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Trivializing the Peace Movement
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Polly Mann, W A M M
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We really should be used to it. But we’re rather like Charlie Brown stepping up to the plate, once again, to be hit in the head by Lucy’s curveball. The arch and patronizing Star Tribune article of November 4th about the Alliant Tech protest resulting in 42 citations should have come as no surprise to us. To appreciate the difference between a straightforward account of an event and the trivialization of that same event, we look at both the Star Tribune article and the account appearing in the Edina Sun-Current of Oct. 27, 2005.
The first person quoted in the Star Tribune is Alliant Tech CEO, Daniel Murphy, with comments filling about one-eighth of the allotted space, setting the tone and ending with “They can do their protest and do their café latte.” The use of “café latte’” implies the protesters are a bunch of dilettantes, i.e., people who dabble in a subject for their own enjoyment. (Incidentally, Murphy claims that depleted uranium is used in only one Alliant product, a 120 mm tank shell, whereas “The Nonviolent Activist” of July-August 2005 states, “In the United States Alliant Techsystems makes almost all of the radioactive bullets used for combat.”)
The author of the Star Tribune article describes Bill Berneking as “preaching” and the Alliant onlookers as “bemused.” She describes the clothing worn by Pepperwolf: beloved jean jacket, flowing skirt, peace necklace and “Books not Bombs” button. Nowhere in the article is Murphy described. Is he wearing a suit? Wing-tipped shoes? A cardigan sweater over his starched white shirt? Katie Wall of the Sun-Current actually quotes Pepperwolf: “We are here to create a dialogue with Daniel Murphy and to talk to him about his responsibilities concerning illegal weapons, not to get arrested.”
In the Star Tribune article, why is Mary Lou Ott’s brief stay in the convent relevant? In addition to a quote from Alliant’s communications director, the Sun-Current quotes protester Jean Johnson, “We are destroying lives in other countries when we should be spending the money here on things like health care and homelessness,” and the Sun-Current also includes the comments of a St. Cloud State University student protester.
The peace movement is an antiwar movement. We do not choose to take to the streets. We do so because the conventional means of changing our militaristic society have been and continue to be tried but have been found wanting: letter writing, speaking, petitioning, leafleting, and voting. We are attempting to “speak truth to power,” that is, the power inherent in the person in front of us, accepting our leaflet and signing our petition.
Our hope is that when a member of the media reports our actions that person will allow our message to be heard and will treat us with the same respect given to the holders and gatekeepers of the status quo. Doing so would be called professional journalism. That was the reason I ran for the U.S. Senate in 1988, when it was proved to me that the issues motivating a candidate to run are of little interest to the corporate media. Political races are horse races, no less. Who’s ahead? Who’s behind? How far behind? What are the pitfalls? Rarely do reporters ask about root causes of complex issues or, God forbid, possible solutions to those problems.
We in the peace movement want to be heard and we hope that the media will report our message, not be diverted by irrelevancies or the desire to write an entertaining story. It is, perhaps, too much to hope for. |
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© 2005/2006 Women Against Military Madness. All rights reserved.
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