protests

Dollars, sense and the new American Resistance

October 5, 2011 by Kenneth

(Cross-posted at Saint Petersblog & Daily Kos)

 

“There’s something happening here

What it is ain’t exactly clear…”

Steven Stills wrote those opening lines of Buffalo Springfield’s classic protest song, “”, in 1966. It wasn’t just the Vietnam War tearing America apart at the time. It was the struggle for Civil Rights, Women’s Rights, and some measure of socioeconomic stability for America’s millions of poor, elderly and disabled citizens.

It’s no accident that the social unrest and political activism marking those years was accompanied by historic enactment of the Civil Rights Act, Medicare and Medicaid, by a Democratic Congress and President, Lyndon Baines Johnson, who even declared ”War On Poverty” in 1964.

If a great protest falls upon Wall Street, and no reporter is there to write about it, does it make a noise?

September 25, 2011 by Uppity Wisconsin

Occupy Wall StreetThe other day I blogged about how the "occupation" of Wall Street in New York City by thousands of demonstrators for more than a week has raised hardly a blip on the domestic news media radar screen. It's as if editors and news directors (and their corporate masters) have decided there's nothing new to see here. So move on, move on (wait, even that sounds too radical).

But it's even worse than malign neglect, because in the rare moments when a mainstream news outlet does mention the protests (which like those in Wisconsin beforehand have been very peaceful, and which have attracted Web-based pizza orders from afar), the tone is almost ominous. Consider, for example, this lead-in from CNN "Situation Room" host Wolf Blitzer last Monday: "Protests here in New York on Wall Street entering a third day. Should New Yorkers be worried at all about what's going on?"

When 2,000 protesters are, or aren't, a big deal

September 21, 2011 by Uppity Wisconsin

Progressive blogger Amy Goodman at Truthdig makes a trenchant observation about the way the mainstream media sometimes cover right-wing versus left-wing events. The "nut" graph: