NYT op-ed: Silence in the Streets: Where Have All the Protesters Gone?

[DeepModem Mom]

Editorial Observer
There Is Silence in the Streets; Where Have All the Protesters Gone?
By ANDREW ROSENTHAL
Published: August 31, 2006

.... because there is no draft — a fact that Graham Nash noted sardonically on Sunday night (at Madison Square Garden) — no young person has to fear being conscripted into the fight. It is hard to escape the conclusion that Americans find it much easier to stay silent when there is no shared sacrifice.

This war is also largely hidden from American eyes. Unlike Vietnam, when journalists were free to witness and record combat operations, the Pentagon controls access to American troops in Iraq and the images that come with it. The Pentagon banned press coverage of the flag-draped coffins returning home from Iraq. The president refused to attend the funerals of soldiers. Even the cost of this war was tucked from the very start into “supplemental bills” that magically don’t count toward the budget deficit....

***

.... in the 1960’s and 1970’s, antiwar protesters were told they were un-American, cowardly and lending aid and comfort to Communists. Then, the personal and national cost of war grew so great that public outrage drowned out this sort of propaganda. Now, people find protesters vaguely embarrassing and don’t want to make too much noise. Outside the concert hall, a soldier who served in Iraq and now opposes the war said he wished Neil Young could be more “subtle.”

Mr. Young’s call for impeachment is over the top, and it’s certainly not subtle. But the anti-Vietnam protesters were not exactly masters of subtlety either. Bloggers say there is an antiwar movement online. Perhaps, but it takes crowds to get America’s attention. Just look at the immigration debate.

The noisy, annoying, unsubtle leaders of the protest lent courage to the rest of us to cut school and march in a few rallies.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/opinion/31observer.html?ex=1157256000&en=af7ad95f4e67171d&ei=5087%0A

[Fredda Weinberg]

1. Why not remind him of April 29, 2006?

http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/r/andrew_rosenthal/index.html

And send him a message

[DianaForRussFeingold]

2. Would They cover it ?

The election fraud protests in Mexico; I don't think so! Not here or in Mexico!

[niyad]

3. BULLSHIT!!!!! maybe if the NYT and its fellow lapdogs had COVERED

the tens of thousands of protestors over the past 6 years, they wouldn't have to ask such a stupid question. how much coverage did the NYT give to the 40 MILLION people who hit the streets on Feb 15, 2003, just as one example? how much coverage has the NYT or ANY of the other whores of the corporate spin machine given to any of the hundreds of other protests?

[Nite Owl]

4. A year ago this month

http://www.unitedforpeace.org/article.php?list=type&type=91

Hundreds of thousands marched. I was there, where were they?

They ignor it when it happens so therefore it never happened.

[DianaForRussFeingold]

6. The Media Are the True Appeasers of Fascism!

[ReadTomPaine]

5. The people are there - it's the media that's missing. n/t

[pretzel4gore]

7. the ny times is a criminal run organization....

part of the bushpig media. simple as that.
(while overstatement often has the opposite effect - indeed overstatement is routinely a useful tool of agent provocateurs - yet in the present case there is no such thing as overstatement regards the bushpig media. it is a fukkin liar, and everyone of thm bastards in control deserves jail, if not worse)

[gumby]

8. FU, NYT

Where were you when millions and millions were in the streets around the world pre Shock and Awe?

Maybe you were too busy cooking up some more Whitewater and Monica tales?

It's sad to see how low the NYT has sunk.

[WePurrsevere]

9. Perhaps it's time to DU the NYT's & "MSM" the way some folks DU the polls

and politicians. It's not as easy but if, as a group, DUers targeted the (non)media itself and build a wave of protest up against the NON-reporting of real issues I believe we could make a real difference much as bloggers already have and are.

Sadly for many "MSM" The bottom line for them is money. They are a business and most of them are run by corporations that want to make money. Although some of the larger ones are more interested in sucking up to the PTB in Washington (so the corp that owns them can get defense, etc contracts) there are many whose bottom line is money from advertisers and subscribers and they'll report whichever way public opinion persuades them to report.

If we want change we need to change the way the media reports... force their hand through embarrassment and money using blogging, websites, search engines, yard/car signs/bumper stickers and letter writing campaigns, protests AT their headquarters and the headquarters of the corporations and advertisers that control them.

DUers disagree on who is the best Democratic representative and many other issues but the lack of the "MSM" covering things that should be REAL news may be one thing we might all agree on and get behind... getting the media to do their real job and DIG up and report all of the FACTS and the TRUTH, even the messy/embarrassing/horrifying ones, where it can be seen and discussed openly.

Maybe I'm crazy, since getting Dems to work together can be like herding feral cats, but I still believe that the power of the people when united can move (or wear down) the proverbial mountain... whether those mountains are Rovian, corp, public opinion, "MSM", etc.

[magellan]

10. I was going to write Andrew Rosenthal and the NYT

...but then I thought, What's the point? They don't cover protests except to under-report the numbers and spin the thing as an aberration from the fringes of society.

I've written many letters/emails to the likes of the NYT over the last few years, all but begging them to cover this or that story. I know many others have too, along with taking part in marches. What does it get us? Galling editorials like Rosenthal's asking where all the protesters have gone.

Fuck the corporate media.

[tsuki]

11. I think that they might be knocking on a few doors with pamplets. nt

[choie]

12. "Mr. Young's call for impeachment is over the top..."??????

and why is that? War crimes and using the constitution like toilet paper isn't sufficient reason to call for impeachment? I can't stand these people.. :argh:

[EFerrari]

13. How can this mendacious idiot say there is no shared sacrifice

when our infrastructure is crumbling, our social systems are going out of business and our kids are getting killed for WAR PROFITEERS? Our continued existence is in itself a protest under this misadministration.

Any day now, the NYTs will run an editorial memmorializing the Constitution. Thank God for the indy media.

[DeepModem Mom]

14. IN FAIRNESS, op-eds in all newspapers reflect different points of view --

The NYT's op-ed page regularly features both Paul Krugman and David Brooks. Criticism of undercoverage of protests is fairly aimed at the NYT; the opinions Rosenthal expresses in this piece are his own.

And I'm not sure Rosenthal deserves the level of venom he's getting in this thread:

"Student protesters helped drive Lyndon Johnson — in so many ways a powerful, progressive president — out of office because of his war. In 2004, George W. Bush — in so many ways a weak, regressive president — was re-elected despite his war. And the campuses were silent."