Fleishman Hillard: The Political View

Yesterday’s “flash protest” stunt in the House of Commons was silly, overly partisan and quite possibly a lie.

The protesters, some of whom have been outed as NDP activists, shut down the House of Commons in support of the NDP Private Members Bill just as Jack Layton was about to ask a question. Like many activist protesters they were hoping for some good pictures when security broke it up and dragged them away.

The problem was that the Parliamentary cameras are not allowed to show people in the gallery, and the House of Commons security guards were out of view as they escorted the protesters out.

But rather than settle for what they got, they just had to torque it up a notch to get the media hit.

Last night, on the National, one of the protest leaders was interviewed by the CBC with streaks of blood running down his face. Obviously, the result of being man-handled by climate change deniers.

The problem was that the news pictures taken as this person was being escorted from the Hill show someone with a pristine face (smug maybe, but not bloodied). (See the picture yourself)

This suggests a few possibilities:

A. His own comrades beat the tar out of him for blowing his media op (I’ve always heard that Jack has a temper).

B. He faked the blood to improve the TV optics.

C. He was actually hurt, but cleaned himself up before leaving the Parliament Buildings and then re-emphasized the blood before going on TV.

Either way, there’s a story here that should be explained.

The truth is that SO MANY activist media stunts are contrived, based in untruths, or are manipulative. It makes it hard to believe them when they say something bad happened.

The majority of activists have an attitude of the ends justify the means, but a stunt is a stunt, and the people who get taken in are the people who believe them.