Sunday, December 03, 2006
Test title
Publish testing 11:39 PM_______________________________________________
Saturday, November 09, 2002 "President Bush is a liar. There, I said it, but most of the mainstream media won't." Well it's about damn time SOMEONE said it. Now how do we get the rest of the country to listen? 12:41 PM
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Friday, November 08, 2002 Why Protest? They Don't Know... Or do they?
The protesters could have had a point, if only they had bothered to look for one.
The issues on the meeting agenda are important, even if they're arcane. They have to do with pollution from chemical factories, the risks of genetically modified foods, the lack of global accounting standards and the costs of trade barriers.
There also is the legitimate issue of the public's right to know what's really going on inside the Sheraton Chicago and Towers. Whenever groups of government officials meet with groups of business leaders to build an agenda that soon will dictate the rules of world trade, people in civil society have a right to know what's being said.
But the protesters don't want to focus that way. They choose to clog the streets with more masses than meaning. And not many masses, at that.
The first local journalist I've read who gets this. About 90% of the media coverage of the protests has been aimed at inciting panic over potential riots, warning people not to drive downtown, and extolling the massive police presence in the area. Truly, it's slightly spooky for me walking from the bus to the office, with no cars parked on the streets, lighter traffic than usual, and cops on literally every corner.
However, the protesters and their leaders are not making their point at all well. The point of disrupting daily activity is to force people to ask what's going on and why, so they'll have to take a moment to hear what you have to say. But in the few moments they've been given to make their case, no one has made it effectively. Which has made it that much easier for the reporters to seek out the ones amid the marchers who are "just there for a good time, to show that 'the left isn't all about being serious.'"
Where is anyone saying this: Does it not scare you that global economic and governmental policies are being dictated by the leaders of coporations - especially in this post-Enron world where we now know more than ever that these business leaders are only out to line their own pockets and don't give a flying crap about the well being of people whose hard work brings in that money?
12:05 PM