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This was pretty indicative of the scene as well. Lots of little splinter groups, even as cloistered as 'The Northern Manhattan Neighbors' Association of Mothers Against War'. What's next? 'Guys Named Dave Who Were at 28th and 8th on Tuesday, July 7th, 1993 Who Are Usually On The Fence But Right Now are Antiwar'? If we're going to segregate ourselves so bloody religiously, how are we ever supposed to bring our diversity together to seriously affect change?
interestingly enough, i was just reading from Chomsky's Understanding Power, and it says:
The fact that [dissidence] doesn't have a center, and doesn't have a source, and doesn't have an organizational structure, that has both strengths and weaknesses. The weaknesses are that people get the sense that they're alone-- because you don't see things happening down the street. And it's possible to maintain the illusion that there's no activism going on, because there's nothing dramatically visible, like huge demonstrations or something; occasionally there are, but not most of the time. And there's very little in the way of inter-communication, so all sorts of organizing can be happening in parallel, but it doesn't feed into itself and move on from there. Those are weaknesses. On the other hand, the strength is, it's very hard to crush-- because there's nothing to cut off: if one thing gets eliminated, something else just comes up to take its place. (3)
so, for what it's worth, while you/i/we may feel that this disunity in contesting "The Republicans" (i put that in quotes since i'm a republican; i just happen to be against this administration as well as the two-party system in general-- but that's another story) is self-defeating, perhaps it has a strength to it that signs for kerry wouldn't necessarily have. the disunified gestures can't end with an election or the flaws of its leadership.
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I didn't notice an appreciable amount in the U.S.
Mainstream media didn't cover it much but it was all over the place. You pay too much attention to CNN.
from another Chomsky book i've started, Manufacturing Consent (i've never read chomsky before, it's just a coincidence i've started these two books at this time, and no, i don't believe everything i read by him), it says:
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Since 1990, a wave of massive deals and rapid globalization have left the media industries further centralized in nine transnational conglomerates-- Disney, AOL Time Warner, Viacom (owner of CBS), News Corporation, Bertelsmann, General Electric (owner of NBC), Sony, AT&T-Liberty Media, and Vivendi Universal. These giants own all the world's major film studios, TV networks, and music companies, and a sizeable fraction of the most important cable channels, cable systems, magazines, major-market TV stations, and book publishers. The largest, the recently merged AOL Time Warner, has integrated the leading Internet portal into the traditional media system. Another fifteen firms round out the system, meaning that two dozen firms control nearly the entirety of media experienced by most U.S. citizens.... The United States and other Western governments have pressed the interests of their home-country firms eager to expand abroad, and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank have done the same, striving with considerable success to enlarge transnational corporate access to media markets across the globe. (xiii-xiv)
if we were to take this into consideration, then it would be pretty safe to assume that the withdrawl of Western occupation in the reorganization of Iraqui economy and governance would go against the business interests of major media corporations who look at Iraq as a potential market. this book coincidentally also goes on to say that a good number of protests and marches frequently go overlooked or misrepresented by the mainstream media because of how mainstream media's economic concerns frequently unconsciously govern its consideration of what's important or ideologically "right"/legitimate. (by the way, Manufacturing Consent builds an interesting and well-documented-- albeit, admittedly at times flawed-- case for its claims with extensive details and documentations, for those that are interested in such reading.)
in any case, reuters (where cnn gets its news from) did cover at least the NY protests, and i live in Oxford, MS, and there were protests even here in this ultra-conservative town of 10,000 inhabitants. so, i have to imagine that the US had quite a bit of its own protests against the occupation in Iraq, despite the insignificant numbers indicated (i don't think any news attempted to report actual or even potential numbers in the greater US, just the "thousands" in NY) in mainstream news.
