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Hundreds of Thousands in NY City March Against the War

D. Burbeck | 12.05.2006 21:06 | Anti-militarism

AGAIN, corporate media ignores a massive war
protest. Hundreds of thousands protested
immigration laws, and the corporate media had
helicoptors in several cities giving hourly updates
to these demonstrations.

But two days earlier on April 29 hundreds of
thousands of people in the streets of New York
City protesting the war in Iraq were given a ten
second soundbite of the podium where Cyndee
Sheehan and Rev. Jackson stood.

Mediachannel.org wrote:

>The New York Times website relied on an Associated Press dispatch
>of an event in their own home. Clearly, it was not taken seriously as news.

> Tens of Thousands in NYC Protest War
> By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

> “NEW YORK (AP) -- Tens of thousands of protesters marched
>Saturday through lower Manhattan to demand an immediate withdrawal
>of U.S. troops from Iraq, just hours after this month's death toll reached 70."

>Notice how all the politics of the march were buried in the reporting.
>AlJazeera.net ran the same AP story, but with a photo of a protester
>with an Impeach Bush sign.

>Unlike the Times whose office was just nine blocks north of where the
>march began, Long Island based "Newsday" managed to send its own
>reporter. Herbert Lowe reported what the Times and AP missed:

> “Billing it as the March for Peace, Justice and Democracy, organizers
>said they had pulled together the broadest cross-section of social movements
>in years for their massive demonstration."

"Tens of thousands" it said .....when estimates were that there were
300,000 +.

The actual figures matter little, compared to the massive coverage
that was given the immigrant's marches demanding that they be not
considered "criminals".

Are the American people's wishes not as worthy as the illegal immigrants?

To diminish the wishes of hundreds of thousands of American
citizens while giving massive coverage, such as we saw on May 1,
with helicoptors hovering the immigrant's marches for hours, and corporate
media correspondents in several cities all day long with
hourly updates, was very hard to watch, and, quite frankly, to understand.

Speaking of the April 29 demonstration, Danny Schechter wrote " ...it wasn't
just about war.The March’s goals of Justice and Democracy were given scant
attention. Are you surprised?"

News Dissector Danny Schechter is “blogger-in-chief” of Mediachannel.org.
His latest books are “When News Lies” and "The Death of Media and the
Fight for Democracy”.

Here are some more of the reports in April that were given "scant attention"
(actually no attention AT ALL by the corporate media).

Three States (California became the third) are allowing a vote on impeachment
of the Bush Administration.

More city councils are passing resolutions to bring the troops home and
some, also to ask for impeachment of Bush and Cheney - Philadelphia,
Champaign, Springfield, 13 smaller towns in Illinios, and all townships in
DuPage County. "32 communities in the state of Wisconsin voted on referenda
calling for the immediate withdrawal of all American military forces from Iraq."

DC - "Tens of thousands of Americans from across the country rallied
here yesterday to demand an end to genocide in Sudan's Darfur region,
marking the first massive US outcry......."

Demonstrations sprang up when Condi Rice visited England, Turkey,
and Athens.

Bush's visit to California brought protests in Sacramento, San Jose, and LA.

G7 and World Bank meetings drew protests in DC and Wolfowitz's
home still sees a weekly protest. Senator Spector continues to see
protesters at his home in Philadelphia.

Protesters demonstrated in front of the IMF and then went to offices of
Halliburton and Bechtel.

The Chineese President was protested in Seattle, DC, and Yale University,

In Pittsburgh on tax day, "members of the Womens International League
for Peace and Freedom, CodePink and Roots of Promise gathered outside
the Squirrel Hill Post Office to demonstrate to tax-payers where their
tax-dollars were going."

Recruiting stations in Columbia, Minneapolis, Boston, Fredrick, Md.,
Santa Cruz, and (weekly in) Portland saw protests.

The father of an Iraqi War Veteran held a sit-in at the office of his pro-war
Senator's office in Seattle.

For these reports and more see Protest News:
 http://www.angelfire.com/nb2/www.dissentam.org/April6.html


D. Burbeck