posted March 30, 2003 05:19 PM            

By and large, recent pro-war rallies haven't drawn nearly as
many people as antiwar rallies, but they have certainly been
vehement. One of the most striking took place after Natalie
Maines, lead singer for the Dixie Chicks, criticized
President Bush: a crowd gathered in Louisiana to watch a
33,000-pound tractor smash a collection of Dixie Chicks
CD's, tapes and other paraphernalia. To those familiar with
20th-century European history it seemed eerily reminiscent
of. . . . But as Sinclair Lewis said, it can't happen here.

Who has been organizing those pro-war rallies? The answer,
it turns out, is that they are being promoted by key players
in the radio industry - with close links to the Bush
administration.

The CD-smashing rally was organized by KRMD, part of Cumulus
Media, a radio chain that has banned the Dixie Chicks from
its playlists. Most of the pro-war demonstrations around the
country have, however, been organized by stations owned by

CLEAR CHANNEL COMMUNICATIONS, a behemoth based in San
Antonio that controls more than 1,200 stations and
increasingly dominates the airwaves.

The company claims that the demonstrations, which go under
the name Rally for America, reflect the initiative of
individual stations. But this is unlikely: according to Eric
Boehlert, who has written revelatory articles about Clear
Channel in Salon, the company is notorious - and widely
hated - for its iron-fisted centralized control.

Until now, complaints about Clear Channel have focused on
its business practices. Critics say it uses its power to
squeeze recording companies and artists and contributes to
the growing blandness of broadcast music. But now the
company appears to be using its clout to help one side in a
political dispute that deeply divides the nation.

Why would a media company insert itself into politics this
way? It could, of course, simply be a matter of personal
conviction on the part of management. But there are also
good reasons for Clear Channel - which became a giant only
in the last few years, after the Telecommunications Act of
1996 removed many restrictions on media ownership - to curry
favor with the ruling party. On one side, Clear Channel is
feeling some heat: it is being sued over allegations that it
threatens to curtail the airplay of artists who don't tour
with its concert division, and there are even some
politicians who want to roll back the deregulation that made
the company's growth possible. On the other side, the
Federal Communications Commission is considering further
deregulation that would allow Clear Channel to expand even
further, particularly into television.

posted March 30, 2003 07:42 PM              

For the most part, the regular news stations, such as ABC, CBS and NBC are slanted to the left.

The cable news channels, particularly CNN is so slanted to the left it leans. MSMBC is beginning to become more moderate and gives more balanced reports. But, FoxNews Channel is the best, although some say they lean to the right, they are my fave and they do give "fair and balanced" reporting.

Alena, you hit the nail on the head, here are the three major groups who organize the protests, all communist based!!!!

The Workers World Party (known as WWP) misleads when they claim to be the movement of the "average" person. Their disturbing views work to undermine the very foundation that America was built upon. The WWP is actually an "isolationist sect" that grew apart from the Socialist Worker's Party during the Cold War. Since that time, they have protested against the American overnment on various issues.

International A.N.S.W.E.R. is one of best organized group of activists that
have walked the Earth. Scan any television screen for anti-war protests happening anywhere around the world and you will see a member of A.N.S.W.E.R. Do not be fooled by their "concerned" citizen act. These are highly professional protesters. They can be moved to protest at a moment's notice and are always at the front line of controversy.

International Action Center, funded by Ramsey Clark.

Donna

posted March 30, 2003 08:16 PM            

Of course there is bias in the media, but one thing prevails and that is FINANCIAL.

The radio stations that are banning the Dixie Chickens and others are doing so because their listeners are outraged. The people do not want to hear these artists and therefore the stations will pull them and organize rallies to destroy the CD's.

What is so weird about that? In the same respect, when the listeners love a band and request to hear them, the station obliges by playing the song again and again, while also organizing concerts and other such things.

Maybe the writer of the article is living in a bubble. From where I sit, I hear all over the numerous stations how much people dislike the anti-American sentiment portrayed by so-called enlightened Americans. It is the consumers asking for the boycotts in the same way that certain conservative shows (Think Dr. Laura) was boycotted and advertisers pulled out when she made remarks about homosexual people.

So, why is now, that the majority of Americans / Consumers are boycotting an artist that we hear about this "Right Wing Conspiracy" rearing it's ugly head? Because the liberal left cannot stand when the people back a conservative movement!

posted March 30, 2003 09:28 PM              

pidua, I wonder if half of them out there know it is the communists backing their movements? Oh, and what you said reminds of something else that sort of goes like this--Money talks-----

posted March 30, 2003 09:57 PM              

By Byron York, from the February 10, 2003, issue of National Review

When thousands of protesters marched down Pennsylvania Avenue during the big antiwar demonstration in Washington on January 18, they just happened to pass the national headquarters of the College Republicans. And on that afternoon there just happened to be some young Republicans inside, drinking wine and hanging out. When they heard all the commotion outside and saw the protest going by — they hadn't known their office was on the route — they couldn't help making a statement.

The students pulled a dry-erase board off the wall and wrote a simple message: "Hippies Go Home." They took it out to their second-floor balcony overlooking the march, and what followed was what diplomats sometimes call a frank exchange of ideas.

"F*** YOU!" a group of the protesters yelled. "Nazis!" someone shouted. Others began chanting: "Hey hey! Ho ho! Yuppie f***s have got to go!" The College Republicans seemed to enjoy it all, smiling and waving and making peace signs. They enjoyed it so much that after a while, they found another board and made a sign that said: "Saddam Kills." That seemed to particularly agitate the protesters. "Bush kills too!" they screamed. "Bush kills too!"

It all made for good street theater, but in one sense the young Republicans had it wrong. If they had really wanted to get to the heart of the matter, they might have raised a sign that said, "Commies Go Home." While that wouldn't have been fair to most of the marchers, it would have been a direct hit at the people who organized the demonstration — and who are the most forceful voices in today's antiwar movement.

The protest was put together by a group called International ANSWER, which stands for Act Now to Stop War and End Racism. ANSWER is an outgrowth of another group called the International Action Center, a San Francisco-based organization that showcases the work of Ramsey Clark, the Johnson administration attorney general who has specialized in anti-American causes. Both ANSWER and the International Action Center are closely allied with a small but energetic Marxist-Leninist organization known as the Workers World Party, which in its turbulent history has supported the Soviet interventions in Hungary and Czechoslovakia, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, and the Chinese government's crackdown in Tiananmen Square. Today, the WWP devotes much of its energy to supporting the regimes in Iraq and North Korea.

At the demonstration, which many media reports portrayed as a gathering of mainstream Americans, speaker after speaker condemned the United States with ancient Communist rhetoric: "revolution," "struggle," "oppressed peoples," "imperialism," and "liberation." One speaker even addressed her fellow protesters as "comrades." Given the impressive strength of the public-address system, it felt like a literal blast from the past. And if the subject had not been so serious, it might have seemed almost quaint. But the demonstration's organizers, perhaps unwittingly, made a very serious point: More than a decade after the fall of the Soviet Union, and long after most Americans stopped worrying about the Red Menace, a significant part of the movement that has risen up in opposition to war in Iraq is, in essence, a Communist front.

COMRADE BRIAN Perhaps the most visible face of the demonstration was its co-director and chief spokesman, Brian Becker. Becker got a lot of exposure in the days leading up to the rally; he was quoted in newspaper articles, appeared on TV, and did radio interviews to promote the event. A member of the secretariat of the Workers World Party — and called by some the party's house intellectual — Becker is a contributor to the party's newspaper, Workers World, as well as a top official of International ANSWER and the International Action Center.

There is an almost central-casting quality to Becker's Communism. For example, in a December 2000 address to the Workers World Party conference in New York, Becker began by discussing issues raised by "comrades" who had recently been to Cuba and then launched into a detailed and impassioned analysis of Marxism and revolution. Becker stressed that the Workers World Party had "supported the Soviet Union against imperialism and domestic counter-revolution." He praised the Soviets for having "sent invaluable aid to Vietnam, Cuba, the African National Congress in South Africa, and other national-liberation movements." He railed against "U.S. imperialism." And he concluded: "We know that the biggest single contribution that we can we make to the final transition to socialism everywhere is to build a truly revolutionary party that can lead the struggle to overthrow imperialism at its center."

These days, with the Soviet Union long dead, Becker spends much of his time supporting rogue regimes. Last August, he traveled to Iraq as part of a delegation led by Ramsey Clark. In an article in Workers World, he bitterly condemned the "lawless aggression" of the "imperialist" and "racist" U.S. air patrols enforcing the no-fly zone. In early 2000, Becker traveled to North Korea to help build what he had earlier called "a movement of genuine solidarity" with Pyongyang. Accompanying Becker was a WWP writer, who described the deep impression North Korea made on them. "Wherever we went and whomever we spoke with," she wrote, "what impressed us the most was the unbreakable determination of the North Korean people to defend their socialist society against U.S. imperialism."

Such statements do not add up to the ideal profile for a leader in an antiwar movement that seeks broad mainstream support. But don't suggest that to Becker. At a news conference the day before the protest, he grew angry when asked about his association with the WWP. "I want to talk about you," he said. "National Review is a racist pro-war magazine. It's got a long — many, many generations of racism and militarism. So your so-called interest in the Left is complete bulls**t. You're just looking to try to divide the antiwar movement. This is a right-wing, racist, militarist magazine. You should be embarrassed to be working for it." End of conversation.

OBNOXIOUS Becker is not the only WWP activist who played a key role in the January 18 demonstration. Another co-organizer — and M.C. — of the event was a man named Larry Holmes. A member of the Workers World Party secretariat, Holmes has run for president twice on the WWP ticket. At the rally, he used his time to lecture the crowd on the plight of political prisoners in the U.S. He cited two examples, Mumia Abu-Jamal and Jamil Al-Amin (better known as H. Rap Brown), who have both been convicted of murdering police officers and have become causes cιlθbres in radical circles. "There are so many political prisoners," Holmes told the crowd. "They want peace more than any of us, and they're in prison for fighting for it."

Yet another member of the WWP secretariat, a woman named Sara Flounders, also spoke at the rally, denouncing George W. Bush's "racist arrogance" and "plans for criminal war of colonial conquest." In addition, the crowd heard from representatives of other groups — the Free Palestine Alliance, Free the Cuban Five, and the Korea Truth Commission — that are apparently front organizations associated with the WWP. By the time the rally was over the audience had heard enough cries of "Butcher Sharon!," "We don't want your racist war!," and "Free Mumia" to last for many months to come.

For outside observers, the effect of it all was to raise questions about the real nature of the peace movement. "The Workers World Party is one of the most obnoxious groups on the far Left," says Stephen Zunes, an associate professor of politics at the University of San Francisco who studies the antiwar movement. The WWP exercises influence, Zunes explains, by its sheer energy and resourcefulness. "Historically, you have these groups that are just able to out-organize anybody else. One thing you can say about Marxist/Leninist groups is that at least in the organization stage, they are very efficient." The Workers World Party has simply out-hustled other leftist groups in the work of getting parade permits and organizing big events. According to Zunes, that has created a problem for more moderate antiwar organizations. "It causes division among the non-authoritarian Left groups. They say, 'Do we march at a rally organized by a group like this? I don't feel comfortable with this, but it's the only game in town.'"

But it is not at all clear that other Left groups are truly distressed by the WWP's tactics. In interviews with several representatives of peace-movement groups, most declined to condemn the politics of Brian Becker and his associates. "Good for them for having the wherewithal to call the demonstrations," says Scott Lynch, a spokesman for Peace Action, considered the largest antiwar group in the country. "This is ANSWER's dance, and they get to call the tune." Leslie Cagan, a long-time antiwar activist with the group United for Peace, adds, "We are at a point where it is really, really critical that many, many groups come out and voice their opposition to this war. Some in the hard-core Left have taken the lead on that, and I applaud those groups for that."

But others have their fears. "These groups with the more radical agenda get a lot of media attention," says Bob Edgar, the general secretary of the National Council of Churches who is helping lead a new, more centrist antiwar group called Win Without War. "I don't think they discredit the movement, but they turn off some [people] in Middle America."

If anyone in the crowd on January 18 was turned off, there was little evidence of it. Most people seemed to listen enthusiastically to the WWP speakers. But the WWP has no more than a couple of thousand members in the world, and there can't be enough Marxist-Leninists to fill a large portion of the National Mall. So why did they listen?

The answer appeared to be this: Because they hate George W. Bush. Yes, they oppose a war, but the thing that seemed to unite the attendees was an intense hostility toward the president. The signs they carried seethed with rage and condescension. "He Is A Moron . . . And A Bully," said one. Another denounced "Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld: The Real Axis of Evil."

There were old peaceniks: "We've been marching for peace since 1960, and it hasn't happened yet," one gray-haired couple said. There were college students doing their best imitations of hippies. And there were the assorted nuts, like the man who stood naked, but for his underwear, in the 24-degree cold, inviting people to use felt-tipped pens to inscribe peace messages on his shivering flesh (he said he wanted to "get people together on my body — literally, everyone signing up for peace").

Speaker after speaker claimed that the crowd represented the "real America," the millions who are said to passionately oppose a war to oust Saddam Hussein. And that was the way the rally was covered in the press. One fairly typical report on MSNBC said the demonstration included "a growing number of people [who] are speaking out against a war with Iraq — students, grandparents, businessmen, politicians, teachers, actors, and activists, standing shoulder to shoulder in protest."

Newspaper reports largely ignored what was said on the stage; the New York Times and Washington Post failed to mention much of anything that was said by ANSWER's speakers. The Times editorial page said the demonstration "represented what appears to be a large segment of the American public . . . [and was] impressive for the obvious mainstream roots of the marchers."

Surely the Times editorialist did not actually attend the march. And surely he or she has not spent much time listening to Brian Becker and his WWP allies. Many on the left are trying to will themselves to believe that there is a massive, grass-roots, centrist opposition to war in Iraq rising in the heartland — and finding its voice in rallies like the one on January 18. Perhaps that sounds plausible to people who weren't there. But not to anyone who was.

posted March 31, 2003 08:20 AM              

Yeah i dont believe you can have unbiased media. Donna, "you are quite right"... hehe LOL!
Even if facts are all thats been shown rather than opinion... which is not often the case. If there are facts that have been withheld then the whole story is not seen. I wrote about an experiance of mine in a sydney protest... It was a really stange experiance. I think there was something very wrong with some of things i witnessed yet, hardly any of the most disturbing parts of my experiance were shown in the media at all, if any. Which is strange cause i thought it would be really news worthy... hmmmnn... makes me wonder.

I took a heap of Photojournalist pix at this protest, yet i know that a picture can say a thousand words, but it still dosent all aways show the entire story... what happening outside the frame?

Sorry for the tangent... got me thinking...

posted March 31, 2003 02:51 PM              

FOXNEWS is obviously Conservative

CNN tends to be fairly Liberal

posted April 02, 2003 12:48 PM              

A) read faster
B) know it all already

posted April 02, 2003 06:49 PM            

No offense Alena, but that blurb about the military kids asking why the protesters hate their mommies and daddies sounds like propaganda to me.
I've been at the rallies downtown almost everyday since the war began and I have never heard anyone call the soldiers 'baby killers' or anything to that effect.

One of the most popular chants has been,
"Support our Troops! Bring them home!"

posted April 02, 2003 08:48 PM            

Other agendas include pouring more money into an already bloated military budget and rallying support for an illegal war.

posted April 02, 2003 11:22 PM              

Actually, LL, it's funny that you should say that...

The Norwegian Teacher's Resistance - 1942
During the Nazi occupation, the Norwegian fascist "Minister-President", Vidkun Quisling, set out to establish the Corporative State on Mussolini's model, selecting teachers as the first "corporation". For this he created a new teacher's organization with compulsory membership and appointed as its leader the head of the Hird, The Norwegian S.A. (storm troopers). A compulsory fascist youth movement was also set up.
The underground called on the teachers to resist. Between eight thousand and ten thousand of the country's twelve thousand teachers wrote letters to Quisling's Church and Education Department. All signed their names and addresses to the wording prescibed by the underground for the letter. Each teacher said that he or she could neither assist in promoting fascist education of the children nor accept membership in the new teacher's organization.
The government threatened them with dismissal and then closed all the schools for a month. Teachers held classes in private homes. Despite censorship, news of the resistance spread. Tens of thousands of letters of protest from parents poured into the government office.
After the teachers defied the threats, about one thousand male teachers were arrested and sent to concentration camps. Children gathered and sang at railroad stations as teachers were shipped through in cattle cars. In the camps, the Gestapo imposed an atmosphere of terror intended to induce capitulation. On starvation rations, the teachers were put through "torture gymnastics" in deep snow. When only a few gave in, "treatment" continued.
The schools reopened, but the teachers still at liberty told their pupils they repudiated membership in the new organization and spoke of duty to conscience. Rumors were spread that if these teachers did not give in, some or all of those arrested would be killed. After difficult inner wrestling, the teachers who had not been arrested almost without exception stood firm.
The, on cattle car trains and overcrowded steamers, the arrested were shipped to a camp near Kirkenes, in the far north. Although Quisling's Church and Education Department stated that all was settled and that the activities of the new organization would cease, the teachers were kept at Kirkenes in miserable conditions doing dangerous work.
However, their suffering strengthened morale on the home front and posed problems for the Quisling regime. As Quisling once raged at the teachers in a school near Olso: "You teachers have destroyed everything!" Fearful of alienating Norwegians still further, Quisling finally ordered the teachers' release. Eight months after the arrests, the last teachers returned home to triumphal receptions.
Quisling's new organization for teachers never came into being, and the schools were never used for fascist propaganda. After Quisling encountered further difficulties in imposing the Corporative State, Hitler ordered him to abandon he plan entirely.

Berlin - 1943
It is widely believed that once the Final Solution was under way, no nonviolent action to save the German Jews occured and that none could have been effective. This belief is challenged by an act of nonviolent defiance by the non-Jewish wives of arrested Berlin Jews. This limited act of resistance occurred in the midst of war, in the capital of the Third Reich, toward the end of the inhuman effort to make Germany free of Jews - all highly unfavorable conditions for successful opposition. The defiance not only took place, but was completely successful, even in 1943. The following account is by Heinz Ullstein, one of the men who had been arrested; his wife was one of the women who acted:
The Gestapo were preparing for large-scale action. Columns of covered trucks were drawn up at the gates of factories and stood in front of private houses. All day long they rolled through the streets, escorted by armed SS men....heavy vehicles under whose covers could be discerned the outlines of closely packed humanity....On this day, every Jew living in Germany was arrested and for the time being lodged in mass camps. It was the beginning of the end.
People lowered their eyes, some with indifference, others with a fleeting sense of horror and shame. The day wore on, there was a war to be won, provinces to be conquered, "History was made,"; we were on intimate terms with the millenium. And the public eye missed the flickering tiny torch which might have kindled the fire of general resistance to despotism. From the vast collecting centers to which the Jews of Berlin had been taken, the Gestapo sorted out those with "Aryan kin" and concentrated them in a separate prison in the Rosenstrasse. No one knew what was to happen to them.
At this point the wives stepped in. Already by the early hours of the next day they had discovered the whereabouts of their husbands and as by common consent, as if they had been summoned, a crowd of them appeared at the gate of the improvised detention center. In vain the security police tried to turn away the demonstrators, some 6,000 of them, and to disperse them. Again and again they massed together, advanced, called for their husbands, who despite strict instructions to the contrary showed themselves at the windows, and demanded their release.
For a few hours the routine of a working day interrupted the demonstration, but in the afternoon the square was again crammed with people, and the demanding, accusing cries of the women rose above the noise of the traffic like passionate avowels of a love strengthened by the bitterness of life.
Gestapo headquarters was situated in the Burgestrasse, not far from the square where the demonstration was taking place. A few salvoes from a machine gun could have wiped the women off the square, but the SS did not fire, not this time. Scared by the incident which had no equal precedent in the Third Reich, headquarters consented to negotiate. They spoke soothingly, gave assurances, and finally released the prisoners.
--------
So, LL - if a crowd of Hausfraus could secure their husbands' release, what do you think could have happened if all those in Germany who were too afraid to speak up but were ashamed and repulsed by the actions of their government had joined together and, peacefully, withdrawn their support?