Posted on 10/30/2007 10:41:16 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
If the "peace" movement holds a protest and no one in the press covers it, does it still exist? If Americans are sick of the war, they're also sick of the "antiwar." Even the media have grown antiwar-weary. Rallies on Oct. 27 drew only perfunctory news mentions.
The peaceniks have become a bipartisan political problem, now that the Democrats who control Congress haven't dared to placate the radicals by cutting off money for the troops. Cindy Sheehan is threatening to run against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. But suddenly -- surprise, surprise -- the media aren't interested in Sheehan's new crusade. Crusades only have a point when it's an anti-Republican point. Camping out against Bush during his Texas vacation was news, fun news, important news. But running against Pelosi is not news. It's a sign your 15 minutes of fame are all used up.
So they're getting desperate. The radical group named "Code Pink" drew some ink by getting right in the secretary of state's face during a congressional hearing. The ugly Pink lady charged forward with blood on her hands to accuse Condi Rice of being responsible for mass killing. NBC's Matt Lauer tried to prod Rice into condemning this crude publicity stunt. To her credit, Rice simply rolled her eyes at the pink protester.
Others continue to jumpstart the '60s. A "peace" concert at the Episcopalian National Cathedral in Washington starring some retirement-age hippies, David Crosby and Graham Nash, was followed by a sympathetic tour through the liberal 24-hour news networks. These aren't Code Pink crazies, but in their own way they're equally out of sync.
On MSNBC's "Hardball," Crosby lamented how our soldiers are -- to borrow an old phrase -- poor, uneducated and easy to command types. "You know, on the one hand you've got a young kid who is patriotic, who loves his country, believes in it, and he's being told, 'Yeah this is the truth, and we've gotta go in there to protect your mother and your sister.' And he goes over, and he finds out the job is killing somebody else's mother and sister."
"Where have all the flowers gone ... ?"
Our commanders are urging the troops to fire on innocent Iraqi women and children? Chris Matthews should have been outraged. Instead, he could only manage to say, supportively, "Yeah, yeah." Crosby, perhaps hearing himself trashing the troops, tried to reel it back in: "We can't be wasting some of the best young people we have sending them over there to be killed and then killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqis at the same time." They're the "best young people we have," but they slaughter innocent women and children at the drop of an officer's hat.
MSNBC is at best a wobbly-kneed "news" network when hackneyed left-wing rock stars unspool crazy talk against our troops. Here's what Matthews should have said: "Boys and girls, this is your brain on drugs." If he wasn't going to demand an apology, at least he could warn children of the danger of pharmaceuticals.
Over on CNN, reporter Carol Costello said Crosby and Nash were complaining the power of protest was ebbing because of Bush's "brainwashing." Out came the Bush the Dictator lines. Nash: "It's the administration controlling the populace." Crosby: "You can watch all of these same moves out of any other dictatorship or junta." To which Nash blurted out, "Emperor."
After hearing all this loony banter about the Bush Reich, it's amazing these men are still thrilling tie-dyed audiences with the song "Teach Your Children Well." Their political theories prove they haven't learned anything since the acid trips of the late '60s. Even these factually challenged "news" segments feel like the networks are going through the motions. Not even they are buying it.
The "peace" protesters face a real crisis here. Under the loaded rules of protest media coverage, the cameras are almost required to show up whenever 150, or 50, or four people gather on behalf of a "progressive" cause. (By contrast, conservatives can turn out 80,000 at pro-life marches and their coverage is zilch.) Leftist protests never seem like a "pseudo-event" -- an event staged solely for the cameras -- when the reporters arrive to sell breathlessly the continental shift of the American people that the protesters allegedly represent.
But the people today are sour. Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi have lower approval ratings than President Bush. Right now, the "peace" movement looks passe. They have no energy, and nothing original to say, and with the change in Congress, they have no more public-relations magic. They better not stand in front of a banner reading, "Mission Accomplished."
The past few years have really been nothing but the hippies’ second childhood, aided and abetted by their contemporaries in the media. I’ve seen a lot of indications lately that the country at large has grown tired of humoring them.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
Indeed he does nail it. I listened to these guys a lot in my ‘yout’, Crosby and Nash, but they’re just doddering old fools now.
I only read about the protests to look at the pictures and laugh at the stupidity.
Crosby? Nash?
Heres the deal. Free Depends if you just shut up.
(BTW, Isn’t one of them Canadain?)
They want a revolution to happen within the US, a violent one if needed. That’s what they mean by “peace”.
What if they gave a protest and no-one came?
“The peace movement is objectively pro-fascist”
-George Orwell, 1942
>>If Americans are sick of the war, they’re also sick of the “antiwar.”
I read a couple letters to the editor in the Boston Globe which complained about the lack of coverage of
the anti-war rallies. They also published the following letter, which I was amused to see in a left-leaning paper:
I was holding a poster that someone had handed me at the rally. It said “No War in Iran,” and I was thinking I might post it in my front window.
A young woman in her 20s sat down beside me on the train and quietly asked if she could ask me a question: “Why are you against a war with Iran?”
My response referred to the disasters of our current administration, its misguided goals and failures, etc.
She replied, “I am Iranian, my family is Baha’i, and currently there is a holocaust going on in Iran against the Baha’i and against Christians and nobody hears about this. Eighty percent of the population in Iran is praying for a war to bring down the government.”
She got up to get off at her stop, and I thanked her for speaking to me.
The poster is sitting on my kitchen counter.
DEBORAH SILVERSTEIN
Cambridge
(Apparently she now sees another side of the issue!
There’s hope!)
The following letter was a bit more of the expected:
I TAKE issue with the Globe for burying its article about the antiwar rally on page 6 of City & Region (”10,000 in Boston rally against war,” Oct. 28). This was a nationwide event with regional demonstrations in 11 cities. It reflects public sentiment against the war in Iraq and it warned against the drumbeats for war against Iran. There is a lot of talk about whether newspapers will survive as circulation falls. When the populace is against a war waged by its government, and the papers bury news of protest, who is it that these papers represent? You printed the story with one photo that showed exactly four people. People were on the Common from all over New England.
The people are speaking out. Is anyone in power listening? Will they bother to dig to the inner pages of a newspaper to read about what we want?
PEGGY B. ANDERSON
Granby
Nash is a Canucker, I believe. Crosby is a liver transplant from Cali.
NK vs. SK and we’ve been there 50+yrs. So much going on with these little dictator countries and the world as much as they hate the US, still look to the US to save their world.
IMaNutJob is a dangerous man. He has a way with words that bends the mind of the gullible. Both speeches at the UN were masked threats to the world. To read the critique of some...they were wonderful speeches of peace.
A liberal acquaintance of mine is totally sucked in by this guy. We really got into it last week. Every fact I gave her she came back with ...”well I don’t know anything about that.” I finally got real fed-up and told her to go learn more before she decides to defend the real devil in the world.
Nash is English, BTW - former member of the Hollies. A much better band than Crosby Steals the Cash!
I’m sure once they talk to God — for those hippies going to heaven and not some communist hell — He will not be the same one who they believed they talked to under acid. They will question him about the flowers and peace and love and smoking pot and why Bush is an idiot and he will laugh and say, “Ah, children, Bush & Cheney were right. We’ll have to get you a nanny.”
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