September 25, 2005
-
SUNDAY GOOD NEWSThe coverage of the largest protest of the war in Iraq so far yesterday in Washington, DC was of course marginalized by the Bush-owned media to about .0001% of newstime. It was pretty much wall-to-wall hurricane repeat information all day long as the crowd swelled to an estimated 300,000 in our nation’s capital (in spite of an east coast Amtrak power failure keeping hundreds more from arriving), as well as thousands in San Francisco, London, LA and various other cities. (For a list of Iraq war protests since pre-war click here.) I saw a bit of it on an obscure cable channel, a few minutes of Jessica Lange and a few minutes of someone including I think it was the Philippines in the global voice against American imperialism. By Saturday afternoon only two arrests had been made in Washington, so thankfully the protest remained peaceful. There will be a peace fair all day today with trainings for Monday’s non-violent civil disobedience outside the White House and a big grassroots lobbying push on Capitol Hill on Monday, with 700+ activists signed up to pay visits to their House and Senate reps. So while I was so not surprised to see the lack of coverage of this important event, thanks to the internet I knew it was happening and am deeply grateful for every single person who showed up. I don’t trust the polls I hear about Bush losing support. I fully believe that if he ran again today for President he would win again because he owns the machine and the machine tells us all what to think. And the majority of us listen. I wonder what it will take for the minority of us who cantankerously listen to different drummers to become the majority. Marches like yesterday’s can’t hurt.
Deep Thought: “Deep Thought: To my way of thinking, there’s nothing that can’t be cured by a big ol’ pot o beans. Except maybe bean fever.”
Today I am grateful for: Cordless phones
Guess the Movie: “He lets the last Hungarian go. He waits until his wife and kids are in the ground and then he goes after the rest of the mob. He kills their kids, he kills their wives, he kills their parents and their parents’ friends. He burns down the houses they live in and the stores they work in, he kills people that owe them money. And like that he was gone. Underground. Nobody has ever seen him since. He becomes a myth, a spook story that criminals tell their kids at night.” Answer: The Usual Suspects, 1995.
Winner: Eliminate_the_Impossible.
Thousands March Through London in Iraq War Protest
LONDON – Thousands of people marched through central London on Saturday demanding that Prime Minister Tony Blair withdraw British troops from Iraq. (Rest of article here.)
End of Day: 8:34 pm
+ = Marvelous marvelous fall we’re having here in Portland.
- = Rude neighbors.
Comments (12)
A dear friend of mine marched. I can’t wait to hear from her about it. And…I was just outside and feeding the chickens (my quiet time
) and thinking about how it works….the media, the mind-numbing, the way we are like domesticated chickens. Not thinking, running around for our bits of bread and convinced it is worth it. And I came inside and read your post about the machine….and it all clicked very nicely. Perhaps I need to blog about chickens. And political machines 
It is a shame how little effect we have on the “political machine”. And the above comments are true, . . we do resemble chickens. Or maybe buffalo in a mad stampede towards the cliff drop. We think we are doing OK, simply because we are moving. Sorry so sappy, . . the news these days is so depressing.
We’ve had machines in the past and it just takes a while to wear them down. And I saw coverage of the march in this morning’s paper, bottom front page, but it was there. Interesting–concurrently, I’m reading a chapter in a book talking about the war marches in 1968 at the White House.
*shaking head* there will always be a machine…just seems that the one in place now is blatantly worse than the others…and then maybe that’s not true either. We live in an electronic age where information is more freely passed and leaked than ever before. Wag the Dog!
amazing the non coverage of the protests…
Movie for this entry would be, of course, The Usual Suspects.
Yesyesyes!
I love a good march. At a minimum, it feels good to see that I’m not the only one who feels a certain way.
Thanks for subbing BTW, it’s great to meet you
Yes, we are having a gorgeous Autumn in Portland. I LOVE this city. The leaves are gorgeous on the trees. On my way home, I drive about 1/2 mile through tree covered streets and it’s so gorgeous in the fall. And, I agree, RUDE neighbors are awful. It’s interesting to me how people can live in a neighborhood and think like they live all by themselves on 100 acres.
Say No War! But….why didn’t I see stories in the papers????
In order to defeat Bush, you need an effective opposition party that will offer a principled opposition to Bush’s policies, and unfortunately, the Democrats aren’t it. Notice how none of the leading elected Democrats were involved with the antiwar rally? Where were Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, Nancy Pelosi, or even Howard Dean, who ran an antiwar campaign last year for god’s sake? They were no where to be found this weekend–totally AWOL–and they were noticeably absent from Camp Casey as well. I was happy to be at the San Francisco antiwar rally on Saturday. We had 20,000 to 50,000 people there. It was great. But to stop Bush, it will take an organized opposition that is not afraid to take Bush on.
What a great comment.