http://www.bigleftoutside.com/archives/000436.php
From Al Giordano blog, prefaced by report on USLAW, "U.S. Labor Unions Turning Against 'The War'"
>...This just in, from David Swanson of the AFL-CIO's International
Labor Communications Association:
http://www.ilcaonline.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=677
:A Media Blackout: Media Blackout of Labor Opposition to Iraq War
Continues, Posted by : David Swanson on Thursday, October 07, 2004 - 12:51
PM >...This comes just in the nick of
time for me, trying to convince some colleagues that anti-war movements
will do better to push mainstream folks - like Gulf Vets and, yes, bona
fide workin' folks - out front - especially if Kerry beats Bush, and the
landscape then changes to give the anti-war movements a fighting chance.
Enough already with publicity-seeking self-marginalized professional demonstrators burning dragon puppets ( http://nyc.indymedia.org/newswire/display/106265/index.php http://images.indymedia.org/imc/nyc/image/12/1_zz1.jpg http://images.indymedia.org/imc/nyc/image/3/zz6.jpg ) and gobbling up the attention at anti-war marches (while poor blokes not even involved with them get hit with felony charges blamed for their pyromania). A little crop rotation will still be in order: Gold Star Mothers, young Iraq veterans invading Arlington Cemetery to lay wreaths (like Kerry's Vietnam Veterans Against the War before them), machine shop stewards... they are the future photo ops for a successful drive to bring the boys and girls home.
There's still a place for smart theatrics: I thought the hundreds of flag-draped coffins marched on Broadway during the Republican National Convention were quite moving (and had a real context invoking the government ban on photos of the real coffins). But let's have more smart theater, like that, please!
Of course, as Swanson notes, the Commercial Media is pretty damn complicit in airbrushing the mainstream working Americans from the photo: "Extensive searching of the Nexis database for articles between July 17 and October 5, 2004, found not one article or transcript on U.S. labor opposition to the war. There was one column on the topic. It was published in the Hartford Courant on September 5 and written by Steve Thornton, a vice president of the New England Health Care Employees Union, District 1199/SEIU. There was also a column in a university newspaper in Hawaii that ridiculed liberals for opposing the war and included union members in the group worthy of ridicule. And the Honolulu Advertiser printed in its calendar a labor event related to opposition to the war, on which it apparently did not report. (Details of Nexis searches are posted as footnote to this article on ILCAonline.org.)
"That's all the coverage there was. A search for "Million Worker March" turned up a few articles about a labor-organized march planned for October 17 in Washington, D.C., but none of them mentioned the war as an issue related to the march although war figures prominently in a document in which the organizers lay out their "mission," and posters promoting the march prominently display the words "Labor Anti-War Contingent."
"Reporters marking their calendars should also make note of US Labor Against the War's national leadership meeting on December 4 in Chicago.... "It's hard enough for these voices to get through the Commercial Media blockade without folks on our own side elbowing them out of the camera angle.
And, as stated below, a shift in strategy is going to be needed, vis a vis stopping the Iraq occupation and every other burning matter, if John Kerry becomes president. ( http://www.bigleftoutside.com/archives/000435.php What If Kerry Wins? ) Send out the clowns, and send in the workers!
