revolution but would have aided it had
it happened, or would have been OK with the status quo had it been left that
way.

------
michaelfeathers
It sounds like they had a nice outcome. But it's important to remember that
the population of Iceland is about 320 thousand whereas the population of the
US is about 320 million.

I often wonder whether many of the US's problems are simply scaling problems
and I wonder how many political scientists see it that way?

------
fireismyflag
Our society is clearly in a process of evolution, from feudalism, to an
oligarchy, and soon these kind of actions will bring up a real democracy.

Thanks in big part to technology, it is no longer possible for a powerful
elite to keep the rest uninformed and uneducated.

~~~
pitiburi
Oh, of course it's possible. It's just harder.

------
digitalengineer
I find it striking that _Al-Jazeera_ (the Arab news network?) did cover it and
show an awsome interview with the Icelandic President. "A too strong financial
sector takes all the 21st century talent and that is bad"

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=51-Jfh6ADH0)

~~~
AnthonBerg
Icelander here. There is nothing awesome about our president. He may seem like
a cool guy, but for example he allowed himself to be a PR whore for the banks
before the bust, tarnishing the presidency. Now he's all tough on banksters
... ?

The guy put MEDALS - ACTUAL MEDALS - on the corrupt bankers.

Here he is giving the Icelandic Order of the Falcon Cross Medal to the two
highest-level execs of Kaupthing Bank:
[http://lydveldi.blog.is/img/tncache/250x250/ce/lydveldi/img/...](http://lydveldi.blog.is/img/tncache/250x250/ce/lydveldi/img/utflutningsverdlaun2005_01.jpg)
[edit - no, this is the Iceland Commerce and Export Award 2005 he's giving to
them - here's a picture of the falcon-cross medal ceremony in 2007:
<http://www.forseti.is/media/orginal/aeae7417f17892d.jpg> \- 4th from the
right is Kaupthing head Sigurður Einarsson; Björgólfur Guðmundsson received
the medal in 2005 (can't find a picture)]

Then he tells lies on behalf of the country in interviews, saying Iceland is
doing this or will do that, stuff that just isn't true. He fabricates stuff.
As president. Appearing in official capacity.

Even if all he did was to speak overly strongly outwards as effectively-
powerless president, thus jeopardizing international relations that officially
represented people in actual powers are handling - even if he did only that I
would be outraged and would wish for him to resign. He's not just a loudmouth
- he's a goddamn _liar_.

Fuck Ólafur.

I understand that people like him. He's charismatic. Thing is that as he is
using his time as precident for self-serving PR, he's effectively on a
taxpayer-funded campaign to clean up his image and make people like him.
You're not aware of his background so he looks good. Please check the guy out
before you support him; He hasn't earned any kind of respect yet.

~~~
digitalengineer
Crap. Just another professional politician then I suppose. They should serve
two terms: One in office and one in jail...

------
phear
It may or may not be a conspiracy but i have seen numerous examples where big
name media outlets like CNN have made glaring inaccuracies in reporting
stories. For example reports on the current situation in Congo(DRC) differ
from what local reporters on the ground are reporting and are often merely
used as tools in a wider international political game(Push a story to put
pressure on a group) [http://in2eastafrica.net/simplistic-narrative-used-to-
distor...](http://in2eastafrica.net/simplistic-narrative-used-to-distort-the-
truth-about-the-m23-insurgency/).

Also sometimes shocking is the content their editors deem fit for news(Was
once shocked to see L.Lohan going to court as a headline story on CNN
International, not CNN USA)

Again there might not be a big media club deciding which stories to cover or
which agenda to push but individual media houses are clearly biased in their
coverage of selected news stories. You just have to watch them long enough to
notice it.

------
ssn
Please check this recent essay:

What is Actually going on in Iceland [http://studiotendra.com/2012/12/29/what-
is-actually-going-on...](http://studiotendra.com/2012/12/29/what-is-actually-
going-on-in-iceland/)

Can somebody help and make sense of these contradictory perspectives?

------
sidcool
I have read 'How the World Works' by Noam Chomsky, and I am shaken at the
facts.

------
drucken
One critical element that the story did not mention was the imposition of
capital controls to enable effective structural reform. This is something that
has not been done (at least not collectively) since the post-war period often
known as the Golden Age of Capitalism (1945-1971).

Ironically, in the same year the people of Iceland democratically elected to
default on sovereign obligations, the IMF released a paper entitled, _"Default
in Today's Advanced Economies: Unnecessary, Undesirable, and Unlikely"_ ...

------
drivingmenuts
Because it was peaceful and therefore, not really all that interesting to a
medium that relies on quick attention-grabbing events?

------
Avitas
The title's assertion is patently untrue.

America's most popular prime time news program (60 Minutes) did a full-length
feature on this. It was done a while ago so it has also been in re-runs.

This has not been ignored or otherwise kept quiet by the mainstream media--
quite the opposite.

------
sbmassey
I don't know why, but it is a good example of how small states are still
capable of acting in the interest of it's people, while large states are
captured by corrupt interests of one sort or another.

------
Ygg2
You wanna know real story no one heard of? This: [1]

[1]<http://www.zeit.de/2010/52/Woergl/komplettansicht>

------
undrcvr
because Iceland is smaller than hicksville, and basically has naturally
provided almost free energy... what happens there cannot be duplicated
anywhere else.

~~~
valdiorn
what does free energy have to do with protests?

------
herbig
This is a very common copy/paste Internet meme. Google the title and you'll
find it has been everywhere for a while.

------
jdavid
Maybe I have been watching too much 'Newsroom', but

'Isn't it a journalists Job to make relavant News, Relavant to the Public.'

------
cpursley
Possibly because peace dosen't sell bars of soap and new Chevrolet trucks?

------
valdiorn
Been there, done that :) (I live in Iceland)

------
smogzer
Better than democracy, where a majority can impose rules on a few, it would be
better we had a strict laws that could be learned by 5 year old in under 5
minutes, like, "thou shall not impose your will or arm another".

And then have groups of people that just get together to grow and/or share on
some ideals.

github > democracy > republic.

~~~
CodeMage
Impossible by definition. Any adult can find scores of loopholes in anything
that is codified in a way so simple that a 5 year old can learn it in under 5
minutes. If your law is riddled with loopholes, then it can't be "strict" for
any definition of the word.

