[2424] in peace2
pro-war protest today
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Julia Steinberger)
Wed Apr 2 07:06:41 2003
Message-Id: <200304021206.HAA25489@biohazard-cafe.mit.edu>
To: peace-announce@MIT.EDU, nowar-announce@MIT.EDU
Date: Wed, 02 Apr 2003 07:06:20 -0500
From: Julia Steinberger <julias@MIT.EDU>
WHEN: Today, April 2, 11:30 am - 1:30 pm
WHERE: corner of JFK and Mem Dr (near Harvard Square)
WHAT: Pro-war rally => needs counter-demonstrators!
Bring your signs!
If you happen to have free time or be around Harvard Square
today at noon, this might just be worth counter-protesting.
I'm including an article from the New York Times about how the
largest radio conglomerate in the country is organizing most
pro-war rallies ...
Julia (PS can someone make sure the Harvard kids get this?)
from the WAAF website:
THE MILLION POUND MARCH TO SUPPORT THE TROOPS! Join Fred Smerlas and
Steve DeOssie for a support the troops rally Wednesday April 2nd
11:30am-1:30pm at the JFK Park in Cambridge. JKF Park is on the corner
of Memorial Drive and Kennedy ST right across the bridge from the
Harvard Stadium. Bring your flags and signs!
**********
Smerlas and DeOssie are former pro football players who appear regularly
on sports radio station WEEI... this station has been forwarding a
pro-war agenda and rarely allow opposing points of view to be heard on
the air... when someone does get on one of the shows, they're yelled
over or cut off... Smerlas, in particular, is an offensive host--he
often expresses racially insensitive and homophobic viewpoints on the
air. On the first day of the war, when activists took to the streets and
marched across the Mass. Ave bridge and onto Boylston Street, Smerlas
suggested that water cannons should be turned on the protesters.
Show your disgust with right-wing hate radio and counter-demonstrate!!
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/25/opinion/25KRUG.html?ex=1049432400&en=9c58bab66600eb38&ei=5070
Channels of Influence
By PAUL KRUGMAN
By and large, recent pro-war rallies haven't drawn nearly as many
people as antiwar rallies, but they have certainly been vehement. One
of the most striking took place after Natalie Maines, lead singer for
the Dixie Chicks, criticized President Bush: a crowd gathered in
Louisiana to watch a 33,000-pound tractor smash a collection of Dixie
Chicks CD's, tapes and other paraphernalia. To those familiar with
20th-century European history it seemed eerily reminiscent
of. . . . But as Sinclair Lewis said, it can't happen here.
Who has been organizing those pro-war rallies? The answer, it turns
out, is that they are being promoted by key players in the radio
industry - with close links to the Bush administration.
The CD-smashing rally was organized by KRMD, part of Cumulus Media, a
radio chain that has banned the Dixie Chicks from its playlists. Most
of the pro-war demonstrations around the country have, however, been
organized by stations owned by Clear Channel Communications, a
behemoth based in San Antonio that controls more than 1,200 stations
and increasingly dominates the airwaves.
The company claims that the demonstrations, which go under the name
Rally for America, reflect the initiative of individual stations. But
this is unlikely: according to Eric Boehlert, who has written
revelatory articles about Clear Channel in Salon, the company is
notorious - and widely hated - for its iron-fisted centralized
control.
Until now, complaints about Clear Channel have focused on its business
practices. Critics say it uses its power to squeeze recording
companies and artists and contributes to the growing blandness of
broadcast music. But now the company appears to be using its clout to
help one side in a political dispute that deeply divides the nation.
Why would a media company insert itself into politics this way? It
could, of course, simply be a matter of personal conviction on the
part of management. But there are also good reasons for Clear Channel
- which became a giant only in the last few years, after the
Telecommunications Act of 1996 removed many restrictions on media
ownership - to curry favor with the ruling party. On one side, Clear
Channel is feeling some heat: it is being sued over allegations that
it threatens to curtail the airplay of artists who don't tour with its
concert division, and there are even some politicians who want to roll
back the deregulation that made the company's growth possible. On the
other side, the Federal Communications Commission is considering
further deregulation that would allow Clear Channel to expand even
further, particularly into television.
Or perhaps the quid pro quo is more narrowly focused. Experienced
Bushologists let out a collective "Aha!" when Clear Channel was
revealed to be behind the pro-war rallies, because the company's top
management has a history with George W. Bush. The vice chairman of
Clear Channel is Tom Hicks, whose name may be familiar to readers of
this column. When Mr. Bush was governor of Texas, Mr. Hicks was
chairman of the University of Texas Investment Management Company,
called Utimco, and Clear Channel's chairman, Lowry Mays, was on its
board. Under Mr. Hicks, Utimco placed much of the university's
endowment under the management of companies with strong Republican
Party or Bush family ties. In 1998 Mr. Hicks purchased the Texas
Rangers in a deal that made Mr. Bush a multimillionaire.
There's something happening here. What it is ain't exactly clear, but
a good guess is that we're now seeing the next stage in the evolution
of a new American oligarchy. As Jonathan Chait has written in The New
Republic, in the Bush administration "government and business have
melded into one big `us.' " On almost every aspect of domestic policy,
business interests rule: "Scores of midlevel appointees . . . now
oversee industries for which they once worked." We should have
realized that this is a two-way street: if politicians are busy doing
favors for businesses that support them, why shouldn't we expect
businesses to reciprocate by doing favors for those politicians - by,
for example, organizing "grass roots" rallies on their behalf?
What makes it all possible, of course, is the absence of effective
watchdogs. In the Clinton years the merest hint of impropriety quickly
blew up into a huge scandal; these days, the scandalmongers are more
likely to go after journalists who raise questions. Anyway, don't you
know there's a war on?
