Protest Without a Purpose? by Mac Beaulieu June 7, 2003
Keeping abreast of current events leaves me with no doubt about the dangers lurking in the tumultuous corners of our lives: "due to ongoing heatwaves people will be using more power than usual . . . the knives you spread your butter with can kill you . . . Iraq's army now includes a 12 year old girl . . ." So with a strength of pride and purpose I announced to friend and foe that I would take part in the Philadelphia "Justice in July" protest on July 4. The unanimous response was a dumbfounded, "what are you protesting?"
The implication being of course that the war in Iraq is over: the surviving Iraqis are free, WMD have been found, Iraqi babies born with two eyes and four limbs are named "George". Given the signal to noise ratio of information out there, it's easy to see why people are confused. Apparently you have to instinctively suspect that something has gone terribly awry to know that you should look for sources that tell you that something has gone terribly awry. And even when you know what you're looking for you may not find what you're looking for: much of my pre-protest preparation turned up a disproportionate number of free-Mumia websites.
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full at
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/beaulieu1.html
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