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What's That Sound |
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by Eric Francis
(No verified email address) |
18 Feb 2003
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Despite Bush's denial today that the world-wide protests of last weekend will have any effect on his decision to make war on Iraq, the very fact that he was forced to deny the power of public opinion to influence him is a significant sign that the actions of millions have had their desired effect, in addition to pointing out the fundamentally anti-democratic nature of his regime. |
What's That Sound?
Op-Ed by Eric Francis
I arrived late for Saturday's protest at the Seattle Center, home of the Space Needle, with a friend who was in town visiting for the weekend. We parked and followed the crowd onto the campus of the city's enormous cultural center, then from there followed the thunder. I wound up face-to-face with a guy unexpectedly asking me for a press pass; I happened to have an ancient one, showed him and was escorted with my companion onto the press pavilion.
We were met with the stunning vision of 30,000 people packed into a vast center courtyard. I could not believe my eyes. I've been to lots of cool protests but have never seen or felt anything like it. It was like waking up from too-good-to-be-true dream and discovering it was real. People near me were just smiling at one another, dumbfounded. It was really true. I kept looking at my friend, and we just knew something really amazing was happening in the world. A change had come. I have asked the question so many times: When will people finally wake up? I had my answer: right now.
Make no mistake: lasts weekend's worldwide protests against the Bush administration's planned bombing of Iraq create an enormous problem for our war-obsessed government. The main one being they now know people are not believing their lies. They now know people are not falling for their terrorist PR tactics -- for example, their nebulous Code Orange and statements like "we know something's going to happen but we don't know what."
The Bush administration and the entire mainstream media establishment have the bullshit pumps going at full throttle, and despite this, people took over the streets in every major urban center in the Western world. There was no violence. There were remarkably few arrests. That the national capital of the peace movement was New York City, the target of the 9-Eleven massacre, was nothing short of beautiful. (That Mayor Bloomberg, the Bush administration and some dumb judge tried to stop the protest is perfectly shameful, but that's a rant of its own. Besides, it didn't work.) That we had the true sense of standing in solidarity with people in every world capital, an estimated 602 cities around the world not counting places like Davenport, Iowa, blew the cover on another Big Lie: that national (or more accurately, corporate) priorities somehow trump the fact that we live on one World Earth.
That people braved freezing temperatures and rain and turned out by the millions gives us a lot of information. For sure, we know that many, many people are committed enough to do something about their opinions. In theory it takes a lot to get people off the couch. We have a sense of what it means for such-and-such a percentage of people being against the war means in tangible terms. We are reminded that the positions that governments take bear no resemblance to the feelings of the people they represent. In the supposedly pro-war countries there were the most enormous demonstrations: the UK, Spain and the United States. I have spent enough time around government leaders to say confidently that makes them very, very nervous.
It helped that on Valentine's Day, France, a UN Security Council heavyweight (known as a permanent member, with veto power over any resolution) put its foot down, and two reports by UN weapons inspectors came up so far so good. The United States had nothing to go on, and incredulous newscasters had to report that simple fact. It was a religious moment. Isn't it nice that somebody with a little power objected to the notion of a preemptive death campaign against a country half-populated by children under 15 years old? Preempting what?
If we recall -- it's been a while -- that the week prior, a tape of Osama bin Laden's voice summoning the Jihad mysteriously appeared in the middle of Code Orange, wherein the Department of Homeland Security decided we all had to be one level more paranoid. Why are Osama's (supposed) appearances so conveniently timed?
Millions of people taking to the streets around the world makes the nasty game of taking control by spreading fear a lot more difficult. You can attack people psychically only when they are frightened. Yet there is only so scared you can be when you're parading through your downtown area with marching bands, dogs, kids, Radical Grandmas for Peace, Veterans for Peace, anarchists, hippies, acrobats, neighborhood organizations, people giving out candy, moms and dads, your local political leaders, and a whole mess of people carrying huge puppets mocking out the alleged president. Code Orange. I mean really.
The media had another kind of problem on their hands. Protesters (most of whom were not really protesters at all, just people who showed up for their very first peace demonstration, with kids, neighbors and pups in tow) are their viewers, readers and the customers of their advertisers. Reporters know they are merely parroting government spokesmen and press releases on the nightly news, and they know they're not even familiar with their own clippings files. The media is nothing more than an echo chamber where a version of the story is repeatedly broadcast at full volume, and that reverberates back to editors, politicians and pollsters as "public opinion." Now something different was bouncing through the hills. A war for oil? The United States is the real terrorist threat? Regime change begins at home?
Where the heck did people hear that stuff? Well, not on CNN. Most of us found out about the coordinated protests by way of the insidious menace known as the Internet. We got the word in virtual reality, but nobody could deny that those mobs filled those streets. New York, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, San Francisco, Paris, Seattle, it was the same scene. And this, before the attack on the people of Iraq had officially begun.
We have waited a long, long time for this day, and many people have worked very hard to make it real. It did not happen by accident. We created it. We created it with our thoughts, with our decision to rise above ignorance and boredom, with our emails to friends, and by walking out the door and heading downtown. Cops in cities said they experienced the largest demonstrations in their city's history. After a century of nonstop war, it's about time.
It actually takes very little activism to tip the balance on an important issue. The "status quo" is not as stable as many people would like us to think. Right now the proposed genocide on Iraq is a house of cards. Politicians may play it cool and pretend not to notice. They can get on TV with their shifty eyes and threats of violence and make endless rationalizations for what they are going to do. But they know what they're doing, and they only feel really safe going ahead when they are certain that people are fooled. Guess what.
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See also:
http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=238570&group=webcast
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