Groan. I really want to be writing positive stories about the antiwar protests that are taking place across America. In fact, I am searching for information about these protests, trying to get information about the demonstrations from the activist organizations themselves. Unfortunately, I keep coming across protests that don’t make sense.
Yesterday, I wrote, disappointed, about the Brandywine Peace Community’s wacky mix of an antiwar protest with a commemoration of the crucifixion of Jesus. Today, I looked into antiwar protests to take place in Seattle tomorrow, only to find that the protesters there are wandering off topic too.
The Seattle protests of five years of war in Iraq have morphed into a strangely unreflective attack on the mainstream media coverage of the war. Here’s the notice the Seattle chapter of the group World Can’t Wait posted over at United for Peace and Justice:
Non-Violent Mass Resistance to Shut Down the Media Centers who continue to be complicit with the Bush Regime!
No Business As Usual! Wear Orange! Bring Orange Signs of your favorite blacked-out stories and issues the media refuses to report! The media has played a major role in making the opposition to the Bush regime invisible! It’s time they were held accountable to the people! WHERE’S OUR FREE PRESS? The mainstream media has become another extension of the Bush Program by trying to block out dissent and critical thinking. Bring the media the stories that are vital to this democracy, vital to bringing the truth to light about the criminal activities of the Bush Regime! Ask the media why it does not report the truth and no longer informs the people! NO MORE BUSINESS AS USUAL!
Look – it’s quite clear that the one thing that the World Can’t Wait’s protests in Seattle will not do tomorrow is shut down any media centers. Why pretend that it’s going to happen?
For that matter, if World Can’t Wait wants to protect the free press, and if they are tired of seeing dissent blocked out, then why are they trying to shut down media centers? Goodness me, can’t the people at Seattle’s World Can’t Wait see that they are engaged in the very kind of agenda that they complain they’re the target of?
The way that a free press works is that it publishes the information it wants to publish, not the information that activist organizations tell it to publish. World Can’t Wait can’t go around trying to tell the free press what kind of message it has to publish. To do so is absolutely contrary to promise of a free press. World Can’t Wait has declared that it wants to shut media centers down – to block their messages because these unspecified media centers dissent from the World Can’t Wait agenda.
Is there some kind of nutritional deficiency in Seattle that leaves people there unable to perceive irony?
Freedom of the press, Seattle activists, doesn’t guarantee that citizen groups will get favorable coverage of their activity. It’s your job as a citizen group to try to convince media organizations to provide you with favorable coverage. You have no constitutional right to get attention in the news. The people, and yes, even the corporations, who broadcast news media have the constitutional right to cover the stories that they want to cover, and to not cover the stories that they don’t want to cover.
Like Seattle World Can’t Wait, I don’t like the military occupation of Iraq, and I don’t approve of the coverage provided on the issue by the mainstream corporate media. However, I regard it as my mission to create media to get out the information that I believe has been neglected by corporate information stories. I don’t aim to shut down other sources of information. Instead, I try to build up my own little media outlets, like this blog.
There are a large number of local and national progressive alternative, non-corporate information outlets. If an activist group wants media attention for its protests, it ought to get in touch with those information sources, and help those sources provide positive coverage. It’s the responsibility of activist groups to do so. I don’t see that kind of activist outreach taking place, however.
Shutting down corporate media, even if groups like Seattle World Can’t Wait could accomplish such a task, wouldn’t accomplish anything, if there weren’t a strong, activist-supported alternative media ready to fill in the gap. Alternative media of all sorts is just waiting to be used by activists. I invite serious, clear minded activists to get in touch with me to provide coverage for their events, but I find that activist groups usually don’t even try to get the attention of alternative media.
Critical thinking requires clear thinking: How can protesters bring their favorite blacked out stories, if the stories have truly been blacked out?
Here’s one more tip for groups like the Brandywine Peace Community and Seattle World Can’t Wait: Stay on topic.
If you want to have a protest against the occupation of Iraq, don’t make your protest about the crucifixion of Jesus. The two issues are not related. If you want to have a protest against the occupation of Iraq, don’t make it a goal of your protest to shut down local media. The two issues are not the same. Wander off topic, and you can’t blame anybody else when you don’t get attention for your original issue.
I really don’t want to be writing articles like this right now, but it is clear to me that many progressive activist groups need to get a loud wake up call, to clear the fog of distraction from their heads, and to get back to what matters.
