A Californian Views With Alarm How Dissenters Are Treated in the Mainstream Media

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Mary Lyon

The last few days offer a lesson in contrast in how dissenters in this country can expect to be treated. The evidence appears at opposite ends of a spectrum - both undesirable extremes. It looks as though, if you want to raise your voice against the establishment, you'll either be completely ignored, or severely shocked, several times, with taser guns. Perhaps this is the only kind of choice issue that the establishment supports.

Over the weekend, numerous large-scale events were held all over the country, from the thousands who formed the word "IMPEACH" on the beach near San Francisco to the tens of thousands who marched in Washington D.C. And my-oh-my what coverage! All over everywhere - NOT. I saw precisely NOTHING on CNN, and MSNBC, with the standard slant you'd expect from Pox Noise, overinflating the underwhelming numbers of pro-war protesters and low-balling the size of the anti-war crowds. I was struck by the way the large demonstrations were placed on "ignore" by the networks. The coverage I did see, I had to seek out on the internet, where there were scores of photos taken by multiple participants. There were many wide shots that showed the proverbial sea of humanity fading far back into the distance. Wherever it was, they filled the place.

How could this be overlooked? Well, okay, O.J. But in the rare interruptions of the wall-to-wall coverage from Las Vegas, news outlets did discuss Britney Spears, Alan Greenspan, and Kerry-versus-McCain on "Meet the Press," with a tap or two of a Larry Craig update on the side. SOMEWHERE in there, there HAD to be at least a mention of the protests. There were events staged coast-to-coast, some of them huge. I looked in on the various channels, off and on, throughout the weekend, and saw none. Except for the numbers game briefly played on Pox.

Compare that to the over-the-top treatment that Andrew Meyer received at the hands of the campus police at the University of Florida during a Q&A session with Senator John Kerry. Watching the dreaded citizen-video of the incident sucked me back in time to the suppression of protesters during the Vietnam War. It wasn't hard to make the short leap to memories of Kent State.

True, Meyer pushed it verbally. My husband, who back in the day saw his share of police brutality, said the guy should have complied immediately. Fair enough. But dammit, the police still WAY overreacted, in my view. Besides, the guy had questions that I thought were fair. And at least a couple of those questions continue to bedevil many millions of us who share Meyer's intense frustration over the turn this country's taken. Those are big questions - about why the IMPEACHMENT of Bush and Cheney (or maybe AT LEAST of Cheney himself) is not going forward, and why Kerry didn't pursue widely-suspected (and since verified in the minds of many) election fraud in Ohio. Those are urgent and legitimate questions that have not received any sort of decent or acceptable answer yet.