- #1
wasteofo2
- 478
- 2
I live in a Suburb of NYC, and I worked from 10-8 today, listening intermitently to the radio and cd's. From all estimates, over 250,000 people protested the Republican National Convention today, and it hasn't even started. The best part is, it was all totally peaceful.
I initially began listening to Air America, and they were playing it up, all excited, it's so great, everyone's uniting against Bush etc. and it sounded great, but I realized they might just be ignoring bad things that were happening.
So, to try to get the opposite side of the story, I turned on WABC, the station Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh are broadcast on, Hannity's actual home station. Anyway, the woman who's show was on is named Monica Crowley, she loves Nixon, thinks he was a great President smeared by the Liberal media, hates everything liberal, characterized the protests as simply silly, and not consistant with mainstream American values. She thought that since we're at war, the mainstream American position was to not accept any criticism of Bush, and just believe whatever he says. So anyway, you get a basic feel for her, I expected to turn her on and hear everything bad that's happening in New York blamed on liberals, every theft, every vandalism, every injury, every piece of graffitti etc.
And yet, when I turned it on, nothing. She wasn't happy with the protesters, but there was no violence at all to report. Her guests were praising the protesters unabashedly, people on the street were saying how enthusiastic and pleased police were about how well behaved these protesters were, it was amazing. The worst thing she could find to report, and the topic of discussion for about 40 minutes, was a paper mache dragon carried by a group of protesters had been lit on fire, protesters were re-directed one block over, and put out a few minutes later. She tried to sensationalize it, saying that anarchists had burnt a dragon using some sort of incendiary device, but that was as far as she could go, because there was no violence.
This just seems amazing to me, 250,000 people are SO pissed off at George Bush and the Republican party, that they're beyond the point of insanity, beyond the point of violence. It would seem that when something's so bad as to get 1/4 of a million people to congregate to one specific place to protest, they'd be enraged, burning, looting, destroying, maiming, killing, all that stuff.
But not these protesters, these protesters are beyond the point of violence and insanity. They dissaprove of the Bush administration so badly that they are driven to complete and total clarity of what they must do. They're beyond irrational violnce, realizing that would solve nothing and only cause bad feelings for those who want change, they realize that what they must do is amass in GIGANTIC numbers, and peacefully protest with no incident.
This is just amazing to me, and has inspired me to find any way I can to get down there and join this.
Peace, love and freedom,
Jacob
I initially began listening to Air America, and they were playing it up, all excited, it's so great, everyone's uniting against Bush etc. and it sounded great, but I realized they might just be ignoring bad things that were happening.
So, to try to get the opposite side of the story, I turned on WABC, the station Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh are broadcast on, Hannity's actual home station. Anyway, the woman who's show was on is named Monica Crowley, she loves Nixon, thinks he was a great President smeared by the Liberal media, hates everything liberal, characterized the protests as simply silly, and not consistant with mainstream American values. She thought that since we're at war, the mainstream American position was to not accept any criticism of Bush, and just believe whatever he says. So anyway, you get a basic feel for her, I expected to turn her on and hear everything bad that's happening in New York blamed on liberals, every theft, every vandalism, every injury, every piece of graffitti etc.
And yet, when I turned it on, nothing. She wasn't happy with the protesters, but there was no violence at all to report. Her guests were praising the protesters unabashedly, people on the street were saying how enthusiastic and pleased police were about how well behaved these protesters were, it was amazing. The worst thing she could find to report, and the topic of discussion for about 40 minutes, was a paper mache dragon carried by a group of protesters had been lit on fire, protesters were re-directed one block over, and put out a few minutes later. She tried to sensationalize it, saying that anarchists had burnt a dragon using some sort of incendiary device, but that was as far as she could go, because there was no violence.
This just seems amazing to me, 250,000 people are SO pissed off at George Bush and the Republican party, that they're beyond the point of insanity, beyond the point of violence. It would seem that when something's so bad as to get 1/4 of a million people to congregate to one specific place to protest, they'd be enraged, burning, looting, destroying, maiming, killing, all that stuff.
But not these protesters, these protesters are beyond the point of violence and insanity. They dissaprove of the Bush administration so badly that they are driven to complete and total clarity of what they must do. They're beyond irrational violnce, realizing that would solve nothing and only cause bad feelings for those who want change, they realize that what they must do is amass in GIGANTIC numbers, and peacefully protest with no incident.
This is just amazing to me, and has inspired me to find any way I can to get down there and join this.
Peace, love and freedom,
Jacob
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