A tale of two protests -- <font size = "4">The Drunks Bar </font size "4">

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Date Posted: 23:02:13 04/04/03 Fri
Author: Kelli
Subject: A tale of two protests

Hi, all. Hope everyone's doing okay. I haven't had nearly enough time lately to surf the 'net, let alone post. :( But this was just too much:

A couple of weeks ago, Eric went to a peace rally on our local college campus. The speakers were occasionally heckled by passers-by, but nothing really happened until a few people from the R.O.T.C. actually disrupted the rally, getting in the middle of the small crowd and yelling at the people attending until the rally pretty much broke up. They kinda' ran off most of the folks, leaving one scraggily-haired fella who traded a couple of insults with the R.O.T.C. guys 'till he just started crazily yelling, "I would die for peace! I would die for peace!" Eric was disappointed when he got home, saying, "Damn, the speakers were really eloquent, but I'll bet I know what'll make the news." And, *sigh*, the local news coverage featured, you guessed it, a shot of the "die for peace" guy yelling his head off. No shots of the speakers. No quotes from the speakers. No shots of the protestors simply listening quietly to the speakers, which is of course what happened for the majority of the rally.

Cut to earlier today. There was a "pro-troop" rally held at the campus. Many of the same people who attended the peace rally, including Eric, also consider themselves "pro-troop" (in the form of bringing the troops home), and planned to quietly stand at the edge of the "pro-troop" rally with signs saying so. But before they could even assemble, they were surprised to see our local cops materialize and hustle them far, far away from the "pro-troop" rally. Eric estimates they were at least a football-field length away. So far away they couldn't hear what the "pro-troop" speakers were saying, though the speakers were equipped with a P.A. system. The cops said Eric's group could exercise their "freedom of speech" absolutely no closer to the rally than the spot the cops had taken them to, which they called a "free speech zone," or they would be arrested. The "free speech zone" also, apparently, applied to passers-by, who called the group names such as "un-American," "cowards," and, Eric's personal favorite, "traitors."

One guy in the group Eric was in has taken the time to research and write a pamphlet that outlined some of the risks our own government has subjected U.S. troops to in the past, such as testing radiation and chemical agents on them without their knowledge, and the Department of Veteran Affairs' denial-turned-to-admission of the damaging exposure to chemical agents thousands of troops were unknowingly subjected to in the last Gulf War. All the facts in the pamphlet were footnoted so one could check them out for themselves; it didn't say anything the Defense Department hasn't admitted to. But they were told the pamphlets hadn't been "approved" by the campus prior to the rally, and were not allowed to pass them out.

Some insisted that since the rally was a "pro-troop" rally, they had a perfect right to be there, because they are as "pro-troop" as everybody else out there. After some consultation, the cops then said it wasn't a "pro-troop" rally, but a "campus Republicans" rally. Eric asked skeptically if every person attending was actually a member of the "campus Republicans." The cop nearest to him glared at him and deadpanned, "Yes. They are."

When some of the group took issue with this treatment, the cops shrugged and bluntly said they were "lucky to be allowed" to be where they were, and basically this was as good as it was gonna get.

The local news coverage we watched featured many shots of the "pro-troop" crowd, a couple of comments from their speakers, and finally an extremely brief shot of the group Eric was in off in the distance. It then cut to a young woman who, the caption told us, is engaged to a guy currently stationed in the Gulf. She said, "It's been so nice to be among people who are supportive of our troops, instead of those anti-war, well, really anit-everything, it seems like, people." End of story.

Please excuse me while I go upchuck. "Liberal" media, my ass. And while complaints to the university are in the works about the unequal treatment, no one's holding their breath that anything will be done about it.

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Replies:

Whoops. Sorry about the double-posting, y'all. (NT) -- Kelli, 23:03:42 04/04/03 Fri
- More protests this Saturday -- NKLS Cody, 11:12:31 04/09/03 Wed