A Maoist take on Cindy Sheehan. To quote the Revolutionary Worker quoting Ms. Sheehan: "I want him (Bush) to tell me 'just what was the noble cause Casey died for'?", she declared. "Was it freedom and democracy? Bullshit! He died for oil. He died to make your friends richer. He died to expand American imperialism in the Middle East.
"We're not freer here, thanks to your PATRIOT ACT. Iraq is not free. You get America out of Iraq and Israel out of Palestine and you'll stop the terrorism! There, I used the 'I' word--imperialism, and now I'm going to use another 'I' word -- impeachment--because we cannot have these people pardoned. They need to be tried on war crimes and go to jail."
(Meanwhile,
on the spot, Bush's neighbor is
becoming irate; more on that via
Yahoo News.)
posted by davy
on Aug 15, 2005 -
69 comments
Riots in Iran have started, apparently over the recent elections. The revolution, it seems, will be blogged (with pictures). But not televised? Has anyone seen anything on CBSNBCBBCABCFOXESPN about this? If the riots are over the election, why are we hearing from the BBC (and others, presumably) that the
election went smoothly? Does anyone have more information about what's happening with these pro-democracy riots? (Via
Roger L. Simon).
posted by swerdloff
on Mar 14, 2004 -
16 comments
Fox News "revises" its own news scroll during New York war protest. "The news ticker rimming Fox's headquarters on Sixth Avenue wasn't carrying war updates as the protest began. Instead, it poked fun at the demonstrators, chiding them.
'War protester auditions here today ... thanks for coming!' read one message. 'Who won your right to show up here today?' another questioned. 'Protesters or soldiers?' Said a third: 'How do you keep a war protester in suspense? Ignore them....' Still another read: 'Attention protesters: the Michael Moore Fan Club meets Thursday at a phone booth at Sixth Avenue and 50th Street.'" Fox claims the network "didn't mean to insult anyone."
posted by XQUZYPHYR
on Mar 29, 2003 -
95 comments
At D.C. protests, a few hundred thousand go missing - "Like most young Americans, I've been trained to think of protests and demonstrations as something shameful and vaguely embarrassing-something one outgrows, like Journey albums, or those hour-long showers you took when you were eleven and twelve."
Stinging dead-on reportage about the media's coverage of the anti-war movement, from
Matt Taibbi.
posted by GriffX
on Jan 29, 2003 -
66 comments
Media covers massive D.C. (and world) Anti-War protests, discounts numbers - Backflash: NPR and the NYT later issued apologies for their drastic undercounting of the Oct. 26 D.C. Anti-War protest - later admitted to be between 100,000 and 200,000 in size "...It was not as large as the organizers of the protest had predicted. They had said there would be 100,000 people here. I'd say there are fewer than 10,000"(NPR's Nancy Marshall) Last saturday's D.C. AntiWar protest received far more media coverage but a similar discounting of the numbers. IndyMedia (above link) provided numbers more in line with D.C. Police statements. Many media outlets ran the same AP news feed. [NYT, NPR , CNN, ABC, AP] and claimed..."Thousands" or "tens of thousands" of protesters. But in the words of those who witnessed it (as I did - 2.5 times size of Oct. 26 protest, from what I saw): 'D.C. police chief Charles Ramsey said, "It's one of the biggest ones we've had, certainly in recent times." U.S. Capitol Police chief Terrance Gainer said, "I know everyone is skittish about saying a number, but this was big. An impressive number." A C-SPAN cameraman I spoke to spent the entire protest on the roof of a cargo truck just to the side of the stage. He told me that he had covered dozens of protests in his time, and that the crowd on Saturday was the biggest he had ever seen.' (story) and organizers claimed 500,000 marched in DC meanwhile, a new poll shows support for a war on Iraq is slipping in the US and also dropping at the UN
posted by troutfishing
on Jan 20, 2003 -
105 comments
Today is the day when
massive war protests are scheduled to appear throughout the U.S. Are you going? Are you completely against them? Was the one near you bigger/smaller than expected? And remember, MetaFilter is fun, but like the war or hate it,
this is your last chance to register to make your opinion
really count if you haven't already. The election is officially 30 days away. The war.... we'll get back to you on that.
posted by XQUZYPHYR
on Oct 6, 2002 -
65 comments
Oh, I got it now. One "
rowdy" group in the streets lights bonfires, climbs lightpoles, blocks traffic, dances on cars and a police van as "bemused" riot cops looked on. Another group "
allegedly committed vandalism" and were consquently arrested in droves. See, if you generally run wild in favor of the status quo, the cops are your friends. If you march in opposition to the status quo you get arrested.
posted by raaka
on Feb 6, 2002 -
18 comments
An interesting twist in the trial of a bunch of Greenpeace protestors. The government drops felony charges in return for a guilty plea to misdemeanors and
a promise from Greenpeace USA not to conduct any illegal demonstrations in the US for the next five years. Any bets on whether or not the deal will hold, and if we'll see this tactic used in the anti-globalization arena?
posted by jaek
on Jan 9, 2002 -
5 comments
Silly Protest Signs in this "war" of many serious casualties where we are tip-toeing through religious ideas and many political issues, i am shocked at the lameness of some of the protest signs, please post others weak signs here.
posted by tsarfan
on Oct 12, 2001 -
52 comments
BBC report on the May Day protests On the whole I've been shocked by how uninformed the BBC has been, especially in comparison with
The Guardian's comprehensive coverage. Having attended the Oxford Circus demonstration, I be sure of two facts: one, that the gathering was almost entirely peaceful... and two, that the heavy-handed police action is likely to incite frustration and violence. Remember, kids: the 3,000 'protesters' include ordinary members of the public caught in the police blockade.
posted by tobyslater
on May 1, 2001 -
8 comments
FTAA Diary is a 48-page zine (available for download in pdf format) chronicling the experiences of folks who protested in Quebec. Illustrated with powerful black and white photos, the narratives personalize the events like no journalism could hope to.
posted by sudama
on Apr 29, 2001 -
21 comments
So I was paging through the special section of Indymedia devoted to the upcoming
Melbourne protests, and came across a page about Melbourne University. Apparently their Student Union voted to skip the S11 protest because they thought too many flat-out anarchists and professional agitators were trying to take charge. So someone
posts on Indymedia that this is a case where "democracy was ineffective." What? You lose the vote so there must be something wrong with voting?
posted by aaron
on Sep 2, 2000 -
5 comments
Surveillance of political undesirables continues. Round up the usual suspects. The sad thing is that this is not the least bit surprising. I honestly believe that the Dem. convention protests are going to get unbelievably ugly. Here in LA, the cops are beginning to behave even more thuggishly than usual. And that's saying something, my friends.
So here's my question....I'm a liberal who feels that the Dem Party has lost its way, and I'd like to register my dissatisfaction with a peaceful protest. However, such a protest carries with it the very real chance of a billy club beatdown and a far from pleasant stay in the luxurious LA County jail. Do I follow my conscience, or my common sense?
posted by Optamystic
on Aug 9, 2000 -
14 comments
There have been some, uh, interesting remarks made by people regarding the rights of protestors and the rights of police in Philladelphia. Bijan Parsia has written an
informative piece on Monkeyfist about what exactly is happening there, from a legal standpoint.
posted by queequeg
on Aug 8, 2000 -
11 comments
