The Day Democracy Died in America's Echo Chamber

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

by Pierre Tristam
Daytona Beach News-Journal

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0321-28.htm

<snip>

Compared to the violence of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago in 1968, placid Manhattan looks, in retrospect, like the real breakdown of civil, democratic society. It's where protest could be deemed dead and buried, and with it the notion that political freedom is anything more than the right to vent in an echo chamber. The weekend protests on the third anniversary of the Iraq war were more like self-conscious funeral processions: Just 200 people in Manhattan (compared with 100,000 two days before the war started), 17 of whom were arrested. A few hundred in Boston, 7,000 in Chicago, 10,000 in Portland, Ore. (A Port Orange street-corner drew about 50 activists on Sunday.) Those weren't demonstrations but gatherings of defeat. More people will attend next week's baseball spring training games than the sum total of weekend protesters across the country.

Yet half of Americans now think the war unjustified, and 60 percent think it's getting worse. Vietnam was getting better marks in 1968, with more than half of Americans thinking it was still worth the fight. But demonstrations raged in the streets back then. Lyndon Johnson's approval rating stood at 36 percent in March 1968, exactly where President Bush's rating stands now, with this difference: Johnson, for all the madness he ramped up in Vietnam, would soon concede defeat by refusing to run again. He retreated to the White House to wait out his term to the daily sound of protesters outside ("Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids will you kill today?"). He could have banished them to distant zones. He didn't. He'd been a fool to think that "we can turn the Mekong into a Tennessee Valley." He wasn't such a fool as to think that he could turn the White House into a Red Square.

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[Trevelyan]

1. Very good article and political cartoon. Sad but true. eom

[IsItJustMe]

2. It says more about the success of chimp's tactics than the will of America

Illegal wire taping, intimidation by police, fear of loosing your job...

Chimp's done a damn good job in this respect.

[reichstag911]

3. Things will change...

...when the draft, by necessity, is reinstated to fight Repug wars (Iran, anyone?).

[BonnieJW]

4. I don't think so

In 1968, how else could 10,000 people with the same ideology communicate? They HAD to gather together. But now we have the internet. How many of us gather each minute on DU? We share ideas, comment, direct each other to sign petitions, contact congress reps and senators. We are informed and we are heard. We don't gather in the streets because we don't have to. We can speak in the voting booths as soon as we get voting booths that really work. And we are even working on that issue without ever leaving our computers. I know some people will say we aren't visible unless we take to the streets. I don't agree. When thousands of emails and faxes pour into our representatives' offices, we are visible. When our emails are read on the air, we are visible. When we gather on these blogs and share, we are visible. When we vote in the polls, we are visible.

How can you spend five minutes on DU and think Democracy is dead????

[Gildor Inglorion]

6. Good point, Bonnie...thanks for making it

I hadn't really thought in that direction, but you're right.

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

8. In 1968 when 10,000 people...

...wanting an end to Vietnam gathered, it wasn't a town hall meeting, Bonnie, it was to send a highly visible, compelling message of dissent against the war. And while I agree that the internet can be used to do this to a degree, I do not accept that it currently serves as an effective substitute for mass public gatherings of protest, or provides the level of visibility that you suggest. I do think the internet has been used to great effect in permitting the kind of discourse we're having now, and as an organizing tool. I also think it was pivotal in the "get out the vote" movement that resulted in Kerry's officially unrecognized win over Bush in '04.

As to your statement "We don't gather in the streets because we don't have to" I would say, if we want any chance of getting our democracy back we DO have to.

I've spent much more than 5 minutes on DU and think it's a great way to share information and ideas, but I've felt that democracy has been dormant if not dead in this country since 2000. When the people no longer choose the president and other elected officials, for me, that's not democracy.

[400Years]

5. Not everybody thinks walking down the street is very effective

I don't.

[BonnieJW]

7. I remember

I am old enough to have marched in the 60's. It was VERY effective and scared the White House to death. I would not hesitate to do it again if I thought it would be as effective. I have seen that what we do is much more effective and if you don't think * and his groupies are terrified, all I can say is you just aren't paying attention.

No one ever thought of contacting their reps back then. How would you do it? Mail? Phone call? How would you get the phone number? I think nothing of contacting them now, and all the other reps from all the other states. I'm sure my name is on numerous lists. So are yours. No one knew who I was in 1967 or heard my voice. So I joined with thousands of others and we were heard and we were seen. I have never felt powerless since that time and none of you should feel powerless now. THIS is America and we will not walk away.