The Whole World Should Be Watching
Over a quarter of a million people filled the streets of Washington yesterday to protest the war in Iraq and the Bush regime, but our nation’s corporate media has given the event scant coverage. The demonstration itself, with a large turnout from labor, was broad and impressive.
There is much debate in the anti-war movement about the value of these large mobilizations. The side that I am on argues that these are the most visible manifestation of the movement against war and Bush that we can muster, and that there is an additional value in buoying our spirits by bringing so many of us together.
Another side argues that we’ve been marching by the millions against this stupid war since before it began, failed to stop it then and have since been losing momentum and turning out fewer people (yesterday was the largest turnout in a year). It’s time for new tactics and strategies, they say, and I don’t necessarily disagree.
The problem with a march on Washington that the media ignores is that it’s like a tree falling in a forest, with no CNN corespondent there to ask the tree why it chose today to fall and then interview three anti-tree-falling counter protesters to ask why they think the tree should keep standing.
My friend John Nichols argues in his book, “It’s the Media, Stupid!” (co-written by Bob McChesney) that the left should prioritize media reform amongst our many issues since the media has such an overbearing influence on public discourse and debate that they can effectively pretend we don’t exist no matter how many hundreds of thousands os us march in the streets. It’s on days like today, scanning the papers for any coverage of yesterday’s huge demonstration, that his argument should have a special resonance.
Today and tomorrow, dedicated activists remain in Washington to engage in acts of civil disobedience in order to ratchet up the pressure against the administration and its war. Most likely, they’ll block a few traffic intersections and maybe drop a banner or two from public places. Talk about overused and ineffective tactics.
I’ve believed for a few years now that our comrades who engage in direct action should focus on the headquarters and newsrooms of major media companies. Let’s see if NBC news can ignore the antiwar movement if activists block the entrance to their news studios and prevent Brian Williams from sitting in his comfy chair. Let’s see the NY Times ignore protests and arrests in their lobby. How about simultaneous CD’s and banner drops outside the various “window on the world” studies of the morning newscasts?
Remember “the whole world is watching?” Well, it’s not. Not anymore, and not yet again.
The Column That Never Was
The column that I was hired to write for a certain Queens weekly has been canceled before the first piece was even published. That piece, a critical look at the fall-out from Congressman Greg Meeks’ support for CAFTA, did not appear in this past Thursday’s issue, although an editorial lavishing praise on the Congressman for his championing of banks over people, was featured rather prominently.
I called to find out what happened, and was told the next day that Rep. Meeks had called the newspaper to complain about the previous post that appeared on this blarg. That’s all, she wrote.
The managing editor – who hired me – explained over and over that “integrity” is really important to the paper, and that I had really crossed a line by posting the Congressman’s voicemail message to me, without explaining that I had called him first. Of course, I explained that I hadn’t called him, and that that’s what made his personal phone call to me so noteworthy, and odd. She explained that she hadn’t actually read the piece so much as glanced at it over the shoulder of the publisher, who was livid about the whole affair. (The publisher, it should be noted, was hectoring me about how labor’s position on CAFTA was “illiberal” within seconds of my being hired and explaining my first column.) She also hadn’t read the actual submitted column itself.
Again explaining how “ethics” were so important to this paper, she asked me if I understood their position. I said, well, no, I didn’t, really, since nothing was misrepresented on my website or in the column (neither of which, again, she had read), to which she finally answered something along the lines of “well, I guess you’re just not a good fit for this paper.”
This, finally, was an answer I could accept. This is a paper that does not endorse candidates, that takes no strong positions on controversial matters (aside from that perennial controversy of curbing one’s dog). This is a paper that wants opinion writers who have no strong opinions. That’s me out, comrades.
I hold no ill will towards the paper, although I am annoyed at having been jerked around all summer. I would rather have been rejected from the start, so I could focus my energies on writing for a newspaper that has enough backbone to withstand an angry phone call from an amateurish Congressman, and genuinely wants to drive home to their readers three lanes of political traffic, instead of just the middle of the road.
What’s the Frequency, Leslie?
The Writers Guild of America, East, has been without a contract with the major networks since the first of April. The networks are demanding concessions in wages and work rules. The union will be staging a lunchtime rally in front of the CBS Broadcast Center (located at 524 West 57th Street) next Wednesday, the 27th of April, from 1:00 until 2:00.
If you are free, you should go, not only because you support union workers but because you demand quality television. You do realize that this whole “reality” television craze is just a union-busting strategy, don’t you? Not only are there no writers (hence, no writers union), but the editors are not covered by that union’s contract and most of the on-location crews are non-union, too!
Go to the rally as “concerned viewers for quality television.” Bring
signs: “Sick of Survivor!” “No More ‘Reality’ Give Us Fantasy!”
Does the NY Times Have a Homophobic Mandate?
Urban life for the straight guy is apparently quite the minefield these days. With all these homosexuals and metrosexuals running around, pinching bottoms and getting pedicures, a regular guy has to be ever-vigilant, lest an innocent dinner with another regular guy friend end in a mutual suck-fest. Thank goodness for those arbiters of social interactions at the NY Times Style section, who this week shine a light on an act that most adult men have been engaging in for as long as we can remember, but, well, might be a little gay: The Man Date.
Although the term was admittedly coined for the article, it already comes with a lengthy set of definitions and rules:
Simply defined a man date is two heterosexual men socializing without the crutch of business or sports. It is two guys meeting for the kind of outing a straight man might reasonably arrange with a woman. Dining together across a table without the aid of a television is a man date; eating at a bar is not. Taking a walk in the park together is a man date; going for a jog is not. Attending the movie “Friday Night Lights” is a man date, but going to see the Jets play is definitely not.
The author if this article, the absurdly named Jennifer 8. Lee, is clearly seeking the cultural cachet of coining a cutesy buzzword that will spread virally until it winds up in your grandparents’ vocabulary and Webster’s dictionary. And for this inauspicious goal she trots out tired old gay panic tropes? The Times deserves to get some letters about this.