"End the Occupation of Iraq and Manhattan" Telepolis, German online mag

[reorg]

"End the Occupation of Iraq and Manhattan"

Ronda Hauben 01.09.2004
Reflecting on the August 29, 2004 March in New York City

(...)

In the weeks leading up to the march, there had been debates on progressive media like "Democracy Now" about whether it would hurt the fight against Bush to protest, or whether this would play into the hands of the Republican Party. The American writer Norman Mailer was featured saying that Americans shouldn't protest, unless the protest was very big. The Canadian journalist Naomi Klein challenged views like this and said that it was all the more important to protest since both the Democrats and the Republicans are promising to continue the occupation of Iraq.

What the protest march showed, however, is that there is a strong sentiment in the US, that is not limited to New York, which opposes the war and the torture and the other war crimes of the Bush administration, and which doesn't want another presidential candidate who promises to take over these crimes. There is an independent movement of people in the US who are not being represented by either of the political parties. This demonstrates the failure of the political system in the US as a democracy.

The lack of an independent online press like Telepolis in Germany or Ohmynews in Korea, is a serious dilemma faced by this movement. While there are new media efforts developing like Indymedia and local newspapers like the Brooklyn Rail in NY, or Democracy Now/WBAI on cable tv, radio, and the Internet, none of these are broad enough to reach out to and encourage the broad ranging expression of views and discussion that is needed to challenge the domination of the US press by the conservative media.

In the 1960s the young Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) saw the need for a more participatory theory and practice as a way to encourage the development of a creative movement for social change in the US. SDS recognized that people in the US had given up trying to affect their political institutions because these institutions were so unresponsive to the people they were supposed to represent. SDS believed the way to change the situation was not to complain that people were apathetic, but to challenge the continuation of institutions that denied people a way to have an impact. A movement to develop new institutions that welcomed citizen participation was the goal set (link). This helped to develop a movement that included millions of Americans and eventually, with support from people around the world, helped the Vietnamese to end the Vietnam war.

(...)

http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/co/18247/1.html


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